Von Manstein’s Backhand Blow — Schwerpunkt Series

GMT GAMES · 

VON MANSTEIN’S BACKHAND BLOW

— the Donets basin and the third battle of Kharkov, 31 January to 22 March 1943

Pictorial After Action Report ·

BigBoard Gaming · @wargamer · Began August 2026

GAME DETAILS

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HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Paulus surrendered on 31 January 1943 and the last pocket at Stalingrad went under on 2 February. That is where this game starts, and Sixth Army was only part of what the Red Army had broken. Across the previous three months it had destroyed the Romanian Third and Fourth Armies, torn apart the Italian Eighth, eliminated the Hungarian Second, and then smashed the German Second Army at Voronezh–Kastornoe. Prit Buttar’s tally is blunt: one German army annihilated, a second badly damaged, four allied armies destroyed, and then Second Army as well. The rout of Second Army left a hole north of Kharkov with nothing in it but an improvisation of battered front-line units and rear-area formations. That gap, between Army Group B in the north and Army Group Don in the south, is the operational fact the whole campaign turns on.

Two Soviet operations were already running into it. Gallop was Vatutin’s own proposal, submitted on 20 January and approved by Stalin the same night — a deep thrust from Starobelsk toward Stalino and Mariupol, led by a mobile group under his deputy Popov, intended to cut off the entire Donbas. Vatutin’s timetable had Popov at Mariupol on the seventh day and the whole thing finished by 5 February. Star followed on 2 February: Golikov’s Voronezh Front onto Kharkov, with Kursk added to his objectives as an afterthought that Buttar reads as operational greed. Both fronts went in worn out. Rifle divisions were running 6,000 to 8,000 men against an establishment of ten thousand, tank corps fielded thirty to fifty tanks apiece, and the supply heads had not moved since early December. Popov’s group started with fuel and ammunition for exactly one refill.

On the other side, Manstein could do nothing until he had won two arguments with Hitler. He got the first on 6 February at the Wolfsschanze — permission to pull Hollidt back to the Mius and to shift Hoth’s Fourth Panzer Army west out of Rostov. That is the enabling decision for everything that follows, and Hoth’s redeployment would take a fortnight. What he then did with it was not, on his own account, a chosen “backhand blow” at all. Manstein uses that phrase in Lost Victories about the summer of 1943 — the plan to let the Russians attack and hit them on the backhand, which Hitler refused, leaving Kursk as the forehand alternative. February and March was the method executed under compulsion rather than by design: cede the ground, let the enemy run past his supply culmination, then strike the shoulders with concentrated armour. Forczyk applies the label to this operation anyway, and the game’s title follows him.

The Soviet misreading that made it work was systemic rather than personal. Every German movement west was read as flight to the Dnepr. Golikov admitted it afterwards in as many words — the mistake was viewing the enemy’s movement of mechanised forces to Poltava as a retreat, when the SS Panzer Corps was assembling there to attack. Stavka was still ordering armies toward the Dnepr on 28 February, by which time Vatutin had no illusions left at all. And the thing worth holding on to before the first counter moves: Manstein spent the first six turns’ worth of history losing ground, including Kharkov, and did not begin the counterstroke until the equivalent of Turn 7. The man the game is named after gave up his second city first and won the campaign anyway.

Which sets the Soviet problem, and it is not the obvious one. The problem is not losing. Everything works at the start — Starobelsk, Izyum, Chuguyev, Kharkov all fall. That is the trap, and it is the entire design. Vatutin’s culminating point was around Turn 7. He kept attacking until Turn 9, refused Popov permission to withdraw with his tank corps down to seventeen, twelve and eight tanks, and sent his last armoured reserve forward to the Dnepr with the German attack already developing. Every turn spent attacking past the culminating point is a turn Manstein gets paid for.

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CAMPAIGN STRATEGY

Friendly COA. The plan was written down before contact, so it can be scored against what actually happens rather than remembered favourably afterwards.

First the victory point charts, then the reinforcement schedules for both sides. A large German push is coming around Turn 7 — the question is where, how much, and what it threatens on arrival. Everything else follows from holding operational cadence long enough to bank a win before it lands… We will see.

The two clocks are the whole problem. Victory points required run on a per-turn schedule tied to the turn number, and that schedule anticipates a Soviet collapse — the span of points demanded varies turn by turn rather than sitting flat. Against it runs the C3I mechanic that generates activation points and therefore gates the tempo of both sides. Reading the two tracks together: the C3I points drop away just before the VP totals peak.

