Hey guys.
Filing an after action report after a battle against the USSR with the West German army. When I say it was a long day I mean it 
so expect a lot of images. For those who don’t know what it is. Wargame is a strategygame that finds a lot of its basics in realism. Units can engage at realistic ranges. Between 1800 and 2400 metres for most tanks (compared to certain strategy games where it is amazing if a tank can shoot more than 3 times its own length…), Units must also be supplied with ammunition, fuel and spares. So cutting a unit of is a valuable thing to do even if you don’t or can’t engage them directly just yet. Let’s get started and take a look at the AO.
The objective is to not let Russian troops break through from the river into an uncontrollable state. Most notable terrain features are four bridges connected to our territory. There is also a checkpoint on the righternmost bridge. A small village with the center-right bridge. And an industrial area just left of the visible image here. That left industrial area is called Hotel, the village is Golf and the Checkpoint is Julliet.
I decided to place a pair of Leopards to hold the leftmost area called Hotel. A flakpanzer gepard is sent in behind to keep the skies clear.
Towards both Golf and Julliet I am sending two Hueys each. Both carrying a light infantry squad. They will hold down the positions ASAP untill I can send regular infantry and vehicles to reinforce the position.
Marder 2 IFV’s carrying Panzergrenadiers are on their way to reinforce the aforementioned positions. It will take them some time to get there.
The terrain around the checkpoint is quite narrow. But around the village is large open terrain. I am sending in some APC’s who carry infantry carrying ATGM’s who can engage vehicles at long range.
The IFV’s have reached their position. They dropped off the troops who have taken up positions along the perimeter. I have hidden the IFV’s inside the city. This way I can prevent them from being engaged by enemy tanks, but if enemy infantry where to encroach on our positions, I could use the IFV to support troops in contact and make sure only my guys get away in one piece.
First contact! A dust trail in the distance indicates a hostile vehicle operating in the vicinity of the village. The ATGM’s engage…
The MILAN ATGM can challenge the frontal armor of many MBT’s. This strela should be no match.
A Ka-50 tried to engage my gepard from standoff range! The Vikhr missed just barely. For now, noone got hurt in this duel. The Gepard retreated into the village as the guns are outranged by the Vikhr.
The enemy is mobilising to dethrone me from my rightful position as mayor of the little village of Golf. I might be getting more than I am bargaining for here…
To bad for the enemy I already had a Eurocopter Tiger on standby to reinforce the point at whatever bridge the Russians would choose. My heli is safe from enemy SHORAD while having good views on enemy side armor.
A pair of Raketenjagdpanzers are also opening up on enemies in the open terrain. The Raketenjagdpanzer is kind of outdated by the time time Red Dragon takes place, but I was extremely impressed the first time I ever saw one. A tank, with such huge missiles mounted on the roof. I have been trying to sneak a few into my deck in Wargame since forever. They actually proved useful to me this time in this game as they took out numerous vehicles passing the open terrain from the bridge.
The enemy however, is absolutely not cool with all of this. They are sending in a Su-25T even as ATGM are enroute towards targets in the open.
Coupled with a timed artillery strike. My short range anti-air is mostly suppressed allowing the frogfoot to do massive damage. All my vehicles including all my AA are dead now.
With part of my forces whiped out, some enemy forces manage to do a break through and besiege the town. Tanks and lightly armorered vehicles are shooting at my positions.
However no reasonable commander should ever expect to take urban terrain without infantry support. The enemy is sending in APC’d laden with goons. However they too must pass the gauntlet, and to many riflemen die inside their ride for them to be effective at besieging Golf village.
Being denied infantry support. The tanks circle the town, looking for positions to fire upon. I have retreated my specialist ATGM teams deeper in the town as they give can give their own positions away when firing. The troops who are now holding the frontline are the grenadiers. They positioned themselves so that they are hard to fire upon from outside the town but have decent firing lanes. They are equiped with the Panzerfaust 44 2A1 and the Panzerfaust 3. The firing lanes allow them to hit the sides of the tanks as they circle around including this beautiful shot between the buildings.
