Not So Cold War

A few weeks ago Tom from Texas hosted a Cold War game at his houise using a portion of his his newly-acquired 1/87th scale collection of Cold War minis. The scenario posited that an assault by the Soviet bloc had been turned back and the NATO forces were on the counter-attack. The scenario was set at night and consisted of a Soviet recon unit covering a likely crossing point on a German river. The NATO forces had armored infantry supported by armor and motorized bridging units.

the field of battle, first the Russian side of the river

and the NATO side,

the unfortunate habit of rivers running through low ground meant that the NATO forces could hide behind some convenient hills during their approach

the first few turns were spent with NATO shelling the daylights out of the empty Soviet earthworks

then they dropped smoke to hide their actions, the shelling helped hide the noise of the approaching NATO bridging units

suspecting that trouble was afoot the Soviet sent some units around the smoke to take a peek,

they got an eyeful

tons of US M-113s and in the distance the ominous "whop-whop-whop" of helicopter rotors

LOTS of helicopters, transports and attack choppers

like a scene from Apocalypse Now

they swept rapidly to the attack

with an Attack Cobra in the lead

the Hueys dropped into the Landing Zone guarded by the attack choppers

only to find a platoon of Shilkas were directly below them

the exchange of fire was lopsided in favor of the Soviets,

darkness is no cover from radar

casualties were horrific amongst the AirCav

meanwhile back at the river the US infantry crossed the minefield

and assaulted the heavily shelled but otherwise empty earthworks

the Soviet APCs opened fire on their opposite numbers

wrecking two M-113s

another platoon of US Infantry struggled to cross the minefield

the few remaining choppers dropped their grunts and got out of Dodge

the US engineering and bridging units closed with the river

on the other flank three more bridging units

waddled up to the river

a long-range shot from a Soviet tank took out one of the M-60s providing covering fore

this upset his friends, and he had a LOT of friends,

they took the offending Soviet tank platoon under fire killing one