Firestorm: Red Thunder

The battle was a sudden one, the Warsaw Pact leap across the border was brutal and took the rotating garrison troops and found a leak in the coverage. The small town where part of an American Task Force had been preparing to head forward in to the defense was suddenly up to their track guards in T-72's.

The Mech Inf platoon, with its paired M901 ITV sat idling as the alert sounded and frantic calls from the HQ section squawked out. On the town edge a Company of T-72 with escorting AT-4 scouts and a pair of ZSU-23-4 suddenly rolled in causing mayhem. The piled supplies and fuel had to be the Soviets target, and quickly the Inf dashed forward dismounting in to the buildings about the supplies, while the M113 took off to try to support the HQ objective. The 901 platoon sat in cover of barricades watching and waiting for the first guests to arrive in their area of control. The wait was only moments as the shredding sound of quad 23mm raked across the covered emplacement of the ITV's doing no damage, and from the right a streaking AT missile barley missed the outside vehicle by a foot or so.

Quickly returning fire the M901 with professionalism blew the turret off the firing ZSU and sent the hulk of the AT-4 flipping end for end as a pair of TOW II ended both offenders.

The second ZSU fled from the accurate TOW fire, leaving its twin dead smoking, the AT-4 Platoon rallied and moved to support the now advancing Company of Soviet armor, their revenge was quick in coming as a trio of 125mm rounds quickly dispatched the M901s and the exploding TOW rounds lit the compound as they cooked off. In the buildings surrounding the Soviet targets supplies Dragon gunners laid over their sights and waited as the glow of the tanks approached.

The Americans now were concerned as the frantic calls had gone out to the rest of their Team unit, it was a hold action now, the Tread heads would show up, it was just a question of when. The Dragon gunners drew first blood for themselves, and a pair of missiles flew from the cover and one struck true slamming into the turret ring of the lead T-72 causing a quick kill, the second warhead malfunctioned and didn't arm slamming into the bow of the second tank and then spinning off into the sky. To the north of the defended buildings the M113 moved, winding their way to the north side of the camp and to get with in visual range of the M577 HQ unit that was the Teams mission objective.

Fate turned on the defenders, and with a rumble a second company of T-72 rolled in to town, gun barrels facing the tactically maneuvering american APCs, and worse the heavy thumping of rotors swept over the northwest section of the town, a pair of HIND-24 began hunting.

Quickly dispatched 3 of the M113 exploded as they rounded a corner the shots taking them in the rear, amazingly the 4th in the group survived and didn't panic escaping the tanks fire. The HIND's quickly maneuvered away from the multiple M2 HMGs on the soon to be dead APC, and moved south to line up and salvo a massed rocket pod strike versus the entrenched Infantry, this attack resulted in no casualties to the american units.

Tables turned and with the suddenness whispering death appeared on the southern side of the town, 2 platoons of M1, and the team commander. One platoon with the Team CO in the direct flank of the T-72 company, and the second platoon deployed more east to make a dash to support the HQ objective, catching the remains of the AT-4 section in the flank also. The legendary mad minuet broke over the Soviet company, leaving no survivors, 4 destroyed T-72 along with the Scout AT section lay shattered to the accurate 105mm fire.

The Soviets took a few minuets to rally as their BN Commander made his way across the field to the remaining Company, and the HINDS responded, flying through a massive hail of Gunfire from M2 and M240 from the Abrams crews, several rounds causing smoking and flares of metal on metal, but not deterring them. In moments the eastern most M1 platoon was smoking taken in the side, even with the advanced armor protecting them. As a parting moment, the remaining M113 that Has dashed up to the beleaguered M577 was taken with a long range shot exploding just meters from the objective, as the remaining T-72 slammed rounds into the infantry defended buildings injuring a pair of fire teams, the brutal nature of the weapons showing.

The crunch time had come upon the American forces, to reach the HQ objective they would have to run the gauntlet of HINDS, and they quickly did so, tanks accelerating around their fallen brothers releasing another hail of AA fire to drive off the helicopters, which seemed to fail not damaging any of the HINDS, a single Dragon missile failed to make contact with the lead tank of the second Soviet company, that was launched by the Infantry.

And then it was quiet, as sudden as the attack had started the Soviet units had departed the field, only the smoking wrecks of armored vehicles littered the town. It was a victory for the defenders, a minor one but a victory none the less.

(Note: There are more photos to come, as my wife took over notes and pics for the game, so we will include more of them in the other half of the report and add some additional ones here later. Was a great time and good fun, proably a German show down next between our East and West German players next.)