"Operation Rush Delivery, Fight #2" Topic

All,

AKA, the 11th fight of Operation Payback, AKA, The Death of Rebel 33

It's 0430 on 20 July 1990, and the Cuban invasion of Avalor continues. In the last fight we saw one of 10th SF Group's Reconnaissance and Surveillance (R&S) teams, callsign Rebel 22, run into trouble on the way to OP Juliet. They got into a fierce firefight, took a couple casualties, and were extracted. Nothing's been heard from Captain Wallestre and Rebel 11 outside the normal comm checks, so they're assumed to be good to go, likely almost to OP India, and here we've got Rebel 33 on the way to OP Kilo, with 18th Airborne Grenadiers scheduled to jump into their DZs in exactly an hour. But all is not well with Rebel 33…

Overview of the table, north is up, we're a little west on Avalor from the last fight. We've got a couple scrabble roads, bunch of crop fields, and a small ville in the southwest (bottom left). The Cuban team will enter in the southeast (bottom right) and will have to exit the table in the northwest (top left), heading for Hill 97 (off camera to top left) to take up OP Kilo. The table is 3' x 2' and I'm playing these fights solo using Ivan's "Five Men at Kursk," slightly modified to get a more modern (and deadly) feel.

The table is set, and the bad guys are now aware something is amiss. The reports on the radio are a bit confusing, but it's clear there are intruders on the island, intruders with helicopters. The Cuban SF team is at bottom right, with bad guys strewn across the board. Please note there are eight bad guys to five good guys. I'm not really giving the Cubans any kind of advantages in activation or combat, so this is likely going to be a bit rough…

Rebel 33 is in a hurry to get to its OP, get settled in and get comms established before the jump begins, so they're cutting a few corners when it comes to crossing danger areas, and it's probably going to cost them! The SF troops continue forward in the dark, with Syko leading them at center left, Rose just behind him, and Wade has just popped through the treeline on the same side. But Rod and Cole are still on the other side of the treeline. Contact is imminent…

To see how the fight went, please check the blog at:
link

The next three fights will be LGOPs (Little Groups of Paratroopers) versus bad guys on the DZs as the Cubans land and look to form up before moving on the objectives.

V/R,
Jack

AAAKKK!. Not a good skirmish for the good guys. Glad to finally see an airstrike is inbound, that will teach those dirty SOB's (unless they have SAMs of course)! Fuel air explosives anyone? Another good one Jack!

I missed your final comments after the first op. To explain, you named off Woody, Thump, Ben, Grady, and Ev and quizzed us on where the names came from. That's what I gave up on. I'm still not sure you told us unless I missed yet something else.

Defender,

Yeah, I thought the first fight was rough. I gotta let the bad guys win every now and again, or they'll pitch a fit and quit. Of course, these are all solo games ;)

Regarding the airstrike, I was pretty proud of myself for their callsigns ("Lawndart").

Oh, and gotcha on the last fight. Damn, I thought I'd screwed something up in the write-up, didn't occur to me you were talking about my little 'name challenge.'

Here's what the names are from: retired Army Colonel Leonard B Scott has written several works of fiction. His first two were "Charlie Mike," and "The Last Run," both about a company of Rangers during the Vietnam War. Grady, Thump, Woody, and Ben were on one of the Ranger teams in The Last Run, and Ev was the team leader for another team. They are great books and I highly recommend them!

V/R,
Jack

Gotcha Jack. Lawndart is a great call-sign. When I was a child I thought the F-5 looked like a lawn dart.