AAR - Pavlov's House (Journal Reprint)

Pavlov's House - the ASL Journal version, a 7 1/2 turn scenario, played on board 1.

SSR's; Prior to Set Up, Buildings X4 and X7 are removed to make 'Lenin's Square' (which leaves a large expanse of open ground!) and the germans before set up must resolve 200+mm HE OBA vs Buildings U2+Q4 (nowhere near the Russian set up area, this is due to historical facts as the german gunners missed by a mile). Rubble is placed in hex Z6 (within objective building), and AA7 (in objective building) is a 3 level location (steeple / spire is not specified). Moist EC with no wind.

Squads ; - Russian - 1 (6-2-8), 2 (4-4-7), 3 (2-3-7), 1 Crew, 8-1 + 9-1 SMC's, MMG, 2 LMG, 50mm Mortar, ATR, 11 (?), and a 45LL AT Gun.

Germans - 9 (4-6-7), 9-2 + 9-1 SMC, MMG, 2 LMG and in addition 2 PzIVF2 (75L Gun+ROF 1+5 CoAx MG+3 Bow MG) plus an 8-1 Armour Leader

Set Up; Russian - Within 3 hexes of X7 (Centralish hex of the 5 hex multihex objective building)
Germans - Infantry - On or north of hexrow Q
Vehicles - Enter north of Q along the west edge (normally on turn 1, but due to the balance I was awarded it was turn 2) .

Game Outcome - Due to the fanatic nature of my Russian soldiers I was able to hang on, even with both German tanks having a -2 Acq. on both my 4-4-7's, 6-2-8, both leaders, 1 LMG and MMG - I passed morale check after morale check after morale check, and even when my squads did break, I simply routed them to rear of the building in complete safety, rallied them with my leaders within two rally phases, and put them back to the fighting front. Also I kept moving squads up and down levels, assault moving out of hexes, and advancing back in to minimise the threat of all possible Defensive fire and to force the Germans to start the Acq. process all over again. On the German Turn 2, he accidentaly left his tank in bypass in the same hex as my gun, in what he thought was a rather unlikely place to put it (HIP)! This lead to me firing, missing, and a German 4-6-7 simply running up to my crew, CC them, and kill them. Also, the German opponent got no less than 4 Snake Eyes! I got..... 1 or 2, but they took out his 9-2 SMC, 2 (4-6-7's), who carried the MMG and an LMG..and this was in my prep fire phase too, no FFMO / FFNAM penalties needed! My opponent didn't even get into the building and had 3 Good order squads left on board after Rally Phase, plus one tanks MA disabled in his turn 5, whereas I had only lost the crew, 2 Half squads and a hero I created.

Conclusion; I feel that my defensive tactics were sound, that I was unlucky with the revealing of my AT Gun, but without a doubt I won 70% due to the fanatacism, 30% due to poor (but unlucky) DR's and perhaps also a lack of movement. After the conclusion of the scenario, we concurred that the tanks were not there primarily to use as weapons but as troop carriers - using armoured assualt to more safely manouver the squads over the large open ground areas, that my gun was in a good place (as it's location was unexpected and CA covered a whole hex line from one side to the other) and lastly that heroes are called heroic because they do something great even whilst getting obliterated (in this case by a snake eyes tank MA! He was in the same hex as my 9-2 leader and via random selection if the hero wasn't there then the leader would have been killled, changing the scenario course entirely).

Brown Bear