Monty's Mighty Moustache

True, without support from more than 90% of the population all this horror would have never happened. One of the key factors was political indoctrination, dissinformation, propaganda and establishment of a police state which lasted only for 12 years (1933-45). The guys born between 1922-1931 were AFAIK the worst of the indoctrinated bunch.
Now ask yourself the question. Since when is the russian population indoctrinated, dissinformed and subject to state propaganda? Since more than 23years now? Even longer because the people never learned to think in democratic terms neither under the Tzar, nor under Stalin or Sowjet era, nor later. The root of the problem will not go away with Ukraine reestablishing its borders to a pre 2014 status. It will be a generational problem lasting for decades, I fear. And I sincerely have no idea how this latent aggressive potential inbread into the psyche of russian population can be contained after war in Ukraine will be over.

What do you suggest Germany should have done? How would you have gone from 55% Russian gas to 0%? Germany was frantically trying to get replacements from other sources but such things take time. We didn't even have LNG terminals back then. Of course we tried to load our gas storages as much as possible before the winter. And we supplied France with power when they had trouble with their nuclear power plants. Generated from Russian gas. Btw. Germany instantly agreed to quit NS2 when the war started.

That Pistorius fellow hasn't got a leg to stand on. Or maybe it was a different one?
(Sorry, I could not let this one go. Getting back to work now)
 

At the end of my last video I promised to upload the bits of the conversation that @domfluff and I had and that didn't make it into the video, as a podcast. That's up now. Also included is an extra bit that we recorded later, where we answer some of the questions that were frequently asked in the comment section.
So, if you've got a long commute ahead of you, or it's your turn to do the dishes, or there is some other reason why you can't play CM.... here you go 😉.
 
 

Hey Khalerick, welcome to the thread, and it's always good to have a team B / devil's advocate view here.... I and others have played that role on occasion over the last 2000 pages.
But you have now left us about a dozen wordy posts over the last 2 pages in which you have laid out some *extremely* confident statements as to facts, only some of which may in fact be true.   A bit of a Gish Gallop debating strategy.
....And now you seem to be saying 'take it or leave it' on your thesis.  
I'm not tone policing -- we have some *very* cranky regular posters here, some of them in the emerging Western democracy that is fighting for its life. But nobody is going to make it their business to parse and debate each one of your assertions. Especially if your response to being challenged is simply to double down and say 'I thought I made myself clear.'
And then seem to suggest that the people posting on this thread are more preoccupied with confirmation bias via Tweet or giggling over war porn than understanding the ramifications of the struggle.
Because if that's really your impression of this community, you might want to take your opinions elsewhere.

Diplomacy is for civilised countries following international laws and conventions, not terrorist states. Putin himself has also said that he does not feel obliged to anything discussed with the west and will do what he wants. Thats not someone you have a discussion with.
This "gun" to his head is his own, forged in 20 years of dictatorship and revisionism. Nobody in the west cared about Russia, the cold war was belived to be over. Well, it turns out Putins grande opus is not about improving his country but turning its sons into fertiliser so can look at his imperialist ambitions on a map and go thats mine now!
What do you think will happen if he says, we won! The jewish nazi is no more, lets go home. Do you think the cattle that was actionless while  being herded into the slaughter would rise up? Because he didnt kill every last one Ukrainian? They will care more about having McDonalds return to their ****ty village. He can return to being King of the **** hill.
Who doesnt have an out is Ukraine and its not because the evil west is puppeteering it, its because Russians tend to leave mass graves and unburied bodies litering the streets.
The West has collectively I think 60 times the economic power of Russia, Ukraine will fight to the last and what do the Russians have? Another unwinable Afghanistan at best, one that even by conservative estimates they already trippled in death count. Do you think Russia could ever rule this land? 

Yes, this is correct - or at least by the definitions in FM-100-2-1.

Obviously from the Soviet perspective it doesn't actually matter all that much - the column is coming into contact in echelons, and whether the enemy is in a hasty defence or on the move is mostly just texture.

