11. RED BARRICADES CAMPAIGN GAMES
Rule sections #11.1-.5 Rule section #11.6 (RePh)
11.51 RB Campaign Game I: INTO THE FACTORY
CG Days: 17-29 October, 1942
Following the fall of the Dzherhezinsky Tractor Factory, the Germans turned southwards against the Red Barricades Ordnance Factory. Fighting in the Barrikady Housing Estate and the Silicate Plant, west of the Red Barricades, had been raging since early October. Now the Germans were reinforced by units that had pulverized the Tractor Factory. Elements of Panzer Division 14 and Infanterie Division 389 commenced their attack from the north, while elements of Panzer Division 24, Infanterie Division 305 and Jäger Division 100 came on from the west. The Russian 84th Tank Brigade and 308th Rifle Division struggled to hold the northern and western approaches to the factory. On 15 October, as Major Pechenyuk's 650th Rifle Regiment (138th Rifle Division) crossed the Volga, vicious fighting raged north of the Barrikady in the Minusinsk area. The next day a combined force of German tanks and infantry, supported by Stukas, advanced south along Tramvanaya Street, striking the 84th Tank Brigade. Dug-in Soviet tanks destroyed a dozen panzers at close range, stalling the enemy infantry. The Germans attacked again, but took frightful losses from a well-placed Katyusha barrage. Both the 84th Tank Brigade and the 308th Infantry Division struggled on, buying precious time for the two remaining regiments (the 344th and 768th) of Col. Lyudnikov's 138th Rifle Division to cross the fire-swept river. Arriving during the early morning hours of 17 October, the men were ordered to hold the Barrikady at all costs. Later that morning, the Germans attacked again as the newly arrived Soviets were still preparing their positions.
CG I VICTORY CONDITIONS: The Germans win upon the conclusion of any CG scenario if they Control all but any three of the Stone Locations on/
INITIAL SCENARIO VICTORY CONDITIONS: The Germans must Control ≥ 15 Stone Locations at scenario end.
INITIAL RUSSIAN OB:
Elements of the 138th Rifle Division [ELR: 3] set up ≥ two hexes from all allowed German entry hexes (see German entry restrictions): {SAN: 4}
| RG: Rifle Coy x 2 | Fortified Building Locations x5 |
| RG: SMG Coy | 8 CPP |
| 45LL AT x 2 | 50 FPP |
| 2-2-8 x 2 |
INITIAL GERMAN OB:
Elements of Infanterie Division 389 [ELR: 4] enter on/
| RG: Rifle Coy | RG: PzKw IIIL Pltn |
| RG: Sturm Coy | RG: Offboard Observer (see also SSR I.3) |
| RG: Btln Mortar OBA | 15 CPP |
INITIAL SCENARIO SPECIAL RULES:
The following SSR apply only to the 17 October Initial Scenario of CG I & III and their applicable RePh steps.
I.1 EC are Moderate, with no wind at start. Weather is Clear.
I.2 The Germans may purchase none of the following RG: AT battery, INF battery, or SAN increase. The only "Fortifications" the Germans may purchase are additional "?". No field phone may be selected by the Germans. No German RG may be purchased as "On-map" or "Reserve" (11.6194).
I.3 The German OB-given Btln Mortar RG must use the OB-given Offboard Observer RG (see German RG Chart note "o") and may freely Pre-Register (C1.73; E12.1) ≤ two hexes prior to Russian setup.
I.4 All map-edge hexes in the German entry area are considered German-Controlled at Initial Scenario start; all other hexes are Russian Controlled. Before set up begins, the German player places one friendly Perimeter marker in hex A9 and another in U1. Point the arrow on each directly along the map edge (Alternate) Hex Grain to the northwest corner of the map. This indicates the German-Controlled map-edge hexes at Initial Scenario start. Similarly, the Russian player should place friendly Perimeter Control markers in A10 and V1 (pointing southwards and eastwards, respectively) to indicate his friendly-Controlled map-edge hexes at CG start.
I.5 Reinforcing German (only) RG Infantry/
AFTERMATH: By the end of the 17th, the 138th's link with the 308th Rifle Division to its right was severed, and the Germans were fighting at the factory's northwest corner. On 18 October determined German attacks broke the Tramvanaya Street defenses and crossed the railway embankments. To bolster the defense, factory militia units were organized and sent into the firing line. By 22 October, German assault troops had breached the Russian line at the western side of the Barrikady, and had broken into some of the larger workhalls. The Soviets fought desperately, their weapons blazing from fortification apertures. Smoke hung over the battle area, limiting visibility. Small areas, even single rooms in buildings, were lost and recaptured by both sides each day. It was a microcosm of the savage combat that marked the entire battle of Stalingrad. The continuous fighting became so awful, that, according to one German officer, the dogs left the city and swam across the Volga to safety.
