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Third Battle of Kharkov Gaming (1)
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Gaming the Third Battle of Kharkov, Part 1
As you may have already gathered the struggle for Kharkov was massive attack by the Soviets, hundreds of thousands of men were committed to the whole offensive. Rather than try and recreate the whole battle with Flames Of War I thought I would look at some of the key features of the first half of the Third Battle of Kharkov and look at what interesting games can be created from them.
Third Battle Of Kharkov Part One...
Third Battle Of Kharkov Part Two...
The Initial breakthrough of Heersgruppe B’s lines
This can be fought as a Rearguard or Breakthrough after the breakthrough with elements of the Hungarians, Italians and Germans rallying to hold back the surging Soviet tide.
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Forces
Soviet infantry forces supported by armour versus Italian Alpini infantry with German Armour support. For the Italian Alpini use the Bersaglieri Rifle Company on page 29 of Avanti.
Bersaglieri Rifle Company (MI107) 2x Carcano rifle team |
1 points
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Rifle Platoon (MI108) 9x Breda MG & Carcano rifle team |
9 points
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Rifle Platoon (MI108) 9x Breda MG & Carcano rifle team |
9 points
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Rifle Platoon (MI108) 9x Breda MG & Carcano rifle team |
9 points
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Support Platoons |
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65mm Gun Platoon 4x 65mm gun Community Card... |
10 points
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47mm Anti-tank Platoon (MI106) 4x 47mm gun |
8 points
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Panzer III Tank Platoon (MG205) (Page 25 Iron Cross) 4x Panzer III (long 5cm) |
28 points
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Total
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74 points
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Rifle Battalion (page 34 Enemy at the Gates) Rifle Battalion HQ (MS110) 2x M1891 rifle team |
1 point
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Rifle Company (MS111) 19x DP MG and M1891 rifle team 1x Komissar team 1x Maksim HMG team 2x PTRD AT rifle team |
16 points 1 point 2 points
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Rifle Company (MS111) 19x DP MG and M1891 rifle team 1x Komissar team 1x Maksim HMG team 2x PTRD AT rifle team |
16 points 1 point 2 points
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Rifle Company (MS111) 19x DP MG and M1891 rifle team 1x Komissar team 1x Maksim HMG team 2x PTRD AT rifle team |
16 points 1 point 2 points
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Support Companies |
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T-34 Tank Company (MS137) (page 19 Red Banner) 7x T-34 (76mm) |
40 points
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Total
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98 points
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With these two forces Hold the Line with the Soviets attacking would make the most interesting game.
Another factor to throw into the mix is snow and its effect on movement. The Second Battle of Kharkov took place in the middle of winter; the ground was covered with snow. The snow affects movement, especially for those on foot. It’s not so bad for the vehicles, though it can make hard surfaces quite treacherous. The simplest solution in games terms is to make Easy Going into Difficult Going, this makes doubling impossible for infantry. Tanks and other vehicles are affected as well representing the difficulty of control in the icy conditions and obstacles hidden in the snow. The terrain is the usually Ukrainian plane, broken up by the odd village, river and wood, nothing too cluttered.
Defending the Donetz River
This makes for an interesting game, the SS Leibstandarte had taken up defensive positions along the northern bank of the Donetz and the Soviets have to breach the line to push onto Kharkov. Best played as a Hold the Line as I doubt the SS Leibstandarte would have had the time to set up something as elaborate as that required for the Big Push.
An important element in this as a game will be the terrain, the Soviets made several attempts to storm the SS Leibstandarte positions during the battle but failed to make headway suffering heavy loses.
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The Donetz was a wide sandy river often bordered by marshes, but mostly un-fordable on foot. The standard Soviet practice for crossing rivers was to find a river bend not easily defendable by the Germans, a mini salient with the river on 3 sides and only a thin strip of land connecting it to the rest of the river bank. The Soviets would pick off any German troops stationed on the bend with Machine-gun and artillery fire. They would then ferry across as many troops as they could fit onto their little salient before launching an assault from it on the main defending positions. In some cases men spent days waist high in swamp water waiting for the word to attack.
