Firestorm: Stripes

Forward Detachment (Niktnie’s Uhlanski), 3rd Polish Motorized Rifle Division (Pomorska)
Niktnie’s sappers had no sooner completed the auxiliary bridge than scouts reported that the Germans were coming back, apparently concerned with protecting the next bridge downstream, and possibly trying to retake the one he had. Niktnie ordered his second echelon to close on his right flank. That would bring 13 T55s, 11 more BMPs, 3 more Spandrels to his assistance. Meanwhile he would deploy most of his assets on the left bank of the river, using his brand new bridge to shelter behind some of what passed for high ground in this area.
Kamphgruppe Schlect, 32nd Panzergrenadier Brigade, 11th Panzer Grenadier Division
Schenck ran into the survivors from the fighting near Hummelo as they came streaming back from the bridge area. The 2nd Leopard Platoon had not been engaged and formed a rallying point for the survivors – 4 Luchs that had been with 2nd Platoon, 3 Marders carrying 7 men fit for duty, 4 lightly wounded and 4 seriously wounded men, and one Jaguar. The Panzer platoon that had been with them and Hauptman Schmidt had disappeared and the excited babble of the survivors claimed at least 20 AFV had jumped them, deployed infantry, blasted the battle position to bits, and then carried the position. The Stabtfeldswebel cleared his throat. “Leutenant Meinke, sir.”
Meinke had another platoon of Leopards, bringing the count to seven, and another team of Jaguars, and of the HSK jagers riding in trucks. “Fill up the Marders with Grenadiers, Meinke. I’m sending you on the light bridge over the Ijssel, the Ijsselweg, you know, and you take two Luchs and the Jaguars. Engage targets of opportunity and if you see any softskins you know what to do. Particularly fuel trucks, Ja?
“Zum befell, Herr Maior.”
“I’m going to back your play with the infantry, these three Leopards, and 2 Luchs will make a sweep on this side of the river. If we can confuse them, that may give the rest of the HSK unit time to come up.

BH and I played a continuation of the travails of Kamphgruppe Schlect and Niktnie's Uhlanski, mostly because it was easier to pull out some more German counters from his counter trays and my plastic bags than it was to start from scratch with Dutch or Amis.

We set the point value at 70, and by agreement kept our original formation and added to it. I added a T55AM battalion (should be T55A, but where are the stats?), a BMP-1 'battalion' (in reality, the rest of a company) plus additional Spandrel and recon, plus 3 more T55. Bad mistake in putting the additional recon in support. BH added an M113 company with mortars, Gepards, more Leopard Is and more Jaguars. Our further agreement was that our opening formation would have to be deployed, then any extras. BH thus ended up with a company commander, a Marder platoon, two Leopard platoons, and two Luchs. I had my T72s (notionally a battalion) plus a motor rifle company and 5 scout BMPs plus 3 Spandrels on table, 7 units.

We used the map for Hummelo and then matched it with another map section folded in half. The maps are more-or-less geomorphic on the folds, so we had a good playing area, except for the map fold on my map that kept popping up.
SET UP
Setup was the most tedious part of this game. We agreed to use the same forces that had started the first scenario as the core of our starting force. He had six units and I had seven – my originals plus one unit from the reinforcements, which I took as another recon patrol. I didn’t even think about the risk I was taking by putting that unit on table; it should have been part of my Division Support. Sigh. Fortunately it wasn’t in sight of anything but BH’s Marders and they scored no hits on their one attempt.
It took a total of 13 E-mails over the space of the two days I took writing the last report. The actual battle took about 4 hours as we had set up the unit template in the process of the unit placement.
BH put the infantry platoon on the nearer of the two objectives, backed up by the Marders on the hill, and No.2 platoon in a village behind them. One Luchs platoon led a Spearhead out to the north, protecting the crossing by allowing No.3 Leopard platoon and the new company commander to protect it. He had learned his lesson about attacker not always getting the first turn last year, so the Leos there were hidden.
I used a spearhead to blunt a spearhead coming out of his other corner. He then posted the second Luchs patrol to block the road leading to the second objective, and put the Marders on the road behind them. His thinking was that they could chew up any vehicles I allocated there. I put the Spandrels and my T72 company commander in a village to dominate the northern flank, while anticipating reinforcements there. This was not good thinking on my part. Five transport BMPs joined my southern flank, and the center, thanks to my other BMP Spearhead, was the infantry, three BMPs, and 9 T72s.

