After Action Report -Ni Shagu Nazad!
1v1, Stalingrad - Leninsky Prospekt, Breakthrough
Flashman (5. SS-Panzerdivision “Silberne Legion”) vs. Zymoril (25th Motor Rifle Division)
Livestreamed on 12 November 2019
The game began as it always did whenever those two faced off. Zymoril twiddled her thumbs and played around with her deck while Flashman, fittingly named, spent his time bantering with his subscribers.
F: “Oy, Erik The Red, thanks for the subs, but I’m afraid I’m not single, though if that’s not a dealbreaker for you, please forward your inquiries to the missus, eh?”
He fidgeted with his headset, and soon the sound of obnoxious euro dance music leaked through. The idle prompt droned, and still Flashman fidgeted with the many open windows on his rig.
Z: “Druk , ready up.”
F: “Oh, were we waiting on me?”
Z: “Unbelievable. Chat, See what I have to deal with?”
They were only waiting on the “Ready” button. A single click, and the countdown began. Unit picks now lit up under the player’s names.
Z: “Silberne Legion again?”
F: “It’s meta.”
Z: “This is an urban map.”
F: “And?”
Zymoril groaned into her mic as the countdown finished. The rubble-strewn expanse of Stalingrad filled her stream, a moonscape of shell-cratered avenues and burned out concrete. As the short initial deployment phase ticked on, she deployed her smaller initial force conservatively, giving up a few of the outer scoring points without a fight.
Instead, she concentrated her motostrelki squads into defensible positions, troops dismounted to hole up into particularly tough buildings, with the half-tracks waiting to provide enfilading firing with their savage 14.5mm Brownings.
The orderly layout of the city hadn’t changed much in almost 80 years. The initial contact would happen east of the tramway that ran parallel to the Volga. The modern rapid transit line ran on a similar course. The period buildings, tall brick or concrete apartment blocks, would be her fortresses. The few broad streets running east to west would be locked down with 76mm M-39 anti-tank guns. Her few tanks in the opening phase, a platoon of T-34-57s, were clustered in the center, near the 9th of January Square.
With her remaining points, Zymoril interspersed sappers and snipers among the line infantry, and stiffened the expected line of contact with dedicated machine gun squads. She had just enough left over for a pair of 82mm mortar teams in the back. The rest would have to trickle in as the battle played out.
Z: “He says that the Silberne Legion is the meta, Chat, but I did a test build of this last night, this is an urban map. I have plenty of great strongpoints to hold while I pummel him into oblivion with my artillery and ack-ack, and he can’t do anything to counter it– the German air he’s got may as well be tissue paper.”
Z: “No, silverthesodiumpile, it’s not rat-stratting. It’s just regular stratting, all in the defense of the Rodina. Come on, I know what I’m doing.”
Zymoril had some idea of what strat Flashman was going to run– in all the times she’d played this map, played against him, played against anybody who liked to run the SS legion decks on Stalingrad, they always had a tendency to try to overrun positions with what would technically be quote-unquote superior firepower until Comintern reinforcements started coming in.
Of course, this strategy relied entirely on the Soviet forces being easily unseated from their entrenchments, which, she considered, if she played things right and didn’t take any unnecessary risks, she could basically bleed Flashman’s troops white.
F: “You were still in all-chat, Zymoril. Your secrets are revealed. I shall accept your surrender presently.”
Z: “Cringe. The might of the Soviet Army will bury you, and history will remember your failures.”
Even if he had the initial upper-hand, her 82mm mortars would blunt his attack easily– plus, urban terrain… vantage points and lines of sight weren’t a given. This could play to her advantage…
F: “Chat, I spent all of last night reading about the Battle of Stalingrad– all for research purposes, you know. I had to think of the right strat to deploy against her. Obviously, the same German strategy would fail, just like IRL. But, I have exactly the strat in mind that will deny her the entrenchment bonuses she’ll be getting. If we can target her T-34-57s, we can bore a huge hole in her line that she can’t easily fill. Plus, it gives us a chance to move our Panzers up and clear out some of these smaller buildings.”
Z: “Oh, who’s leaking classified information now, Flash? What’s wrong? Big bad Silberne Legion afraid to get its shit stomped in?”
Once the deployment phase was over, the battle began in earnest– and Flashman wasted no time in trying to take advantage of the lack of Soviet manpower in the first phase of the battle. He immediately deployed his forward salients into a two pronged attack– once feinting north towards the edges of the map, and the other head-on towards the 9th of January Square.
F: “I made sure to turn off all-chat this time. We’re splitting the force up in two and attacking in two positions because if we can get any kind of breakthrough, she won’t stop me before I reach the Volga. Time is of the essence chat, as her defenses will get stiffer with every passing hour in-game.”
Zymoril was already busy with further entrenchment of her units, using the time it was taking Flashman to move his units across the map to move her special squadrons up to deploy mines and other deterrents along the roads and rail lines cutting through the city– it would only mildly deter German advances, but it would make them think twice before trying to move up through the streets towards the square, and their ultimate prize of the victory point at the embankment of the Volga River.
F: “How’s that counterbattery fire treating you?”
Zymoril watched the heavy German guns rip through the brick buildings, growling as one of the mortar teams bit the dust. Her frustration quickly turned to mirth as one of his infantry squads walked right into the firing line of one of her sniper squadrons, dropping like flies before he could pull them back out of the killzone.
