Firestorm: Red Thunder

On August 2nd Elements of the 3rd Armored Div. advanced east of Hanover towards the West/East German Border. Our purpose was to create a delaying screen for the 1st British Corps. Our orders where to delay suspected elements of a East German Panzer Division and not to become heavily engaged with the enemy. During our advance towards the border we left a engineer platoon back to begin preparing our next set of positions that we would retire to.

During the evening of Aug 2nd and early hours of Aug 3rd we could hear the rumble of a large tank force assembling close to the East German side of the border. Late in the evening of the 2nd, I conducted a Officers and Senior NC meeting to do a final review of our battle plans and re adjust our deployments and review our withdraw plans.

Earlier in the day I assigned a Mech Platoon to each of the flank objectives and assigned the Recon Support Platoon and one of our Air Mobile platoons to the 3rd and final objective. The 2nd Air Mobile Platoon was assigned to the far left of our zone and connect to the neighboring West German Screen.

The Stryker Platoon was setup in small woods towards the left center of our zone and the mech companies Milan teams where setup to the right of the center. The rapiers where setup behind a small woods in the center of the board. Our Mortar platoon was setup on the right side of the board and our 3 recon tank troops have been deployed with one in the center and one on each flank. We did not try and push up our front line with our recon troops during our deployment. I put the Airmobile platoon in Ambush.

The day started with a brief smoke barrage from our East German friends at the early sun rise, they tried to cover their advance. Our Milan's and Stryker's on our left flank engaged with a East German T-55 Company and quickly reduced its fighting effectiveness. In the center we had to deal with a heavy smoke barrage, so our Milan's in the center took shots at a T-72 Company to our right center these combined with our Airmobile Milan team causing havoc with a T-72 Company. The only survivors where two tanks that hid behind two buildings. Our aero Lynx platoon also joined in.

The enemy countered by bringing a BMP company and a BMP-2 recon platoon into the battle and tried contesting the objective on our right flank. My 2nd Mech Platoon held its fire until it was within LAW range and it let lose with its Milan's, Carl-J's and its Laws, the Aero Lynx's added into the fray.
The both enemy platoons became combat in effective.

They also thru in a 2nd T-55 company to replace the 1st T-55 company that has now been destroyed and a 2nd T-72 company. The 1st T-72 company is still stuck behind buildings and not eager to move forward.

Also during this time our Mrts found the range to the East German Hail rockets launchers and quickly reduced its effectiveness. As the battle progressed our Aero Lynx team suffered severe causalities and left the battle field and our rapier platoon was stuck by long range tank fire.

After losing our Aero Lynx platoon and Rapiers, we bean our withdraw much to the chagrin of some of platoon leaders and NCOs. Our men fought very well in their first battle and we gained a lot of respect for the morale of our enemies, the battle could have been much worse for them if their platoons started having morale breaks. We have begun our retirement towards our next defensive positions.