Revenge of the Russkies!

[seabolt]

TURN 5

Outstanding.

I probably wouldn't nominate Epoletov for the Strategy and Tactics Hall of Fame, but when it comes to improvising, he's second to no one. I imagine that he spent Turns 2 and 3 offloading paratroops from his fleet of Mi-8 Hip-Cs. Armed with a 12.7mm HMG and four 57mm rocket launchers each, empty Hip-Cs do a pretty good job as a poor man's attack copter. I've used them myself a time or ten.

He then set out to expose the fatal flaw in my overwatch plan, namely: helicopter opfire sucks. For some time I've been pretty sure that ground vehicles take a sharp penalty to accuracy in the opponent's move phase. It's even worse for air units. Forget hitting the proverbial broad side of a barn, even a targeting 40 Apache firing accuracy 90 DAGRs can't hit Barnes, Wisconsin with opfire.

So, Epoletov went tally-ho with his air armada of Mi-34s and Hip-Cs. Another observation helicopter brewed up en route (even a blind pig finds an acorn every now and then), but the rest closed on my Apaches unharmed. Point-blank HMG fire sent them scattering hither and thither.

The Russian aerial pursuit also served to lay my plans wide open to his pilots: Recon squads of Humvees are threading their way through the city---ala the second episode of "Generation Kill," which pretty much inspired my force composition---with truck-mounted infantry in close support. (An AT- rifle company fits precisely in four heavy trucks. Nifty, that.) After scattering my birds, Epoletov took the opportunity to kill some ground units, blasting away two Humvees, a Javelin team, a sniper, and a light truck. Then he used what move his copters had left to dive for cover, and presumably rushed to post the news of his triumph.

Except ...

Hitting and routing an Apache doesn't necessarily equate to punching a hole in an Apache. Yes, one bird took a nearly lethal 57mm burst in the midsection, and another got dinged from the rear, but the remaining warbirds were left unharmed with an unholy boatload of targets having called it a day well out of Russian airspace. Many of them were stuck sitting over my leading ground elements.

The counterattack was ... brutal. Admittedly, it started out poorly because I didn't think a transport helicopter could change facing off-turn until fired upon. I drove a truck full of GIs behind one and found out real forceful-like that I was wrong. My mistake. From that point I picked and popped with infantry units, drove up Vulcans to add more fire, and sicced the Apaches on the survivors. Five Hip-Cs went down in flames, as well as another Mi-34 and a Ka-60, and at least three more Hip-Cs are hors de combat. In turn, the Apaches located the leading elements of his ground troops---who are advancing on foot in a rather slow Red tide---and killed one 95-point IR-vision scout just because it's always a good idea to kill 95-point IR-vision scouts. (Honestly, my grandmother used to make that very point. "Never leave those damn smoke-peepers breathing," she'd growl, while snapping green beans.)

After the first big thrust and counterthrust, I've lost ~1370 points of units of which ~225 will tally as kill points for Epoletov. That's a nasty chunk of damage, but I managed to knock out about ~1340 points of Russian gear, of which ~1020 will tally as kill points for me.

I'm quite happy with that, would have been satisfied with a substantial loss to be realistic, because more importantly, I now hold all of no man's land. I set up the map with seven U.S. VHs in the west and seven Russian VHs in the east, each group averaging the same distance from the midline. The seven neutral VHs are at 66-30, 95-33, 89-92, 71-127, 63-159, 96-157, and 81-175. They are all now in the U.S. zone of control.

Things are going to keep popping here, no doubt about it. Epoletov has enough air assets left to yet again raise hel(icopter) on his Turn 5. He's got half of Eurasia trudging west, and of course we've yet to see that first lovely salvo of cluster goodness. Still, the Americans are a long way from reeling back on their heels ...

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