SITUATION  101

by Roy Eastern

	In  May  1945,  the  Eastern  Front  began  to crumble and the foreign units of the Waffen-SS attempted to surrender to the Western Allies rather than to the Russians, who would probably execute them out-of-hand as "traitors." At this critical time. General Berzins, commander of the 15th SS (Latvian) Division and assorted other units, refused the possibility of surrendering his men and their families to the Russians and boldly marched his command across what was left of Germany to surrender to the British.
	As they neared the British lines, the Latvians learned that an armored column of the Russian 26th Guards Tank Brigade was attempting to cut them off. With great presence of mind, Berzins marshalled his armored units and fought a brilliant  delaying action enabling  the  infantry and their  families  to  surrender  to  the  British  6th Guards Tank Brigade.
	The survivors of this march spent most of the next 12-18 months in DP camps and many of them later emigrated to the United States where they settled in the midwest, many in Indianapolis and  Chicago. The existence of large  Latvian communities in these cities is due, in a large part, to Berzins' work.

	1) The  six  indicated  German  units,  the  two forts, and the 4 blocks are first set up on the No. 2  board.  Movement  is then in the  following order:  Ist-German. 2nd-Russian, 3rd-British. For a two player game, the British and German forces are commanded by a single player.
	2) The Germans enter from the East edge of board No. 3; the Russians enter from the North edge of board No. 2; and the British enter from the West edge of board No. I.
	3) German units within 3 squares of a British unit  are  considered  to  have  surrendered.  All surrendered units must be escorted off the West edge of board No. I by British units and must remain  within  3  squares  of these  escorts  at the end of each turn (escorts move at the same time as the surrendered units).
	4) Russians may not fire at any surrendered German unit and no surrendered German unit may fire at all. Russians and British may not fire at each other nor may Russian units pass through any squares occupied by British units.
	5) German infantry and civilian units may be transported by British vehicles.
	6) During  this battle,  the German (Latvian) soldiers are fighting for their families, friends and loved ones (represented by the civilian counters). Consequently, they are considered to be "ferocious." The following rules are used to show this "ferocity."
	a.  All  "ferocious" infantry units when attacking using the CAT attack, increase their odds by one column in addition to the other advantages gained by the CAT attack.
	b.  Enemy  infantry  attacking  "ferocious"  infantry  with  a  CAT  attack  have  their  odds decreased by one column and lose the benefit of subtracting 2 from the die roll.
	c.  Enemy  overrun attacks against  "ferocious" infantry units or stacks containing "ferocious" units are rolled at normal odds and the attackers do not subtract 2 from the die roll.
	d. Under these rules, only infantry-type units may be considered to be "ferocious," i.e., infantry, security, engineer, marine,  ranger, commando, recon, etc. Armored units are not considered to be "ferocious."
	e. Two of the German  75mm  units must be placed in the two forts.