However some medium armored vehicles manage to overpower the Raketenjagdpanzers. They are flushed out of their positions and destroyed.
I quickly send in a pair of Leopards to reinforce the Raketenjagdpanzer position. They cannot save them but do manage to clean up all medium vehicles. The village will hold out a little longer. My leopards pushed ahead of the air defenses. Something that this frogfoot will punish them for.
However, feeling lucky, the frogfoot does not evacuate the AO but circles around looking for more targets deeper in my sectors. A fatal mistake.
A Ka-52 skulks around the Hotel area. The Roland anti-air missile makes sure no intel makes it back to the enemy base. I am starting to gain confidence in my ADS setup.
Not sure what the enemy was thinking? Instead of driving towards the village they are now trying to walk towards it. They did manage to get closer than the vehicles due to the high grass. But eventually turned up on sensors anyway. The Eurocopter tiger fires up the SNEB rocket pod and instills a healthy dose of PTSD and casualties for the enemy to reconsider their tactics as the soldiers scurry back home.
With a large amount of my defenses in the open terrain diminished though. I find myself relying on the Luftwaffe for the first time this day to hold the terrain. This F4 fires of a pair of mavericks.
I am also sending in an Alpha jet. They are armed with napalm. Their original mission was to burn down some woodlands wich where a strategic disadvantage to me. But the mission is changed as more troops where found in the open. A MiG-29 armed with the R-77 is inbound to intercept, though! He fires off 3 but as if by a miracle, two miss and one is detonated by the proximity fuse, damaging the Alpha jet but not destroying it outright. The MiG is about pass right over my air defenses.
Not a good deal for that MiGs life. You can see the bombs the alpha jet dropped just hitting the ground.
Not a nice way to die.
With the enemy still sending in an onslaught of tanks from the bridge I am sending in this baby. I can’t wait untill we have this one in DCS 
However the enemy is gaining momentum. My Tiger is one of the first victims and some of my tanks are burning. It looks like I’ll have to give my enemies some space and fall back some.
Destroying some of my air defenses, the enemy quickly capitalizes on the advantage by sending in large helicopter formations.
My new position… My former positions can be seen burning. You can see the industrial area Hotel as well from here.
The helicopters keep menacing me. This specific one wich came dangerously close to my Roland anti-air isn’t a bother anymore though. As the Tornado IDS proves it’s perfectly viable to put on scramble alert. It might sound weird to send in a CAP to protect anti-air assets but at that point I’d rather not risk anything.
I’m finding myself flushed out of my new position near Hotel as well. Both artillery and ATGM’s are killing my men. Instead of retreating one more time, to the headquarters position… I decide to counter-attack. A suicidal choice. I unload my soldiers so they don’t have to die inside the APC’s. In the end I lose virtually all my men who held Hotel, but I did some damage in the counterattack. however it seems the Soviet Union can field an undefinable number of tanks…
My Air defenses are working hard. Even shooting while maneuvering as they seem to get flushed out of every position anyway. The tactic seems to kind of work. The primary ATGM carried by the hostile helikopters is the Ataka ( AT-9 Spiral-2). A missile that requires the enemy to keep the sights on the enemy untill the missile strikes. Bursts of 35mm and painting them with the short ranged targetting radar often causes enough stress in the crew that the lock breaks. I still lose quite a few assets. And find myself keep getting pushed back.
The Hotel industrial area is being held by enemy special forces. I deploy a team of snipers to overwatch the area from the woods. Although the area is outside the range of the Präzisionsschützengewehr PSG-1. Like in real life the shooting skills of snipers is remarkable, but the precision shooting skills rarely affect the outcome of a large scale conventional war like we are dealing with here. It is instead the intelligence they gather that is invaluable to me.
I have gathered some forces wich what may possible be todays final battle. My former positions burn once more and soon they will lay siege to my HQ.
I fend of a few helicopters who are trying to destroy me for good.
But many still come close and lay my postions under fire with unforgiving rocket attacks. Again my postions burn, this time there can be no retreat.
