My soviet force, having held the town of Devnat against the 30th Panzer Division, struck out to engage in a counterattack against the Germans.
Having plenty of time to prepare, the Germans dug themselves in on a ridge in a forested area. As I apparently decided to have three Tea Breaks in a row, my German opponent took the opportunity to make some maneuvers forward of his position, bringing up a Panther to give me a nasty surprise. Sure enough, my first infantry platoon on the field ran face to face with the Panther. Still, I was feeling pretty confident as my three IS-2s were coming up right behind my infantry, which immediately dispatched the Panther.
After celebrating a bit too long, it came to our attention that the Germans had a significant artillery force atop the Nothern end of the ridge dead ahead of us, and that became our objective. The artillery was a serious threat when I had six platoons that would soon be in their sights.
On the other side of the board, I moved up machine gun and flamethrower teams, looking to root out any infantry dug in on the Southern end of the ridge.
Halfway up to the Northern ridge, agonizingly slow under the artillery fire, my IS-2s were ambushed by two Jagdpanthers, who made quick work of my tanks. At the same time, my flamethrower and machine gun teams were scattered by the german machine gun positions that they were unable to spot until it was too late.
Even so, my soviet infantry would soon overrun the Germans positions on the ridge...
More shots from our game of IABSM last night. Unfortunately there aren’t many pics of the German infantry as they stayed dug-in under blinds for the whole four hour game.
I may have overdone the terrain, making spotting nearly impossible a lot of the time. All the fighting always done by armor and artillery.
Sadly, being entirely focused on advancing on my opponent's artillery, I ignored the threat of his Jagdpanthers until they jumped out and annihilated my armor in one sudden attack.
John Paul Hancock