The important point - or at least the point I was trying to make - is that "meeting engagements" in CM terms tend to match that of traditional tabletop wargaming (say, DBA or the WRG moderns rules), and the desire that players seem to have to have equal forces battling over even terrain, which isn't common historically at all. I get the incentive to do that, but I don't think it tends to show off CM (or any serious simulationist game) at its best.

And we are back to this.  The theory is that somehow if we had showered Ukraine in [Insert favored IFV, tank or whatever] that this war would be over by now.  This is gross oversimplification bordering on disinformation with an undertone of western biases that are frankly bordering on imperial prejudices.
1.  Ukraine has a large arms industry of its own: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_industry_of_Ukraine.  It is no doubt under stress but we have no reports it is falling apart.  It needs all the help it can get, so lets start there.
2.  Ukraine had pretty healthy mechanized force before this war started armed, not surprisingly with its own equipment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Ground_Forces.  They have sustained losses, but do we have any reports of the UA being critically short of anything?  Any major losses due to those shortfalls?  Ok, so lets not freak out with the "Ukraine is collapsing because they do not have Marders" thing.
3.  Ukraine has captured an obscene amount of Russian equipment - https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html.  If half of those Russian vehicles have been made fit for battle Ukraine likely has more of some natures that it did at the start of the war.  Any support we can to make that happen smoother, better and faster is a very good idea.
4.  Heavy's overall value proposition is in doubt in this entire thing.  The Russians had mountains of it and it made no difference.  The UA is much smarter so I suspect they have already figured out the right conditions for heavy to work and are working to set it up.  We should be aiming at supporting the UA in creating those conditions as a priority, exploitation of that is something I am pretty sure they can cover.
5.  Every sexy peice of western equipment comes with a heavy logistics bill (we have discussed this), and in large numbers that bill could make the UAs life harder, not easier to sustain this potpourri of western hardware.
This whole line of thought, though well intentioned, also smacks of western superiority complex - "well if we had simply given those poor dirty Ukrainian rabble our superior western equipment they would have put Ivan on the run by now...oh dear, shame on us." 
Ukraine has thousands of APCs/IFVs - 40 Marders is not going to magically turn the tide anymore than 100 Leo 2s, or 50 Bradleys or freakin M1s.
Should we give Ukraine support? Absolutely. Should that include complete capability force packages that they can build units around? - again, yes. Should we give them versions of what they already have and can sustain? - definitely.  Should we prioritize things that do make an actual difference?  Like ISR, long range fires, AD and how about simple money so that soldiers get paid and their families can buy groceries?  How about shoring up the existing Ukrainian arms industry and military architecture so they can stop being so dependent on western support? Should we train and support their force generation - oh, most definitely.  
If someone said we had to decide between training 75k Ukraine troops or another 100 Marders, I already know what the right answer is.  You cannot flood a military built on an entirely different fleet system, in the middle of a a war, and magically make it all go away.  You can wring hands and cry "oh dear, think about all the good Ukrainain boys who may have survived if they were in Bradleys", well that assumes a Bradley is shell, mine and ATGM proof as well as invisible to begin with.  It also fails to fundamentally understand how militaries are built, sustained and employed.
Ukraine needs broad holistic and comprehensive support on many levels.  Niche, hi profile sexy equipment donations are nice but we cannot lose sight of the fundamentals - the stuff that really makes a difference.  And when this war is over, that is when the real support will be needed.  We had better see as much hand wringing and noise on donating farm equipment, reconstruction infrastructure and economic stimulus as we have seen on Marders/Bradleys or there was no point to this whole thing.

I played the Stem The Tide Scenario against Gavin.  We played double-blind and both did Video AARs

I do love getting to watch a game recap from the opposite point of view.

You can see it all here.

Gavins AAR

Chaps AAR

Yes, but what is the point of this particular campaign? What will be the effect if civilians are cut off from electricity? Hospitals have constant power supply, critical infrastructure enterprises are also supplied uninterruptedly. From this we can conclude that military production also has a constant power supply (After all, they are vital in this situation).
What is the strategic meaning of TEMPORARY disconnection of SOME (far from all cities there are problems with light) residents of Ukraine from electricity? Do they think that we will go to Zelensky and demand to put up with Putin? For what? So that in a couple of months the Russians will once again accumulate strength and temporarily deprive us of electricity? Maybe they think that it matters to us whether they will rob us, kill and rape us with light or in complete darkness? You seem to know more than the rest about the Russian military strategy, enlighten me, what does this make sense?

