The Road to Stalingrad – Turns 12 to 13 (The End of the Road)

TURN 12 (Map 7, Afternoon 22nd August, 1942)

At the start of the campaign we had been required to choose four maps on which to establish our defence. Map seven was not one of them.

Map Seven

Comrade,

The Fascist vipers have reached the industrial area of your corridor. They have not paused and continued onto the centre of Stalingrad.

There have been no more reinforcements to your corridor.

Time to fight for Stalingrad!

Yours,
Comrade Svinovoda
On Behalf of the SNADK

TURN 13 (Map 8, Morning 23^rd August, 1942)

Our final defence would be on map 8 within the ruins of Stalingrad itself.

Map Eight

The terrain consisted largely of ruined buildings. The buildings were classed as hard cover and also blocked line of sight. Everything else, except the road, was light cover.

Stalingrad - the shell holes and circular templates represent ruined buildings

In the patrol phase we tried to establish defensive positions across our whole front and allow ourselves plenty of table depth to withdraw into. We were largely successful in these objectives but also managed to confine the Germans to the far quarter of the table.

For this, our final fight, we had a full Guards platoon plus an extra section and a T34 in support. We had also chosen to use a single minefield on this table. This we positioned around a ruined building next to the German right flank Jump Off Point. We figured that particular building was the key to gaining fire superiority on that flank and wished to deny its use to the Germans. During the course of the campaign we had also discovered that minefields attract German pioneer teams like flies. Sure enough the German’s first deployment was a pioneer team. This didn’t particularly bother us, as every phase / command die used in clearing the minefield simply bought us more time to build up our CoC dice.

As it happened, Comrade Utterthwaite suggested that we deploy our sniper which we duly did. Finding a line of sight on this crowded table was problematic but we did find a suitable position on our far right flank.

Pioneers under fire

This came as a shock to the Germans who promptly shifted their pioneers towards the flank to avoid the sniper fire. However, in their panic they did not appreciate that we now had a clear shot at them from our left flank position. The resulting fire from our supporting rifle section eventually wiped out the pioneer team.

The Pioneer's demise

The next stage of the battle consisted of several squads, on both sides, seeking fire positions in the ruined buildings. Our sniper was a real asset here as, realising that their rightmost squad was under sniper fire, the Germans moved a whole squad into cover behind a building. It remained there most of the battle until it eventually moved one team back in to the building, leaving the other team on over watch to deal with the sniper. The net result was that our single sniper dramatically reduced the available German firepower for the whole game. Job done!

Firing house to house

Eventually the Germans brought on a tank to break the deadlock. We replied by countering with our T34. Thankfully, this time, its aim was good. In fact we hit the tank time after time consistently scoring 3 or 4 hits. Unfortunately, the Germans consistently rolled 4 saves (out of 6 dice – I demand a recount). The tank battle went on so long that slowly but surely we knocked bits off it – it should have been quicker but the Germans rolled 1’s for damage every time. How many 1’s can you roll in a row? By the end of the game, the tank was immobilised, with no main gun, a dead gunner and several hits on the optics.

Knocking bits off German tanks

Slowly but surely we also whittled away at the German infantry until they were left with a recon team and a senior leader. Incredibly their Force Morale was holding – it was those 1’s again!

By contrast our whole platoon was on the advance. A good shot from our anti-tank rifle team saw the German recon team forced to debus and cower behind the halftrack. Unfortunately, here they came under enfilading fire from our rightmost rifle squad and were wiped out to a man.

The final blow

That signalled the end of the game and a decisive victory for the Soviets. I’m not sure if that was also victory in campaign terms but we awarded ourselves medals in any case.

Heroes of the Soviet Union

So a fitting end to a great campaign. Many thanks to the Beastly Hun who played the campaign in good spirit and a gentlemanly fashion – even with those suspicious dice rolls!

Special thanks go to Comrade McG who put the whole thing on. Sitting out for the whole 6 months was especially heroic. Beyond the call of duty mate!