Yuzhnaya Ozereika Skirmish

Today's Saturday Afternoon Wargame was the first Arc of Fire skirmish we've played for quite some time.  Andy and Carl came over and I dusted off an old scenario I'd originally played solo about ten years ago.

Operation sea was a landing by Soviet amphibious forces on the northeastern coast of the Black Sea.  If the Soviet Naval Infantry could meet up with Soviet land forces attacking in a southwesterly direction from the area of Krasnodar they would cut off the whole of Army Group South in the Caucasus.

Our scenario involves a platoon of Soviet naval infantry, supported by a lend-lease M3 Stuart, attempting to capture a Romanian artillery position.

Andy, commanding the Soviets, faced interesting tactical choices.  He could move slowly up the ravine on his left (outline by lichen in the picture below) staying out of sight but risking being ambushed or he could stick to the better going on the right but have to clear at least one small wooded area.

Soviet forces move towards the Romanians' fortified position.

He chose a bit of both with one squad moving up the gully whilst the remainder made a right hook.

First blood - the Soviets' first squad comes under fire from
 the Romanian off-board artillery and loses a man.  

More artillery arrives as the Russians make their way past the first woods.

On the Romanian right the two man observer team was deployed at the end of the gully and, having succeeded in calling down off-table artillery on the Soviets' first squad, then turned their weapons (a pistol and a bolt-action rifle) on the Russians moving up the gully.

By a freak of dice rolling they managed to kill the Russian squad leader.  The naval infantry failed the resulting morale check and pulled back down he gully.

On the Russian right some naval infantry move up to assault the Romanian recce unit in the second woods. Note
that the tank has a white counter indicating that it has been neutralised by fire from the Romanian mountain gun.

Moments later another 100mm round strikes the M3 and knocks it out. 

The final position.

At about five o'clock we ended up with the left flank Soviets stuck in Confused Mode in the gully, the squad on their right routed after a badly failed morale check, the anti-tank rifle team wiped out, the tank knocked-out and the remaining troops unlikely to force a result.  As such we called it a clear win to Carl and his Romanians.