Firestorm: Stripes

Combat in the Park – Veluewezoom
Command Group, 5th Guard Tank Brigade, 1500 hours
Bayan grumbled to himself, noting the stalled column. A Polish recon vehicle was burning in the ditch on the left side of the road, and another had plowed into it. Polish Podpolvnik was arguing with Bayan’s Third Battalion Commander. Nobody was trying to clear the blockage; instead everyone was standing around watching the brass argue. Meanwhile they were inviting a flight of Tornadoes, Devil’s Crosses, or even that silly British bomb truck they called the Harrier, to make a hash out of a promising advance.
Bayan climbed down out of his command post BTR. He had enough of tank driving for one day. “Report, Podpolkovnik,” he commanded tiredly. They both tried to talk at once. Bayan pointed at his battalion commander. “Explain first.”
The gist of the problem was that there were British paratroops all over the place, and they were taking advantage of the light Polish vehicles in this particular unit, a BTR motor rifle battalion augmented by some regimental recon and a company from the T55 battalion. They were coming to an area full of trees, and the paratroopers were getting more aggressive, like wasps protecting the nest.
Bayan nodded helpfully as he pulled the story together, and then said quietly, “I am assuming command here. My First Battalion has already relieved the desanti at Deelen and they are pushing onto the primary objective. You cannot lag here. The Polish infantry will deploy one company dismounted into line on both sides of the road. Podpolkovnik Lisecky will keep his third company mounted. Podpolkovnik Barclay, you will take seven of your tanks straight up the road, right on the bumpers of one element of your recon vehicles. Your infantry will follow behind. The other recon element and three tanks will take the left fork and follow that trail. Lisecky, your T55s and mounted infantry will follow that element with your tank commander in overall command. What you will do is called a Thunder Run. It was devised by the Amis to fight our socialist brothers in Vietnam. It works like this.”
Bayan described the positioning of the tank turrets so that machineguns fired off both sides of the trail. “When you hit serious resistance, deploy and put in a hasty attack per norms.”
“My men are tired, Comrade Polkovnik,” offered the Pole. “We have already fought one battle today.”
Bayan looked at the sun. “There is time enough before dark to fight another. Your Division is already lagging behind the timetable for this operation. You’re going to help speed it up. After we push through this jungle, so to speak, your next objective is the bridge to Doesburg. Block the Arnhemstaatveg as you push past it. Barclay, you wheel south and push on to Velp. I want you in Velp by nightfall.”

Mechanized Company, 14th Grenadiers, Attached to Kamphgruppe Schlect
Maior Schenck tried to decide how to explain to Hauptmann Voerreker that this wasn’t the 19th century when the preferred position for infantry was a reverse slope. Standing on the top floor of the administration building he could look almost level across the ridge Voerreker was using to protect his troops from enemy direct fire and shrapnel. Woods bounded his view to the northwest at about Milan range. There was no Milan in the building, instead Voerreker’s reverse slope placed them in defilade .
In response to the British Colonel’s entreaties, Schenck had sent his attached mechanized troops out ahead to assist the British paratroops in blocking the river road into Velp. Meanwhile the tanks and Schenck’s organic M113s, that had been running around all morning, were being fueled. They would join as they finished fueling, by platoon.
He had then taken a jeep – the Brits quaintly called them Landrovers – to visit his deployed unit. Voerreker claimed to have vacationed here many times, and was familiar with the terrain. The British officer had put Voerreker’s mechanized platoon on his left flank, theoretically linking with the other parachute company near Deelen. A third parachute company was actually defending the river road in Diesen. On paper the line looked good, but in reality it had both flanks in the air. A platoon of the Dutch Homeguard was watching this end of the Doesburg bridge, but that didn’t impress Schenck. There was a big bend in the Ijssel here, with dozens of points that looked capable of handling the BTR60 much less a BMP. The Poles had both Doesburg and Angelro as of a couple hours ago. An entire regiment could be fording right now with the Home guard busily dialing the local defense director. And you couldn’t see the river from here, but perhaps the British major could.
Schenck was thinking about how to reposition the company without making Voerreker look like a fool when firing suddenly intensified from the front of the position. In a minute another Landrover came screaming down the park access road with a gunner firing out the back. Not a good sign. An explosion lifted dirt about ten yards away from the Landrover, which swerved and changed speed. Behind it, at perhaps three hundred yards, a dark shape halted briefly and a tongue of flame snapped out. Another explosion. Another miss. Then the Landrover managed to drop down over the slope out of sight. Another minute and it was parked below. Boots on the steps marked the arrival of a runner.
The British sergeant was a typical product of NATOs airborne forces. He stopped to make his manners to Voerreker, and started when he saw Schenck. “I’ll take the report, Sergeant.”
“Major Reilly said to pass this along. Armored vehicles are coming from the northwest. Dozens of them. Someone finally lit a fire under the Poles and they’re just roaring on the access roads, shooting MGs into any bush. Five minutes, tops, sir.”
“Thank you for the report, Sergeant…”
“Borne, Herr Maior. I best be rejoining the lads.”
“Carry on.”
Schenck put his binoculars up, and focused in. A large squat dark shape had joined the smaller one at the edge of the woods. The searchlight gizmo was on the right from his perspective. T64s. I hoped to avoid them.

