49th Mountain Corps:
Scenario Preview, Part Two
by Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
November 2021

Fire in the Steppe is the model of what I want to see in our Panzer Grenadier game: a story told in game format, in which the historical text and the game’s scenarios are interwoven to advance the narrative. Put simply, that just means you use the scenarios to tell the story. In this case, it’s the Brody-Dubno tank battles of June 1941.

Just to the south of Panzer Group One’s advance, the German 17th Army had the immediate objective of capturing Lvov, the capital of Galicia during the days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and still a major city in 1941. They had no motorized or mechanized formations, so in hopes of giving them at least some mobility they received the 49th Mountain Corps and several light infantry divisions. These marched no faster than the regular infantry, but were thought to be more tactically flexible with their de-centralized organization.

Both the corps commander, Ludwig Kübler, and 1st Mountain Division’s commander, Hubert Lanz, argued that with only two regiments rather than the three of a regular infantry division, the mountain troop would be at a decided disadvantage fighting in a conventional role. They would be in the first echelon anyway, and that’s the story we tell in 49th Mountain Corps.

Fire in the Steppe doesn’t have pieces for German mountain troops, but they do appear in Parachutes Over Crete. Fire in the Steppe: 49th Mountain Corps uses those mountain pieces, with pieces and maps from Fire in the Steppe (and a few pieces from Slovakia’s War) for its set of 11 scenarios. Let’s have a look at some more of them:

Chapter Two
Fall of Lvov

Scenario Five
Red Collapse
25 June 1941
Pulling back again, the 97th Rifle Division now began to waver as German air attacks and German counter-battery fire (directed by unmolested spotter aircraft) took a heavy toll on the division’s artillery and support elements. The German mountain troops pressed their attack, but the Red Army riflemen finally had hope of the long-promised reinforcements.

Conclusion
After several days of good performance, 97th Rifle Division collapsed during this battle and it appears that Zakharov was killed in action (at least he disappears from the record and a new commander takes over the division’s remnants). The 81st Mechanized Division fared little better, breaking up into several groups as it attempted to break contact, with most of them being surrounded.

Notes
The Germans are on the attack, with numbers, morale, leadership, air support and artillery all on their side. But the Soviets get reinforcements (eventually, anyway) and there are a lot of them. Including tanks – not very good tanks (BT7 light tanks), but the Germans aren’t blessed with a lot of anti-tank weaponry. The Germans still have the advantage, but they have to achieve a great deal if they hope to win this one.

Scenario Six
Yazuv Stary
25 June 1941
The sacrifice of 81st Mechanized Division halted the German advance, at least temporarily, and A.A. Vlasov of 4th Mechanized Corps now committed his 32nd Tank Division to turn back the invaders. The shattered 97th Rifle Division did not supply any troops to the effort – with its commander missing and headquarters disrupted, the division staff may not even have been aware of the pending counter-attack - and the tank division’s own infantry lacked the transport to reach the battlefield. Unwilling to wait any longer, Vlasov ordered division commander Col. Yefim G. Pushkin to send his T34’s into action unsupported.

Conclusion
The Battle of Yazuv Stary could have been a significant victory for the Red Army, but a complete lack of infantry support and staff coordination meant that the tanks assaulted the Germans in small groups or even individually, and with no foot soldiers to ward off German anti-tank teams. As it stood, the tanks ran over eight anti-tank guns (Soviet tank crews seemed to take particular glee in flattening the small 37mm guns) and wiped out the assault gun battery attached to 1st Mountain Division. But it came at a loss of 15 tanks. Sgt. Gustl Berauer, Germany’s first world champion in Nordic skiing (who competed for Czechoslovakia in the 1936 Winter Olympics), knocked out three of them, shoving a grenade down the barrel of one tank’s gun and tossing another grenade into the open commander’s hatch of another tank. Others fell victim to a battery of 88mm anti-aircraft guns.

Notes
This time it’s a real tank attack: T34’s leading the way, backed by T26 light tanks. The 37mm anti-tank guns can actually handle the latter, but those T34’s sure seem invincible. Except that the Soviets have no infantry to ward off assault combat against the tanks, and the Germans have a battery of 88mm anti-aircraft guns. The scenario’s a free-for-all; the Soviets roll up and roll over as many Germans as possible, while the Germans ty to hang on.

Scenario Seven
North of Lvov
28 June 1941
Recovering from the sudden tank attack, the 1st Mountain Division marched on Lvov. The Soviet Sixth Army erected a hasty defense line in front of the city, and just before the Germans arrived the city garrison released a composite battalion of the NKVD’s 233rd Rifle Regiment, which had been employed busily massacring political prisoners before the Germans arrived. These sinister reinforcements filtered into the line hours ahead of the assault.

Conclusion
Days of defeat, marked by constant air attacks, had taken their toll on the Red Army. But the 41st Rifle Division still had some fight in it, even if the NKVD battalion did not add anything more than extra numbers – these chekisti, unlike the long-service border guards, had not expected to face enemies who might shoot back at them. The scratch Soviet defense held for a day, however, buying time to murder still more enemies of the state in Lvov.

Notes
This time the mountaineers have to crack a defense line held by a mix of RKKA and NKVD troops. The Germans have air support and artillery – the latter being the real key to German success in this campaign – but once again, they’re asked to accomplish so much that they’ll need every one of their many advantages.

And that’s the second segment. Next time, we’ll wrap it up.

You can order 49th Mountain Corps right here.

You can order the Mountain Package right here.
49th Mountain Corps, Fire in the Steppe, Parachutes Over Crete and Slovakia’s War all for one low price.

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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published an unknowable number of books, games and articles on historical subjects. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, three children and his dog, Leopold. Leopold knows the number.

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