Cold War Campaign - Game 3

Following the bloodless second game, the third game looked as if it were going to be harder fought. This time the terrain was in a large village that the IDF had fallen back to. The platoon was largely untouched so there was no rearranging of the platoon that was necessary. Again for support, the platoon had their M113 vehicles and a single Dragon ATGM team.

The town had been shelled by the Soviets prior to the attack. This left a large portion of the table in ruins.

The Israelis would defend the top portion of the table. The Soviets would enter from the bottom. The Soviets had two turns of movement in the patrol phase before the IDF moved. In the end, the IDF got the upper hand in the deploying the Jump Off Points.

The IDF JOPs are at the bottom of the picture. In the center of the table are the road blocks that I won from the Lardy Force List Contest. They are nicely made Dragon Teeth type road blocks. I really need to paint them but I wanted a game more than I wanted pretty. I think I had most of my buildings on the table for this.

Having the first initiative the IDF did not deploy anything on their first initiative. The Soviets quickly tried to move troops up. They deployed a BMP-1 and a squad on the cobblestone road. With a double six they were able to rush them forward. The infantry moved up behind a ruin.

The Soviets had some amazing luck as they had three initiatives in a row and ended up startlingly close to an Israeli jump off point. The Soviet BMP was placed on over watch. It would not advance more than an inch beyond this point for the rest of the game.

The Soviets also brought forward a T-55 in support. The T-55 has Syrian markings and was from a diverted shipment that never ended up in its destination country.

The Israeli initiative has the first combat of the game. The Israelis deployed into the ruin and initiated close combat. This proved to be a very bloody encounter that destroyed the Soviet squad to a man and the Israelis took six men killed from their squad. The IDF leader survived and they only took two points of shock.

This initial loss did not shake the Soviet morale badly. With the ruins secure, they deployed the Dragon team to the top of the ruin and fired on the T55. The T55 sustained damage to its main gun.

With its remaining command dice, the IDF deployed another squad behind the ruin. The squad leader ordered the RPG gunner to fire on the BMP-1 which resulted in a killed gunner. (The picture has been left out due to terrible quality of our combat photographer)

The Soviets rushed to support their troops and deployed anther squad and another BMP-1. To support the damaged T55, they moved a squad and a BMP-1 up there as well.

The Soviets continued to push and closed in on the known Israeli position.

They did not just get double sixes once but twice in a row. They brought up their second senior leader and pushed up into the ruins across from the IDF positions.

The squad that was not invested in the ruins began to advance cautiously on tactical once they realized they were directly under the defenders guns. On the next Israeli activation, the lead BMP took another RPG hit forcing it to fall backwards once its morale was broken. The Dragon gunner on the roof launched another rocket at the BMP that was supporting the damaged T55 tank. The hit was not fatal and the BMP took some shock.

The Soviet squad came off of tactical and attempted to charge their way forward to the ruins. This failed. They did not reach close combat range. The Soviet squad in the house fired on the men in the ruins and pinned them. They did manage to kill the Dragon gunner though.

The IDF squad behind the ruins moved to the side of the building to engage the Soviet squad. Not calculating distances well, I ended up moving them to withing close combat range and anther deadly fight ensued. This time the Soviets lost six men including their Platoon Sergeant. The remnants of the squad (squad leader and one man) broke and ran. The IDF squad lost four men in the brief fight.

This cost the Soviets some significant morale loss. Now they had a squad, one whole BMP-1 and three damaged vehicles left. With only 3 command dice left, the squad in the ruins attempted to take as many of the enemy as they could. Firing on the soldiers now in the open, they managed to kill one of the Israelis. This would force them to move backwards to cover.

The T55 attempted to move up and do something. To counter it, the Israelis deployed their final squad on the far end of the board. Over the next few turns, a leader would pick up the Dragon and attempt to engage the T55. He missed. At that point I declared it to be out of ammunition. The new squad moved down the street from cover to cover until it came in contact with the remaining BMP-1. It engaged it with its RPG and caused the crew to abandon it. At this point, the game was all but over.

The IDF lost no morale during the fight. The Soviets ended up withdrawing after loosing another command die. They abandoned two of their BMP-1s in the process. It was a significant victory for the IDF. The men's opinion went down after all of the losses that they took. The COs opinion went back up after the win. The platoon leader's assessment of himself came out to be Steady.

In the end it was a very fun game. What I need to do is figure out how many shots the RPG troops should have and how many shots the Dragon team should get. I decided three for the game but I have no idea how many they should have. Also I am not sure I am doing the damage right for these. No vehicles ended up taking more than superficial damage. Even when being shot by a Dragon. Two games with vehicles and no vehicles were destroyed. I will just have to wait for the Modern Version of Chain of Command to figure out what I should have done.