Stalingrad Part VI: Enemy at the Gates

The sixth game of the Stalingrad Campaign was played a few weeks ago but unfortunately I was not able to attend. As a remainder to readers, we started in July a campaign around the dramatic last days of September 1942, when the German army attempted a final effort to gain full control of the city before the winter. We play with the TooFatLardies platoon-scale set  Troops, Weapons and Tactics. What follows is an illustrated brief summary made by the game organizer and umpire.


We played just two but very intensive turns, as the Tea Break cards hid almost to the bottom of the deck both times. The German player increased the pressure on both flanks of the Russian defensive line...

German blinds and armour approaching the factory 

... but all the time contested by local counterattacks of the Red Army forces who even dare to fight barehanded the murderous German flammenwerfer squad...

... resulting in a blood bath where the only survivor was a German Gefreiter with a P38 in hand!

In the meantime a German scout unit dashed into the side gate of the factory, being stopped on their heels by a Soviet SMG unit; but the main  body of the German squad reached the the entrance of the factory, despite being in the sight of a Soviet HMG located in the factory's second floor,  initiating another bloody struggle.
 

The progress of the German forces was made at high cost in blood. Soviet FOOs accurately directed the fire of the batteries at the other side of the Volga and zeroed the main German concentrations in the center of the line.

 



In the Red Army's  right flank, the German advanced was more successfully contained.  The AT gun placed there put put of action another German Stug (the second!)...

...while the combined fire of snipers and HMGs forced the Germans to remain under cover.