Firestorm: Stripes

Pushing hard Red

Ivan was bloodied, but now was the time to push and see how much pressure he could take. After receiving his reserves, Colonel Lotgering is ordered to pursue the Soviets and probe the depth of their forces.
They were making good progress, encountering only sporadic AK fire, when a quartet of T-72s popped up and forced them into cover. The infantry quickly dismounted and the M113s retreated to a safe distance.
“Let’s see how strong you are Ivan, because I think you’re faking it.” The colonel’s radioman looked up in surprise. “Sorry sir?”
Lotgering realized he had spoken out loud. “Never mind, Benten. Contact lieutenant Hafford and tell him to test the right flank. Have the VADS support his push.”

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50 pts Encounter – USA vs Warsaw Pact
We both chose a battle plan and rolled of, with my Maneuver and Marko’s Attack, resulting in Encounter. Which was actually pretty good since we just started and had a Free for All first. Encounter gives you the same mission, but with Scattered Delayed Reserves as well.

I put my artillery into reserve (them being 20 points), and Marko put one platoon of T-72s and his Hinds in reserve.

We also used the version 4 rules of Late War FoW (with rules for aircraft etc. from TY) instead of the unique TY rules. We felt it sped up most things, and was more Morale friendly.

Deployment
Just as in our earlier game, I deployed both infantry platoons on my objectives, and I was able to deploy my anti-tank options opposite his tanks this time. Looking at my right, Marko only had his infantry there with his BMPs. Interesting.

We rolled of and it was me to go first.

Turn 1-3
The first couple of turns saw me destroying all of Marko’s T-72s with Cobras, ITVs and Dragons. I then mounted my infantry to make a beeline for the objective there, while I pushed the other infantry on the right flank forwards with support from the VADS. And these were on a roll, eventually destroying all BMPs with a ridiculous amount of successful firepower tests of 5+, while I lost only one M113 with the infantry inside surviving.

Turn 4-6
My M109s rolled onto the field on my left, and then realized I forgot to deploy my observer. Which now also had to come from reserve.

I got my infantry on the left on the objective, and was now crossing my fingers that my opponent would receive his reserves on the far away edge. On the right, I used my Cobras and VADS to pin the Soviet infantry to set them up for an assault, but this went horrible.
I lost two teams in defensive fire, then missed all of my swings, and then lost the infantry team by failing the Unit Last Stand test (yes, even with the re-roll of my commander…).

Marko’s T-72s turned up, and on the right edge as well. He immediately put them to work, and drove my infantry off with a combo of machine gun fire and a successful assault.

Victory was now close for the Soviets. If he managed to kill my infantry and ITVs, I would lose via a broken Formation. Marko send his tanks around the forest where my remaining, dug in infantry was hiding in. He sprayed machine gun fire, I failed two saves, and he rolled two successful firepower saves! Uh oh. It left me with only one infantry team!

His Hinds flew over to the ITVs and made ready to blow up the forest with them in it. But the M109s were close by, and with their six anti-air shots shot down the Hinds!

Turn 7
This was going to get very close. First, I passed my Unit Last Stand test for the remaining infantry team. Then, a combination of Copperheads, ITVs and Cobra TOWs finished of the last T-72s, breaking the Soviet formation.

Game end
With only losing one infantry platoon, it was a 5-2 victory for the USA.

Aftermath
I lucked out with both the infantry Unit Last Stand test and with shooting down the Hinds. My push on the right had kind of stalled, despite killing quite a few Soviet infantry stands, they were holding out. I was lucky to have the first turn, being able to immediately start shooting the on-table T-72s, and shooting down his Hinds with just a few machine guns was awesome. I don’t think I’ll ever repeat that.

Highlights
TOWs are amazing weapons against MBTs. Marko needed to roll a six to be safe, and that didn’t happen that often. Also the duel between the VADS and BMPs was very one-sided, with once again luck dictating that when a BMP suffered a double bail, Marko would fail the morale test.

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“Their last tank is down, sir!”, came the response from platoon Kit Fox. The Soviets had received some reinforcements, but they hadn’t lasted long. They had even managed to bring down a duo of Hinds, if the reports from his left flank were to be believed. “Probably just drove them off”, thought the colonel, while he was going through the post battle communications.
He had no more time for reminiscing as the radio came to live again.
“Colonel, orders are to chase the reds into Frankfurt itself. It looks like they pulling back all over the city, so exploit every option!”