US drives Russia out of Ukraine - Black Sea AAR

Razgovory · April 11, 2015, 08:25:52 PM

By popular request (well one guy asked for it), I'm doing a Combat Mission: Black Sea AAR. For the AAR I'm playing a large scenario (so large, I can't take a picture of the whole map), called Rolling on a River. This scenario comes with the game and involves a meeting engagement between a Stryker company and Russian mechanized force. The scenario lasts 2 and half hours so I'm cutting it up in 30 minute intervals. It probably won't actually last that long. I'm using Imgur for photo sharing, Fraps for taking screen shots and Open Office to keep notes. The only mod I'm using is a sound mod (the vanilla sounds are flat) If you want to try the game yourself, You can download a demo here https://battlefront.sharefile.com/download.aspx?id=se6d8366f1b446e2b

This is my starting point

And these are the objectives at the center of the map.

Here is the vital railway bridge.

And here is the village where the enemy is.

I start off with one recon platoon mounted on Stryker vehicles, and a few drones which I don't want to use because the enemy may have anti-air assets. I plan to split my recon platoon into three parts to scout out the weather station, the "loading zone", and the bridge.

3rd squad under SSG Pound will scout the bridge. 1st Squad under SSG Singlton will explore the weather station along with Lt. Szabo. 2st Squad under SSG Gage will scout out the loading area, and hopefully move on to get eyes on the town up ahead.

And it's off we go!

Fortunately we didn't wake up the sleeping cows. Note that one of the cows is napping inside this guy's house.

After a few minutes I encounter two BRDMs. The first one is seen driving strait for one of my Stryker's and is taken out with a burst of 40mm grenades. The second is spotted hiding behind some trees and quickly dispatched by a Stryker with a .50 The crews of both vehicles try to escape but are cut down. After the enemy recon has been neutralized each squad moves on to it's objective. Lt. Szabo dismebarks with a sniper team and makes his way through the woods to get to the weather station. Gage will move will approach the weather station by the road

3rd Squad comes under fire near the railway bridge. Fortuantly everyone is safe, but there is clearly someone hiding in the woods near the bridge. I plan to reverse, and dismount 3rd squad behind some trees. Unfortunately my men may have spotted a vehicle on the other side of the river. Hopefully it won't see me.

I don't think it does, but I take fire from another vehicles to my left, which I can't see. I don't know what it is, but sounds like it has a cannon. 2nd Squad hears a vehicle near the weather station so this is unlikely to be a walk in the park. I order 2nd squad to disembark to approach the weather station on foot, and order 3rd squad to disembark near the rail bridge. They hear a vehicle in the woods near the bridge. I'm bring up another stryker (which carried the Lt and the sniper team) to see if I can spot the vehicle.

My stryker comes around the corner and see a BRDM and knocks it out with the .50 cal. A Russian on top of the weather station fires an RPG at the Stryker and misses, but spooks the crew. 2nd Squad fire on RPG man. 3rd Squad's stryker spots and MT-LB armored personnel carrier, and manages to pierce it's armor with a the .50. The MT-LB has a 30mm cannon and is probably what was firing on me earlier.

Near the rail road bridge another MT-LB is spotted, one of my Strykers attacks it with 40mm grendade launcher and pops smoke to get away.

I move up the sniper squad and the LT and get my first casualty, a radio operator in the sniper team. Those assholes up on the weather station are giving me a lot of trouble.

When the smoke screen clears I get another shot at one of the MT-LBs and manage to disable it.

After 15 minutes of skirmishing the first platoon arrives along with the company commander and some mortars. I think I'll use one of my drones now. It'll probably get shot down, but I really want to see what's waiting for me at the exit route. I'm going to move my first platoon near the bridge to see if I can secure it. I'm also going to drop one precision round on top of that damn weather station. It's being called in by the Lt, and I notice he's slightly wounded. Hopefully it'll work out okay.

After a few minutes the precision round lands right on target, knocking out those bastards on the weather station. Unfortunately, one of my gunners got injured by fire from a forest. Likely an escaped crew member from a MT-LB.

I'm hesitant to move all my troops into that forest around that bridge since I haven't accounted for all the enemies in there. I have a recon squad doing a sweep. While I wait, an enemy spotting round lands out in the middle of nowhere. I don't know what it was directed at, but I suspect it was the guys attack in the weather station.

Recon gets in a close firefight with the enemy near the rail road tracks. Another round comes down, almost certainly aimed at the weather station. I move everyone inside. More reinforcements come up. More infantry, two more mortar strykers and a platoon of Mobile guns (which really aren't all that helpful).

Recon gets in a close firefight with the enemy near the rail road tracks. Another round comes down, almost certainly aimed at the weather station. I move everyone inside. More reinforcements come up. More infantry, two more mortar strykers and a platoon of Mobile guns (which really aren't all that helpful).

I start to move my first line platoon into the woods, where I see a most unwelcome site, a Russian mechanized platoon coming my way. I also spot a Russian SPAAG way off in the village. If I can get a Javelin on that, it would make things much easier (assuming it's by itself). My recon boys seem to be doing well, they forced a Russian to surrender.

Unfortuantly one of the Russian SPAAGs shoots down my drone.

More and more enemy vehicles are coming in toward me. They disable one of grenade launcher of stryker. Another stryker responds in a very novel way. He fire grenades in an arc landing on top of the targets. Despite the range, this actually works. I don't think they disabled anyone but they started them and forced them to pop smoke.

Unfortunately 2nd squad runs into an mechanized platoon and loses it's stryker along with several of the infantry. They make a run for it but I don't think they'll make it.

