El Derjine campaign AAR

[TheVulture]

Turn 18

Plan

As previously mentioned, my guess is that the HQ of the platoon currently engaged is in the trenches on the far side of the dam, and that one more platoon is crammed into the buildings in the dam complex. The FO orders a 60mm mortar strike on the imagined HQ position. I start to swap out the infantry squad teams and replace them with MMGs and snipers as they arrive to prepare for the squad moving in to the complex when I'm ready - the suqad start to reassemble on the slopes of the hill. Squad V continue their move. Squad R will generally hold positions and deal with anyone from the the recon platoon who pops their head up.

Action

The BDRM crewman who shot our guy is killed (revenge!), but there are only sporadic contacts with the other enemy in the area. The Co. HQ and rifle squad contact makers on hill 55 have gone, suggesting we have indeed killed all enemy there. The MMG reaches the trench, deploys, and instantly catches the group mania for shooting up empty pickup trucks. The 120mm mortars get about 8 more rounds on target before running out of ammo. By the end of the round, a Syrian soldier can be seen performing first aid on a fallen comrade, so there is at least one man left alive over there, which isn't a great surprise given the limited bombardment.

[TheVulture]

Turn 19

There is little to plan this turn. The infantry squad on the hill will meet up and start to advance on the dam from the south west as the other squad come in from the north. Everyone else hangs around covering the area.

Action

Four more casualties are caused in the recon platoon - as far as I can tell, that's all of them now. A few desultory shots are fired at the recently shelled trench, making the enemy there duck into cover.

[TheVulture]

Turn 20

Plan

The javelin team decide that at this late stage no javelin-worthy targets are going to appear and so target the remaining bunker. The MMG on hill 67 is directed to area target the hill 53 trench, on the basis it is the only known position of living Syrian troops (aside from that bunker). The infantry squad from hill 67, having vacated their trenches, will now descend to the cover of a wall near the dam complex.

Action

In the north everything is quiet. The injured man is medevaced. Squad V are still moving to hill 55. The javelin team score a predictable success against the bunker, killing everyone inside:

The squad advancing down the hill draw fire from one of the buildings. Seems that the platoon HQ is in fact defending the complex (which suggests that there is no third platoon present). Fortunatly the incoming fire is pretty ineffective, and the well trained marines react quickly, returning fire with considerably more accuracy (and firepower, to be fair; 13 men vs 7 is a pretty large advantage even before you factor in those charming M32 grenade launchers, and the fire base on the hill...). Six enemy are disposed of in very short order, and the last man is driven into hiding.

[TheVulture]

Turn 21

Plan

The 60mm mortars have finished their fire mission on the trench where it turns out the platoon HQ isn't. I hope there was someone there to feel the benefit of all that attention. They are directed to use their last rounds against the trench on hill 53, where presumably a few stragglers from the rifle platoon are still huddled. Suppressive fire is put on the actual platoon HQ position in the building, while squad continue on to the cover of the wall.

Action

Squad V finally reach the trenches on hill 55, with the anti-climatic revelation that everyone there has been dead for some minutes. The squad approaching the dam complex reach the wall with no further contact with the enemy.

[TheVulture]

Turn 22

Plan

Two teams of the dam squad will put area fire on the platoon HQ and a nearby building, while the third team will charge in. The MMG switches its area fire back to the hill 53 trench, to add a bit of extra effect to the mortars there.

Action

The assault team go over the wall while their comrades provide covering fire.

In keeping in with the tradition of this battle, the marines charge the enemy position to discover that the only real task is to count the bodies. The last man of the HQ seems to have routed. The dam 'touch' objective is achieved. The FO calls 'fire for effect' and the battery respond with 'rounds complete'. But 6 or so rounds do strike the target with good accuracy.

No Syrian surrender yet. I guess we'll have to sweep the complex and cross the dam. Any volunteers for recon by death?

[TheVulture]

Turn 23 and onwards

The squad in the dam complex leapfrog through the buildings, prepare to cross the dam, and put a few grenades in to each oof those abandoned pickups for good measure, setting them burning merrily. This triggers a Syrian surrender.

