Tank Battle at Raseiniai:
Scenario Preview, Part One
by Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
August 2022

Panzer Grenadier: Tank Battle at Raseiniai is a Campaign Study, one of our small booklets featuring a couple of chapters of additional scenarios for (usually) one of our games. Since we’ve adopted the story-arc format for Panzer Grenadier games, with the scenarios telling the story chapter by chapter (and with each chapter having a battle game to link all of the scenarios in the chapter together), the Campaign Study format fits right in.

Tank Battle at Raseiniai adds two new chapters to Fire in the Steppe; you’ll also need our 1940: The Fall of France game (for some additional Pz35t pieces). The topic is, somewhat surprisingly, the June 1941 tank battles around Raseiniai, Lithuania. Fire in the Steppe’s scenarios take place much farther to the south, in western Ukraine, but the maps and pieces work fine in Lithuania, too (and already have, in Lithuania’s Iron Wolves and Legend of the Iron Wolf). There just aren’t quite enough Pz35t pieces.

Let’s have a look at the first chapter.

Chapter One
Fighting for Raseiniai
Sixth Panzer Division got off to a good start in the first hours of Operation Barbarossa, surging through a sector that should have been covered by a full rifle division but instead contained just that division’s recon battalion. That early success might have made the division’s officers and men somewhat complacent when the Soviets launched their counter-attack two days later.

Panzer 35(t) light tanks of 6th Panzer Division move up to the border. 21 June 1941.

Scenario One
The Road to Raseiniai
23 June 1941
Maj. Gen. Franz Landgraf’s 6th Panzer Division took up positions on the right of 41st Motorized Corps, just east of the border city of Tauroggen. While the neighboring 1st Panzer Division became tangled in fighting for the city, the 6th Panzer Division had a much easier time. The Soviet 48th Rifle Division had been ordered forward from its station at Raseiniai on 18 June, but by the 22nd only the division’s recon battalion had deployed on the border. Sixth Panzer Division encountered the rest of the formation on the next day.

Conclusion
A May 1941 inspection declared 48th Rifle Division’s state of readiness and training “worse than bad.” The entire division staff (86 people, including both Red Army and political officers) had been executed in the late 1930’s for crimes ranging from chronic alcoholism to treason, and their replacements seem to have been less than eager to be noticed for any reason. After the inspection the division was ordered to move to Raseiniai to build fortifications, which were not complete when the Germans attacked. Following devastating air attacks, 6th Panzer Division blew through the hapless division, but then halted to secure its supply lines.

Notes
“Hapless” may have been too kind a descriptor for the 48th Rifle Division. A recent English-language work claims that the division fought so poorly because it had been issued with training ammunition, but the 48th Rifle Division’s daily reports (which end on the 22nd) make no mention of this. The true answer seems to be that this outfit – one of the long-standing divisions from the Russian Civil War – never recovered from the judicial slaughter of its command staff and re-posting to Lithuania almost immediately thereafter.

Scenario Two
Solyankin’s Attack
24 June 1941
After a lengthy approach march conducted under German air attack, the Soviet 2nd Tank Division reached its assembly areas during the night of 23-24 June. When dawn came, Maj. Gen. Egor N. Solyankin sent his tanks forward against Battle Group Seckendorff of 6th Panzer Division. The Germans had halted to re-supply and despite reports of the approaching tank columns from air reconnaissance, and somehow managed to be taken by surprise.

Conclusion
The German anti-tank gunners withheld their fire until the Soviets advanced to within point-blank range, at which point their shells bounced off the thick hides of the big Soviet tanks. While 6th Panzer Division had a company of the new 50mm anti-tank guns, these were deployed with the division’s other battle group and Seckendorff had only the older weapons. The Soviet tankers drove right at them, grinding the guns and often their crews under their treads; the motorcycle troops broke when their battalion commander received the same treatment.

