Rasianiai Pics

These are the pics of the test game played on 26/1/17. The scenario pre-dates the version on the website. We were playing the Bloody Big World War Two Battles BBWW2B rules beta. Simon graciously hosted in his dungeon. Nearly all the terrain was supplied by the host, though I supplied some of my nice new Leven Miniatures houses. The models all come from my collection and the large majority of the tanks are from Heroics and Ros, with the infantry mostly supplied by Adler.

The 6 Kradschützen deployed in Kybarteliai, blissfully unaware of the impending Soviet onslaught.

I/114 Schützen Bataillon covers the ford over the Dubysa

The German heavy artillery deployed near Pareigiai (closest) and Gruzdiške. These are both heavy battalions with 15cm howitzers which made a considerable difference to the German defences

The German reserves to the east of Rasianiai

The KV's arrive and try to assault the Kradschützen., however they are halted by the German artillery fire. The craters indicate the KV's are disrupted, which halves their firepower and makes it more difficult to activate them to move.

As the Soviet tanks are delayed by the Kradschützen and artillery, the German reserves have plenty of time to move forward

The second Soviet attack on the Kradschützen. With overwhelming odds the Kradschützen have little hope of holding on. However they have delayed the advance of the tanks for three hours. The shell bursts are there as a visual cue to remind me to call the Soviet off-table artillery. I forgot for the first two turns.

Elements of the 4th Tank Regiment reach Gincaiciai but the German reserves have arrived to stymie a breakthrough

The area between the bridge and Gincaiciai is a bottleneck which allows the single German panzer unit and the flak to halt the Soviets. as can be seen the Soviets have already taken significant casualties

On the other side of the river the Soviet motorised infantry moves up. By now the Luftwaffe has arrived ading to Soviet woes. I had decided that a Soviet victory was most unlikely (the victory conditions were harder than the published scenario), so I was playing to prevent a German victory and for that the Soviets needed to hold the ford

The ultimate sacrifice. The BTs charge the panzers allowing some of the other Soviet armour to pass by. In game terms a unit in close combat has no Zone of Control (ZOC). An unit is obliged to move directly towards an enemy when in the enemy's ZOC, so to move past an enemy unit another unit has to be in close combat with it. This didn't go totally according to pan as the omnipresent German artillery forced the 3rd and 4th Battalions to retreat. However the Panzers easily defeated the BTs in close combat and were obliged to break through. The geometry of the combat was such that they had to move out of the bottleneck which then allowed the KVs to break through,

Finally the KVs break through, but too late as the German reinforcements have arrived. The Soviets have no support as all the other Soviet tank units have been totally shot-up. Even the KV's much vaunted armour is not enough to prevent the unit being surrounded and destroyed. The Germans then went on to take both the bridge and the ford by the end of the game. So a German victory!

The game was excellent fun and really demonstrated how the latest iteration of the BBWW2B rules deals really well with troop quality disparity: the Soviets lost all their armour and the Germans lost no panzers, though they did lose a fair bit of infantry and a little artillery. The scenario was then tweaked to give the Soviets a better chance of winning, but that has yet to be play-tested

Back to Scenario