AAR: Vistula crossing

[Aeraaa]

Turns 21-31



Combat intensity starts to lessen, thus I played more turns than usual. To the north, after heavy fighting and aided by copious use of rocket artillery, my mech infantry and tanks slowly clear Kokocko from enemy presence. Only a few demoralized, isolated and immobilized T-80s stand in my way, in positions marked as (1).

Russians have pushed in the center into two major axis. Axis (2) has managed to withstand Polish tank fire, but has fallen victim to US air strikes. 2 F-15Es and 6 A-10s have bombed and strafed the Russian units until they were effectively destroyed and the Russian APCs have been pulverized by accurate Leopard HEAT rounds. In Axis (3), a T-80 platoon pushed north until it was destroyed by accurate tank fire from position (4). The Polish tanks started to cross the river forward after this engagement.

To the south at Czarze, Russian armor makes two attacks. The one at (5) moves through urban terrain where it battles Polish infantry and T-72s lying in ambush. All Russian tanks are knocked down by the Polish defenders at a heavy price. The attack at (6) is also blunted by a high volume of Spike ATGM fire from positions at (7) and artillery. Poles make a counterattack with the remaining T-72 tank company and a mech platoon and finish of any remaining tanks. The road is clear to reclaim any objectives in the south.

To the east, the flanking element advance, destroying any remaining Belarusian mortar carrier they see. They move to (8), where they engage the Russian MSTA SP artillery pieces. The latter prove to be a difficult opponent for the Rosomak IFV, and thus the T-72s move forward to finish the job. A combination of tank and artillery fire, destroys a large number of MSTAs and forces the survivors to withdraw. The flanking element links up with the SF survivors and proceeds to occupy Bloto at (9).

At turn 31, things seem to be hugely in my favor. There are some T-80s here and there, but Russian morale seems to plummet, thus I can advance with greater ease than before. I have high hopes that this game will end with a decisive victory for me. We’ll see…

[Aeraaa]

Turns 32-36 (end)

The last turns are just mopping operations and capturing the last remaining objective flags. The game ends as follows:



For the allies, Poles lost 534 men, while Americans lost 81 men. For the ex-USSR side, Belarusian lost 787 men, Russians lost 764 men.

Equipment losses for both sides are massive, as the above score suggests:

Polish/American
58 tanks (in particular 4 M1A2 SEP V1 Abrams, 23 Leopard-2PL, 31 T-72M1s)
12 BMP-1s
19 Rosomak IFVs
1 MT-LBu FO vehicle
9 BRDM recon vehicles
5 Spike ATGM dismounted teams
1 SP Artillery
4 SPAAGs
3 OSA-AK SAM vehicles
1 Mi-24 attack helicopter
7 fixed wing aircraft (6 Polish F-16, one American F-35)
1 UAV

Russian/Belarusian
123 tanks (34 T-72B1s, 89 T-80UDs)
11 BRDM-2
1 BRM-1 Rys
97 BMP-2
1 FO APC
8 MT-LB APCs
4 BMP-3 Kornet tank destroyers
8 BRDM-2 Konkurs tank destroyers
6 SP Artillery
9 SP Mortars
6 Tunguska SPAAGs
6 Tor-M1 SAM vehicles
4 OSA SAM vehicles
2 attack helicopters (one Hind, one Ka-50)
3 fixed wing aircraft (MiG-29 SM)

Final dispositions are:



From the above map is it clear that I have achieved a decisive victory. Russia/Belarusian presence in the map is restricted to 3 SP artillery platoons and some stragglers in the middle of the map, therefore they are effectively destroyed. I have crossed the equivalent of approximately 30 platoons to the eastern side of the river and I didn’t lose a single bridge. These are more than enough for what the scenario designer set as DV conditions.

Things looked great at the beginning, since I managed to cross the river quickly and give the Belarusian brigade a bloody nose. However, despite my best efforts, I could not destroy them fast enough before the Russian force arrived. When that happened, I could not stay at the offensive any more, and I tried to put my tanks in the best possible positions to get good shots at the advancing Russian armor (one thing that I didn’t realize until turn 18 or so is that the Leopards in this scenario have inferior ammunition than usual, their Sabot rounds doing 70 something of penetration meaning they were incapable of defeating the tough armor of the T-80UD from the front, only from flanking shots). Despite changing my stance to defensive, I did retain some offensive capability with the southern flanking maneuver that neutralized much of the enemy’s fire support capability.

Once in the defensive, my tanks did a great job at eliminating Russian armor, since I had good fields of fire overlooking their advances in the centre, the northern town of Kokocko and Czarzy to the south. Inside the cities, infantry and armor worked together to destroy the enemy tanks while the rocket artillery and regular artillery were critical in keeping the Russian infantry at bay and lowering the overall morale. In the open, my Leopards to the north, managed to kill a significant amount of enemy armor thanks to the fact that they could hit their more vulnerable right side. Victory was not achieved without significant losses however, and in fact the 3rd company of the Leopard battalion (the one that crossed the river first and advanced towards the center) was completely annihilated without a single Leopard surviving. In Czarzy Spike ATGMs were also successful against Russian T80s, mainly because they found a relatively small number of them and overcame their defenses through shooting a lot of missiles. Finally the air force was relatively successful. The Polish F-16s had no trouble penetrating the defense of the Belarusian Brigade, but when Russians appeared, they left the battlefield with heavy losses. Americans were more successful then, and F-35s conducted SEAD strikes successfully, with F-15Es and A-10s mainly in the role of CAS. Russian air force was more successful in general, but had little impact on the outcome of the battle. Artillery support was good for both sides.

This was an astounding allied victory that paves the way for a determined counterattack by the 11th armored division of the Polish army. Next scenario in the series is the Hammer and Anvil scenario.