Der Hügel

 George joined me via Zoom for a WWII game on Friday evening, the scenario was from WSS96 by Carl Titterington,  which was based on a late 1944 action in Estonia.

The Soviet forces would be attacking from the tree line at the bottom of the table shown in the above photo, in the background can be seen the hill and German trench lines. the Soviets objective is capture the command bunker in the centre of the hill or force the Germans to withdraw.

 The game started with a PE2 airstrike and a barrage from a battery of 152mm guns, the well entrenched Germans got off lightly with just a couple of pinned units.

The Soviets surge forward, well sort of, fearful of German anti-tank capability the armour was held back to engage the Germans at effective range, they need not have been a feared, the PAK40 did little managing only a couple of pins before being whittled away by concentrated MG and HE fire.

 The tardiness of the Soviet advance was to pay dividends however when the German timed nebelwerfer barrage hit open space, I should have hit the tree line early on in hindsight and not been greedy waiting for the Soviet reinforcements to appear and capitalise on the the number of targets.

After two hours of play the Germans were still holding out, but the writing was on the wall the Soviet numbers were still overwhelming despite the Germans causing a lot of casualties, with the Soviet tanks about to sweep up the flank and behind and the only remaining anti-tank weapon on the wrong side the Germans conceded the hill.

A fine few hours gaming and a chance to chew over things in the hobby even if only virtually is a blessing in these trying times.

TTFN, KBO and May the seventeenth be with you.