AAR for Rumanian Round-up

[jtcm]

Rumanian round-up, played vs. Chris Hall, winter 2006-7.

(edited, upon suggestion of J. Kettler, to avoid spoilers)

Do not read if you want to play this JasonC-authored scenario for the first time !

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The situation: retreat towards Stalingrad, N. arm of the pincer; Rumanian rear-guard, Co. strength, well-armed. 2 plts (4 squads + 1 tank hunter unit each). One good heavy weapons group: 1 "French 75mm", 1 47mm ATG (no shield), 2 ATRs, 2 HMGs, 2 60mm mortars; 2 trucks. One Co. command group.

The present situation: troops resting in balka from pursuers, who lurk just beyond the 250m visibility range. They will have armour. Snow driving in wind. Steppe stretches in all directions, with small hummocks and patches of rough. 700-800m to the W, a railway embankment and a station: shacks, bushes, trees. Beyond, the exit zone of the map (let's say zone covered by another rear-guard unit).

The aim: delay the Russians, get my troops out of harm's way. One way of doing this: sacrifice one plt, one ATG, one HMG; march the others off the map. I don't like this; cannot bring myself to order one unit to the slaughter. All will be saved, or lost-- together.

The heavy weapons, some on foot, some on truck, make for the railway station, to emplace there. The infy plts are spread out as a screen, and once the weapons are well on their way, start falling back, with covered arcs at maximum visibiity range. The idea is to shoot at and pin any infantry pursuers, while falling back in bounds, in groups of 2 squads, until reaching cover just in front of the positions held by the heavy weapons. Fire at infantry, with all assets; lure Soviet armour into range of the ATGs, take out the armour, withdraw the infantry to cover just outside the exit zone, withdraw the heavy weapons under cover of smoke and fire. Tall order. All it would take for this to change into slaughter is a single tank pressing agressively. My gamble: the Soviets will move on to the balka cautiously. Once they discover the bird has flown the nest, they will press on aggressively to catch up.

The plt on the left makes its way without problem to the railway station. I leave one squad and the tank hunter after all, at a hummock in the steppe, in the hope of catching any tanks that come close to the infy firing line. The plt itself occupies cover, in front of half the heavy weapons: 1 ATR, 1 HMG, 2 mortars, and the Company command group. Nothing much happens on this sector, so 2 suqads are ordered to slip away.

On the right half, the ATGs set up in woods. One truck bogged down. In front of them, 1 HMG in a shack, 1 ATR in brush. On this side, action heats up. As the infantry falls back, it starts sighting enemy infantry, which it drives off with LMG and rifle fire. It occupies positions in weak cover in front of the heavy weapons. It is worth noticing that there are 5 layers of cover. 1. Closest to Soviets, clumps of brush, rough and trees, occupied by the infantry. 2. On the "far side" of the railway embankment, houses, including one occupied by a HMG. 3. On the "near side" of the railway embankment, trees, brush, occupied by the ATGs. 4. Behind this, a line of shacks and clumps of trees. 5. A line of cover just before the exit zone.

Soon Soviet tanks appear in line: they move forward with infantry, and soon begin toroot out and destroy the Rumanian platoon. Its squads die, some immediately, some later, overrun and shot up by infantry. A tank also shells the house occupied by the HMG, and collapses it on top of the machine gun, killing 2 of the crew. But the tank moves into range of the 75, and is destroyed: a T-34, the most potent tank of the pursuit group (the Soviet company commander was riding it into the assault).

Soviet infantry moves up, a whole co. ? It charges into mortar fire, directed by the company command group which has relocated to obtain LOS (from cover layer 4). 70 rounds sent downrange, first at the foremost Soviet squad, which is trying to flank the Rumanian line, then at the main Soviet units; the mortar units bug out. The 75mm fires all of its HE at advancing Soviet infantry, which doggedly keeps closing; Soviet armour weaves in and out of range, to get potshots and to try to distract the 75, which once puts a round through a Soviet turret, without destroying the tank, perhaps panicking the crew or damaging the gun. The Soviet infantry gets pressing closer, but takes losses from infantry small arms fire, notably from the company command group, and a LMG-armed half-squad shifted from the remainder of the left flank. Is that a Soviet company commander which just went down ? The 47mm isn't sure whether to fire AP at the Soviet tank it is trading fire with, to no effect, or HE at Soviet infantry. The Rumanian ATR occasionally gets a round off. Generally, if the Soviet infantry set up firebases and fired away at the ATGs, it would obtain pins; but it keeps on charging into HE.

On the left, Soviet infantry appears-- a platoon, spread out in half squads ? It overruns the anti-tank outpost. A tank gets close, unrattled by a stream of ATR bullets pinging off its turret. The tank fire, 45mm, routs the Rumanian HMG, after the latter wipes out a Soviet half-squad. The Soviet infantry tries to rush the left flank, but takes losses when it stumbles into the fire of the last Rumanian units on this side: a plt commander and a half-squad— 2 SMGs, 7 rifles. These elements soon run off to cover layer 4, dodging Soviet 50mm mortar fire. The ATR on this side keeps firing, even though he is doomed.