Z: “Doing just fine, actually. Hope those American boys weren’t looking forward to a trip back to Berlin.”
They were both starting to make mistakes. Click as furiously as Zymoril might, now that they were clinched in the midgame, the storm of war was overwhelming. Chat prattled away, but there wasn’t much time to answer them. She could feel in her bones that Flashman was about to make his big move.
She noticed too late the cloud of smoke enveloping her northern positions where she had only focused a handful of lighter rifle squads. The bulk of her defensive force was centered around the 9th of January Square. As soon as the realization that the northern defenses were imperiled by Flashman’s feint, she sprang into action moving some non-essential squads out of their entrenchments and along safe roads to establish a second line…
Z: “Chat, I know what you’re going to say, and you’re absolutely right, but even if I could get by with letting the northern flank collapse, that’d just mean I get encircled. The best thing I can do is try a counter-encirclement. He’s stretching his squads too thin along that front if he’s trying to push… but first, I really need to stem the bleeding.”
The heavy guns pounded again, and she could hear the telltale rumble of Nashorn tanks amidst the barks of the German infantry squads. The AT guns might be enough to slow the tanks, but it would be a gamble.
F: “I can hear you clicking away, but it won’t work dear.”
Z: “And I can hear you actively sweating and breathing hard, you absurd try hard.”
Flashman poked and prodded along the center, but his main focus was stuck in the north, microing his tanks through the gauntlet of anti-tank guns. He caught glimpses of more strelki squads bunkering up for a second line. He swore as the Soviet mortars landed a series of critical hits along his forward position, and one of his panzergrenadier squads went up in flames, the little 3D figures of German troops ragdolling with an almost comedic effect.
Z: “Ha! How about that one?”
F: “Lucky shot! Shut up!”
Unfortunately, Zymoril was not taking the bait. Most players fixated on the tanks, devoting too much time and resources to destroying them in inopportune ways. But Zymoril understood that the tanks were expendable in this part of the push. He’d spent heavily on them, but the infantry accompanying them were absolutely vital to the house-by-house fighting.
This war wasn’t like the wars in some of the FPSes they played– where fast-moving armored personnel carriers could move through suburban neighborhoods lighting up enemy troops with 50 cal rounds practically perforating all that stood in its way; no, this was the old type of war, one where a slow moving tank, several tons of steel and high-caliber explosive rolling between buildings could be a powerful deterrent, but ultimately could also be a sitting duck to a dedicated tank hunter, waiting in the window of an apartment complex or a factory, ready to blow it to kingdom come.
F: “Well chat, I guess there’s only one option now: let’s get Herr Goering on the phone for some help.”
Z: “Bitch move.”
F: “This is why they’re meta, toots.”
Carpet bombing was an expensive trick, usable only once per match. But it had an outsized utility on a dense urban map, busting up some buildings and degrading the defense bonus on others. It was a graphically impressive spectacle of carnage, a testament to the power of modern graphics cards. Only the most morbid designers could architect something like this, a fleet of German bombers soaring overhead, unleashing a sea of fire on the area that Flash called in the attack on. Any units caught up in it were decimated in a particularly grisly fashion.
Of course… Nobody ever said the Luftwaffe was particularly accurate in their terror bombing.
Z: “I’ve lost a few buildings I was counting on, but I think he ended up hitting some of his own dudes.”
F: (lying) “Not at all, dear.”
The bombing had torn a gash in Zymoril’s line, and so it was only natural to pour through it. Flashman’s infantry pressed the attack on the center, as he maneuvered his StuGs and panzers to follow after. But a single tower block held the path to the Krasny Oktyabr factory, and it was already bristling with rifles and machine guns.
Z: “Blew your load a bit early, Flashy, baby. Check this entrenchment bonus.”
Quite pleasantly, one of the Nashorns brewed up from an AT gun managed to put a shot through the keyhole between buildings.
F: “I’ve been needing a new flat anyways.”
Flashman bet it all on being able to surge through with his momentum. Despite the horrendous losses to mines and machine guns, he pressed on to the tower block, engaging his infantry into a close quarters battle inside. The little animatics of flamethrowers and grenades told the tale of carnage inside.
Zymoril lost two squads in short order. The last was holding on by a thread as she snuck more units through the fog of war to reinforce.
Z: “Chat, this is it.”
The fresh squads died one by one. Just as she was about to lose the building, the last squad made it in. A lucky roll, and the initiative swung the other way.
Z: “Yes, yes! Come on Sergeant Popov, this is your hour!”
F: “Popov?”
Z: “He looks like a Popov.”
Costs sunk, Flashman pushed onward, throwing more of his tanks and infantry into the grinder. Victory was at hand, the key scoring point of the Krasny Oktyabr factory lay just beyond this Sergeant Popov and his pesky tower block. With the rest of her forces pinned on the flanks, there’s now way she could stop the knock out blow if he broke through.
But victory was not to be. He couldn’t dislodge the AT guns supporting the area, and the troops funneled in couldn’t overcome the fusillade of rifles and machine guns.
F: “Chat, am I throwing?”
He wouldn’t reach the banks of the Volga today. But he’d die within sight of it. He hit escape and pressed the button to concede.
Z: “I’ll be honest with you, Flashy, I didn’t think I’d hold.”
F: “I’ll get you next time.”
Z: “Well chat, let’s give it up for Sergeant Popov and his house. Heroes of the Soviet Union all of them. *[WPA]: Works Progress Administration *[NBI]: National Bureau of Investigation
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