Just in time for the weekend!

[WBWilder]

Well, my gaming friends, we have a new scenario for you. Now you're in Desert Storm, 1991, with the Proud and the Few. Download URL is below.

Task Force Papa Bear, hot on the heels of TF Grizzly, is met with some unexpected events and the commander, Colonel Hodory is faced with hard choices.

Historical in nature and a tough fight.

My thanks to my great testers, Tom DeShelter, Lars Remmen, and Stephen Porter. They are great players and great people and I thank them for their volunteer efforts. Without them, these scenarios would not be what they are.

At the end, however, I take responsibility, good or bad, for what we give you.

http://www.wargamer.com/gamesdepot/details.asp?sid=4022

Wild Bill

[Nightblade]

The tension feeling of the battle is very well done in this one.

At first, i had some hope seeing the TOW taking out several advancing T55, but i ran quickly out of those great AT missiles as i made a big mistake and lost a TOW squad after embarking them in a vehicle that unfortunately recieved a direct hit from a T55.

There, i thought i would be in a very difficult situation.

But the Marines squads resisted bravely and fought more fiercely that i expected in front of the advancing armored vehicles and finally put an end to the T55 assault while capturing the 2 objectives.
The support by some artillery that reinforced our position was really welcomed.

There i had the surprise to see T-64 coming between the burning T55 in the sands and with some BMP2 coming unnoticed from the dunes , the squads defending the front got several casualties.
We even had to move back , leaving again the objectives to the opposing force.
During the retreat, one of the Marine squad even found themselves running directly in front of a T64 that was hidden by the terrain .
After being mostly annhilated by the cross fire from the Tank and the Iraqi squads that were supported it, the survivor surrendered.

Again , thanks to the artillery support the defense line was stable again , as the enemy squads supporting their T64 were unable to advance more to the 2 other objectives.

But i thought all was lost after the majority of the LAV were destroyed by more advancing T-64 main gun.

It was the exact moment the air support appeared in the Marine side, 2 Cobra that were enough to stop the T64 main assault force, hope was back again.
The gunships did their job with efficiency and put an end to the T64 threat with some well placed Hellfires, as a bonus they striked heavily incoming Iraqi squads.

During this time, a heroic Marines squad and scout in the south west objective succeeded to destroy a menacing BMP2 that forced another Marine squad to pull back then (i must say it surprised me) a T64 all by themselves thanks to their AT weapons.

Finally this Marine squad even forced an Iraqi infantry that tried to attack the position to disperse.

In the end of the day, the enemy squads survivors were pulling back , the Iraqi armored forces burning in the desert and all the objectives secured again.

A Marginal victory, but i think it could have been better, as i got several casualties due to some of my poor strategic decisions that could have made it alive in the end.

Maybe the 2 Cobra support is a bit too strong, as despite i noticed some AA vehicles, they were able to give me a definite upper hand on the situation.
I will try a different approach next time to try minimize my casualties.

Thank you for this scenario, i like it.

[WBWilder]

Thank you, Nightblade! I appreciate the nice AAR. I think you did rather well. Getting more than a marginal is difficult.

Its hard to avoid losses. And the absence of the omnipotent M-1A Abrams or even some upgraded M-60s would have been nice.

Cobras...well named. Their fiery venom is lethal and they strike swiftly.

More to come, my friend...WB

[DRG]

Bill

I played this last night

USMC 4603
IRAQ 466

Decisive victory on turn 10

I found the LAV's did most of the work. One had ten kills and the other had 8. Once I redeployed the Marine infantry I threw out a smoke screen that any Iraqi vehicle or infantry had to pass through blind and on the other side was a solid line of Marines. I moved the arty strike points up and down in front of that line to keep the RG unhappy. After losing six LVT's I moved the rest into the rear for protection along with the Hummers and Jeeps. The LVT' are handy for keeping infantry surpressed but they are simply too big and too easy a target when tanks are lurking about.

The Cobras only accounted for 2 of the kills and one of those was an annoying ZSU-23-4

I lost 61 Marines which I think could be cut by maybe a third on replay.

Don

[Artur]

I played it, got a result of 4790 to 225. Losses 36 men to 177. I lost 3 APCs and 3 Hummers 2 of them to artillery fire.

