Romanovka, July 1941

Mad Russian,
  I am greatly enjoying your postings on the details of Barbarossa.  Of particular interest is the action just north of Romanovka, in July 1941, where the Leibstandarte got their noses bloodied by Russian resistance and their rather rude introduction to the T-34.  This was the action covered by that really excellent CMBB scenario CSDT Eisen Faust.

  After playing and enjoying that battle so much, I started digging to find out more about the action, without much luck, I might add.  I don't have the books that Warmonger cited for research to the scenario, but am working on it.  Glanz's book only noted a few pages on the battle.  Was it not covered in much detail?

  PanzerMeyer mentions some actions around that time, in that general area, in his book Grenadiers, but nothing really specific.  I have pored through the most excellent book War Without Garlands  Operation Barbarossa 1941/1942, by Robert Kershaw, which has some truly amazing details on the battles and pocket reductions, but doesn't really mention any details about the action north of Romanovka.  In Franz Kuroski's book Sturmgeschütz Vor!  Sturmgeschütze to the Front, I figured there would be some mention of the unit involved, as StuGs were in the battle, but he didn't cover the Waffen SS units other than to say they had StuG units as well.  If you have more suggestions and/or sources to note, I'd be grateful.  Internet searches for Romanovka were not helpful.

  On an unrelated note, the charge of 4 StuGs, some infantry, and two flamethrower teams over the pontoon bridge in Riga (next to the blown RR bridge), where they were then cut off and almost completely wiped out, was amazing in it's re-telling.  That would be an interesting scenario for CMBB.  Alas, I am not skilled at designing scenarios. 

  I checked with mapquest, and found a general map that seemed to show features from the map in Eisen Faust.  GoogleEarth was not very helpful, and mostly blurry.  If you have details on how the map was designed, that would be cool.

  I look forward to you posting more details of Barbarossa.  They are great to read about.

                           Heinrich505

Warmonger,
  Thanks for the passage.  I may pick that book up at a later date.  I think you really captured the essence of this passage in your Eisen Faust scenario.  There was indeed a great deal of hand-to-hand fighting in that scenario, with Germans and Russians hacking at each other.  Very nicely done.  Thanks for checking on this for me.

                             Heinrich505

MR,
  The reactions are quite amazing.  The surprise and shock were total.  No one had a clue when the first Soviet monster came rumbling over the horizon.  Then the "doorknockers" started bouncing off, and everyone realized they had a serious problem.  Dr. Bäke wrote quite a bit about his encounters with the T-34s and the KV series.  He was directing his tank unit to aim for the gun barrels, if they were close enough, and render the beasts impotent by destroying the gun.  This was being done in the Pz35(t) tanks, a cracker barrel of thin steel, and if hit at close range by the T-34 or worse, a KV-2, the little steel box would probably be vaporized.  Imagine the moxy of a tank gunner, lining up for a shot at the tank barrel of one of those monsters.  Talk about cool under pressure.  It is kind of like hunting dragons with a crossbow, a la "Reign of Fire."

  On the flip side, imagine being given a steel monster of a tank, and finding out that the Germans had practically nothing that could knock that tank out.  What a feeling of invincibility.  Now, if they'd had radios and better tactics......who knows.

                                Heinrich505