055 Creating the Korsun Pocket

boersma8 (Jun 13, 2011)

Pros:

* It's an interesting map lay-out and unit set-upwith the Russians closing in on the German positions from two directions.

* It's relatively quick to set up. No terrain overlays nor entrenchments, barbed wire etc. are required. Further there are no reinforcements of any kind meaning that as the game progresses turns will tend to end ever more quickly, so all in all it's a fast paced scenario.

Cons:

* Again, I'm not sure about the balance. It seems to strongly favor the Russians. I'll have to replay it, but the Russians had twelve (mostly intact) units left by the middle of the sixth action phase. At that point there wasn't a single German unit left on the board. So Two and a half turns left to occupy (or is moving through actually enough?!) the remaining two building hexes not yet under Russian control. As I said, I'll need to try another strategy for the Germans, but to have THIS many Russians left and not a single German and then still have time to spare...Things will have to go REALLY differently to achieve a German win...

I feel the actual or perceived imbalance is mostly created by two things:

* The immense power of the SU 122. Once it's in postion (or even with a fire and move which is officially not disallowed, though we often houserule non-turreted vehicles so that they're not allowed to make any such attacks) any German (MG) squad woudl be foolish to stay on Op-fire in a building hex (13 dice, 7 with a fire and-move. And then its range: 10...Point made, I suppose).

* I simply left my Russian squads advancing from the South in place thereby being immune to any German MGs in op-fire until the SU 122 had either eliminated them or scared them away. Also, one of the T34s advancing from the North had occupied a hill hex thereby also procuring LOS and a 9 die attack against the German MG originally in that position. The Russian infantry simply waited two turns. Normally, if they'd started moving on turn 1, the MGs would have caused 1 casualty per two moving squads on average.

What I might try next time is to replace the SU 122 with a T34. Since I have the feeling rather sizeable forces are being represented in the scenario, this would probably be more fitting as well. Another option might be to add a PAK 40 to the German forces that could help keep the SU 122 at bay somewhat longer. The simplest solution might be to have the scenario last 6 turns, perhaps seven rather than eight. It would force the Russians to play really aggressively, which might give the Germans a better chance to win.