Silly After Action Report - The Price of Persia

Captain Turan Turan looked at the collection of buildings that had apparently been scattered at random about the landscape with disfavour.  There was something wrong with the Persian army he realised, starting with the fact that they were supposed to be the Iranian army now but nobody seemed to be paying any attention.  Food rations were poor, morale was low and this morning three of his men had attempted to surrender to an executive from British Petroleum.  That was before he caught his best sergeant attempting to siphon oil from the pipeline to sell on the black market.

Still, Turan brightened slightly, another day had dawned and so far the hated British hadn't overrun the country.  Actually Turan was a little ambivalent about the entire "hated" thing.  Compared with the Russians in the north the best he could come up with was the "mildly disliked British".  He approached a machine gun post just as the men were attempting to shift something out of sight.

"What's that?" he demanded.

Somewhat sheepishly the men revealed a placard bearing the words "No Blood for Oil!" 
Before Turan could say anything a spatter of rifle fire broke the silence and the long feared cry,

"The mildly disliked British are coming!" filled the air.  Turan pointed to the placard with a sympathetic grin,

"Bad timing guys."

Dave Wilson and I were looking for something simple to play on a Thursday evening and eventually settled on this little piece. Scenario FT163 which involved the British (Indians actually) of the 10th Indian Division attempting to evict the deeply unenthusiastic Iranian (they changed their name in 1935, look it up) army from positions near the oil refineries around Abadan.  Along the way they managed to shoot some refinery staff (officially by accident).

Defending Persian (oh god, now I'm doing it) soil from the rapacious grasp of the imperialists is yours truly.  I have eight first line squads of Axis (very) minors equipped with pair of medium machine guns, a light machine gun and two officers both of whom seem unlikely to inspire their men to heroics.  Dave commanded the Sepoys of the 1st Kumaon Rifles charged with ensuring my plans had an unhappy end.  His force consisted of ten first line squads, a pair of light machine guns and a couple of 51mm mortars the whole lot commanded by three officers including a 9-1.

The British win by ensuring that there are no good order Iranian troops in any of the multihex buildings at game end.  It shouldn't be too difficult, my men were barely in good order before we started playing.  To persuade the British not to simply charge blindly into machine gun fire there is a stipulation that they also have to amass more CVP than the Iranians.  Not as it turned out a particularly onerous task.

I had to set up behind a road that ran across the battlefield and I put a mix of dummies and live troops behind the wall that bordered it to make it look like I was going to defend to the death.  Actually I was just hoping to slow him down a bit before I ran away.  He only has five turns and the more time I can make him waste the better.  I HIPed a squad with an mmg and my best leader to fire straight down the road.  I had visions of fire lanes causing hideous carnage but these visions, like most I have, turned out to be the products of a diseased mind.  The remainder of my force I held back in the buildings themselves as a last resort.

The first turn was uneventful as it consisted of Dave entering and moving in the general direction of my defences.  I maintained fire discipline and lurked under concealment counters waiting for my opportunity.

End of British/Indian turn 1.  I decided not to do anything as uncivilised as shooting at him

In my turn I slunk out of Dave's line of sight before returning in the advance phase.  Dave questioned my courage and manhood but I refused to be diverted.

It all kicked off in turn two when Dave's mortars dropped smoke on a couple of my stacks behind the wall.  I wasn't worried, I had no intention of shooting at him and the smoke was added cover.  Then, greatly daring a single half squad stepped out into the road.  With great aplomb I revealed my mmg team and established the previously decided upon firelane in addition to breaking the halfsquad.  I think Dave preferred it when I was skulking.  His force froze into immobility until the advance phase when pretty much all of them stepped out into the road.  He even moved a squad up close to my mmg team.

Time for the Iranians to leave

I agonised over what to do with the mmg team.  I should have pulled them back but there was a whole squad sitting right there in the street next to them.  Eventually I took the shot in prep fire hoping for rate.  There was no rate, one shot was all I was going to get.  I did break the squad, Dave had a problem passing morale checks for much of the game.  I had a problem achieving anything at all.  In defensive fire Dave fired a mortar at my mmg team.  The result of this was a dead officer, a casualty reduction and an elr down to a broken conscript halfsquad for the survivors.  Things would get worse.  If Dave was having difficulty passing morale checks my men appeared to be actively attempting suicide.

