HSG S Mouse Commander - Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin

20 November, 1942, Pescany, Russia At exactly 07:30, 19 November 1942, 3,500 guns and mortars opened an eighty-five minute barrage against northern shoulder of the German 6th Armies front lines. Against the Romanian III Army. The battle for Stalingrad was taking a new direction. The Red Army would now go over to the offensive. Soviet tanks were on the move, 1st Tank Corps was heading to the southwest and the Don, 26th Tank Corps had orders to take Kalach and the bridge over the Don, while 4th Tank Corps was to take Golubinsky. German reserves, in place to stop this attack, was the XLVIII Panzer Corps. One of the divisions of the Panzer Corps was the 22nd Panzer Division. For weeks before the offensive the tanks had lain immobile without a single drop of fuel. Daily requests for fuel to do even the most menial maintenance went unanswered. The tank crews packed the engine compartments with straw to keep the engines from being damaged by the cold. When they were given the order move the division had a strength of 104 tanks. Only 31 of them would start. Mice had moved into the straw and eaten the insulation from the electric wiring in the tanks. They wouldn't start or often caught fire when they did start. The 22nd Panzer Division was ordered first to stop the 4th Tank Corps, then almost immediately was given a new task, turn 180 degrees and stop the 26th Tank Corps at the town of Pescany. They captured the town on the 19th of November and settled in to defend it. Early on the morning of the 20th the Soviets launched a full scale assault out of the dawn mists. The commander of the 204th Panzer Regiment of the 22nd Panzer Division was Colonel Hermann von Oppeln-Bronikowski. After the incident with the mice he was known as the "Mouse Commander". A title he didn't find amusing. It would be up the "Mouse Commander" to stop this latest Soviet onslaught. Could he do it? Can you?