McIvan's View - Clash at Pavlograd - McIvan v [hirr]Leto

[McIvan]

Hmmm! The cunning and wily Leto is coming round behind Hill 161 all right.....but not by the road.

Taking its time (but the half squad in the church still doesn't launch a close assault, to my disgust), the T34 pivots and heads off.....by road and cross country around the left side of Hill 161, in fact the same route that the luckless Stuart took.

Speaking of the Stuart, a few seconds into the turn the crew abandon their riddled and pockmarked hulk. Amazingly, the crew survive the rest of the turn without dying or surrendering.....in fact only the Sd251/9 shoots at them with a bit of MG fire. Everything else pretty much ignores them, even though a platoon HQ moves quite close to them...not quite sure why, it wasn't from restrictive covered arcs.....possibly it was from fear of hitting the platoon HQ and after they moved away they didn't re-acquire.

Leto's T34 ends the turn having moved into the gap between woods and spent quite a bit of time in the close assault arc of my recon half-squad situated there, as I hover over the screen in eager anticipation of a close assault. Don't hold your breath there fat boy, says the game. Clearly my Germans like it better in cover than all this nonsense about getting up close and personal with a 30 ton tank. I resolve that one way or another I'll get at least one miserable close assault out of this scenario before its over.

On the left, my armoured cars reposition at the back edge of the wood, oriented toward the T34. I've grown enamoured of this hail fire stuff with the destruction of Leto's T70 earlier, completely forgetting of course that it was the hollow charge rounds of the Sd251/9 that did the business on that occasion. Speaking of the Sd251/9, it's coming along, but lagging somewhat behind.



You can see the T34 in the middle of the woods, still with a yellow line from my complacent, fat, cowardly infantry team.

A little to the right, my hurry-up orders manage to create a bit of an infantry traffic jam, and some long range fire from Leto's infantry and MMGs takes its toll...two Germans take a bullet and several squads hit the dirt. Good thing there isn't a T34 breathing down their necks with canister about now.



Over the far right, things go a bit better. The Sd251/9 and the PIIIJ hunt out from behind the buildings perfectly and catch the T70 napping. Although the PIII bounces yet ANOTHER 50mm AP off the T70, the Sd251/9 has more luck....with its second shot (which you see in the picture) a hollow charge round smashes through the T70's turret and knocks it out.



To the right you see the half squad heading off to hopefully round up Leto's T70 crewman.

On to the orders.