I generally feel like your typical cold war QBs should be Attack/Defend.
Even what would be referred to as a Soviet "meeting engagement" isn't the same thing as a "meeting engagement" in CM/wargaming terms, which typically means "an even fight" or something similar. Instead the term refers to an attack from the march.
With the points from an Attack, a Large qb has enough points for a full BTR MRB, with sufficient artillery support, and a huge qb has enough points for a full BMP MRB with some change.
This force was a little cut down from what would be ideal - an entire BMP company was left behind, and I had lass artillery than I'd like. 
Priorities though:
I start with the combined arms, task group formation.
It's important to have a mixture of infantry, armour and air defence. The pair of Shilkas I had here were very important, because the US had some significant air assets which weren't discussed in the video. You always want two.
Dropping a company as "off-map reserve" is fine doctrinally, sinve that force can exploit your success, so that's a reasonable option.
Dropping armour is suspect, you don't get a ton in an MRB, and you need them to do work.
Artillery then is the interesting bit. I've said before that I don't know how to attack with a red battalion with less than three batteries (a battalion, if you like) of artillery (that is 18 tubes of something).
The reason for this is that the battalion should be accepting three tasks, and each task needs to be enabled by artillery support.
Each battery should have a single FO.
The 120mm mortars are organics to the battalion, so should be taken - since the call-in times for those are reasonable, in my fires plan I often leave those as a "reserve", ready to be reactive, rather than proactive.
Next up are your standard regimental artillery, the 122mm self propelled gun battalion, and divisional artillery, the 152mm self propelled gun battalion and the battalion of rocket artillery.
The lower level assets will have less boom, greater rate of fire, and faster call-ins.
122mm should be your default in CMCW (in cmbs this is now the 152mm). A medium mission on max duration lasts something like 12-15 minutes, which is a lot of rounds going downrange, and a lot of denial.
The 152s have significantly more boom, and a mission there can last 30 minutes total, so is ideal for denying key terrain, or digging out handprints.
Rocket artillery is a specialised tool, and it's hard to use well in a cm context. Ideally it's doing counter-battery fire, or it's targeting fixed positions and hoping to actually kill things, where the other two can aim to suppress or deny. The best generic use-case I've found for it is to target an urban area - Soviets tend to find urban combat especially difficult, so a couple of BM-21 barrage can help a lot.
All of the other artillery is more highly specialised (the big mortars are bunker-busters, for example), so should mostly be ignored.
Ideally, I'd take the battalion mortars, and three batteries of artillery, possibly in a mixed load, with their intended tasks defined well in advance.
Artillery have four jobs - suppression, denial, destruction and obscuration, and each of those assets is good at different things.
In the above QB I have battalion mortars and two batteries of 122mm - less than I'd like, but still hitting that minimum of three groups of artillery.
One nice thing about thinking in threes is that you can continuously adjust and move around these fires having two hitting things, whilst a third adjusts in on to the next step.
One thing that you do see in the video is this continual adjustment of fires - the tempo gains that I'd made allowed the fires to be adjusting whilst free whisky was reacting, so they were able to start landing when he was just getting into position.
Likewise, the same advantages in tempo meant that I was frequently ahead of where his artillery was falling - he was forced to react to things that were by now firmly in the past.
 
 
 
 

Great video once again guys, the one time in my current tournament as the Soviets I actually managed to do something like this I actually had reasonable success and felt I could have done better, but still learning. 
Quick question for @domfluff, that looked like a MRB you had to play with is that correct? In CM in QBs I very rarely have enough points to buy a MRB or even a MRC with the appropriate allocation of arty (and optional TRPs) to make the doctrine and fire plans work. How would you approach it with a “more limited” force and what should we be prioritising when purchasing Soviet equipment? 
MMM

