Bitter Lessons at Komintern - The Matrix Games version of East Front II

Komintern, north of Tatsinskaya, 160km NE of Rostov: [Best played as Axis] Following their breakthrough of the southern wing of the Italian Eighth Army, nine Soviet armies raced towards Rostov. The German Sixth Army was encircled at Stalingrad and only the quick thinking of Field Marshal von Manstein averted the greater disaster of a general rout. German blitzkrieg methods with large armored formations had clearly become the model for Soviet operations. But the panzer commanders were still superior in skill, and in the snow-covered steppes between the Kalitva and Chir Rivers, their panzer regiments again demonstrated the meaning of modern tank tactics. Following the capture of the important supply center at Tatsinskaya by the Russian 24th Tank Corps, an advanced armored detachment of the 6th Panzer Division struck the 54th Tank Brigade in the hills north of the city. This was only the beginning. By the 28th the entire Tank Corps had been destroyed!