Wednesday we played our third game of the invasion of Køge Bugt i Denmark. The Warsaw Pact forces were on their heels after having had their beachhead hit hard by a Danish counter attack. The Danes established a defensive ring around the Warsaw Pact beachhead and now they were forces to try and break out. Concentrating their force the Warsaw Pact had numerical superiority on a minor part of the Danish defenses. In games term this meant that the Warsaw Pact forces had 4000 points to spend and the Danes 2000 points.
(I am afraid a missed a deployment foto so words will have to do
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The Danes deployed first. On the right a platoon of infantry armed with Carl Gustav ATGW in trenches defended the Danish flank and were ready to take on anything coming through the forest in front of then. Behind them the Danish counter forces consisting of four leopard 1A4 took up position in a forest ready to strike when the moment was right . On the Danish left the defense anchored on a large forest filed with nasty looking infantry in marders and combat engineers. The plan was to stop anyone going through this way and possibly attack any weakened forces close to the forest. This left the middle and the extreme left undefended but here unmarked minefields secured that no one would get through in a hurry and the tank squadron or the infantry in the forest would be able to finish of anything that made it through. In the skies two F-4 Phantom II were ready on call to strike ground targets.
The Warsaw Pact forces deployed a large tank squadron of T80 tanks on the left and a whole company of Ural farm boys supported by a platoon of recoilless rifles in BMP’s on the right. They sent two platoons of spetznaz in BMP’s on a flank attack.
The target for the Warsaw Pact forces was the Køge highway which was still surprisingly busy considering the heavy fighting that had been going on around the nearby village. They would claim a minor victory for holding this part of the table and a major for exiting 25 % of their forces of the board.
Turn one saw very little action as the Warsaw Pact forces advanced and the Danes kept their heads down. By turn two the Warsaw Pact forces were getting close and particular the platoon of recoilless rifles mounted in BMP’s were of concern for the Danes.
First of they were hit by an F-4 Phantom II airstrike which destroyed one and suppressed another.
The Leopards then moved out of their cover to finish them off. One leopard was suppressed by a spandrel attack from the remaining functional BMP but after that the BMP’s were taken out by the leopard tanks together with the recoilless rifle platoon.
On turn three the Warsaw Pact sent in their flanking force on the right. Luckily for the Danes they failed their second command role and did not get very fare.
The smiles quickly stiffened though as the evil, no good commy bastards launched a massive chemical artillery bombardment on the Danish tank squadron and their commander and FAC. With a lot of hits and all of them suppressed everybody though it was all over for the leopards. The T80’s crossed the hedge and engage them. Through a stroke of miracle and bad command roles the Leopards all managed to survive the assault.
It was time for the Danes to strike back but with the leopards suppressed it was up to the marders in the forest on the right to take care of things with their 20 mm autocannon. They only made it to the edge of the forest though, as their commander failed his second command role. The unsuppressed Danish FAC in the middle of the board still had a chance as well but he failed to contact the Phantoms flying over the battlefield.
Beginning of turn four the marders got a bit back when they managed to suppress two of the spetznaz carrying BMP’s when they tried to move.
The rest got away though and now it was time for the Danish forces in the forest to fell the communist chemical touch. Chemical artillery bombardment is really nasty. Especially when deployed as barrage. It covers a 60x20 cm area where everybody gets suppressed on top of the 6 in open, no amour hits. Nobody was killed but everybody including the HQ got suppressed.
The Warsaw Pact forces had cleverly laid out their chemical smoke so that only a small corridor remained open in the middle. Now the T80 tanks made for this opening. Unfortunately the Danes had placed a minefield just there and the tanks got bogged down with three suppressions in the initial hit.
Concluding that no goats no glory the communist tank commander pressed forward taking even more hits and suppressions. Two tanks made it through though.
This was the chance the Danish tank squadron had been waiting with the enemy tank caught and suppressed in the minefield. Unfortunately they were themselves in a sticky situation as the chemical smoke remained around them. Only one made it out without getting suppressed, but the T80’s were hit by a Phantom airstrike as well. Not enough to really damage the T80’s though.
By turn five the spetznaz and the two T80 tanks that made it through the minefields made it to the highway. On their way the two T80 overran the FAC in front of them.
The rest of the tanks where still struggling with suppression and the conscript infantry on foot was making slow progress. Their Hq ran into another minefield which was bad news for him but saved the conscript from doing it themselves. Before moving into the minefield the Hq called in yet another chemical bombardment. This time on the so fare unengaged Danish infantry on the right flank. By now we had run out of wool as the chemical smoke remains on board but you can still get an impression of the Warsaw forces plan of cutting the table in two, capturing the Danish forces on the “wrong” side of the chemical smoke curtain while the spetznaz made it for exit zone.
Closeup of the right flank with more chemical smoke and minefields. All the Danish tanks finally had the T80 in the flank but through a string of bad dice rolling and poor command ditto every Warsaw tank made through the onslaught. The infantry on the Danish left crawled out of the chemical smoke getting multiple suppressions for their troubles.
By turn six the Spetznaz crossed the highway and the Danish forces now had no chance of stopping them exiting the board and earning the Warsaw force an major victory. The leopard tank where given a final chance of destroying the T80, but once again they completely blew it. By this time we stopped the game.
It had been a really interesting game. Even though the Warsaw forces had more or less run the game as they had planned the Danish forces had many chances of getting back in the game. The marders for instance had a great chance of destroying the BMP’s carrying the spetznaz thereby completely ruining the Warsaw Pact plan. The T80 were also really lucky not getting destroyed by the multiple minefield, Phantom and leopard tank hits. The Warsaw Pact plan of cutting the table in two was really clever and they followed it by the book and did not get tempted to halt and engage tempting enemy targets. Even though my opponent promises he won’t use chemical artillery strikes in every game I really have to find some way of coping with then. We also agreed that its good solid Warsaw Pact strategy to drown the opponent in chemical gas and drive through the enemy lines while they are suppressed by the gas.
Next game will be the Exploitation scenario as the Warsaw Pact forces strike the rear of the Danish lines. Another game of very unequal forces and this time the Danes won’t be able to employ of board artillery as the enemy has hit their rear where the artillery is deployed. That is bad news because on board artillery cannot engage in counterbattery combat which at the moment is my only plan of countering the Warsaw Pact chemical artillery strikes.
Hopefully help will some arrive as the Danes are hard pressed and the enemy has the Copenhagen skyline in their sights.
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