Ultra-Modern USMC vs Soviet Hind hoard
For those new to Hind Commander I’ve previously posted a quick synopsis on the game.
The battlefield was fairly unremarkable, a few ridges and small stands of trees surrounding a large town that was just on the Russian side of the front line to the north. A small helicopter detachment from the USMC had been sent to clear the town of all Russian forces present. Unaware, the Russians had set a trap: a hoard of Russian helicopters was waiting with the sole intent of destroying as much of the opposing helo force.
Things started well for the USMC: their AWACS support quickly revealed a nest of T-72s and BMP-2s surrounding the objective and two Vipers, with a Kiowa in support, moved in to start lighting up targets and launching hellfires. The first 3 turns saw 3 Soviet vehicles destroyed, one damaged and another 3 with scraped paint.
Meanwhile the Russian Hinds had been moving around ridges surrounding the town: keeping low to avoid the US helos controlling the centre.
The first significant contact occurred on the western edge, here a lone Hind and Viper met. Early AAM fire from the Viper was ineffective and so the two helos closed to get within rocket and cannon range. On the east side of the board 2 Vipers and 4 Hinds met and started to close. Again early AAM fire was ineffective.
Realising they were outnumbered the USMC helos began to dodge and weave to break the Russian tracking, while using the AWACS to do the tracking. By this stage the Kiowa had come within sensor range and called in an F/A-18 to strike two Hinds that were threatening it and the pair of Vipers. It was the last thing it did, however. The Hinds had popped up over the ridge line and it was torn apart by rockets.
The eastern flank was not going so well. The isolated Viper made fairly quick work of the Hind, but it was too late. As it fired its salvo another Hind from long range got a lucky rocket strike and downed it in a single shot.
By the time it had finished the western flank had collapsed. The F/A-18 misplaced it’s run and was only able to destroy one helo, another Hind was brought down in the action. However another Viper was also downed.
As it was late we called the game. The Russians had destroyed 3 out of 6 helos leaving only 1 Viper and 2 Venoms to face 5 Hinds. The Russians met their victory conditions, but had gone beyond their acceptable loss amount. The USMC had failed on both accounts: too many casualties and they the objective wasn’t cleared. The final score was 2-0: a tactical victory for the Soviets.