Absolutely.  All war is sacrifice.  I use that term deliberately and it does not mean to simply be willing to "give something up".  Sacrifice actually means "to make holy" or "sacred".  This is a point Clausewitz completely missed.  War is extremely personal as we literally sacrifice people for something bigger.  The real question is just how much we believe in that "bigger" thing.  This is more than "cost", it is the fundamental changes that happen at both macro and micro cultural levels as a result of any war.
Ukraine is sacrificing - making holy costs - in defence of their ability to be free to chose their own future.  Russia is sacrificing - making unholy costs - in defence of some false vision/narrative being sold to them by a kleptocrate and his cronies to stay in power. Sacrifice negotiates with Certainty, now whose certainty is more righteous?
No society can withstand endless sacrifice without breaking.  However, when I see Ukrainian boys holding wooden rifles better than a lot of western soldiers, I can only see a society that has a pretty deep cultural zeitgeist right now - killing Russians.  The Ukraine that went into this war, will not be the one that comes out.  Russia and Putin have likely created a regional power pole in all this that will change the face of Eastern Europe, just to add to the bafflingly bad strategic outcomes they constructed in all this.   
However, after all that we are back to "when does it end?"  Well I think that is directly tied to the point when the Sacrifice gets close enough to the Certainty.  Kherson was painful.  There will be other operations that are just as painful.  Hell we may see a Ukrainian defeat before this is all over.  But to my mind, the average Russian's ability to "change the channel" is waning everyday - e.g. a lot of the middle-class Russian's left.  And the Russian Sacrifice-to-Certainty equation is very different then Ukraine's - time is not on Russia's side. 
This war will end when Ukraine and the West have won enough, and Russia has lost enough.  A lot of people post that "this war will end when Putin decides", or "it will end when Ukraine decides" - this is incorrect.  A war is a living breathing entity, it carries its own weight and influence.  History is filled with wars that should have stopped but didn't.  Or ones where the job was not finished but stopped anyway.  Wars have stopped on executive decision.  They have stopped on broader public decision.  They have also stopped because of weather events and eclipses.
In the end this war will end when it makes sense to end it. The "making sense" part is the hardest thing to determine as it is filled with relative rationality, emotion, power, culture, relationships and human failings/strengths.

Are you not playing the designer? I mean to create an AI plan as the designer I have to playout the scenario. This then forms the basis of the AI Plan. Then tweaked to take account of players doing 'leftfield' stuff. The only downside is I have to plot all my moves at the start of the game whilst you as the player get to do em each minute.
But yeah playing against people (which I do both for fun and competitively in tourney's)adds another dimension but I think playing PBEM has developed my CM skill set, deeper appreciation of tactics and that helps inform creating interesting AI plans - caveat - I'm not expecting good players to be beat by the AI plan but hopefully have an engaging time. So in my world view - plenty room for both types of play

LOL no thanks. We don't want to delay this any more.

This “where are the Leo2’s/M1s!!” is like a chronic cognitive yeast infection on this thread.  Does anyone actually still believe that 200 of either of these platforms would sweep the Russians from the field?
If one could get past the integration bill (training, organization and logistics), which is a pretty big hurdle in the middle of a shooting war - “what about the M777 and Pz 2000!?” well integration of a few dozen arty sub-units is one thing, and even with these we know there have been challenges.  Integration of a Bdes worth of armour which has to fight in close cooperation with a Ukrainian military organized very differently than the German or US Army is something else entirely.
But for arguments sake let’s bypass those issues and say in 6-12 months the UA can fully integrate these systems into their current battle order…ok, so what?  Last I checked both the Leo2 and M1 still run on the ground and are vulnerable to mines, which we know the Russians are planting everywhere.  They are big, fat, hot concentrations of steel that even the RA ISR will be able to find quickly.  The RA still has ATGMs last I checked, and a lot of them. And last I heard all western tanks run on gas…a lot of gas, and need ammo and spare parts.  So their logistics system will also be a big target.  In fact a lot of what we have heard and seen on tanks in this war makes little sense in terms of doctrine - “indirect fire role 10kms from the FEBA”, how are western tanks going fundamentally change this?
I get the sense that some still believe that 200 Leo 2’s or [insert my favourite tank from CM] would end this war by next Tues. Well that position is not supported by the evidence we have seen in how this war is being fought.  In fact the cost of a few hundred western tanks could be more than they return on investment at this point.  To wit The_Capt’s prescription for western support:
- give them all the C4ISR 
- give them stuff they can use, right now.
- prioritize supporting the big three - infantry and infantry support, unmanned systems (both offensive and defensive/counters), and precision fires.
- prioritize logistics.
- and once you have got all that, then send in limited complete tactical capability packages that the UA can operationalize.  So we are talking a western tactical system, top to bottom, that the UA can make best use of in how they are waging this war.  One that does not force them to have to shift entirely to a western based doctrinal approach that we have zero evidence would even work.
People want this to be a nice and neat western conventional war, over in a week or two…it is not, that ship has sailed. In fact the few western near-peer conventional wars we have had are terrible parallels to try and draw from for this war.  This is the real deal - brutal, grinding and drawn out.  This does not mean “frozen”, it means attrition is back in play - it is foundational in corrosive warfare. Fast, loose and easy manoeuvre warfare is sitting on the sidelines with a broken nose.  We all need to get used to that idea.
All war is certainty (a vision of how we want the outcome to be…we cannot lose this), communication (it goes slow…then fast), negotiation (what does victory look like?  What does defeat look like?), and sacrifice (what are we willing to pay?).

