Most of the remaining Soviet forces are now concentrated in the center of the German line.

The image for turn 12 shows Soviet artillery finally coming into play, with two battery-size concentrations hitting the German defenders in Nuenbach. The Soviets get a suppression and a hit/suppress result, knocking out the German B-5 company HQ. In the bottom of the turn, the remaining Leopard 2s pull out of their forward position and head for the reverse slope of the hill near the town. After that pullback is complete, a German MiW mine layer throws out a hasty AT minefield. I un-masked the MiW when making the image, but in the real game he stayed masked, so David may or may not have realized that was what he was doing motoring along the back of the ridge.

Turn 13 saw a lot more action. First, during Soviet turn 13 two German Alpha Jets both made their final combat runs. They had entered the map on turn 8, so this was their last turn on the board. David brought on what looked like some big stacks of units, so I sent both Alpha jets after those stacks in the Soviet rear area. The first one came in at low altitude but was forced to abort by an SA-13 shot. The second one took a different path to avoid the SA-13 and was able to strafe the target hex with its 27mm cannon, destroying a OP jeep and some BMPs. I think he got through because David was in the process of moving one of his SA-13s, leaving a small gap in the ADA coverage. In the second image for Turn 13, you can see the Soviets finally eliminating the last of the German defenders on the center hill with, of all things, massed machine gun fire from the T-80s. I’ve never seen that work before, but it was a nice move. Saved the important ammo and got the job done. Meanwhile, the Germans had finished falling back to the next defense line, including deploying the AT mines from the MiW.

At this point the Germans had 6 steps of Marders and 4 steps of Leopard 2s that were in range of the back side of the big hill David appeared ready to charge over. Knowing the mines were only single-density, I was starting to get worried. The Germans had used up all the artillery max ROF missions, the CAS, and all the PAH-1 missile ammunition at this point. I figured the Soviets had about a battalion of T-80s left and at least a company of BMPs.

NATO CAS mission:

Turn 13 NATO Fire Phase: