"NATO Northern Flank '89 TRAP mission Take II" Topic

So I finally got out to the brush in "Estonia" again. This time early so I could play out the whole scenario properly.

The whole game is portable in my pack:

The BLT's designated TRAP team, made up of Marines from Recon gets dropped on a backroad by a Phrog and moves out.

They've got a tac.be signal from a downed crewman from a doomed Phrog that went down on the way back from an insertion.

They lost their team leader, Pendleton, taking out a Soviet command and control centre a week ago on a direct action mission. Gunnery Sgt Scott has been rotated in to take over the team..

However a Soviet VDV patrol spotted the chopper going down and is searching for any survivors. Two riflemen setup to cover their scouts who are crossing open ground, unaware of the approaching US TRAP team:

The VDV scouts take fire from the approaching American team and go to ground. They pop smoke and their covering team moves up behind them to cross the open ground to cover.

Thanks to a buddy's idea I use landscaping chalk to mark the smoke screen:

Fox, the downed doorgunner makes radio and visual contact with the TRAP team, fires off a couple of ineffective 40mms at a treeline where some VDV are, and makes a tactical withdrawal from his hiding spot:

The VDV start aggressively manoeuvering on the Americans:

VDV take up forward firing positions:

Scouts moving up:

The rounds start flying from both sides as visual contact is made and the first casualty is a VDV rifleman, critically wounded:

The Russians keep firing:

The Americans are in the background, somewhere, note the prone scout on the left firing:

The Americans lay their own smoke screen in an attempt to move closer to Fox:

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Putting lead downrange, but plenty of incoming too as the Russians are firing blindly into the smoke from multiple locations:

Jones moves up behind the smoke while reloading his 203

Marines moving, Cooper, the SAW gunner and Anderson, crawling in defilade through the smoke to better firing positions.

As Cooper reaches his intended firing position a lucky Russian tracer goes through his face and he's killed:

Davis, the Navy Corpsman, runs forward to check Cooper and confirm the worst, Anderson puts down cover:

Fox (left) reaches the trap team and the team starts pulling back. The amount of Russian fire is intensifying and Anderson is killed:

There are Russians in the far tree line as well:

The survivors pull back by rushes, laying down as much cover fire and smoke as they can, not recovering the bodies and not even having time to take their dogtags or weapons:

A VDV scout was taken out by Fox at close quarters as he pulled back:

That wounded Russian:

Another paratrooper was wounded by an American 40mm round before he could get his second RPG round off from the far treeline:

From this point it was getting dark and I decided that the Russians wouldn't pursue due to probably believing they were facing a larger force and the fact that they had taken acasualities themselves.

So the Marines take two KIA, successfully completed the mission but paid the price, again.

War is Hell.

That was fun, thanks.

Nice post & pics.

Two thoughts:

First, I am very grateful that the Cold War never became such a direct confrontation. Would that all conflicts took place only in miniature.

Second, why don't you post these on a blog? This stuff is good, but it's not easy to access your old posts here on TMP. This isn't to say you shouldn't post on TMP, just that double posting this to a blog would be handy.

Great pictures!

Backyard toy soldier games are always fun. I still have a few MIA figures somewhere on the property from my younger days.

Keep up the good work.

Thanks guys, I might consider a blog, but I'm just a simple person and don't like the idea of having too many online personas.

My goal in posting here is to hopefully get some locals (Canberra, Australia) interested and participating with their own troops.

I was inspired by an American gamer, the great Sigwald, a truly novel gamer who has some specific tastes just like me.

I've used The Sword The Flame Machineguns and Grenades as base rules as Sigwald did for his 1/6 WW2 stuff but written up stats and tables for Cold War era weapons.

Late Cold War is what I grew up with and the equipment and look of that era is still interesting to me.

Any Canberrans please PM me if you're interested in potentially building a force. Could be anything from Russians to NATO to '80s mercenaries?