Dog Fight - Ostkreig Tournament Round 1

[Dog Soldier]

Russian turn 23.
10:00 AM July 11, 1941
Normal
Visibility 3km.


Victory points after the Russian turn twenty-three.



705 Russian, 246 Axis infantry lost, 35 victory points for the Germans. The game hinges on the defense of one hex!
My Russians held again! It appears the Germans need too much direct fire to disrupt the defenders that an assault is not possible the same turn? Some very careful movements this turn to swap out the disrupted rabble for two fresh infantry Rgts. (relative term here for the Russians) and one flak unit. I now have three good order units in the hex this turn instead of two as last turn. I left the one disrupted infantry Rgt in the VP village since it has low fatigue and may rally if the Germans concentrate on disrupting the other three units. I was able to disrupt another Axis infantry unit attacking the VP village. There are two more good order Russian units in range in the village to the southeast which can move in on the last turn.
I tried to reinforce the northern flank of the VP village this turn. Unfortunately my units were disrupted by defensive fire moving into position. Bad luck and good shooting by the Germans.

Holding one more turn should greatly improve my chances of winning this scenario. A minor Russian win in S41 is quite the rare event. For most of the game it has been bat and piñata. I am sure you know who the bat is and who the piñata is.

If I am reading the Axis dispositions correctly, there are no reserves left to press the VP village except some disrupted 10th Mot infantry. If they do not rally this turn, it will help my cause as time runs out.

My southern flank continues to give ground to avoid any larger losses. I left one very small unit out in front of the main line to stall the Germans with its death. The unit is disrupted and could not make it to good terrain. von Nev may try to use it in what I call the assault tail gate tactic. The tactic is to perform multiple assaults on a defending unit driving it between the defending stacks in an attempt to “ride” into hexes the attackers could not reach with normal movement due to ZOC. PzC players have to be careful to avoid this tactic when you have a weak unit that is alone and it can not run away.

It will be interesting to see where the Axis spearhead in the south tries to go next turn. I might get an opportunity on the last two turns to give that group a working over, only where it does not affect my ability to defend the VP village.

The massacre of the raiders that crossed the Dnepr continues. By holding out until this turn, they tie down German forces. These units do not cost me much in VP, only about 71 points. So they were worth the risk.

The German tactic of stacking companies has been trouble since it stops me from regaining any space. I use the artillery to damage whatever Axis unit appears to be the largest number of men.
I then concentrated a few direct fires against a single company sized unit so it would lose the advantage of recombining. I get a benefit from this tactic by preventing the companies from assaulting together without combining. Attackers in an assault use the lowest morale of a single unit involved for all units in the assault. By concentrating on a single unit, I hope to drive it out of helping with the assault, or lowering the morale of the entire Axis assault when it comes. Not much of a hope. In S41, Russian players have to look for anything they can do to upset the Axis juggernaut. The Russians can take pieces out of the Axis machine. Over time, taking out enough pieces will cause the Axis drive to stall. Even good Axis play can be attacked this way.

Dog Soldier