Last night my regular opponent and I had a good and intense round of Cold War Commander. Being from Denmark we are playing linked games concentrating around an invasion in Køge Bugt on the eastern side of Zeeland. Most of the Danish army would deploy in norther Germany in case of en Warsaw Pact attack but one brigade would stay home and defend the capital from an expected amphibious assault in Køge Bugt. I few week back we played the amphibious landing which luckily went well for the Warsaw Pact forces. Last night it was the time for Sjællandske Brigade to counter attack the beachhead. We basically used the same terrain but moved it all forward to clear the beaches. The village with the road inland that the Warsaw Pact forces had taken in the first scenario would now be their strong point.
The Danish have 50% larger force and have access to preplanned artillery and air attacks.
The Warsaw Pact forces deployed first. Their right (red arrow) was heavily defended with two platoons of infantry and one platoon of recoilless riffles, all in trenches and protected by barbed wire. The village was held by two T80 tanks (yellow arrow) and a platoon of spetsnaz and BMP´s with spandrel. There was nothing on the field to the left except barbed wire.
Turn one start of with a massive smokescreen from the Danish artillery. Under cover of the smoke the danes advance in front of the village with two platoon of Leopard tank and af company of infantry in APC. On the right a platoon of combat engineers in marders advances under the smoke in a clever flank attack.
Turn two the smokescreen advances to cover the advancing Danish forces
But then disaster strikes as first the Danish heaviest unit, 4 leopard 2, drive straight in to a big minefield on their right. No tanks are lost but the platoon grind to a halt with multiple hits and suppression markers. The really big disaster though is the failure of the combat engineers to move, as their commander fails his command role. There are stranded in their marders right in front of the Warsaw Pact infantry and recoilless rifles with their protective smokescreen way ahead toward to village. Grinning, the Warsaw Pact infantry pull out their RPG7’s and make short work of the marders and combat engineers. The recoilless rifles managed to suppress two of the leopard 2’s.
Turn three the Danish smokescreen is moved to the left of the village to allow the platoon of Leopard 1’s to outflank the Warsaw Pact forces. As the tanks move through the tree line they also run into a big minefield. Damage is luckily minimum but one tank is suppressed. Three BMP’s lie in ambush (red arrow), but with all the smoke they can’t find targets for their spandrel ATGW. The leopards on the other hand use their thermal sights to see through the smoke and easily take out the three BMP’s.
With the success on the left the Danes decide to assault the village with their infantry. Unfortunately two platoons are caught in a massive naval artillery bombardment and the ones that aren’t killed straight out are taken out by deadly spetsnaz and T80 fire. With most of their infantry annihilated and both their tank platoon stranded in mine fields things are not looking great for the Danes.
Turn fore finally sees some result front the Danish artillery other than smoke. The Warsaw Pact infantry line in trenches, are hit by two batteries causing multiple hits and suppressions. The leopard 2’s managed to clear the minefield and join in on the attack. When the smoke clears only two of the six squads are left standing. Sadly two of the leopard 2’s are lost in the maneuver from mines and recoilless rifle fire. On the left the leopard 1’s also manage to clear the minefields and swing around the village and engage and destroy the two T80. Only successes for the Warsaw Pact forces are an assault from the spetsnaz on two of the Danish infantry squads in the village.
By turn five both forces had reached their breakpoint, but the Danish high moral kept then fighting on. The leopard 1’s continued through the village and engaged an infantry squad that had gotten stranded way out on the right. In the village the Danish infantry kept their head down in expectation of another spetsnaz assault. The Warsaw Pact also managed to keep their forces going but disaster stroke as the CO failed a command role calling in some heavy mortar support fire.
Turn six saw most of the remaining Warsaw Pact infantry destroyed by tank fire and the spetsnaz platoon in the village was all that was really left standing in any shape to continue fighting. This broke the moral of the Warsaw Pact forces and the battle ended with a Danish major victory for breaking the opposing forces and a Warsaw Pact minor victory for destroying 25% of the opposing forces.
It was a great battle and for a long time the result could have gone either way. The Warsaw Pact forces played an excellent defensive battle and the Danish commander made some really stupid moves mainly in the beginning when the combat engineers were lost without firing a shot and the tank platoons where slow to get out of the minefields. In the end the Warsaw forces were too weak to capitalize on the Danish bad situation in turn two and three. The Danes were able to regroup and with the massive artillery bombardment in turn fore the battle was pretty much over for the Warsaw Pact forces.
We decided that this was not a push back into the sea but a containment of the beachhead. Next time the Warsaw Pact will have to fight a Breakthrough scenario to get through the Danish defensive lines.