The Last Gasp of the SS

After my morning of American-Japanese carnage in Hill 27, I returned to the hotel looking for more. I met Ken Mioduski, and we agreed to a game. Ken is the first American I’ve played here, hailing from somewhere in Maryland. He had a stack of scenarios he was interested in playing, and after a brief examination, one just leapt out at me.

The Awakening of Spring (G33) is a late war Eastern Front scenario, set in Hungary. The 6th SS Panzer Army, still largely untouched, was committed against the advancing Russian in a futile attempt by Hitler to counterattack around the oil fields in eastern Europe. Essentially, this is the final offensive of the German Army in the east.

The scenario occurs during falling snow, providing some cover beyond six hexes of range. The SS have to predetermine one of two victory conditions: either accumulates more than 20 Casualty Victory Points than the Russians (kill them) or exit more than 36 points on the far side of the board (break through the line). After looking at the very large open mapbaord (4 map sections), I decided that the lack of cover and distance were too great of an issue to exit, so I went for the kill condition as a judge of victory.

The Order of Battle for both sides is impressive. I’m going to detail the tank collection because I just love tanks, and these are the cream of the crop. Pay attention Mike, this scenario was made for you.

For the non-ASL reader (those that I am trying to recruit), I want to explain some of the numbers below. When a tank shoots another tank, you subtract the armor factor from the To Kill of the gun, leaving a number. You then must roll less than that number with 2 dice to affect a kill. There are lots of little details, but that should give you an idea.

The Germans get 10 armored vehicles, consisting of the following:

Two JagdPanzer V Tank Destroyer: JagdPanzer literally translates as Hunter of Tanks, and this one has the tools to get it done. It is armed with the 88 MM LL Main Gun (27 To Kill Number), capable of putting holes in almost anything (except for the Russian monsters we are about to see). While it doesn’t have much in the way of machine guns (3 factors) it does have Nahverteidigungswaffe capability. This is a 92 MM High Explosive projector used to protect the tank from close assault by infantry. The Jagd has a thick front plate at 18 AF, offering protection against normal tanks.


Four PanzerKampfWagon VG (The Panther). According to the rule book – “The US Army judged that it generally took five Shermans to destroy a Panther.” It is armed with the 75 MM LL Main Gun (23 To Kill). The Panther carries 18 Armor on the front, and bristles with three different machine guns at 10 factors. It also has Nahverteidigungswaffe, so any infantry would have to be either insane or desperate to try to take this thing out in close combat. You’ll need a big wrench to open the hatch and get the grenade inside. On the downside, the Panther has to take a stall check every time it begins to move, owing to the mechanical problems experienced by the Germans in the late war.

Two PanzerKampfWagon VIB (The King Tiger or Koenigstiger). Armed with an 88 MM LL Main Gun (To Kill of 27) and a ridiculous frontal armor of 26, the King Tiger is a beast. It carries the standard machine gun assortment as the Panther and Tiger, as well as (altogether now) the Nahverteidigungswaffe. On the down side, the mechanical reliability of the tank means that each time it starts to move, a 12 on two dice results in the track falling off, leaving it immobilized for the duration of the scenario.

There’s the German side. Let’s take a moment to let Mike clean the drool from his chin.

The Russian starts the game with two Guns that will give me some trouble.

First is the 100 MM LL PTP obr 44, with a Kill Number of 27. Second is the 85 MM L obr 44 Artillery Piece, with a To Kill of 17. The artillery isn’t a strong anti-tank gun in this scenario, but against the flanks or rear, it can be quite effective. Both guns are deployed hidden, only revealing on the map when they fire.

On turn three, the Russians get reinforced with some elite infantry and 6 tanks of their own.

Three IS-2m tanks, armed with a massive 122 MM L Main Gun (To Kill of 25) and a front plate of 26 armor. It has an interesting collection of machine guns, including a rear facing gun for protection against infantry armed with bolt cutters. It also suffers from ammunition shortage, carrying 28 rounds according to the book, so it breakdown on an 11 or higher whenever it shoots. The To Kill number makes it a great match for just about every tank out there on my side.

Three SU-100 Tank Destroyers. This thing is armed with a 100 MM L main gun that is actually an adapted Naval Gun fixed to a tank body (To Kill of 27). It carried 11 armor on the front, meaning it dies if hit, and has no protective machine guns, requiring an infantry screen to keep it safe.

