Flashing Sword of Retribution

[herr_oberst]

By invitation from Ivan, I will try to contribute with this AAR from "the other side" of the battlefield.
For now, this is the most difficult battle I yet fougth in Panzer Campaigns.
As Ivan sayed, the first part consisted in a hasty retreat of two german infantry Divisions (298 and 320) and parts of the 19 Panzer Div. to the other side of Oskol river.
The operational skill of evacuating battered foot soldiers through bridges in the brink of demolition under pressure of massed infantry and roving tanks threatening encirclement, while setting up hastly river defenses at the same time was a new ability I had to learn the hard way for this already demanding battle.
Unfortunately, many troops were encircled and destroyed by the red onslaught.
In this phase of the battle, the soviet tanks infiltrating, the tank panic in the rearguard and the few panzers acting as fire brigades depict brillantly what I have read about the winter war in 1943.

On the second phase, with my troops on the west side and the bridges blown, expecting some quiet resting time, the russian surprised me by setting up six different pontoon bridges and quickly establishing bridgeheads, wich I harrassed with my infantry.
The problem was the powerful soviet artillery, causing horrible casualties on the defenders; but when the russians managed to cross the river with armored units, the risk of encirclement was too big to attempt a retreat on foot in the immensity of the steppe.
So, I decided to delay the russian expansion of the bridgeheads with the three battered divisions, no matter the costs, until the release of my reserves.
On february 2º all the front got alive, and I had to start a general retreat in the north to avoid encirclement or simple annihilation by massed artillery.

The third phase is starting, with a new retreat to a river, this time the Donetz. This time I think (and expect) it will be harder for the red army, as now almost all the german units are motorized and backed by the release of the SS Panzer Korps. The mass of the russian infantry is on foot, and for now this in the only advantage on the german side.

All in all, this is a very demanding scenario, both in small unit tactics and in general strategy. The terrain is simply too huge to have any defense in depth, and impossible to cover the flanks. Some time I expect a terrible cat and mouse armored and mobile troops duel in the steppes, trying to encircle and destroy each other!