Havsted Crossroads - Team Yankee Battle Report

A Leopard 1 MBT of the Danish LANDJUT Brigade.

Good evening all, and welcome to another Team Yankee battle report.  TY is a great game - see our previous battle report if you don't believe me.  It's a brave attempt to tackle a complex environment, mixing lots of different battlefield elements in a very successful way.  

My brother and I played his first game of TY today, with two homemade lists - my Poles, and his Danes.  We opted for something a little different - a small board, with small forces, and heavily-forested ground with lots of hills.  It made for a very interesting game, where I was firmly defeated!

The Danes had to defend a crossroads with some tanks and infantry, while I had to try and barrel over without losing momentum.  The Danes proved extremely tough to dislodge from the buildings, and I made an extremely costly assault which saw a Motor Rifle Company and a T-72 platoon wiped out.  Off to Siberia for me!

Lessons learned:

• MILANs are nasty.
• A-10s are tough.
• Leopard 1s, despite their poor armour, are devastating!

The board.  Inspired by our love of small gaming, we created a realistic board with very few clear sight lines.

The situation at the start of the game - you can see my MR Company lined up on the road.  We had very short sight lines in this game, so almost everything was in range early on - that actually made for some tough tactical decisions.

Ah, Shilkas... my favourite.

These 82mm mortars are my own house-rules versions.  The kills that I did get were almost all scored by these mortars.

My Shilkas were pretty quickly smashed by an A-10.

"Everyone in a nice neat line?  Forwards!"

Followed shortly after by my T-72s.

The Danes were dug in on the crossroads.  They proved extremely tenacious, with a combination of their 4+ 'to be hit' score and the bulletproof cover.

My unsophisticated tactics cost me dearly here.  The Leopard 1s were very fragile, but their guns could fire twice each turn even on the move.  My BMPs were cut to ribbons.

A Dane's-eye-view of the Polish infantry sprinting across the street to assault a MILAN and MG position.

My tanks were very quickly picked off by MILANs.  I overestimated how tough these tanks are - especially as I rashly exposed their mediocre side armour.

You can see here how Ollie's echelon deployment allowed him to absorb the brunt of my attack while protecting the fragile Leopards.  It was my 82mm mortars who stopped it from being an embarrasing debacle - they quickly killed most of the Danish infantry who weren't in cover.

The ace up my sleeve was sneaking this team of AGS-17s across the river in the amphibious BMPs.  They were exposed and unsupported, and were quickly pinned by a sniper and finished off with tanks.

Ollie's two A-10s were a constant annoyance - I could only shoot down one with my Strela team - hence the frustrated Polish giving the pilot the finger as he flies in for another attack run.

The wheels are well and truly off here.

I'm so close that all I can do is make a do-or-die assault.  Many of my BMPs are bailed out, and the infantry decide it's quicker to walk.  I manage to kill about half the Danes, but my own force is completely blunted in the attempt.  All three of my T-72s are now dead - although two of Ollie's three Leopards have been picked off by AT-3s and even a lucky mortar shot.

The A-10 lauches a devastating cluster bomb run on my AA and mortars - only for me to pass all my infantry saves.  Now I start getting the dice rolls I need.

I decided to concede here.  I only have two BMPs left alive out of my combat formations now, and both are bailed out.

A hard-fought victory for the Danes - the Havsted Crossroads will keep flying the Danish flag for a few more hours yet!

It was a thoroughly enjoyable and relaxed game.  On reflection, I should have thought about my assault more and not allowed the BMPs to get so close.  If I had advanced the last hundred yards on foot, I could have benefited from the infantry saves rather than having them all blow up when their transports were hit with MILANs.  Oh well!  A good introduction for Ollie.  And many thanks for Mike for letting us use the Sangar when he was at work.

It's going to be a good summer.

Ed