Returning from battle in Czechoslovakia where he had been foiled by the actions of british spies, General Leadgend was rushed to the northern front HQ. NATO counterattacks in the region of Bremen had thrown back our liberating forces and high command needed the skill of Comrade Leadgend to turn the tide. With some of the equipment in his elite East German 7th division being used to finalise the training of recently arrived soviet forces only the older items remained to him for use in the current battle. A Reconnaissance in Force would be required to assess the NATO forces opposing him.
Our brave East German forces were mostly equipped with the older T55s and BMP1s. Most of the T72s and BMP2s being used for training the soviet forces of general Munt. Although 2 of the remaining T72s broke down on the way to the assembly area it was a tight fit with the infantry mounted in their BMP1s eager to get to grips with the enemy.
Our Infantry showed their eagerness, dismounting and moving forward rapidly in the spirit of blitzkrieg while the vehicles advanced with tanks to each flank and the BMPs supporting the infantry. Enemy fire was light with minimal casualties in the initial approach marches.
Unfortunately the rapid pace of our advance meant we weren't shooting at the wessies. Their fire took out several more tanks and BMPs but the infantry was left alone, a critical error for the wessies!
The wessies had moved their gepards forward. Our forces moved to destroy them with some success, but their leopards seemed invulnerable to our tanks. Meanwhile our recon BMPs worked their way around the flank.
At this point the decisive moves of the battle occurred. Our remaining T72s moved up to threaten the rear of their Leopards so the wessies moved their Leopards to cover their right flank taking on our T55s. Their Gepards took up the centre in front of our infantry. On our right their Jaguars destroyed a number of T55s.
Our Infantry BMPs and Shilkas then concentrated on destroying the Gepards, the infantry capturing two in close assault and spreading out to cover the central position in the town.
The wessies in desperation committed their commander to this central fight but it was too little too late. Out Recon BMPs finally got behind the Jaguars and wiped them out, our BRDMs used their stealth to occupy the remaining objectives and their commander in his fancy tank was destroyed by a side shot by the remaining T55 on our right flank.
Not only had our Reconnaissance In Force managed to scout all the necessary objectives but it had destroyed the remaining West German resistance near Bremen with only older equipment. NATOs last hope would be the Americans of commander Crudboy.
Notes:
Our club decided to try out some of the "Quick Missions" and Commander Munt had borrowed most of my T72s and BMP2s for his battle so when I was asked to play I had to make a force out of what I had left which was mostly T55s and BMP1s. Two of the remaining T72s were in the bottom of my toolbox and I forgot to put them on the table so I actually only played with 51 points!
Even with spearhead it was impossible to get everything on table in the limited deployment zone so we agreed that the left over units could come on later as reserves. The infantry had to start in the BMPs but fortunately they weren't shot at before I dismounted them.
congrats commander Leadgend! that is an impressive amounts of NVA tanks xD
Tyler’s report of the battle can be seen at https://firestorm.warconsole.com/battles/tyler_mk-vs-leadgend-1504506579
Note that as we are playing the detailed hardcopy campaign we have to map the battles back onto the nearest online theatre and in this case there was a mix up as the battle was actually near Hamburg. I chose Bremen in my battle report but Tyler picked Hanover so we can’t link them.
Good to see that the better Germans won =P
Nice game
Who needs those extra 9pts in a 60pt game….
Now that I write up the army list I found I’d stuffed up and only had 51 points on the table! Oops! Good thing I won then. 😉
Brilliant maneuver.
Wow, look at that horde! Nice report.
It’s also that most of my T72s were loaned out at the time. They would have taken up less space on deployment and been much better in the game as several times the T55s couldn’t quite get to a firing position while T72 using stabilisers would have. Also they can of course shoot Leopards in the face.
Glad you guys are trying out some of the new missions. Deployment looked to have been… *ahem*… TIGHT… but that’s an occupational hazard of NVA armies.