Flames of War Firestorm BAGRATION Battle report

At the club we have been playing Firestorm BAGRATION. This is the Soviet offensive on the Eastern front fought between  22 June and 19 August 1944.

This campaign can be played with 6 turns or 4. The club decided to play the 4 turn campaign. The following map is the start state of the operation. 

The first turn of the campaign saw 2 wins for the Germans and 4 for the Soviets. This was the map after the first turn.

As can be seen the Soviets have made some gains. The stage for turn 2 was set. The generals rolled off and this gave the first 2 attacks to the Germans and the next 5 to the Soviets. It was decided to only play the first 5 games as some players had gone to Fall In. So this gave only three attacks for the Soviets.

This was the plan

Remember that battles 6 and 7 did not happen.

So the out comes of the battles were the following.

Battle 1 saw Bernard (Germany) attack Duncan (Soviet). This was a hard fight and both sides fought to a draw. The German's had a Tiger firestorm and the Soviets had a T-34/85 Firestorm. Here are some pictures of the battle.

The next photo is the terrain.

The soviets have a defensive position bottom left in the village.

Germans advance slowly from top of map.

Soviet have a blocking position.

End of battle with a draw.

Battle 2 was the second game for Serge and the first for John. This was a German attack in a swamp. The German's had and aircraft as Firestorm troop and the Soviets had and Arty. John had designed a Fortified platoon but was not allowed to use as this was not in a City, so I lent him my IS-02 Company. My intent was to wait for the IS-02 to show up and use my Panzers  IVs to flank the IS-02s and Kill them with either my Panthers or the Panzer IVs. 

The photo above is the only photo I have of the battle. I managed to flank the IS-02s as can be seen bottom left, but the KVs took out my Panther and the Panzer IVs managed to hit the IS-02, but they managed to make most of their saves. So in the end this was a Stunning Soviet Victory.

Battle 3 was Kevin (Soviet) attacking Jeff (German). For some reason Kevin did not bring his two Firestorm troops. Jeff had a Panzer IV Firestorm. Kevin decided to bring a mostly T34 list. So this was a lot of tanks. Jeff managed to kill many tanks, but in the end I ended up being a Stunning Soviet Victory.

Here are some photos

Battle 4 was Serge (Soviet) attacking Nick (German). I had two T3/85 Firestorm troops and Nick had an Arty Firestorm troop. I decided to bring my IS-02 list unfortunately Nick did not have a lot that could kill this list. Nick brought in Marders from reserve and managed to shoot the IS-02 in the side armour with no effect, just to have his Marders destroyed the next turn. He sprung his ambush, but also had marginal success not managing to kill a T34/85 troop. The objective was taken on turn 7 and was a Stunning Soviet victory.

Here are some pictures. This is the German defensive position. The objectives are top left.

The soviets make slow progress. Bottom left. Six IS-02s and Three KV 1Es moving from right to left.

As can be seen from the next picture, the IS-02 and KVs are close to the first objective and the T34/85 to left are close to another objective.

The next picture show that the MG platoon on the centre objective have been destroyed and the T34/85s have taken the second objective.

The Germans made a valiant effort to push the T34s from the objective but with no success.

The last battle was battle 5 and had Jay (Soviet) attacking Chris (German). This was a very long battle and the game was called after four hours with a Soviet tactical victory.

Here are some pictures.

So not a very good night for the German side. The Germans fail to win both their fights and the Soviets won all three.

So this is what the map looks after turn 2 attacks. It looks grim for the Germans as the Soviets have surrounded three cities and three zones. The good news is that there will be seven battles next turn and four have gone to the Germans. So hopefully they will be able to resupply their troops before losing these important cities.

After turn 2 the victory points are 140 in favour of the Germans.

My next post will show the turn three battles.

Hope you are enjoying the campaign.

Serge