Another Silly After Action Report

You would think that Russia would be possibly the last country to get into a war in a desolate hostile land in the middle of a bitter winter.  You would be wrong as their somewhat foolhardy invasion of Finland in 1939 proves.  A failure in conception was compounded by hideous incompetence in execution (and believe me, execution was on the table).  The Red Army was still suffering from an acute case of purges and their attempt to invade Finland was a complete disaster despite the fact that the principal resistance seemed to come from the Finnish Olympic biathlon team.

Failure followed failure and Russians froze to death in great numbers.  The last two words of the previous sentence should, however, give you an indication of the ultimate outcome.  The Russians had great numbers, the Finns didn't.  Battling snow, privation, the Finns and their own incompetence the Russians slowly ground forwards until they reach a scattering of small concrete boxes and occasional strands of barbed which the Finns had dignified with the term "Mannerheim Line".  If the Russians could break through here then Helsinki (which for want of anything else can be declared an "objective") would be within their grasp.

This is ASL Scenario A163, Stopped Cold.  I will command a small but resolute bunch of Finns determined to defend their land.  Ivan Kent will command a staggeringly huge mass of ill motivated Soviets looking to conquer it.  Ivan gains victory by exiting at least 24 victory points worth of forces off the north edge.  He has six tanks which are worth five points each but the rules specify that at least six points must be infantry.  As noted Ivan has six tanks, all thin skinned and a little unreliable but still pretty impressive.  One also totes a flamethrower as main armament.  Additionally he has four first line squads and twenty one conscript squads.  Conscripts are slow and have short range and poor morale but twenty one of them!!!

To defend I have five first line squads and three green squads.  I also have a pillbox, a heavy machine gun, medium machine gun, a couple of light machine guns, wire, trenches, antitank mines, demolition charges and molotov cocktails.

It will all come down to the infantry.  Ivan's tanks may be thin skinned but the likely hood of killing all six with the short range weapons I possess is low thus I can expect some to get off the board.  What I really have to stop is the infantry.  Being forced to set up pretty far forward I placed the pillbox (containing the hmg) in the centre and surrounded it with wire and trenches along with a couple of squads for support.  The left was heavily wooded and I doubted the ability of the conscripts to struggle through it so it was defended lightly with a squad and a half.  Over on the right where things looked a little more open I set up a trench line with some more wire and placed the mmg and more squads where they could cover the front and also the wide expanse of frozen water should Ivan decided to do some ice hopping.  The A-T mines went into places where I thought (wrongly as it turns out) Ivan might drive his tanks.

The beginning, I wait nervously for the Russian attack. My there are a lot of them

Ivan hastened slowly in his attack.  He brought his tanks in on the left and right but didn't race them up to my positions but rather sat back and started pounding them from a distance.  His infantry he didn't bring on at all until the advance phase.  Rather than charge across the open ground he moved his infantry by increments in the first couple of turns while he tried to use his tanks to soften me up.

This actually worked rather well.  With few useful infantry targets I concentrated my machine gun fire on the tanks but thin skinned or not they proved resilient.  The mines, demo charges and molotovs required Ivan to actually bring his tanks up next to my units which it became obvious he had no intention of doing.  He built a kill stack in a ruined building to my right to add to the pressure and inched his troops, assault moving all the way, forward.  Eventually, with six tanks banging away at them my troops in the pillbox broke and when another squad went down as well Ivan decided the time had come for decisive action.

The first bit of decisiveness went rather well for me.  Ivan decided it was time his flamethrower tank got involved and roared it up and flicked the lighter.  Sadly for him the whole thing broke down and his tank fled for the rear in embarrassment.  Now he only had five.  The next bit of decisiveness somewhat better for Ivan.  With at least part of my frontal defences down he launched not one but two human wave attacks with masses of conscripts hurling themselves at my left flank.  You know, the heavily wooded one that I didn't think would need much defending.  His tanks, too pushed forward circling around behind my remaining troops in the centre.  Ivan brought one tank next to a squad and I rolled for a molotov.  I didn't get it but Ivan took the hint and never brought his tanks that close again.

The human waves were brutal.  Freshly invigorated conscripts poured forward over the open ground towards my positions.  A smaller spoiling attack on the right stopped my troops over there from interfering.  I got off plenty off shots for not much result and soon about half my force was engaged in bloody melees.  The casualty results were appalling for both sides.  While Ivan had crossed the open ground without too many casualties close combat was definitely not his friend.  Dead and broken units piled up for him but some of them were mine as well and Ivan achieved an almost clear breakthrough on the left.

Broken but not quite through

Almost being the operative word.  A squad and lmg had survived everything thrown at them and in the woods a broken half squad fell back to self rally and maintain a semblance of a defence.  Ivan pushed his tanks through the wire as though it didn't exist and headed for the exit.  I meanwhile started trying to push my troops on the right leftward to form a last defensive point.  A reinforcing squad and hero helped.

The human waves spent Ivan's conscripts went back to being slow and not very brave as they edged forward through the trees.  He sent two of his tanks off the board for an immediate ten points but retained the others to help his infantry.  Finally one of my machine guns did its thing and managed to shock a tank.  That shock turned into a kill and Ivan had four tanks left (one with a broken gun).  With a trail of broken units marking his path he really needed to get all four off without further risk and gunned them for the exits.  The infantry would be on their own.

Now it became a race trying to get to the exit before my remaining guys could come across and cut them off.  Ivan managed to exit two squads leaving him one tantalising victory point short of success but by that time I had moved units into the woods covering the open ground.  He had three units within range of the exit (one an officer) and I had three units capable of firing on them.  The final turn came and Ivan had to take his chances.  He raced one squad for the exit and defensive fire shot it down.  Two to go.  He moved his officer forward, defensive fire generated a morale check, which sent the officer berserk.  Alert despite his fury the berserk officer charged directly towards the only unit of mine that hadn't fired.  If I didn't shoot at it the berserker would enter my hex and prevent me firing out.  If I did shoot at it I wouldn't be able to shoot at his one remaining squad waiting for its opportunity to exit.  Either way Ivan had a squad and I had nothing to stop it.  In the very last turn with the very last squad capable of exiting Ivan scored the win.

The berserker which ruined my hopes

So congratulations to Ivan and thanks both for putting up with all my swearing and for a truly exciting game.  There were turns of fortune, just after the human waves I thought I was doomed.  In the next couple of turns I started to think I had a genuine chance to win and finally at the last of course, it came crashing down.

And for my mother who gently asked if I ever actually win these games, I guess here is your answer.