Firestorm: Red Thunder

COMBAT AT REINHARDSHOFEN, August 13th

Verloren Haufe of East German 6th Motorsieriete Division clash with Task Force Fitzi, elements of 7-6th Mechanized Infantry and 3/35th Armor.
0700 hours, west of Dettendorf, 1.5 kilometers from the Ami position.
General-Major Jacob Nagten, late of the 4th Motorisierte Division, sipped his warm cola syrup and was content. It wasn’t coffee, but combined with the stolen acetaminophen it was holding back the sinus headache he felt coming on. The issue ration box had been unsatisfying after a week of living large in Hannover. This part of Bavaria had been the site of many see-saw battles, and foraging for food was indifferent at best. Soda water and ice were out of the question.
Six short days before he had been leading the Verloren Haufe of the 4th Division on a wild ride around the edge of Hannover, tangling with the best NATO had. He had been within a kilometer of the Mittelland Kanal Bridge watching his artillery destroy NATO aircraft staging through Hannover Flugelhaven when the order to halt came through. 3rd Shock Army’s failure to break through to the Kanal had led to a reassessment of PACT priorities, and soon 4th Division’s scheutzen regiments were digging in. Then Oberst Nagten had expressed his disgust with the decision, and the abrupt summons to Brandenburg had seemed to be the result of criticizing STAVKA.
It turned out that his early victories had come to the attention of 2nd Guards Tank Army command, and he had been recommended for promotion. When the aging Deputy Kommandant of 6th Reserve Motorsieriete Division had a heart attack, Nagten had been selected to take his place.
6th Division had, like all five of the VA’s reserve divisions, been held to Category B standard and mobilized within 3 days of the NATO declaration of general mobilization on August 4th. It had been in the middle of a map exercise when it received word it was being committed to the Southern Front. The PACT Armies there – Boleoslav and Olomouc Combined Commands and 1st Guards Tank Army – had been making little progress. The Polish-Soviet Silesian Combined Command was joining the fray. 6th Motorisierte had been attached to 2nd GTA. The 2nd GTA had assigned 6th Division to protect its flank and make a diversionary attack threatening Regensburg and points west. This, it was thought, would force II Armeekorps to reconsider its forward defense of Bavaria and yield ground while confusing VII Corps, holding hard east of Nurnberg, about the direction 2 GTA’s renewed attack.
6th Division’s Kommandant was an old Communist, skilled in the things that made a peacetime army work, and was quite content to play the role of division commander while leaving most of the real work to Nagten and the Operations Staff. After all, the Kommandant would get credit for the victories and have Nagten shot for a particularly egregious defeat. Nagten intended to use the 6th Motorisierte the way he had used the Verloren Haufe of his old command – deep penetrations along carefully scouted secondary roads. To this end he was with advance guard this morning. The division was moving west along R32, a secondary road that seemed to mark the boundary between VII Corps in the north and II Armeekorps to the south.
Germany on the edge of Fall was a study in weather contrasts, particularly in Bavaria, where a sudden turn of the wind off the cold Alps to the south could produce brief squalls including sleet or hail. And rain, or even, as today, fog.
Fog was good. It might or might not affect enemy thermal imaging or their damn fighter-bombers, but it affected the human eye and, most importantly, ear. With cannon roaring to his left and right rear, the ground trembling from aircraft bombs, and movement of thousands of vehicles, the cacophony masked his own movements. His scouts had bypassed the towns of Kaulhausen, Rohrdorf, and Dettenhofen during a driving rain. The BTR motor rifle battalion assigned to the 6th Division’s Verloren Haufe had quietly occupied the villages, cut the phone lines, and essentially arrested NATO service troops from both NATO corps as well as no few civilians who had refused evacuation and attached themselves to the NATO units as camp followers. It was convenient for this mission that the BTR looked much like the Luchs armored car in the dark.
The town of Reinhardhofen could not be bypassed. Inconveniently, the Amis had left a battered task force thought to be from the Ami 1st Panzer Division there. Conveniently, Nagten knew this because a team from the 40th Fallschirmjager Battalion had infiltrated this valley and reported the Amis refitting. Usefully, the unit was guarding, after a fashion, a medium class NATO supply facility including a fuel dump. Beyond that lay Pielenhofen’s R32 Bridge over the Naab River, which would give the 6th Division access to the western suburbs of Regensburg. A logging trail over the Frauenberg, just west of Pielenhofen plus some paved streets, would allow the Division to cut the A3 and destroy a major rail line, and if the 6th caught NATO napping, pave the way into Munich or Stuttgart. Even with last night’s rain, Nagten was confident that one of the BTR 60 Regiments would have little trouble with the comparatively gentle eastern slope, where aerial photos showed high crops. The BTRs could go anywhere the West German farm equipment could move.
The trick would be getting the fuel here away from the Amis without destroying it. Maybe their new Meals Ready to Eat would taste better than the flavored cardboard he had eaten for breakfast. And maybe Vater Niklaus would bring a good General his first victory in his new rank.