The German offensive gets under way on Turn 7 and peaks around Turn 10, but fades on Turn 11 from a C3I allocation point of view  just as the Soviet VP clock also eases. That is the min-max problem this game sets, and it is a tricky one.

Game turn record track

The turn record track carries both clocks on one strip: C3I points available to each side by turn, and the victory point requirement for the same turn. Reading them against each other is the planning problem.

Victory point schedule

The victory point span required per turn. The schedule is not flat — it anticipates a Soviet collapse and prices the later turns accordingly. My intention here is to banks some C3i points for future turns, when the amount received per turn dips. So that at the very least I will maintain a steady flow of activations. My other issue is going to be keeping the HQs in range. We will see how this variable movement of them impacts game play. I need to take Kharov by end of Turn 6.

Enemy COA. A wily defender who over the years has become far more aggressive in defence, and who will play Manstein to the hilt given a game with Manstein’s name on the box. Expect the historical shape attempted deliberately: ground conceded early and cheaply, mobile formations husbanded rather than committed, and a concentrated blow timed to arrive when the Soviet effort has stretched.

The one thing most worrying about that: nothing. It’s a game,

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SETUP — THE TABLE

The map runs from Belgorod in the north down to Stalino in the south, then westwards to Poltava and Zaporozhe. Seventeen turns, and up to three actions per turn depending on the weather. The objectives are scattered the length of it, which is the first thing that tells against a Soviet player in a hurry — there is a great deal of ground and not many units to cover it with.

Campaign map with objective sites marked

The full campaign map with the victory point sites marked: Belgorod and Kharkov in the north, Poltava and Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhe to the west and southwest, Krasny Liman, Kramatorsk and Stalino in the southeast. The distances between them are the reason the historical operation ran out of fuel before it ran out of orders.

Turn 1 is partly a matter of reacquainting both sides with activation, movement and most of all combat. Combat here is savage for everybody. Even at high odds the attacker will usually take losses without solid modifiers or a good roll, and anything under about 5:1 or 7:1 is simply bad business. Grossdeutschland’s first counterattack demonstrates the point at the German player’s expense.

Northern sector at the opening

The northern half of the board at the opening: Belgorod top right, Kharkov in the centre with the Donets running past it to the east, Poltava on the western edge, Kramatorsk away to the southeast. The Soviet weight is on the eastern side of the river and has to come across it.

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TURN 1 · 31 January – 2 February 1943 · Learning what combat costs

Opening board state

The table at the start of the first Soviet Schwerpunkt segment.

The first attack goes in at Izyum. It costs a step and takes two, one of which the defender absorbs with a retreat. That is an acceptable trade at this stage and it leaves the bridge looking very attackable in the next Schwerpunkt phase, which was the point of making the attack at all.

The attack at Izyum

Izyum after the first exchange. One step lost for two taken, and the crossing now within reach.

A Kampfgruppe goes next and is eliminated outright for no step losses at all.

Kampfgruppe eliminated

The Kampfgruppe removed without cost.

Then two corps clean out a regiment, also without loss. Overkill, but there was no reason not to. The German player spent a chit halving combat strength and it made no difference against a +9 modifier — and the chit economy is why. Chits drawn equal the highest tactical rating in the combat, so three cards came out against his one, and with tactical superiority the higher-rated side may play up to three while the opponent plays one.

Two corps against a regiment

Two corps against a single regiment. The result was never in doubt; the interest is in what the chits did and did not do.

End of the first Soviet Schwerpunkt segment

End of the first Soviet Schwerpunkt segment.

Grossdeutschland’s counterattack

The Germans come back, mainly — I think — to establish how combat works. They go in at a horrid 1:1 and lose a net two steps on a net die roll of thirteen. Cards add a loss on top. A one-hex retreat absorbs part of the result. Grossdeutschland has reduced itself by half on its own attack.

The mechanics underneath that are worth having straight, because they are the heart of the system and they paid the German twice over. A German unit that is part of a formation and qualifies for the integrity bonus has its tactical rating raised by two. Chits drawn equal the highest tactical rating in the combat, so the bonus buys two extra chits. And tactical superiority goes to whichever side has the higher tactical points value, which is that same rating — so the bonus can also flip who plays three chits and who plays one. Grossdeutschland at a tactical rating of four against a Guards tank corps at five only got its chit effect at all because integrity stacked the formation together and lifted the rating over the top of mine. The same plus-two did both jobs.

