a old scenario by me, sorry Hellcat but you told me I can choose
Hellcat German
M4 Jess Russian
Ugly...
Read.............
___WEST OF LENINGRAD*
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_NORTH OF RIGA, Russia,
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__31 SEPTEMBER, 1944
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__Germany vs Soviet Union*
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__German Advance*
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__Russian Advance*
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____Turns: 28*
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Designed by M4 Jess Housley*
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Based on Squad-Leader Scenario 3000
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Best played as the Germans. Turn Command & Control off.**
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Briefing:**
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It is a little known fact of geography that to the west of Leningrad lies a small area that duplicates the terrain near the Pennslyvania town of Gettysburg in almost exact detail. Although bypassed in the initial invasion and fighting of 1941, the Soviet offensive of mid-1944 in the region brought the hill to the fore in the plans of generals of both sides. **
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Given the order to seize the crest, Lt. Dukovski of the 11279th Rifle Regiment was permitted to select the officers to whom would get the honor of liberating this bit of Mother Russia. He was also offered armor support, indicating the desire of STAVKA that he seize the symbolically and strategically important Emaelijenkai Kaerugeli Vejerxaujaka without delay. Dukovski gave orders that the attack be launched at dawn on 31 September holding the artillery in reserve to achieve maximum suprise.**
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Meanwhile, at dusk the day before, reinforcements for the weary platoon of Lt. Stienheim -- currently encamped on the lower slopes -- had been dispatched from panzer division reserves. Picking their way through the fallen timber in the dark, the reinforcements became split into two uneven forces. Worse, some of the equipment was lost through misadventures of various sorts. But their officers drove them on toward where Steinheim's men had taken postions that dominated the field called "Slaughter Pen" (for the annual wrestling matches held there by the nearby villages).**
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Steinheim, unaware of all this, was enjoying a morning cup of ersatz coffee and a danish with his troops. Huddled around their campfire (the nights were already growing colder than was comfortable), the odd mixture of veteran survivors and teen-aged conscripts hoped the day would be as peaceful as the previous week had been. Conversation was sparse, light-hearted and low. Steinheim did not feel much like chatting himself; he'd spend the week scouting the woods behind his postion for routes of retreat. He knew that if the Russkies came in force, his small but well-fed band could not hope to halt them. In contravention to standing orders, he'd retreat all the way to Berlin if need be to save this handful of men.**
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As the sun rose, so did the Russians that had crept near. As the enemy troops ran shouting toward the dubious shelter of a series rail fences, Steinheim and his men leaped to their guns and poured a furious fire into them. The assault on "Round Top" had begun.**
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Among the first to fall was Lt. Dukovski, whose body was bypassed by the Soviet soldiers now scrambling for cover. But, within moments of Dukovski's death, Lt. Steinheim also fell--picked off by a sniper as he bent to lift a wounded man. Meanwhile, in the confusion of the developing firefight, the German breakfast was forgotten and assaulted by various denizens of the woods in a well-timed rush led by a maddened squirrel reportedly a "Pennsylvania provacateur".**
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With his commander dead, with the screams of frantic wildlife, the emeny troops rushing across open ground and a sporadic fusilade coming from the Russians hiding in the woods, an experienced NCO seized the initiative and ordered the surviving Germans to begin a fighting withdrawal through the woods to their rear.**
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With the emeny fire from their front now stopped, the Russians raced for the foot of the slope that lead to "Round Top". Harried by the continuing pressure--the Russian soldiers had plunged onto the hill, the German squads became dispersed and a series of small bitter firefights broke out on the wooded slopes to the south. But one squad managed to slip in among some rocks bordering the open field in the valley below just as the first Katyusha's and Nebelwerfer's started landing on friend and foe alike. Now indeed the hilltop looked impregnable. One of the inexplicable moments of peace fell upon the battlefield, broken by the occasional nervous shot.
The impasse lasted only a few minutes, for the arrival of Russian and German armor again changed the fight. Smashing down fences and rumbling across the rocky ground, the Russian tanks took up firing postitions in the open and proceeded to shell the hilltop with impunity, only to be killed by their German counter-parts. Meanwhile, the Russians who had pursued the fleeing German platoon arrived at the tree line near the 600-foot level of "Round Top". Signalling the armor to cease fire and advance in support, the Soviets burst from cover to strike the flank of the German position only to be flanked by other German reinforcements.**
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Suddenly, other contingents of Russian and German armor and infantry charged, a swirling melee developed on the entire hill. Machine pistols and knives were the order of the day among the boulders and scree. Russian armor, with the surviving infantry from the "Valley of Death", pressed up the large boulders at the northern end. And stright into the furious fighting on the hilltop drove several German AFV's dispatched when reports of the attack reached the HQ of Panzer Division "Der Scherz"**
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The progress of events much beyond this point remains unclear even yet. Only a dozen survivors (on both sides) struggled back to friendly lines. It appears that annihilation was nearly total. Among the unconfirmed reports of the stunned soldiers that came back: the last panzer and last Soviet tank firing at each other point blank; a German NCO with a captured Soviet LMG shooting into a struggling knot of German and Russian soldiers; a Russian tank commander standing on his blazing tank, screaming as the flames reached him and firing his pistol at German wounded on the ground around; a Russian private killed trying to drag a bleeding German to shelter; a Russian gun crew abandoning their artillery piece and struggling to reach their commander, dying one by one; stragglers from both sides plunging into the bloodbath as they reached the crest; a maddened squirrel leaping into an empty machinegun nest and carring away bullets. Whatever the series of events, it seems that both sides were virtually wiped out.**
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The next day, German reinforcements reached the scene. Awed by the carnage, much of it hidden by a blanket of new-fallen snow, they were ordered into positions to once again defend the hill--if need be, to the last man. Three days later, due to Soviet advances to the north, the hill was abandoned in the general retreat. After the war, modern farming methods in the Soviet Union transformed the hill slope, which now bears no resemblance to its appearance that bloody day. Nothing today remains to show the bitterest fighting of the war (although reports of a ghostly squirrel ambushing lone Soviet policeman in the woods persisted for years afterward).**
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for all to see!
I go first Hellcat, tell me when you are ready
:rolleyes:
