All,
Current situation: It's 0100 on 4 August 1990 in South Leon and Captain "Ryder" Stelosavo's Task Force 23 has teamed up with TF Dusty to handle a problem: following its invasion of South Leon, the Communist Army from Federation Socialiste Nationale de Leon (FSNL) quickly established an air defense umbrella to protect its penetration, and it's wreaking havoc on the Cuban and South Leonian Air Forces.
The Cuban Special Forces troopers swiftly move out, leaving the OP (bottom center), with Ryder and Robo moving left (top left, at the Receiving Building) and Marshall and Dinger moving right (center right, at the Barracks).
Robo fighting off some guard dogs. How many times do you get to see fighting off guard dogs? ;)
Okay, time to go. Dinger (bottom left) getting ready to take on the enemy defensive emplacement (top right).
And showing off my Khurasan 15mm operators. To see how the fight went, please check the blog at:
linkSo here's what happened:
-As Ryder and Robo moved into the HQ Building, a group of enemy soldiers, including their Commanding General and Tragg, attempted to escape out the east end, but Dinger and Marshall took them down, capturing the General and recovering Tragg, the Cuban Intelligence Officer.
-Ryder and Robo cleared the HQ Building, encountering only light resistance in the house. They found a treasure trove of intelligence in documents, maps, and computers, and found a large suite of communications gear in the basement of the HQ Building.
-Tragg reported that the comm gear in the basement was the command control node for the Communist air defense network in South Leon. Ryder immediately called this in to HQ, which immediately dispatched a platoon of combat engineers who helo'ed in and blew the HQ Building and comm gear to Kingdom Come.
So, in the overall scheme of things, the next phase in ground operations is the breakout by Task Forces Razor and Redleg, the troops that were already in country when FSNL invaded from the north. The invasion saw them cut off and isolated from all support; following Cuba's responding invasion, the two Task Forces are now going to fight west through the Communists to link up with the Cuban reinforcements, coming from the Atlantic coast in the west. Which should be much easier now as close air support will be much more effective due to knocking out the enemy's integrated air defense network!
And speaking of air support, that's where we're going next, to the air. I'm actually going to work back in time just a bit; the idea is that Cuba had stationed a squadron of F-4 Phantoms in South Leon prior to the invasion, but they hadn't had much to do until the Communist invasion. But when the Commies invaded South Leon, they put on an all-out aerial blitz, beginning with a classic fighter sweep, followed by a massive bombing campaign in South Leon. So the lone F-4 squadron has to fight and try to hold on through the initial onslaught, then reinforcements arrive several days later when Cuba executes its counter-invasion. Once again we'll see a clash of fighters, and then the Cuban Air Force will begin its bombing campaign (which initially goes poorly due to the enemy's very capable air defenses, and then get better after Ryder and his boys do their thing) to help TF Razor and Red Leg breakout, and then see the combined Cuban ground forces take back South Leon.
So, that's what's coming up, stay tuned!
V/R,
Jack
experiments to find a better way to mount aircraft for wargaming.
