New Scenario out - Wittmann's Cross of Iron

[Mark Gallear]

Title: Wittmann's Cross of Iron

Type: Encounter/Semi-Historical

Date: July, 1941

Turns: 26

Designer: Mark Gallear

Play Testers: Brian Martuzas and Carl Nogueira - both ex-Squad

Leader designers. (Chris Martino also did some early testing).

Michael Wittmann was the most successful and famous tank

commander of World War II.

In February of 1940, Wittmann was transferred to the newly formed

SS-Sturm-Batterie (assault gun battery - Sturmartillerie),

equipped with Sturmgeschutz Ausf assault guns, of LSSAH, part of

the Leibstandarte Division. In late 1940, Michael Wittmann

started his true panzer combat career in the Balkans (Yugoslavia

and Greece). While in Greece, Wittmann took command of a platoon

of Sturmgeschutz III Ausf As and fought there until mid 1941.

On June 11th of 1941, Wittmann with the LSSAH was transferred to

the east, in preparations for the upcoming operation

"Barbarossa", which started on June 22nd but Leibstandarte was

not committed until July.

Wittmann's battery faced an attack by 18 Russian tanks on his

first day in action on the Russian front. He knocked out six of

the eight enemy tanks that faced him in succession and the rest

fled the field in disarray. On 12 July 1941, Wittmann was

decorated with the Iron Cross, Second Class for his exploits.

Designers Notes:

I had considerable difficulty getting the balance right –

Wittmann's feat in CMBB terms is hardly impressive. The game is

only semi-historical is I had no information on the terrain or

the type of Russian tanks faced in this engagement.

You can get at my Mod Corner site - will be at Scenario depot soon.

Please note I have a new page on my site wih thoughts on CMBB tactics by a Rugged Defence ladder champ at On Tactics. .

[ June 12, 2003, 04:01 AM: Message edited by: Mark Gallear ]

[manchildstein (ii)]

the account i saw of this had the tanks as t-34s.. i would think that would be highly impressive in cmbb terms... if on the other hand you went with bt tanks in the scenario it wouldn't be as impressive.

some people seem to think wittmann was commanding a long-barrelled stug in july of 1941. i don't tend to buy this as the game itself doesn't make long-barrelled stugs available at that time. i find it difficult to believe that as well-equipped as it may have been, lssah was outfitted with long-barrelled stugs whilst the rest of the wermacht was still fielding - at best - the b model...

i read somewhere that wittmann was still fielding an 'a' model for that engagement.

my best speculation on this particular action is that wittmann was in a short-barrelled stug and that the soviet tanks were bt-types and not t-34s... if you put a single stug b up against 18 t-34s in cmbb i would think the going would be very tough for the stug...even against the ai...

so perhaps wittmann was really in a long-barrelled stug (although i can't really fathom that) and those were t-34s... if so that would make things interesting in cmbb terms...

this all has me curious... will check out and review your scenario.

[demoss]

my best speculation on this particular action is that wittmann was in a short-barrelled stug and that the soviet tanks were bt-types and not t-34s... if you put a single stug b up against 18 t-34s in cmbb i would think the going would be very tough for the stug...even against the ai...

Note that it said Wittmann's battery was faced with 18 T-34s. Anyone know if a StuG battery is the same as a platoon or a company (I'm sure it's one or the other)?

Now, if we're talking equal numbers, I'd take StuG Bs vs T-34 M40s to be relatively even in CMBB (try it sometime for kicks). I'm sure Wittmann was outnumbered, but not 1 on 18. It's impressive but not incredible.

[manchildstein (ii)]

yes a stug battery is like a platoon. i suppose 3 of them wouldn't be so bad, assuming every afv couldn't see every other afv, all at the same time...

anyway apparently stug A types are out of date by then. the game offers stug B and E types... from the purchase screen they're the same with 50/30 armor and the 75mm L/24.

so my guess is that wittmann was in a B, as he is in this scenario

SPOILERS

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i played as axis against the ai. things were going great at first, but before the second battery of stugs arrived, i took wittmann and his 2 pals forward up to the left of the center hill. i figured the hill itself would screen every threat to the right side of there on the map. in addition to the 3 stugs i moved up 2 recon platoons into a large patch of scattered trees, also just left of the hill.

the stugs got into place and started engaging some BTs on the left, but then the ai got aggressive and BTs came pouring over the hill just out of the town... i lost 2 stugs and the 3rd was gun damaged... all from side hits...

the reinforcement battery pushed the right/center then wheeled around and cleaned things up a bit.

in the end i lost 2 stugs, had 2 gun damaged, and 2 survived intact. all of the soviet afvs were cooked.

1 of my recon platoons went up the right side and with little difficulty grabbed the large flag

the two platoons in the middle were able to contest the small flag in the town.

the small flag on the left remained in soviet hands...

all in all this scenario was a lot of fun. i still can't really fathom 3 stugs on 18 t-34s... unless the action was totally piecemeal on the part of the soviets...

i too would have gone for BT (and T-26) tanks as this scenario did... my reasoning on this is that an abandoned t-34 and BT tank have the same 'mickey mouse' opened hatch look if i'm not mistaken... and even at 18-6 instead of 18-1 i find BTs a lot more believeable than t-34s....

the main anomaly was the large flag being on the right (instead of in the center)...