Slowly, brute force pushed the Soviets out of a number of the large workhalls. On 24 October, the Germans advanced deeper into the factory complex, gaining footholds in the central and southwest assembly halls. The close-quarter fighting moved slowly eastwards across the landscape of devastated buildings, twisted railroads cars, slag heaps and shellholes. The Russians would crawl stealthily, their boots bound in sacking to muffle the noise, through the darkness each night to reinfiltrate lost strongpoints. At dawn, the Germans would attempt to fight their way back. The Germans, with their total air superiority, forced their foe to move in the open only under cover of darkness. To offset this, Soviet engineers linked strongholds with slit-trenches and tunnels. To kill enemy snipers, German artillery leveled entire buildings; Russian artillery meanwhile strove to disrupt German troop concentrations.
By late October, the ragged survivors of the 138th Rifle Division had been forced back to within a few hundred meters of the Volga, but still clung doggedly to several of the gutted factory buildings. The 10th Rifle Regiment, from Lt. Col. Sokolov's 45th Rifle Division, began to filter into the lines in the Bread Factory area on 26 October, just in time to prevent further breakthroughs.
11.52 RB Campaign Game II: OPERATION HUBERTUS
CG Days: 11-15 November, 1942
For Paulus, the battle for control of Stalingrad had become the battle of attrition he had feared. He knew that time was running short for his Sixth Army to secure the remaining tenth of the devastated city still held by Vassily Chuikov's tenacious 62nd Army. As his forces regrouped in early November, Paulus fretted. The Germans were not equipped for winter warfare and intelligence reports indicated increasing Russian activity along the flanks of the Sixth Army. He therefore called on his troops for a final desperate effort to clear the rubbled city - code-named "Operation Hubertus". Fresh German units, some four battalions of combat engineers (each with about 600 specialists trained in demolition of fortifications), would lead the assault. A dozen experimental assault guns (the Sturminfanteriegeschütz, or StuIG 33B) mounting a 150mm gun would join other armored vehicles for the street fighting. At the same time, however, special aid stations and graves registration teams moved up close behind the front lines.
Behind the Barrikady, the German Pionier troops were ordered to launch their initial assaults at two known Russian strongpoints - one called the "Chemist's Shop" and the other the "Commissar's House" (alternately known as the "Red House"). One German officer, Major Josef Linden, appraised the terrain in and around the gun factory with glum foreboding: "loosely hanging corrugated steel panels that creaked eerily in the wind; a perfect mess of iron pans, gun barrels, T-beams, huge craters." And every pile of rubble threatened, if not a Russian, at least a boobytrap.
The Soviet defenders (relatively fresh men of the 45th Rifle Division, levened with battle-wise veterans of the 138th Division) were well aware that a German offensive was in the offing. Newly compressed into a narrow zone barely 10km long, with the freezing river at their backs, the stalwart soldiers of the Soviet Union dug themselves even deeper into the rubble, well protected by numerous machineguns and anti-tank guns. Steel plates had holes drilled through to expose only the muzzles of the weapons, while mines and booby-traps were strewn with abandon. Heavy artillery shells were withheld by the Front Command in anticipation of the coming offensive, but General Chuikov was able to distribute precious ammunition and food to his front-line troops.
Finally, at 0300 hours on 11 November, "Operation Hubertus" opened with a violent German barrage. When the artillery fell silent at 0630 hrs, ten battalions of German infantry, supported by tanks and engineers, stormed towards the Soviet defenders.
CG II VICTORY CONDITIONS: The Germans win upon the conclusion of any CG scenario if they Control all but any five of the Stone Locations on the map.
INITIAL SCENARIO VICTORY CONDITIONS: The Germans win if at scenario end they Control ≥ 26 more Stone Locations than they have lost (or than they started with if they lost none).
