Soviet Tankovy is on the frontline - battle report part 2

Battle two was a Free for All scenario. I faced it off against a fellow people's commissar, commanding a Soviet Strelkovy Batalon (Guards). For those who did not read the previous battle report, my company composition was this. His force setup, as far as I can remember was:

Fearless/Trained
Big Strelkovy (around 20+ bases), with 45mm guns attached
Small Strelkovy - barebones, with only a commissar upgrade
Small Cossack platoon (5 bases)
2x SU 76
6x T-34 (F/C)
4x 152mm howitzers
Sporadic I-153

We both deployed our forces covering the objectives. I immediately noticed that the only units able to effectively hurt the KV 85s were the howitzers and his airplane. This is why I was extra careful to spread out my precious heavy tanks and hide any remaining ones so that they would not be an easy target for the artillery. I also moved my recon a bit to hide it behind a large patch of woods, well out of line of sight of any significant anti-tank. Since I won the 'who goes first' roll, I moved my guys up to concealed or out of LoS positions with the exception of the KVs which rolled onwards to glory through a centrally located bunch of crops.

My first turn did no damage to the gone to ground Soviet infantry but I gained enough ground to concentrate my T-34s (including Mariya) and KVs on the small infantry platoon covered by his medium tanks and howitzers.
In response, my opponent also failed to do any damage, since even after a successful hit on one of the KVs with the 152mm rounds, the top armour of the heavy tank was strong enough to deflect the hit.

Turn two, the real part of the assault began: both my KVs and T-34/57s moved into positions from which shooting at the enemy T-34s was possible. I fired the full salvo, and.... got a bail! Wow. Not a whole bunch of damage. Fortunately, at the same time, my regular T-34s took a couple of pot shots at the howitzers and managed to eliminate one.
His turn two was similar to the first one, although the results were a bit different. He was able to get his aircraft in on my positions, which killed one of the T-34s and a howitzer round hit Mariya, killed her tank and she was forced to switch to a new one - this time a KV!

Now I got a bit frustrated but succeeded with my own motivation roll and decided to go on with the overall plan. The good thing was, that now I had a really powerful KV tank and still all of the T-34/57s left. It was time for revenge.
The truth is, revenge was not coming :) I shot from stationary positions at his howitzers and tanks and only managed one or two bails. His response was devastating though - he hit my T-34/57s 4 times at long range and with only 1s to penetrate, I rolled 3x1. With this salvo, two of my tank killers were dead and another one bailed. What was even more annoying is that on the other flank, my BA 10s were in a duel with the assault guns and winning, until a single die plane, with re-rolls of successful hits managed to wipe out 4 of my cars, forced a morale check and they fled the battlefield.
Seeing what was happening, my opponent decided to put some pressure on the flank that was not covered by the KVs. He only decided to do it with his Cossacks though, which were not a difficult opponent for my T-60 tanks.

A bit later, also on the main axis of attack the tide was turning. Finally, I got a good round of shooting and managed to eliminate all but 2 of the T-34s which was enough for me to give orders for an all-out assault.
This meant that while I was grinding his howitzers and infantry to dust with the KVs (one of them hitting on a 2+ !), my T-60s were machinegunning down his isolated cavalry. The results were pretty obvious - I killed all of the advancing Cossacks and in the end, managed to wipe out the defending infantry to the last man, capturing the objective.

Since the opponent was not an experienced general, I was helping him a lot in this battle so that he would understand at least the basic limitations of certain types of troops. This combined with a round or two of lucky rolls, meant that the battle was very far from being one-sided. A good start for a new Soviet commander I would say! There was nothing he should have been ashamed of! :)