The aim of the mission was to set the conditions for long term democracy and stability, not colonization.  Aggravating internal divisions violently really was not a viable option. We did this in the initial invasion with the Northern Alliance but when the mission shifted to nation building there was a different playbook.
That, and the reality that Afghans could agree in large groups that we were the problem because we sided with another group in power who clearly did not have the best interest of all Afghans in mind, and instead stole everything they could and bolted as soon as western support was pulled.
In simpler terms, we lost in Afghanistan because we supported the losing side with an unworkable overall strategy. Getting Afghans to kill each other better would have been politically untenable back home and likely would have made things worse on the ground.
As it relates to this war, although very different circumstances the spectre of previous debacles hangs in the mind of the entire western world.  Ukraine needs to be nearly spotless in it prosecution of this war, which is frankly almost impossible in any war, or it risks being painted with the “propping up another corrupt losing side” brush.
Zelensky has played this brilliantly so far by shifting and sustaining a narrative of “front edge of freedom”. Ukraine is demonstrating that it is a modern western nation at heart in how it fights, from the treatment of PoWs to targeting.  “One of us, fighting for democratic survival.” is about as good as it gets for a strategic narrative and one we never saw in Afghanistan.

Volodymyr Yezhov "Fresh", one of creators of S.T.A.L.K.E.R game from UKR GSC Games company (also developed known RTS "Cossacks") was killed near Bakhmut. In that time, when Russia is grindering own crimimals we are losing many good creative people...
 

First off thanks to all those who have supported the Battlepack by purchasing it, and a shout out to those who have provided their support in the creation of this project – and a huge shout out to those who have freely given their feedback and additional support publicly via various means – online streaming vids, DARs, AARs and various forum posts etc, Its truly heartening to read and see these. 

It’s just as well, being Scottish, that we are renowned for being slow to anger and not prone to unprovoked outbursts. On a personal note a mahhoosive amount of work went into the battle pack, at my end. Work of which I am truly proud off. The lion’s share of research, mapmaking and AI plan stuff was devoted to the two campaigns and the Rakow and the Dying Sun scenario. These all involved painstakingly creating huge new maps from primary sources. Research turned up several ‘loose’ ends regarding accepted historical narrative and I’m as chuffed with these as the scenarios!

I digress… In short this sucked up a huge amount of time and I was also involved in several other projects (which I was keen to be involved in including CMFR and CMCW). Creating new content, AI plans etc for the Battlepack was a significant endeavour. So yup I used bits of various previous maps (which were my own creations and made available publicly) which I then significantly tweaked – mainly because I could not positively ID RL locations, or the fact is I thought the map – like Der Ring (which by the way took nearly a year to produce) to have a new life after some major tweaking. I’ve done this on previous game families with other maps. A few astute observers might have spotted them. 

