[Hermit]

The APC's and infantry going "over the hill" have played leapfrog and reached the base of the hill. Several more enemy entrenchments have been discovered when they fired at us, and all were engaged with MG fire from the APC's. The remaining Su-76 was turned into swiss-cheese by one of the Duster's (twin 40mm SPAA) shooting down on it from the hilltop. Having been previously inundated with 155mm artillery rounds, the Su-76 managed to get off two rounds at our advancing troops, without effect, and then its crew hid behind the gun shield, allowing the Duster to roll forward to the crest and rain shells on it from above. Hiding behind their gun-shield was not such an effective defense, since their vehicle was open-topped!

After our suppressing APC's received several inaccurate shots from their recoilless, two of our other APC's dashed forward and overran one of the enemy infantry emplacements, screened by the smoke generated from the massed firepower pinning the enemy troops. We also stumbled across an enemy bunker from the rear while some of our men were manuevering to the north to get a look at the next avenue of approach. Unfortunately, a similar "look-see" to the south was repulsed by an enemy SMG squad that tore up Sgt Kelly's men quite badly. They almost broke and ran, and one of the 1/2-tracks that had recently unloaded its 90mm AT gun had to run over and pick them up. Looks like they'll be out of the fight for today.

Flails, and both mounted and dismounted infantry, plus two tanks continued pushing west through the wooded gap and are just about to the edge of the woods. The heavy's and their support troops are still creeping forward and upward on the dirt road, slowed by mines and caution.

Up north, the heavy tanks destroyed another suppressed T-34 at close range in the woods, and pushed farther southwest to get a view of the back-slope of the BIG hill they crossed earlier, and to eventually engage the enemy T-34's blocking the open area to the southwest, which the main group will have to cross when it splits. The main group also continues to creep forward, using the woods as a shield to the south as they work their way toward the designated split point. So far they are still on schedule, with more than an hour left to reach their objective.