Turn 1
A toss of the electronic dice, so to speak, and BH was first player. This was both good and bad. Being first took the guided missiles out of the equation. BH looked at my pile of reinforcements, including 13 T55 tanks, and knew that he had to win fast or lose. So he moved his No.3 Platoon to firing positions and tossed 14 dice at my T72s. Scored 3 hits at close range on my No.2 Company killed one bailed one and shaved the paint on the third. Scored 2 hits on No.2 company again with long range fire and bailed the same tank again, and it passed the double bail check. Also chipped the paint on the remaining tank in that unit. They passed morale. Aggravating but not devastating. Annoying considering I was concealed and gone-to-ground, but survivable.
I moved my infantry forward and supported their southern flank with 7 BMPs, who were close enough to get a shot at his Luchs patrol. Scored a hit, and they failed morale. In the main event I tossed 9 T72 dice, three Spandrels and 3 Saggers at his Leopards, since they had shot at me. 5,6 hits, right? Saw two, and both resulted in FP 1 rolls, and bailed two Leopards. He passed and remounted. Aargh. Considering what had happened last game, the dice were averaging out. Even 9 dice from the AGL didn’t produce any hits.

Turn 2
BH saw the opportunity to take out my T55 battalion that I had overlooked and sent the 3 Marders out to deal with them. He also saw an opportunity to flash past my flank after doing a drive-by on my Spandrels with his other Luchs. Otherwise he sat still. Seeing an infantry assault coming he decided to stay gone-to-ground with the infantry platoon, so his MILANS kept their heads down.
I guess what came next averaged out. He put a barrage of fire including the Jaguars on my T72s. The long range platoon whiffed again between decent saves and the +1 to armor for the range. They were firing on No.3 company, hoping that the other fire would deal with No.2. Company C took one bail. The closer Leopards bailed both T72s in No.2 Company rolling a 1 for firepower on a penetration. Then the Jaguars finished them.
My turn saw the infantry advance up the hill to threaten the objective from the south. The loss of two more T72s was painful, even more so when the bailed tank in No. 3 company refused to remount. I had the Luchs to deal with on the northern flank. I counted spaces and concluded that because he couldn’t dash in the next two turns, I had time to bring a T72 platoon back over the river to protect the objective. So I unwisely decided not to position the T72 commander to block the threat to the objective.
I fired three T72s at the Jaguars and killed one, and disappointingly bailed the other. Of course, that was better than the expected, but once you hit something with an FP=2 weapon you expect it to die. Fortunately BH failed morale. I pasted No.3 platoon with the BMPs, the other 3 surviving T72s on the hill, the Spandrels, and my T72 commander. Ten dice produced only 2 hits, but at least they were kills. The Leopard passed its morale test.
The BMPs on the southern flank had spread out and executed the Marder platoon. This was good and bad; they established a threat to the ‘far’ objective and at the same time blocked an advance along the lateral road. Unfortunately they were badly exposed if BH got reinforcements, and as it turned out, not well placed for surviving retribution from BH’s remaining Leopards.
So there was a lot of burning vehicles at the end of Turn 2. My infantry had moved into firing positions, getting within 4 inches of the objective in a couple places and poured ineffective fire on the infantry platoon, but the number of dice apparently impressed BH. I also suddenly executed scoot orders on T72 platoon No.3 and my BMPs in the center, depriving his No.2 platoon of useful targets.

Turn 3
BH rolled for reserves and got nothing. That meant that Leo Platoon No.2 had to deal with the threat to the far objective, so he used stabilizers and brought 6 dice of brutal 105mm slugs to the problem, killing two of the transport BMPs and bailing a third, which remounted. Far objective secure for the moment.
He also decided his best opportunity to win was to continue to slide the Luchs past my flank and then flash up the hill at road dash. To support this he pumped two rounds into the T72 commander, killing the tank. The command element failed to switch vehicles. The other Leo on the north bank fired at the exposed tank from No.3 company, missing. He could have popped two missiles at it, as well, but remembered those 27 dice and decided not to ensure a pin.

I rolled for reserves, and got one. I picked a T55 unit and the Battalion commander, and blitzed them to the east. Infantry closed into assault positions from the west and south and BMPs moved to close off escape from the west. My T72s returned to the crest.
Between 4 T55 shots at 4+ and the single Spandrel that had the angle the threatening Luchs died. Menawhile 2 Spandrel dice plus 6 T72 dice focused on the surviving Leopards, and finally killed both. 27 dice from the infantry company and 3 BMP dice managed to pin the infantry and kill one Milan stand.
Defensive fire cost me one dead infantry but didn’t stop the attack. I killed two stands in my first assault. BH counter attacked and killed two of mine. Then I killed one of his in my counter-counter attack, and he lost morale. The surviving team swam the river to escape. Then, ironically, it failed morale.
Since I had stands within 4” of the objective and his stand had to move nearly the full 8 inches to get away from the encirclement, game over.

