WW II East Front 1945 - Iron Cross Rules AAR

Early July we played a game of Iron Cross pitting the Soviets against the Germans late in the war. We used the capture an objective scenario with the Soviets on the attack.

Soviet OOB

6 X T-34 76

3 X T-70

7 X Infantry Sections (includes HQ)

2 X HMG Units

2 X Mortar Units

German OOB

1 x Pz IV

2 x PAK 38 + Transport

4 x Infantry Sections with LAW (includes HQ)

1 x HMG Unit

1 x Mortar Unit

The Game;

The Soviets using their mortars to lay down smoke (quite effectively) and refusing their right flank advanced with their infantry using woods as cover and their armour going hell for leather toward the objectives, a risky tactic with the defenders hidden setup and the effectiveness of the German Panzerfausts.

The mix of smoke, massed armour and poor German dice rolling led to the Soviets rolling up the German right flank destroying a Panzer IV, two infantry sections and their mortar support in the process! The Nazis were in deep trouble having inflicted no losses on the attackers at this point.

In the centre of the battlefield the Soviets repeating the same tactics were again successful wiping out another German section and their HMG support taking a few hits in the process and losing a T-70. The losses were inflicted by the German PAK units which were unlucky deployed facing the flank the Soviets ‘refused’! They did redeploy and were effective but at this point with the German centre and left virtually overwhelmed their moral was broken and the Soviets secured what turned out to be a relatively easy victory!

Some Pictures;

The Germans under pressure finally get a break when a PAK38 knocks out a T-70 with a flank shot!

The German Panzer IV tried to ambush the T-34 Column it missed with several shots and when it hit twice the rounds were ineffective...

...unfortunately the Soviet return fire was accuarte and when the Panzer was hit the effect was deadly!

It then became an armour rampage!

Unluckily even the Germans Panzerfausts were faulty on the day, normally they'd tear a T-34 apart.

The German centre was overrun with a combined arms assault!

Both the PAK 38 were able to redeploy but the Soviet smoke was very well placed by their mortars.

Summary;

This game was the first time we used hidden deployment and it didn’t help the defenders to much 🙂! Also the first time we used house smoke rules which in hindsight were a bit too generous next time we’ll adjust them. Last thing to note on the first turn of combat the Umpire (ahem me) stuffed up the base to hit number but due to the poor German rolling luckily it didn’t have too much of an effect. We’ll be playing Iron Cross again in a couple of session to iron out the bumps as we enjoy using the rules! In the meantime I'll try catching up with posts here and on Captain Darling's site!