Flames of War 12mil: Prokhorovka!

 

It was with some trepidation that I approached laying on this week's game at the Wollongong Wargamers. I was organising a WW2 Flames of War game in 1/144th or 12mil, a scale which is receiving some push back locally. I would have to make this game epic, yet allow players to get a result within an evening! I put some thought into the briefing:

A distinct advantage of this smaller scale is that for some reason it seems easier to reasonably translate the map to the table terrain - in this case the south western approaches to Prokorovka, near Kursk.

To my amazement most of the players actually read the brief, so we could get started with a minimum of fuss - the LAH deployed first, only allowed to deploy tantalisingly short of the Hill 225 ridgeline!

They weren't allowed 'Ambush' or to dig in either, as they were caught forming up, so the vulnerable PAK gunners had to seek what limited cover they could find:

On their right Rotmistrov's 5th Guards Tank Army came on hard and fast, making good use of 'Follow Me' orders.

Whereas on their left, they advanced slightly more cautiously, seeking cover in the lee of State Collective Farm October Heroes' crop fields and isbas.

From the LAH perspective, it looked overwhelming - which of course it was on the day - 12th July 1943.

However the Panzer IVs of the 1st SS Panzer Regiment jockeyed up to the ridgeline and opened up at long range, with a couple of successes...

But the Soviet Tankers were nothing daunted and worked their way around behind the collective farm.

Over to their right the leading elements were soon amongst the German defences, intent on a close range knife fight!

It really wasn't looking good for the Leibstandarte!

Despite some great shooting from the StuG Abteilung enough T-34s had broken through the German lines to achieve half the victory conditions - they only needed infantry support to claim victory!

Successive waves of Red Armour kept the LAH tankers and gunners pinned to their positions with little scope for manoeuvre.

It was left to the Panzer Grenadiers of 2nd SS PzGren Regt to attrit the Red Motor Rifles with a series of daring and effective attacks, ignoring all the Russian heavy armour around them!

Coupled with a succession of accurate artillery bombardments from their two 105mm batteries, the Russian Motor Rifle troops were pinned then destroyed in place, stalling the attack and delivering victory to the 1st SS Panzer  Division Leibstandarte !