Russkies in Oklahoma!

[seabolt]

TURN 24

Epoletov made a little play for VH 51,184, killing the tattered Ranger squad sitting on it and replacing them with a tattered Spetsnatz scout unit. Then he did a little pushing in the northern urban fight, which now centers roughly around hex 97,29. The biggest lesson I've gleaned from this match so far is that you never want to advance into 21st century infantry in cover unless they absolutely can't opfire, and that held true to form for my opponent. My bled-out defenders beat back his bled-out attackers.

On my turn, I used the 24-kill Apache to remove the Russian crew section that captured VH 63,167 last turn. Then I had it sweep for reinforcements pushing northeast to help secure that objective, and it pumped a few 30mm rounds into a para section that fit that bill. Carefully moving toward VH 51, 184, the Apache eyeballed three more special forces sections and a megasniper, but two of the squads were routed. It looked like my artillery has been doing its job and keeping Epoletov from pushing a proper mass of men toward the victory hex. With that knowledge, I went ahead and killed the scout section and took back the victory hex.

Then I figured what the heck, if we're playing one of "those" kinds of games then I might as well play one of "those" kinds of games. I drove an empty Humvee into VH 63,167 to reclaim it, too. ;)

In the northern fight, I pushed the four guys remaining in a Ranger squad adjacent to a routed rifle section, but a hidden unit opened up and knocked my unit down to three guys, one away from disbanding. Firing back at the popup unit knocked it down to two guys, disbanding it, then a second burst at the routed unit disbanded it, too. It was an interesting illustration of the slippery slope between success and failure.

Despite that very modest little victory, Epoletov can claim to have won the attrition war in this round, because one of his AA guns finally tagged the Apache in the north, doing 10 points of damage which gave me a moment's concern that I might actually lose the darn thing rather than just have it retreat. With a little good luck I managed to get it out of LOS and safely on its way home. That wasn't really a huge loss, given that it had pretty much used up its second ammo loadout and there isn't time to reload a third.

Two turns to go.

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