Team Yankee: First Defense of the Fulda Gap

Hey Folks, 

After reading about Adams blogpost about using 6mm models for Team Yankee Andy (of  http://andysarmies.blogspot.co.nz/) decided to try it out as well. 

Sadly we had no rulebook for Team Yankee as yet so just went with what we had gleaned from the net and from our rusty memories of how Flames works. Or we just made it up. Good times! 

We went with small 50 point forces where I had Bundeswher (counting as Yanks) and Andy had Russians 

German Panzergrenadier Kompanie

• Command with Marder (M113) 
• 2 Short (5 stand) Panzergren Platoons with Marders and 2 Milan (Dragons) each 
• 2 Platoons of 2 Rakete Jgadpanzers (M901 ITV's) each 
• 1 Platoon of 2 Flakpanzer Gepards (M163 Vulcans) 
• 1 Platoon of 4 Leopard II's (M1 Abrams) 

Russian Red Banner Tank Battalion

• Command T72
• 7 (?) T72s
• 5 T72s

We decided to just halve the distance in inchs and this worked pretty well! Gave a nice visual on ranges and movements. 

Mission was Free for All as it was easy :) 

We played on a Winter table with some suspiciously tropical looking buildings...

 3' by 4' was equivalent to an 6' by 8' board so a heap of room to deploy. We played across the 3' 

 The Russian have siezed the town and the woods on its outskirts 

Turn 1: The German Leopards bound up the center why one Panzergren platoon flanks towards the top left of the town. Long range missile fire from the Jadgpanzers on the ridge line and in the central woods only succeed in Bailing a T-72. The Soviet Tank Company in the town moves up and tags a Marder...one team survives and bails out. They also bail a Leopard at long range.

Turn 2: The Leopards move up to support the Panzergrens (who are now cornered on the outskirts of the town) and engage the T-72s to no effect. Soviet return fire is devastating with  one Leopard destroyed and another bailed. With only one active Leopard the platoon retreats and leaves the Panzergreens to their fate...

Turn 2 - Continues to be painful for the Germans...with one platoon of Jgadpanzers knocked out after Andy rolls the 6 he needs to hit one at range (and concealed, with GTG) and the remaining vehicle retreats. 

Turn 3: The Soviets continue to press the attack while the remaining Jagdpanzer platoon just cant scratch the T-72s in the fields. Return fire destroys one and bails the other (who then scarpers as I cant roll courage tests it seems!) The Panzergrens desperately try an shelter in the buildings but massed 125mm HE rounds are starting to cause casualties. 

Turn 4: The Panzergrens in the town manage to bag the enemy CO with a MILAN before finally succumbing to the guns of the T-72's in the town. 

Turn 5: The Germans are holding on to the bitter end and a lucky MILAN shot from the Panzergrens on the ridge takes out a T-72. Its too little to late as the Soviets drive on the central objective...

Endgame: The Soviets smashed the Germans and the advance into Western Germany Continues! 

Overall Thoughts: Fun - I love playing Moderns and I used to play ALOT of Flames of War so it was quite easy to pick up. It was somewhat hard without a rulebook but seemed to flow pretty well. 

Andy and I are quite keen to stat up the Middle East as we have buckets of Israelis, Jordania/ Iranians and Iraqis between us...and we don't have to make a whole new terrain set! It shouldn't be too hard to extrapolate from Team Yankee stats back to the other units available. Having a small points system also makes costing things alot easier.

Cheers
Jason

Conflict '89: Winter Panzerbrigade Finished

Hey Folks,

All based and painted and good to go: I just finished the start of the winter West German Panzer Brigade. 

All based and snowed up :)

Luchs - would love to add some Recce Leopard 1A4s here!

Panzergrenadiers with 4 Milan and Marder 1A3 IFVs

A short Jaeger section - I have some TpZ Fuchs to paint as transports 

Leopard 2A5s - I would love to get a Leopard 1A4 company as well as these are utilised in the Panzergrenadier Battalions. I have also been doing some research on Heersstruker IV (Structure Plan 4) and it looks like Tank Company's were 2 Command and 3 platoons of 4 Tanks, so ten tanks at 2/3 str is about right.

Panzermorsers - full battery is actually 6 so I might add two more here. Also not sure if its a command Marder or M113 or M577 here as well. A Marder will do for now though

Rakejagdpanzer Jaguar 2s. Each Panzergrenadier Battalion had 12 of these. I'm assuming 3 sections of 4 tanks 

Panzergrenadier Battalion Command and a Gepard.

