TY 6mm Lessons Learned 3

Our escalation league had our monthly meeting and this post is more of a battle report than a true Lessons Learned post, but keep reading as I do talk about mistakes made during the game. Hate to spoil the ending for everyone, but my East German T-72M Panzer Bataillon received more than it gave and would have been completely done in if we had played to the end. Anyway, on with the show!

I had the table all set up before anyone made it in, so after the usual hour or so of kibbitzing, we got down to business. Both Brandon and I have built US and Warsaw Pact forces, so I mixed up a red and a blue card behind my back and let Brandon pick a card. He got blue, so his M113 Armored Cavalry Troop faced my East German T-72M Panzer Bataillon. He picked Maneuver and I picked Attack, and rolling on the mission table, we got Contact. Contact gives us both Reserves, the Attacker getting Immediate, and the Defender getting Scattered Delayed as well as Ambushers. The first of many jokes of "Damnit, Hans!" *smack!* as a disgruntled officer or NCO smacks poor Hans in the back of the helmet for his transgressions begins. 

The set up. The black buildings are 3d printed, Grouchy approves.

We are working on expanding our terrain options. 

The East German forces. Yes, I need to get on with painting them.

The Americans. Didn't he do a good job on those Pattons?

Brandon shocked at the T-72 horde about to be unleashed in his direction.

The East German Reserves.

The American Reserves and Ambushers.

We set up, the Americans fairly conservatively (the big gun Pattons all being in Reserve or in Ambush), with the East Germans throwing the Aufklarung BMPs and a Kompanie of T-72s down the central road. The roads (that are not pieces of paper we cut up and wrote stuff on) are from GCMini and can be found here. Yes, more painting needs to happen on all the terrain bits and the minis. Damnit, Hans!

The view from the East German side, post-deployment.

2S1 Gvozdika ("Carnation") arty overwatching one of the American objectives.

The central road. Aufklarungs Zugs are cheap and give you Spearhead, useful to any WarPact force.

And the Shilkas. Was not expecting air units at 50 points, but Shilkas are good for infantry and light armor. Four-barreled 23mm cannons are not to be ignored.

The center of the American forces, from their side of the table.

That is a lot of tanks at the other end of the road.

The Scout Section on the left.

The Scout Section on the right.

Attacker's first turn, no Reserves come in (damn the luck), and I charge the Panzer Kompanie straight up the main road, full on Road Dash, complete YOLO move to get my tanks to grips with the other team as soon as possible and hoping to cause as much damage before the Pattons showed up. Meanwhile the BMP Scouts popped over the hill and blew up the M901 ITV in that Scout Section, while the Shilkas and the Bataillon commander rolled towards the Scout Sections to their immediate fronts. Damnit Hans, we should have destroyed that M113 and wiped out the whole section!

BMPs get the ITV. The die is a reminder to make a Unit Morale check.

The Bataillon CO could not quite make it far enough to shoot at that Scout Section, or even Spot it for an Artillery Barrage from the Carnations.

You Only Live Once!

The Defending Americans go, revealing one unit of Pattons in Ambush, which show up directly in front of the T-72s that YOLO'd down the central road. The VADS, wanting nothing to do with tanks that they cannot penetrate even from the side, scamper off to take shots at the Aufklarungs BMPs, which they manage to destroy one, while the remaining M113 bails the other one. The Stinger troops (represented by Avenger HMMWVs, which actually make more sense than trying to fire a Stinger from the open top of a soft-side Hummer), and Force CO go hide behind the trees. The freshly-arrived Pattons Blitz onto the table and manage to kill only one T-72. The other Scout Section fires a TOW-2 and completely misses their target (Code Brown! we are at Code Brown!). 

The classic Ma-Deuce .50cal is not totally useless.

I am surprised more of the T-72s did not die in this engagement.

That is a beauty of a fatal funnel.

The VADS' rally point is Grouchy Smurf.