It needn't have been the end, I had a pair of squads behind the mmg team and I advanced one of them in to pick up the mmg. Along the way I inflicted my first casualties, Dave had routed his broken squad into that hex and I managed to kill half of them as they fled for the hills in CC.  I successfully picked up the mmg whereupon Dave dropped a smoke round on the hex and reduced the position to effective impotence.

Meanwhile at the other end of the board Dave's men pushed forward contemptuously breaking the squad in the woods which was supposed to be a flank guard.  In the centre what was left of my force pulled back through the orchards heading for the multihex building in the rear, they wouldn't make it.

The cracks are starting to appear

So far good, or at least so I thought.  Despite the hideous death of my mmg team (other defensive fire wiped out the pitiful remnants) and the failure of my flank guard to do anything except curl up into a ball and snivel for his mother I wasn't feeling too disappointed.  Two turns had passed out of five and Dave was still nowhere near the buildings.  By the end of his third turn he would be a lot closer.

He pushed troops into melee with my smoked out machine gunners while a flanking force raced down the road.  In the orchard he hopped the wall, pushed through the smoke and shot my guys to pieces.  There may have been some return fire, if so it was irrelevant.  I had a squad with an lmg but courtesy of another four on the DR they were soon a broken conscript halfsquad.  Four is my sniper number and in my only result of the game (despite six attempts) I managed to kill...his sniper.  Most futile result ever.  With a sniper number of two it wasn't as though he was ever going to use it.

Well that didn't take long to go badly wrong

Despite the mounting catalogue of disasters things weren't as bad as they looked.  Dave was running out of time and still had some distance to go.  ROAR shows this as being strongly in favour of the Iranians.  If it wasn't for the fact that my men couldn't shoot for shit and folded like wet cardboard Dave would be even further behind.  But Dave had his own troubles.  On the rare occasions that my fire actually gained a result his troops almost always broke.  First line British indeed.

With two turns to go Dave, of necessity, threw caution to the winds.  He had to drive me out of the two remaining multihex buildings and very little time.  His flankers hopped the wall and challenged my defenders to do their worst.  Their worst turned out to be nothing at all and Dave bulled his way into the building to take on my guys in close combat.  In the centre of the field though came my one unalloyed moment of pleasure.  I had managed to rally the broken conscript halfsquad with the light machine gun and as Dave's kill stack hove into view I managed to break two squads with a 2 flat shot. Unfortunately the rest of Dave's force was closing in.

End of turn 4.  Dave couldn't pass pin checks either.

As the final turn came around Dave had cleared the building at the bottom.  A handy pin result had stopped my other squad from getting into the building.  Now it all depened on my defenders of the large building in the centre.  I had a squad with an mmg and a halfsquad with a lmg and 7-0 leader.  Dave had few troops in position and I dared to have hope.  This hope grew as his mortar ran out of smoke at the penultimate moment.  Dave would have to move forward into the teeth of Iranian fire.

And that's exactly what he did. My lmg team stood up like heroes taking down a couple of attacking halfsquads but they were swamped by a squad and leader and wiped out in CC.  Which left it all up to the mmg team.  They laid a firelane down the street so Dave worked around it and rushed out into the open.  My squad took a 6-2 shot for no result and followed it up with a 2-2 shot for no result.  This was my last good order unit in a building.  Dave didn't have to kill it, just hold it in melee.  Just to be showy he killed it. 

So victory to Dave at the last.  I'm not really disappointed with my performance although I would have had harsh words to say to my troops if any of them had survived.

Captain Turan pulled the ragged cloak he had stolen from passing beggar more tightly around his shoulders.  Stumbling forwards he tried not to look up as trucks of victorious Indian soldiers swept by on their way to Tehran.

"You there," came an unmistakeably British voice.  Turan froze.  A young British officer stepped out of a staff car.  His uniform was immaculate and his upper lip was so stiff it obscured his nose.

"You there," repeated the officer. "Are you Persian?"

"Persian?" replied Turan in his best surprised tone.  "Hell no, I'm Iranian."

"Oh, very good then.  Carry on."

The officer hopped back into the car and drove off after the trucks.  In accordance with his instructions Turan carried on.