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Russian side

First, a look at the Victory conditions. For once, they are very straightforward hold 4 VP hexes for a Minor Victory, 5 for a Major.

I immediately gave up any hope to get a Major Victory: unless the German suffer very heavy casualties, attacking them would be suicide. I plan to slowly give ground and killing them with point-blank fire when they come adjacent to my units. In the meantime, I will try to bring the substantial engineer force (and the A** leader) sitting on the last VP hex forward (if I lose the other 3 VP hexes, I have lost the game anyway [:D]).

Apart from the initial massacre of those units that start adjacent to German units, the plan worked quite well, with Russian stacks firing point-blank (24 to 36 FP with a +1/+2 DRM) at the Germans in the defensive fire (and in the subsequent Fire segment, if there were any survivors) the German made a very limited advance, but never managed to advance beyond the hex column 17.

Fire from the Russian MMG's prevented most Germans from crossing the road leading to the southern building block and to the VP hex in 16,23.

In the north, the engineers, moving double time whenever possible, arrived just in time to stop the Germans and then started pursuing the broken Germans through the ruins. Their move could have become an envelopment of the German forces around 16,21... with a 3-4 more turns [:D].

The StuG's, which could have been a problem, since the Russians only have a 76mm gun and a Molotov projector, didn't seem especially eager to support the infantry (the Molotov projector crew never fired its weapon, even though it fired many times with its inherent firepower).

The game ended with a Russian Minor Victory, with a 9.5:7 loss ratio (Russian/German). The AI, for once, suffered less casualties than the human player.

I'm impressed, great work UP844...I appreciate your AARs

German side

Playing as the Germans, I know I have some advantages the AI cannot count on: I have a nice idea of the Russian set-up and I am sure the AI won't commit the engineers until I take some VP.

My basic plan envisaged:
establishing a large firebase with the 1st Line troops, armed with MMG/HMGs and LMGs and paired with the best leaders (a ***, a ** and two *) to suppress as much as possible the Russian HMG's.
eliminating the AT gun first, so as to be able to use the StuG's for support (even though their 75mm guns won't do much damage to infantry in stone buildings -some of them fortified - and rubble, they could be lucky ).
with the aid of the StuG's, eliminating the Russian HMG's so as to cross the road and taking the two southernmost VP hexes.
advancing east through the large east-west building area, with the StuG's providing support from the street in the middle of the map.

The plan worked quite fine, apart a momentary setback when I first attempted taking the VP hex in 18,23. Basically, I moved one squad at a time in the hexes adjacent to the Russian units, moving a FT- or DC- armed squad as the last one. In the Advancing Fire segment, the FT proved their worth in close-quarter combat.
Once the AT gun was eliminated, two StuG's moved to support the northern attack and the last remained on the south edge: it passed beyond the Russian units and fired on them from the rear (and also blocked a good retreat route for broken units).
Once the Russian MG's were eliminated, the southern attack became a mop-up operation: at the end of Turn 5, the last survivors were all eliminated for failure to rout.
The Russian engineers made their appearance as soon as I took the third VP hex, but they were met by heavy MG fire and 75mm rounds from the StuG's. They made a last stand near the last VP hex in 24,16, but they also fell to the FT squads and at the end of the German Turn 6 the last Russian units were all destroyed for failure to rout.

The Germans obtained a Major Victory, with a 1:4 loss ratio for the human player (8 vs. 32 squads lost). The Russians were wiped out to the last unit (nothing happened in the Russian Player Turn of Turn 6 and in the German Player Turn of Turn 7). I think this is mostly due to the very short range of Russian Engineer and SMG squads (2 hexes), which made up a large part of the Russian force: this is not very important when fighting inside a building, but made them quite useless when the Germans were farther than 2 hexes (German Engineers fired 8 FP per squad with no fear of getting shot). When I played with the Russians, the range issue is much less important (I fire up to 4 hexes [:D]).

A note for Peter: no lone leaders wandered alone through the battlefield: when I played with the Russians I noticed a couple of lone German leaders moving to hexes containing broken units to rally them.

Well done, Rico!

But... I see two OBA fire markers. I do not remember artillery in this scenario, neither with Russians, nor with Germans [&:] [&:] [&:].

These are my fire markers that allow me to see the units through 1 -first shot 2 -final shot.


Yes, I know a pro stuff![:D]