Somewhere on the fields of Kursk

Russian tanks and cargo head towards the battle raging on the fields of Kursk

German mechanics repairing a Panzer IV ready to meet the on coming Russian hordes

The fields somewhere on the edges of Kursk, I took command of a German armed division to take on my Dad who was in command of a Russian armoured division. We decided to have a tank only battle of 600 points aside to see who would come out on top. The church was the only objective in the middle of the table. Aircraft chits would count as a one to your battle rating and low on ammo chits could be played on tanks (yes this would come back to bite me). As a little gimmick I had made one of my Tiger 1 tanks a panzer ace, if my dad could destroy this tank I would have to pull two chits instead of the usual one as it would have a demoralising effect on the rest of my Panzers.

Starl Starl Starl, The first wave of T34 tanks waste no time in rushing towards the initial German forces firing a few HE pot shots as they advance.

German Panzer III tanks head down the road towards the objective, taking it at the end of he turn.

Strike one to the Russians, my Panzer ace in the Tiger tank becomes the first casualty. My dad was forced to take a morale chit thanks to me taking the objective, my dad draws a low on ammo chit which we are allowing to be played on tanks tonight. The said chit is placed on my tiger ace and on the roll of 6 the tiger ace was completely out of ammo so decided to quit the battle field in search of more!! My two chits later saw 9 points wiped off my battle rating, I was getting a bad feeling about how this game was going to be heading!

               ( han's we seem to be out of ammo, best call it a day )

As the tiger ace leaves the field a second tiger enters the game in support of the Stug III platoon 

The second wave of Russian tanks enters the left flank in the form of  3 SU-76 tank hunters and some T-70 light tanks.

The Panzer III tank defending the objective 

A T34 advances to tne cover of the walled field and makes light work of the Panzer III but suffers the same fate as a second panzer III returns fire and moves into securing he objective again.

The Stug III platoon becomes involved in a long range fire fight over a few turns with 5 T34's, after a few rounds of firing and pinning one another a StuG manages to destroy a T34 before it suffers a direct hit and is destroyed. One of the other remaining StuGs has to fall back to the memo truck to be re supplied . 

The Panzer III in the back of the picture fails a morale test while pinned after suffering a glancing hit from the T70 and the crew abandon it and a second Panzer III erupts into flames from a direct SU-76 shot. The command Panzer III does manage to destroy the T70 in return fire in the lol owing turn.

 

A T34 is flanked by a Stug who some how fails to spot his target (must be because of all the smoke from the burning German tanks). The T34 returns fire pinning to Stug.

Some return fire over a few moves sees a t34 and the Panzer III command tank knocked out and a SU-76 destroy a tiger with a roll of eleven on the armour penetration roll, my Germans were all but broke by this stage.

The final nail in the coffin saw my final Tiger tank hit and pinned and then roll a morale of one, again leading Germany's finest Panzer crews to abandon there Tiger and LEG IT!!!!

Well that was me comprehensively beaten, my break point of 41 was passed with the chit drawn for the running tiger crew, I had lost a full squad of Tiger 1's, two of whom abandoned their tanks as the T34 shells bounced off the Tigers armour. I had suffered some terrible luck during the game finding it hard to roll high enough to penetrate the Russian armour and the less said about my morale throwing the better, I also had picked high chits at an alarming rate but to be fair to my dad he kept my fire power limited due to consistently pinning my tanks forcing me to take morale chits to un pin my units as his tanks advanced, especially neutralising my a tigers deadly 88mm guns.

 In the end it was a big and glorious victory for the red army.

The victorious Russian armour heads down the road as German Panzers burn all around them, victory was had today but plenty more Panzers still lay ahead...