Leningrad had been under siege for a year, and several smaller attempts to break the siege had already failed when the Volkhov Front offensive started on the morning of 27 August. On the eastern side of the city, Overst Wengler's Grenadier-Regiment 366 had been fortifying its front lines and held fast as General-major Starikov's 8th Army bypassed their positions. The Soviet offensive soon lost momentum, however, and Starikov had trouble getting his reserves into the wooded swamps and bringing to bear his 4-to-1 superiority in men and artillery. Wengler's position at the foot of the Siniavino heights would prove crucial.
Attacker: Russian (Elements of 19th Guards Rifle Division and 124th Tank Brigade)
Defender: German (Elements of Grenadier-Regiment 366, Infanterie-Division 227)
6.5 turns
Players: 2 OBA: None Night: No
Unit Counts:
Squads: A:30.0 D:16.0
AFVs: A:4
BT-7 M37 x 4
AFVs: D:0
Guns: A:0
50mm RM obr. 40 x 2
D:2
3.7cm PaK 35/36 7.5cm leIG 18 5cm leGrW 36 x 2 ATR 7.92 PzB 39
Came down to the last CC on last turn. Germans barely held on. Great scenario.
2023-08-26
(A) Kermit Mullins
vs
Dan Best
Russian win
My Russians were able to attack from three sides and take the win after Turn 6.
2023-08-26
(D) Dan Best
vs
Kermit Mullins
Russian win
2022-04-28
(D) Ian Morris
vs
Martin
Russian win
Went to the last turn, but couldn’t stop his tank getting onto the bridge. Think the Germans need the balance in this one.
2022-01-09
(A) Stephen dedier
vs
Mike Johnston
Russian win
This one was a brawl. Mike setup with bunkers defending the bridge and it turned out that is where he had both his INF and AT guns as well as the MMGs.
Russians through use of the HW got in position to assault the bridge in their turn 2 due to an effective HW. However, German fire was extremely effective breaking 6 Russian units in their turn causing a rout to the commissar who did his job brilliantly. Commissar never failed to rally a unit during this game.
I sent the whole of the Russian infantry reinforcements toward the town and had to bring the tanks/SMG in to support the assault on the bridge
Russians had the most effective HW i have seen to rush the town (meaning the dice gods frowned on Mike's fire at the HW). This gained me the one hex in the town with a substantial force.
It came down to the Russians launching a 3rd HW at the bridge defenders to soak up fire (all 6 units of the HW were KIA or broken in the attack but did their job. This allowed enough Russians to get in behind that they sealed off the bridge hex.
Both of the victory hexes required a German KIA to even get to a point where they could advance in and it didn't happen.
2020-05-01
(A) David Ramsey
vs
Tony Gibson
German win
Great game - plenty of movement needed for the defenders, despite what the scenario card looks like (Pillboxes and Trenches). The Russians defended the bridge heavily and gave up the village, but it left too many Germans free to attack the bridge in the final turns.
Nice scenario though.
2020-03-01
(A) Rich Weiley
vs
Dave Wallace
Russian win
2017-11-03
(D) X von Marwitz
vs
Armin Deppe
Russian win
Despite Armin also being a veteran of Grenadier Tournament, we had never played each other before except yesterday in the Mini-Tournament. Now he would have his chance for a revenge.
My first choice for this round was CH6 Armored Probe, his was FrF67 Collechio, so we ended up with WO12 Heart of Wilderness. This is not to say this is a bad scenario – on the contrary – it turned out to be my favorite scenario of the event. Not being among the fast players, I was concerned that it would take a ton of time as it includes 16 German and 30 Russian squads and a lot of fortifications to set up. We both bid for the Russians but I won with the higher bid. However, as I had a German setup prepared and he had not, I agreed to play the Germans with a zero bid to speed up the setup.
While Armin set up his attack, I wandered around the room to have a look at other playings of WO12. What I found out is that no two games resembled each other with regard to the German defensive setup. This is either an indication that the best approach for the Germans has not yet been grokked or that the scenario has a high replay value.
My plan was to basically forfeit the village and build a castle behind the gully near the VC bridge with almost all fortifications which would form an intricately woven defence that would be very hard to crack from the East but could also engage the Russians that would eventually approach from the West. The Germans would delay the Russians entering from the East and the South for a while and then fall back to the 'castle' to make their stand in force.
Unfortunately, during the Russian approach phase, I just seemed incapable of inflicting any sort of damage despite ample opportunity. My opponent stepped into numerous bore sighted hexes. Among this was stack of 3 Russian squads plus SW and 9-1 leader that FFNAM'ed through the boresighted location of one of the German MMGs. He escaped with one squad broken and one squad pinned. In another player turn involving almost 40 squads of this monster, all damage the Germans were capable to inflict despite good shots and a 6 shot MTR ROF tear into woods were one pinned leader and one pinned squad. It was highly frustrating for the Germans in this phase of the game.
