Cold War Commander Warsaw Pact v Americans Scenario 4 Deliberate Attack

My second game of CWC against Simon was 'Deliberate Attack' with the Soviets having to capture a town currently held by the Americans.

The Soviets have a substantial points advantage with 4,500 versus the Americans 3,000. I went for an hopefully balanced force of one group each of T72's and T64's, one of the mighty BMP-1's and one of the less mighty but cheaper BTR-80's with associated infantry. An ZSU-23-4 Shilka and a couple of Hind E helicopters made up the rest of the battlegroup.

The Americans defended their position with Abrahams tanks and a couple of infantry forces which occupied the town the Soviets were attempting to capture:

The Soviets deploy their T72's on the left aiming to advance them and engage the Abrahams. The BTR's will rush forward in the middle, occupy the wood and try to prevent any Americans reinforcing the objective. The actual attack will be made by the BMP-1's supported by the T64's advancing on the right where the Americans appear to have little to stop them:

An ATGM from the town on the left picks off one of the BTR's:

The T72's are attacked by an A10 Warthog, fire from the ZSU 23-4 Shilka drives it off though:

The T72's fare less well against the much superior Abrahams. Excellent shooting from the Americans suppresses two of them and brews one up:

Further fire brews up two more T72's and suppresses one. 50% losses very quickly! However, their role was to keep the American tanks occupied and they are doing their job:

After a slow start the T-64's and BMP's are making rapid progress toward the objective while the BTR's have reached cover in the forest nearby to support the attack:

With four tanks down and two suppressed the T72's are out of action but they have done their best to distract the Americans:

The Soviet attack is coming together with the objective town isolated and weakly held:

The Americans are not giving up yet though and an artillery strike blasts the T-64's. One is suppressed but the rest survive:

A lone suppressed T72 fights on:

The assault begins! BMP's roll forward supported by the T64's and pour fire into the town:

The town is quickly cleared of defenders and the BMP's are poised to capture it once the sole remaining American infantry are dealt with:

The Americans attempt to move up their Abrahams tanks but it is too late to save the town:

The BMP's storm the town and achieve the Soviet objective!

My third game and I'm still really enjoying the rules and thinking about how to play better. Like Rommel I suspect having a plan of some sort is essential as is thinking about the objective rather than just killing things. 

Using the T72's to distract Simon's very powerful Abrahams tanks worked well, while they were all destroyed with the only damage to the Americans being one suppressed tank they achieved their aim of allowing the rest of the army to get into position to take the objective.

The BMP's seem a bargain so far, relatively cheap and decent firepower in large numbers works well! On the other hand the air power has not done well at all, my Hinds were very expensive (260 points each plus 30 for the FAO!) and didn't manage to appear on table once! Simon's A10 and two attack helicopters were almost as ineffective. 

I think artillery might be worth looking at again though, one of the strengths of CWC seems to be the need to truly combine arms to get the best results but how to do that effectively is still unclear!

The rules also include a mini-campaign section where the results of a game provide the next confrontation. with a Minor Victory in this game we will move on to Scenario 3: Counter Attack where the Americans will attempt to drive the Soviets back. In this scenario the Americans get a scary 4,500 points while the Soviets have only 3000. The Americans have to inflict 25% casualties on the Soviets in 8 turns for a Minor Victory or break their battlegroup for a Major Victory.

I'll have to put some thought into how best to not get my men killed while hopefully inflicting more losses on the Imperialist Oppressors!