But, and I should stress this, in the case of Der Ring it was heavily reworked and I created brand new AI plans (I had to as I’d chopped and reused bits) etc. So yes whilst some stuff is based on sections of der Ring they are more the offspring – rather than the map wearing a false wig and a pair of dodgy specs…

Re the rather offensive swipes about scamming, well,  re the master maps it’s pretty clear that as stated on the BFC website that they are “New maps based on maps from the Battle Pack missions”. 

Years back I used to be with a punk band – another life another story…. One of the bands (way more successful than we were) we did some gigs with, had their singer on one of their records state this quote, it was along the lines of – “Whatever you do they’ll slate you off and criticise you to the ground…” It’s stood me in good stead through life.
So aye happy to take the constructive knocks, but I’m less inclined to give credence tae whingers.
 

I'm back. Week ago Kyiv and Kyiv oblast were under heavy attack of Shakheds. More than 30 in one launch. Alas at least five could breakthrough and hit several important substations in Kyiv, so our quarter for three days had only five hours with a power supply,mostly at the night. First day we also hadn't a water and heating. Latter was repaired on second day after the strike and this was in time,because we had -5 at that night. 
In other days electricity appeared some more, but anyway mostly at the nights or at the morning for 2-3 hours. So, we had opportunity to cook something and charge our phones. Several times we heated food in large can with dry spiritus and kept it in heating bateries. We were very angry, when have seen other districts around us with a light at the evening, but our several quarters were almost in full darkness.
Special thanks to Kinophile and other for notebook - it has powerful battery, so it's using as powerbank too ) 
Without electricity all cell towers around were either dead or had  so big abonents load, that internet almost didn't work. Sometime I cought Starlink, deployed by Emergency Service, but it was too far and connection was unstable - about 1-2 minutes. Single place,where I can catch cell phone internet was subway and streets, having power supply. But I had too much work out of my workshop, so almost hadn't time to track   news thoroughly.
At last at weekend, maybe in honor of Christmass our quarter got almost 24hours power 
Damn, I have to read a week of forum )

You're full of Christmas cheer aren't you.  Der Ring der 5 Panzer you got for free in the first place as @George MCreleased that as a community scenario .  So let's say 30% is 'old content.'  Looks like you're owed $3.  Let me know where to send the money to or maybe we'll set up a crowdfund.

The One Hundred and Ninth Minute
KG Leino -  Die Mitte
2 Zug continue to move forward. It's gone very quiet.

Did I say Kein Kontact last time? Well we get contact from the farm area in the form of my scouts blowing up. Looks like he hasn't taken his panzers guarding the road off to attack KG Perala in the rear. This is good. Of course he may well do so now. Who knows.

KG Koskela - die Links
The experiment draws some conclusions. I'm moving the mobile Panther and a SPW through the trees, and there's a reaction.

One of his T34s backs off, I imagine it's moving to over off the open ground on the left. This confirms that he most likely has an infantry screen in the woods and I do not have enough guys to clear it out. Likely he has at least a platoon in there. I may have to give up on advancing on BLAU from this approach and try and take GRAU and then push through instead.

Something...interesting...happens over near SCHWARZ. I have a SPW overwatching, they're just chillin'. Kinda bored and trying to stay warm.

Suddenly the gunner, Heinz, notices something out of the corner of his eye. He is a veteran of the Eastern front so not much the Reds do surprise him, but this baffles even this grizzled veteran. "Heiliger Strohsack!" he mutters to himself, followed by "Alarm Rechts!" to his crewmate, who quickly catches on and and starts turning the vehicle toward his quarry.

KG Perala - das Rechts
The attack on GRAU begins, infantry supported by SPWs start to push forward. Several things happen in this turn so I've split them up.

Nummer 1
The attack starts. The men push forward, only to be met by more firepower than we were expecting. Casualties start to tick up.
The SPWs push up to support, they are area firing the buildings.

But I continue to take casualties. Then some big booms.

The culprit is spotted sitting at the crossroads, this is a problem.

Then from the treeline on the left a shell rips through the 251//17 supporting the infantry. There are no survivors.

Nummer 2
My armour is overwatching where the armour contacts appeared in the treeline.

