smithcorp
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Joined: 6/4/2010
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I am playing NATO commander in the Pied Piper scenario, against Herman Hum as Warsaw Pact (WP) commander. My forces are plucky West Germans, defending their homeland against the Red hordes.
My mission is to delay the Red thrust to Hamelin with the forces at my disposal, which are initially three Leo 1 sections, almost useless against the expected T72s and ATGM carrying BMPs, supported by some mech infantry with AT capability; with some self-propelled artillery coming soon, followed by, joy of joys, a batallion of Leopard 2A4s - tanks that stand a real chance.
As with the previous scenario, my main advantage as NATO is my thermal sighting capabilities - I want to keep the Reds at arms' length and hit them before they can hit me.
There are several routes open to Red in getting from the eastern side of the map (protected somewhat by minefileds and some prepared tank positions) to Hamelin and the river Weser. My reinforcements, when they come, will need to be moved across the Weser and through Hamelin, assuming I can delay the Warsaw Pact forces that long.
My plan is to use my starting forces for a forward defence, mostly focused on the east and north-east approaches, with Leo 1s positioned in the two prepared positions, supported by the mech inf and with hopefully some oversight of the southern routes to Hamelin. I don't have enough forces, or the starting positions, to cover the southern routes fully, so I aim to get forces at bridges near the Weser to at least give me some warning. I will blow all the bridges I can to hold them up.
My Leopard 1s are sacrificial. I hope they will survive a while in their dug-in positions, because I have no plans to move them once the fighting starts. They will fight and die in place, to give me time for the 2A4s to get into the fight.
The battle
The assymetric and dynamic orders component of this game really comes into its own in PBEM play, because your opponent, if they have a lower orders delay than you, gets to have more turns. What happens is the turn starts, then when your opponent's orders phase begins, you have to send them the file for their turn - next turn, you may have only a few minutes' game time before your orders. Pretty neat (though I should point out there are some bugs in PBEM play at present, that can affect how much of replays you can see).
First sight of the enemy comes after a few minutes with enemy recce units spotted and destroyed trying to cross the minefields at the north of my line. I interpret this as the main thrust and so get some smoke and arty from my recently arrived guns, onto what I hope are the enemy movement corridors.
Disturbingly, the next game hour or so passes without further contact where I was expecting it, and distressingly, one of my gun units reports being out of smoke after just one TP! This is bad, as smoke is pretty much their most valuable ammo for me.
I begin to suspect that Herman has snuck around my left flank fixed defences and is now moving west in cover and will emerge well to the west before pouring south to Hamelin. This impression is reinforced when my next contact is opposite my most north-westerly position - more recce forces spotted and killed.
Armed now with what I think is Herman's intent, I begin to move my newly arrived Leo 2A4s and mech inf int positions to cover an attack from the north and north-east. I position a Leo 1 HQ unit supported by some infantry to overwatch the southern routes to the big Weser bridge. You can see the pale pink line that is the route of one of my Leo 2A4 units.
This is when Herman unveils his surprise. WP tanks, infantry and recce units appear from the south, right in the face of my now totally inadequate defences. My Leo 2A4s are moving north from their starting positions but are still on the west side of the river. I had resisted the temptation to give them hasty move orders (which would have resulted in an even more devastating outcome than was subsequently the case), so they were moving in assault, but this meant they were slower to get started and the crowded road seemed to further impede their effectiveness.
The subsequent turn was busy, to say the least. My artillery smoke and HE fell behind the point of the Red spear and while it did some some slaughter to follow-up forces, it did nothing to halt the rapid Red advance. In hindsight, I should have dropped the smoke on my own forces to obscure them and give them the IR advantage.
While the 2A4s did some good work, with one section of 4 tanks killing 19 red tanks, the game was over from this point. The Red thrust from the south easily brushed aside the feeble opposition in its way and began to cross the Weser bridge, sparking a furious meeting engagement between the opposing columns. Red's sheer numbers, along with my mis-directed artillery support, carried the day, despite my desperate attempt to move my eastern defences to the west, hoping to hit the flank and rear of the Red forces.
When the scenario finished, I had lost 65% of my force and had been relieved of command. Nothing would stop the Red thrust west of Hamelin.
I must say I appreciated Herman's bait and switch strategy. He showed me some forces in the North, enough to lock my attention there, and then snuck the rest of his forces past me in a left hook that hit me right in the chin. At the cost of a couple of recce units, he was able to deliver an entire and un-attrited force right to my doorstep. Very nice and I learned some great lessons in wargaming.
Thanks for looking.
Smith
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Hook, Line and Sinker in Hamelin. A PBEM AAR - 
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