Russkies in Oklahoma!

[seabolt]

TURN 14

As we enter the second half of this grand ideological scrum, the score stands at Yankee Imperialists 19, Anarchic Ex-Bolsheviks 2, with the Imperialists possibly holding a 2:1 edge in damage done, maybe higher.

And I had to get to a football practice, so I rushed through my turn, which made the mistake a bit ironic. In (real, American) football, many coaches at all levels (including myself) believe that the most important part of the game is the first 5 to 10 minutes of the second half. Both sides spend the first half uncorking their best, preplanned shots---and recoiling from the other guy's punch. You go in at halftime and figure out what's working and what's not. If leading at the time, you come out in the second half and try to immediately let the other team know that it's not going to be their day. You don't relax and let them enjoy a little success. Success breeds hope. Hope is the most dangerous emotion in the world.

Epoletov already had done his share to generate his own hope. The Ranger squad that spotted the rifle company just north of town ~500 meters west of VH 110,43 got pinned by an AT unit that it couldn't spot. (They have vision tests in the Rangers, right?) Then his rifle sections jumped in and chased my boys to death.

Epoletov also has been dropping cluster rounds nonstop on the east-west road pointing to 110,43 since my attack began. About three turns ago he had one of those miracle salvoes (we've all been on the receiving end of one) that evaporated a third of the troops in the area and eviscerated another third. I haven't mentioned it, hoping he wouldn't push his luck, but I certainly had to dial down the aggression. No fool, he finally pushed back this turn, isolated a reeling squad, and savaged it something fierce.

The only thing that didn't go well for him was an ill-advised ATGM potshot at a Humvee from Mt Acme, notifying me that yet another size-0 unit had escaped all of my attention on that drop zone.

Still, a good turn for the Russian. My chief goal should have been to not provide him any more hope. I only remembered that after the fact ...

The turn started out well enough. Last turn, in the southern LZ on the island, I had spotted a BMD and armored jeep, but couldn't reach them. This turn an Apache strolled in and killed each with a single burst. A little supporting fire here, a little there, and that situation began to appear under control.

In the northern LZ, the closest Rangers killed the last stubborn holdout from a recon unit, then a farther unit got one of the Spetsnaz units to waste its flamethrowing opfire at long range. A bit of z-fire and the special forces looked properly pinned. I moved in a full Fox for the kill. Bad call. At 100 meters, the Russians opfired with small arms. The LMG burst caused everyone to bail out of the Fox. The reverse positioning caused everyone to retreat toward the Spetsnaz unit. This prompted an MMG unit and sniper to surrender. (This was the first action in the entire match to cause me to start cussing. I don't recall this happening much in 2.5, but in 3.0 adjacent artillery fire and small arms routinely cause all of the occupants to come boiling out of an APC to get their heads caved in. Hello? Wasn't the APC invented to cross beaten zones? Who in their right mind leaves their bulletproof ride under MG fire?) Fortunately, the squaddies resisted the urge to surrender to 15 surrounded and bullet-riddled Russians, and killed the offending commando section. Still ... very expensive.

Epoletov still has the two infantry sections huddling behind 110,43. I opened up with an MMG on overwatch, just to keep them pinned. One of the other AA guns (the ones that eluded my inability to count to three) opened up from 2150 meters. I couldn't spot it, decided to squeeze off another burst to improve my odds of locating it. The resulting low-percentage opfire hit, killed three, and the last guy resigned his commission. I'm just hell on MGs this turn.

Finally, I tried a fourth route to move units out of the quiet zone at the far south of the map east of the river. Sure enough, Epoletov had LOS there, too. I did catch him in a little disinformation---there's at least two ATGMs up there---but that's small consolation for yet again getting pawned by that real estate. One of the most aggravating features of this game is the inability to pick a hex adjacent to a friendly unit and determine what the LOS to it will be before moving into it. This is pretty routine in real life; if I go down there that ridgeline will be visible to me thus I'm visible to it, that kind of thing. In SPMBT, as far as I can tell, it's trial and lethal error.

Anyway, three bad calls in a single turn wracked up the kills for my opponent. I did finally kill the parasniper on Mt Acme and cripple his ATGM buddy. (I will not, for the 17th time, declare that real estate cleared ...) But overall my hasty play gave my opponent a little more momentum. I should learn that my biggest gaffes happen when I try to squeeze in a round with one foot out the door. I'll work on that just as soon as I get that counting thing figured out ...

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