A vast number of armored vehicles are coming at me. I move javilin teams up to the rail line, 2nd platoon to a wooded area in the middle of the map and bring up the MGSs. The result is a slaughter (which I didn't get nearly enough screen shots of.

At the end of first 30 minutes I've wiped most of a Russian mechanized company. This is what the center of the map looks like from above. I still have some drones, and plenty of artillery and even some choppers in case I see some tanks.

sbr · April 12, 2015, 02:48:28 AM

Razgovory · April 13, 2015, 03:05:37 PM

Black Sea 2, nothing happens

I have stopped the enemy advance toward the railway. Most of the MT-LBs are on fire (though one platoon is still operating on my left). The enemy SPAAG has also been dealt with. 1st platoon has run out of javilins and spotting rounds are falling near them so I've pulled them back into their Sykers. I noticed that I have a platoon of TOW equiped strykers which I'm bringing up to the front. I suspect the enemy will start bring tanks into this battle soon. If so I'll need more firepower to take them out.

Every column of smoke is an enemy vehicle knocked out. This was a bloodbath

Some MT-LBs made it to the rail line before being knocked out, and the survivors are giving me sporadic fire from my left flank. There is also a an MT-LB on the other side of the river, and one my TOW strykers has it spotted. A perfect opportunity to knock it out. I think I'll also start sending up some more drones. I don't think there are any AA guns left.

I'm also moving up my MGS trying to make sure there are no AA assets left. While there are some skirmishes with soldiers who survived having their APCs blown up, there really isn't any major enemies. I know there is still one platoon intact near the loading zone, I haven't seen anything from them. I think I'll send a drone over there to see what's going on. After several minutes of taking pot shots at hapless infantry I have yet to get a fix on that surviving platoon. Also, no tanks. All I get it is harrassment fire from artillery (which isn't doing any good). It's getting frustrating. I'm guessing they are hidden by wooded area on either side of the railroad. I decide to drop some mortars in that area. See if I can rile them up.them.

Not much happened in this 30 minute span. I put all my drones in the air, but didn't spot any more vehicles. I know the enemy has moved troops to my left, but my drones can't spot them (they must be hidden in the trees. I'm going to need shift some infantry there and find tm the old fashioned way. The enemy does drop artillery near the rail bridge, but all my guys are safe in Stryker vehicles, so are not in much danger. If tanks start appearing, I have quite a few javelins , TOW to fire at them. Not to mention to armed drones with hellfire missile and 5 helicopters on call. While none of it as reliable as a platoon of Abrams, I think it should be enough to ruin the Russians day.

The Brain · April 13, 2015, 03:48:00 PM

Cool.

Razgovory · April 17, 2015, 05:41:26 AM

Part 3. The unexpected victory.

I plan to use 3rd platoon (which hasn't seen any action) to drive the enemy out of the loading area (I have no idea why it's called the loading area). I had a few fleeting glimpses of the enemy crossing the rail way in the unloading zone so I'm going to drop some 150mm rounds on the southern side of the rail. If the enemy is there, I should be able to hurt him. If not, well at least my guys won't walk into an ambush.

3rd Platoon spots one more SPAAG left. Unfortunately I have nobody in a good position to kill it. I have one Javlin team with one missile, I'm going to try to bring around to see if I can get a good shot at that damn SPAAG.

They disembark from a truck, find a Russian sitting there, and shoot him. Still no line of site for the AA gun

.

But that's not the problem. The Tanks have arrived. SSG Gage, who has come back to provide first aid to his down squad has heard tanks coming out of fields to the West.

I draw my MGS and TOW carriers to the rail line and order them to unbutton. I might be able to shoot the tanks if I get line of sight on them first. I'm also calling in some Helicopters and moving a drone to that area. The chopper may take a while though. 9 minutes, and with that newly found SPAAG it could be trouble.

The first tank knocks out two of my vehicles a MGS and a TOW launcher. I think it's a T-90, not good.

A Javelin takes out the tank. It blows up big

I think my drone may have knocked out another tank but all I saw a missile come down and smoke from a burning vehicle. I also saw a rocket go up, so I may just lost my drone. I check the status of my drones, and yeah, I lost one. I knock out an observation vehicle and one my MGS lands a round on a T-90, but I don't think I killed it. My fire support guys are having a really difficult time getting artillery on that wooded area. When my MGS hit the tank the tank threw up some smoke. A tank just rolled out of it and killed a MGS. No idea if it's the same tank. So far I'm not doing very good against tanks. Fortunately another Javelin team knocks out that tank. I don't have a lot of javelin missiles left though.

I find out that the artillery bombardment is going to take 14 minutes, which is a bit longer then I would like. Still I position 3rd platoon to assault the area when the rounds stop falling. The helicopters have been taking fire from the damn Tunguska, and I think they called off their attack. I have a mad plan to get rid of it. I'm going to take one of my remaining TOW Strykers and see if I can flank it. I'll likely lose the Stryker, but I need those tanks gone. Some of the Tanks are moving toward the unloading zone, which is not good I don't think that 3rd platoon can take a platoon of tanks and a platoon of infantry. I try something desperate. The drone keeping an eye on that part of the map is armed. Unfortunately it's possible for them to fire on my own troops. Another risk I have to take.

Then suddenly, I win. That's a bit of a surprise. I suffered 20 casualties in all, and Ivan suffered 220. That's a pretty good ratio. The platoon in that wooded area, was hurt by the artillery but it wasn't decimated. And the enemy still had 6 tanks left. Still they only had 53 men who weren't casualties and I had 22. So GO USA! One stryker company and some change defeated an MT-LB company of infantry, a company of tanks an a battery of Tunguska Anti Air vehicles and a two recon platoons. Most of the Russian infantry never got out of their vehicles.