Marines Marines Marines: Modern Spearhead AAR

Ziggy and I put on a game of Modern Spearhead after a long hiatus Saturday evening. Because my Naval Assault regiment hadn't gotten any playtime yet, it was a perfect excuse for a USMC versus Soviet Naval Infantry bash. We we back at the southern shore of the Baltic in the mid-1980s.

The battlefield. Loads of woods, two towns. The stars indicate objective locations. Ruskies enter from the left, Yanks from the right.

Turn 1. Two battalions roll up the roads. The mechanized infantry in BTR50s on the southern road (to the left) and a T-72 battalion with a couple of attached BMP-2 platoons on the right.

I was expecting the fighting around the large central town to be intense and sent the "heavier" battalion that direction. The Marines on the left were one side of a developing sandwich on that side of the battlefield.

Turn 2. The tank battalion reaches the town and begins setting up shop having gotten to the end of their arrow. A recon and AA platoon get lodged in at the turnip farm. On the other side, the infantry has nearly made it to the intersection - the end of their arrow.

Here comes trouble.  M60s with some Amtracks in support. They were exactly on the wrong side - I needed these guys to be on the coastal road!

Turn three. Some badly needed help shows up in the form of two Mi-24s! Say hello to my little friends, nasty Yankee tankers! I was surprised by the arrival of ground-pounders marching in on my left through the woods. My mechanized battalion was in deep.

M60s, with nothing better to do smash the front end of my formation. The Hinds kills one and Suppress another. In retrospect, we goofed this up - the helos should have fired before the tanks, reducing my casualties by two.

The Marines make their way through the woods, while mine dive into the woods for cover from those damn tanks.

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The Harrier shows up and takes a run at a ZSU and a Recon platoon. The Shilka forces it to abort!

Tracers and rockets fly back and forth across the clearing for the rest of the battle!

My aerial assault battalion arrives to capture the bridge! MANPADS streak out from some Marine positions but none connect.

Feeling good about myself.

The T-72 battalion receives a change of orders and advances to the next town on the coastal road.

I forgot to take pictures of their arrival, but I had some T-55s arrive via flank back on turn 5. They bagged the bridge and proceeded to cause havoc among the Marine tanks. In retrospect, I wish I'd have had them camp on the bridge, holding it.

The Marine Battalion Commander in the town gets the attention of the Harriers again which swoop down and take out a BMP platoon. If you had not noticed - I did manage to knock out the TOW teams in the outskirts and was daring Ziggy to roll a couple of M60s out to duel with me.

After nine turns. This was the intersection of DOOM.

We were both tired and Ziggy was especially tired of rolling ones. I had two bridges and the small town, while Ziggy only firmly held the large town. The intersection was contested (to say the least).

We were a bit rusty on some things - particularly timing of firing, but by midgame it was all coming back. Ziggy's dice really were atrocious and had a lot to do any success I had. My flanking arrival and airborne insertion were a lot of fun and went a long way towards keeping Zig off his game. More MSH before the end of the year for sure!