Silly After Action Report - Shopino Struggle

SS Rottenfuhrer Klaus Pilsner shoved back his steel helmet and rubbed his aching head.  How had it all come to this?  "Transfer to the Waffen SS", his girlfriend had said, "you'll look hot in the uniform," she'd said.  Well, true but this advantage had come at a cost.  Specifically he was now expected to be the standard bearer of the Third Reich when his ambitions tended more towards getting his bookkeeping qualification and snaffling a rear area job.  Admittedly, guarding a resupply point was, technically, a rear area job but as the unfortunate Rottenfuhrer stared at the collection of T-34 tanks barrelling towards his not very professionally prepared defences he couldn't help thinking that his definition of "rear area" and that of the wehrmacht high command seemed more than little incompatible.

It's the first Saturday of the month and Dave Wilson and I reached out to each other through the ether (or whatever magic it is that makes the internet work) to play FT165 Shopino Struggle.  This is a small scenario set within the gargantuan clusterfuck that was the German Operation Citadel.  The whole thing would end in tears for the Germans but this scenario is set at the start when the SS panzer divisions are charging forward.  As they charge forward some elements of the distinctly unpleasant Totenkopf division are detailed as flank guard to cover a resupply point.  I shall command these forces as vengeful Soviets, commanded by Dave, attempt to dispossess them of such ground as they've managed to capture.

I have to defend the wooden buildings on board 44.  One building, far to the rear is worth 3VPs all the rest are worth 1 per hex for a grand total of nine.  The person with the most VP at the end of the game wins.  It has to be said that the Totenkopf hasn't exactly allocated its best to defending this position.  I have seven squads, two elite and the remainder second line.  They are equipped with a trio of lmgs, one mmg and are led by three officers only one of whom (a 9-1) rises above mediocrity.  On turn three (of a four turn game) I get reinforcements in the form of a pair of elite squads mounted in halftracks, a pair of PzIVH tanks and one early model Tiger.  As the attacker Dave has ten squads divided equally between elite and first line, led by a couple of officers and supported by four T34-M43 tanks.  On the second turn he gets another elite squad and another T-34.

At this point a confession must be made.  I misread the victory conditions.  I have no excuse, I read them twice and both times my brain interpreted them the way I wanted to rather than reality.  As noted above to win one must have more VPs than your opponent.  In practical terms this means I needed to hold at least 5VP worth of buildings so that Dave could only take four.  For some reason I was absolutely convinced that Dave had to capture all of the buildings and thus holding one or two would be sufficient to deny him.  I worked out the truth on turn three (of four) when it was far too late.  For this reason I decided not to bother defending the rearmost victory building (despite it being worth 3VPs).  It was too far from the others.  Instead I decided to focus on defending the other buildings and essentially falling back to a last redoubt in the centre.  Strangely this plan actually worked, it just wasn't an appropriate plan to give me a victory.  Below is my set up.  I had my expendable second line troops forward to provide (hopefully) some delay to his forces before falling back to the wooden buildings in the centre and right to bolster my elite strongpoints.

Dave came on with a flanking force consisting of a couple of squads riding tanks on the left.  These would charge for the rearmost building and, as explained before, I was happy to let them go.  The rest of his force would come on the right, looking to clean up such defenders as got in their way and head for the victory buildings on the right.

End of Soviet turn 1

My medium machine gun was over on the right, married up with my 9-1 officer.  It's first shot was boxcars and I didn't get it back for the rest of the game.  So much for the mmg.  With the bulk of Dave's effort coming on the right I started shuffling village dwellers in that direction.  My second liners did succeed in keeping a decent chunk of Dave's force tied down for a couple of turns but this was all secondary as his other two tanks (with riding infantry) ploughed through the grainfields to their target.

While victory locations were under threat all over the place the only area I enjoyed success was in the utterly irrelevant village where I broke his elite reinforcements (and subsequently massacred them) and wiped out a squad in close combat as well.  This would have been pretty impressive if it had mattered at all.  Dave had his own moment of angst when one of his T34s on the right broke its MA and he then gacked the repair leaving it to slink off the board in ignominy.  

It didn't really matter, the remaining tank and the two lmg toting elite squads he had driven up there proved more than capable of dealing with the defenders on their own.  If I had tried a bit harder I may have been able to get some of my village defenders over there to assist (although that is what the rest of Dave's force were trying to prevent) but due to my misreading of the rules I didn't think I had to.  Time was running out and I had a lock on the three victory locations in the centre which, due to my inept reading of the VC, I thought was sufficient.

Soviet turn 3

Dave now had the rear building and disposed his tanks to defend it as he was certain that it would be the focal point for my reinforcements.  It would have been if I had known what I was doing.  Instead I sent both my PzIVs to support the defenders in the building on the right (not in itself a bad idea but as it turned out just too late) while my infantry squads roared on in their half tracks to reinforce the completely unthreatened centre buildings.  The tiger alone headed towards the rear building and this was solely because I wanted to see if I could kill a tank or two and stop them from interfering with my reinforcement of the centre buildings.

Over on the right my two PzIVs arrived just in time to see the last of my infantry in the building broken and their sole contribution was to provide said infantry with a hex they could rout to as Dave's infantry took over the rest of the building hexes.  It was now the end of turn three and I was feeling confident, I didn't see how Dave could possibly take the centre buildings from me (Dave showed no interest in those buildings the entire game).  Then for some reason I went back and took another look at the victory conditions and this time the scales fell from my eyes.  Dave currently had six VPs from a total of nine and didn't need to do a damn thing.  I had one turn to capture at least two and no troops in anyway positioned to do so.

Oh I tried; there was a certain amount of desperate running through the open into the teeth of enemy fire and over on the right I drove one of the PzIVs into a building but didn't succeed in breaking the occupying squad with the attempted overrun.  At the end I could only congratulate Dave on winning a scenario that I had literally lost before the first shot was fired.  Despite this Dave is agreeable to playing another game with me in the near future.  I intend to have the victory conditions tattooed onto my forehead before we start.

A couple of smoke grimed Totenkopf soldiers stumbled away from the wreckage of the village.  Behind them the supply depot was in flames.  Suddenly one of them looked around.

"Hey, where's Rottenfuhrer Pilsener?"

"He went back to rescue his bookkeeping assignment," replied the other.  "He's probably dead."

"No loss, he really was a rotten fuhrer."