It’s over to Dave’s for a late war, eastern front game of I Ain’t Been Shot Mum.

I was playing the Soviets, leading a column from 57th Guards Brigade towards the river Oder. My orders were to clear a way through to an undemolished bridge across the river. At my disposal I had two platoons of T-34/85s plus tank riders, a recon platoon, a couple of MMG teams and a tank destroyer platoon of two SU-100s. In reserve, or coming up from behind, was a heavy tank platoon of IS-III’s and a motor rifle platoon in trucks.

Mark, playing the Germans, had orders to stop me. He had a large platoon of infantry with a couple of panzerfausts per squad, a couple of MMGs, two Pak-40 AT guns, a Panther and a StuG.

Both sides were told that they had access to off-table mortars, and I also has air support on call.

The battlefield was long rather than wide. My troops would enter from one end, along either of the two roads, being able to place two Blinds on table each time my Blinds chip emerged from the bag.

I began by bringing on my Scouts and a Dummy Blind. The scouts were in M4 scout cars, but I was concerned about bumping into enemy armour and losing an entire squad at the time, so dismounted them and had them advancing towards the left hand woods in front of their transport.

As you will see in the photo below, the Dummy Blind (sent straight towards the right hand woods) has bumped into some enemy Blinds concealed in the woods.

The first line of German defence was now revealed: a platoon of infantry and an MMG team in the two patches of woods.

The scouts had done their job, and I now needed to get them out of there and bring up enough troops to push through the enemy line.

Unfortunately the Germans weren’t going to let my scouts off that easily, and I quickly started taking heavy casualties.

In fact so heavy were my casualties after a couple of rounds of enemy fire that my Scouts were all either killed or fled the table! That left Lt.Komarov, their commander and a Big Man, on his own on the battlefield, facing potential disgrace for the loss of all his men.

There was nothing for it but a suicidal charge towards the German machine gun nest in the woods. Komarov did get actually get there, and did kill one gunner, before being shot down…but at least his family was safe from possible retribution!

As per my plan, I now brought on my main force aiming to suppress the German infantry with HE fire from the tanks and then charging home with my SMG-armed tank riders: text book stuff.

Unfortunately the enemy infantry had teeth: panzerfaust teeth to be exact, and with a skillful bit of shooting, knocked out two of my T-34/85s in fairly short order.

Such was the enemy’s positioning as well, that although I could sneak an SMG platoon up the left hand side of the field, outside of the arc of fire of most of the Germans in the woods to their front-right, I couldn’t yet do the same on my right: I needed to weaken the infantry in front of me considerably more than that before an advance there made sense.

You’ll notice in the photo above that there are three T-34/85s on fire and I said that the ‘fausts hit two of them. That’s because the German supporting armour and anti-tank guns had also now opened fire, albeit at long range.

My T-34/85s were now needed to fight the enemy armour, so it would be up to the Soviet infantry to clear the tree line themselves.

On my left, this wasn’t a problem: the platoon got into position still outside of the German arc of fire and then charged home, SMGs blazing. One half of the enemy front line removed from play!

This was all taking too long: I badly needed to get my tanks back to fighting his infantry in order to push forward and achieve my objective before nightfall, enemy reinforcements or anything else Dave could throw my way.

I brought on my SU-100 tank destroyers and, in quick succession, knocked out the StuG and Panther with a combination of fire from the tank destroyers and T-34/85s.

Not an easy process, however: I was now down to just three T-34/85s i.e. I had lost four our of the seven with which I had started the game!

Whilst the tank destroyers kept the enemy AT guns pinned with some HE fire of their own, my tanks went back to shelling the Germans in the right hand woods. Soon they were worn down enough and Pinned for long enough for me to get the other SMG platoon into them: the front line was now clear

Time was ticking on: I knew this from the fact my reserves had arrived. If I didn’t move quickly, I was facing a draw from winning the position but not fast enough or, even worse, a loss due to my losses and not breaking through fast enough.

The gap between the woods looked a bit suspicious to me, and I had a squad of engineers, but no time: so I slammed the Blind containing the IS-IIIs through the gap.

Sure enough, with a loud Boom! the first IS-III disappeared in a shower of burning metal!

That was it, however: not a proper minefield just something designed to slow me down again, and the referee was looking at his watch!

Desperate times call for desperate measures. My lead T-34/85’s chip came out, rapidly followed by the Armour Bonus Move card.

That was it: pedal to the metal and the driver floored it down the road. You want me up the battlefield, I’ll go up the battlefield. Two decent rolls, a bonus for being a Fast Tank and I was over the crossing and level with the farm houses.

One anti-tank gun was Pinned, so no bother there, but the other…

I was a sitting duck, but only if the gun’s chip came out of the bag before the final Tea Break chip of the game (we were now in extra time!).

Naturally the next chip out was indeed the German AT Bonus Fire chip: surely I was now stuffed!

The gun fired, and hit! And it was flank shot: nine dice needing 4-6 to penetrate. Gulp!

Mark picked up his dice and let them fly…a torrent of 1’s and 2’s appeared: not a single penetration!

The next chip out was Tea Break and Dave declared the game ended…but who had won?

I had just about cleared the enemy from the field (all Mark had left was two AT guns, a sniper and, I think, a squad of infantry versus my five tanks and three platoons of infantry) but had I done enough to get forward?

Dave pondered for a second, then awarded the Soviets the win!

Apparently, the crossing on which the lead T-34/85 was now sitting was the point which he had decided was where I needed to reach. Although I didn’t know it at the time, it was also so point at which the final German squad’s ‘fausts just came into range, so I had been doubly lucky in the way the chips had fallen.

A great game that came down to the wire. Instant promotion to the commander of the T-34/85 that had reached the crossing: he could replace Lt. Yegarov who had gone up with his tank almost as soon as deploying from his Blind.

My thanks to Dave for umpiring, John for pulling the chips, and to Mark for his valiant, if doomed, opposition!

Robert Avery