• I’m now prepping a 2800 point (1400 per side) battle of Kursk.  Still the biggest tank battle in history.  I won’t be building a 3d model of the Russian steps but I will be adding undulating ground as a terrain feature.  By that I mean that there is open ground hexes that can block line of sight but offer no cover and don’t deter those vehicles that have trouble with hill terrain.

    I’ll be playing it out in August as a trial before taking it to an armoured regiment for professional development.

    I’m reading a book on the battle.  Does anyone have knowledge about the battle and ideas for incorpoating them in a AAM game


  • You’ll need a lot of minefields to be accurate. The saddest part of Operation Citadel is the Soviets knew it was coming and Hitler knew they knew. After he needlessly had his men butchered Hitler blamed them for not trying hard enough.


  • I’m looking at pictures of mine filds and AT ditches (AAM AT obstacles).  I can factor in Russian preparations.

    I’m expecting to play this on a 4’ by 8’ table with two inch hexes.


  • The Soviet built 5 lines of defensive lines all mined along the entire salient.


  • I have a map showing those defensive lines.  My game surface will be about 2.5km by 5km so I’ll be able to put in one of those main defensive lines.  I also have a photo with the Germans filling in an anti tank ditch by hand (they were hard men!).  I’m thinking I should give the German force a couple of British Churchill AVRE engineer vehicles to assist.  I’m sure the Germans would have had engineer assets in their armoured regiments.

    I’ve been playing though a test of this on my own (playing both sides).  It has been very intersting so far.  I play a turn or two per day as I have time.  I’ll have two German Armoured Regiments (21 tanks each comprised of 4 squadrons of 5 tanks each and 4 extra vehicles like air defence and engineers etc.  In addition the Germans will have 12-15 inf units mounted on half tracks.

    The Russians will have fewer tanks but get all the defences and about 10 AT guns.

    thats my thought process so far.


  • Yes the Russians had alot of sapper BN’s and Germans had alot of engineers to clear that up. Its alot of coordination to clear and penetrate each line. The Soviets held back a huge portion of armor to bridge the gaps should they be breeched.


  • Kursk was nothing more than a killing field for Germans and Russians.


  • Here are some stats of Kursk.

    Russians

    977,000 men
    3,300 tanks
    20,000 field guns and mortars
    3,000 aircraft
    Minefields(2,400 anti personal & 2,700 anti tank mines per each mile of front)
    6,000 miles of russian treches

    Germans

    570,000 men
    10,000 field guns and mortars
    2,500 tanks
    2,000 aircraft


  • This is fantastic info.  Having played through a large game against myself with uneven forces the Germans won but not easily.  I had a 1700 point offensive orientated German army beat a 1100 point defence orientated Russian army.  My board as mentioned is 24 hexes wide by 48 hexes long with the attack going the length of the board.  The Russians set up on one half and the Germans deployed in the first quarter of the opposite end.  This gave a 12+ hex standoff on turn one.  The Germans were ground up a bit but were still very superior at game end.

    Question on the use of minefields etc in the defence of this game.  What would you think of giving the Russians 200 points in barricade defences (AT barricades, minefields and wire).  At 2 points per minefield that could build an uninterupted 4 rows of hexes line or even more if it was spent on AT barriers (1 point each) or wire (.5 point each).  Would this give adequate simulation?

    Would this 1300 point defence hold against a 1700 point offence?


  • Anybody going to be near Peterborough Ontario on August 16th?

    I’m running this Battle of Kursk in an all day game with 1750 German point and 1735 Russian point armies.

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