Right Hook at Sopockinie - Combat Mission: Red Thunder

A well designed and entertaining scenario. I think the German armor tilts the balance slightly toward the Axis player.

There are a couple issues with this battle that really take away from what would otherwise be a very good scenario. Here are my views and recommended adjustments to provide a better play balance and experience for both the attacker and defender:

1) MAP SIZE & TIME - 3km x 2 km and 2.5 hours + up to 15 minutes extra time. This is far too big and too long. As the defender, I did nothing but hit the big red button for the first 40 minutes as the distances from the German start point to the first objective were so long. Given the Russian force is all infantry while the Germans have 8 x Stugs and other vehicles, this gives a significant advantage to the German player as they can concentrate all their forces in one place and the Russian player cannot react as the distances are too great. If the map were 1.5km x 1 km and time reduced to 90 minutes +10 minutes, , this would even out the battle a bit and avoid a lot of wasted time for both players.

2) BALANCE OF FORCES - The Germans have a big firepower and mobility advantage thanks to 8 x Stugs, several support vehicles and 150mm & 105mm arty along with several mortar missions. In addition, while the infantry numbers are nearly equal, the German infantry is a mix of crack and veteran troops with a few regular/green while the Russians are mostly green with a few regular/veteran troops. Adding a few reinforcing Russian T-34s with tank riders later in the battle would really make this interesting as the Russians could do a counter-attack once their armour arrived.

3) VICTORY POINTS - If the first two items are changed, then they are fine as is. Otherwise, all Russian VPs should be for inflicting damage rather than roughly 65% being for holding ground as they have almost zero chance of holding ground as the German player can easily contest due to their mobility advantage.

Interesting scenario, i've never played one this big before. I totally endorse Stonecutters assessment and recommendations. It's hard to picture the Russian doing anything effective once the battle starts due to 0 mobility. It makes deployment really important. I think to balance you need to up the victory points for damage to the Germans, especially the mobile forces, as this would have had strategic importance. Congratulations to my opponent who handled the German attack expertly.

Interesting historical scenario. As I mentioned in the scenario notes it would be better to have the Russian with some mobile reinforcements to allow a counterattack or increase the points for lost German armor as this would have hurt strategically.

impossible for soviets to win against experienced attacker

I do think this battle favours the Germans. The StuGs are the deciding factor against the Russians who have no AFVs. However, that being said, I do think that the Germans would probably lose most battles without the StuG support. So a balance could be to reduce the number of StuGs, or add a Russian AFV or two.
This was an extremely large map, and much of the battle was spent walking it. I would recommend it be about 2/3 of the current size if that is at all possible.
Finally, the German off board mortar support has a very limited range, only about halfway across the map, and so they could not play a role at all in the battle for the larger town towards the end of the scenario.
But the map was fun, and I felt the overall scenario was a good one.