The crescendo of artillery fire to the south announced the new push by the Silesian Command on Regensburg. The echoes of massed rocket barrages echoed off the higher hills to the north, nicely blanketing sound in the fog. The fog was lightening; soon visibility would a kilometer. DER TAG had arrived.
VOWARTS!
The Battle.
We played the standard mission pack, with battle plans, with both Fitzi and I choosing ‘Maneuver’. We ended up fighting Free-for-All. The fog is a narrative artifice to explain how, with the scattered low terrain and no high terrain in either deployment area, my three spearhead units were able to project essentially my entire force to within as little as 9” of the US deployment area elsewhere 16” from a couple buildings). My force had 21 maneuver units plus 4 battalion commanders and an observer, so Fitzi’s Americans with merely 10 plus a HQ and a FIST were done setting up before he knew where anything important was.
I put my pre-battle barrage markers on the southern objective zone so that infantry there would have to worry.
Fitzi responded by placing his Dragon teams there up front and widely spaced, and all but one LAW/SAW team on the back table edge. Fitzi’s defense was effectively symmetric with the exception of placing all six Abrams on the ‘northern’ flank. Rather than forcing him to take an anemic tank company with 6 vehicles (1/2/3) he took 2 units of 3 (house rule).
He will speak for himself on his plan, but it appeared to me that he intended to try and take my northern objective by pushing through that flank. I countered with a T55 ‘battalion’ (7 T55 and 3 T72M), both Spandrel Zugs, and the transport section for my BMP-2 ‘kompanie.’ This placed 15 AT-21 weapons opposite this sector. The T55s can also be deadly dangerous to Abrams flanks and had to be taken into account if Fitzi advanced here. I backed them up with 9 BMP-1s – 6 from the other transport section and the recon element that allowed me to deploy well forward there. Here again I’ve found enough BMP-1s firing can cause double bails, especially if receiving supporting fire from AT-21 weapons. So like the T55s, they were a threat to an advance. My T72 battalion was in the center with the other BMP-1 scouts. Also there was the 2nd Infantry Kompanie. 1st Infantry Kompanie was well forward on the south, with the BRDMs providing the spearhead, as was the 2nd T55 ‘battalion’. Missile flak and artillery was in the center, ZSU in the north, Grail in the south, so that any airstrike would face at least 18 flak dice plus some part of the 27 AA machineguns.
We don’t generally complicate our lives with bad visibility conditions, so the game in effect began after a pre-battle turn. What we’ve found is that a PACT offense against NATO usually just maneuvers out of sight until the fog lifts or sun rises, so the outcome is a delayed start and easily simulated by the ‘move first’ die roll in Meeting Engagements. Fitzi’s troops were allowed to dig in and my missile launchers got to fire. I won the ‘toss’ and got to move ‘first’.
Turn 1 PACT
The T55s on my southern flank moved at dash, halting 8.1 inches from the closest Dragon team. The southern T72s moved normally, and No.1 Infantry Kompanie moved into the woods, setting up for a turn 2 assault. 3 center T72s moved ahead into another crop-filled field, were joined by the BRDMs, and No. 2 infantry company. 4 other T72s occupied the crossroads in eastern Reinhardshofen. Three of my T55s and the battalion commander successfully blitzed to firing positions atop the hill north of the village. The remaining T55s in the north failed blitz and sat still hoping to use the cover of the hill slope to survive what was coming next. Recon BMP-1s blitzed to firing positions on the flat, keeping cover between them and the northern ITV section. Then the deluge began.
A couple of BMP-2s didn’t shoot, because the T55s that failed to blitz blocked their line of fire to Fitzi’s Abrams. But 13 AT-21 shots at 4+ to hit killed two Abrams, and Fitzi managed to make morale. My shooting failed to make any impression on the south flank infantry, but massed fire from the BRDMs and a T72 managed to kill one ITV and bail another. The T72s in the center managed to kill off 2 more ITVs, and also did in two M109s, plus killing one M113 from the southern platoon’s transport section. This would be critical later.
I didn’t shoot my artillery as I thought they would be useful in setting up my Turn 2 assaults and I didn’t want to give up gone to ground to ITV fire. The Hinds loitered, looking for an opportunity.
TURN 1 NATO
One of Fitzi’s ITVs failed to remount, and another platoon had departed. That left 9 Dragons, 3 TOWs, and 4 Abrams to engage 27 tanks and 25 missile-carrying IFV. Fitzi carried through with his plan on the north, advancing his Abrams but unable to get clear of the hill’s influence on shooting the T55s halfway up and still gone-to-ground.
Fitzi’s Abrams did respectably well. Shooting 6 dice at concealed, GTG T55s managed four hits and four kills. My battalion commander changed vehicles successfully. However, his two A10s appeared and a hail of fire sent one home with an engine blown off, and this sufficiently distracted his partner that of four dice only one hit a Spandrel for a kill, and the A10 flew off home.
Fitzi took a couple ITV shots and missed two, and I nurfed the third by rolling a 6 getting bailed. He followed up with Dragons and here the 18 vs 15 front armor resulted in no damage – 4’s for the save. His one shot on a T55 missed. In front of the southern T55 battalion’s T72 unit, he elected not to give up gone-to-ground. (3+ to hit, 2- for me to fail save, 3+ for kill = 15 percent chance, with retaliation being 3 shots brutal at 5,6). You pay the money and take the chance. Or not.
