The Liberation of Taganrog
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| A new scenario under development. |
Stalingrad: 13th Guards Rifle Division
The 13th Guards Rifle division is one of those heroic Soviet units that you learn about after doing some reading about the battle of Stalingrad. 13th Guards commander General Rodimtsev They suffered almost 100% casualties and were present throughout key moments of the struggle: when the Germans entered the City, the fighting at Pavlov's House off January Square, the central height of Mamaev Kurgan, Operation Hubertus, the factories, etc. They of course make an appearance in my first Stalingrad scenario about Operation Hubertus. What's left of them (about 500 men) is clustered in fortified positions at the southernmost end of the 62nd Army's Volga river defense line. As part of the 13th Guards, I've also included Yakov Pavlov's small reinforced command and the apartment building that he held with his men in this scenario as well. The stats for Pavlov's men are above (I need to add in their anti-armour weapons (14.5mm anti-tank rifles). I am st...
Comments
I came across your blog at random, while doing a nostalgic search for Taganrog. I lived there for three months and have visited plenty of these former battlefields.
Downloading CO2's free version now, in the hopes that it can load your scenarios.
If you know of any book that covers the fighting there I would love to read it. Let me know if you have trouble loading up the scenario in CO2 and what you think of the scenario if you get to play it.
You're probably done with the scenario for good, but let me know if you want any tips on how the populated areas of the map could be 're-painted' to be more accurate. A good portion of the 'urban' zones would be better described as 'town' or 'village,' which would perhaps make the approach to the city more gradual. There's also some very dramatic topography with impassable slopes and cliffs on the peninsula itself, but this may not be tactically relevant, given the Soviet's avenue of assault. Only thing I can think of is a few defilades and an area of wetland (which was my backyard).
I'm afraid I can't recommend any books; even finding sources in Russian isn't that straightforward. But there is a free John Tiller demo of the Soviets' breakthrough on the Mius Front, featuring a large stretch of terrain to the north of Taganrog.
Actually, you could do a CO2 and Combat Mission: Black Sea double feature at an amazing landmark that was a battlefield in 1943 and last summer. It's a burial mound called Saur-Mogila, basically like a Mamaev Kurgan (of Stalingrad fame) on the steppe. You had the separatists re-excavating old German trenches, and MH17 was shot down from a field within sight of the summit.