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end spoilers

[Mark Gallear]

Glad you are all enjoying it!

As with every thing about Wittmann the accounts differ a lot and some disagree that he got his first Iron Cross for this action.

I suspect Wittmann battery were still in Stug As -unless they were field upgraded to B standard before Barborassa.

I found no information on what the Russian tanks were - it is July 1941 and T-34s were rare and only a few were noted in action this month. I went for the BT-7s merely because they were the best feasible Russian tanks I could realistically give them! They cannot penetrate the front of the Stug. My thoughts are that 18 T-34s would have made a mess of 6 Stugs or at least caused some damage.

Wittmann latter operated alone in the Stug in support of German infantry - which became fairly standard practise. One author on Wittmann points out that most of his kills were against tankettes - the crappy things with only a MG (in the vehicle listings), which would not have been considered a tank on the Western Front. I have noticed that some authors added in the Bren Carriers into the tank casualties at Villers Bocage – I caught one doubling the figure – I didn’t buy that book!

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by manchildstein II:

i find it difficult to believe that as well-equipped as it may have been, lssah was outfitted with long-barrelled stugs whilst the rest of the wermacht was still fielding - at best - the b model...

Units like Grossdeutschland and the LAH were usually the ones who did the field trials for new equipment - ie they got them issued before anyone else in the Wehrmacht or SS did, and were expected to trial them, and report on them, before a decision was made on releasing them for general service. I don't know the specfics of this case, but your disbelief isn't necessarily warranted. GD and LAH very commonly fielded equipment before anyone else got to use it. Look at what happened with the new Panthers at Kursk, for example.

[manchildstein (ii)]

july seems early for a long-barrelled stug, regardless of formation. it would be interesting to know for sure.

if wittmann and the rest of his detachment were fielding long-barrelled stugs, waxing a bunch of t-34s wouldn't have been a problem.

i made a test scenario which had 3 elite stug Bs against 18 conscript t-34 M40s. perhaps my skill is lacking but it was ugly. now if the map were mostly trees or if the original battle had been in sunflower fields, i could see the germans having a much better chance.

if wittmann had really been in a short stug and his battery had faced 18 t-34s in fairly open terrain, then his gunner must have been an excellent shot; getting first-shot, turret ring type hits. at roughly 1000 meters i found this to be fairly impossible in the test i ran.

it seems there are at least a few variables here: 1) what kind of LOS conditions were there at that battle, 2) how many stugs were present, and 3) were the stugs long or short-barrelled. finally, were those t-34s they faced?

until we can at least nail down these, i suppose everything else is speculation.

another thing to consider is that, in that now non-existant oob site (www.freeport-tech.com/wwii), they listed the lah as having a detachment of 7 stugs. i suppose this would have been two 3-gun batteries and a command stug.

as for t-34s versus bt tanks at that particular battle, is it true that both tanks opened into a 'mickey mouse' hatch configuration when abandoned? this might have added to the confusion. i could also imagine germans at that time thinking they were always fighting t-34s, just as later in the war the western allies often thought every german afv a 'tiger.'

if both the t-34 and the bt tanks opened into 'mickey mouse' ears i could definitely see a lot of bt tanks being mis-identified.

from what i've seen of the models in the game, the bt looks a lot like a 'mini t-34.'

it's interesting to hear that a lot of wittmann's early kills were t-38s and the like. if for example lah had crossed paths with the 18th mechanized corps they could have faced up to 280 t-38s...

[Måkjager]

1st off....Michael Wittman at the time Operation Barbarossa was in command of a Stug III Ausf A (nicknamed "Buzzard" ) with the short 7.5cm gun.

He was a SS-Unterscharführer ( Sergent ) at this time.

According to the Gary L.Simpson book ( which some view as discredited ) that day Wittman recived an order to guard Point 65.5 on his own. During the course of this he discovered up to 18 T34/76s in his area. In the action that followed 6 "T34/76 tanks" were ko by his Stug III A ..the remainder of the russian afvs retreating.

"In "Panzer Aces" Franz Kurowski describes the same action ( but around Point 56.9 ) which includes the destruction of a KV-1 and 5 other tanks by Wittman and his crew.

he also states that at this time the Stugs had to operate alone over a 10km front to offer support to the infantry.

Wittman received the Iron Cross ( 2nd class ) for decisive action against a New Zealand Div. in Greece at the Kilidi Pass around the 10th April 1941."

According to Patrick Agte's book covering Wittman and the Tiger commanders of the LAH..Wittman did indeed face 18 russian tanks alone on that July day in 1941. He states that Wittman succeeded in ko 6 russian tanks, whic earned him and his driver the Iron cross ( 2nd class)!!!! ( obvious conflict with some sources here)

Stug III .....the Stug III F with the long barreled 7.5cm L/43 began its production run from March 1942 to September 1942 with 359 vehicles being produced + 1 prototype.

Prior to this the Stug III ausf. A to E had been armed with the short 7.5cm L24 gun.

Regards

Måkjager