Turns 31-41 (end)
Immediately things went my way. My artillery and air strikes managed to destroy one T-80, while the other was abandoned by its crew. Russian infantry that tried to reach the bridge was massacred by the rain of steel constantly pouring over the bridges. That enabled one rifle platoon to recapture the bridge, aided by the tank platoon that came as reinforcements. Only a few stragglers remained in the area, though one of them managed to kill the last surviving BMP of mine with an RPG-29 shot.
In Malureni, a few sporadic an uncoordinated counterattacks just provided targets for my defenders. They confidently defended their objective, although sporadic 240mm mortar attacks and artillery barrages caused steady casualties.
I decided against pushing towards Cosmesti to recapture it, because there were two immobilized T-80s in the area. It turns out I could have pushed eventually, since the tanks were abandoned by their crews. The final few turns were quiet, with only occasional artillery duels from both sides.
The final casualty score is:
Equipment losses:
Romania
20 T-55M2 Bizonul MBTs
50 MLI-84M IFVs (BMP derived)
8 TAB-79 scout cars
2 100mm AT guns
1 BRDM-2 Konkurs tank destroyer
5 Gepard SPAAGs
4 A-95 SAM vehicles
8 HAWK SAMs
4 IAR-330D SOCAT attack helicopters
3 IAR-99 Soim ground attack aircraft
2 F-16AM Falcon fighter bombers
Russia
40 T-80BVM MBTs
3 PRP-4M FO armored vehicles
10 GAZ-2330 Tigr scout cars
91 BMP-1G or BMP-1M IFVs
7 BRDM-2 Konkurs tank destroyers
1 100mm AT gun
5 Tunguska-M1 SPAAGs
3 OSA-AKM SAM vehicles
4 KVP Hovercrafts
2 Ka-29 helicopters
3 Mi-24 attack helicopters
5 Su-24 strike aircraft
3 MiG-29SM fighter bombers
With the above things in consideration, I conclude that the battle was a draw. I did keep the Russians away from crossing Siret River, but my brigade suffered heavy losses. The Romanians did stop the Russians in the second battle of Marasesti, but their victory was a pyrrhic one. Their heavy casualties prevented them from being able to resist Russian follow up forces and the latter were eventually able to cross the river and penetrate towards inner Romania.
In general, while my forces did perform well, I couldn’t keep casualties lower than 18000. I believe the main cause was the defense east of the river, which made pulling back forces very difficult, if not impossible. My defending battalion was practically wiped out, together with half of my tank force, while the second battalion west of the river was almost completely unharmed. My AA assets also suffered heavy losses, since I found relocating Hawks very difficult. A few comments regarding each combat arm are following.
Infantry
Infantry played a crucial role in this battle from both sides. For the Romanian side, they were responsible for defending the urban areas around the map, they were quite successful against unsupported tanks even when they had obsolete RPG-7s and they proved to be more resilient than I thought (considering Romanian experience and morale isn’t exactly top notch). Russian infantry was also instrumental in securing objectives and fighting in rough terrain and urban areas. Their tanks were vastly more effective when they had infantry supporting them. Regarding BMPs both sides used them a lot, and Romanian ones were particularly more effective than a regular BMP. The reason was that they are modernized, with Spike ATGMs that were the most successful AT weapon in the Romanian arsenal. Even them though had trouble killing tanks which is a given in 2020, since tanks have APS and advance ERA that help their survivability a lot.
Russians tried to outflank the Romanians with an amphibious attack from the south. Its effectiveness was minimal. They only tied down one mechanized infantry platoon, they could not capture their objective and they were eventually destroyed by constant shelling and a well timed counterattack.
Tanks/other AFV
Tanks were also crucial for both sides. For the Romanian side, it was the most effective AT weapon. Even though their 100mm gun could not penetrate a T-80 frontally, their good rate of fire and fire control meant that side and rear shots were accurate and deadly. Unfortunately, Romanian tank gunners perform quite bad in many cases, often missing 60% probability shots, which proved fatal in many occasions. On the other side, the Russian tankers performed very well on an individual basis. Their tough armor and accurate 125mm guns meant that they were the undisputed masters of the open areas. Unfortunately for them, their company level tactics left much to be desired and their tank were frequently ambushed in the towns when they lost their infantry support, or when they were fired upon by enemy armor.
Romanian TDs also performed very well on a single instance that I mentioned earlier (when Russian T-80 were crossing the bridge). That can be attributed by the fact that the tanks were fighting for a long time and lost their APS and much of their ERA plates, making them much easier targets. Russian TDs were virtually non-existent (logical, since they were attacking).
Artillery
This was definitely one of these scenarios were artillery was king. Russian artillery constantly bombarded Romanian front line positions, AA sites, artillery that did not relocate and even the brigade HQ when it was spotted. Romanian casualties were high, since they were not dug in. Romanian artillery also fired like crazy in the battle, especially when the Russians tried to cross the bridge. It is safe to say that the Russian advance there was stopped by the Romanian MRLs unloading an ungodly amount of ordnance on and around the two vital bridges.
Air
The air assets for both sides performed either average or outright bad. Helicopters had minimal impact for both sides, they were being shot down very easily and did not do any significant damage. Fixed wing aircraft did some damage, but the losses were severe for both sides. There was simply too much AA coverage for both sides.
The final map with surviving platoons is the following. In general, Romania lost one whole battalion, Russia has only a company’s worth of dismounted infantry and several self propelled 240mm mortars left on map.
All in all another fun scenario. This is I believe the last Romanian scenario and, if I understood correctly, Czechs and Slovaks are next. This series are definitely full of interesting battles.