Russkies in Oklahoma!

[seabolt]

TURN 13

As evidenced by the first Russian verbal volley since Turn 1, Epoletov's hitting a bit of a stride. He began the round by finally knocking my Warthog out of the sky. (Which was OK, in that it was out of ammo at the time, but not OK in that he killed rather than wounded it.) Then he dug his paratroops into cover after a couple of potshots. Which makes me suspect that he's waiting for something, maybe a long-hidden armored column, maybe a fourth wave. Somehow I think Epoletov has at least one more ace up his sleeve.

In the meantime, I needed to attend to the dirty business of digging out the third wave. The Apaches ferreted around in the south, but troops in trees aren't really their forte. Given the remoteness of the location, I could only add a little z-fire to their work. In the north I was able to bring quite a bit of ordnance, and my z-fire already has told Epoletov that plenty of company is coming. I'm hoping to create some very expensive corpses next turn.

In the meantime, I found what is likely a rifle company skirting north of 95,23, heading west with mayhem in mind. The Schmel RFTs came into their own in that skirmish, because I wasn't able to reel off 17 rallies with the leading platoon. The RFT Russian opfire smacked my offending squad with ~30 suppression and ended its fire after one volley.

And finally the turn ended with the usual rolling wave of Russian metal. His artillery almost seems to be getting stronger, which it probably is. All of my CM efforts only tallied about five dead Nonas (20% of his allowed artillery value) and five dead ammo carriers. My 60mm legion did a good job of suppressing another three or four guns to this point, but they're starting to go dry tubes. In the artillery war, at least, the Russian bear is starting to really growl. Let's hope I can take 12 more turns of it cuffing me about.

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