This is another E-battle, tracing the travails of Kamphgruppe Schlect.
No pictures because the pictures seem to be confusing people. The counters are the battle.

SCENARIO
Battleplans Attack versus Maneuver yielded Contact. We technically played a reverse variant of Hamburg Contact, with PACT attacking and deep reserves for NATO. It fit the story better. This scenario pits British and German infantry against Soviet and Polish mechanized.
The map is supposed to represent part of the Veluewezoom Park. Nice woods, friendly for paratroops trying to slow Soviet armor, with some space to trade for time towards the Ijssel crossing at Velp. Good place to involve Kamphgruppe Schlect now driven over the Ijjsel and bring the story back to the 5th Guards moving south alongside 1st Poles.
The map is assault map E, which gives a good appreciation for wooded rolling country. There certainly aren’t as many buildings as depicted on the map, but declaring some buildings ‘non-existent’ only confuses us, so we played them all as ‘live’. Two inches in TY is represented by one hex. Hills are light brown, woods green. There’s even a little bit of swamp on the map but it didn’t matter.
Hills start with partial hill hexsides, then full hill, and in some cases have two levels. The partial is the slope and units on full hill are hull down when fired at from lower levels. There isn’t much low cover on the maps, but where there is, the units on either slope or hilltop can ignore it. Units on slopes can shoot over units on low ground, and units on hill top hexes can shoot over both. Buildings are the same height as one level as hill.
We played 75 points, with Polish allies mixed with Soviets and British allies mixed with Germans. BH left his panzer company off the table as reserves. Using the Luchs for spearhead was an attractive option until in our discussion I pointed out that both units would likely be killed quickly by BMPs and that would remove his reinforcements from play. Bill then deployed the M113s alongside the British without benefit of spearhead. He originally planned to deploy them MOUNTED until I pointed out exactly where my 7 T64s would end up after Spearhead
SET UP
BH placed the British on the right and the Germans on the left. He wasn’t scripted to this, he chose to do it that way. Keep in mind that we played the whole first campaign doing tank vs tank, so learning how infantry does and doesn’t work is a big part of his play right now.
As expressed in the narrative, the German position was poor. Because of where I put the objective, BH had to deploy in reverse slope to have any chance of shooting before I roared onto it.
He kept the Milans in ambush.
I looked at his set up and decided to screen off the Brits and attack the Germans. The higher counterattack number and assault numbers make them tougher customers in an assault. The open ground in front of them held my spearhead back in that zone, and was an ideal killing ground for his Milans. But his LAWs were not as good against the T64s as the German Pzf. In the end, the terrain was the biggest factor. He was on the edge of the deployment zone and I could get a lot closer to the Germans in the first move. On top of them, in point of fact.
So I used spearhead to put my troops well forward on the west hill, while hanging further back on the east hill. Then 2 T64 units, the T64 battalion commander, and both motor rifle units set up there, with one of the BMP transport units. The other BMP transport unit joined the second BMP recon unit on the east hill.

