Eager to fling 16kg shrapnel sprayers into the crowded property at the western end of Boleslav Bridge, the Blue Team’s SU-100 creeps forward at the start of this sixty-second turn. The TD’s commander knows he’s taking a big risk, but increasingly isolated and keen to even odds and divert attention, that risk is weighed and accepted.
Unfortunately for the SU skipper, the commander of the Tiger is feeling similarly bold. Five seconds after the clock restarts the two advancing heavyweights spot each other over ornate bridge parapets and commence gun laying.
After consulting his massive rulebook and repositioning some beads on his giant abacus, the wrinkled gnome that dwells inside every Combat Mission install adjudicates. The Panzer VI will fire first! A supersonic shadow hares across jumbled river ice, pocked masonry, and frosty cobbles before meeting its maker against the frontal armour of the Soviet TD.
Despite being 75mm thick and generously raked, that armour fails to do its job. In an incandescent instant, the interior of the SU-100 is transformed into a fiery foundry ladle.
The Blue Team can take crumbs of comfort from the fact their northern scout and AT teams made it across North Bridge unscathed this turn…
…and the flamethrower lads managed to pot one of the Panzerfaustists at e9S shortly after the demise of the SU-100…
However, with the TD gone, it’s hard to see how Soviet forces can now apply meaningful pressure to the western end of Boleslav Bridge.
Next order deadline: Sunday night