Firestorm: Red Thunder

Soviet Breakthrough at Lüneberg Heath

American (Phil LeHunt) vs Soviet (Greg Jones) – 100pts
Mission – No Retreat (No Objectives, mission is won by Soviets exiting table with units in good order)
MK Red Thunder Campaign - Game #1

Captain POTUS leaned back into the thermal imaging eyesight. The low light imaging gave the Lower Saxony landscape a ghostly green glow. Now in the last hour before dawn POTUS’s eyes began to burn again. He had been staring at the same patch of empty Lüneberg Heath almost all night.

Rubbing his eyes again before settling back into the eyesight he still could not believe that Soviet forces had invaded. “At least Ronnie hasn’t gone nuclear”, POTUS chuckled to the gunner.

The radio squawked to life. The chatter announced that four of the Abrams tanks Captain POTUS had positioned in ambush on the Northern flank had made contact. Lead Soviet recce units had guided forward a Soviet MBT spear-head – six T64 MBT, supported by multiple BDRM-2, BMP-2 and Spandrel units. Contact reports had the American tanks outnumbered, but at least one T64 was now burning as a result of the Ambush.

…but Captain POTUS was on the South flank.

The Lüneberg Heath was long and narrow, and really only offered two obvious approaches. The extreme Northern flank, which was now ablaze with the clash tank fire and the extreme Southern Flank which was only protected by a series of interconnecting mine fields and Captain POTUS’s lone command tank.

The radio chatter from the ambushing platoon was becoming more panicked. The Soviet armour was breaking through. Although rounds were striking their targets, the Soviet tanks were now into the flank of the Abrams and coming dangerously close to breaking through just as the sun was coming up – and that is when the reserve Abrams platoon arrived.

The Soviet BMP2 made short work of the American ITV and VADS when they stuck there head out of the forest.

With daylight, the Soviet T64 were dispatched but at a great cost to both M1 platoons. A lone T64 was able to shepherd undamaged BDRM-2 and BMP-2 units into the American rear.

Between flank shots and a hail of anti-tank missiles, now only three of the combined seven Abrams were left operational. With the arrival of a full flight of Hinds and a barrage from the Soviet Storm tank hunters this number was reduced to one.

When the small flight of Cobras arrived, they made little impact on the Soviet advance before BMP2 anti-helicopter cannon fire left one burning & the other fleeing the battlefield.

With the Storm cresting the hill, Captain POTUS roared forward with his command Abrams tank guns blazing. Clearing the hill of Storm anti tank units, the Soviet mechanised infantry began their thrust down the Southern Flank.

There was little the Soviet ground forces had left on the battlefield that could inflict any damage on the American Tanks, however Captain POTUS’s force had now been reduced to only two tanks – one on each flank.

Brave Soviet infantry left their BMP1 transports to assault the HQ Abrams, but soon discovered that they could not hurt it in close combat. The swarm of angry Soviet attack helicopters turned their attention to Captain POTUS’s lone tank on the Southern flank. Defiantly, POTUS manned the .50 Cal as the Spiral anti-tank missiles streaked in & destroyed his tank.

Understandably, the sole surviving American M1 withdrew from the battlefield, leaving the remaining Soviet forces to breakthrough unmolested into the American rear.

Post Game Wrap Up

4-3 Victory to the Soviets.

Many thanks to my opponent, Greg Jones (this was his first time Team Yankee game) – his monstrous two regiment soviet force had no less than 18 units! The Beasts of War No Retreat scenario was a challenging one – only being able to have one Tank Platoon with armour greater than 4 on the table (and no air assets) facing this tide of Red Steel was truly daunting…

As always – night was really the biggest factor that kept the Americans in the game for as long as they held out. Particularly when Greg’s Soviet tanks got close & got into the flanks of my Abrams.

Day break occurred at turn 3, but I was lucky enough to get my reserve Platoon of tanks onto the board.

While I was able to take out just about everything on the table that could hurt an M1, attrition was high & Greg was starting to get untouched units off the table. I think that I got pretty lucky with a couple of my platoon morale checks – both M1 tank platoons surviving tests, while Greg on the other hand had a nightmare run of failing platoon break tests.

The arrival of the loitering Hinds on day break sealed the game – company break. In the end there were simply just not enough American guns :(

For both of us, this was the first read of the scenario & we got a better understanding of the victory conditions as the game progressed. We really only got to grasps with understanding how the “Good Order” rules impacts on the victory conditions about half way through the game.

I spent half the game trying to pound platoons down to only one unit. (Platoon morale break point, not good order which is the loss of a single unit) & probably should have spread my fire more.

Greg reflected that the next time he would play this scenario, he would move more aggressively (he was also only moving his Mech units up at Infantry speeds not BMP1 tactical moves). He would also run through the defenders lines & use his units that were not in good order to slug it out (he ran a single T64 of the table before we realised that it didn’t count)

All in All it was a very enjoyable game & Congratulations to Greg for the well-deserved win!