Aggressive Patrol

The 'Five Men In Normandy' campaign continues. And I guess it's a real campaign if you manage to play at least two games.

After their losses, and one unexplained granting of leave, the squad acquired some new members. In Addition to Sgt Alexsei Petrov and Pvt Iosef Gurin, we now have:

Pvt Oleg Davidoff - Oleg is a career soldier and strong Party man. The latter had seen him mostly serving in a political role, but he'd recently been reassigned to front-line combat duties; maybe he upset someone higher up? Oleg is armed with a rifle.

Pvt Evgenii Ivanov - Evgenii was a tram-driver before the war. With his home town overrun by the Germans he found himself picking up a rifle to fight simply to stay alive. That said he hasn't seen a lot of action yet. He is also armed with a rifle.

Pvt Petya Chabin - Pvt Chabin is the son of a senior bureaucrat, and almost sees himself as royalty compared to the rest of the squad.. His parents were killed in Leningrad and he's now out for Nazi blood. Having seen a few fights he's certainly totted up a few kills, but is always looking to add more to his total. Petya is armed with an SMG.

So the squad has five men (Sgt Pavlov, Iosef, Oleg, Evgenii and Petya), and morale is good.

A couple of days after the action at the storehouse, Sgt Petrov's men are ordered on an aggressive patrol deep into enemy territory. They must press on across the board and at least a couple of them must exit the other side. However a German patrol is on a sweep in the opposite direction. Pavlov's men lurk ready to ambush them - in game terms this was a stealth mission, so the Germans had to spot the Soviets before any firing could take place.

Alexsei kept Iosef and Petya with him behind a small farm-building, whilst the two riflemen, Oleg and Evgenii lurked off to the left. The field of battle was very open; this would be a difficult mission.

I put the Germans in randomly determined positions but in a straight line. I also geared their random patrol movement so it emphasised them moving forward; if the Russians sat tight the Germans would eventually stumble onto them. The Germans had three riflemen, an NCO with an SMG and a sniper. The sniper set himself up behind a boulder to cover the advance of the rest of the patrol.

The Soviets sat tight. With the ground so open, any movement on their part would be spotted by multiple Germans. As it was the Germans moved forward far enough that they spotted the Russians first.

Initial wild fire from the German patrol saw Iosef and Petya seek better cover, briefly pinning them down.

The two rifleman popped up, and Oleg scored a kill, downing a German in the open.

Evgenii fell to the sniper, though.

Worse was to come. The German NCO threw a grenade towards the building, and Petya was caught in the blast. It was quite obvious that he was stone-dead.

Sgt Petrov's squad was already down by two men, and they'd yet to move forward. Iosef decided to rectify this; using the wall as cover he got himself in a position to hit the Germans advancing across the road. A spray of fire sent them scurrying for cover behind a wall.

He quickly followed up with a grenade, which seemed to quieten the Germans down. But maybe they were just stunned or wounded?

Oleg dropped another German, who quickly recovered but scuttled off to the cover of some trees.

Unfortunately the sniper then hit Oleg, putting him out of the fight. It was unclear how badly injured he was. This now left Iosef and Alexsei as the only active Soviets, so they both had to get across the table, or the mission would fail.

Iosef hopped over the wall and found the Germans there stunned, but alive. He didn't leave them that way. There would be two more notches on his kitchen-knife tonight.

Alexsei also moved along the wall, looking to engage the sniper, who was now currently the only active German.

He was forced to duck back from a near-miss.

But the sniper was so focused on Alexsei that he missed Iosef coming in from the flank. A burst of SMG fire stunned him.

The surviving German rifleman rejoined the fight, evening the odds, and allowing the sniper time to recover. This would be the final showdown.

Iosef fired his SMG again, and the sniper decided that he'd had enough and quit the field. Iosef followed up with a charge against the rifleman. He dodged the shot ...

... but not the German's bayonet. 

With Iosef out of the fight, Alexsei was on his own and had no way to complete the mission. He fell back, in a cat-and-mouse action with the surviving German. It was close, but he escaped.

So this mission was a total failure, and it showed up in the squad morale, which plummeted. 

What of the wounded members? 

Petya Chabin was obviously dead from the start. Fortunately Evgenii was only lightly wounded and would be back in action within a few days. And Oleg was simply stunned; reports of his demise were greatly exaggerated and he returned to camp tired and hungry but otherwise OK. He also brought back Iosef. He'd fared less well - he was badly wounded and the prognosis wasn't good. He'd live, but he'd be assigned to non-combat duties and would no longer be part of the squad.

Sgt Petrov picked up a new skill, the squad, such as it was, made sure they were even better equipped with grenades, and a few days passed during which they got some replacements. We'll hear about them in the next post.