Revenge of the Russkies!

[seabolt]

TURNS 1--3

It always brings a wry smile to my lips, playing an "only mortars onboard" match, because the usual cacophony of opening barrages is replaced by the soothing sounds of crickets chirping, blue birds singing ... and the Detroit growl of all those soft vehicles that you never would have bought in a reload-fest working their way toward the enemy. In other words, I've yet to have an opponent ever fire on Turn 0 with offboard assets, and have only done it myself once when I needed to deliver a heliborne blocking force on Turn 1.

Heliborne blocking forces vs the 2008 Russians? No, thank you. SAM I Am doesn't need to be fed his supper early. But the Apaches (and their big, bad, beautiful 30mm ammo supplies) did so well last time that I did re-up on them for this go-round, with the almost prerequisite couple of twists. First, it seemed likely that Epoletov might want to put his own birds in this match, so I bought some of the Apaches loaded with Sidewinders. (Which represent a rare little gap in the Russian air arsenal, in that the Sidewinder can punch through anything airborne while the best Russian air-mounted SAM is just an iffy proposition vs an Apache). Second, given the fantastic variety of transport helicopters available to the Russian player (literally a bird for every need, up to and including relocating an entire village in one fell swoop ...), I'm running the Apaches over the rooftops instead of lurking in the streets. This certainly runs the risk of ground-based SAM kills, but it also deters my opponent from swarming my backfield with Hinds full of ruffians.

So far, so good. Some Hinds and Mi-24s have flitted into extreme range, and one of the observers took the 1 point hit o' early retirement this turn. (Those observer birds always tempt me too---FOs that can establish LOS from 2 klicks, sign me up!---but they never seem to work out in practice. LOS works both way, they never have any armor or decent EW, and for some reason everyone makes them a priority target.) It's sort of first blood to the Americans, though technically it's not a kill and I'm not declaring victory just yet. That's 106 points off the board, 17,894 to go!

-- 30 --