Revenge of the Russkies!

[seabolt]

"Mr. President, if I may speak freely, the Russkie talks big, but frankly, we think he's short of know-how. I mean, you just can't expect a bunch of ignorant peons to understand a machine like some of our boys. And that's not meant as an insult, Mr. Ambassador, I mean, you take your average Russkie, we all know how much guts he's got. Hell, lookit look at all them them Nazis killed off and they still wouldn't quit."

-- GEN "Buck" Turgidson, "Dr Strangelove"

Well, Epoletov asked for a rematch of our classic ideological struggle, and as a red-blooded American who was I to say nyet? And given the popular demand lack of complete censure for existence of the previous blog, I figured why not? Somebody's got to play the court jester around these parts.

So, time to strap it back on and re-enter the fray. Which, for the prudent warrior, begins with an equipment check:

"One .45-caliber automatic; 2 boxes of ammunition; 4 days' concentrated emergency rations; 1 drug issue containing antibiotics, morphine, vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills; 1 miniature combination Russian phrase book and Bible; $100 in rubles; $100 in gold; 9 packs of chewing gum; 1 issue of prophylactics; 3 lipsticks; 3 pair of nylon stockings. Shoot, a fella' could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff."

-- MAJ T.J. "King" Kong, "Dr Strangelove"

Hopefully, we can field a little more firepower than that. Being in charge of setup this time, I wanted to change things up a bit, first off by moving the fight from the United States to its proper venue, Europe of course! (Lesson No. 1 in coming out ahead in war: Schedule all matches on the away pitch.) Map 103, Muenster in Westfalia, is a sprawling mess of urban hell that looked appealing in an utterly masochistic sense.

Second, I wanted to force us both to throw change-ups, so I banned all special forces, which only does Epoletov a favor because he shouldn't be spending the crazy points on Spetsnatz anyway, while my strategy last time pretty much amounted to throwing uberRangers at anything with the wrong flag on it. At the same time, I invoked the "only mortars onboard" rule to prohibit a repeat of the Russian cluster bomb--reloading cheese. (Not that a Russian player can't bring the heavy metal rain with offboard batteries, but he does have to be patient and pick his spots more carefully.)

Lastly, I set vision to 18, representing a dawn engagement, a really hazy day, whatever. That will keep Epoletov from spamming the board with cheap vision 10 AA guns effectively, while providing him some advantage in other venues if he chooses his forces carefully.

With those setup parameters established, I built a force that differs significantly from that of the last go-round. (No Rangers, it had to!) We'll see how it goes.

More as things develop ...

-- 30 --

[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 --

[Walrus]

Jolly good!
The last report was a classic.
This looks like an interesting battle...I hope Epoletov gives you a run for your money eh :stir:
Still...first blood to you and you've set it up to help you rather than hinder...so I imagine he'll be up against it this time for sure.

Good luck to you both

Carry on....

[seabolt]

Still...first blood to you and you've set it up to help you rather than hinder

I'm a little dismayed that you think so. I gave up the single best units in the game when I volunteered to not deploy any Rangers. Taking them off the menu drops the 2008 U.S. TOE from the best to, I don't know, maybe fourth best. Certainly inferior to the Russians.

In trade, all I asked was a little dial-down on the artillery and AA cheese. Epoletov can still field plenty of CM rounds given the Russian offboard artillery prices. He can flood the field with radar AA guns if he wants. And he's got the widest variety of budget-minded vision 20 and 30 gear in the game, so low light is never worse than a mixed blessing for a savvy Russian player.

I'd have taken that trade in a heartbeat, in his position. But YMMV.

-- 30 --

[Epoletov [SPR].]

Mi-34 has been destroy from a gun "Apache" - accuracy = 2 % !
Success meanwhile at US Army.

If at you is ammo truck still more many-many Sidewinder will fly by above houses of this unfortunate city.

[seabolt]

Yesterday I lost a Ka-29 that poked its armor 8 nose into one of Splintex's LMG sections: 1% hit chance and apparently a rotor hit.

:censored: happens.

And, thank you for your concern, Epoletov, but I'll be able to reload those Sidewinders. No worries. ;)

-- 30 --

[seabolt]

TURN 4

Epoletov has made it apparent that "this unfortunate city" will be catching errant Sidewinders to the utmost of his ability to dink and dunk. (One hopes that the locals have taken to their basements with a keg of Pinkus Müller Altbier and perhaps a flashlight or two.) He began his turn by dancing more Mi-24s at the edge of the Apaches' "Bite Me" zone, drawing 30mm and SAM fire.

Then a couple of Mi-8 Hip-Cs tried to make their play, but U.S. opfire is pretty tough to draw down. They dove back for cover, probably on the river at the back of Epoletov's side of the city. (Which is more good fortune for him than I've had in my match with Splintex, in which his radar AA guns ~2800 meters away have been able to fire at my air units loitering over -3 meter water. Radar vs airborne LOS is a finicky business in this game.)

Anywho, my boys keep on keeping on. I'm hoping that one of these turns they find somebody to kill.

-- 30 --

[Epoletov [SPR].]

4 turn.

Having lost one more small colleague Mi-34, on offenders plenty Mi-8 has attacked "US Air Force". :boom2:

Everything, except for one, AH-64 "Apache" have received a fatal kiss Russian bornet.

In total at Americans of 8 copies AH-64.
Favourite toy?! :pig:

Here now it is interesting, these will depart draw home soon or not.

Some birdies made in USA have one hit.
They should leave a battlefield ? :chin:

[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 ...

-- 30 --

[Epoletov [SPR].]

Hitting and routing an Apache doesn't necessarily equate to punching a hole in an Apache.

My suspicions have proved to be true.
That is hit does not mean, what the helicopter has now damage ?!