Fulda Gap - Round Four

With one of our group who is in the army home on leave we fought another round from our casual 1989 NATO v. Warsaw Pact campaign.  We've had a WP win, NATO win, and WP win in the preceding games.  This game featured what is probably the swan song of a Soviet tank division against a combination of American and German defenders.  The Soviets, a T-80 tank regiment (30 tanks) and motorized infantry regiment (10 T-72), are facing forcing a river crossing and what seemed like a lot of artillery.  We on the other hand have outrun our heavy corps assets.

The NATO forces are charged with holding long enough for the engineers to mine and blow the two bridges and perhaps even defeat the river crossing as happened in the one NATO win earlier.  Each turn the allies rolled 1d6 for each bridge.  When the total reached 30 the bridge was ready.  Figures are a departure from our usual 15mm games, using micro-armor.  Rules are home grown, based (I understand) on Epic Armageddon.  Clip to big-up the pictures.

Soviet view looking down the table.

Remnants of my heroic recon battalion from last game sneak on.

NATO forces are mostly hidden so we systematically work the woods.

My objective with the other bridge in the distance.

Blind fire on the village does some damage.  The dice represent
the cumulative progress on prepping the bridge.

Andrew seems to look questioningly as some Abrams rout away.

Artillery was the great killer, as some T-80s discovered.

A Hind kills an Abram but is also destroyed.

The lead battalion in BMPs rushes the bridge, takes out the defenders
and hunkers down.

The tank regiments BMP battalion stages to rush the bridge.

More Soviet infantry race to aid their comrades in town.

All three T-80 battalions are on table and ready to take out Leopards.

Not a desirable grouping, but out of sight.

Massive carnage at the north bridge.  Markers represent suppression
points.

My boys grab the second bridge just as it was one pip away from
being blown up.

With nothing left in good morale except for an F-111 mission, some APCs and off table artillery the fight ended.  A notable Soviet victory.  For the cost of 9 T-80s, 5 T-72s and about half the engaged infantry the Soviets killed 18 M-1 Abrams, 8 Leopards and the lights.  Very little NATO infantry was present  but the tanks killed will be hard to replace quickly.  More importantly, with the invaders holding the field again, any vehicles repaired will be by the Soviets.

The Soviet division will likely rotate out for rest and replenishment.  Whether NATO takes advantage of the breather remains to be seen.