[Lt. Ketch]

Last night I got 13 of the 28 turns played. In a continuing attempt to effectively use my high mobility, I decided to put a new twist on an standard tactic. Some updates on the map:

There is a stream that runs N-S at about the midway point, with a small (400M) lake in the north. It effectily puts a revine down the middle of the map. Lots of swamp and rough.

There are multiple roads: A primary road that runs E-W and crosses the lake at it's mid point as well as two secondary roads that basicly make a big X just west of Center on the map. There is also a rail line running NE-SW. All of these cross the stream at various points and form a large intersection in the middle of the map.

The terrian rises very steeply. The "Fort" (the backwarks "C" mentioned above) rises from level 20 to level 100 in all of 300m. On the oposite side of the stream, overlooking the intersection is a hill, covered in rough and impassable terrain that looks like a small range of Himilayas. The North is dominated by smaller hills and plataues while the south is similer but with a lot more trees.


The plan, again, was a little risky in that I was going to strand myself over on the west side of the stream. While I try to avoid obvious deployment areas (like on roads right on the deployment line), I decided to give it a risk. The AI hadn't bombarded those spots in the last battle. The plan was to cross the lake and move along the northern approaches, in essance duplicating the manuver I executed last time: penatrate, flank and capture. The twist was that I would be airlifting 2nd Ranger and their APCs far in advance of the rest of my troops. With visiabilty 38 and the number of trees and hills that were present, I was able to find a suitible route for my choppers to take. I reassigned the Chinooks and Blackhawks to 2nd Ranger, loaded the each chopper with A M113A3 and as much infantry they could carry, fitting all but the hummers into the 4 birds. 1st Ranger, the Sharidans and the SPMs would make their way across the bridge, which I targeted for bombardment from my support SPAs (which weren't 155mm but 203mm. I'm not always awake when I buy support and so it's hard to remember the next day.) The reason for this was I was leaving my Airborne without transport with the expection of the Hummers from 2nd Ranger. The Airborne were going to set up shop on the hill overlooking the intersection and "the fort" and keep an eye out for troops, target Artillary and, if large targets of opportunity were to show themselves, blow the snot out of them with the Javelin. I wanted to blow the bridge for two reasons, one to protect the airborne's right flank, the other, to see the pretty lights (silly, yes, but I was also hoping to catch enemy units on it). I also planned on keeping my artillary close and so would use the chinooks to move them around undercover. The Apaches would support the airborne and move against units coming against their left flank.

The plan has gone well so far, although there have been a few hic-ups. If I was playing against a human opponent, I would be in a lot more trouble.

Pre-turn bombardment was present, in large numbers, where you could expect it - along the roads at the deployment line. My troops sustained very light damage, and weren't slowed in their crossing of the lake (which was right on the other side of my deployment line. Two MiGs did make an appearance and tried to shoot up some units, but missed.

Break for a lucky moment. When the MiGs appeared, my APCs and Ammo Carriers opened up on them. The first plane made it through without a problem. The second plane made his run and as he was leaving the map (in the last 100m) was hit twice receiving 8 damage. One shot was by an APC with 3% to hit, the second by am Ammo Carrier with 5% to hit. He never came back.

Stage one of the plan, getting into position, when off well. The birds deleivered 2nd Ranger to a sheltered spot along the north map edge and they were able to move up into a scouting position in short order. The choppers also farriered over the MLRSs and their Ammo carriers as well as my core Ammo carriers with little difficulty. 1st Ranger, the Sharidons, Company HQ, Battalion HQ, and the SPMs all made the trip to meet up with 2nd Ranger via a small path (only 50m wide at times) between a cliff and the lake edge. I love finding paths through impossible terrian. The area up there facilitated higher visibility than I originally thought, but my units were all able to get undercover without being seen (to my knowledge anyway). The Airborne moved into position and started spotting units coming over the walls of "the fort" at the end of turn two. My leading Apache was able to spot and elimnate, with no threat to himself a large collection of low grade APCs, as well as the regular BTR-80s.

