Brother Bear

[tws71669]

New AAR. :D
PBEM scn.12
I am of course, playing the CIS. If you read my first AAR, you will quickly see some connections!
As the game goes, so will the postings. I wish my worthy opponent the best of luck.

[tws71669]

Marko...Poitr...Konev...

The GRU officer exhaled a cloud of pipesmoke. Marko recognized the brand, Prima Comandirskaya, it was cheap and moldy smelling.
“They say your older brother is an Otpadnicki. A traitor to the Historic Russian Army and its heroic peoples.
The Officer stared at Marko with a look of boredom and yet suspicion. The field tent they shared was cold, outside, there were orders being spoken and Marko heard boots running back and forth.
He never took his gaze off the Officer.
“So... Marko, is it true? Is this brother of yours a renegade, a traitor?”
The real question was if Marko was a traitor.
“I can't speak for him... find him and ask him yourself Tovarisch. I have a war to fight. Marko stood up and buttoned his overcoat. The Officer glared back at him, placed his hand on his pistol belt so casually it seemed almost friendly. It made Marko sick that these men were running a war they were losing many of his countrymen too.
“Indeed Commander Marko, we shall ask him. We have word of his whereabouts. I would admonish you to not allow your blood to interfere with your own duties... you understand our concerns, certainly.” The Officer squinted and tilting his head, gave a sickly half-smile...
“I understand you think I will act as he has done and as half-a-dozen other Commanders have done over the last few weeks. Desertion is not an honorable quality Comrade, I'm leaving.” Marko fixed his cap, and headed to the exit flap.
“We understand you are anxious to return to the front, perhaps his wife and daughter will offer more insights into this dangerous behavior of his...”
Marko bit his lip until it bled, and until he had exited the command tent to face a desperate war.

“Mikhail, let me see the map.”
“How did your meeting with the Security Officer go Commander?”
“Not now Mikhail, let me see the map.”
He spread the map out onto the hood of the command jeep. “There, you see, intel says the British have reinforced themselves with a company of tanks. We can only speculate on what foot troops they are sending towards us.”
“Thank you Mikhail. We need to establish three phase lines 1.5km apart. Borodin wants us to defend Tuchenbach. I'm going to use our squads to create a roaming defense east-west. The phase lines won't shift but the units defending them will. Third Motor Rifle Squad will be the tip of our spear. They will crawl west and seek out the enemy. I want First and Second to take the west edge and the fields just south of Zweifelshiem respectively, can you relay this?”
“Da... Easy... they are mostly in place and we have no delay in our orders going over the comms.”
“Good... let's get started then.”
“Marko- the men are worried. They've not seen much combat till today. They are... worried.”
“Worried I will run away like my brother? Is that their concern? Mikhail tell me.”
“No, no...They don't want to die.”
“I can't make promises Mikhail.”
The UAZ started up sputtering blue petrol smoke. Marko reviewed his forces. A full company of motor Rifle Infantry, three squads and twelve platoons. One tank platoon, a few mortar troops and some artillery just east of Tuchenbach. What the British had he could only guess. His Intel was weak, only 5% of the enemy force was estimated and their confidence was none. A roaming defense might work. The first order of businesse would be to dismount his troops and let them use their eyes and ears to collect information

[tws71669]

Rain scattered across the windshield of his staff car turning the German countryside into a smudged mosaic of colors…

Marko and his staff assistant could see the town of Tuchenbach a few hundred meters ahead. The UAZ slowed to a halt just as Marko Konev finished marking notes on the map of his operations area.

They would defend Tuchenbach from the NATO marauders. Marko’s first concern was in determining if the suspected Armor he would be facing might attack from the center of Phase Line Gold, or a kilometer further south and swing through his flank using the two major highways for speed.

Already the 122mm artillery shells west of town coughed metal into the sky, making his vehicle shake.

“Boshi Moy!,” Mikhail was not used to being this close to a thunder of guns like these. Marko smirked… “Get used to it Staff Officer Povnik!” he yelled “We’ll be hearing that noise for the next few hours Comrade.”

Click-Click, then an electric ring muffled under Mikhail’s tunic… “Yes?... Yes.. okay… he’s here, hold on.”

Mikhail handed the secure cell to his superior. A trick they learned in Grozny fighting irregulars. It became second nature to abandon army issue equipment for the superior western gadgets meant for civilians. With a few software modifications, they could ensure faster and more secure conversation. There was a two second delay between speakers as the cellular transmission was decrypted. After a few moments, Commander Marko handed the tiny phone back to his adjutant.

“It seems my suspicions may be correct Mikhail. Third Motor Rifle Squad is advancing south and reports several groups of vehicles about a kilometer west of Pirkach… seems they picked up some radio transmissions. Likewise, second squad is reported taking fire from a small contingent of advancing enemy units just southwest of the same town. My thinking is that this is a probing attack to see where they can make their armored push.”

Commander Marko, used his field radio next to order all troops along PL-Gold to dismount from their BMP’s and take cover in the scattered woods. He wanted them to have a good view of what might come their way. Better than being holed up in a dank, dingy tin-can.

“Take a look Mikhail, this is what concerns me first… we must determine where the main thrust will be, and also deny them any opportunity to use the highways to cut through our lines”

He handed the ink-stained map over to the adjutant.

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“Commander, reports are coming in across the line… 2nd and 3rd platoons report taking fire both west and south of their locations, range roughly 1.5 km. This last one is disturbing, 2nd platoon rifle squad-1 was observed to have been attacked and damaged from across the obstacles we set north of Pirkach.”