HOT WASH
Since I made some crucial errors I’ll point them out. Number one error was using the BMP unit that belonged to the reinforcing T55 battalion. Not smart, and almost cost me use of the company. When you have multiple units and reserves, structure it so that if you contemplate bringing on an odd unit, it comes from Support.
Incautiously letting the the Luchs get round my flank was really stupid. I know those puppies can fly once they reach a road, and the wooded area behind my Spandrels was going to block shoots forcing me to rely on a blitz. The T72 commander should have backed out of the town and engaged them. Then he could have kept them within 8” preventing a dash and eventually destroying them.
I think his Marder move was brilliant as even one bail on a two-BMP unit would have taken it out. The dice roll was incredibly bad; he expected to get 3 hits and got 0.
The one mistake he made was bad timing on moving the No.2 platoon to protect the other objective. He should have kept them in MG range of my infantry so that the infantry assault was improbable. That would have bought him temp to roll dice on the reserves, and even one reserve would have completely changed the game at that point.
The Germans took a beating on the battle, losing an entire infantry platoon, 4 Leos, 2 Jaguars, 3 Marders and 4 Luchs. My casualties were 4 T72s, 2 BMP-1s and 3 infantry stands. But they were in it the whole way.

Aftermath
Maior Schenck was riding atop the last Leopard to cross the river. Wilcommen nach Velp, he thought. His command was now down to 20 Leopards, 24 M113s carrying infantry or mortars, 2 Gepards, 2 Jaguars and 4 Luchs. No.1 platoon, his veterans, had been effectively wiped out. He had six tanks with his original tank companies to go with the reservists. The Luchs and the 6 veteran Leopards were effectively out of petrol. Given a little time to transfer fuel from the reservist vehicles, he could probably save them, but it would be faster to refuel directly from the British logistics base here. Then he could see about moving south and then east to rejoin the Division near Emmerich.

A British Major he identified by the single crown on his shoulders was staring at the span as if willing it to fall into the water. "You need to drop that bridge, Herr Maior," he shouted over the roar of the Leopard's engine. He tapped the TC's shoulder, signaling he wanted to dismount, and dropped to the ground, waving it along. As soon as the noise died away, he walked to the Major. "There's a Polish reinforced recon battalion right behind me, ten minutes out, at most, if they push it. You need to blow the bridge right now."

"My professional military judgement agrees with you, but there is a tiny problem with that. When this all started some Spetnatz were running around here, and stealing the demo materials from the small bunkers near the bridges. Using us for their resupply. So the Dutch Rear Area Commander for this sector secured them in a warehouse. Not a half-bad idea, and then the war went quiet. Then all hell broke lose three days ago, and part of that hell was a Spetnatz attack on the secure ammo warehouse. Hell of an explosion. Emergency request for new demo charges went in of course, but that was yesterday..." And with that he gestured at the river. "Besides, what's the point. Their BMPs and BTRs can swim the river, just like landing craft. Even 5 KPH will put them on our side in 2 minutes. And there isn't a corporals guard here right now. A dozen of my boys, and a couple hundred logistics technicians and truck drivers. Brave as hell, but no antitank weapons. The LAWS, you see..."

Schenck completed the sentence, "Were in the secure ammo facility."

"Right the first time. Well, I better tell the Colonel the relief column is here. He'll want to talk to you, of course."

"Relief column? Nicht verstehen!" he said lapsing into German.

"That's right, you probably don't know. The 2nd Guards broke out of their bridgehead up Apeldoorn way. The Colonel sent the paras up the road toward Dieren. Blocking force, you know. Kept one company as a reserve. Then at about 1300, the bastards landed a couple companies of heliborne infantry at Deelen Airfield. The other company of paras went roaring out of here in whatever transport they could commandeer, then got caught in an ambush in the woods. Nothing out of the ordinary for paras so it wasn't too bloody painful, but the Soviet paras know their business too. Slowly pushing us away from Deelen. Where they started landing their transports about an hour ago. Let's go see the Colonel."

As they walked toward the town hall of Velp, the British major chuckled. "Irony. The Maker has a sense of humor. The last big battle for this neck of the woods included my grandfather. He ended up a guest of your country but survived the war, thank God. Then your grandfather was doubtless on the other side, Herr Major, if not here then elsewhere, and I'm sure the grandfathers of some of those men chasing you were here, too, but on my side. Truly ironic."

Schenck chuckled too. "Opa was a Gefreiter in 116 Panzer then. He missed this show. But I'm sure some of my men had Opas here."

The English Major suddenly slapped his forehead dislodging his beret. He stooped to deftly pick it up. "How stupid of me not to see it before! Its Market Garden in reverse! They're going to Antwerp!"