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Firestorm: Stripes

The Team Yankee Global Campaign

Despair

50 POINTS
Warsaw Pact
Harald Knauer
VS United States
Oxford

Dust Up - 54 points

No infantry support. No artillery. No reconnaissance. Instead of reinforcements the Panzerbataillon received an order to attack. Obviously this battle was lost before the first shot was fired, but orders were orders.

The East German tanks ran into elements of a Marine tank company in the process of taking up positions within a town their artillery and air assets had thoroughly cleared from suspected enemy presence.

"Lachend in die Kreissäge" - laughing into the buzzsaw
M60A1s behind the tree line, lining up their shots.
Oxfords beautifully painted Marines in woodland camouflage secure the bombed out village.
The AO

While there was still confusion and debate within the East German command, the Marines assigned their targets and routinely worked through the enemy tanks in an uncontested turkey shoot.

What little remained of the East German armour advanced and proceeded to follow the plan of suppressing the enemy AAA and allow the Mi-24s lying in wait for now to swoop in and dismantle the enemy armour. It only cost six more T-72Ms to achieve this.
So, after ten T-72M had been lost trying to thin out the AAA, the helicopters finally arrived and took out one M60 at the loss of one Mi-24.

The Marines, although they pretty much had already won, decided to shift their line, nonetheless and even rushed forward with their TOW Humvees to secure one of the objectives. An unnecessary gesture, that proved fatal, as the last remaining gunship hosed down the two lightly armored trucks with 12.7mm machine gun fire.

Marine reserves in form of six more M60s secured the objective and ended the battle.

The late German reserves did nothing to alter the course of the battle.

The Marines had won easily, their record tarnished only by having lost two M60s. They could have cut their losses even further, had they not rushed forward the TOW HMMWV and placed the Sgt. York in better cover.

4-3 victory for the USMC

Gottverdammtedreckscheisse

The game was lost from deployment and basically just a long, tedious exercise in mopping up my force, the question was just how long it would take. To me, it was devoid of any fun or tension, just getting through with it, but I wasn’t about to deny my opponent a game and then again maybe the dice would make it interesting?
Apart from misunderstanding key points of the mission briefing due to lack of concentration on my part - I didn't realize in time there'd be *another* die roll to give away the first turn and expected my reserves from the exact opposite location during set-up - the dice failed me miserably and the cost-effective-as-ever M60s did the rest. There just is no breaking them with the tools at hand.

I’m used to learning through pain like this, as I play North Vietnamese in ‘Nam (and Tour Of Duty before that). That wasn’t fun in the beginning either, until I learned how to play them. One thing is similar though: With the communists, your plan has to be perfect before the battle begins and during the battle you have to make perfect use of everything you’re given. With the westerners this is different, because you get passive bonuses to make up for your misconceptions or mistakes. Positioning isn't as crucial, because you have much more firepower concentrated in less teams and your absolute worst chance to be hit is 50/50, with concealment improving the odds measurably, especially compared to the communists who are harder to miss than to hit. Not only that, but they also bring less firepower - unless you have enough space for twice the amount of vehicles than your opponent, enough movement range to move and still have the target within in range and LOS of all your units. If these conditions are not met you’ll lose the one advantage you’ve got, numbers, instantly.

For the North Vietnamese, I learned from loss after loss how to position my teams, when to make use of what special rule etc.
I haven’t found the way to play East Germans yet, but then again I also lack variety in units as of now, because I lack real life funds. I’ll keep at it, suffer through it and hopefully will find a way to make use of the 200€ worth of models I bought, that as of now, seem completely and utterly useless.

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Recommend Commander For Commendation

8 People Recommended Harald Knauer for commendation

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United States
Oxford
Wins

11 Comments

  • Oberst Hunts says:

    Nice report and cool diagrams. Congrats.

  • Captain Spuds says:

    nice report thanks for the diagrams

  • recce103c says:

    another beaty; victory will come Genosse! – but maybe not in the Soviet era

    but these marines are tough

  • Jagdpanzer says:

    Yes East germans to be played in the spam way most people suggest requires alot of $$, another reason i have not got mine up and running yet

  • Jagdpanzer says:

    too bad on the loss mate. Also how can he play infantry if he doesn’t know what his opponent is bringing before he plays.

    Normally I dont know what my opponent brings until he rocks up and we have both already written up our lists.

    But I guess you can only work with the tools you have, dont worry so much, its only a game. Im sure you will do better next time

  • bayankhan says:

    If your opponent plays infantry, you must play them too – infantry, particularly USMC and UK, confer too many advantages that can’t be ignored, and usually require your own infantry to entertain them. Even four stands riding in the helicopters would be a start. Perhaps a recon zug, a 4xBMP-1 infantry platoon in place of one T72 unit. 7 AT-19 shooters can blow away the ITVs as soon as you see them, and do a job on the M60s frontally or up close in the knife fight can penetrate the side armor reliably. So much for list advice.

    Excellent report

  • PanzerGrau says:

    Tough loss sir. Keep after them.

  • Davehodo says:

    Victory has many fathers defeat is an orphan

  • Harald Knauer says:

    Yeah, I know. The solution is “buy more”, I just don’t have the funds yet.
    Oxford has also written up a report that should be up shortly. I presume it’s going to be a bit less bitter and a lot more entertaining! 😀

  • fingolfen says:

    Multiple small units usually works well for the NVA forces (East German in this case), but an all T-72 force is going to struggle without some balance from infantry or other support units. At this points level I usually run 10X T-72 with 10X T-54, Spandrels, BRDM, Carnations, and a few other toys in support…

  • M. Nisbet says:

    Ah German words formed of many words. Sums up the battle well for you though.