However, soon the rockets subside. Those who hover long enough to guide in an ATGM find themselves under fire. and most ATGM’s kiss the dirt or go skyways. Maybe I can survive a little while longer.
With the enemy losing momentum. I try to use my alpha jet to turn things around. For a change it’s their positions that burn now. They lose many men in the fires who where getting ready to take out my HQ.
The enemy is moving in some SA-8 OSA and SA-19 Tunguska assets to prevent such strikes from happening again. I’m sending in a Tornado ECR to deal with the situation, and the air defenses meet their maker when faced with the AGM-88.
The village at golf, the place we talked about way back, still has not fallen, though. However by now it is completely surrounded. You can see enemy infantry approaching from behind, armored vehicles shooting from the left and helicopter assets shooting at it from the front.
with my HQ relieved. I am sending some units to the first village behind Golf, hoping to soon break the siege on that place. I am immediatly met with hostile actions. You can see Golf just at the top of the screen.
I have placed some reconnaissance vehicles along the treeline on a ridge that overwatches the road that leads to Gulf, warning me of any inbound attacks from the now fallen village of Gulf. A passing Ka-50 is unaware of my new positions and regrets it when faced with the 20 milimeter gun.
The enemy soon comes but I can hold them off. My leopards need to move a lot in order to break Line of Sight on many inbound ATGMs. By trully working the 3 facets that make a tank, namely firepower, armor and mobility, they manage to survive.
The positions one line in front of the HQ wich can be seen all the way on the left are under attack once more. This time it seems the defenders can hold out, though. And we can get a bit of a crossfire going.
The alpha jet once more changes the course of battle. This time the napalm does not kill anybody, but the flames and smoke cause the spearhead of the enemy attack to be cut off from the rest. Allowing Leopards to move in and massacre them.
Once more not amused by my succes. The enemy sends in another Su-25T. this pilot wants to prove his merits to high command, and takes out THREE vehicles in a single pass with Vikhrs. While doing so he gets to close to the ground, and to close to air defenses. So any recognition must be awarded post-humously. The vehicles where APC’s whose troops already deployed in the town. So while the loss of life is regrettable, it won’t change this fight to much.
A large scale battle ensues. Although this time the enemy has not nearly as much momentum as before. On the bottom right you can see the APC’s the Su-25T took out. Napalm is burning down woodlands that I believe the enemy uses for concealment. On the left infantry and some of my APC’s who only carry an M2 .50 cal for self defense are seen duking it out with other infantry. In the center and right of the village. ATGMs, tanks and air defenses can be seen fighting distant enemies.
For the first time since I held the Golf village I actually manage to keep a position long enough for my troops to put a serious demand on the supply chain. Fresh missiles and APFSDS ammo are starting to become in short supply for my troops. As per my supply doctrine. a pavelow helicopter brings in fresh supplies to a position somewhere behind the front line. Trucks unload the helicopter and take the goodies to frontline troops.
On the Hotel industrial flank. My tanks are able to push up. Covered by the snipers, a team of 40 soldiers covered by their IFV’s manage to dislodge the SPECOPS from the industrial terrain. I now hold that terrain with large amounts of infantry. The snipers have moved up and are calling targets for the tanks.
A team of 4 leopard I tanks circle around the countryside towards Julliet (the checkpoint) fanning and cleaning out any hostiles in what used to be my territory. Although they meet little resistance.
Over 80 troops mounted in M113 APC’s shall lay siege to the Golf village, covered by more Leopard I tanks. They shall take the village in a short time.
A daring Leopard pushes ahead of the force towards the bridge, taking out a resupply point. However inbound ATGM’s note the retreat of this Leopard.
A team of snipers overwatches the Julliet checkpoint. They where dropped of by hueys. They will wait for regular forces to take hold of the checkpoint once more.
With the technical objectives complete. The fighting ends for that day. The forces are too exhausted to mount a counterattack. While it was a long and hard day, we ended up losing no terrain.
Thanks for reading!