The dune in front of our forces and a smoke screen saved the day.

The ATGMs were the key here almost every rocket hit the target.This scenario is a very good practicing the usage of the ATGMs. Fortunately they could fire behind smoke without retaiation.

Artur.

[desh44]

Try playing it from the Iraqi side.

I did and got a marginal and a draw and took horrible losses.

to get any good result you need to concentrate your fire on individual units until you break them. Also your first set of units take a beating but if used correctly can drain most of the missiles from the US forces.

If you keep the ZSU's back you can lure in the cobra's and you might get lucky and down or damage one..on the marginal I managed to down one this ended any chance of a US counterattack

Tom

[DRG]

I tried it from the Iraqi side as well and it is a tough go to get a marginal. You have to play the.... " Achmed, move your tank at the TOW maximum range and draw the infidels fire...maybe he will miss you with a couple of his missles" ...game. If you can cause enough misses you have a chance of breaking through with the T-62's. Otherwise you become target practice for the missle teams. I had limited sucess with that tactic with some of the T-55's. Usually the second one gets you if the first one doesn't

Don

[desh44]

You got the way to handle it. I had one T-55 hit missed with 1 TOW and hit with one but the third finished it off but I considered it a good deal because it used up 3 enemy missiles. On the Marginal I got it was only because I got very lucky. My infantry was able to push through by targeting 1 unit at a time with at least 4-5 of my units and return fire was knocking off a man here and there and using whatever BMP's had survived to support. I managed to hit a couple of concentrations of troops with the Iraqi artillery and suppress them and knocked down one of the cobra's and the other one ran out of ammo. I had captured the objectives and at that time there was no way for the US player to take them back even though all my infantry units were understrength and pinned down

Tom

[WBWilder]

These are some very fascinating reports. I really enjoy the tactics used. The idea of waiting at maximum TOW range is a good one, Don.

Tom DeShelter had the idea to play this one too from the Iraqi side. I tried but could only get a draw.

It has some tense moments but ending it by 10 turns is some masterful play.

Thanks for sharing, gentlemen! I'm learning too.

WB

[Busko]

First of all i would like to salute all of the forum members, i'm new here.
I make my debut post here commenting this scenario, because i really enjoyed it.

I tried it today playin' TF Papa Bear.
The scenario is very very good, the opposition between a light" formation like the USMC one and the "heavy" Iraqi one (sort of, let's say that those T55 and T62 can easily knock out every USMC vehicle at any distance) is interesting.
The limited amount of ATGM available to the USMC makes the first turns really intense, at least for me, i was inches from the screen shouting to the missile to hit those tanks...a bit weird, i know.

My tactic was simple, form a line of defense, divided into three sectors each held by a mech infantry platoon.
The LAV (AT) a bit in the rear, to spare them from the RPGs of the Iraqi Republican Guard.
The dune on the eastern flank of the Papa Bear starting point is a real help in that, it gives some more time to form a complete line.
I used a mixed line, with one squad infantry and next to it a LVTP, then another infantry and so on.
I fired heavy smoke coverage from every available infantry unit, to form walls of cover smoke, and behind of it i created the defense.

Another side effect of this mixed line (and a very useful effect) is that the LVTPs attracted ALL the fire from enemy infantry (other than the tank and BMP fire), letting my Marines unleashing hell on them while they couldn't fire back.
When the ATGMs finished, local counterattacks to suppress, flank and assault surviving tanks and BMPs did the job.
When the helicopters arrived on turn 7, most of the job was done. Only infantry and a couple of T-62s, plus the ZSU AA guns remaining.

My result was a Decisive Victory, with 40 casualities and 6 vehicles (4 LVTPs and 2 HMMWV) destroyed.
I must admit that i was very lucky with the rolls on infantry casualities, many times direct fire from tanks didn't killed any of my Marines, to my surprise.
Probably just my lucky day.

Concluding (i'm sorry for the length of this AAR, but i think it's the first one i wrote in SPMBT...i don't have the gift of synthesis), my congratulations to Wild Bill Wilder, you have gained a young fan in Italy (yes, i'm one of those Pizza-eaters ).
Bye, and sorry for my poor english.


B.