The third game in Simon and I's CWC campaign. In the first game the Soviets made a successful Deliberate Attack and followed up by defeating the American Counter-Attack. The Soviets are now pursing the retreating Americans who are making a fighting retreat.
To win the Soviets need to inflict 25% casualties on the Americans for a minor victory or break the battlegroup for a major victory. The Americans have to exit 25% of their force across their baseline for a minor victory or 50% for a major victory.
Not being entirely sure how I'd stop the Americans retreating I went for one command of T-72's one of T-64's and one of the inevitable BMP-1's. In support I chose two Hind helicopters and three rocket artillery batteries.
The first surprise for the Soviets occurred when the Americans placed eight potential minefields on the table! This was followed up by a deployment that suggested 12 (very expensive) tanks was their entire force:
As usual the Soviets waste no time moving to the attack. The T64's appear on the Soviet right and move up to the nearest minefield. BMP-1's lurk by the forest on the left and in the distance the T-72's use flank deployment to arrive in the American rear:
The Americans respond instantly by moving three tanks to the crest of the hill and opening fire supported by another three tanks lurking by the wood. Perhaps the Soviet advance was a little rash as hits and suppression mount up:
One T-64 has brewed up and three are suppressed leaving only two effective tanks. This is not the start the Soviets were hoping for!
However, the two remaining T-64's heroically fight on and take out two American tanks! Meanwhile the BMP-1's move through the wood in support:
Order is restored among the T-64's:
With three American tanks burning hulks the rest of the Americans decide to withdraw and attempt to take on the T-72's blocking their exit from the table:
The T-72's face enemy in two directions but manage to trade losses:
Neither side can make much of an advantage, all the while though the T-64's are closing in on the American rear:
The Americans can't break through the T-72's and are in grave danger:
With the T-64's ideally placed to shoot up the remaining American tanks the Americans admit defeat and the Soviet pursuit is successful.
What happened to the Hinds and the artillery? Well the Hinds failed to appear at all yet again and the artillery managed a couple of moderately useful shots. As such they didn't really help me much at all, partly as it was hard to get their forward observers in position to direct them on to the enemy and partly due to the Hinds failing every command test they took!
Simon surprised me with the minefields and having an entirely tank force, initially I thought he would blow through the T-64's easily before the T-72's could intervene and the BMP's could get close enough to help out but the T-64's survived remarkably well (aka were lucky) only taking a single loss and managing to take out three American tanks.
So that's three wins in a row for the mighty Soviets. Next we move to Scenario Eight "Encirclement" assuming Simon has the enthusiasm for what may well be another battering.
Post game discussion included looking at the points values for the various tanks and discovering some American tanks that cost more points were actually worse than the cheaper ones and that the Soviet tanks seem very cheap considering their effectiveness! The Soviet command bonus for all doing the same thing for each command also seems to help a lot as, as far I can tell, you very rarely want a command to do different things.
I'm certainly still enjoying the games though as there is a lot to consider when you add some new things in (I also used a Reconnaissance tank for this game) and perhaps the Americans are not an especially favoured army in the rules, when I tried using the British they seemed much better!
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