TURN 1
Rolled for reinforcements, and got 3 more T64s. Sent them to the east hill. With the objective there effectively secured, I decided to put pressure on the Brits, too by moving the 8 BMPs there into shooting positions just outside of ‘surprise’ assault distance and work over his leftmost Para Platoon. The main event was on west hill, where a mass of infantry moved forward to support 4 T64s. 3 other T64s took up firing positions where they could trade fire with Milans on the east hill, but back from the edge so that the Milans putatively in ambush would not be able to shoot from the valley floor. I used dash speed for the Recon BMPs to slide them as deep into the valley as possible, pushing the ambush potential there well back.
Shooting went as well as good be expected with targets concealed and gone to ground. The German First Platoon took 24 dice from my No. 1 infantry company (remember, the sloping ground made it possible to shoot over lower teams) and was pinned. The German Second Platoon took 12 dice from the T64s of No.1 company, and 20 dice from my No. 2 infantry company, as well as 6 more from No.2 T64 company. Again, pinned. Firepower rolls caught one infantry team from Second Platoon and two from First Platoon.
Now the assault. I debated whether to assault with infantry or tanks and decided to use the tanks because of the small but real potential that the infantry would get rocked back by defensive fire. BH could muster 6 pinned dice against my No.1 infantry company and 4 hits were likely. Not impossible to see 5. So the tanks went in, and spread out as they were they hit both units at once. Bill produced 3 Pzf and managed two hits, but I managed no 1’s so my Dolly Parton armor performed to spec. My dice were hot – 3 hits, 2 on First Platoon and 1 on Second Platoon. BH couldn’t give ground so he counterattacked, using his company commander’s morale. 2 hits, and this time I produced a 1, bailing one T64. I successfully counterattacked, and missed. He successfully counterattacked, one hit, no bails. I counterattacked one more time, hitting Second Platoon. He failed his roll, and the infantry and its M113s backed up. I foolishly advanced in consolidation, expecting a break on morale. He passed First Platoon’s test. My intent was to prevent him from blitzing the surviving Milans to firing positions.

Advancing also deprived him of ambush positions that could fire on my T64s – I had uninterrupted view to the edge of the map, and thus the Milan ambush had to be placed with the British or in the middle of the valley where a single hex of trees allowed enough shelter to prevent me from observing them without them having concealment. BH went with the stand of trees.

Then he came up with a fiendish plan. First he recovered his three pins. Next he moved the M113 transports behind my T64s, encircling them. Next he pushed the pitiful remnants of two infantry platoons – 2 stands of First Platoon, 2 stands of Second and the company commander - into an assault. 1 stand of Second Platoon had no room to join in, and so was left to contest the objective.
It was a beautiful move and I’ve done it to Leo IIs and Abrams before. But usually with infantry teams, because it takes less of them. M113s worked turned side-on and since nothing was going to shoot at them until the assault was over, the slightly increased vulnerability didn’t matter.

I was sweating now. BH didn’t come out of his foxholes on east hill because he could easily visualize my BMP schwarm sweeping onto the other objective from his rear while the reinforcing T64s repeated what he had just experienced on the west hill from the front.
Shooting came next. LAWs managed to kill one BMP and bail one on the east hill; not enough to risk an assault against potentially 18 MG dice. BH next fired 4 Milans from the valley floor at the exposed, bailed T64. Their only other targets were the BMPs, and BH has experienced my zombie tank platoons before. He rolled 4 dice hitting 2, and I bounced one completely with a 5 and failed on a 2. His FP roll was a 2, and the T64 passed the resulting morale test. Then he fired the other two ambush Milans at BMPs killing 1 bailing 1. Finally the two Milans covering the left flank of British First Platoon fired again at the visible T64, getting two hits (I matched another and he failed the firepower test to bail) but that last missile found the chink and the T64 was dead. When I was an LT there was a cartoon of the future battlefield framed on a wall with a badly damaged M60 in the middle with wires hanging off it and a dud missile hanging from the wire. Déjà vu.
BH now tried his hand with PzF against the other three T64s but I produced no ‘1’s to two hits. His transport M113s shot the hell out of my exposed infantry, getting 12 hits over two units and killing 4 bases; both were pinned.

