Dog Fight - Ostkreig Tournament Round 1

[Dog Soldier]

Russian turn 24.
12:00 PM July 11, 1941
Normal
Visibility 3km.


Victory points after the Russian turn twenty-four.


1,345 Russian, 317 Axis infantry, 3 Axis vehicles, five Russian flak guns lost. 95 victory points for the Axis.
Whoops! I neglected to leave one undisrupted unit in the hex behind the VP village. An assault by a German bridge building company (of all things) cleared my rabble out and allowed the Germans to surround the VP village. Upon reflection I should have left the HQ of the 110th RD with the rabble. Even though in E morale due to being out of command I could have combined that unit with the engineers one hex further back. That would have given me two good order units there. Then again it might not of made any difference. The rabble stack behind the VP village would have been too large to allow the VP village defenders to retreat from assault. The Axis would still have collected prisoners. In any case I had no option but to hope the VP village units did not all disrupt. von Nev fired every artillery unit in his force on the village except a few which must have lacked spotters there. Direct fire from the large Axis stacks did the rest. I lost 703 infantry to the assault on the surrounded VP hex. This brought the Axis total victory points to within 52 points of the draw.

The Russians were not through yet. Four infantry units rallied this turn, three were close to the VP village. I managed to disrupt the German bridge engineers, then break them and take back the hex with an assault by the 3/644th Mot RD infantry. The unit had just rallied this turn to do the job. Next I tried to disrupt the panzers directly south of the VP village. This did not happen, though I did kill a couple of PzIII tanks. There was still no clear path into the VP village to send reinforcements due to the slow Russian infantry movement (a factor of their morale). I could not move the reinforcements up from the village to the southeast of the VP hex since the Red infantry could not cross the stream twice and climb the hill into the VP village in one turn. The more I thought about my options it became clear von Nev could easily obtain another 50 victory points just from killing my troops in the VP village. Therefore, I had to retreat and give up the VP hex and its 300 points. This would leave the Axis 200 points short of a minor win.

Repositioning my troops now to prevent any further surrounding of my stacks should prevent him from obtaining those points. I used the rest of my artillery to target his infantry units around the VP village area in an attempt to further fatigue them. I hoped for a disruption, but could not obtain one. Note how von Nev has used his HQs in the trees north of the VP village to assault proof the rear of the large stacks facing the village. These HQ’s are A morale and can hold for at least one turn, which is all he needs. Even if they are out of command and B morale, it will be tough to disrupt them and assault their hexes since I have few Russian good order troops north of them. Axis HQ’s have only 100 men, my artillery would be better used to hammer his larger infantry units where I can get more casualty VP and reduce his strength for the last turn. I did bring in some units to shoot up the 10th Mot Divisional HQ. Maybe it will cause an out of command situation on the last turn further weakening the German force.

In the end it was a forlorn hope that I could hold the VP village. I had not been able to dig in there all game. I did not have enough good order troops in the woods to the north which was key to holding the VP village. My attempt to reinforce the woods with a Rgt of the 137th infantry, failed as DF disrupted the unit. This allowed the Germans to clear the northern flank of the VP village and assault the rabble behind it sealing the village defenders. Von Nev did a good job on me here.
Now we will see if he has one more trick to play to get those 200 victory points he needs for a minor win.

Dog Soldier