Red Dawn #262 Goodland

[Old Gamer]

Red Dawn Fourth Scenario # 262 Goodland

As the designer said the scenario was hard. Boy was it hard. The scenario had a town located in the center of the board. The enemy came in from the left or west side of the board. They had about a battalion of mechanized infantry in BTR-50s and about a company of T-55s. The defenders were a National Guard company with a platoon of M48s, two squads of 81mm mortars, one squad of 60mm mortars, a platoon of militia and a platoon of cops. Additional to the basic groups were several machinegun teams and sandbagged foxholes with machineguns. A couple of 40mm Dusters provided AAA coverage. The best of the special resources were a couple of pickem up trucks and 2 busses.

The town was in the center of the board with two airports one on the northeast and the other to the southeast corners of the town. The area to the west of the town was open until nearing the west limit there was a ridge. The town had 3 roads heading toward it. One dirt road entering the northwest corner of the town, a second dirt road entering the center of the town and the freeway passing on the south side of the town.

The National Guard had two platoons in the town and down near the freeway on the west side of town. The third platoon was in reserve on the east end of town. The militia and cops were near the center of town near the mortars. I moved the militia and cops down to the south edge of town but held back in the middle as a reserve.

The enemy came in on all three roads. Up north they sent trucks with 120mm mortars down the road and one of the separate machinegun teams shot them up in the open. The middle column of about a platoon of BTRs dismounted about 200 meters from the town. They were brought under fire from the platoon in that area. The other column followed the freeway and came under mortar fire against heavy trucks carrying more 120s. I moved my M48s up on this flank and a couple of T-55 fired at 3000+ meters and hit and knocked out 2 of the M48s. I thought well there goes the game but decided to hang on and see how it would play out.

The attacking enemy decided to concentrate on the southwest corner of the town and the area south of there at the freeway. Their BTRs congregated there and dismounted infantry. My mortars brought them under fire and stalled their assault. I moved the militia and cops up and the enemy had to try to walk through a cross fire from cops on one side and militia on the other. The M48s had found locations that they could see this area but could not be seen from afar. As the BTRs moved past the smoke of their fellow burning brethren they were hit by the M48s.

While this was going on four enemy T-55s drove past the infantry on the west side of the town and headed to the center of town. I had started bringing the third infantry platoon that was on the east end of town down to the fighting at the southeast corner some loaded in busses and pickups. They had passed the center and had to turn around and go back to the center to deal with the tanks. They debussed and moved in on the tanks. The infantry had LAWs and a 90mm. To support this operation I sent one of the M48s up to be an ambush tank if the enemy tanks came down the road the tank was on. A T-55 came around the corner and the M48 missed. The T-55 did a snap shot and took out the M48. Another bummer for the NG. The infantry pursued the T-55s and were shot up some but in a few turns three tanks were burning and one routed and ran out of town and headed west. They also shot up one mortar squad. Never Never Never send unsupported tanks into a town. An equal number of infantry squads with AT weapons will surely win. The infantry that could still move after whacking the tanks loaded up in the busses and headed south to join the big event. They were joined by some of the machinegun teams from the north side.

On the south the militia and cops did real good. There were also some militia snipers and they did a number on the enemy infantry. They would reduce the enemy to retreating and the militia and cops would shoot them up without losses. While this was happening a couple of enemy airstrikes came in and attacked one of the M48s and made it immobile. It had good fields of fire so it was still useful. Most of their air strikes hit their own troops.

They kept pushing between the south side of the town and the freeway. The two remaining M48s kept killing the BTRs. The enemy ran out of BTRs before the M48s ran out of ammo. Mixed in with the BTRs were the remaining of their T-55s which suffered the same fate as bursting out of the burning BTRs and getting hit by one or the other of the remaining M48s. One of the militia also knocked out a recon halftrack with a Molotov cocktail. When the enemy push was clearly over I brought the 40mm Dusters up to shoot up the remaining enemy infantry. Not that they were needed but it was fun. I wished I had some quad 50s to help them out.

We pushed back on the south and north a recaptured the victory hexes. There were some 14.5 heavy MGs just west of the town that the 40mm Dusters took care of. The T-55 that broke in the center of town ran all of the way back to the west edge, rallied and headed back but the game ended just as it neared the northwest victory hex. I won a marginal victory 7:1 odds to the enemy. Not the 10:1 required for the overwhelming victory. I lost a couple of infantry squads, a couple of MG teams, two 90mms and 3 tanks for the NG. The militia lost a squad and 2 recon teams and a MG team. Both cops survived as did all the snipers. The enemy lost a battalion of infantry with BTRs and a company of T-55s. I held the town and the airports. Life is good. Very Hard but the survivors are proud. Lots of medals, unfortunately many posthumously. What am I to do with all that scrap iron lying about?

The militia and cops and snipers did a great job. They had crappie weapons but fought well. Their machineguns ran out of ammo as did 2 of the 3 snipers. Which brings up the only complaint of the game was that there was no ammo resupply. The snipers and mortars both ran out of ammo before the game was done. There should always be some resupply if only a supply dump which would make sense for this scenario.

Good job on the scenario now on to the next one and see how I do there.