Turn two, the East Germans get Reserves (a Panzer Kompanie as you want to bring the biggest hammer to the fight that you can) who immediately engage the VADS around Grouchy, the forward panzer element unmasks their guns and takes it to the Pattons who just appeared to their front, the last remaining Aufklarungs BMP (who made their morale check to not scamper off to the hinterlands) adjusted position and engaged the Scout Section along with the still charging ahead Shilkas to no result. The YOLO Panzer Kompanie had some success with the Pattons, bailing two of their number, while the newly arrived panzers outright kill two VADS and bail a third (the fourth shot knocked over the statue of Grouchy, not one of us accidentally bumping it, no not at all). The Bataillon CO finally crosses to the other side of the trees and takes out half of the Scout Section, and then I show that I ranged in my Carnations on the remaining ITV, but I honestly cannot remember who did the spotting, but since it did not appear that I did no damage, I am going to call it a wash. Thinking on it more, the most likely one is the Carnations were spotting for themselves, but still, no damage from that arty bombardment, so it does not really matter.

Unmask, swarm, and attack!

A lot going on over on the East German's right flank.

That is one tough Scout Section. Damnit Hans! *smack!*

This one is succumbing to direct cannon fire, but it is a M113 and that is a 125mm cannon.

Yeah, I just cannot recall how this Ranged In token ended up here.

The United States' Army's finest strikes back, with some very excellent rolls by my opponent. No more Reserves arrive for them, but the Pattons already in the fight take out every one of the T-72s deep in their side of the battle, destroying four tanks with six shots. The VADS remount and swing to their left to counter the Shilkas rushing forward. The Scout Sections, on the other hand, fail their morale checks and scamper away. RNGeezus giveth and taketh away.

And there goes the YOLO Panzer Kompanie.

The VADS adjust to go face down the Shilkas.

That is a big hammer.

Six shots for four kills, the Pattons are a good, inexpensive option for American commanders.

The East Germans press the attack, the formation CO pushing to the crest of the hill and calling in artillery on the Pattons. The last Volksarmee Reserve, the BMP-1 OP, comes in and immediately jumps as far forward as it gets to start spotting for the Carnations. The Shilkas move into the trees and try to cross to head for the next copse of trees, but many of them fail their cross check and so they sit at the edge of this treeline. The new Panzer Kompanie moves forward at Tactical Speed in the hopes of getting a line of sight to any of the opposing forces, but fails to. The remaining BMP-1 of the Aufklarungs Zug adjusts and takes a potshot with its cannon at the Pattons and misses. I should have tried the Sagger instead, as a hit from that would have been more effective if it had hit. The bombardment does not damage any of the Pattons, and the Attacker's turn ends with a sizzle instead of a bang. This is where I, as the East German player, should have been consolidating my forces. To be honest, I should have been doing that from the beginning. Throughout this fight I was throwing one Unit at one of my opponent's Units, instead of ganging up multiple of my Units on single Units of his so I could remove them (either outright or dropping them to the point of making Morale checks) from the battlefield quicker and more reliably. 

I was too rash with the first Panzer Kompanie, and too timid with this one. I should have moved them faster and consolidated with the Shilkas to their front right.

All the East Germans are on the board.

Ranging in on the Pattons. We use the half size artillery templates from GCMini, found here.

The Carnations are a great deterrent for this objective, but I really should have gone mobile with them and used them in direct fire mode.

The new armor column of the East Germans.

The Pattons, unaffected by the artillery bombardment.

The US fails to bring more of their Reserves forward, but still manage to come to grips with the East Germans and wipe the floor with them. The Pattons and VADS Blitz move (the little lightning bolt counters were 3d printed by Brandon, the US player in this scenario, and a great reminder which units used Blitz moves) to unmask their barrels and laid the hurt down on the Volksarmee. Six shots on the T-72s results in two outright brewed up panzers and two Bailed. The VADS, meanwhile, destroy one Shilka and Bail one other. The US Command element and ADA folks still continue to cower behind cover, as they are not of much use (one .50cal MG and some Stinger missiles with no aircraft on the field), so they stayed out of the line of fire.

Brandon uses a M60A2 Starship mini to denote the CO of his Pattons, and I think it looks great.

The T-72 crews are not having a good day. It is all Hans' fault. Damnit Hans! *smack!*

The VADS tear up the Shilkas. I should have kept the Shilkas all within the tree line as soon as one of them failed their cross check to keep the unit in as much cover as possible.

