Operation Bagration was the USSR's 1944 Belorussian Strategic Offensive Operation, launched in June, with the aim of destroying the German Army Group Centre. Obviously, something that big is a bit ambitious for a game of CoC, but it provides a rationale for the game that Brian and I played out last Sunday at the club. The game was played in our preferred 15mm scale.
The Eastern Front was new ground for both of us but Brian had his Russians ready and I had another opportunity to field my late war Heer Zug.
The scenario we were playing was No. 6 - Attack On An Objective. Under the circumstances, it seemed appropriate that the Germans would be the defenders. The attackers, Brian's Soviets get 2D6 support points, with the Germans getting half, rounded down. Brian rolled a 7, which, applying the force ratings gave him a whopping 10 points. I had a measly 3 points. I just knew that Brian would be bringing some armour, so I chose a minefield, to block out one line of attack and a Panzerknacker team, possibly to counter his armour, but also because it would give me an extra MG42 to play with.
Here is the table after the patrol phase. I would be defending the fuel dump just behind the church in the village. I placed the minefield roughly in the centre of the table, which I hoped would prevent any frontal assaults.
Here is the table from the German viewpoint.
My plan was to deploy one squad in a fairly advanced position on my left, with the aim of occupying the farm near the minefield. This took longer than planned as the Soviet Wrath Of The Gods delayed my deployment.
I also had a squad on overwatch in the village church.
The arrival of the Beast From The East, a.k.a Brian's armoured support, a very large, nasty and worrying ISU-152. His infantry were deploying on his left, threatening in outflank my right.
I had a squad deployed on my right and I used the MG42 team to good effect on a Russian squad which had occupied a cornfield in an advanced position on Brian's left flank. I really wanted to keep that squad out of the game, allowing me to move troops to enfilade the Russians from my left.
My right flank squad seemed to have things under control.
Unhappily, the ISU-152 was able to cause considerable damage to the church, forcing me to evacuate (no photos). Foolishly, I pushed the squad in the church forward into the area with the craters, in an attempt to outflank the Soviet advance. These suffered further casualties from the 152mm gun.
After first trying a long-range Ambush, which failed, I had to deploy my Panzerschreck team, pushing it forward until it was within a more effective range of the Beast From The East. The results were spectacular, with four net hits on the ISU's side armour, the Beast exploded. One thing less to worry about.
With the armour gone, I deployed my Panzerknacker team as an extra (and much needed) MG42 team. Its fire would be directed by my Zug's senior leader.
My plan to outflank the Soviets from the right continued, despite the weakness of one squad, reduced by the ISU-152 to a junior leader and a MG42 team.
My MG42s were causing the Soviets a lot of problems, mounting losses and plenty of shock, however, my own force was looking pretty threadbare too. Brian had a run of five game phases in a row, due to rolling a succession of four double sixes on his Command dice. This enabled him to push his troops right down my right flank, threatening to get around behind me and taking the objective, which was only lightly defended by this point.
However, as I much as I was losing troops and gaining shock. the Soviets were losing them faster, this was a race to see who would run out of men first.
I stopped taking photos, but I had the Squad which was reduced to an MG42 rout, later followed by both the Panzerknacker team and the right flank Squad being wiped out. My Force Morale was plummeting, but not as fast as Brian's. My 'Schreck team occupied one of Brian's JoPs and he also saw a Squad rout and have his last effective troops pinned. By that point, he was only rolling two Command dice, and was unable to remove any shock or end the turn (amazingly, we were still on Turn One, right to the end of the game). Finally, the game ended. With all his troops pinned and unable to do anything, the Soviet assault just petered out, but the cost to my defenders was huge. I'd won, but the price was so high that the Zug was no longer an effective force.
So, perhaps this game illustrated the reality of Bagration rather well. Despite astronomiocal losses, the Red Army did manage to destroy Army Group Centre in Byelorussia. By the end of June 1944, the German 4th Army no longer existed and the 3rd Panzer Army was no longer an effective fighting force. Operation Bagration maked the beginning of the end for the Germans in the East. losing around 400,000 men and tanks and other vehicles that they were unable to replace. When you consider that, at the same time, in Western Europe the Germans were being expelled from France with huge losses. there was only really one end to the War possible.
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