Late War Germans Versus Russians

German Hummels take on Russian armour in a direct fire roll. 

This Flames of War game saw my German armour and panzer grenadiers taking on a powerful combined arms force of Russians. For this scenario we decided to do a random force allocation to simulate the Germans having to cobble together whatever forces they can to halt the Russian advance. 

I ended up with a force that consisted of a Company HQ of 1 x Marder IIIs, 2 platoons Stug IIIs, 1 Battery of Hummel SP Artillery, a platoon of Jadgpanzer IVs, and a platoon of flamethrower halftracks.

The Russian came out swinging. They advanced both their armour and their infantry across the fields. The Germans were ready for them. The Hummels, normally used in the indirect fire role, used their guns in a direct fire role and Russian armour was punished. However, the weak armour of the Hummels could not withstand the return fire from the Russian tanks. Luckily the Russians' aim was off and only one Hummel exploded. 

The German flamethrowing halftracks rain their horrific liquid
onto the advancing Russian infantry.

The Russian commander decided to use his infantry to launch on assault on the village German left flank. To shouts of Urah! Urah! the Russian infantry charged across the fields towards the village. Again the Germans were ready for them. The flamethrower halftracks used their machine guns to engage the Russian infantry. Casualties were heavy, but the Russian kept advancing. As their battered forces closed in on the Germans they were suddenly faced with the a wall of flames as the Germans triggered their flamethrowers. 



Having beaten back the Russian infantry assault, the Germans launched an armoured assault on the right. The Stugs and Jadgpanzer IVs moved against the Russian armour and artillery. Smashing through the large village and swinging around to the right the German Jadgpanzer IVs caught the Russian artillery in the open and engaged them with machine guns. A huge tank engagement took place in the main village and the German commander sent all available armour to it to try and tip the scales in his favour. It seemed German and Russian tanks were exploding everywhere as they tried to out manoeuvre each other for better shooting positions. Even though the Russian had brought some very heavy armour with them, the German managed to knock out many of the Russian tanks. 

In the end the Russian were forced to concede and withdrew from the field, while the Germans prepared their positions for the next Russian attack that was sure to come.