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Both first segments end there. C3I is down to one point apiece not because the turn allocated less, but because both of us spent it in the first phase. Points are received during the administrative segment and may be carried from turn to turn, so what went into that opening flurry was a choice, and it means a markedly lower cadence for the phase that follows — both sides rolling on the activity table for the points needed to activate a unit or a stack. It is already obvious how that will drive stacking behaviour, and it is meant to.

C3I state at the end of the first segments

C3I down to one point each, both sides having spent freely in the opening phase. Everything after this is bought at a worse rate.

The general segment follows, both sides moving or fighting.

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TURN 2 · 3 – 5 February 1943 · Ground, and how little of it gets covered

Turn 1 was frozen and Turn 2 rolls frozen again — two Schwerpunkt segments each side plus a general segment, on the full C3I allocation. The historical weather is printed on the turn record track and can be used instead of rolling; we rolled. It opens with a risky 3:1 attack that eliminates the attacking Soviet force and the German unit blocking the road with it. A trade, and not obviously a bad one — the road mattered.

The 3:1 exchange

Both sides removed. The block is gone, which was the object.

First Schwerpunkt segment

Three C3I points spent, returning eleven activity points, divided between Southwestern and Voronezh Fronts.

Activity points generated

Three C3I points spent, eleven activity points out of the table, split between the two Fronts.

Eleven does not go far, and it does not keep — activity points cannot be carried from one segment to the next, so anything unspent is simply lost. Each combat initiated costs three activity points regardless of how many units are involved on either side, so the arithmetic sets the shape of the segment before any counter moves: stack units to make movement efficient, press forward, and hold back just enough to run one attack in each Front area.

Stacking and advancing

Stacks formed and moving. Consolidation here is an activity point decision as much as a tactical one.

15th Tank lunges at Belgorod and tries to force the Germans out. It inflicts losses and does not clear the hex. The pace is crazy slow.

The attempt at Belgorod

Belgorod holds. Losses inflicted, position unchanged.

The administrative movement pipeline is the answer to the slowness, and it is a slow answer. Units are picked up from the map into the first box, move to the second box on the following cycle, and only then come back onto the map — two cycles before anything reappears. The pick-up hex has to be in supply and cannot be adjacent to enemy units, and Soviet units have to be in range of a Front marker at both ends of the trip. It is not available at all on Turn 1.

Some units simply need to be made dead, and that is expensive in step losses. Lots of ground, very few units. I note that its ok to lsoe steps but not lose a unit. Once a Soviet unit is eliminated it cannot be rebuilt. Only units on the map can regain steps.

Second Schwerpunkt segment

Three C3I points left, and they are deliberately not spent. C3I accumulates from turn to turn — activity points do not — so the only thing in this system that can be saved is C3I, and the turn record track shows the allocation falling away later in the game. Holding three now is the start of a bank for the turns when the schedule pays less and the German blow has landed.

The situation at the end of Turn 2

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CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT — END OF TURN 2

What has gone well

The exchange rate has been favourable everywhere it has been tested. Izyum cost one step and took two, the Kampfgruppe went for nothing, the regiment went for nothing. Grossdeutschland then halved itself attacking at 1:1 into a chit draw it could not win, which is two step losses that came out of the German mobile pool rather than the infantry — the pool that has to deliver the counterstroke later.

The Izyum crossing is set up rather than taken, which was the intent. Attacking to shape the next segment rather than to win the current one is the right instinct in a system where each combat costs three activity points out of eleven or so.

What needs resolution

The pace. Two turns in and Belgorod has held, the Donets is still a river to be crossed rather than a line behind the advance, and the pace is crazy slow. Historically Kharkov fell on Turn 6. Nothing so far suggests that schedule is reachable, and the whole plan rests on banking a position before Turn 7.

The step-loss economy. Some positions have to be cleared rather than bypassed, and clearing them is expensive. There is a great deal of ground and not many units, and every unit spent early is one not available when the counterstroke arrives.

The C3I bank. Three points held back at the end of Turn 2, and this is the one resource in the game that rewards holding as C3I carries from turn to turn while activity points expire at the end of every segment. That still makes it a real bet rather than housekeeping: points banked are attacks not made now, and the VP schedule is steepest before the German push arrives, not after.

The administrative pipeline. Two cycles to move a unit laterally, with supply and Front-marker conditions at both ends. Any redeployment has to be decided two cycles before it is needed, which means committing to a read of German intentions well before the evidence arrives. That is exactly the decision Vatutin got wrong.

