Each year, I'm more and more astonished by how quickly the days, weeks and months seem to glide past. As a child, time seemed oppressively long..., but now time seems to be rushing towards the "end of life" cliff at fairly fast clip. My 57th year will soon be a memory. It's been a good year and I'm particularly fond of this year's crop of scenarios. There's been a nice mix of PTO, DTO, Russian Front, and Western Front. I even got in a few DASL scenarios.
In past years, I would write down the anticipated theaters and battles to be researched for the 12 scenarios. This year, I just let my current reading or something I ran across on the internet help me pick out the next scenario. By September, I'm looking forward to the final three scenarios and one of which is the annual Halloween scenario. This year's Halloween scenario will be very small and be somewhat very specific as well. It will play fast and be unlike anything you've probably yet played. It may not be a fan favorite, but it has some good legs to it. So we shall see. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Dave and Jeff of the 2 Half-Squads have been playing a couple games of the Heroes of Hollis, which was the 2017 Halloween scenario. And thankfully, it appears to have been fun.
This month's scenario is taken from the pages of Jason D. Mark's amazing Panzer Krieg Volume 1. Jason's books are phenomenal. Only Doug Nash or David Glantz get down to the micro-detail that typify Mark's excellent tomes. I'm eager to see what Volume 2 will cover.
Pages 305-307 were the inspiration for GJ111 A Misty Stalingrad Morning. As the Soviet forces broke through south of Stalingrad, there was little in the way of armor to stop them. The Romanians in the front were hard pressed to halt the attacking Russians.
To the rescue would come Panzer Abteilung 129. Hastily thrown into the fight to restore the Axis lines and stop any further penetrations by the Russians.
On November 21st, the vanguard of the German armor would advance towards Koshary in the dark morning hours as ground snow and a thick mist gave the moon's ray a luminescent effect. The Panzers of Abteilung 129 would be accompanied by General Leyser, who would provide much of the eye-witness account of the subsequent fighting. In the mist, the Germans would collide with the advancing Russian spearhead. A swirling, in your face action would take place as both sides knocked out tanks at point blank range. The Russians would ultimately fall back, and the Germans could claim a victory in shoring up their crumbling lines. But the victory would be very short-lived.
It's a bit unusual to include General officers in ASL scenarios, but the prominent location of General Hans-Georg Leyser to the action, made it a nice way to add some spice to the scenario. There are some SSR's that deal specifically with Leyser in the scenario. Leyser would be captured at Stalingrad and survive captivity to return to Germany.
Here now is GJ111 - A Misty Stalingrad Morning.
As always, these monthly "Basement Quality" Scenarios are offered for fun only and as a thank you to the readers of this blog.
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All Grumble Jones scenarios are available from the ASL Archive website.
(Just search on Grumble Jones)
The PDF versions (courtesy of Frank Leitz) can be downloaded from the User Files Tab.
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