It turns out that all forces around the dam have indeed been eliminated. The mortars did indeed take care of the Syrian rifle squad in the trenches on hill 53, while the imagined platoon HQ position actually contained an HMG team. All other units had been identified and treated unpleasantly.

The post game screen shows that there are quite a few units in a village some distance away from the battle area. I can only assume that they are there to prevent a Syrian surrender until virtually all the dam defences have been destroyed, and maybe to punish anyone who strays too far out of the mission area.

The final tally is 63 enemy killed, 39 wounded and 6 missing, with 3 armoured vehicles and 2 pickups destroyed. There are 31 men okay, but these are the troops in the other village and are really nothing to do with the fight. My own losses are 0 KIA and 5 WIA. Hooray for buddy aid; no doubt saved a few lives there. Two of my losses were rather unnecessary - the man shot while approaching the BDRM pointlessly, and the FO radio operator killed by dubious pathing.

I'm rather stunned at the utter lack of resistance put up by the Syrians in this scenario. Of the 24 enemy units involved in the battle, only 3 even fired at me: the platoon HQ in the village (2 WIA), a BDRM crew (1 WIA) and the dam platoon HQ (no effect). One of the BDRMs also pointed a turret at some men briefly. Presumably the lack of night vision equipment in the poorly equipped reserve infantry was crippling - I'm curious as to whether others who have played this mission had similar experiences.

I was rather fortunate to suffer so little damage from the Syrian prep barrage. Two men out of action, two lightly injured is pretty minor. When making screenshots (as I already said) the turns played out differently each time, and two runs through the opening turn both saw a different position for the bombardment, and at least one squad taking a direct hit each time with 4-5 dead / injured and a similar number lightly wounded. But given the level of Syrian resistance in this mission, I think the only difference that would have made at the end of the scenario would be 4-5 more dead or injured... But in a campaign, casulties can really mount up, so keeping them as low as humanly possible in the early missions is important, as a rule. So overall I'm pretty happy with how this played out.

[snake_eye]

Glad, the fight went the way you wanted. To answer to your surprise about the lack of resistance of the Syrians, it does not always turn out that way. You are playing wego, which I don't. I rather like the adrelanine shot given by the rapidity of Elite. You have to react very quickly and have a full awareness to do so. Not very easy really. That scenario that I thought I knew well, seems different to me, while I read your well done AAR. Not that it is not the same, but the way you analyse your move and the enemy reaction to them, give me a new light on it. Many things, I had not seen, having no time to pause in Elite, are suddenly being shown to me. Your marvellous shots are a perfect demonstration of it. It doesn't matter if they have been done with your saving and if slight changes in the ending result. I am enclosing shots of my AAR at T.L.R while playing the campaign in Elite. I had done numerous testing before, with similar results more or less. In the end , I wanted the platoon to seize the dam bridge in a rather short time not exceeding 40 minutes at the most. Not doing so, was preventing you to fight the next. You will see some troops remaining near the ridge, hill 55 and hill's 53 left and right. The fact of having done the scenario did not prevent me to score a Minor Victory, instead of a full one.. That simple fact shows that a victory is uncertain, since all the factors and algorithms going into the game give a place to hazard. it is just a question of probability. Your tactical choice was sound and it reduced it. I hope, you will do the same for the forecoming battle of Sidi Brahim. Oh, just a thing coming back to me. The Syrians you have fought, are in the Core of the Units. For that reason, they had orders to escape and rejoin Sidi Brahim, if they could do it, to fight another day.

Cheers

[TheVulture]

Yeah, realtime and WeGo are very different beasts in terms of how things play out.

Nice to hear that these were core units: having wiped them out to a man, this will hopefully make the first objective in the next mission a little easier.

I'll not stick to the exact same format for the next mission, since it has a 90 minute time allowance. So I suspect I'll condense stuff into summaries for periods where not much is happening.

[TheVulture]

Mission 2 : Sidi Brahim

With the capture of the dam, the rest of the company are brought up to the village area in preparation for a move east along the road, along with some limited resupply. The injured are patched up as best they can. With about four hours before the start of the next offensive there isn't much that can be done.

