Miko is running through the woods. It’s a moonless night. Glancing over his shoulder, he can see his pursuers’ torches drawing closer. With his night vision briefly spiked by the firelight, he fails to see the massive tree trunk in his path. He hits the ground hard. Rough hands seize and bind him and force him along a hidden path.
At the path’s end is a clearing. A single massive stump, planed into a flat surface, sits in the clearing’s center. Figures clad only in fur and hide await. Miko is forced to his knees and bent backwards onto the stump – the altar. As a blade descends, a massive horned head looms over him.
Miko wakes up. It’s midmorning at the helicopter crash site. Magda and Leks are still crashed out, sleeping off their own overnight watches. The rest of the team is awake and breaking camp.
Once everyone is up and more-or-less functional, the team heads north, back to the highway. They’ve just reached the scarred pavement when they catch the sound of a large wheeled vehicle approaching from the east. There’s a quick scramble for defensive positions and antitank ordnance before Zenobia recognizes the oncoming BTR. She should – she and Arkadi and Minka put enough hours into getting the damned thing back into service.
Ellis pops out of the commander’s hatch and waves. Bell is in the back on the radio; two more of the recently-rescued POWs, the MP in the driver’s seat and the infantrywoman crewing the turret, round out his crew. He dismounts and briefs his colleagues on his conversation of a few hours ago. From his prior deep-cover work in Tomaszow, he also knows the team is heading into an area saturated with small marauder bands that spun out of the Soviet 9th Tank Division’s disintegration. He’s been checking in with Gunstar Two-Two, who has reported two marauder patrols in his vicinity – troops on foot backed by technicals.
The team does a quick shuffle, putting Leks into the BTR-70K’s turret. Ellis stays in the commander’s seat. Red and Pettimore pile into the remaining troop seats. Miko takes point on horseback, with Magda, Minka, and Zenobia, also mounted, trailing him by about 50 meters.
The bridge across the Pilica at Przedbórz is mostly intact. The deck is cratered in places and the guardrails show evidence of a large and heavy vehicle punching through them for a high dive, but it’s passable. The highway skirts south of the town here. There are signs of habitation, both in Przedbórz and in some of the outlying farms, but no one comes out to greet the team.
About half a kilometer west of Przedbórz’s southern ruins, Miko spots two vehicles on the road. He reins in and raises his binoculars. They resolve into a clearly-destroyed BRDM-2 that appears to have been rear-ended by a GAZ-66. There’s no sign of movement – other than the corvids and vultures picking over some corpses.
The point team moves in cautiously, checking for snipers, antitank mines, and every other problem they’ve encountered on roads to date. There’s no immediate threat here, though. They wave in the BTR.
As the full team looks over the scene, a picture emerges. The BRDM appears to have been the point vehicle of a good-sized convoy. It was hit with two RPGs fired from the woods to the north, disabling it and killing its crew. The GAZ-66 behind it attempted to push it out of the road so the rest of the convoy could push through, but its driver and front-seat passenger were killed by autocannon fire – apparently from the now-burned-out BMP-2 to the north. A couple of discarded LAW tubes tell the story of how the ambushers’ IFV was taken out.
The Ural-375 halted off the road to the north [at marker 2] seems to have attempted to flee while the crews of the deuce-and-a-half and the UAZ-469 bailed out and took cover in the woods. The Ural was disabled by machine gun fire, while the M35 and UAZ took massive damage from light autocannon fire coming from the east. Marks and empty casings on the ground [at marker 1] show where some sort of tracked vehicle left the pavement and opened fire with a 23mm autocannon.
All in all, including the crews in the vehicles, the convoy took 23 casualties. Five of those are farther to the west, where they were captured, gathered together, and executed. Two more wheeled vehicles seem to have reversed out of the ambush and escaped back to the west. The ambushers paid for their victory, though. It looks like they lost 14, though it’s hard to get a definite count of the bodies in the BMP.
Red and Ellis check the bodies. The convoy was Americans – they’re still in uniform. About a third were 5th Infantry Division personnel. The rest are in sanitized BDUs, but tattoos and faces tell a story: one SEAL, a couple of Rangers, two guys Pettimore recognizes from his time working alongside 10th Special Forces Group. The ambushers fit the marauder profile: piecemeal Soviet uniforms, a few still bearing 9th Tank Division insignia.
All of the vehicles, except the burned-out armor, have been thoroughly stripped, as have the bodies. Scattered around the Ural, though, are a half-dozen smashed wooden crates. Some are still half-full of paper, and more documents are strewn around the area and blowing in the wind. It’s all written or typed in Polish, scientific notes and circuit diagrams. [Old school Twilight: 2000 fans should have some idea where this is going.] Magda is the first to take a close look.
Magda: “This is bullshit. It doesn’t make any sense and now I have a headache.”
Zenobia: “Let me see that.”
(pause)
Zenobia: “This is bullshit and now I have a headache. Some of this goes back to 1937 and they’re writing about generating electricity from zero point energy.”
Red: “What?”
Zenobia: “Imagine an infinite source of power that isn’t supposed to exist.”
Red: “Wait, what?”
