The Blood Red Dnieper - The Matrix Games version of East Front II

Svaromye, 25km N of Kiev: [Best played as Allied] While German armored groups finished running down the last parachutists of the disastrous Russian airdrop near Bukrin, south of Kiev, the Soviet 38th Army was searching for a place to cross the Dnieper River to the north. By 25 September the 240th Rifle Division had reached Svaromye on the eastern bank of the Dnieper, west of the Desna. But typical of the Soviet advance in the summer of 1943 there was a lack of combat engineers and bridging equipment to deal with major water obstacles. If a crossing were to be made the infantry would have to do it on their own. Rafts were hastily constructed and, as the setting sun of the 26th turned the wide river a blood red, the 931st Rifle Regiment pushed into the slow moving waters of the Dnieper without the usual preliminary artillery barrage. Facing them along the opposite bank near the sleepy village of Lyutezh were elements of the German 208th Infantry Division with orders to prevent a crossing at any cost. (See "Toehold on the Dnieper," Lyutezh, for the German counterattack.)