Firestorm: Stripes

With the increasingly confusing strategic situation in northern Germany General Leadgend organised a training session with Comrade Nigel to give their troops the necessary experience in the kind of set piece battles needed to throw the Americans out once and for all.

With Comrade Nigel's Soviet infantry dug in on the edge of a ruined village behind minefields and tanks in ambush, General Leadgend's East Germans lined up with infantry on the right and tanks on the left. When the umpires whistle blew the East Germans surged forward.

The East German left hook rapidly advanced on the left and started to engage the Soviet overwatch vehicles while the infantry piled up behind the minefield and blazed away at the Soviet Infantry. The exercise umpires only registered token hits though so with the Soviet tanks appearing from Ambush in front of their East German counterparts there were soon many East German tanks stopped with smoke markers rising from them.

With limited time available for the exercise speed was of the essence but with the minefields being ruled to still delay the advance of the infantry it was up to the East German tanks to win the exercise. They traded fire with the Soviet tanks and BMPs with the umpires frequently marking yet another disabled vehicle on both side. Soviet Helicopters flew overhead but with the East German air defence network intact they were ruled to be incapable of penetrating their defences and so flew on.

Finally the East Germans had reached the Soviet's rear objective however just as victory seemed to be in sight the exercise ended. The Soviets had held on just long enough. With it the troops had proved they were ready for real battle with the Americans. Remember victory is always possible. No Retreat. No Surrender!

This was supposed to be a quick game at the club but turned into a 3 hour marathon as turn after turn went by trying to clear the Soviet infantry. With the club needing to close we finished on a defenders turn so I missed out on winning by a turn!