Battlegroup Northag – Escalation

Battlegroup NORTHAG – 750 point Company Level ‘Escalation’.

A real humdinger of a battle last night… reduced Forward Screen units gave the British an early advantage but with the main component being dug in infantry platoons, the front remained largely static except for the Spetnaz LRRP and the British Scorpions buzzing around trying to poach objectives. An artillery delivered mix of mines and Hi-Ex was an unpleasant surprise for the Soviet infantry as they sat in their foxholes…

Battle was joined on turn 3 when the Soviet vanguard arrived and the T64A tank company drove full pelt through the town to try and force the British lines but ran into arriving Chieftains instead. A close range game of cat and mouse began in the town as tanks tried to get shots at each other with the short ranges being devastating to the T64As whose armour wasn’t as great as the Chieftains, but both sides took losses and half the T64 company involved in a long range duel with two dug in Chieftains fared worse.

A sneaky move by the Spetsnaz poached the British objective, and another in no man’s land was secured by part of an arriving T80 tank company and with two tanks knocked out, the objectives, the Soviet ‘Advance and Hold’ special rule and ‘Tank Preservation’ saw the British tank a whopping 9 chits in Turn 6…

Things turned to the Soviets…

Then two Lynx helicopters buzzed in and popped two T64s and it looked like things may swing back until the SA9 Gaskin popped one Lynx and fire from the Shilka forced the second to jink away. In return a Hind flew in low… followed by a second!

The Hinds launched attacks on a lone dug in Chieftain, knocking it out, but losing one Hind to a Rapier Battery that had arrived and managed to get off missiles thanks to a pile of ‘Heroic Action’ chits.

Burning wrecks and chits piled up as the T80s closed to engage the remaining Chieftains and finally the last Chieftain still holding out at the edge of the town fell victim to enemy fire. As a another Chieftain crew bailed out the the loss of this tank caused the British battle rating to be exceeded and the survivors pulled back. They had not broken the Soviet Battle Rating but the T64A tank company was largely destroyed, and the T80 tank company had also lost 30% of its vehicles.

A hard fought battle and the British, dogged by bad Comms rolls took a bit of a hammering…