Modern Playtest

Played a game this Saturday to try out my Modern amendments.

It was a NATO v Warsaw Pact encounter set in the early 1980's. It was based on a scenario in the Wargamers Newsletter and involved a British force defending the village of Althaus against a Soviet advance formation.

The British were in a strong defensive position occupying a number of the village buildings with a couple of chieftans in support.

The Russians advanced on two fronts. The first main assault was a frontal attack. The second a flanking move to hit the British in a less defended sector and distract the tank support from the frontal assault.

Early success with mortar and tank fire on the British turned to heavy Russian losses as some concealed units: one Milan ATGW and a unit of infantry put down a punishing fire taking out one T-62 and a swathe of dismounted infantry.

I had already noted that the Russian infantry out of cover were very exposed when dismounted and in future assaults I'll ensure that units are spotted more effectively, troops dismount nearer the objective and there is more covering fire from mortars and support weapons.

The concealment rules worked well giving the British a distinct advantage in retaining units in hidden positions ready to ambush the attacking force.

Things only got worse for the Soviet forces as the chieftans rolled into action and started to take out the Russian flanking attack. They were very effective in stopping the Russian armour and with favourable rolls made the infantry dismount where they fell victim to British support weapons.

The Soviets never really got to grips with the British and failed to achieve any of their objectives. A convincing British victory but I think the Russian side was penalised by my inexperience with the rules and the lethality of support weapons and the rifle platoons using stationary GPMGs which classified as HMGs for game purposes. The Soviets should have had at least three additional units and the use of off-table artillery support was a feature that should have really been deployed if I was following a more doctrinal approach. Lessons learned for future games.

That being said I did enjoy this game despite its limited game-time. I look forward to more modern battles.