Blitzing Pattons, note the cool token. This is something else I failed to do as the East German player - use those Move Orders, you have access to them for a reason.

The East Germans, far from giving up, rally the forces and press into the attack. The newly arrived from last turn OP and the Force commander dive into cover close to the Pattons and opposing command team. No Pattons were directly visible, so the Volksarmee commander calls in an arty strike where it does not do a whole lot. The OP, it turns out, only has an MG on their BMP-1, even though in the book and in the Battlefront 15mm model, they are modeled to have the 73mm cannon and Sagger missile. Having thought about it more, I really should have gathered my tanks together with my Carnations and pushed them into direct contact with the Americans, as arty fire just did not do anything for me this whole game. The Panzer Kompanie manages to remount one of their bailed tanks and pushes forward just a bit to get under the 16" rule and outright destroy two Pattons down at the other end of the road, cover or no. When they hit, the T-72s are devastating. The Shilkas fail to remount their one bailed track, but do manage to bail out one of the remaining VADS. There is a glimmer of hope for our plucky, second line WarPact Force.

OP and Commander in new Danger Close positions.

Remount and charge!

The Pattons don't fare well.

Trying to get rid of the VADS.

It was looking good for the East Germans, and then someone started playing the Team America World Police theme song (note: video and song are NSFW), rallying the Americans to seriously begin to jump up and down on the East Germans. The last batch of Pattons finally come in from Reserves, immediately moving to destroy or bail the last of the T-72 Panzer Kompanie. The one bailed VADS remounts and they proceed to destroy the remaining three Shilkas. The remaining two Pattons maneuver towards the opposing Force commander.

'Murica! Sending 105mm of freedom downrange.

Pattons hunting down the lone T-72.

VADS come out over the Shilkas.

T-72s feeling the hate.

Yep, that's a lot of burning tracks.

We forgot to take pics after the next East German turn, but we needed to get through the next turns quickly as Brandon had to head out for the night. Too much time kibbitzing before the game got rolling, which seems to happen for every tabletop wargame or role-playing game I have ever participated in. Anyway, from my spotty memory and the results of the pics we did take after the Americans' final turn, here is what happened. The EG T-72 Force commander maneuvers up and destroys one of the Pattons hunting him. The final Patton in that Formation makes his Morale check, maneuvers for a shot, and destroys the Force commander in retaliation. The two bailed T-72s in the Panzer Kompanie make their remount checks, dive for cover behind a nearby building, but only manage to destroy one of the newly arrived Pattons before they (the Pattons) maneuver themselves, and brew up one of the T-72s in their own version of retribution. The BMP-1 OP with the Force commander maneuvers and calls in another ineffective arty barrage on the Pattons. The VADS begin maneuvering to swing wide of the Panzer Kompanie towards the objective on that side of the table.

Damnit, Hans! *smack*

Americans rolling forward.

"We tried!" cried the T-72 Panzer Kompanie.

Don't mind us, just heading for the objective.

Not that they had done anything, but the last Scout Section in Reserves did come onto the board at the end, and the American M113 Force commander tried to swing out and kill the BMP-1 OP with its M2 .50cal.

And that is where we ended it, awarding the Americans a 7-2 victory. The last T-72 in the Panzer Kompanie would have had to make their Morale check to stay on the table for the whole East German Force not to make a Force Morale check (the Carnations are a part of the Force and not in Divisional Support, though the BMP-1 OP is not in the Force). At this point, one T-72 and three Carnations facing down against four Pattons and a M-901 ITV, especially as separated as they were across the board, just did not have the numbers or RoF to be much of a threat to keep the Americans off their objectives, much less take any in return.

The biggest Lessons Learned, for me as the East German player, was that I need to use my Movement Orders more (read that as "at all"); I need to consolidate my T-72s against Americans as, while I outnumbered him on a tank to tank basis, he outnumbered me in RoF, and fair fights are for suckers; and that artillery is better used to barrage infantry and lightly armored vehicles (like the VADS or the M113 Force commander and HMMWV Stinger troops), or just drive them in and use them in the direct fire role against the Pattons.