Turn 2
Turn 1 took a lot of emails, thanks to the complicated assault situation. 36 hours, total. Turn 2, not so much. I didn’t get reinforcements. Not that they were important, because I had an excellent chance to win the game. One of my T64s was sitting on the objective, contested by 4 infantry stands. 2 of which were Milans. Bring up either or both infantry companies – each with five stands left, charge. Assault with the T64s if necessary. Simple, right? Once the two infantry platoons disappeared the transport would disappear. Objective clear.
Wrong. Despite having the Battalion Commander present, neither of my infantry companies recovered their pin. So Alternate Plan B, destroy the M113s with shooting, then tank assault the infantry in the open, using the 4” repulsion zone to clear the objective. Simple, right?
Wrong. Despite having 10 RPGS rolling 5+ (pinned) and then 3 T64s chiming in from my No.3 company I managed to only bail or kill 4 M113s. Forces me to machinegun the remaining M113s with my assault force. Fortunately both serviceable M113s bail.
Finally the assault. This only went two rounds. The first one almost ended it because I rolled a hit that claimed his company commander, but he successfully jumped stands. He counterattacked but whiffed. I counterattacked and he finally lost morale, abandoning the objective. Game over, 6-1.

HOT WASH
Obviously choosing to play CONTACT with the British paratroops as a mandated on-table unit influenced the battle. Only three German units could be in the party at start, as a result of reserves. The least vulnerable of the two German formations was the infantry company, with 5 units, and even with all the casualties caused in two turns. Having two Leopard platoons and a Luchs platoon might not have changed anything but where the fighting occurred. In this case there are too many variables.
One thing I noted, as I noted years ago playing ASSAULT with its real rules, and in dealing with the development of AAWS-M (eventually Javelin but not until after I was elsewhere) is that missiles have a great deal of trouble dealing with large wooded areas. A force whose antitank capability is almost completely reliant on wire guided missiles is in trouble in heavily wooded areas,
CONTACT exacerbates these problems. There is only 8” neutral territory on the defender’s side of the centerline, and then the attacker places his objectives 4” beyond that. A T64 or Abrams or Leo II can move tactically 14” and thus drive onto the objectives on Turn 1, forcing the defender to line up his infantry screen on the edge of the deployment area, or use a precious deployment slot to spearhead forward. 3 or 4 BMPs represent a viable combat unit but 2 Luchs do not. With the edge of the deployment area a mere 8” away from a huge spearhead area, the results are what we just saw. In CONTACT, and perhaps some other scenarios, the objectives in the DEFENDERS deployment area should be placed by the DEFENDER.
Next time we play CONTACT that will be the ‘twist’.
The other thing I noted is that the T64s are almost as good in infantry assault as the Abrams and Leo II, giving a mixed PACT force a lot of options.
AFTERMATH
The shattered remnants of the ‘loaned’ company of 16th Grenadiers followed Maior Schenck’s borrowed Landrover. Three mortar tracks, one infantry track, the commander’s track and 3 Landrovers. Twenty grenadiers, including Voerreker and his Stabtsgefreiter. One Milan launcher. Three British Milan teams whose camouflaged Landrovers had appeared out of nowhere to pick up half the ambush, the other three disintegrating in balls of fire from the verdamte BMPs.
His leading Leopard had just hove into view. For a minute Schenck thought about just issuing instructions and driving by, but realized that wouldn’t be smart.
He dismounted and pulled himself up onto the tank, waving the Landrover, with its load of wounded, ahead. The Oberfeldwebel commanding the tank looked at him curiously. “Deploy to the left, Feldwebel,” he ordered. “The Soviets are advancing with T64s and we have to slow them down.”