AAR of SP101 Jura Juggernaut Part 1

It was my turn to suggest scenarios for a game with Jim, one of my regular opponents. From my short list he chose this one, saying he had wanted to play it since it was released by Schwerepunkt a few years ago. I agreed that it looked pretty cool.

This is not a the sort of small, quick and dirty scenario Schwerepunkt has a reputation for producing. This Brian Williams design pits 20 elite German squads with 7 halftracks, supported by 9 tanks of the 1st Panzer Division, againt 20 Russian squads reinforced by 7 tanks of their own. It takes place during the opening hours of Barbarossa.

The German task is to enter from the west and exit 49 CVP off the east edge by the end of turn 4, and capture all three of the bridges over the Jura River by game's end (turn 8). Jim chose the German side, leaving me to come up with a defense.

Most of the Russian force is restricted to setting up in buildings on board 49, west of the river. Furthermore, the Russians are permitted no more than one MMC per building (exclusive of gun crews).

I decided fairly quickly that preventing the German exit would be very a difficult gamble, requiring my defense to spread out. The more viable strategy for victory seemed to be concentrating on holding a bridge. Just one would do. I chose the southernmost bridge, in the shadow of hill 520.

Given the setup restrictions, there really aren't many obviously good places to put the two Russian 37mm guns. I chose to put them both in the area of the southern bridge. One in F8 with a long line of sight down the board 49 road, the other in K10. K10 itself is not a good place for the gun, but the little m12 could be pushed with relative ease into the woods of 40L0, for a good look at two of the bridges and much of the western bank.




I was pretty thin in the north, with just a few squads and somne dummies to try to slow down the German onslaught.



Jim entered all of his turn one force in the north, in a "hit 'em where they ain't attack." I opted to let him maintain concealment rather than reveal by default which units might be dummies.





Meanwhile in the South, the 9-1 and a squad with an HMG high-tailed it across the bridge to set up on the western side. They would eventually dig foxholes at the foot of the bridge, with two other squads sliding down from hill 520 and to doing the same in the grain.

More to come soon..............