Of the platoon involved in the night attack, most get their rifle ammo resupplied, although in one of those chaotic quirks of war time, one squad fall through the cracks and get very little new ammo, leaving them on about half their anticipated loadout. The SMAW team who used all their ammo get a complete restock, but there is no new supply for either the javelin team of the 60mm mortars - their supply truck seems to have broken down on the way.

Of the injured men, one of the 'yellow' injuries is back to full health, while the 'yellow' SMAW gunner is still not at full speed. The man shot during the clean up of the BDRM crews turns out to be less seriously injured than first thought, and is returned to duty none the worse for wear.

Enemy prisoners have been interrogated and have reported that the 1st reserve infantry battalion is stationed in the area, and that some of them were involved in transporting mines to the road in the valley area for engineers in recent days.

Friendly forces

I now have 3 full marine platoons (with the above wear and tear for the first platoon), each of 3x 13 man squads, 2x MMG, 2x SMAW team, plus HQ. These have the support of 2 javelin teams (1 out of ammo, other with 2 missiles) and 6 sniper teams and 2 FOs (1 of which is still missing his radio operator).

In addition we have been assigned an ATGM humvee, a .50cal MG humvee, an LAV-mounted recon platoon (3 small teams, 3 LAVs), and the recon company command team (and their LAV). Artillery assets are an 81mm mortar battery and the restocked 120mm mortars (and obviously the empty 60mm). We also have air support tasked to us in the form of a harrier.

There are also various command units in the area - javelin HQ, sniper HQ, Co. HQ, XO, battalion HQ. To avoid being too gamey, they will set up command posts in the village and dam complex that we now control.

Our line of departure is the ridge of first mission fame. On the plateau on the far side of the valley is the village of Sidi Brahim, which is out first objective (named Normandy). Beyond it is a second terrace of the plateau on which are a series of defensive positions which we are to clear and occupy. This is the limit of our advance where we are to establish a new position.

Here is a nice view of the battle space to give an idea of the contours (and don't screenshots in daylight look so much better):

And here are the initial deployments, along with a very rough guess at the enemy mine positions.

[TheVulture]

The initial plan

Obviously the first problem is Sidi Brahim village, on top of a fairly steep hill. There is a nice mix of irrigation ditches and crops next to the village, so my initial idea is to try and get one platoon into that flanking position whilst a second platoon comes into the village from the road direction.

The flanking platoon take a fairly circuituitous route across the valley and under the impassable cliffs to keep them out of sight of the village until they are rather close - crossing nearer to the route up the escarpment could expose them to rather too much fire. One squad will likely branch off to provide flank security - there is a 'valley' about 10 meters deep and only as few wide that meanders around and I don't want any unpleasant surprises popping out of it to say 'hello'. And there is a small mosque up there too outside the town. So guarding against counterattack could be significant.

The attack platoon also go a bit of a long way around, although that is mostly to be sure they go nowhere near the potentially mined area (I'm assuming the mines are limited to the region of the road). Then the steep hill with the winding road will provide them with good enough cover to get close to the village, and we'll see what happens.

In both cases one squad will lead by a minute or two to test the safety of the route.

The third platoon and recon platoon will be held in reserve, along with the humvees and javelin team. Various snipers and FOs watch from the ridge - there are a lot of trenches on the enemy side of the valley, so getting lots of eyes (and guns) of them is useful.

If you think the plan is rather vague, you're right. With the maxim of "no plan survives first contact with the enemy" in mind, my plans usually amount to making contact with the enemy with as flexible a disposition as possible to react to what I find. And to guard against surprises on the flanks.

[TheVulture]

Turns 1-10

Immediately as the point squads set out on the two approach routes enemy artillery starts falling. This time they are a little more off the target. One is ground bursting artillery just outside the SB village, which does little except obscure the vision of anyone in the first row of houses. The second are right on the Syrian side of the valley, about halfway along, and are airbursts. Neither is anywhere near us.