The best way of representing this would be to set the table up with the river winding its way across the width of the table, the bend winding its way into the Soviet (attacking) deployment zone. Make the river salient big enough to get a reasonable number of Soviet troops (see map). I would also allow the Soviets to deploy on their side of the river bank inside no mans land. The Soviet force will probably benefit from a Platoon of Scouts. The Scouts and a Strelkovaya Company (or for this game maybe I’d suggest the SMG company) could penetrate further inland from the salient using Infiltration (use the Spearhead special rule with the Scout Platoon.
Terrain
I’d throw some more snow at this one, plus I’d make the river edges swampy (very difficult going) so the Soviets don’t get too confident. Also see the map for suggested river set-up.
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Forces
Defending will be the LSSAH Leibstandarte. Using the Iron Cross SS-Grenadier Company command card.
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Defending Force LSSAH Leibstandarte Panzergrenadier Company
SS Grenadier Company Page 27 Ghost Panzers |
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Armoured Panzergrenadier Company HQ (MG241) 2x MP40 SMG team SS-Panzergrenadier Company command card |
2 points 5 points
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Armoured Panzergrenadier Platoon (MG242) 7x MG34 rifle team Panzerknacker command card |
10 points 2 points
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Armoured Panzergrenadier Platoon (MG242) 7x MG34 rifle team Panzerknacker command card |
10 points 2 points
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Armoured sMG34 Machine-gun Platoon (MG243) 4x sMG34 HMG |
6 points
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8cm Mortar Section (MG212) 2x 8cm mortar |
3 points
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Support Platoons |
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Panzer III (Uparmoured) Tank Platoon (MG206) 4x Panzer III (uparmoured) |
32 points
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Total |
72 points
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Attacking Force Elements of the 3rd Soviet Tank Army
Rifle Battalion Page 33 Enemy at the Gates |
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Rifle Battalion HQ (MS110) 2x M1891 rifle team |
1 point
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Rifle Company (MS111) 19x DP MG and M1891 rifle team 1x Komissar team 1x Maksim HMG team 2x PTRD AT rifle team |
16 points 1 point 2 points
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Rifle Company (MS111) 19x DP MG and M1891 rifle team 1x Komissar team 1x Maksim HMG team 2x PTRD AT rifle team |
16 points 1 point 2 points
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SMG Company (MS113) 15x PPSh SMG team 1x Komissar team |
15 points
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Scout Platoon (MS124) 5x PPSH SMG team |
7 points
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Maksim Machine-gun Company (MS114) 6x Maksim HMG team |
4 points
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Support Platoons |
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Heavy Tank-killer Company (MS133) 2x 76mm gun |
8 points
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122mm Artillery Battery (MS131) 4x 76mm gun |
8 points
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Total
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81 points
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The Soviets should use their guns and machine-guns to soften up the Germans before punching through their positions with the infantry.
The Germans should dig in and hold fast, letting their superior weight of fire do the work. The Panzer IIIs can mop up the leftovers.
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The Fighting in Kharkov
Well the obvious game to play is something involving street fighting. This gives you a chance to run your infantry around with out any of them troublesome tanks getting in the way. Grossdeutschland’s fighting in the northwest against the out flanking Soviet 40th Army is just the thing. You don’t need a lot of industrial buildings, but that would be cool, you can slog it out in the suburbs using your every day wargaming building, just a lot more of them on the table.
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Terrain
Because of the snow and ice the roads and other spaces between the buildings should be be limited to a maximum speed of Terrain Dash while the buildings and rubble can use the rules on Page 43 of the Flames of War rulebook, or the city fighting rules in Iron Cross and Enemey at the Gates.
Mission
No Retreat would be the best mission to fight out the encounters between the Grossdeutschland and the 40th Army. GD should be defending, but you may like to try some counter-attacking games with the Soviets hastily defending.
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No special rules others than the snow are needed; the buildings and snow should make things interesting enough.
Table set-up
Make sure the table is covered with buildings with a few roads and lanes running through and the odd open space to represent gardens and parks.
Then just go at it as per the No Retreat Mission on Page 110 of the Flames Of War rulebook.
Forces
I’ve left these forces up to you, but infantry heavy would be the best bet for both sides. Some limited armour might make the game interesting, but remember Cross tests through the rubble will hinder vehicles.
Well I hope I’ve given you some useful gaming ideas, give them a go and feel free to let me know what you think.
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Last Updated On Friday, December 24, 2021 by Wayne at Battlefront
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