Eventually, the Russians moved up to the far end of the Gully of board 67 and began to realize the strength of the defensive position on the other side. Falling back with my Germans mainly worked as planned except for 1.5 sacrifical squad equivalents and two squads that rather fled somewhere deep into the woods of board 32 to reemerge later rather than getting overwhelmed by too many Russians immedately. Two other squads and a 9-1 were broken and in a good postion to rally. But throughout the entire game they could not make it. At first, they wasted good chances. Later, they were re-DM'ed by the advancing Russians time and again until the last of them finally succumbed in Turn 7.
However now, the Russians needed to move into the teeth of an intact German defence holed up in a network of trenches and bunkers with open ground and an open gully before them. To avoid some of the worst punishment, some Russians detoured which cost them some time. Others tried to move forward but were broken and thrown back. From behind, the Russian Turn 4 reinforcements and those from the South closed in, also repeatedly held up. Things were getting really vicious now.
The Russians realized that to get onto the bridge, their only real chance would be to swamp the German defences, which would be very bloody and costly. Now, it began to tell that the Germans were illfated when they could not delay the Russians earlier against the odds. There were Russian hordes at hand for the job. In a key attack, a low odds shot from the Russians managed to break the German 10-2, a 468+MMG, and to kill the crew of the 75 INF Gun all entrenched together ADJACENT to one of the two access hexes of the Bridge. The Germans managed to kill or immobilize all Russian tanks (though the German ATG had no part in it failing three or four shots before being overrun). One of them managed to drive onto the bridge before being killed.#
The 10-2, 468+MMG and INF Gun sorely missing, one Russian squad made it onto the Bridge in Russian Turn 6 which meant that the Germans would need to take it back vs. the hordes of surrounding Russians. In German Turn 6, the Germans wreaked some more havoc among the Russians reducing a portion of potential Russian Defensive Fire. IIRC the Bridge Location itself had also no Russian survivors at this point.
However, the Germans had to run the gauntlet against all odds: Out of a Trench into the Gully, out of the Gully and onto the Bridge. IIRC they made it up into the Brigde access hex before being broken. I lost, Russian win.
An incredibly tense and exciting game that left us completely exhausted as something like 2am in the morning. But it would not be Grenadier if there had not been some few other people up and boozing. I joined in to get down a little before sorting back my counters to clear the table for the next morning's match.
2017-06-30
(D) X von Marwitz
vs
Chris Mazzei
Russian win
I was looking forward to play this scenario as I like to "build castles" for which there was plenty of opportunity with numerous Trenches, Pillboxes and Foxholes for my defending Germans. So after a quite deliberate setup, I was awating the slaughter of the advancing Russians when they closed in. Delaying the Russians on their approach went quite well (though we nullified the very first roll which was a 2KIA and would have devastated an entire stack of Russian with leader right after entry). The Russians managed to step into 3 or 4 of my Bore Sighted locations, losing another stack of one leader and 2 squads+DC in one of them. Moving in the first group of reinforcements very aggressively, he got away risking a 9-0 with 2x447 to an 8-2 shot with only 1 Russian squad pinned (and me forgetting that I could have fired another 7-2 shot in the hubbub. It turned out that this did not make the difference as what one would have expected. I fell back to my "castle" a bit quicker than anticipated and with a few more losses than could be expected. But once there, my defence would stiffen from a network of bunkers, trenches & foxholes against all the Russian would have was woods or worse to hide in. What was mildly annoying up to this point turned in a veritable catastrophe as I just could not harm the damn Russians. I broke both guns, a MTR and an MG and even a kill-stack of a 10-2, 2x467 with MMG+LMG only managed to break one Russian squad and to CR/break a second one in the entire game. So where the approaching Russians should have been reduced by losses and breaks virtually the entire OoB just kept on approaching unharmed. One of the tanks managed to drive onto the bridge (boxcar'ed the ATG when trying to prevent it). And the Russians formed massive blobs of brown that could put together 36FP firegroups. With my DR average for 52 IFT-attacks of 7.98 and a DR average of 7.8 for 116 DRs of all sorts, things seemed a bit unreal and must be amongst the worst ones I ever recorded in several hundred games. Just nothing seemed to work with me not doing any damage, breaking, pinning, missing, malfing right left & center. It ended with a clear win for the Russians. But I wonder, how the same setup would have played under somewhat more normal circumstances. Despite my fiasco, I will likely play this one again to find out, as the scenario itself is interesting.
2015-11-30
(D) patrick palma
vs
Toze Santos
German win
2015-03-16
(D) Martí Cabré
vs
Laurent Le Billan
Russian win
Laurent did a very good job of approaching my defenses. I managed to kill some of his units but after a few mortar rounds my trenches had been emptied. I also did not have a good defense against his tanks so at the end only my pillboxes remained able to fight. They managed to break all the enemy infantry getting to the bridge but were unable to do anything against a tank platoon that took the bridge. Although I played three turns almost with no units, it came to the last movement of the game.