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Seelow and Kustrin 1945
Morning April 16th 1945
With the Russians already well established west of the Oder river the out numbered Germans can only wait, suddenly the sky to the east lights up as thousands of Russian artillery pieces open up on the hapless landser.
The Game turn 1
The initial barrage pushes back two battalions of the 20th Panzer Grenadiers and totally destroys a battalion of the 9 Fallshirmjager Division opening a slight gap that three Soviet Regiments of the 27th and 57th Guards try to exploit. After fierce fighting (and some incredibly lucky die rolls) the German line surprisingly holds well against the Russian onslaught.
The German command takes advantage of this stroke of luck and move the 2 depleted battalions of 20th Panzergrenadier forward one hex to regain half the ground that was lost during the initial barrage. Panzer Division Muncheberg now moves up one battalion of grenadiers and three armored companies, (2 Panther and 1 Panzer IV) to backstop the depleted 20th PZG's, while 2 battalions of fresh troops from the 20th PZG shift north to help the paratroops of Goerings 9th Falschirmjager Division. And finally 3 companies of King Tigers from the 502 Heavy SS Panzer Battalion move from the back of the Seelow Heights to the town of Friedersdorf to take advantage of the road network that meets there.
This is how the first turn of the "Six Angles" game "Seelow and Kustrin 1945" went. This is a magazine game that as the title states has two scenarios, the relief attempt of the town of Kustrin on the Oder and the later battle for Seelow.
The game is a basic Igo Ugo, the counters consist of Soviet Regiments, (for the most part) and, Battalions of infantry for the Germans along with panzers in company strength. The game is broken into 12 turns and begins at dawn on April 16th and ends the next day at 1800Hrs. A feature I like is "armor modifier numbers" that take into account the thickness of armor on different tanks, Tigers and Stalin tanks have a #3, Panthers have #2, Stugs, Jagdpanzers and T34's have a #1, these modifiers are added to the combat die-roll.
The game is pretty basic but I like it because of the time period, early 1945, the final gasp of the German war machine. I've looked around on line and the game is long OOP although you can still find it online.
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