Red Orchestra 3.1 Maps



The following descriptions were taken directly from the Red Orchestra map descriptions screens. You can see for yourself, the great pains the team has gone to providing authentic settings.



RO-Barashka - Barashka - Hungary, 25th January 1945. With a number of German units surrounded in Budapest - and Hitler refusing, once again, to allow a breakout, the scene was set for another catastrophe. However, the Germans decided to try and break in to free the defenders and re-take the city. They assembled a powerful strike-force, including 4 Wehrmact and 3 SS Panzer Divisions, lunging forwards in a surprise attack on 26th December 1944. Failing to break through that way, IV SS Panzer Corps was disengaged, quickly shifted south and attacked from the southwest a few days later. They punched through the initial Soviet defences but were brought up short by defences along the Buda River.

The battle: On 25th January, 5th SS Panzer Division “Wiking”, on the right flank of the German drive, attempted to punch across the river at a rail and road crossing north of the small town of Barashka. They ran straight into the Soviet 23rd Tank Corps, brought up as fresh reinforcements and a sharp engagement ensued as both sides fought for a bridgehead across the river.





RO-Berlin - At dawn on 30th April, elements of the Soviet 756th Rifle Regiment started out to clear a path across the final few hundred metres to the Reichstag, in preparation for the final assault. The assault battalions were commanded by Captain SA Neustroyev; as soon as they launched into the attack, they met ferocious fire from ahead and each flank as the remaining Wehrmacht units attempted to hold them off. It would take until 6pm to clear the way to the Reichstag.





RO-DieWalkure - February 16, 1944. Korsun Pocket Breakout. By the new year in 1944, the Soviets had pushed the Germans all the way back to the Dnieper River and had retaken Kiev. The Germans held only one stretch of the east bank of the river, between Kanev and Cherkassy. It wouldn't last.

The Soviet offensive began on January 25th. Three days later the two pincers of the Soviet attack met in the town of Zvenigorodka and two German corps found themselves in a pocket centered on the town of Korsun. Nearly 60,000 men were trapped. Naturally Hitler vetoed a breakout attempt by the encircled divisions. Instead, the Germans launched several relief attempts.

Finally, on February 16th, Manstein had had enough and ordered a breakout without consulting Hitler. The breakout met with initial success and things were looking up for the trapped men until they ran into the Gniloy Tikich River, swolen with the recent thaw. Thousands who had survived the encirclement and breakout died trying to swim the river. Of the 56,000 men trapped in the pocket, less that 20,000 made it to German lines.

This is a fictionalized battle based on the Korsun breakout. Hill 239 was an actual location where some of the most vicious battles were fought. The 5 SS Wiking division played a major role in the pocket as well. The battle simulates the breakout attempt and the Germans drive for the safety of their main lines.





RO-Donets - A fictional battle in a riverside village.





RO-HedgeHog - Somewhere in the Ukraine, June 28, 1944||In late June 1944, the Soviets launched Operation Bagration to destroy the German Army Group Centre in Belorussia, north of the Pripyat Marshes, around Mogilev, Minsk and Vitebsk. The operation was well planned and well executed, with the Germans being heavily over-matched. Within a few weeks, Army Group Centre had disintegrated and the Germans had lost 450,000 men – far more than lost at Stalingrad. As the German front fell apart, many units stood, others retreated in good order and still others collapsed and fled. Many of them were already well too late to retreat, as the Soviets were behind them. In this instance, a retreating German unit has to fight for its survival around some small Belorussian farms.





RO-Jucha - The Jucha parish, East Prussia - August 2nd, 1944. The Separate NKVD Airborne Company of the 1st Ukrainian Front drop behind the German front line near the river Wada in support of 69 Army's flank drive against 4 Panzer Army. They scramble to destroy infrastructure and hamper the German response by attacking bridges, defensive installations and supply caches.





RO-Kalinin - Kalinin, Battle of Kursk, 12th July 1943.





RO-Karlovka - Having surged to the banks of the Dnepr at the end of 1943 – and then across it – the Soviets refused to let the Russian winter delay them. As 1943 closed, the Soviets attacked again, in a series of offensives in the Ukraine. The German lines held, briefly, under the weight of the Soviet attacks, then broke again around Kirovograd. As the Soviet mechanised forces charged around the city, von Manstein struggled to find reserves to stem the tide once more.





RO-Kaukasus - October 1942||Axis forces are penetrating the Kaukasus area.They have arrived at an important pass and will have to try to drive back the 9th rilfe division of the Red Army that currently controls the plateau and the pass. Axis are assaulting, all 3 objectives must be taken. Allieds will have to organise their defences and stand to the last man.