[Hermit]

Expected mass infantry attack did not materialize. Instead, mass of t-34/85 did materialize. Uh oh! Classic failure to apply Sun Tzu's advice to "know your enemy." I didn't check the Chinese equipment list before the battle, and mentally was thinking "hey, its still early in the war, I don't think the Chinese had that many tanks yet."

So far (turn 12) it appears they have 2 main columns, both in the South sector, followed up by Mongol Cavalry. One appears aimed at the fore-mentioned VP hex cluster on the ridge extension sticking out almost into their territory. The heavy mine concentration around it, plus artiller, has stalled them there for the moment.

A belt of mines and two platoons of support infantry with bazookas has stalled the second advance, which appears to be aimed at the gap in the ridgeline, probably because that's where the road penetrates it. The enemy have really chewed up one of the infantry platoons, and the other is starting to take fire too.

So far, my self-imposed range limitation has kept just about all of my units from revealing their locations, and I've used woods and smoke to take pot-shots when only a few of the enemy can see me. I usually destroy one, or sometimes two, of their armor each time. Then retreat into a ravine or back over the top of the ridgeline. Even though I'm having to abandon dug in positions, its better than letting them take who-knows-how-many shots back on the Russian turn. It's creating a line of burning wrecks which is allowing me to manuever so that their numerical superiority isn't as bad. As planned, I've given up the VP cluster, although the haven't managed to take any yet. Two tanks made it through the mine cluster, but I've been shooting just about every artillery tube I've got at the area, and immobilized or demoralized most of the tanks that are in position to take it so far.

This is turning out to be a little more interesting than I had expected, since I was caught off-guard by the huge number of enemy tanks, concentrated into those two hordes. Too bad cluster munitions are still a few decades into the future :-)