Notes
The Soviets come charging into action with a combined-arms team of tanks, infantry and artillery, while the Germans are shocked and might be better off throwing rocks than using their 37mm anti-tank guns. It’s not often that the Soviets have such advantages in 1941 scenarios, so enjoy them while you can – and try to meet those stiff victory conditions.

Scenario Three
Across the Dubysa
24 June 1941
Having chewed up the first lines of Battle Group Seckendorff, the Soviet tankers reached the Dubysa River. On the opposite bank, Seckendorff’s 114th Motorized Infantry Regiment tried to arrange a defensive line to stop them. Most of the battle group’s anti-tank guns had already been squashed under Soviet tank treads, but Seckendorff’s combined arms team did include both infantry guns and full-sized artillery.

Conclusion
Some of the Soviet tanks forced their way over the river, and proceeded to shoot up German artillery and stampede their infantry. The Germans claimed to have stopped some of them by deploying howitzers firing over open sights, but many more of the tanks stopped themselves by throwing tracks, suffering mechanical breakdown or running out of fuel. Battle Group Seckendorff had suffered a second defeat in a matter of hours, and the Soviets weren’t finished yet.

Notes
Having demolished the first Germans, the Soviets rampage on against the next group – motorized infantry and artillery. The Soviets are out to chew up as many of the Hitlerites as possible, while the Germans are just trying to hang on until help arrives. It’s not going to be very pretty for the invaders, but once again, the Soviets are expected to do a lot with their momentary advantage.

Scenario Four
Koll’s Counter Attack
24 June 1941
Sixth Panzer Division did not have very impressive panzers: a total of 239 tanks, 155 of them Czech-built PzKpfw 35(t) light tanks and while another 47 were the even lighter PzKpfw II. Col. Richard Koll of 11th Panzer Regiment gathered up his panzers and trundled forward to fight the Soviet monster tanks. Nothing in his arsenal was any more potent than the anti-tank guns already lying mangled on the battlefield.

Conclusion
Koll’s light tanks had a speed advantage over the lumbering Soviet machines, and he used that to gain flank shots against the big enemy tanks; it didn’t help. “From three sides their shells hammered against the steel giants,” wrote Erhard Raus, commander of the division’s other battle group, “but the effort to destroy them was in vain. On the other hand, our own panzers very soon began taking casualties, and after a long, futile struggle against the Russian giants, Colonel Koll’s vehicles had to withdraw into covering terrain to escape destruction.”

Notes
Now we have a tank battle! The Germans have armor efficiency on their side, and all of the soft factors. They’re also driving comically tiny machines into battle against the KV heavy tanks of 2nd Tank Division. It’s another tough assignment for the invaders, which is as it should be.

Scenario Five
Daylight Fades
24 June 1941
By late afternoon, Solyankin’s attacks had run out of momentum, as fuel and ammunition likewise ran out and his division’s supply train could not meet the burdens imposed by high-intensity mechanized combat. Solyankin gathered his remaining heavy tanks for one last attempt to crush the Germans before night fell and his tanks could no longer see the signals of their company commanders – as impressive as the big, new tanks might have been, very few of them had radios.

Conclusion
The German 41st Motorized Corps had deployed its heavy flak batteries along its supply routes, to repel the heavy Soviet air attacks that assailed their rear areas. It took hours to bring forward the 88mm flak guns as well as 100mm high-velocity cannon from the corps artillery reserve. These ungainly (and fantastically vulnerable) weapons gave the front-line troops a means to destroy the Soviet steel behemoths and drive off the attackers.

Notes
Now the Soviets are in for it – their force is depleted (through breakdowns and lack of fuel, not so much by enemy action) and now the Germans have something that can destroy their invincible tanks. It’s going to be much tougher on the Soviets this time, but they still have very definite armor superiority.

And that’s all for Chapter One. Next time, we look at Chapter Two.

You can order Tank Battle at Raseiniai right here.

You can order Fire in the Steppe right here.

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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 new puppy. He will never forget his dog, Leopold.

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