Scenario 14 Paw of the Tiger

[Chris Earls]

My first game via the SL Tournament site, and my first game of COI in approximately 25 years.  I purchased a copy recently and re-acquainted myself with the rules, and then dove in with a live game.  

I set up with the Russians and Nate took the Germans.  The copy of the Fall 1979 General magazine that came with my used copy of COI had one great piece of advice for this scenario:  do not ever give the German player a shot at a stationary target, make him take all his shots in Defensive Fire against a moving target.  My initial plan was to send half of my tanks the predictable route to the right, with the other half of them going through the woods in order to move up the left side. In the end a combination of more than average bad luck for the Germans and some timely shooting by the Russians made the difference, and this split left-right approach worked.  

 On the opening turn 2 of my tanks got immobilized in the woods, one got killed by the usual bore-sighted Tiger shot, but the rest made it. During the first two turns I could not believe my good luck regarding German shooting, numerous shots that were just one too high to hit, or to kill.  I was down one tank destroyed and two immobilized when I felt like I should have had 6 or 7 destroyed.  

Thigs got worse for the Germans as the game went on.  Shots continued to miss, and the Tiger with the ace panzer leader broke his gun attempting intensive fire.  I promptly swarmed all over him with 5 tanks and knocked him out with a point-blank shot. Combined with the Pz IV that I knocked out earlier, this made the balance 15 Russian tanks against 3 remaining Germans, one of which had a jammed gun.  

The remaining Tiger chose to stay on a ridge in the center rather than retreat out of sight on Turn 4.   His turret was facing my left-hand group, so if any of the right-hand group could get LOS they might score a side turret hit.  So I ran them up onto the hilltop with LOS, and amazingly one got a hit in Advancing Fire! Rolling for hit location produced a side turret hit and that was all for the second Tiger.  

This left one PZ IV with a functional gun and one with a permanently jammed gun against 12 Russian tanks, and at this point it was pretty much over.  We kept going for another turn, in which German artillery knocked out three of the tanks on the hill on my right, the only time the Germans completely beat the odds rolling dice in this battle.  The remaining Panzer IV jammed his gun and then permanently broke it trying to repair, and we called it over at the end of Turn 5 when it was 7 Russian tanks against two PZ IV with broken guns.  

I think German gunnery in the first three turns will often decide this scenario.  Knock out 6 or 7 tanks before the Russians can get close enough to start swarming the Tigers and the Russians can run out of steam in a hurry.  In contrast, as happened in our game, very unlucky German shooting let me get most of my tanks across the killing ground in the middle of the board, and also took a Pz IV and more importantly the ace Tiger out of the game altogether with broken main guns.   German artillery and his hidden 28mm LL gun kept it interesting for another turn, but once it got down to 12 to 1 and still 5 turns remaining we agreed it was over.  

I think this scenario is more challenging for the Russian for obvious reasons, but both players have to be careful and precise in their actions and it's far from an easy win for the Germans.  

Thanks Nate for a fun game.