Point squads cross the open ground safely, and find positions to wait for the artillery to clear (since in both cases it is on planned lines of advance), while the rest of the respective platoons move up.

The tiring effect of crops can be seen. The point squad advanced through the wheat, and were 'tired' by the time they'd crossed the valley. The next squad moving the same distance stuck to the open ground between wheat, and were only at 'ready' when they reached the same place:

The north group stop once they have crossed the valley to wait out the airbursts 150m away. Which, it turns out, is too close, and one man is killed and another lightly injured by shrapnel. I reposition them to slightly better positions with solid ground between them and the arty target area. Ten minutes in and the barrage is still ongoing.

The south platoon regroup at the bottom of the hill, and after the 7th minute the artillery stops, so the point squad start to advance up the hill. The Syrians have nicely created a whole load of craters for cover just outside SB village. By the tenth minute the whole platoon is scattered up the hillside, and the first fireteam has inched forwards to see what can be seen from the shell holes.

That picture is through an extreme zoom lens. To give you a better idea of relative positions:

No contact with any enemy forces yet. The south platoon are going to make a minor probe, but if any resistance is met they are going to hunker down and wait for the flanking platoon.

[TheVulture]

Turns 11-14

The artillery rounds continue falling, blocking the northern platoon's progress, and the reserve units do nothing of course. All the action is with the southern platoon probing the village.

The point fireteam in the craters have met no resistance so far, and notice an apparently unoccupied trench to their left. Figuring this would make better cover, they head for it.

Rifle rounds come zipping down the street from an enemy further back in the village. Okay, so that's where they are hiding. The rest of the point squad see they can reach the trench without coming in to the line of fire, using the lip of the ridge as cover, so they do so. One of the nearby buildings has a door visible from the trench. I'm guessing this is unoccupied since it has windows overlooking our trench, and we'd be toast there were defenders there. The troops entering will be exposed for the short sprint between two buildings, so they decide to risk one team to try out the route.

For the second time in a short while, they draw fire:

Again no casualties are suffered, and after a few moments with their heads down in the house to regain breath and decide on a course of action, they return fire. The enemy are IDed as a rifle squad, and as a grenade hits the enemy position the scream of a man being hit is heard.

The next squad up the hillside will probe towards the mosque (seen in the background of the first picture) which provides a nice dead ground area from the two enemy units contacted so far. Again, a single team engage in some recon by body armour, heading for a further forward crater. Fire comes in from an unexpected direction to their right, from trenches on the other side of the mosque. The men hit the ground in the craters, with one of them suffering a minor wound.

So this is the current situation map:

(BTW is it correct to rotate friendly unit markers to indicate orientation or not? Obviously it applies less and less as you get to higher level formations...)

The unit in the rear of the mosque and one in the trenches have been positively IDed as rifle squads. The other two are ? contact markers, but likely also rifle squads. The friendly squad at the rear also includes the SMAW teams, MMG teams and platoon HQ. The yellow line marks the lip of the ridge, behind which my units are safe but also can't shoot the enemy.

So the enemy appear to be using a back defence this time, since none of their positions are visible beyond the yellow line, including to the overwatch back on the start ridge.

It looks like there is a dead area from the ridge crest to the mosque that none of the enemy shown can reach. And, conveniently, there is a door in the wall facing us too. An evil person would of course have mined the front door (and a really evil human player would in fact have some men hiding in the front houses that would hold fire while units further back engaged first...)

I'll try the route to the mosque, but the main thrust is going to follow the north squad who already have equal cover to the enemy. I don't want to get into a ridge line vs trench shooting match, since it is so hard to bring all my firepower to bear effectively. So I'm going to ignore the southern enemy at first, work through the village, and hit them from various buildings later on when I'm ready.

[TheVulture]

Just realised I marked the enemy units as platoons rather than squads in the previous picture. Oops - they are all single squad positions.

Turn 15

I decide to move the rest of the northern squad into the house occupied by the lead team, who will put area fire on the position of the Syrian squad that has line of fire to the doorway.

