Klyuchi – Attrition (a tutorial)

[Dog Soldier]

09:30 11 July 1943, Soft Conditions, Day, Visibility 1.25 Kilometers

Visibility improves revealing more Russian positions and releasing a German platoon in the SE. Across the Psel River a company of SS troopers with some ATG and infantry guns are also released. I use some of my artillery to engage the new Russian positions, especially if they hold mortar units.

Things pretty much continue as before with this turn. I will have to move out soon as time is running out. I cannot continue this fire fight much longer. I will need to take a chance and move to wrest control some victory locations from the Russians. The soft ground may be an issue. With the lines so close, rapid movement will not be possible climbing the hill to the Russian Barracks position in the west.

Below is an example of a unit’s ranges. This can be accessed either from the menu View>Shade> Maximum Range. The blue lines show the AA (anti-aircraft)range used against planes. Red is the hard attack range for use against armor, bunkers, pillboxes and other hard target types. Green is for the soft attack range to be used against infantry, and soft target vehicles. This feature is very useful when checking for overlapping fields of fire and as an aid to checking if units need to move soon as the action moves away from them. The blue lines feature is especially useful in helping the player position their flak guns to cover prime units that the enemy might want to attack with aircraft.


Compare the preceding image to the following which shows the same gun unit with the LOS (Line of Sight) highlighted. While there are Russian units in range, a number of them are not in LOS and cannot be fired upon. Notice the Russian unit to the SE is close, only 500 meters away, but cannot be attacked or cannot attack the units in the gun’s position due to the placement of smoke between them.


German units at the foot of hill 226.6 are showing the strain of battle as they are now in the yellow fatigue (second stage). Russian fire is still fierce here despite my efforts to cover the Axis troops with some smoke each turn.


The butcher’s bill grows. Over 1,200 men lost combined in three hours.

Dog Soldier