The six Russian tanks are going to be a problem as we shall see later.

The scenario starts with my SS running across open ground as fast as they can, trying to close with the Russians in the tree line. My tanks set up an overwatch position and begin to lay down some covering fire, trying to push the Russians back into the trees. The falling snow gives me enough cover that my first turn passes without any casualties. Almost immediately, the Anti Tank gun reveals itself and takes a solid front shot on one of my Tigers. He hits, but then rolls boxcars on the kill roll, indicating a dud round. His quality control must be lax.

The first Russian turn results in a few mortar shots and some machine guns raking my soldiers, but to no great effect. The Anti Tank gun sends another round into the Tiger, and this time the tank is knocked out and the Crew killed. Fortunately, I now know where it is and start laying in fire. A Panther scores a critical hit (snake eyes) on the gun, resulting in a dead crew. In my next turn I swarm the area with tanks and infantry, indicating that no Russians will be permitted to approach the unmanned gun. I’m fortunate to loose only one tank to it.

On the left flank, the artillery piece reveals itself in a little copse of trees on my flank, in a position I overlooked as suicidally forward deployed. I bypassed this location, only to see the gun pop up with some great flank shots on a couple of Panthers and a King Tiger. Unfortunately for him, he scores a hit but doesn’t penetrate the armor. I wheel the tanks to present the front plate and move in to try to take the gun down. He manages to retain concealment, making it hard to hit (“Where’s the gun Otto?”).

In the next turn, my infantry gains the first tree line and the Russians begin falling back to a second line. I haven’t killed many yet, but I certainly have more firepower than the Russians. The Artillery piece continues to annoy, taking a long shot across the map to puncture the turret of a Tiger and killing the crew. I manage to score a hit with my Panther, but I roll a dud round! A second shot flies down range, and again it ends up being a dud.

My Slave Labor needs a bit of motivation in the ammo factory.

Since my tanks aren’t getting the job done, I detach two squads to sprint back toward that damn gun. Someone has to take it out. Another fire phase passes and the gun manages to deliberately immobilize a Panther, knocking the track off. That ends up being the last shot as the crew finally looses their nerve under fire and break. My two squads trot up and send them on their way to the graveyard.

Both guns down, but now the Russian tanks arrive on the far side of the map.

To this point, the infantry advance is going quite well. SS tend to do that. The Russians are falling back to a small collection of buildings for the third line of defense, and now I think I made my largest mistake.

The ability of my tanks to take care of themselves against infantry led me to run them up a little ahead of the main body, trying to establish positions against the Russian tanks about to arrive. It worked out fine, as he really wasn’t in a position to confront the tanks with his infantry. The Russian tanks took up good firing positions and stopped, popping their hatches to get a good look around.

This is where I made my mistakes. I still had five turns of play, and if I had waited for the infantry to catch up, I could have used their Panzerfaust threat to harass the tanks. (The late German infantry seems to have a Panzerfaust in every pocket – think similar to a bazooka, but a lot better). A ‘faust can penetrate about anything if the infantry can get in close enough.

But I didn’t wait. I pushed my tanks into a duel with the Russian armor, knowing that my big guns could likely kill them if I could score a hit. Unfortunately, I didn’t. In the space of two turns, the Russians destroyed each and every tank that came into sight. I managed to get a few shots in, but I couldn’t score a hit anywhere. Nine tanks were either burning or knocked out in a nice display of shooting. If I had waited for the infantry, I could have presented enough high risk targets to overwhelm the Russian tanks, who had a higher than normal chance of breakdown with each shot.

After the German disaster, we did a count and realized I could not possible accumulate enough casualty points to win. He had 75 points, to my 16, and while his tanks were worth a lot and I still had the Panzerfaust options, he was about to drive his tanks away from my reach, meaning I lost.

It was a great 6 hour game, and I regret losing it like that. I learned once again that tanks MUST have infantry support, even if they have enough defensive weapons to take care of troops. In this case, my tanks didn’t need protection as much as they needed help against the Russian beasts. File that one away as a learned lesson.

This is a wonderful scenario, and I’d love to try it again to see how it goes. Now off for another game!