Russkies in Oklahoma!

[seabolt]

TURN 17

I've been about half right, half dead wrong, in predicting Epoletov's moves in this match, and I sure don't see any reason to break that streak this late in the battle! I still think that the northern drop zone is muerte, but on the Russian turn a Spetznatz unit popped up in the southern zone. I'm pretty sure that SPMBT will inflict casualties for parachuting into non-clear hexes, but given that it grants instant cover (as in, the defender is lucky to even see the chute during the replay), it may be well worth the casualties.

So, I killed the unit, sent an Apache to scout for more ... and got popped. Damage 1 and 500-odd points of pure killing machine decides it's Miller time. That's always irritating, but at least I knew to circle the wagons because there's at least two more Spetznatz units and a scout unit planning to die hard in those trees.

Never one to let failure deter me, I sent another Apache on a flanking run along the top of the map. Ummm, there's *lots* of AA left out there. I was lucky to get the thing back into cover. The third killed a Russian jeep that had been lurking for about 8 turns, hoping to grab a last-turn VH I guess, then made a push toward VH 110,43 that also triggered a hail of fire. But at least I discovered why the fire was so thick -- Epoletov took advantage of his counterattack to move up another AA gun and a SAM unit to replace the two that I (overexcitedly) killed several turns ago. A sniper and some remnants of my attack force killed the SAM and pinned the gun.

Meanwhile, the crew of the Humvee that ate an ATGM eons ago found an RPG-29 team at 96,59 and killed it ... all while shrugging off two bursts from the pinned AA piece. I love it when crews do something useful. They even had a shot left to pop smoke at the end. How you like that, Ivan? They'll be the toast of the motor pool when this is over, assuming they live so long.

The rest of the turn mostly amounted to massive reorganizing---all of these scattered parachute drops have left my readiness state somewhere south of "dismal." But I did manage a neat little counterpunch in the urban fight that killed 4 rifle sections. A little more luck like that and those rifle companies won't be around much longer.

-- 30 --