[Karagin]

Okay, I am giving one of the new scenarios a run. This one was hard fight.

Situation:

US Army has to face off against an unknown enemy. In Europe, in 1946. Okay, but you see, it's not the Russians or any of the other expected bad guys. No, these attackers are from out of this world.

The battle is a tough fight for the US Army. Hard choices need to be made. Do you hold the line and fight? Or do you pull back, give ground, and catch the attacker in close-quarters fighting in the towns?

I went with holding them at the border of what was East Germany. The former Soviet units did well at slowing the attackers for three turns, well, slowing them in that we got to see some of the firepowers unleashed.

Fast-moving helicopters, rockets, and artillery that was pinpointed. Then came the infantry.

The fighting was brutal, and the AI ran a good push. Hit hard to the map's northern edge, probing in with armor and motorized infantry. Helicopter gunships gave excellent close-air support. The line held, but they did break through after a hard push around turn 9. My forces managed to knock out one of their super tanks (M1) when a lone P47 dodged SAMs and AA fire from almost every direction to take it out with a daring strafing run.

Their wheeled APCs were murdering my infantry and could handle the return fire of pretty well what my tanks and halftracks were throwing out. As I was moving up reinforcements, I noted that the enemy had gotten units in my rear areas, so I diverted to deal with that costly move, I had two companies dealing with what turned out to be a small strike team of FOs, snipers, and scouts. Those buggers were a royal pain for my British troops to deal with. Very costly.

By turn 25, the Aliens launched this massive air assault into my rear and ran into my last batch of reinforcements. Brutal fighting happens with a seesaw battle going near my HQ. This was also followed by what turned out to be the major push of the battle as the Aliens sent in everything they had left from this point forward. Every remaining air asset and ground unit hit my lines, which was bad.

The AA guns I had were struggling the whole battle to take down planes and helicopters. I managed to knock out some, but not enough. All of my air units survived. Yes, somehow only lost one of my aircraft, and that was the spotter plane. And the others, all of the P47s and the sole B26, made it through several stories without a single loss.

Overall this scenario was a good test of keeping ones attention on all levels of the battle and knowing when to shift forces around. I can see that going after the strike teams in the rear might not have been the best move, but they were a threat. It might have been better to go have the one in the immediate rear and leave the one up at the very north alone till a bit later.

Also, not much can counter the higher tech of the Aliens (aka USMC), but ganging up on targets and going for flank and rear shots did work for me. 90mm AT guns did immobilize one M1 super tank and took out several APCs. Many of the Alien LAVs died to bazookas at medium and short range. The only things I could not counter was their counterbattery fire, and that opening salvo savaged my onboard artillery assets.

Fun scenario overall.

The overall outcome was a DRAW.