RatFight: Eastern Front

Now that Hail Britannia is put to bed I have turned my wargaming attention back to Rat-Fight. Shaun and I tested a purely military rather than pupl scenario using the second draft of the rule system.

It is late summer on the road to Leningrad. The Red Army is launching a series of disorganised assaults to slow down Army Group North. This is one of them. A German infantry platoon supported by a single light tank, a Pz II, is holding a hamlet just behind a river.

A Russian platooon supported by a light tank, a BT5,  crosses the river on an armed reconaissance spurred on by a commissar.

The Soviets are walking into a trap as the Germans have set up mg positions in the woods on the left to give them flanking fire on any attacker.

The Red Army cross behind the tank and come under fire from the PzII. Its 20mm cannon shells bounce of the BT7 which returns fire inflicting minor damage on the panzer that the crew ignore. The Soviet advance section attampts to move out to take cover behind the hill and takes heavy fire crossing the open ground. A number fall.

More Russians fall and few get up. This is turning into a fiasco.

Another burst of 20mm sets fire to something on the BT5 causing the crew to panic and abandon ship. More infantry go down, many of them casualties including the commissar. The segeant left in charge signals a retreat back across the river.

German casualties were miniscule and the Heer is soon pushing on across the river.

The war is not going well.