Scenario of the Month - Dec 2010: Giants on the Vistula

[Jim von Krieg]

I really enjoy Giants on the Vistula...

It is a good scenario for new guys to realize just how powerful a combined arms attack can be with Panzers and Panzergrenadiers... Not so much for the arty as the Germans don't have all that much... but the combination of heavy armor and weak Russian defenses make for a lot of shock action early...

Of course, with a good player, the game is literally over before the Russian armor comes trundling down the road network to save the day... tracked the entire way by mobile German scouts...

Way back in the day, Larry Reese schooled me hard on the stupidity of charging into the teeth of King Tigers, Tigers, and Panthers sitting in a defensive position with long sight lines... My Stalin's exploded and burned as they sought to close on the German position... it was a quick and brutal end...

Panzermeyer demonstrated on me the power of focused and aggressive tactics of German Blitzkrieg...

I got blasted, however, I did learn some tremendous lessons in those early matches...

Historically, the scenario just ain't real... Yet, that doesn't stop it from being an instructive battle... It may even be a little harder with EA...

I was developing a massive rewrite of the scenario that would not have been historically accurate, but would have made use of the entire map... However, a virus wiped out the hard drive... and I never went back to rebuild it...