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| The setup. A US recon unit composed of 5 M1 tanks, 4 Bradleys and an M106 arty unit try to blunt a Russian attack by 10+ T80 and a bunch of BMP3. Russians enter from the left and get points for exiting on the right. US gets points for every Russian not exited at game end. Both sides get points for unit kills. That line of trees between the hills effectively chops the battlefield in two since even at the highest hill height they block LOS since the trees are taller. |
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| First kill of the game. |
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| End of turn 1. The US has done very well with the shooting so far. This keeps up and it will be all over by turn 3. |
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| End of turn 2. The US won initiative and then rolled lousy for the shooting part. |
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| End of turn 6 (Lots of mostly ineffective shooting by both sides in between though there are losses including 3 US Bradleys and an M1 while the Russians lose a number of BMPs and a few T80s). The Russians skirt around the remaining US defense to make a run for the map edge. If we had looked at the results so far it would almost be no chance for a Russian win but I think a draw was still possible. |
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| End of turn 16 and the game. I don't think the US forces suffered any more losses after turn 6 other then the M106 (which I was surprised lasted as long as it did, a couple of ND hits and a mobility loss and the crew stayed inside the whole time). The Russians lost all but a single BMP and 2 T80s that managed to exit the map. I thought for sure I was doomed when the US forces missed all those shots on turn 2 but the Russians didn't do much better and also did not have enough commands to move everyone. The pattern repeated itself through a large part of the game till the last few turns when my vassal dice got hot again. I had a game of Panzer set for yesterday but had to answer a support call instead. Looking forward to another game of MBT on the 3rd and a Panzer on the 24th. |
As the opponent in question, I can safely say that our host had a better op-plan than I did, and that the rules that we both forgot* didn't have much impact on the outcome.
ReplyDeleteI looked at the map, I looked at my roster, and thought, "Okay, let's try 73 Easting: tanks to the front and pedal to the metal."
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I think 73 Easting works better if you have American equipment going up against 1991 Iraqis. I didn't even get to write many sympathy letters home, because my CHQ T-80 got brewed up somewhere in the middle of the engagement....
*I play both GMT MBT and AH MBT/IDF on VASSAL against a good friend and regular opponent. Been playing a lot more of the latter since early fall (Iran/Iraq around the border radar station at Dezful, '80-'81), so I'd kind of lost track of what state-of-the-art hardware is capable of...other than a painful memory of being on the wrong end of a CLGP fire mission last spring. :-)