The southern lead squad is currently broken into teams, with one team stuck in a crater. They will make a run for the cover of the mosque, while another team will explore that possile dead zone route up to the mosque.

This generates a mixed bag of results. The 'dead zone' team make their move unmolested, but the guys running the gauntlet take a casualty.

The northern squad all reach the house safely, peppering the target building with grenades and rifle rounds. This however draws the attention of more units futher back, in the trenches east of the village. Rather heavy attention as it happens. There appear to be 3 or 4 enemy units in those trenches in addition to the two further forward squads already covering that road.

Other units of my platoon maneouver in behind the ridge to back up the front line men.

[TheVulture]

Turn 16

I send the final team of the mosque squad along the covered route, along with an MG team and a SMAW team. One of the teams already sheltering at the mosque will broach the door, although I'm certain no-one is in the front rooms, so they should be safe.

The northern squad will hold position and engage the many enemy units in sight. The final squad is going to back up the north squad, along with the other MG and SMAW team. Looking at the doors in the area, I think we can advance safely through the cover of the buildings to close with the enemy.

But its not a good turn for us. In the congestion of the dead zone route, the MMG team stray a little too far and draw fire from a previously unspotted platoon HQ on a balcony further back in the village. One of our men goes down. The team entering the mosque do so safely, and use their vantage point to engage the enemy in the trenches, and also spot the location of another platoon HQ unit.

The squad in the north continue their firefight with all comers, IDing an MMG team, a company command squad and a rifle squad in the trenches. They cause a few casualties, but lose one man in return.

Known enemy units are now:

2 platoon HQ

5 rifle squads

1 MMG

1 company command unit

So there are at least 3 platoons of infantry with some company HQ / MMG assets. Since a resevre infantry company is 4 platoons plus a few support units, it looks like we have a whole company defending the village in a closed defence.

Latest intelligence:

Dotted lines show platoon command links. On the right of each symbol is its platoon no (or 'MG' for MG, 'Co' for company level), on the left is the squad no. with its platoon (where known/relevant). My rough guess would be that one platoon is holding the back buildings of the mosque (2nd squad south of 1st squad, platoon HQ in the domed building), 1 platoon is holding a line in the northern section of buildings (2nd squad just north of 1st squad), and the 4th platoon is possibly in the trench positions north of the road out of the village. With sundry MMGs.

I think I'll try and resist the temptation to press forward. There is fairly heavy resistance, even if a marine platoon does pack slightly more combat effectiveness than a reserve infantry company. I'll wait to bring the second platoon up in the flanking position. This will allow me to flank the northen most front platoon, and dealing with them will in turn allow me to flank the mosque platoon. Then we can deal with the trenches at leasure (if I haven't dropped some mortars on them by that point, although I'd like to keep as much mortar ammo as possible available for all the trenches in the later objectives).

Unfortunately the second platoon are still held up by the ongoing artillery, which has now been running for 16 minutes. In my lack of paying attention, one squad has picked up another 2 yellow wounded - evidently I need to find a better position for them to wait out the fireworks. Once they're done, hopefully we can push the tempo a little.

[TheVulture]

Turns 17-20

Lots more action, although none that requires any orders really. Basically, one squad stack the corner room of the mosque, one squad hold position in their house looking down the street at the bulk of the enemy defences, and the last squad pull back to come into the irrigation ditches of the northern fields to flank the northen defending platoon. And aside from that one squad, everyone stays in place and tries to gain fire superiority over the enemy, which is what marines do best. Meanwhile the platoon HQ will go and apply first aid to the fallen.

I do plot an 81mm mortar strike on the company command / rifle squad / MMG position, but cancel it a minute later when it becomes apparent we are going to win that firefight without having to bring in the heavy stuff.

Both squads in the village are involved in intense firefights, but slowly the superior firepower and M32 grenade launchers take their toll.

As the casualties mount up for the southern squad in the trenches, some of the men break and abandon their positions:

A soldier of the platoon HQ watches the collapse of the men in front of him; his unit aren't immune to casualties either (2 men down during the firefight).

