DAR - The Cauldron Of Fire

[Cole]

Turn 7 Early morning 6 July
No let up in the fighting for Buzulik. Lieutenant (лейтена́нт) Ivan Desinovich from the 1st Platoon, 1st Company, 1st Battalion, 884th Rifle Regiment has conducted a heroic defense all night. Unlike his coward commanding officer he will fight to the end for his Motherland and is making the fascist invaders pay a heavy price. Desinovich managed a fitful 20 minute rest before he was shaken awake and told that the Germans seemed to be reading for another assault. Here's the situation before what the Germans hope to be the final assault:



2nd Platoon (just to the east) fought to the last man. They repulsed all assaults but were finally wiped out by Elefant tanks moving directly up to the trench lines and eliminating all opposition with murderous HE fire. 3rd Platoon is stationed directly to the south of Desinovich's position and will prevent any attack from the rear.


As dawn breaks Russian artillery fire opens up. Friendly fire smashes into 3rd Platoon's positions killing the platoon leader and demoralizing the troops that have survived the night. Fortunately Senior Sergeant (ста́рший сержа́нт) Bagirli was able to rally the remainder of his platoon a half kilometer to the south west. The fields do not provide much concealment from the rampaging Elfant tanks at this time of year the wheat is still in the "jointing" growth phase but Bagirli and his troops do not expect to survive; they only wish to kill as many fascists as possible.


OVERVIEW OF THE FIRST DAY

This is a classic Earlmann Kursk scenario. The Russian front lines will get pulverized and as Grace Slick advised in her classic song "White Rabbit" the Russian commander must "keep your head".

In my game with Gil we are on turn 9 but notwithstanding the fight for Buzulik above Larry's Germans have made more progress. The reason for this is that Larry seems to want to charge forward through the gradually increasing Russian artillery whereas Gil's Germans methodically clear the field of any Russian spotters with artillery and the heavy German panzers hitting from a distance before committing his infantry. So far I don't know which tactic is worrying me more. Larry is rushing in too fast for my taste but Gil has preserved more of his infantry.

In the image below the dark blue line is the approximate historical front lines taken from a map in David Glantz's Battle of Kursk. The light blue line is the German start line in Earlmann's scenario and the red line represents approximate Russian positions at 2200 on 5 July.
I'm especially pleased that the front lines around Buzulik are almost exactly the same as the historical ones.
Earl might be onto something here as the furthest German advance on the first day penetrated about 8 kilometers west of Ponyri. As you can see on the map below if you take the distance from the historical front lines to the positions of the German units at the beginning of turn 7 the biggest penetration is to the west and around 8 kilometers. The big difference is in the east. Historically the main focus of the battle was to the west of Ponyri but in our scenario the Germans have a powerful force pushing southwards on the eastern side of the map.