Outlook

The designer’s stated intent is worth setting against all of the above. Blennemann’s notes describe activity point determination and combat chits as deliberate friction — mechanisms meant to “add friction with a minimum of complexity”, to prevent “completely synchronized actions”, and to “force the player to fight his opponent rather than the game system.”

That claim is testable from the Soviet chair, and it is the live question of this campaign. A Soviet player knows about the backhand blow. Vatutin did not. The historical operation depended entirely on the Soviet command reading German concentration as withdrawal, and that misreading cannot be reproduced across the table by a player who has read the books. So either the design has friction that binds anyway — the activity table, the two-cycle administrative pipeline, the C3I schedule, the pressure of a VP clock that demands points on a rising scale — or it hands the Soviet player an out that Vatutin never had.

Two turns is not enough to answer it. But the thing is shaping up and visible in the arithmetic: eleven activity points each cycle +/-, three per combat, two cycles to move anything sideways plus the Admin or general phase. If those constraints are still binding on Turn 7, they are doing the work the designer says they do.

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TURN 3 · 6 – 8 February 1943 · Das Reich falls back, and a counterattack that cost more than it bought

Board state at the top of Turn 3

The position at the start of Turn 3. Frozen again the third turn running and the Soviet pressure on Belgorod and the Kharkov approaches is visibly building on the northern half of the board.

Both sides start the turn in supply. Frozen weather again, which keeps the activity table at its most generous setting. The Germans draw one variable reinforcement. Three fresh Soviet formations are due in — 12-2-2, 4-2-2 and 6-2-2 on the reinforcement schedule — and, per the administrative pipeline explained at the end of Turn 2, none of them appear on the map this turn. All three route into Administrative Movement Box #1 and start the two-cycle trip inward.

Soviet reinforcement schedule for Turn 3

Turn 3’s Soviet reinforcements, entering the administrative pipeline rather than the map.

First Schwerpunkt exchange

The Soviet segment opens with movement, then attack, and immediately runs into the range problem flagged as a risk at the end of Turn 2: several Soviet formations sit outside C3I range of a Front marker and simply cannot be activated this segment, full stop. That is the administrative-pipeline risk arriving early and in a cheaper form than expected — not a redeployment gone wrong, just ordinary units too far forward of their own command net to be used.

What does activate goes well. Near Belgorod, the German 168th Division is pushed back a hex.

168th Division forced back near Belgorod

The northern sector after the first Soviet Schwerpunkt segment. Das Reich’s Kampfgruppen are visible stacked at Velikaya Danilovka, just short of Kharkov itself.

Further south the more consequential result lands: Waffen-SS Das Reich is driven back into Kharkov. That is the formation meant to anchor the counterstroke later in the campaign, and for now it is inside the city it is supposed to retake ground from, not staged in front of it.

Das Reich pushed back toward Kharkov

The inset traces the retreat: Das Reich’s Kampfgruppen falling back toward the city rather than holding forward of it.

The Germans reply with a counterattack near Kharkov and it costs three steps, Axis side, for the effort.

German counterattack near Kharkov, -3 steps for the Axis

Purple arrows mark the German counterattacking axis; the result written on the board at the time is blunt: minus three steps, Axis.

This is the second time in three turns a German attack has come out of a fight worse than it went in Grossdeutschland on Turn 1, now an SS element on Turn 3. Both losses came out of the mobile pool that is supposed to deliver the counterstroke around Turn 7, not out of the infantry holding ground. Two data points is not a trend, but it is exactly the kind of attrition the friendly COA is counting on.

Second Schwerpunkt segment

The Soviet side moves first again, then combat. The German side has nothing left to spend and passes outright — no C3I, no combat, movement. Turn 2 ended with three C3I points banked on the Soviet side specifically because the schedule pays worse later in the game; here, three turns in, it is already the German side drawing down to nothing in the second segment of a single turn. Worth watching whether that is one bad allocation roll or the start of a pattern — the design intends the C3I clock to squeeze both sides, but German C3is will rise next handful of turns for a spell.

General segment

The Soviets press again in the general segment: an attack pushes Leibstandarte back and eliminates a German unit south of Kharkov outright.

General segment attack pushes LAH back, south of Kharkov

LAH pushed back; the unit south of Kharkov is gone from the board.