INITIAL RUSSIAN OB:
Elements of the 138th and the 45th Rifle Divisions [ELR: 3] set up east of the German Perimeter (see SSR II.2): {SAN: 4}
| RG: Rifle Coy x3 | 2-2-8 x4 |
| RG: SMG Coy | Fortified Building Location x20 |
| RG: Guards SMG Coy | 14 CPP |
| 45LL AT x2 | 80 FPP |
| 76L ART x2 |
INITIAL GERMAN OB:
Elements of Infanterie Division 305 and Pionier Bataillon 50 [ELR: 4] set up on/
| RG: Rifle Coy x2 | Fortified Building Location x5 |
| RG: Pionier Coy x2 | 17 CPP |
| RG: Sturm Coy | 50 FPP |
INITIAL SCENARIO SPECIAL RULES:
The following SSR apply only to the 11 November Initial Scenario of CG II and its applicable RePh steps.
II.1 EC are Wet, with no wind at start. Weather is Clear.
II.2 The German Perimeter for the start of the Initial Scenario is defined as Hex Grains W1-W5-U6-U25-Q27-Q29-M31-S40-S45 (with the two map-edge hexes being W1 and S45). The Russian Perimeter Area consists of all Locations east of the German Perimeter. No No-Man's-Land hexes exist. Each side should place friendly map-edge Control markers as appropriate (11.6053).
II.3 The following hexes contain stone rubble at ground level: O9, P7, P8, P9, Q9, X9, S11, S12, T11, R16, S16, R29, R30, R31, S31, U33, U34, U35 and T35. Factories S18 and U23 are Gutted (O5.5).
AFTERMATH: Chuikov's troops leapt to meet the Germans head-on. The fighting was unusually bitter, even by Stalingrad standards. Quarter was neither asked nor given. Inside the great workhalls heavily armed soldiers fired point blank into each other in swirling melees. The "Chemist's Shop" fell on November 11, but the initial German efforts to storm the "Commissar's House" were repulsed. Meanwhile, elements of Infanterie Divisions 305 and 389 reached the Volga near the oil depot, thereby sealing off the remnants of Lyudnikov's division behind the Barrikady.
Casualties on both sides were extraordinarily heavy. Soviet and German commanders alike clamored for more men from higher headquarters and for situation reports from subordinate commands, all in vain. Entire regiments simply ceased to exist in the cauldron. Despite their horrendous losses, the Germans resumed their determined attacks on the morning of the 12th. When the combat engineers finally broke into the "Commissar's House", the surviving defenders scurried into the cellar, intent on carrying on the fight. The Germans ripped up the floorboards, tossed in full petrol cans and ignited them with gunfire. They then lowered and detonated satchel charges. At long last the fortress was cleared!
But such attrition could not long be taken, and the rubbled city itself frustrated German efforts to coordinate operations. By the second evening, all thrusts spearheaded by the Pionier had broken down into small, savage battles that differed little from the previous street-fighting. Scores of clashes ebbed and flowed along the Volga's bank for another three days, until finally dying out due to mutual exhaustion of the combatants. Nothing had changed. The Russians still clung to their toehold on the river bank, however reduced, thus allowing vital reinforcements their chance to debark into the ravaged city. At dawn on 19 November Chuikov and Paulus and all their weary men in the ruins heard the muted rumble of big guns carried by the wind from a new direction - far to the northwest. That barrage heralded the beginning of the Russian counterattack, "Operation Uranus" - and tolled the death knell for the battered Sixth Army.
11.53 RB Campaign Game III: THE BARRIKADY
CG Days: 17 October-15 November, 1942.
CG III combines CG I and CG II, "connecting" them with CG Days 30 October through 10 November. During this time the Germans' intense attacks on the factory complexes subsided, as the Germans reformed and reinforced for the planned "final" offensive in November. The Russians took advantage of the lull to continue ferrying across the balance of Sokolov's 45th Rifle Division (the 61st and 253rd Rifle Regiments), putting them into the line near Bread Factory #2 as well as the 241st Rifle Regiment of Col. Gorishny's 95th Rifle Division. Sensing the Germans' exhaustion, the Soviets launched a counterattack with the available fresh forces on 31 October. Though gains were limited to several hundred yards, the assault did prove to the Germans that their foe was not beaten.
By night and day the Soviets continued limited offensive actions with small storm groups, seizing individual houses and factory rooms in attempts to expand their meager bridgehead. Meanwhile the temperature dipped sharply and ice floes appeared on the river, making even more hazardous the Russians' reinforcement ferry trips. It was at this critical point that the Germans had selected to launch "Operation Hubertus'".
CG III VICTORY CONDITIONS: The Germans win upon the conclusion of any CG scenario if they Control all but any five of the Stone Locations on the map.
All Initial Scenario parameters are as per CG I, INTO THE FACTORY (11.51).
