J110 - The Prelude to Spring

8 December 1944 - Hungary - Late war scenario

Scenario Designer: Ola Nygards

PBEM game

My opponent (Joe Moro), with elements of the 3rd Ukrainian Front, 4th Guards Army, have to exit 22 EVP towards the bottom of the boards, passing by 3 half boards in 8 turns, or at the end of the scenario have to amass 15 or more CVP than the Germans.

My side (Davide Bendazzi), elements of the 2nd Panzer Army, have to stop the Bolscevic advance. I opted for a strong first line setup to impede free movement at the beginning and use a slow fighting withdrawal. Let's give a look at it.

As we are now going to see, Joe decided to spearhead the right part of the map, maybe cuz he saw a gap in CC2-GG2 area. If he will continue with the tanks in that direction my ambush with the gun may be of some effect, but I will have to stop the covering infantry somehow.

After all the Russian units were concealed, they started to move downwards on two directives. My unit in 43U10 acted like a spotter and revealed all the Russian units as they passed beetwen CC2-GG2 gap. As it was clear that  my mortar would not have objectives in wood hexes I decided to fire against riders passing by in 43CC2 and CC3 but with no effects. At this point I'm starting to think that the ambush with my gun will be prevented by the incoming infantry in 43GG6

At this point the Russian tank in 43CC3 fired back to 43U10 with MG and MA with no effects and infantry advanced even more during the APh. Some retook concealment but they are already identified. 1st Russian turn was fully pro Russian with no delays on the advance. At least my Germans have nearly the whole OOB still concealed.

Now the Germans have to redeploy the defense and do it fast. The left flank, for the moment, doesn't need so many units while in the center may be useful to stage there a little more to see if the Russians will change directions of advance. So the idea is to take the left flank down the center to start cover the right flank and concentrate in the center on the first line of defense so to be able to counter any change of  Russian approach.

No chance to fire for the Russians so at the end of the 1st full turn the situation is as below. The redeployment is partially done. From 4Y8 there is a good line of sight over open terrain on the right and some dummy units in front line may prevent fast movement from the Russians. Let's see what will happen.

As already noted, the Russians are triing to gain ground on the far right, so I had to try to stop some of the infantry with long range fire from 4Y8 with some effects like a pinned squad and a shy leader. During the AFPh, Russian tanks started to pound with no effects at all.

At the end of the 2nd Russian turn the situation looks favorable to the Bolscevic horde. They got no delay and gained 1/3 of the ground they needed. On the other hand, the Germans still have all their forces, the gun is still HIP and reinforcements are on the way!

As the Russians are too concentrated and strong, my units in the center front line need to disengage. So I cleared the area hoping the enemy will follow and give some relief to the right flank. The MMG in 4Y9 will cover the road on the right side and hopefully delay infantry movement there. My reinforcements are coming strong down on the right side( not yet visible, infantry and a tank) while two tanks are diverting attention on the left, with the intention to link up with the moving infantry from the center and do a little counterattack from left to right.

The fluid defense is prepared. I feel somehow fragile as the strong punch of  the Russians may hit with severe damages. I still need a turn to consolidate the line but this time is not given. On the first line only dummy units. If I'm lucky some enemy units will fire instead of moving. Then I will have chances with long range fire. So we will see what Joe will decide to do in the next 3rd turn.

So, the Russian turn started with 3 infantry units firing in place of moving. They dissolved the dummy unit at first try but I can say it was a good trade off. They lost the chance to move for long distances.

As a side note, a very lucky situation erupted on the left side of the map. A lonely JS-2 tank tried to find his way on the other side of the battle. As it popped out from behind the building, the Panther turned the turret, missed but kept the rate of fire; it fired again on the second movement point spent and hit with a critical that brewed it up! One for the Fatherland! Here we can also see that the Russian sniper eliminated the second dummy unit in 4V0. That dummy was useless and had no impact on the game.

Panther gun: 75mm KwK 42 L/70 
Ammunition: Panzergranate 40/42
Penetration at 320m: between 194mm and 174 mm

Maximum armor thickness of JS-2: 120mm







The movement phase that followed was the continuation of the advance toward south on the right side. I tried to interdict movement with long range fire but with little effect. A Russian leader was wounded with mortar fire but he also became heroic. The Russian infantry was going to stumble upon the HIP gun so I had to turn it and risked also intensive fire with a possible shock result on a T34/85. The trap was not 100% succesful. At least I get a side hit on a valuable target.