RELEASED: Sky Soldiers Scenario for Storming the Gap.
EAST OF ALSFELD, WEST GERMANY:
The initial clashes had been brutal for the 2nd Panzer Division, which had been on the receiving end of an assault by no less than three full Soviet tank and Motor-rifle divisions. Despite giving at least as good as they got, the 4th Panzergrenadier and 6th Panzer Brigades were now fighting as a series of Verbanden (battlegroups), trying to slow the onslaught, which showed no sign of doing so, as the Soviet second echelon divisions moved on to replace the formations shredded in the initial assault.
One such battle group, commanded by Colonel Mittrich Schröder, was tasked with delaying the Soviet advance until the 5th. Panzer-Division could organize a counter-attack. Schröder and his mixed batch of vehicles and men took positions at a crossroads, just outside of the town of Alsfeld, on the road from Bad Hersfeld to Giessen. Dug in and awaiting the expected onslaught from the Soviet forces that had taken Bad Hersfeld, they received bad news from divisional headquarters: air reconnaissance had spotted a reinforced tank battalion which had skirted the defenses at Schwalmstadt a few kilometers north, and which was heading straight for their positions.
The situation seemed desperate, as the Soviet T-80s and T-64s accelerated toward Schröder’s positions. Schröder and his troops came under tremendous pressure from the dozens of Soviet tanks that had appeared in front of them, the battle erupting with fierce intensity, when suddenly the air was filled with the roar of UH-1 and BO-105 helicopter engines, as an airmobile antitank company from he 25th Luftlande Brigade deployed to assist him and his hard-pressed crews.
Note: This scenario has been laid out in the new scenario design that will be presented in WaW85 Blood and Fury.
EAST OF ALSFELD, WEST GERMANY:
The initial clashes had been brutal for the 2nd Panzer Division, which had been on the receiving end of an assault by no less than three full Soviet tank and Motor-rifle divisions. Despite giving at least as good as they got, the 4th Panzergrenadier and 6th Panzer Brigades were now fighting as a series of Verbanden (battlegroups), trying to slow the onslaught, which showed no sign of doing so, as the Soviet second echelon divisions moved on to replace the formations shredded in the initial assault.
One such battle group, commanded by Colonel Mittrich Schröder, was tasked with delaying the Soviet advance until the 5th. Panzer-Division could organize a counter-attack. Schröder and his mixed batch of vehicles and men took positions at a crossroads, just outside of the town of Alsfeld, on the road from Bad Hersfeld to Giessen. Dug in and awaiting the expected onslaught from the Soviet forces that had taken Bad Hersfeld, they received bad news from divisional headquarters: air reconnaissance had spotted a reinforced tank battalion which had skirted the defenses at Schwalmstadt a few kilometers north, and which was heading straight for their positions.
The situation seemed desperate, as the Soviet T-80s and T-64s accelerated toward Schröder’s positions. Schröder and his troops came under tremendous pressure from the dozens of Soviet tanks that had appeared in front of them, the battle erupting with fierce intensity, when suddenly the air was filled with the roar of UH-1 and BO-105 helicopter engines, as an airmobile antitank company from he 25th Luftlande Brigade deployed to assist him and his hard-pressed crews.
Note: This scenario has been laid out in the new scenario design that will be presented in WaW85 Blood and Fury.