By turn 5 2nd Ranger had spotted and destroyed a platoon of T-62s that tried to move throught their position. The Apaches were also able to eliminate a group of unts (APCs and T-80s) moving along the E-W primary road before they got to the bridge. The artillary didn't bring the bridge down and doesn't look like it will. If they had made it to the bridge however, one of my Sharidans had a lovely little spot in the trees picked out which gave him a clear shot at the rear of anybody that got to the middle point of the bridge. Say what you will about lightly armoured, low ammoed Airborne tanks - in my book the Sharidan is a nice little killing machine. You got to love something that uses a cannon that is bigger than a lot of artillary pieces. The airborne troops were being a resuffle as my ATGM spent three missles on dinky little APCs (I can't wait to get the CD and the op fire filter) and I didn't want any of the enemey's 130mm steel rain coming down on him. As it was, on of the hummers was destroyed by a revisiting MiG. Crew survived though. The airborne squads, MMG team and Javelin team were airlifted by the blackhawks north to resupply the ATGM and watch the lake with the rifle squads simply moved around the hill, still keeping eyes on the intersection and southern (left) flank. Their spotting helped the Apaches remove a couple of pesky APCs that slipped across the river at a ford. They also were able to call down artillary on "the fort" decimating the milling squads and units trying to make it to the primary road from there.

The action started picking up in the north as 1st Ranger met up with 2nd and prepared to move out. An enemy rifle squad was spotted west of their position. Where there is one, there will probabably be a company. I moved 1st Ranger onto a small hill directly south of 2nd ranger to set up overwatch of the area. As I unloaded units, they drew fire from a sniper as well as a hummer taking ATGM fire from the road to the south of them. I hadn't realized that the hill was visible from the road. There was a SP ATGM unit, as well as a couple of the everpresent SPAA guns. One APC was hit on the following turn and lost its AAMG, but I was able to evade, avoid furture damage and moved the vehicles off the hill, leaving my troops to continue overwatch and pop smoke. I targeted MLRS, 60mm and 120mm mortar fire on there are in front of me. It was a bit close but seing as I had good LOS and couldn't see any furture, I figured I was okay. I was right. A few othe squads were spotted along with a section of SPAAs hanging in the rear. Right after the rockets rained down, 2nd Ranger was in APCs and moving forward, unloading next to the enemy and driving them away. One Sharidan also moved out and although he took fire from a ATGM team on the road and some SPAA fire, he poped smoke, got cover from a line of trees and was able to dispatch the SPAAs to the west and south and also suppressed the everloving tar out of the ATGM team. TI is very nice when you can see through smoke. I did lose two an APC before the Sharidon was able to dispatch the SPAAs. The turn after 2nd Ranger made their move, Rocket artillary (mine, planned) came in on their left flank and 1st Ranger stared moving. One turn earlier would have been better as 130mm and 122mm steel rain fell on them. With no clear causalties, I tried to rally my troops, but it was tough. One made it clear, the others still pinned. I brought up the APCs and kept them close so they could evacuate next turn if possible. The artillary fell again, once more with no visible losses and what troops weren't rallied to move on their own were extracted by APC. Currently 2nd Ranger has almost reached the NW arm of the X road and will be setting up a quick defense, waiting for the other element to arrive before proceeding down it. Atrillary will help prep the area, since my MLRSs are now rearmed. I have already used some artillary on the southern road to supress the element there. The one thing I do have to watch out for is the bomblets left over. I've alreay spotted two of them from my first bombardment.

Overall, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. I've only seen eight AFVs and they weren't of sufficent points to make me think that the enemy's almost dead. There has to be more of them out there. Recon will be important, as will overwatch. Enemy LAD is still very much in place on his side of the map. I've only taken out 1 MANPAD and the AI will generally have 3 or 4 per company. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but it's worked so far. I should get some more down tonight, but my not be able to post until later.