Battle for the town hall

Here is a brief summary of mine & Tim's 2nd Crossfire game from the weekend.  In this, another Meeting Engagement set in 1982 Lebanon, we switched sides, so that I was the Syrians, & Tim the Israelis.  We also played the board in the opposite axis for some variety without having to rearrange the scenery.

As in the first game, the Syrians were able to begin advancing just prior to the IDF, due to the particular deployment rules of this scenario favouring smaller forces.  My Syrian regulars moved through a patch of woodland to occupy the objective - the town hall on one side of the board; whilst my AT commandos advanced through nearby ruins, taking up forward defensive positions amongst the barricades in front of the hall, & at the crossroads in the centre of the board, bristling with ATGMs & RPGs to strike any IDF armour that might reveal itself.


My Shilka (ZSU-23-4 self-propelled AA), which had begun in a vineyard on my left flank, rolled forwards onto the road to cover the relatively open space in front of the town hall across which the IDF would have to assault.  My Forward Observer for my off-table 81mm mortar also had decent Line-of-Sight over the enemy approaches to the objective. However, in my confidence at having established a strong early defence around the objective, I was only partially covering my left flank with my DShK HMG team atop the warehouse next to the vineyard...

Initially I was able to hold back the IDF regulars who took up positions in the apartments near the crossroads, & a protracted firefight ensued, with my regulars in the town hall & at the barricade in front it being especially successful at suppressing & causing casualties.

Tim's Sayeret Golani platoon spent most of the engagement hanging back in his rear, near the palm grove & the light mortar position, apparently awaiting the order to advance on the objective once the regulars had managed to suppress most of the Syria defenders.

However, in a bold move, Tim took advantage of my poorly-covered left flank to skirt his VADs along the edge of the engagement, sweeping round into a container yard to hose the Syrians outside the town hall with Vulcan chaingun fire. But Tim's luck was poor (or the VADs gunner was contending with a difficult angle between the shipping containers), & the fire was not particularly effective.  & then my FO managed to call-in some smoke to block the Line-of-Sight of the VADs. When the Shilka crew noticed the VADs, they turned their turret & began firing, but the VADs swung about & easily chewed-up the lightly-armoured Syrian vehicle with 20mm shells at point blank range!


In a twist, during the vehicle-to-vehicle action, my Syrians had managed to hustle a squad of 'hunter-killer' commandos round the rear of the warehouse, & their ATGM made short work of the VADs (they didn't even need to resort to their plethora of RPGs!).  With many of Tim's IDF troops pinned or suppressed in the apartments, & his sneaky VADs gambit thwarted, I was then able to hold the objective until the countdown expired.  Another victory for the Syrians against the Zionist invaders!