In case you are counting, it’s 2 destroyed US platoons to 1 East German.
TURN 2 PACT

My southern T55 battalion went on line, and No.1 Infantry Kompanie advanced to 2.1” from his southern infantry platoon. The BRDMs closed on the northern flank of the woods. The center T72s moved to position to wreck his center platoon if it attempted to move south. I kept the T55s on top of the hill away from the Abrams, staying gone to ground, so that if the Abrams tried to advance past them, they could blitz for nice flank shots. The remaining ‘execution’ squad confidently pointed 11 Spandrel missiles and 3 T72 cannon at the Abrams. Confidence misplaced. In what was in hindsight a stupid move, I sent the BMP-1 scouts from the northern group to 7.5 inches away from the surviving ITVs, expecting to flush them in TURN 3. My Hinds landed behind No. 1 Kompanie, and No. 2 Kompanie’s infantry moved up to captured any surviving bailed vehicles.
Now I laid a smokescreen to protect those BMP-1 from his northern platoon’s infantry teams. The other artillery unit pounded his center platoon, killing a team and pinning it as well. A hail of fire from the T55s, infantry AGLs and BRDMs pinned the southern infantry platoon. The T72s finished off his transport for the southern platoon and the last ITV between center and south. The BMP-1 recon unit in the north failed miserably.
Assault phase. The infantry assault hit a pinned SAW team and a Dragon taking defensive fire from just one team – his second line of teams was just out of sight from the critical point. Two teams die, and several remaining teams have to scramble leaving just two teams within position to shoot against the assault on the other end. I charge the BRDMS into a single Dragon team and the SAW team kills one and two others BOG. The one that makes contact misses, but Fitzi fails to counterattack. Then the BRDM passes its cross check and its consolidation move drives the infantry platoon into the arms of the waiting Schutzen kompanie.
At this point the game was not in doubt. The Abrams were still too far away to have any hope of reaching an objective on my side of the table, and all of Fitzi’s vehicles south of centerline were merrily burning. But, there’s always points.
NATO TURN 2
There wasn’t anything to be done on the southern side of the table, so we skipped that part. Logically Fitzi’s surviving M113s would be hurriedly picking up the center platoon and exiting stage right. His northern infantry platoon and his VADs poked through the smokescreen and proceeded to mousetrap my BMP platoon, killing or capturing all three. The Abrams went after my T72s and killed two, but the survivor remained.
Game over, 5-2.
POST MORTEM
Gotcha last always bothers me, so I electronically ‘fired up’ the Abrams with my T55s, the lone T72, and the 11 remaining Spandrels. The result (computer generated dice rolls) destroyed all of the Abrams – 3 dead, one bailed, failed morale. Which is about what you would expect from a gallant charge. Escaping in his turn 2 would have saved at least 3 of them – only 7 BMP-2/Spandrel and the 3 T72s could have seen them, and a dash off the board would have put them out of sight from all but the four T55s on the hill, who would have had to move to take their shots, and even dashing tanks can turn their turrets to buff up their armor 50 percent of the time. Similarly the infantry assault to kill three BMPs would have resulted in a destroyed infantry platoon as artillery etc rained in from everywhere. So the ‘AFTERMATH’ ignores those NATO turn 2 casualties. With the fog burning off to reveal the fully armed and functional 6th Division rolling up the road, the operative word would have been ‘BUGOUT.’
Fitzi made one crucial mistake, and that was in not pushing his infantry as far forward as possible. That set up the destruction of the southern infantry platoon in a single turn. Not sure it would have survived the Assault Phase of Turn 3, but it would have had some depth to retreat and hang on in TURN 2.
A second problem, although not necessarily mistake, lay in massing the Abrams in the north. He had a plan to win, but the problem was that his plan took much longer to mature than my plan. The Abrams might have been better used as offense/defense from the center, and certainly would have been more of a problem to my southern attack.
AFTERMATH

1100 hours, Frauenberg
General-Major Nagten surveyed the column of tanks and wheeled vehicles toiling up the hill. In Pielenhofen the original Verloren Haufe had been protecting the bridge and resting while a new force from the 13th Schutzen continued the mission. This morning’s action had cost the Division four T55s, one of which had been repaired within the hour and another which would be rendered operational later today. A BRDM-2 had been destroyed, as had been one of the precious Spandrel launching BRDM-3. NATO had left two Abrams tanks behind, along with 3 M113s with TOW launchers and 5 transport M113s. They had taken a hundred prisoners from the two units present, including about 30 prisoners from the combat unit, easily distinguishable by their filthy clothes. However a precious bounty of support vehicles had fallen into his hands, hastily abandoned by support troops caught by his little surprise. The fuel had been pumped into his vehicles, the packaged POL and rations transferred to his small support echelon, and some drivers had been put into those vehicles that were loaded and looked serviceable.
The 6th Motorisierte marched on.