Phaffing Around

 Micheal was very keen to play NATO Brigade Commander as intended - in a Cold War setting (what I tend to think of as 'modern'!), so Tim kindly put on a game. We've been doing a cold war gone hot set in 1981 for many years now, I tend to do the Central Front, while Tim does the more peripheral theatres.

This weeks excursion featured Czech forces invading Austria, always a bit of a side show in SPIs mighty 'Next War' as I recall. 

Here we are near the town of Phaffing in deepest Austria. The River Inn is off to the left (west) and Czech columns with masses of bridging material are heading west down the Autobahn.

Micheal and I took the Czechs, with their OT64 APCs and interesting collection of T55s and wheeled artillery. John (later joined by Pete) took the Austrians. I recall first seeing Tims 6mm Austrians at the old Polish Club where we used to meet, so that was a very long time ago indeed.

Micheal and I each had a Motor Rifle Regiment, and I was also notionally the division commander. My MRR was a long way down the motorway, so I was mainly there to provide guidance and support to Micheals regiment, as it was his first game. We also had the divisional T72 battalion, a battalion of 152mm howitzers and an entire brigade of bridging engineers. Our aim was to get the engineers safely off the map to the west. 

The terrain was extremely poor for wheeled APCs, with lots of steep hills and heavy forests, so the road network was going to be key.

The opening moves saw the 1st MRR recce company driving down the motorway to the outskirts of Phaffing. Amazingly it was unoccupied. We'd been very concerned about the bottleneck there. 

The recce pressed on as the main body of 1st MRR arrived. Standard Warpac march order, so a MRB in the lead, with the Tank Battalion behind. We'd opted to bring the engineer brigade in straight after 1st MRR, as I had a plan...

The recce had meanwhile spotted some AFVs on the far ridge overlooking the motorway (dimly visible in the distance). These loosed off a some shots at the recce company, knocking out some BRDMs. They were Austrian Kuirassier SP tank destroyers! Tim had converted them by attaching an AMX13 turret to an M48 hull, and very convincing they looked too. 

The TDs had got the motorway firmly locked down, hull down on the ridge and with a big ZOC over it too.

Well, there wasn't much we could do about it for now. The lead MRB occupied Phaffing just as the Kuirassiers finished off the BRDMs before they could scoot. The T72s also showed off, roaring across country towards the tree line (they are visible just right of the motorway). 

It was a good job we'd occupied the town as now a large Austrian Panzergrenadier Battalion came roaring up the motorway, and split into two groups. One set up in front of the Kuirassiers, while other splashed through a marsh, heading for Phaffing.

Micheal now began  to deploy more of the column, and is it broke up into its constituent battalions, the inevitable friction of card activation resulted in various traffic jams. 

We had at least managed ot get our tank battalions into (and beyond) the tree line, along with the Regimental mortars, AA and AT companies. Another MRB and the Regimental engineers filtered along the tree line south of the town.

We were very fortunate in that the Austrian Panzergrenadiers attempted a hasty assault into Phaffing, but failed their morale test and were now pinned down in the marsh taking increased casualties from the defenders. We were less fortunate in that an entire battalion of Austrian M60A1s had turned up, and now AP shells and missiles flew back and forth down the valley.

The rest of 1st MRR now rolled on, including the Regimental artillery battalion, which would be very helpful. Austrian artillery now hammered Phaffing, but our MRB hung on despite taking heavy losses. Our T55s weren't doing so well against the Austrian armour however, and a number were now burning. The T72s were fine though and blasting away happily at the M60s.

The Engineer Brigade finally arrived. I parked them down this very handy side road, to await an opportunity to advance and free up the motorway for 2nd MRR (mine).

We broke for the evening at that point.

Close view of the battle for Phaffing. We've got two MRBs and the Engineers up now, although the Engineers are disorganised. The Austrians are still disorganised and shot up in the marsh, you can also see we've got a couple of hits on the M60s. 

1st MRR is virtually fully deployed for battle now (finally) despite the difficult terrain so hopefully we can stop just being targets in the Austrian shooting gallery. Our T55 battalion has been completely destroyed, the T72s have taken some hits and one MRB is down to half a company(!).

The main Austrian position. M60s top right, Kuirassiers and AA on the central hill, and remaining Panzergrenadiers bottom right. The Austrian Regimental HQ is on the road at the bottom.

Next evening, the Divisional 152mm battalion comes rolling on, followed by 2nd MRR. I have a cunning plan! The artillery is going to deploy each side of the highway, and the MRR column heads northwest cross-country - I'm aiming to reach that valley in the centre right and form the entire Regiment up their prior to assaulting the Austrian position. There is no point trying to conduct a passage of lines with 1st MRR, it would just be chaos.

Suddenly, things start to go our way. So suddenly I only took one photo in fact. A flurry of Czech airstrikes arrive, called in by our numerous artillery HQs, as does a storm of mortar and artillery fire, backed up by direct fire from the T72s and Sagger company.

Under the massive volume of firepower, the Austrians melt away. The Austrian RHQ and half the panzergrenadiers are destroyed, the Kuirassiers and M60s take more hits and almost all the survivors fail their numerous morale tests (152mm stonks are scary! airstrikes are more scary!!), only the M60s hang on.

With the Austrians in disarray my plan for 2nd MRR is hastily revised. My lead MRB and Tank battalion are already in the tree line, so they form up into a powerful tank/mechanised Forward Detachment. The rest of the column just plans to bash on right up the motorway and overrun the disorganised Austrians.

There is no need however, with their HQ gone and all other units with heavy casualties, the Austrians pull back.

The Bridging Engineers are completely unscathed - I hadn't realised the Austrian objective was to damage (or ideally destroy) them. Parking up in the side road was the best decision we made.

That was really good fun, and re-kindled my interest in WW3 again. This was the period NBC was written for, and it just works so well. I've already dug out my notes on the existing campaign, I hadn't realised we'd already done a dozen games on the hypothetical 1981 war.