ORIGINAL "Team Yankee", GDW First Battle Series Game, p3

Coming Soon, to a Gap near you:
https://www.rbth.com/multimedia/pictures/2016/05/06/victory-parade-rehearsal_590615

Well, hopefully Team Yankee will be able to hold the Soviet horde from the Fuldarians and the rest of the FRG. This battle continues my growing acquaintance with the First Battle Series: Team Yankee rules, and is Scenario 2: Objective Log. It is still, however, an introductory scenario and doesn't use all the rules. It does use enough new rules to challenge me, however! These include Morale [force not Unit  / Team morale], Artillery, Spotting, Entrenchments.

I played this about seven times. Various tactics did not work at all, including an indirect attack [not enough time to be subtle] and leading with a mech infantry assault on Lemm. Finally, I felt like I had learned enough to record results that were not a debacle on somebody's part!

Below, the Russky force. 2xT72, 3xT64, 2xBTR, 2xMotor Infantry Platoons, 3 entrenchments, 3 Dummy markers [the arrow]. They also have one Artillery Battery with 8 salvoes of HE. 

One Artillery Battery / Platoon means one fire mission may be called in on a hex: up to three Salvoes [attacks] may be called in successively. Ammo is typically HE, a one hex attack, but others like Smoke, FASTCAM  and ICMDP attack 4, 5 and 7 hexes respectively.

Reds must hold on to any hex within six of the marked hilltop points: #190 [book Objective Log, includes village of Lemm just South] or #214 to the North, which doesn't include Arnsdorf to the North [book Objective Gold]. So basically the US forces must make a clean sweep of the Soviets!


Below, America's heroes, Team Yankee [!!wild cheering!!]. They are sporting a lethal force of 2xM1 platoons, the battalion CO and XO also in M1s, a mounted mech infantry platoon, 2xITV and a FIST, plus Artillery Support in the form of 2 batteries with 12 Salvoes, including HE and ICMDP.

Red menace deploys. After a variety of plans, I put one mech platoon in Lemm with two BTRs to enable survivors to flee when the town fell. The other platoon I put in a string of entrenchments running from the large woods to hill #214. I am hoping that this results in an ability to use the woods as a forward or last-ditch defense against Los Terribles Yanquis!


To put some uncertainty into solo play, I took one dummy and the first T64, turned them over and randomly deployed them in the two woods. I'll unveil them when they can be useful. I also mixed up the inverted counters for the platoon in Lemm, figuring that may result in a better deployment plan than any I've found so far! Below is what TY sees as it deploys...a lot of ready Reds occupying key terrain, and all Concealed so not a target for Direct Fire.



First TY setup. I have the mech infantry ready to storm across the river and bridge with plenty of firepower in support. Russkie arrows mean the unit can Reaction Fire - note that some of them are Dummy markers, but I don't know which ones they are.

No less than 10 M1s and two ITVs are overwatching.


TY then uses their Attacker's Initiative advantage [Attacker can choose to take the first Player Turn or force the Defender to take the First Player Turn and go Second] to make the Sovs take the first Player Turn. If they open fire at the mech infantry, my overwatch will cream them. They decided to hold fire...this is an ongoing tension in this game, the decision to stay concealed or open fire


Still, once things get rolling and the mech infantry prepare an attack on the town, there's no point in the Reds holding back - the mech infantry always lose some M113 PCs and some of the teams don't bail out in time [50% chance of surviving]. I try a couple of variations, but not even smoke will help conceal you in an adjacent hex.


Finally, it is clear that simple is best. TY leads off with two troops of Abrams attacking the town - they move adjacent, reveal what is there, and are impervious to enemy fire as the Sovs do not have any ATGMs - not very realistic, but hey, this is an intro scenario featuring Artillery and I wanted to respect the scenario as written.


Above, the Abrams reveal a dummy, the Sov command team, a motor infantry team, and the two BTRs hiding in the town. Below, they make short work of all but the command team in the advancing Fire Phase [and probably destroy a lot of FRG civilian property, too].


At the end of Turn 1, Sov artillery lands on pre-determined hex, and is a miss to right of Abrams platoons. US artillery puts HE on two double-stacked hexes, hoping that there's not just dummy markers there. Some great rolling results in Pin results on the two remaining Soviet Motor Infantry teams!

Should be noted...First Battle Series likes low rolling. I prefer high rolling to be good, but that can be fixed later.

Again using the Attacker's Initiative advantage, I take TY's player turn first in Turn 2. This means TY goes twice in a row albeit one is second player turn of Turn 1, and other is first player Turn of 2. I shift the M1s against the possible Sov T64s and when flipped over, the counter is in fact the T64s - surprise! Meanwhile, the US mech infantry push into the town against the pinned Sov teams and their command team.



Sovs Reaction Fire smokes one M1. The M1s Advance Fire back, destroying two T-64s. A pretty good trade considering they were outnumbered 2-1, but they had the first shot.


Mech infantry do pretty well, destroying a Pinned Team and Pinning the Command Team. Situation is well in hand for the Burger Boys beating up the Borsch Biters in Kraut Kountry!

