Firestorm: Red Thunder

The Monday Knights wargaming club's first week of participating in the Firestorm Red Thunder campaign saw three Warsaw Pact attacks, all concentrated in the north.
While General “Grumpy” of the Soviet army conducted a flanking attack towards Hamburg in the north opposed only by scattered forces of the American General “Potus” the main thrust towards the industrial heartland of the decedent west, the Ruhr, was made by General “Leadgend” of the East German Seventh Panzer Division in overwhelming force overrunning the city of Hanover which was defended by a weak contingent of West Germans under general “Tyler_MK” who was more interested in running than fighting. General “Nigel” conducted a clearing attack to secure the rear areas between our two thrusts.

General Leadgend, known as such due to his legendary prowess in leading his troops to victory time and time again in any and all exercises was now to show how to attack in real war!
Unlike the soft and weak wessies who were mostly still in bed when the first blows of war came to Germany the East German army was prepared and all present at the start of battle so very early in the morning.
The wessies had split their meagre forces with a platoon on each flank, the left hiding behind a thin screen of mines and all hiding behind hills as befits such cowardly troops.
Meanwhile the East Germans advanced forward aggressively seeking battle on the left.

The battle began with rapid advances by our East Germans, under cover of early-morning darkness. The wessies acted as expected, revealing their positions as they abandoned their cover and moved to shoot at our brave T-72 platoons. Of course this was part of the plan, you have to break eggs to make an omelet! Having fallen into our trap the wessies started to take losses they could ill afford from tank and missile fire.

The advance of our infantry and BMPs was unopposed on the left so while the wessies worried about our tank advance in the centre their chances of surviving grew less and less and the vice tightened.
But we kept advancing. And every wessie tank destroyed by our advancing tanks and infantry lessened the wessies firepower and drew them closer to their fate.
In a display of astounding incompetence the wessie commander's tank left his flank wide open and was knocked out during the height of the fighting. The cowering “Commander” Tyler was seen fleeing for his life. Meanwhile, our infantry had completed their flanking maneuver and in a series of close quarter battles pushed the only wessie unit concerned about losing the battle away from the objective, the last tank finally surrendering when they could see no point in continuing to resist.
Last ditch attempts to alter their inevitable fate by Gepards, Tornados and Luchs units were promptly wiped out and victory was ours!

As dawn finally broke over the battlefield, much of the initial West German holding force, and its reinforcements, had been destroyed. The lead elements of our East German Seventh Panzerdivision had lost some men and equipment, but they could easily be replaced.
With dwindling forces, the wessies simply couldn't hold on to both objectives. After being driven off their right objective, and briefly contesting it before being driven off again, the wessies failed to retake it a second time. The few survivors of the holding force retreated earlier, and faster, than had been planned for or hoped.
General Leadgend took a moment to award medals to the bravest of our victorious troops before remounting and sweeping forward to occupy Hanover that had been abandoned by the wessies.
“Commander” Tyler was found wandering the battlefield after the last of his men had fled, dressed in women’s clothing in a farcical attempt to evade capture having abandoned his honour and uniform. After questioning by our intelligence units he admitted he was wrong to oppose the path of history to inevitable communist control of the whole world and in particular Germany, which might soon be re-united.