The Tiger spots the 251/17's killer seconds after the shot was fired. It's a T34-85 and interestingly the commander's hatch is open, but no commander. I think this is the remains of the platoon that was on ROT as suspected, the commander was obviously taken out when they were in the trees and I was area firing HE into them.

It only ends one way, one dead T34.

SITMAP

I've updated the blood board.

The contact that walked out of the fog over on the left is strange, I'll be moving two SPWs over to deal with that next turn. It may be a team, it may be a company, I'm going to assume it's at least a platoon for now. I can only assume it was the one that was guarding the road that he's moved back to maybe try and take SCHWARZ?
In the middle now I know that the T34s are not in the way I'm going to push the two Tigers over the bridge with a SPW leading the way to try and hit them in the rear. If I can deal with the remaining T34 then I can attack GRAU from that angle too.
The right is interesting. GRAU is very heavily defended by the looks of it, I haven't spotted any but I assume there is infantry in the buildings. I have to assume where there is 1 tank there are more but if there's a platoon at the farm, 2 on the left and 1 left in the middle then that T34 at the crossroads could be the only one, perhaps even a company or battalion HQ? I have taken a lot of casualties, I can't really afford to take much more so I will pull them back while I try and take care of the T34.
MMM

Ten minutes?! Ten minutes?! I spent an hour working out my opening Soviet moves and you shot em to hell in two minutes… 
I might cry… 😂
Ten minutes…mumble…shakes head…

While there's a rather popular thread here about how evil Putin is wrecking the world, I think we also need to recognize another evil force in our world:  GeorgeMC, maker of devious, nasty, wehrmacht-wrecking CMRT battles.  I'm fighting away on Rakow scenario, big battle.  I am determined to win -- this time it's personal! 😀🤪
"None shall pass" says evil GeorgeMC!

I had slipped 4 or 5 halftracks thru this spot.  It's under enemy gun observation from ~1700m but it's a tiny kill zone window between buildings and trees.  So there's no way he could hit my tank as it sprints through here to get to better position.  Right?  What could go wrong?  Yet......dammit another long range first shot kill by Annie Oakleyovich on that damn gun! 

But at least the guns are finally spotted.  And once spotted can be killed w mortars or artillery, though takes forever.  This guy thinks he's going to be telling his grandchildren about all the german tanks he knocked out.  Just a matter of time, Ivan.  You're not gonna see tomorrow.

And just in case the mortars don't do the trick, I've got an infantry/halftrack attack from ~300m that will coincide w the mortar rounds.

And so we wait in the (thankfully unobserved) parking lot until I can silence all these guns.

And best of all, my units are finally all over the bridge, many of which had to run an artillery gauntlet on the way. 
I've got 1.5 hours left.  My infantry scouts are reporting that at least half way to the second bridge looks to be open once the AT guns are gone.  But what about a counterattack?  I've lost a lot of Pz4s and these troops don't have a lot of panzerfausts so I might end up being overrun  by T34s in the end.  I will set some Pz4 ambush areas up to hopefully hold on to my bridges.  My first priority is getting that second bridge.
 
 

Execution
0841

The Panthers of Task Force Center arrive at the entrance of Verteszoloes. The Hauptsturmführer Schmidt (Bottom-left TC), peers across the snowy slope.
0842

Task Force North takes second place, Weber's HQ riding on-top of the StuG IV. The convoy is here, and the infantry are not far behind.
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The Southern Task Force's infantry are almost in position. Oldendahl rides in his staff car, as the panzergrenadiers hold their grumbling.
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As Weber's infantry catches up, Sturmbannführer Vogt (Bottom-most Kubelwagen) arrives at the scene.
Hauptsturmführer Wöhler (Left-most Kubelwagen) gives him the situation report.
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Obersturmführer Kahl is the last to arrive, he somehow got separated from his Aufklärung Pioneers' Schwimmwagens. 
Wöhler (Kahl's CO) gets chewed out by Vogt, as the offensive is already behind schedule.
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The Aufklärung Pioneers carefully probe the north side of town. Unterscharführer Hiller reports no contacts. It's quiet.

The Kampfgruppe's Forward Observers creep towards the south side of town. Obersturmführer Ross reports no contacts. It's too quiet...