The German response is not to counterattack again. It is the 333rd Infantry Division brought up behind Kharkov into the defensive line, not into the fight. Read against the enemy COA filed before the session — “ground conceded early and cheaply, mobile formations husbanded rather than committed, and a concentrated blow timed to arrive when the Soviet effort has stretched” — that is precisely the flow starting to show. The mobile formations that lost three steps this turn are not being fed back in for a second try; a fresh infantry division is going in behind the city instead.

Turn 3 ends there: Das Reich inside Kharkov rather than in front of it, a costly German counterattack turned away, LAH pushed back and a unit eliminated south of the city, and a fresh infantry division arriving to hold rather than attack.

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CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT — END OF TURN 3

What has gone well

Three turns in, the exchange rate is still running in the Soviet favour where it has been tested. The 168th Division gave ground near Belgorod. Das Reich was forced back into the city it is meant to be counterattacking from. The general-segment attack pushed Leibstandarte back and cleared a unit south of Kharkov outright. And the German counterattack near Kharkov the first German mobile attack since Grossdeutschland’s costly effort on Turn 1 cost three more Axis steps for no recorded gain. Twice now a German attack has bled the mobile pool rather than the infantry holding ground, and that pool is the one the friendly COA is watching for the Turn 7 blow. My take away is attack at 4:1 or better.

What needs resolution

The range problem arrived on schedule. Turn 2’s assessment flagged the two-cycle administrative pipeline and the Front-marker range condition as a live risk — decisions committed to before the evidence arrives. Turn 3 produced the cheap version of that risk: Soviet formations sitting outside C3I range of a Front marker, simply unusable for a segment, no redeployment mistake required to cause it.

Kharkov itself is now a harder read. Historically the city fell on Turn 6. With Das Reich pushed back inside it rather than staged in front of it, and a fresh infantry division arriving behind rather than into the fight, the German posture around Kharkov looks more like the historical shape — cede the outskirts, hold the city with what is left, husband the armour — than it did at the end of Turn 2. Whether that reads as the city becoming easier to finish or harder to finish outright is not yet answerable.

The C3I asymmetry. Three points banked Soviet-side at the end of Turn 2 was a deliberate bet against the later-turn schedule. The German side reaching zero by the second Schwerpunkt segment of Turn 3 is either the same discipline playing out on the other side of the table, or a genuine allocation problem for the German player. Worth tracking turn over turn rather than reading into one data point.

Outlook

The enemy COA filed before the session predicted exactly this shape — ground conceded early, mobile formations husbanded, a concentrated blow saved for later. Turn 3 is the first turn that actually looks like that prediction rather than just naming it. The open question hasn’t changed: whether the friction the designer built into the system — the activity table, the administrative pipeline, the C3I schedule — binds a player who already knows the shape of the historical operation as tightly as it bound Vatutin, who did not.

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TURN 4 · 9 – 11 February 1943 · Nineteenth Panzer pays for the southern flank

On the same three days in 1943. Rybalko forced the Donets and took Chuguyev on 10 February, and was stopped at Rogan. On the 11th the 14th Guards Tank Brigade took Grishino at dawn and then Krasnoarmeiskoye, cutting a lateral railway Manstein depended on, and the SS attack from south of Kharkov began (Buttar pp.314, 321, 328).

[KEV — no capture note for Turn 4, so the play below is built from the Vassal log and the four Turn 4 images, and it says what happened but not why. Needs a line or two from the Soviet chair: what Turn 4 was for, and what the Germans looked like they were doing.]

North-west of Kharkov during Turn 4

North and west of Kharkov. Grossdeutschland, Leibstandarte and Das Reich Kampfgruppen sit on the approaches with the 333rd at Velikaya Danilovka. The chits on the table show what each side was paying for: German Probing (both sides’ hits halved) against Soviet Fanaticism, artillery and partisans.

The log records eleven steps lost in the turn: six German, five Soviet.

Where the steps went

South-west of Kharkov, Turn 4

The German armour has moved south of the city. Kampfgruppen of 17th and 19th Panzer and Grossdeutschland are marked as moved around Merefa and Novaya Vodolaga, facing Soviet cavalry and the 10th Tank Corps. Soviet Anti-tank Support (halving German motorised strength) and Intelligence (one fewer German chit) are in play.

The history moved the same way. On the 11th the SS attack from south of Kharkov began, and here German mobile divisions are south of the city on the same day. Here they paid for it: 19th Panzer lost four steps.

Out-of-supply marker east of Kharkov

East of the city an out-of-supply marker sits among the Soviet 184th, 172nd and 111th.

