DAR: Russia 2

[RERomine]

Marginal Victory

Turn 19

I continued to push on the enemy northern position until the very end. They were stubbornly holding on. It didn't help that they had a gully to their back that could hide more units. I'm not sure how many ducked into that gully to collect themselves and then came back out shooting. A few more turns and that position would have collapsed.

After a bit of selective suppressing of the enemy, I was able to capture the last two flags I was after. There were a lot of small units around so I made sure they wouldn't suppress the two I had select to make the run to the flags. Overall, it worked out pretty well.

My artillery destroyed one more Zeus and generally made life miserable for the infantry pocket in the north.

Casualties

Friendly: Estimated 5 casualties.

Enemy: One ZSU-23-4M5 destroyed, estimated 15 enemy casualties.

Total Casualties

US

Men: 122
Artillery: 0
Soft Vehicles: 0
APCs: 0
AFVs: 0
Air Transports/Helos: 2 (AH-64D and UAV)
Aircraft: 0

Russia

Men: 585
Artillery: 1
Soft Vehicles: 0
APCs: 40
AFVs: 37
Air Transports/Helos: 0
Aircraft: 0

Score

US: 28971
Russia: 3822

Final Comments

I'm not thrilled with a marginal victory but this was a tough battle and brute force won the day. The points tell me I didn't miss decisive by much. In brute force battles, casualties can be expected to be heavy. While I expected the slaughter of the enemy vehicles, I didn't expect the infantry fight that followed. For the infantry on both sides, there wasn't anywhere to really hide. There were burning tanks and APCs everywhere and the while smoke blocked the line of sight for many units, the infantry SAM and ATGM units could see and fire through it. There was no real sneaking up on anyone. There is an exception to this, however.

The enemy made no effort to control the grassy plains below the plateau. Units on the plateau, but not on the edge couldn't see the low ground. This allowed me to move units around at will, albeit nervously. The two tank platoons that engaged from the southern edge of the plateau were able to get there without being fired upon. The only enemy units that were ever in position to fire on the southern plains were the two T-72BMs that seemed to be chasing my M113s away. I had recon all over the southern plains, so the enemy tanks weren't a surprise. What I did wrong was I didn't test the ability to move around the southern fringes earlier. Once I had a foot hold up top, I should have started swinging my armor around.

I was surprised at the effectiveness of the Russian ATGMs against my gunships. In the future, I'll pay attention to tanks armed with those. While I don't use my gunships a great deal, I don't want them getting blown up, either.

Overall, I achieved my battle objectives. I planned on capturing all the flags that nobody owned at the beginning of the battle. That would have given me 16 out of 21. As it turns out, I captured 17 flags; all the ones I planned on plus one the Russians started with. My Javelin teams took heavier casualties (11 out of 27) than expected but the terrain didn't allow for quick and covered movement. Such is combat, I guess.

I've attached the save just before I ended my last turn. Also, there is a screen print of the "Tank Park". Enjoy!