The Road to Stalingrad – Turn 8 (The 5th Panzer Tank Park)

TURN 8 (Map 4, Afternoon 20th August, 1942)

After the surprisingly quick game, which consisted of the third German attack on our position, the next game was to be rather longer. In fact it lasted three evenings at the club and was a real humdinger; hence this will be a long post.

If it wasn't the best game of CoC that I have played it was certainly up there with the best and it was definitely the hardest fought game of the campaign so far.

The Germans certainly got their act together for this attack and brought lots of toys and tricks to the party. Hence, we saw: a pregame barrage, an in-game mortar barrage, tank support and lots of half-tracks. More importantly they coordinated everything this time.

From a Russian perspective, there seemed to be a massive amount of support for this (the fourth) attack. Every time we thought that we had beaten the Germans back a new tank and / or half-track would roll onto the table.

The game was also notable for a very heavy use of Chain of Command dice on both sides. Throughout the game we saw CoC dice being used to: Interrupt, End a Turn, Move a Friendly Jump-Off Point, Avoid taking a Force Morale Test and Keep a Mortar barrage firing. The only things we didn't do were Relocate a Sniper (we didn't have any) or Ambush (more of an option for the defender but we only had 1 team).

At the end of the game the German CinC was decidedly twitchy (just shout INTERRUPT! in his presence and see what happens!). That said, in the post-game pub visit, both sides were pretty knackered but also a bit euphoric - the Russians for having put up such a stout defence and the Germans for eventually cracking the position.

The game can really be divided into two parts that each had a very different character:

1) The advance to the hedge line

2) The fight for the wood

Part One  - the Advance to the Hedge line.

The Patrol Phase was very similar to the previous games (there aren't many variations on a theme with this terrain). Once again we placed two Jump-Off Points behind the hedge and one in the leftmost wood. The Germans employed a pregame barrage so it was going to be difficult for us to deploy.

As expected the Germans began by building a base of fire in the farmyard and putting a Panzergrenadier squad on to overwatch. Very early in the proceedings they also called in a mortar barrage which blanketed our central Jump-Off Point. They also began an advance across the field with a tank. 

The Armoured Spearhead

The advance was to be slow and steady, if only because the Germans rolled an inordinate amount of 5s and 6s throughout this stage of the attack. So although they never had enough command dice to activate more than a couple of units at a time they were getting multiple phases and building up a reserve of CoC dice at a rate of knots.

On the other hand the Russians rolled mainly 1s and 4s in this early stage; there was little they could do in any case as one deployment point was masked by the barrage and the hedge line covered by the Panzergrenadiers on overwatch. We decided to wait it out until the barrage ended.

Eventually, we had accumulated enough 5s to get a CoC dice but couldn't end the Turn (and hence the barrage) as the Germans also had a CoC dice and would simply use it to extend the barrage. However, the Germans eventually rolled three 6s and so the Turn ended, forcing them to spend their only CoC dice on keeping the barrage going. Excellent we thought (rubbing our hands together in our best Mr Burns impersonation), we will spend our CoC dice to end the Turn again whilst they have nothing to extend the barrage. However, they immediately rolled for the next phase and exclaimed, 'oh look two more 5's - we get another CoC dice'. Expletives deleted was the stony response from the Russian side! Oh well at least the pregame barrage had ended.

The German tank was now getting uncomfortably close so we took the risky step of deploying a section to draw the fire from the Panzergrenadiers, on overwatch, and then deploy an Anti-Tank rifle team. Well we certainly drew their fire (ouch) and even managed a hit from the Anti-Tank rifle - which just bounced off. However, we were then stuck there for several phases as we didn't roll the right command dice to allow them to move. Net result - one destroyed Anti-Tank rifle team and a severely shocked rifle squad.

The Short Life of a Russian Pea-Shooter

Under cover of the barrage and supporting fire from the farm a half-track sped across the field to support the tank.  As the Germans tank moved up to the hedge line our defending rifle section broke and retreated deeper into the wood; we spent a CoC dice at this point to also pull back our Jump-Off point.

Germans Take the Hedge-line

The tank then attempted to cross the hedge and push into our position - only to get stuck crossing the hedge!

If only we had some sort of anti-tank weapon! 

Part Two  - the Fight for the Wood

 Unfortunately for us, the tank did eventually break free after several attempts, bursting into the wood. What’s more a second tank now deployed from the German baseline. Fortunately, we were screened from its fire by the barrage - that is until the Turn ended and the Germans declined to extend the barrage. We deployed our anti-tank gun in the wood on our left flank to guard against this second tank. 

German armour penetrates the woods - leaving supporting infantry behind

Meanwhile we pulled back our infantry deeper into the woods. Our intention was to regroup around the anti-tank gun but when we observed the tank pushing further into the wood away from its infantry support we decided to counterattack. Sensing it was in danger, the tank pulled back away from our infantry. However, we had successfully distracted the Germans enough for us to wheel our anti-tank gun into a flanking position. We then spent a CoC dice to play an interrupt, in the German phase, to get the first (flank shot in). Unfortunately it bounced off! In reply the Germans turned face on to avoid the flank shot. We shot again in our phase and again in the German phase (another interrupt) but they kept on bouncing off the armour. By now the anti-tank gun were under fire from a German recon team but were being protected by one of our own infantry squads.

The Fight for the Wood

However, we successfully moved an infantry squad into contact with the flank of the tank and planted a satchel charge - BOOM! Not only did we take out the tank but the German recon team also broke and fled across the hedge.

The Russians Fight Back

This allowed us to move our anti-tank gun back to its original position to deal with the second tank which was now closing on our position. There followed a duel lasting many phases in which the anti-tank crew were gradually whittled down by HE until only their Junior Leader was left. We did manage to knock out the tank's hull machine gun and inflict multiple Shock points but unfortunately they were able to recover from this. Eventually the Junior Leader was hit and knocked out until the Turn End. We then waited until the right moment and then ended the Turn, with a CoC dice, to regain our Junior Leader and get another shot off with our anti-tank gun. A brave attempt but the tank finally prevailed killing the heroic ant-tank gunner.

With our anti-tank defences neutralised we needed to deal with the Panzergrenadiers in the wood so we switched our efforts in to putting our whole platoon into an attack against the Panzergrenadiers. There was a time pressure here as the Germans had called up there reserve squad which were now advancing rapidly across the field, whilst their Senior Leader rallied the Recon team. Not only that but a fresh squad in a half-track were also speeding across the field. However, in their haste to reinforce their position the half-track bogged down in the field.

Advancing against a Panzergrenadier squad, with two LMGs, is bad at the best of times but we came under crossfire from the reinforcing squad and HE from the tank on the flank. However, we did break the Panzerrenadier squad in the wood but lost so many men doing so that we had to form an ad hoc squad formed from 3 surviving Junior Leaders led by the Senior Leader, all armed with SMGs. We then spent our last CoC dice on an interrupt to attack with this ‘SMG squad’. We really did think this was our last roll of the dice but remarkably our ‘SMG squad’ survived another 3 or 4 phases before bring virtually wiped out.

So we had almost fought to the last man but we did force the Germans to attack four times over two days to take our little field! As an indication of the effort involved in this attack we counted 3 tanks and 6 half-tracks on the field at the end (not counting the tank we forced off table in a previous attack). Over half of these were knocked out, bogged down or otherwise abandoned.

The 5th Panzer Tank Park - vehicles collected from the field