Firestorm Kursk - The First Day!

 

The nice chaps at Battlefront were nice enough send the Wollongong Wargamers a free

copy of the Firestorm Kursk kit, including instructions and a large map of the theatre, simplified to allow a series of linked campaign games to be fought. Despite my already overly ambitious gaming schedule, I am always a sucker for anything to do with Kursk, so I signed up to run a campaign...With the opening pair of games representing the opening day on the Southern Front - Army Group South attacking the Voronezh Front. 

This first of these two games was hosted at the Hall of Heroes, Campbelltown, the other the next day at the Uni. John as the German player duly rolled to attack, and the scenario that came up was Bridgehead. The table was set up to resemble the rolling fields of the southern Ukraine... with a liberal smattering of minefields, obviously...

There would be 2 formations each of 60 points on each side, one infantry heavy, one armour heavy, but as today was an all-day game we also allowed some 20 points of Air for each side:



Bryan ran the Soviet team, and fighting the Bridgehead scenario as the defender, the 2 objectives he had to defend were pretty close together, allowing him to concentrate dug in Motor Rifles and light AT concealed around the objectives, the approaches well mined. He kept his larger ZIS-3 AT guns in ambush...



John was wary of the mines so set up to come in on the 'open' right flank...



but hedged his bets with a platoon of Panzer Grendiers out on the left flank to try a sneaky approach through the woods..



However Bryan countered with a strong patrol of T-34s to counter this...



So John decided to peel off a platoon of PzIIIs to support the Landsers...This was Bryan's cue to spring his ambush...



with disasterous results for the initial stages of the German offensive:



A timely Stuka Airstrike in this sector allowed the Panzer Grenadiers to extricate themselves, but it was nothing doing on the left flank!



Meanwhile the remaining PzIV platoon nosed forward on the right flank.



And were steadily kicking ass and taking names...
 

Having bypassed the minefields, with the Panzer Grenadiers in close support, one of the German objectives was starting to look....



Achievable?

 But then 2 SU-85s turned up and escaped chastisement by the Luftwaffe... 

In order to decimate the PzIV's!. A desperate Panzer Grenadier assault on the objective was fought off, with most of the platoon casualties, and we assessed that was all that could be expected of the Germans in the South on day one - close, very close, but no Cigar today!

  

The second game played the next day for the Northern Sector had a slight change of cast: I joined Bryan on the Soviet team. On the German side, Peter and Colin would be attempting to break through our defences in a Rearguard scenario, an attack across the rolling country leading to the approaches to Ponyri. Bryan had set the table up with 3 ridges running the length of the table clearly marking out the ridges and dead ground between that could only be seen from the ridges.

The whole area was liberally covered with wheatfields, small woods, a couple of state farms and small villages. The Germans won the roll to attack and we rolled for the Rearguard/Withdrawal scenario. On the Soviet side Bryan took a Hero Motor Rifles Company, keeping the 76mm Gun battery in ambush, and I took the Tank command, with 3 companies of 3 T-34s. Colin had Gepanzerte Pz Grens and Peter’s Panzers consisted of 3 Pz IVs and 4 Pz IIIs and a tiny infantry platoon – amazing what you can squeeze out of 60 points!

Given the scenario the objectives were placed fairly close together in the centre of the table and Bryan placed his two Motor Rifle platoons and 45mm AT guns around them. 

A large minefield (5) covered all the approaches to the left hand objective. SU-85s were also covering the deep left Soviet Flank, and I deployed my T-34s well out on the unmined right flank, with the firm intention of sticking to the ridge like glue, remaining concealed so that my ‘hit-on’ value of 2 would rise to 3, and with some luck I might even be able to ‘shoot ‘n scoot’ down the reverse slope if things got too hot.

The Panzers deployed directly opposite the middle objective, whilst the mob of SPWs were over on the far left. I felt that Bryan’s light AT and PTRDs should be able to handle these, so I succumbed to the temptation to send 2 of my 3 tank platoons right forward off the ridge to work my way around the German armoured flank, covered by the dead ground and small village to my front…

This worked well, too well in fact as Peter responded by pulling his Pz IV platoon back and around to face this threat, steadily whittling down my T-34s with long ranged fire despite the cover. I wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or not – it was keeping these heavies away from the objective, after all!

Perhaps as a result of this sacrifice, the first German assault on the as yet unpinned objective by Peter’s small infantry platoon, only with the PzIII’s in support was repulsed fairly easily…

 

Colin meantime, having probed the minefields and defences of the left hand objective, decided to change tack and also commit to the centre objective, and the limited German artillery resources were concentrated on slowly but steadily thinning out the 45mm AT guns.

Meanwhile Bryan had come to my aid by springing the 76mm ZIS-3 battery ambush, placing them just behind the ridgeline in the centre of our position adjacent to the now key objective, 

but they still had the reach to effectively engage the PzIVs that were duelling with my Tridtsatchetvikas. They copping some of the artillery ‘overs’, however…

But this left me free to motor deeper into the German flank, requiring Peter to now also detach his PzIIIs from the objective for our own personal close range tank battle. Thanks to the robust armour of the T-34, almost as thick on the sides as the front, this was won by the doughty Soviet Tankers.

Returning to the action around the middle objective, Colin had focussed two powerful Panzer Grenadier platoons and all their associated firepower here, and things hung in the balance, as suicidally brave Landsers lobbed grenades and satchel charges at the SU-85s, which we discovered, had no MGs! 

After several fierce assaults, the objective, cleared of most defenders, nevertheless remained contested as night fell. After so much bloodshed, no result, a bloody stalemate…

After the opening round of games I am happy, from a historical perspective,  with the way the Fire Storm Kursk campaign is developing with the first round of games/first day of the offensive. For both the Northern and Southern Front, the German have launched focussed attacks which have been hampered and channelled by extensive minefields and fierce resistance, and in each game despite their slight superiority at the point of attack have only managed to threaten or gain a temporary foothold on the objectives, a fair representation of the first day of Operation Zitadelle, where only first lines of defence were breached, if at all.

Whether the Russians will continue to have their way for Day 2, in about a month’s time, remains to be seen – the German players were muttering about Tigers as we were packing away…