Colonel General Manstein opened the battle for Sevestopol on June 2, 1942, with five days of artillery and air bombardment. He had assembled 1,300 guns to crack the fortress. Guns as large as 800mm, the largest in the world, to tackle the strongest fortress in the world. The Luftwaffe flew as many as 2,000 sorties a day. They used specially designed concrete busting bombs to reduce fortifications. The 11th Army was composed of 7 German Infantry Divisions and 3 Romanian Divisions, while the Soviet forces were made up of 7 Rifle Divisions and 1 Cavalry Divisions with numerous Naval Infantry Regiments.

June 7, 1942 the German infantry were given the order to take the fortress. They took the city and defeated the Soviet troops by July 4,1942. The 11th Army had artillery from 75mm up to 800mm. Manstein was able to deploy 1,300 guns of all calibers. The big guns, artillery with calibers of 300mm or more fired over 6,000 shells in less than a month. The 18th Flak Regiment fired 18,787, 88mm shells. The 300th Panzer Battalion was equiped with the Goliath Assault Charge Vehicles. Sevastopol was anything but an easy victory.

Manstein was promoted to Field Marshal, Hitler authorized a special Krim Badge to be worn. Only three such badges were authorized during the entire war.

Operation Blue had been held up until Sevastopol fell. This meant that the attack into the Caucasus was delayed.

I made the scale as 1 KM per hex to give the feel for the attack on the fortress. The turns are daily and the game is 27 turns long.

The Soviet disposition was guessed at. I have no map of the Soviet forces in the battle.

The German Big Guns were also guessed at to a small degree. The HARKO 306 unit is a composite of my own design that I added the large caliber guns that were mentioned. The number assigned is my own TOE.

300th Panzer Bn had the German flamethrower halftracks included since Goliath is not in the game. I also included the flamethrower halftracks in the Engr Bns. They had flamethrowers but not as halftracks. All German Infantry and Engineer units were heavily reinforced for this battle, so this is not much of a stretch, if at all.

If anyone has a good source for the battle I would appreciate more information. I hate having to guess at TOE's and map locations.