So there I was surfing Google and Bing for various WW2 pictures for use in my weekly AAR's, when I stumbled upon this gem. Over the last 10 years of blogging I have saved an incredible number of pictures. In fact, one of my big projects has been to sort all of my digital images by nationality then by infantry, paratrooper, all separated by tank type and even by campaign and battle within the campaign. Suffice to say...it's a huge project. The intent was to provide myself with an easily accessible photo library to help speed up my AAR's. Currently, the research time for each AAR consumes a lot of time. And these past two years with all the games which Dan Best and I have been playing has resulted in way more AAR blogging than I had ever anticipated. I literally spend my Sundays in front of the computer...which is not that great when I spend Monday-Friday behind a computer.
So anyway...I found this picture and thought to myself two things: 1) it's a great perspective of what was like to ride behind a T-34 turret. I can't recall seeing another like it. 2) I thought what a great scenario this picture could inspire. I had a little bit of info on the picture. I knew it was taken in 1943 and from the trees and uniforms, I guessed at a September-October time-frame. I didn't go spring, because the caption indicated a Soviet advance and I felt that the spring of 1943 had been snowy and a time of reaction by the Russians to German counter-strokes at Kharkhov. So...I went with the early stages of a Russian advance as the Germans fell back towards Smolensk.
I know this will come as a shock...but I did the remainder of my research in Osprey's Smolensk 1943, which gave me what I needed to complete the scenario.
I elected to make this scenario a DASL Scenario as the ASL DASL Redux pack has just come out and the interest in DASL scenarios seems pretty high at the moment. Personally, I've never been a huge fan of DASL, but I have been enjoying working with the DASL boards for a few scenarios of late. Dan Best and I are also planning to play a few DASL scenarios this year. So, I'm looking forward to seeing what DASL games are all about.
Not too much to say. The scenario is a quick play scenario as Russian Armor with riders attempts to eliminate an anti-tank gun supported roadblock. The numbers on both sides are small, so the game should go fast. I also included a counter of civilians from the recent LFT 14. I think I found a fun way to include them in the scenario.
As always these monthly "Basement Quality" Scenarios are offered for fun only and as a thank you to the readers of this blog.
Remember to open pictures in a new window in order to maximize the size.
And as always, these scenarios can be downloaded from The ASL Scenario Archive
(just search on Grumble Jones).
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