Battleground 2020: Syria, Post 4: Rules-GDW's Team Yankee p2

This is me, talking to you, thru my FIST!

HE, ICMDP, FASCAM, SMOKE, CHEM...so many languages in which to converse.

Continuing the rules eval and learning process, I didn't add any Units, but I did add the Artillery and Spotting rules. I gave the Sovs 8 Salvoes of HE and the US none, assuming something of a surprise attack. 

The Spotting rules are quite interesting: Units in Town and Woods hexes are Concealed unless an enemy Unit is adjacent to them [any, doesn't have to be the firing Unit]. They remain so unless they Fire or Move out of the hex. However, if you Move into another Town or Woods hex, it becomes concealed again [unless next to an enemy Unit, of course]. 

This means you can Fire from Concealment, be fired upon by Reaction Fire, and then move [displace] to another Concealment hex, and be hidden again. So the only enemy that can fire at you is a Unit using Reaction Fire [and to have Reaction Fire means they didn't move in their Player Turn]. However, while using this tactic you yourself do not get to Reaction Fire, so you're firepower is effectively halved.

Lots of interesting choices!

First time around, I allowed the Soviets to attack after a pre-scenario barrage. I pre-programmed the Sov Artillery for 2 Salvoes per Town hex, and then gave the US a random setup, having decided I'd use the same Sov attack plan as last post - Tanks on the hill in cover, motor infantry making a daring attack on the town. The US started in Reaction Fire mode, ready for the attack. Below is the carnage Turn 1:

The US had a Bradley and infantry in the right-top Town hex, and a Bradley in the bottom-right Town hex, with the last infantry holding the bridge [nice choice]. The preliminary barrage, destroyed an infantry and damaged a Bradley, and the motor infantry assaulted into a reduced force. Despite this, they lost a BMP and a T-72 to ATGM fire. Sov advancing fire knocked out both Bradleys. 

By US Turn 3, one Abrams held the bridge a strong Sov force. I kept using the Concealment rules to fire and displace with the Sovs, which kept them alive.


By Sov Turn 4, the Abrams was damaged by prep fire or close assault - it is now immobilized and has half firepower. The combination of distant fire support and close infantry is keeping the Abrams spotted and under fire. On its own, it is able to Pin or Destroy an infantry Unit almost every turn, but there are too many Sovs around. 


It took a couple of turn, but on US turn 5, Sov Reaction Fire destroyed the Damaged Abrams, while the Sovs lost the infantry that assaulted it.


This was an interested cat-and-mouse situation. The Spotting rules work well and are easy to handle. 
*It is certainly possible to allow a player to always generate a Dummy counter [the reverse of the Pin marker has the Reaction Fire arrow printed on it] when displacing into Concealment, which lowers the chance of being hit by Artillery [unless you barrage both hexes]. 
*It would also be possible to allow a player to "spot" a Concealed counter using special scout units, electronic intel, satellites, UAVs, whatever. This would make such support really useful and also realistic.

The possibilities are ENDLESS - and manageable!

Game 2
I kept the random US deployment with the Sov barrage landing evenly at 2 Salvoes / hex, and the same Sov plan of attack, which seems like the best one at this point [altho I may be missing something completely]. This time it was Sov Turn 1 where they used the barrage and they delayed their attack until Game Turn 2.

This time the US recon teams were each with their Bradley in two different hexes. The bridge got plastered [rolled 2 '1's in a Salvo] and in the end the team there lost their infantry and had a Damaged Bradley. The other infantry team was Pinned at the back of the town with a functional Bradley.

The battered US force then flipped to Reaction Fire side....

And retaliated against the Russkies on Turn 2, knocking out a BMP and a T-72. The Sov T-72 actually shouldn't have been a target as it was Concealed in its approach and had not fired yet, so my error - but it would've been another BMP then.


US PT2, they knocked out another Motor Rifle team and their BMP, then flipped to Reaction Fire side. The Abrams stated out of T-72 range but chose to enter ATGM range to get the best shots on the BMPs.


By US PT3, the casualties had piled up, with some fortunately dice and a couple of bad choices - all the Sov vics are KO'd, and the US has lots its infantry and a Bradley.

The problem of how to take the town is tougher with the Spotting rules - if the Sov infantry are in a Town hex, they are automatically concealed if they don't fire. As they have no weapons that can hurt the US armor at range [e.g. ATGM], they can hunker down in Reaction Fire mode. Some lucky volunteer will have to approach the town and spot them!

The winner is an Abrams, as it has a better survival chance than the Bradley. Advancing fire is fine, with one dead and one Pinned infantry. But the surviving not Pinned Sov assaults and knocks out the Abrams - darn Red Heroes!

"ya know, to a New Yorker like you, a hero is some sort of sandwich, not some nut that takes on [2 Abrams] tanks!" with apologies to Oddball for keeping him in the Army another 30 years...

US PT 5, Abrams destroys the Sov infantry that took out the Abrams, while the Bradley 20-Mike-Mikes the other and Pins it down. Interestingly, it is not concealed b/c it fired previously, and has not been able to displace due to being Pinned...I probably should've thought of that when I used its small attack factor as a prep fire against the Abrams!


Sov PT6, the US reaction fire finished off the Pinned Sov infantry. Pinning is doubly dangerous as you can't displace, and another Pin result destroys the infantry Unit.


So a victory for the US despite the Artillery barrage. I made a couple of errors with the Sovs and the US had a few fortunate rolls which made up for the impact of the Sov preliminary barrage. The heroes this time were definitely the Abrams, but the Bradleys did some great TOW work and negated the T-72 threat to a large extent.

I like how the rules handle things that can be complex and unmanageable in so many other rules. There's still a bunch more things to learn, like Smoke, IR, Thermal Sights, Night Fighting, et al.  Looking forward to trying it all out!