Background
In the small town of Sandomierz near the Vistula River, 170 kilometres south of Warsaw, the Soviet Army first met the Königstiger in battle. The Soviet 6th Guards Tank Corps anticipated a German counterattack against their newly won bridgehead over the Vistula River.Though the Soviets initially thought they were first facing Panthers, they set up an ambush to deal with the expected German attack. Their concentrated fire destroyed the first two Königstiger tanks they saw on the road from Sandomierz. A third Königstiger tank was left in tact and abandoned in the village and the German counterattack was stopped cold.
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Ill-advised tactics and soft, sandy terrain prevented the Königstiger from achieving success. Additionally, only half of the original twenty Königstiger deployed were able to reach the battlefield due to serious mechanical failures.
The Game
We decided to try one of the old Battlefront scenarios from version three, using the new version four rules and card. Our buddy chose Sandomierz, as it was a Bagration scenario that would give us a chance to try the new Forces late war cards. Unfortunately, it contained units that have not been set yet for late war, so we used the old cards for those units (Pz-VIb and JS-II, etc). We also had a buddy show up that does not play much and he wanted to use his Hungarians (no cards at all! So those came out of the book. Of coarse, with so many players showing up, the scenario was expanded in table size and forces.
After all that, we found out that we did not have enough King Tigers, so the shortfall was replaced with a larger numbers of Tiger Is. With the expansion of the Germans, followed an expansion of the Soviets. They were given double the forces and all mixed tank companies were replaced with T-34/85s. The table was expanded to five food wide by eight foot deep and the German set up area was moved back toward the board edge. So in the end, it was a very different scenario! However, it was all about the fun of pushing a lot of tanks and big cats!
The Axis forces started their attack by moving into long range of the visible Soviet Tanks and started a gun duel. Due to the sand, a number of units bogged and could not move forward quickly. However, over time, the Soviets started to take losses, as the axis tanks moved forward in fits and spurts. Soviet reserves started to appear and slowed down the advance. The German reserves also arrived and began helping with the attack. The Asix forces took some light losses (including and King Tiger), but managed to destroy the vase majority of the T-34s. The JS-IIs took a few losses, but were able to fall back over the river into new defensive positions.
While the Germans did destroy many Soviet tanks, the advance was a little too slow and time ran out on them, as they did not get to any of the objectives by turn six. The game resulted in a historic Soviet victory.
- Manteuffel