Sov Turn 2, the surviving T64 misses a 3-2 attack, fizzle. The Motor Infantry Command Team can't shoot when Pinned [Attack Factor 1, halved and rounded down = '0'].



Turn 3. The US tears up the remaining Sov defenders on Hill 190 and lose an M113 PC in Lemm. The Sovs sit tight at Hill 214. I reveal the Dummy marker in the large woods at top right, since the T-64s have already been revealed. I think the scenario could use a few T-72s as well as a Dummy to give the Sovs some more teeth.



TY Turn 4, they begin cracking the nut at Hill 214. The Sovs are sort of in a pickle, as any fire from them will result in some damage from overwatching US forces, like the ITVs which just barely reach but are pretty dangerous. The Sovs morale fails at 8, and they've 6 for the BN CDR [T72] and 3 each for the Motor Platoon leaders. So basically, if they lose the BN and an MP Ldr they fail morale and depart.


Given this, I decide my deployment on the hill is poor, and instead push them back into the woods on the back side. Uncertain if they will survive, but they do have a chance with their Reaction Fire, at least with the 2 T-72s the BN CO is handling. My experiment defending from the front side [below] resulted in a T72 lost for nothing.



So, Turns Sov 4 and TY 5, the US presses forward and the Sovs pull back a bit more, putting the Motor Infantry leader in an entrenchment and the two T72s retreat to a woods edge with good fields of fire into the valley the motor platoon is occupying, as well as the intersection next to them. TY leaders hang back, not wanting to get picked off and risk a Morale problem causing them to Hesitate on their attack. At the end of Turn 5, the US artillery lands on the hexes the Sovs were occupying, so good choice to retreat!



Turn 6, TY aggressively assaults the position at close range. This costs them two M1's destroyed by the T72s, and a damaged M1 also. But, they eliminate the T72s and therefore the last of the Soviet anti-tank assets. Would be nice if they had some ATGMs...but alas, not on today's TOE. With the T72's smoked, the remaining M1s start beating up the Sov motor infantry.



Finally, the last Sov unit is destroyed, leaving none within 6 hexes of either hilltop, and a clear TY victory!



Well, a grand finale to many games played, including experimenting with additional Sov forces, including ATGM assets and a platoon of three T72s. Those resulted in narrow losses for TY, mostly due to the difficulty of clearing all Sovs from the board. In the end, I decided to post on a play of the scenario as written, without additional rules or forces.


I think it is interesting that it ended just like in the book, with the US losing several tanks and an M113 personnel carrier to the Sov defenders. I bet this is what Frank C had in mind when creating the scenario, anyway! The scenario had great replay value with and without additional forces. I probably could've lasted the Sovs until Turn 7 or maybe 8 if I pushed them back into the northern woods more and made TY come after them. But the end result would be the same, I think, due to limited AT assets for the Sovs.

A few thoughts:

1) It is probably a bit TOO easy to allow the Attacker to always choose IN. I think they should roll-off, but with a bonus to the attacker [say, defender must win by 2, or 3].

2) Still a bit too easy to tell where the enemy is even with the dummy markers. True, they can be swapped around with Dummy Markers and mixed up, resulting in a solo player not knowing what, if anything is there, but there is a good chance that _something_ is there! OTOH, one can argue that there are only so many likely defensive positions and good fields of fire, so perhaps this is realistic. Still, I think I'd like to allow Units to be in the hex of the counter or an adjacent hex, further obscuring what is under the counter.

3) Artillery seems a bit slow on the draw. Even in WWII, a pre-planned barrage could be called up and falling in minutes, if not seconds. At the moment, your opponent always gets a chance to move, so you play a guessing game with them about that - plot the barrage to land ahead of them where you think they'll move, or on them in case they don't? There needs to be a sweet spot btw quick as direct fire and way to slow to affect anything except defenders holding positions or advancing infantry.
4) This is a very realistic game yet only moderately complex. The whole time you are trying to make decisions based upon covering your advance with enough firepower that the enemy dare not reveal himself until absolutely necessary. The Defender meanwhile is trying to figure out the best way to extract the most punishment by tactical ambush and counter-attack. All of which are easy to understand and do thanks to the simple but subtle turn sequence.


This emphasizes what I want in a game - realistic command decisions - and what I can live without, lots of little special rules and national characteristics that largely cancel out and muddle basic tactical thinking, anyway [talking to YOU, Flames of War!].


Between Scenarios 1 and 2, I've played over a dozen times. I think the mechanics give great replay value, and allow a decent-sized company level game to play in about 1-2 hours depending on how focused you are. There's also not much to keep one from saying that a "Unit" is a platoon of tanks / infantry instead of a single tank or team, so the system can easily scale up, I think, just add more "Damaged" results to the CRT to take into account the larger Unit.

I encourage you, Gentle Reader, to give the First Battle Series a try - it is not revolutionary, but it effectively uses classical mechanics to achieve a nice balance of fun and realism!