Cold War Campaign - Game 2

Setup

After the victory that the IDF element achieved in the initial skirmish, Raul Speyer's platoon was left to defend the area against any further attacks. They brought their vehicles forward and took a Dragon ATGM team as a support. They believed that the Soviets would doubtless bring some form of armor as support.

The Soviets assigned a new platoon for this attack. They were assigned an East Bratislovakia surplus T-55. It seemed that the Soviets diverted part of a Syrian shipment of T-55s to East Bratislovakia sometime in the 1970s. Not thrilled with cooperating with the East Bratislovakians, the Soviets were going to only call them in as a last resort. It seems that the Soviets did not believe that the candy makers could fight. They needed to stick to what they knew and knew well - Beet Flavored Candy.

Oddly enough, whenever a Soviet citizen requested to visit the factories, they never touched the candy again afterwards and would never explain why.

The Battle

The battlefield was identical to the one previously fought over. The Soviets had two turns unopposed for the patrol phase. This gave them a good edge and were able to rapidly move their patrol markers forward.

This produced the following Jump Off Points.

The Soviets had a big advantage with a jump off point nearly to the middle of the saddle. With the other they occupied two buildings. The IDF had a tougher time with a poor disbursement of JOPs. All three were fairly close to the table edge. The one furthest to the left turned out to be very vulnerable.

The IDF had the higher morale. They began by deploying two squads and the Dragon ATGM team. The Dragon team attempted to sneak around the far end of the Saddle. In reality, they would end up playing no role in the game. One Squad was deployed on the far jump off point by a house and the other was in the hedges.

With the Soviets taking the initiative, they roll 3 6's and a 2 & 3. Ending the turn so early had no real impact but it kept the initiative with the Soviets. They immediately deployed a squad on the Saddle and another in a house. Thus far, all of the Soviet troops were across the stream and not bottled up the way they were in the previous game.

The game really turned into one of maneuver. The Soviets had a great advantage and were pushing it hard. The Israelis were not in a position to stop them without taking casualties that they did not think would be worth while. The IDF brought up a single M113 track that never advanced beyond its entry point. The Soviet brought up a single BMP-1 that reached the center of the saddle. The M113 was on over watch and engaged the BMP-1 with its .50 MG. This had no result. The BMP-1 fired its Sasgger missile and managed somehow to only daze the driver.

Here is where I think some updated charts are needed. I am not sure that my older ratings for things are exactly right. Anyway, What happened was a prolonged fight between the BMP-1 and the M113. The M113 got the best of it. They achieved a result where they forced the BMP back off of the Saddle which bought them time to escape.

Elsewhere on the table, the Dragon team saw that they were about to be engaged by a full squad of Soviets so they ran off. The squad in the house did nothing for the whole game and fled with no losses. And the squad in the center reached the bottom of the saddle before pulling back and fleeing.

The end result of the game was that the IDF gave ground but did not loose a single man. The CO's opinion dropped by one but the men's opinion went up by two. This set the stage for the third game of the campaign. I wanted to continue the Soviet push into West Bratislovakia. Game 3 was played out on Friday. This game was done on Wednesday night.

Next installment coming up.