I can't actually find out how Gepards were distributed - there are 36 per Division but I'm not sure if they were assigned as pairs or sections or even fielded as full on Batteries. I DO know they had attached Stinger teams towards the end of the 80's

Overall I'm pretty happy with them. Just a few bits and pieces to finish off/ order.

Thanks

Jason 

 

Conflict '89: WIP Winter Panzerbrigade

Hey Folks,

These Bundeswher have been sitting around for awhile so I decided to repaint them. After my last 6mm Modern game with Adam (set in the Fulda Gap in winter) and as I have a Winter table I decided to do a winter army!

This is most of the Armour for the Panzergrenadierabietlung and I just need to add bases for all the tanks, and get the Infantry and Air Support painted. 

Panzers Marsch!

Leopard 2A3 Panzerkompanie (with a command 2A5) and a Flakpanzer Gepard

Luchs scout the advance

Marder 1A3s of a Panzergrenadier Kompanie

Raketjagpanzer Jaguar 2 platoon (with HOT missiles) 

Panzermorser Battery of 4 M106 SP 120mm mortars and command Marder

WIP infantry and bases for Tanks.

Air Supprt will be Luftwaffe F-4 Phantoms and I will also scrounge up some more bases to field a Fallschirnjager Kompanie. 

All up should be 2000pts. If I get a chance I should also be able to get a few 6mm scale terrain to fit the winter table too. 

Hope to get the above finished this week.

Cheers

Jason

Conflict '89: The Defense of Latakia; Part 1

Hey Folks,

Ive been stupidly busy with work recently (hence the long delay between posts) but we managed to whip together a massive game of Moderns for Pooch's leaving game (as he is soon to depart for windier climes).  This used our work in progress rules for Conflict '89...a micro armour game set in, you guessed it the 1980's and early '90s

I was running my newest army: Bundeswher - cause Ze Germans are cool no matter what time period you are playing (I have Ancient, Napoleonic, WW2 and now Modern Germans)

In this we are playing 3000 points EACH, with half on (rounding down) for a MASSIVE 6k per side.   So my part of the force looked like;

Defence Force; (deployed)

• Full 3 Platoon Fallschirmjager Company with 3 MILAN ATGM teams and 2 Stinger MANPADS
• Raketjagpanzer Company: 8 Jaguar-2 (MILAN armed Tank Destroyers) with a Flakpanzer Gepard (as this is the coolest SPAAG ever)
• Panzermorser Battery: 4 M125 (120mm) Mortar Carriers with a Command Marder 1

The Reserve Force;

• Leopard 2 Panzerkompanie: 9 Leopard 2 MBT's with a Flakpanzer Gepard
• Panzergrenadierkompanie: 2 Platoon Panzergrenadiers (9) with Battlaion Command (2) in 11 Marder IFVs
• Aufklarungs Platoon: 5 Panzergrens in 5 TpZ-1 Fuchs
• Spahpanzer Patrol: 4 Luchs Armoured Cars

The Lufwaffe (can engage from 1st turn)

• 2 F-4E Phantoms (staging out of Turkey)

The scenario was based around the UN Defence of the port city of Latakia following a breakdown of negotiations between Lebanon and Israel.  Andy whipped up an amazing table on very short notice!

The Port City of Latakia: This is two 6*4 foot boards cunningly balanced and built up with bits of wood around my garage to cobble together an L-shaped table with a diagonal harbour section.  This diagonal cut out worked really well as we could reach into the center.  There are three objectives on the approachs t the City and a Blitz on the Docks (its the chopper)

The Air Field: The other Blitz is by the bridge.

Panzaermorsers (left) and Raketjagpanzers (right) lurk in the Wadi's outside the city

6 (!) Companies of Soviet  Tanks (T-72's and T-55's with supporting ZSU-23's) and a  sole company of Infnatry form the North-East threat...

While a sole Full Company of Fallschirmjager are dug in around the objective to try and delay them

The Syrians approach from the South-West.  3 T-72 Tank Companies., Infantry, BMP Recon and supporting 120mm Mortars.  Two artillery Batteries are deployed to the rear with MiG-29's on CAP

US Navy Air Support inbound: A A6 Inturder on a Weasal mission while two F-14 Tomcats fly cover...note also a  Trafalger class Attack Sub:  This counts as a MLRS Battery and is representing a British Navy sub firing Cruise Missiles in support!

While the Soviet and Syrian forces closed on the city from two axis of advance part of a USMC MEU Tank Platoon (Abrams)and LAR (Lav-25's with Humvees) was forward deployed into the port itself and a Bundeswher Fallschirmjager (German Paratroopers) Company held the northern approachs with supporting light armour (Mortar M113's and a Jaguar -2 Raketpanzerjager Company)

You can see the Syrian Commanders bat rep here: Syrian AAR