Meanwhile, on the right, the ATR is long dead; Soviet fire— mortar, tank, infantry small arms— destroys the Rumanian ATGs: the first 47mm, then the 75mm, which has been firing at infantry at ever decreasing range. By this time, the Co. command element has withdrawn. first to rear cover (layer 5), then off the map. Soviet elements have destroyed the HMG, capturing one crew member; turned the flank; one squad is now running down the rear of the position once occupied by the Co, command. The remaining elements from the left flank platoon take the Soviet squad under fire. Some of these elements also run off the map, with some difficulty.

All that remains on the map are one routed Rumanian squad, a routed Rumanian HMG, and a Rumanian ATR, still stubbornly pinging away at a Soviet light tank, oblivious to the rest. Soon the shack collapses on the team, and wipes it out.

Result: a draw

*****

"Captain Tunaru's back, Sir".

"Tunaru ? Still alive ? What did he manage to save this time, apart from his skin ?"

"One platoon (reduced strength) and a few squads, two mortars (no ammo), one HMG team, one truck, one team of truck drivers".

"No guns ?"

"Both lost, Sir, with their crews".

"Did he give the Bolsheviks hell ?"

"He thinks so. They kept pressing at the point where he had his heavy weapons, instead of going round"

"Good"

[ February 14, 2007, 03:41 AM: Message edited by: jtcm ]

[John Kettler]

jtcm,

Very nice, concise AAR! Clearly describes the relevant terrain and the actions of the units involved. Would suggest you insert prominent spoiler alert warnings at top so that people desiring to maintain FOW for this scenario may do so.

Regards,

John Kettler

[JasonC]

His spoilers were adequate for me. OK, not the relevant person (lol).

Sounds like a tough fight. Perhaps the Rumanians deserved a better outcome for that performance than the final indicates - but with all "exit" scenarios, how much of the force makes it always winds up being the determining factor. Ideally, there would be a way to set the weight of the withdrawals vs. the losses on the map, and "dial them down" a little.

[jtcm]

I think draw was about right. Having taken a peek at the other side, I was struck how thin Sov. Cav forces are, with their 2 squad plts; also the plethora of support stuff, not that handy in this sort of assault. Once you set up your LMGs, mortars, etc, and discover that you have to re-emplace, you're reduced to pursuing with pretty thin infantry forces (which rapidly wear out in the snow), while the heavy weaponry has to trail behind.

Ordering everyone out of the balka and towards the station was a bit sneaky of me-- I hoped my opponent would carefully approach and surround the balka while my guys legged it.

I;ve tried AI version (with flags in the station to make AI do something). When playing the Rumanians, it's noticeable that any 'stay-behind' breakwaters rapidly get overwhelmed, even by the AI (but they do give time for everyone else to scram). When playing the Soviets, I noticed how pesky any defence using guns inthe balka, as a reverse slope is-- a solution I briefly considered, before wondering how I'd get anyone out of that deathtrap.

*****

On this game, the losses were (IIRC) 78 men down Runanians, 47 Soviets (11 KIA to 14 KIA or something like that). 1 T-34 out, 1 T-70 damaged.

[JasonC]

The key to this one as the Russians is very aggressive handling of those little T-70s. They arrive a lot earlier than the T-34. They may seem underpowered, with wimpy HE and not much MG ammo for their lone dinky coaxial. But in terrain this open against infantry trying to move, that MG is quite sufficient.

The Russian long suit isn't numbers, it is armor vs. none in the open. But limited LOS and the Rumanian victory conditions (exit own side) makes it a real fight.

The fight tends to happen at the edge of LOS through the snow, and if it remains that way the Rumanians will mostly get away. But there is no continuous cover backing up. So if you can push any live shooter about 100m into LOS, it will cut the retreat of everything it sees closer than 200m or so. Retreat cut means soon engulfed. While a cavalry squad on "advance" reaching a little rocky "kurgan" can sometimes do this, the best at it are the tanks.

Next, the 50mm mortars have to help the tanks. The key with those is to notice they will be able to stay behind the snowy LOS, with their spotting HQ just inside. So they don't need cover - they just use range. Their mission is to kill any gun the tanks encounter, if the tanks don't win the immediate duel against said gun.

The T-34 should be kept behind the T-70s, clobbering stuff already well in LOS. The infantry should shift to trailing them, too, a few minutes after they arrive. There is something of a head game about where guns will be - if they are still moving when the T-70s charge, the Russians can sometimes just romp. Similarly, if they emplace too far back, all the ground out of their LOS is free for T-70s to roam, cutting retreat of infantry.

A typical Rumanian solution to that is the 47mm in the balka or on one of the kurgans, while the 75mm runs to emplace by the train station. Once the latter is set up, the 47mm can try to bug out, or not. Not is safer - you save the truck and can exit it, typically.

Well, then the 47mm may or may not bag one T-70, but it isn't likely to hold out long against all the Russian tanks and their mortar assists.

Thing is, all the perfect combined arms stuff takes time. If the Russians are too careful the Rumanians will mostly get away. Again, the moral is be risky with the T-70s, it is what they are for. (And give the scenario its title - they are the herders...)