The last man of the rifle squad tries to use the trenches to cover his flight:

He didn't get far - all 9 men of that squad are confirmed kills before too long.

The northern village squad have similar success, accounting for 2 men in the MMG crew, 4 in the rifle squad and another 3 from the command squad, plus at least one more in the mosque building.

The reserve squad are succesful in their attempt to infiltrate the field's ditches:

They cautiously advance up the ditch, before eventually spotting enemy soldiers in the upper floor of a building. Turns out this was exactly the building I was expecting to find a squad in, directly north of 1st squad 2nd platoon in the last map.

It is worth bearing in mind that my SMAW teams do carry a demolition charge each, so we do have limited ability to blast through walls, but as with the mortars, I'd rather keep them for when I can't see an alternative solution.

I'm not in a hurry to move my mosque squad anywhere. They've all but cleared out the enemy in the trenches, but there are also likely to be enemy elsewhere in the mosque complex, and it looks to me like any attempt to move to adjacent buildings runs a high risk of an ambush. So they'll sit tight while the flanking platoon suppress the northern defence from the side, allowing me to bring men into the enemy position there with very good odds. Then their firepower will be able to suppress the other front line defence units and free up the mosque squad to move and tidy everything up.

One more edit to add: 19 minutes in the Syrian artillery finally fall quiet, so my 2nd platoon are finally able to start a rush forwards to come and support the fighting in the village.

[TheVulture]

Turn 21

Not much to change by way of orders. The two squads currently set up in buildings continue to hold position and attack anyone who puts their head above the parapet. The flanking squad set one team to put suppressive fire on the occupied building, while the others bound forwards to closer ditches to bring more guns to bear. One of the MMG teams has followed them in to the ditches, although that is mostly to cover their flank against any surprises coming from the narrow valley to the north.

And what do you know: right on cue, at the end of the turn, an enemy squad is seen coming up out of that very valley.

None of the units in the village fight have seen them yet (and don't have LoS to that area), but my reserve units back on the start ridge are well spread out and some of them have eyes down the end of this valley. One infantry squad, a sniper and a deplyed MMG all put down fire to cover their comrades' flank, while the message is passed through the comm net to the commander at the sharp end.

[TheVulture]

Turn 22

The fighting in the village has died down to a large extent. It looks like the platoon HQ in the southern trench has also been wiped out, and the fighting down the main street is very sporadic. The flanking squad had some more contact with the enemy in the upper floor of that building, but the suppressive fire was enough to prevent any noticable return fire. This turn, although I cancel the area fire and move a team to cover the flank being threatened by the new squad, nothing is seen from that building.

My guess is that that squad, along with the one in the mosque on the high street side have been driven out of their buildings into positions further back. Which leaves one rather exposed squad trying to hold the high street, with very limited support from what is left of the units in the rear trenches.

The flanking squad are deployed to secure the flank and support a move up through the village in the north, which will be the next order of business.

Seeing where on the start ridge has LoS to the valley entrance, I decide to bring up a pair of my recon LAVs. The engagement range is 3-400m, and while my small arms are doing a decent job of pinning the enemy down, I want more firepower brought to bear in case more men come streaming through. So the LAVs are sent up to suitable positions on the ridge, and sure enough, they are soon adding their 30mm autocannons to resolve the situation. Yet another unnecesarily zoomed in shot (remember the LAVs are around 350m away at this point).

Five enemy are down at the end of the round, with the other four well pinned, and staring down the barrel of rather more firepower than they'd like.

Second platoon meanwhile are still making their way towards the village. Looks like they are going to be rather late for their flank security role... still 2-3 turns before the lead elements get to the area of the fields.

[TheVulture]

Turn 23

A fairly quiet minute - occasional movement seen in the trenches beyond the village, while second platoon continue their run towards the village.

The only action of note is for that Syrian squad trying to flank me: two more of them are killed and then the final two throw in the towel, drop their weapons and rout off the map.

[TheVulture]

Turn 24

With a bit more area fire on the occupied two storey house producing no reaction, and with the overwatch apparently more than capable of securing my flank from incursions out of the narrow valley, I decide the flanking squad can probe towards the enemy defensive line. They shift positions to support the move, and one team moves in using the low wall as cover.

