The Last Hundred Yards Vol 4: The Russian Front

The Last Hundred Yards Vol. IV: The Russian Front is the fourth game in The Last Hundred Yards series. It covers major campaigns and missions from the second half of the war in the east, introducing the Russian army to the series for the first time. A series of missions simulates actions from the October 1943 fighting in the Ukraine near Krivoi Rog, while others feature fights during the Russian 1944 summer offensive, Operation Bagration. All major Russian armor from late 1942 onward is covered, plus some additional late war German armored vehicles. In October 1943, elements of Konev's Steppe Front (redesignated 2nd Ukrainian Front on 20 October) broke out of their bridgeheads across the Dnepr River toward the town of Krivoi Rog. Spearheaded by Rotmistrov's 5th Guards Tank Army, the Red Army drove a salient 50 miles deep and 20 miles wide into the positions of the German 1st Panzer Army. A major German counterattack in panzer corps strength, including the rebuilt 14th and 24th Panzer divisions (whose originals had been destroyed at Stalingrad), stopped this penetration but not before its threat to neighboring positions to the southeast forced the abandonment of Dnepropetrovsk by the Germans. A series of module missions illustrates different phases of this fighting. Operation Bagration was the Soviet main effort in the summer of 1944, with five fronts participating to eject the Germans from white Russia. Led by Stavka coordinators Marshal Zhukov and Marshal Vasilevsky, it destroyed much of Germany's Army Group Center and advanced 400 hundred miles to the outskirts of Warsaw. Bagration enabled the follow-on Lvov-Sandomierz offensive to the south by Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front, which pushed across the Vistula east of Krakow before the Russian summer offensive paused. Portions of this fighting are also covered in module missions, showcasing some of the late war armor on both sides.