The Cherkassy Pocket

After two weeks, I put the first scenario from Decision Games's Cherkassy Pocket into the books. Had I played out another two dozen turns, I would have finished the entire campaign.

The game starts with the Russian 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts (respectively disposed on the left and right sides of the board) positioned for a breakthrough and link-up south of the Ukrainian city of Cherkassy (offmap) against the bulk of the German 8th Army caught between the two of them. The Russian player is tasked with breaking through the German defenses, quickly, to link up the two fronts and trap as many units as possible of the German 8th Army north of the link-up forces, surrounded at their supply base at Korsun. 

The above image gives a birds-eye view impression of the disposition of troops at game start, with the Germans holding a thin-crust of defensive emplacements running north to south between the Russians, deployed on the eastern and western edges of the map. Russian armor and mechanized units are the red units (infantry the beige/tan colored units). German infantry are in field gray and the German armor and mechanized units (plus panzer recon units) are in black. Armor and mech (and German panzer recon units) can ignore infantry zones of control, which permit easily exploited breakthroughs when one side can bring their armor to bear against unsupported infantry lacking armor support. 

The above map gives an impression of the historical progression of the fighting around Cherkassy and Korsun. 

Historically, the Russians took two days to break through and link up south of Olshana. More of the type to slug it out and try for a sidle than leave my flanks to the wind and slam my tanks on the gas, it took me four days to affect a breakthrough and a union between the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts. 

The fighting kicked with the 20th Tank Corps battling headlong against the German 3rd and 14th Panzer Divisions, which proved adept at elastic, delaying actions. Supported by the 66th, 80th, & 375th Infantry, along with the 6th, 66th, and 69th Guards, the 2nd Ukrainian Front pinned the bulk of the German armor on the field, allowing the remainder of the Russians on the eastern flank to widen the gap that formed. These were primarily exploited by the supporting armor of the 18th and 29th Tank Corps.

On the western side, the charge was primarily led by the 5th Guards Tank Corps and the 5th Mechanized Corps, but without similarly beefy infantry divisions in the 1st Ukrainian Front, progress was slower to exploit German weaknesses once the fixed positions were eventually overcome. 

More a battle of breakthrough attrition than a self-less disregard for safety in exchange for a quick link up, the fight saw a meatgrinder effect overcome individual German positions in the 2nd, 3rd, and especially 4th day of the offensive as the Russian tidal waves both east and west on the map overwhelmed German defenders. 

The only negative consequence of this strategy was that the retreating 5th SS Division, which entered on the north side of the map, racing for the safety of the south edge of the map, survived the eventual encirclement of Korsun wholesale, at the cost of 1 VP. 

On the evening of the 4th day of the offensive to encircle the 8th German Army, the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian fronts met in the small town of Schevchenka (what I believe is today's Shevchenkove in Cherkasy Oblast) when advance elements of the 5th Guards Tank Corps linked up with armor from the 29th Tank Corps. 

Link-up achieved. Now all that's left is to mop up the OOS units north of Russian cordon.

At that point, most of the German armor that had not been previously isolated in independent rearguard actions was safely south of the Russian cordon (the whole of the 5th SS Division and most of the 3rd Panzer along with straggler elements of the 11th and 14th Panzer Divisions). When all was said and done, the German losses were exorbitantly disproportionate (upwards of 8-9 divisions lost in combat/overrun) when compared to the Russian losses (amounting to just a single division and another two divisions of armor lost due to breakdown under the stress of advance).

The game result: a Soviet Tactical Victory (achieved by isolating more than 14 German units north of the Russian cordon).

In all likelihood, had I finished the entire campaign, I would have ended up with a Soviet Strategic Victory thanks to the number of German armored units destroyed, but, I will leave that game for another day. Next, off to Normandy.