It all goes rather wrong.

It transpires that the squad defending that house haven't abandoned it; just moved downstairs. A surprise burst of fire takes out one of my men. The other 3 in the team return fire, advancing a few steps between each burst. Two enemy are seen to fall. Slowly they close on the house. Then the distinctive sound of the Syrian MMG is heard, and tracers skim past along the line of the wall:

Seems someone is guarding the flank of this house. The men stick with the plan and carry on. All this achieves is apparently bringing them into the line of fire of more defenders.

They've come to the attention of the other squad of that defending platoon in the adjacent house. And there is an explosion further along the wall (see the smoke); best guess is that an RPG round was fired from the same general position as the unseen MMG along the wall.

Okay, that's not going well. Rather than running into an empty house to attack the enemy squad next door, we are taking fire from apparently 3 enemy squads and an MMG, and not in great cover.

Second platoon meanwhile have moved along the wide valley far enough to be able to start to climb the hill. The first order of business is to move a squad up into a blocking position to cover the entrance to the narrow valley and the plateau north of that valley, so the rest of the platoon can move up securely.

Two men are killed instantly in the explosion of a mine.

I go and make a cup of tea to calm down.

Looking for the positive, at least they appear to have only clipped the corner of the minefield (if there is a just the one set of mines), so the rest of the squad should be able to extricate themselves safely.

Elsewhere, various snipers and elements of the reserve platoon that don't have line of sight to anything useful being to move forwards to the base of the hill so they will eventually be ready to take the lead in the advance once the village is clear. At keast none of them die.

A very frustrating turn. I'll have to pull the men back in the field and plan a slightly more careful attack on that northern defending platoon.

[Blackcat]

Thanks, Vulture, for this excellent series. First class stuff and I am enjoying it immensely.

One question, can you tell me where you positioned the LAV's to get a line of sight to the Sounthern trenches? From the screen shot it looks like they are on the South side of the chasm, but when I played this mission I couldn't find anywhere along there that gave me such a firing position.

P.S. I walked into that minefield too, and I fell for the advance on the two story house trap.

[TheVulture]

Thanks, Vulture, for this excellent series. First class stuff and I am enjoying it immensely.

One question, can you tell me where you positioned the LAV's to get a line of sight to the Sounthern trenches? From the screen shot it looks like they are on the South side of the chasm, but when I played this mission I couldn't find anywhere along there that gave me such a firing position.

P.S. I walked into that minefield too, and I fell for the advance on the two story house trap.

The LAVs don't have a line of sight to any of the occupied trenches. The only unit they can see (and have targetted) is the squad coming out of the narrow valley north of the village.

I'm pretty sure the trenches around the village are completely hidden from anywhere on the start ridge.

[Blackcat]

The LAVs don't have a line of sight to any of the occupied trenches. The only unit they can see (and have targetted) is the squad coming out of the narrow valley north of the village.

I'm pretty sure the trenches around the village are completely hidden from anywhere on the start ridge.

Thanks, I misunderstood your original.

Good luck with the battle, I am looking forward to the next installment.

[TheVulture]

Turn 25

After a little thought and analysis, here's the plan I come up with.

Blue arrows are the moves this turn, yellow the next turn (and arse, I realise now that I messed up - the team cowering by the wall actually put out some smoke this turn, and enter the house the next turn, so that should be a yellow arrow for them).

Red enemy markers indicate the known enemy positions (the three squads of the platoon). Yellow enemy markers are possible/likely positions of the enemy units firing along the direction of the wall.

The dark blue line indicates my best estimate of which areas are safe from those unknown units; when the nearest building is cleared, that opens up a good covered approach for the squad currently holding the high street.

And this turn things play out much as expected. The move around the end of the wall into a house goes without a hitch, the other units in the field reposition (that MMG team is going to follow in to one of the houses too). The only novel action is that a second squad is seen coming up out of the narrow valley. It gets much the same treatment as the first, with men being pinned down and several casualties.