Marko, looked up from his intelligence report, “You’re serious? They were attacked across the obstacles? That’s nearly a full kilometer wide, nothing could have made it through there so fast…”

He had been reading a sitrep from 2nd platoon that a handful of town’s people provided information to the sergeant concerning a group of Challenger tanks heading into Pirkach. Marko was very glad to have those unenlisted resources right now. The entire front was lighting up with reports of probing attacks along his lines.

“Sir, third platoon Guards wants me to inform you they have lost 3 vehicles but have managed to destroy two… no wait- several BMP’s.”

“They can confirm that?”

Mikhail muttered for a moment into the hand receiver… “Yes- they can see the columns of smoke from two and have a visual on the last. All targets were carrying infantry, possibly two squads destroyed.”

“Don’t count that as accurate yet Mikhail. I want to know what losses they sustained.”

Marko’s assistant hunched over the hand receiver and covered his left ear against the booming of artillery from behind them. “Sir, they know for certain three squads were lost but which ones are still being sorted out…”

“Fine, have they fixed a possible location on that artillery group?”

“The captain says he believes it to be here…” Mikhail drew a hasty circle on the map.

“Good, let’s shift our fire to pound that location and everything 200 meters around it. Tell the 2nd and 3rd to stay in place, that enemy artillery won’t be suppressing them much longer…”

“3rd platoon says it may not be too difficult to move south to the tree line and let the British shell their only highway to pieces…”

“I know, that’s what I want them to do, if we can’t blow or damage that highway ourselves, every crater NATO makes slows them down more than us. Tell them to stay put- if they try and make a run for it they would have roughly 30 seconds to move all four squads half a kilometer southeast- they would never make it before the next barrage.”

“Copy- “

BOOM-BABOOM

NATO fire from the west had struck the crossroads again. The ferocity shook the ground beneath both soldier’s feet. Mikhail’s eyes squinted through a pair of field binoculars, he was trying to see for himself if the highway two kilometers west was damaged.

“Those the glasses you got from the shop in Berlin?” Marko was watching him.

“Da… better than those clunky things we were given.”

“We should make sure to get more.”

“Commander, I can’t see the line from here but I think 3rd platoon is right about that enemy artillery location west of the town, here see.”

Marko looked, smoke. Indeed.

“Mikhail, keep the phase lines at 1.5 kilometers. That’s not artillery. It’s Tank Dust….”

“Why the distance…?”

“The British are using Challengers would be my thinking. Range of their main gun is 1300m so if we can create defensive lines 200m further, we can dart in and out of range of their main gun and use our shoulder launched ATG’s with more luck.”

Marko took his field radio, “Starshoi, pass this new order to your subordinates… I want every RPG-26 unit near the two grids east of Pirkach to contain their engagement ranges to 2000m and retreat 200 every shot”

The frontlines were coming under more pressure. This would be a saber-dance he thought, range and concealment had to be the two tools Marko would use.

[tws71669]

"2nd platoon Rifles reports both roads are getting pounded sir. Our ATG from 3rd platoon also says the road they emplaced upon is receiving heavy incoming rounds. There casualties are light…”

Excellent thought Marko. His men in 2nd platoon were bunkered down in several reinforced fighting posistions. The platoon of LMG's and Anti-tank troops were taking a pounding though. NATO could blow a hole down to the Devil if they like, it would only serve to take away a major artery running through his lines. And if 3rd platoon ATG’s could hold off another minute or so, he would deliver counter fire on those suspected artillery positions with a vengeance. Marko wanted them to act as obervation for any further armored units that may break past his ambush point in the woods.


Mikhail spoke into the field radio while commander Marko updated some notes on his mapboard. So far it seemed he called it correctly, the NATO tank groups had swung south of Pirkach to face his recon elements head on and it had cost them probably several dozen lives and at least three heavy vehicles.

The skies above were absent of that frightening sound of NATO air power he’d come to respect.

-*-*-*-

Several kilometers west of their Commander’s vehicle, 3rd platoon ATG’s sergeant kept a close eye on the exit way north of the forest.

“Vonya… we must abandon this position. We’ve caught three of the British bastards strolling by but they will no doubt strike back.”

The Sergeant glanced backwards to his gunner, “Fine, we can head maybe two-hundred meters to the edge of the woods. This will bring us in excellent visibility for another round of attacks.”

The comms clicked in Vonya’s ear, it was Konev’s staffer.

“Sergeant- report.”

“We are relocating northwest to the edge of the woods about two-hundred meters. We’ve taken down another tank but we can hear heavy shelling on 3rd ATGW Platoon-1st squad. The woods just lit up like a flashbulb when they got hit…”

Konev’s voice could be heard in the background, then Mikhail came back on line “Can you see from your location how bad the highway’s been hit…?”

Vonya straightened up. The highway? “Sir, I’m sorry, I can’t see it from here but the enemy has been shelling it for nearly four solid minutes, my guess is 155mm shells. It’s got to be pretty well damaged by now.”

“Alright. Go- keep us updated after you relocate. I can’t tell you how important your attacks are right now.”

“We’ll bring home some British steel for a supper table sir- out!”

Vonya motioned his team to gather around, “The Commander is proud of us so far. But I think we have another way to strike at the enemy. We’re going to split into two groups. One will stay a hundred meters east along the woods while the other team heads a hundred meters west to the other side of the road. We’re going to make those British tanks think they have stumbled into an ambush.”

The group of men nodded quickly. “Okay. Let’s split- Yuri, you will take “A” squad and I will take “B”. Keep in contact and wait till I send word when to regroup. Alright, off you go then…”