NGP85 "81: Better Dead than Red v1.1"

[JDR Dragoon]

Players notes and considerations.

This turn is late afternoon (16 to 18 pm), Visibility is still 3 hexes (4,5 km).


Enemy special forces remains as annoyingly elusive as ever and resist my every attempt at cornering them. The good news here is, that the latest REFORGER lift has been bussed in from Belgium and have mated up with their equipment. The 3rd Brigade/4th ID have scarcely left Kaiserslautern behind before the first unit is stopped by abatis felled by enemy Special Forces. On top of this,airstrikes, directed by these special forces, cause heavy losses among the Brigade HQ and Logistics Battalion. My patience is now at an end: The brigades Airmobile Battalion is detached to deal with these blighters. Their helicopters will allow them to rejoin the rest of the brigade that much quicker.



West of Göttingen T72s of what I suspect is the Polish 10. Armor Division advances westwards towards Panzerbrigade 6´s covering force. Towards the southwest, the 2. Mech. Div. seems to hesitate: The infantry withdraws out of sight, while the T55 equipped tank companies move forward. No doubt a final reorganization before the assault is unleashed.



Further to the south and out of sight, more ominous things are afoot. The US 3rd Airforce reports having directed heavy interdiction efforts against the road between Heiligenstadt and Witzenhausen with noticeable effects. This might suggest, that the enemy is bringing up a reserve regiment or even a division to continue the attack. In addition, signals intelligence locates a polish regimental HQ. Aerial reconnaisance confirms its location, and a strike by bomb laden Alpha Jets take out the regimental command post. Excellent, that will be one Polish regiment in disarray untill they can re-establish their chain of command.



At Hessisch-Lichtenau the Polish 5. Armor Division also seems content to consolidate its position and bring up additional forces before trying to force the W-German covering force (Panzerbrigade 14) away from the town. The attempt by the Polish 4. Mech. Div. to outflank this position from the south also appears to continue, as ground search radar and dust trails seems to confirm.



In the US V Corps sector the 57th GMRD also seems satisfied with pulling back their infantry, while the tanks consolidate on the positions I vacated earlier.

The Hind Attack Helicopter squadron of the 57th GMRD continues its attack runs against the US armor for a little too long though, continuing to hover over the target area. 4 Hinds are quickly shot down by a combination of .50 machineguns and the Vulcan 20mm AA system when they stray too close to the American armor. Excellent!



The loss of a Motorrifle company last turn apparently sends the Soviet units further to the SW howling for revenge. Three battalions of T62 tanks, two from the 20th GMRD and one from the 39th GMRD charges forwards against the culpable American armor battalion, which then proceeds to disengage after having exhanged 3 T62s for every lost M60.



Among the units supporting this attack was an army level antitank unit, which gave away the identity of the attacking enemy Army in this sector. The 8th Guards Army is attacking the US V Corps.



Further to the south, the 1st Squadron/11th ACR is finally forced to relinquish the positions they have held since the morning on the road towards Fulda due to the 3rd AD covering force to the north withdrawing. They pull back to prepared positions in Hünfeld.

Down in the Rhön, the BMP equipped Motorrifle Regiment that was forming up withdraws as well, which continues the pattern from further north. The T64 equipped Tank Regiment of the 39th GMRD remains in contact though, but gets steadily whittled down by artillery and attack helicopters. The number of dust clouds spotted on the horizon suggests that this is just a pause. Further to the east, the East German unit north of Meiningen betrays itself again by using its radios too heavily.



At Bad Neustadt the 12. Panzerdivision prepares to face the enemy along the FEBA, the covering force battle being over here. But the WAPA opposition still seems to contend themselves with attritioning NATO by artillery and attack helicopters here. A single T64 battalion pokes forward, but gets disrupted by the heavy guns of the VII Corps 210th Artillery Brigade. In addition, A10s are called in as well, but has to drop their load and scatter due to the approach of enemy interceptors, before reaching the target.



West of Pfarrweisach the 27th GMRD breaks contact as well, mostly withdrawing back east into the Hassberge mountain area. The armor units caught in the open last turn is slow in getting away and gets a few TOW presents from my attack helicopters to hurry along their retreat. A10s are called in here as well, but the heavy enemy SAM defence means they do not dare to press the attack. As the A10s withdraw, the soviets call in their own fighter bombers on the American tanks, destroying 1 M60, but one of the departing A10s manage to ambush a passing MiG 27 with a Sidewinder before eloping to the west. My covering forces abandon Pfarrweisach, pulling back towards Bamberg or Schweinfurt after the 2-30 mechanized infantry battalion takes heavy losses to enemy fighter-bombers.



Meanwhile, on the Coburg-Bamberg axis, enemy armor tentatively probes forward, but so far fails to catch the withdrawing covering force. The only problem here is again at Lichtenfels, where the demolition order is successfully given this turn, but the demolition fails to fire. With the threat of enemy special forces lurking, the engineers of the 10th Engineer Battalion now has to manually check the emplaced explosives. This bridge has to go pretty soon, otherwise the viability of the Main river as an obstacle will be compromised.



South of Kulmbach the withdrawal continues, though not without losses. This area is about the only part of the front where the enemy is actively trying to press forwards.This they do with a vengeance. The unidentified MRD north of the Main river mostly just shuffles its units around a bit, but the East German 4. Motorrifle Division is charging forward hard, and supported by Attack Helicopters and fighter bombers engage the 1st Squadron/2nd ACR screen east of Kulmbach. The 1st Squadron, after having caused losses to the pursuers, promptly pull back another 10 kilometers, while interdiction strikes work over the charging East-Germans strung out along the road between Hof and Kulmbach. All is not peachy here however: the Brigade HQ and Logistics Battalion of the 3rd Brigade/3rd ID gets hit heavily by enemy airstrikes as it prepares to cross the bridge across the Main. The vital HQ and logistics tail of this formation is thus left disrupted and in disarray on the wrong side of the river.
In addition, US 3rd Air Force also reports having caused heavy losses to enemy columns advancing towards the front from East Germany. Especially notable here are the axes Saalfeld-Kronach and Wurzbach-Kronach which suggests, that at least one and possibly two enemy divisions are about to be committed on the Kronach-Bamberg axis during the night. Luckily reinforcements are finally on the way, but will they get there in time?



And guess who gets pegged by SIGINT again. You guessed it: The mysterious East German HQ near Erfurt. I think some moron at that HQ must have his fingers glued to the mike. As soon as I get some more air that HQ is going to get a visit, not because it constitutes an immediate threat, but on the pure principle of punishing incautious stupidity.



Much to my surprise the WAPA player chooses to disengage almost everywhere, even in places where he might have been able to eke out an advantage by pressing forwards. This gives me valuable time to cause additional losses and bring up needed reinforcements, but it also gives him time to groom his strength and come at me much more harder during the night. In addition, the more units that are out and moving forwards over the roads, the more casualties will be caused by interdiction. This is especially notable as regards his towed artillery, which has really taken a beating. In addition I had the welcome opportunity to pounce on some of his units that were left vulnerable and hanging such as the Hind helicopters and the Regimental HQ. This of course meant that the score grew very much in my favor during this turn. A little bit more of that and I should be able to hold on and win this one.