[TheVulture]

Turn 26

I'll stick with the good news first. I can now see 6 dead in that house I want to wrest from the enemy, and know that I killed 2 men whose bodies I can't see. So there is only one man left of that squad. The team by the wall get the green light for their sprint in to the house. Unfortunately one of them is hit by machine gun fire in that short gap (the smoke from repeated RPG rounds whacking the ground way short of the men evidently isn't enough to give good obscuration; and yes, this is the good news part...). But the other two make it in, and can confirm 8 dead and the last man running for another house. There are a few bursts of fire with the other occupied house, but nothing much dramatic happens. At the end of the turn we have this situation:

Looking in to the circled house I can see 6 bodies, so I'd guess the squad in there is pretty much wiped out as a fighting force too. The last survivor of the northern squad is foolishly out on the balcony of the next house, with the platoon HQ being similarly foolish.

The support platoon moving up the hill discover another mine field:

This time it is one of the MMG teams that has blundered into trouble, losing one man. On the plus side, a SMAW team makes it up to the top of the ridge, so I now have a safe route I can follow. But this platoon has now suffered 4 dead another 5 lightly wounded, and has been held up from its role (leaving the 1st platoon doing all the work) without even seeing a single enemy. If I wasn't the in effect the commander of this platoon, I'd probably have him court martialled.

But the fun doesn't end there. In the south of the village, where my squad in the mosque are playing a waiting game, trouble suddenly rolls in to town:

Some halfwit has gone and driven a t-90 in to position to reinforce the badly hammered southern flank of the defence. The squad decide optimistically to fire off one of their LAWs, scoring a hit, although as you might expect against the front armour of a t-90, there is no noticable effect. As the turn ends, the turret of the tank turns ominously towards the men...

[TheVulture]

Turn 27

First order of business: abandon mosque. LAWs and AT3s aren't going to hurt a t-90 from the front, so the only thing they will achieve by staying there is providing a target for that rather powerful main gun. The MMG and SMAW team hanging around in the area also make sure they aren't exposed, or more importantly, in places where the t-90 is likely to gain LoS to soon. Actually, I'd imagine the tank will hold position for a while now; it has turned up to reinforce the position and doesn't need to go blundering forwards into trouble. But you never know...

In a sudden fit of tank phobia, I get the LAVs back down off the ridge pretty quickly, and make sure any exposed units get on their way into better concealement.

In the village I move the rest of the flank squad and the MMG team up in to the houses. There is a brief firefight with the enemy HQ.

A very brief firefight. Apparently no-one warned them that balconies were deathtraps. So that's the northern defensive platoon crushed; there may be 1 or 2 survivors in each squad, but essentially they've been swept aside. In aniticipation of this, I've started to move the rear squad up to support the front guys. they use smoke to make sure their exit from their building is unmolested (the only door opens right on to the high street); for the last few turns they've taken occasional shots at the enemy in the trenches at the far end of the street, but as far as I can tell haven't done any real harm for a while.

I might bring the mosque squad around to the high street position since it brings their firepower back in to the fight, and is somewhere the t-90 is never going to be able to hit. To help deal with the damn tank, my javelin team, skulking back with the reserves, goes for a quick jog up hill 67. It can't see the tank from there, but if it makes any attempt to come around the corner of the mosque into the west end of the village, it will expose itself rather nicely.

The MMG with the advance squad is in the upstairs of one of the buildings, and can see the t-90 position. I think I'll get a SMAW team up there soon, since it provides a flank shot at about 80 meters range. I don't know what odds I have with a SMAW versus the side of a t-90 though; the success rate on those BDRMs was less than stellar.

The other action is at the head of the narrow valley. Despite the withdrawl of the LAVs, the other units keep the enemy pinned down, although some of them do make some progress. But second platoon finally get in on the action as their blocking squad finally start to get into position to seal the valley entrance.

So far I've seen two squads of the same platoon coming up the hill here, and have an unidentified contact marker which can only be the platoon HQ. With my squad now sitting right on their exit route and the support from the ridge, there is no way they are going anywhere.