Temporarily stuck on both flanks, the Soviets (David) continue to press at a relatively weak spot in the center of the line. The results show the potent interaction of obstacles and artillery. The first image shows the 2MP of Soviet Turn 9, where David uses a battalion battle drill order to charge the German line in combat formation. One of the three stacks of T-80s spots a double-density AT minefield in the hex held by some German engineers (3 good spotting rolls) and automatically ends movement. As a result, the entire battalion has to stop moving.

The second image shows NATO artillery phase of Turn 9. I thought David might try to run some tanks up close to finish of the German infantry and engineers, so I had some artillery coming in danger close, right in front of the German line. One stack of T-80s and BMP scouts get hit by a max ROF ICM mission from the off-board M109s (288 points), seeing 4 steps of vehicles eliminated and the survivors suppressed. The other hex gets hit with 72 points of HE, which isn’t enough to kill tanks, but it does suppress two of the three platoons in the hex.

While this was pretty fortunate on my part, it shows how effective artillery can be in Assault (who knew?) when used in conjunction with obstacles. In most games I’ve found the artillery is maddeningly difficult to time / position correctly, but in this prepared defense situation I’ve gotten quite a few kills with it since the obstacles for the Soviets to concentrate and slow down. Pretty cool. Of course, in this prepared defense the Germans are sitting still as well, and the Soviets have a ton of artillery back there.