Firestorm: Red Thunder

Mission: Hof Corridor No Retreat
It was in the early hours of the 4 August the Major’s tank battalion rolled across the Inner German border in the direction of the sleepy border town of Hof. Utilising the cover of darkness they penetrated the American line until striking resistance at a small village near the outskirts of Hof. Here they broke through a combined West German and American force with the aid of an East German battalion.

The Major’s battalion then pushed on and soon ran into the American fallback position near a crossroads. American infantry has taken up positions in a small shopping centre and had heavily mining the approaches up the main road to their position.

The Major immediately sent his troops forward, attacking the positions with his leading T-72 Tank Companies. The night was soon alight with the flashes and streaks of guns and missiles. The Americans revealed their deception when a unit of four M1 Abrams tanks appeared from a stand of woods behind the village shops. The T-72s and BMP-2 Scouts on the left engaged the American tanks, though the darkness made targeting difficult. In the centre the other T-72 Company pushed through the mine fields for the loss of only one tank and were soon threatening their objective, the shopping centre, and the mechanised infantry defending it.
As the firefight raged on the left, the BMP-2 Motor Rifle Company arrived and headed up the main road towards the shopping centre. They were joined by the anti-aircraft elements and the artillery.

Before hitting the minefield the infantry dismounted and headed around them to threaten the Mechanised infantry from the right. On the left the M1 Abrams platoon was finally defeated but Soviet numbers had been thinned out. More Americans arrived from reserve with another six M1 Abrams, which quickly laid waste to the remaining Soviets on the left.
A fresh platoon of M1 Abrams began a firefight with the T-72s of the company attacking the shopping centre, where the Soviet tanks had been engaging the mech infantry. Meanwhile, the BMP-2s of the motor rifle company attempted to push across the minefields and advance into the carpark, two made it across and the three were destroyed, the trailing vehicles stopped short of the wall of burning vehicles.

With the left flank open to the Americans the weight of fire began to tell. More reserves of VADS and Cobras added further firepower. The valiant Soviet riflemen assaulted into the shopping centre, then on towards the VADS, but the combined fire of the anti-aircraft guns and Cobras saw them off. The game ended with the American still in control of the shopping centre and all of the T-72s, BMP-2 and infantry destroyed.