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CAMPAIGN ASSESSMENT — END OF TURN 4

What has gone well

The exchange rate. Six German steps for five Soviet, and four of the six from a single panzer division, which is the mobile pool the friendly COA is watching for the Turn 7 blow. Grossdeutschland on Turn 1, an SS element on Turn 3 and now 19th Panzer on Turn 4: three German mobile formations have come out of fights weaker than they went in.

What needs resolution

Kharkov. The Soviets are on the city’s doorstep. By the start of Turn 5 the 52nd and 6th Guards Cavalry stand in the hex next to Kharkov, close enough that their counters cover the city’s name on the map. The city itself is still German. Historically it fell on Turn 6, so one turn remains to match Vatutin’s schedule. We are behind schedule….by a LOT.

Supply. The first out-of-supply marker on the Soviet side appeared this turn. Running out of supply is how the historical Soviet offensive ended, so it’s worth recording when it first shows up.

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TURN 5 · 12 – 14 February 1943 · The exchange rate turns (in progress: both Schwerpunkt segments played, the general segment to come)

On the same three days in 1943. On 12 February the Soviets attacked Kharkov directly from the north-east and east. That night army group headquarters moved to Zaporozhye, and on the 13th Army Group Don became Army Group South. By the 14th Rybalko was on the eastern outskirts with 40th Army enveloping from the north-west, and Hausser issued his first withdrawal order (Buttar pp.328, 330–331; Manstein, Lost Victories ch.13; Glantz, After Stalingrad ch.1; Forczyk p.36).

Start of Turn 5

The board at the start of Turn 5.

We need to bring units to the battle space faster. Im loading up the Admin boxes and bring them ASAP. To reinforce areas and to support my OOS units. I was hoping my light push to the South would generate a bigger response. So this turn I am sending an armor Corps that direction. He is very thin in the South but so am I. The movement rates are low and the HQ tether is killing any momentum I create. This feels like a game of maneuver vs combat.

At the start of the turn the 6th Guards Cavalry and the 52nd, in the hex next to Kharkov, and the 35th Guards north-west of the city, all recover a step.

“Soviets defend”

Soviets defend outside Kharkov

The Germans hit the Soviet stack on the city’s doorstep, with Leibstandarte and Das Reich close by and the 333rd at Velikaya Danilovka. The 52nd loses the step it had just got back and the stack holds its ground, with a Soviet tank chit in play. We decline to retreat and hold positions.

In 1943 the Soviets were attacking the city on these dates. Here they are next to it, and the Germans are the ones attacking, as they try and create a little space for them selves.

“An expensive fight”

The fight east of Kharkov

East of the city, by Pechenegi, the Soviets attack with the 184th, 172nd and 111th. The 184th and 172nd each lose a step, The German Battlefield Domination halves German hits; the Soviet Vodka adds a hit to both sides, and the Soviet Partisans add a die modifier. It took 3 hits on units to remove this annoying unit. Finally eliminated.

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“Soviet OOS”

Soviet units out of supply near Novaya Vodolaga

South-west of the city, Soviet formations are out of supply among the German armour at Novaya Vodolaga: two out-of-supply markers, with Kampfgruppen of 17th and 19th Panzer next to them.

“4:1 — two steps each, net of cards”

The 4:1 at Novaya Vodolaga

Then the Germans hit it. 11th, 17th and 19th Panzer Kampfgruppen attack at 4:1 against the Soviet 1st Guards. German Leadership from the Front (one fewer German hit) and Tank Destroyer (Soviet motorised strength halved) face Soviet Vodka and Extreme Conditions. Two steps each, net of the cards. The Soviet 1st Guards loses two steps. The Germans lose two: 11th Panzer’s 111 is reduced and a German unit is eliminated outright.

Turn 5 so far

Mid Turn 5

The board after both Schwerpunkt segments, with the general segment still to come. In the general segment every unit on both sides can move and fight.

After the two Schwerpunkt segments, the Soviets have lost five steps (the 52nd outside Kharkov, the 184th and 172nd east of the city, and two from the 1st Guards) and the Germans two. The exchange rate has turned. For four turns German attacks bled the attacker. In Turn 5 the Germans are choosing their fights at good odds and the Soviet attack is the one that came out worse.

Turn 5 continues with the general segment.

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REFERENCE

Historical background compiled from Buttar, On a Knife’s Edge; Glantz, After Stalingrad; Manstein, Lost Victories; Forczyk, Erich von Manstein; and Jukes in History of the Second World War. Rules citations verified against the game’s rulebook.

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