Russkies in Oklahoma!

[seabolt]

TURN 19

Make that another turn---the second of the day---another parachute drop.

Epoletov spent his turn mostly aggravating me with yet more size 0 infiltrators. After finishing off a survivor squad on ATGM alley at 108,43, he attacked a crew section with an HMG sneaking up the highway at 98,66. A sniper tried to sneak up to the adjacent VH via 74,114 before receiving a 7.92mm burst of Do Not Disturb. And an ATGM at 99,71 disabled yet another Fox.

Then the transport arrived and dumped yet more paratroops on the southern island drop zone. Jiminy Christmas.

I had spotted another AA gun at 111,38 in the previous turn, but didn't mention it while a CM mission was en route. With it routed, I pushed an Apache into the urban hexes southeast of ATGM Alley. Opfire quickly revealed that Epoletov has a company's worth of infantry defending the line 110,43-59, which is the road intersecting my old line of advance and looking out on clear hexes. When I tried to skirt his rifles, another AA piece fired from 123,60. I moved up an Abrams to help the Apache sidestep it, but another infantry unit drove back my copter. Running out of move, I used it to finish off the AA gun at 111,68 and a nearby lurking AT unit. It took one last long shot at an ammo carrier that had run up to hex 121,90 (presumably to feed a SAM unit). The shot killed the carrier, and its explosion caused two secondary explosions, which I've never seen before. (And one would think I would have: Epoletov has lost at least a dozen ammo carriers so far in this fight.) Something must have got real hurt, though neither secondary blast revealed any unit data.

Quite a bit of havoc for one helicopter. One can see why I hate to lose them ...

The southern approach to Epoletov's guns being closed, I ran another Apache through the town north of ATGM Alley. After a couple of stumbles, that one slipped through and punched up a 203mm gun at 108,47. It always feels like a new phase of battle has begun once my helicopters first begin feeding on opposing support elements ...

Meanwhile, I finished off some infantry in the woods to the extreme north, counterhunted and killed the sniper from 74,114, advanced a scout to cripple the ATGM at 99,71, and popped smoke with a hearty ":censored: you!" as my singleton crew guy beat a retreat from the highway HMG ...

Which left the southern delegation of the 2008 Convention of Angry Russian Paratroops (CARP). A few mortar and CM rounds had slowed Epoletov's guys a little, and I managed to kill a 66-point parasniper with an 18-point counterpart, but mostly all I could do was hammer the rally key and z-fire. Epoletov's tubes are shooting all around the woods, mine are shooting into the middle of the woods, and both beaten zones are straying into each other more often than not. Like everything else in this match, this is going to get ugly.

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