[This scene was made even more hilarious by the fact that Zenobia’s player works in the energy sector and has an excellent idea of the level of bullshit involved here, so Zenobia’s incredulous-offended tone was 100% authentic.]
The discussion derails when Bell pops out of the BTR. “Mister Ellis! We gotta go! We gotta go now!”
Ellis gets the spare headset settled onto his ears in time to hear, “Ops, Gunstar Two-Two, they’ve found us. Our position is compromised. We’re abandoning our vehicle and moving east on foot.” A moment later, everyone hears the sound of distant gunfire from the west.
Moving to the sound of the guns, the team finds itself approaching a fenced farm set among a patch of woods. [A lot of their fights seem to happen in woods because battlemaps without cover or concealment are not very interesting.] Ellis orders the BTR to head straight down the road, drawing attention and fire, while the cavalry element circles south to flank. As the team splits up, they can see four figures in American woodland camo running/staggering toward the farm. Pursuing them are two small groups of aggressors and a GAZ-66.
Pettimore bails out of the BTR and heads north on foot with his bow readied, looking to flank the northern group of marauders. Minka, Zenobia, and Magda move toward the farm’s southern edge, intending to use the barn down there as cover. Miko, predictably, splits off from the group and drives toward the GAZ-66. The BTR, under Ellis’ command, slews across the road and opens up with a full broadside. Red and the unnamed infantrywoman successfully suppress the southern marauder trio, though Red’s M4A1 jams [as reliably happens every session that the player pushes an attack]. Leks puts a warning shot from the KPV into the GAZ’s bow, splattering the driver all over the cab. The three gunners in the bed bail out, leaving their own KPV and PKs unmanned.
Down south, Minka displays her equestrienne skills by vaulting from her mount’s saddle onto the roof of the barn. Zenobia follows in much less acrobatic fashion, drops prone, and prepares to engage the marauders. Magda opts to stay at ground level, dashing along the barn’s northern wall to the northwest corner, which looks like solid cover.
The fireteam to the north realizes that they have no interest in tangling with a BTR-70. They pop smoke and find cover. This exposes their flank to Pettimore, who promptly rewards their inattention with an arrow. The BTR crew and passengers ignore them in favor of suppressing the GAZ-66 gun truck’s crew so they don’t get any bright ideas about re-mounting their ride.
Miko continues riding toward the gun truck. He has a vague idea of doing something to it with a grenade. This plan meets abrupt disruption when two more marauder fireteams emerge from the treeline to the west. A moment later, their support arrives.
The BTR is in the worst possible place: stationary, broadside across the road, waiting for the survivors to board. The first burst of 23mm goes high, somehow missing the APC, but it also suppresses the people the team is here to save. They’re pinned down, unable or unwilling to move. Leks’ return fire also misses, a rare and untimely error for the Estonian.
Miko’s one-man charge out of the woods ends when one of the newly-arrived fireteams volleys into him. He turns his horse around with his one working arm; arterial blood is spurting from the other, which he can’t seem to use any more. [3 points of damage and a severed artery crit.]
Minka’s first war shot from her recently-acquired GP-25 pins the southern fireteam. Their injuries are minor [as UBGLs suck for actually inflicting personnel damage in 4th edition] but they’re more interested in staying in cover than in returning fire. Magda and Zenobia add to their misery.
Pettimore continues stalking the northern fireteam, putting another arrow into the already-injured member. His buddies abandon him, repositioning a bit south and screening their movement with more smoke.
One of the newcomer groups advances alongside the ZSU-23-4. The other pursues Miko. They briefly surround him, attempting to capture a prisoner [or hostage], but he manages to break free.
Leks and the ZSU gunner trade volleys again. The ZSU misses again thanks to its lack of stabilization. The team only had a single 40-round belt of 14.5mm and Leks now burns the last of it. As his KPV clatters empty, there’s a spurt of black smoke from the ZSU’s engine compartment. It falters – but then continues advancing.
Red, still fighting to unjam his M4A1, forsakes it in favor of sticking his arm out a hatch and waving a Glock 18 in the general direction of the northern fireteam. Dumping half a magazine is enough to suppress them again.
Two of the survivors manage to reach the BTR and haul themselves into it. The other two are so close, but still pinned by the fire hose of 23mm rounds.
Leks scrambles out of the vehicle, prepping his RPG-22 as he goes. Red follows him a moment later.
The gun truck crewmen take advantage of the PCs’ inattention by re-boarding their vehicle. One shoves his former comrade’s remains out of the driver’s seat and begins trying to crank the ignition. The others take up positions on the KPV and the starboard PK. The KPV gunner opens up on the BTR but continues the marauders’ streak of poor heavy weapons marksmanship. The guy on the PK sees Magda and walks fire into her. It’s not a serious wound, but she’s not in a good place. Zenobia takes note of this and pumps a half-dozen rounds from her M21 into the offending gunner. His partner reconsiders his recent life choices and drops below the lip of the bed’s improvised armor.
Bell and the infantrywoman jump out of the BTR and drag the last two survivors aboard. Ellis orders the driver to pull forward into the smoke, screening the APC from the ZSU.
The ZSU maneuvers for another shot on the BTR but its crew can’t reacquire the target through the smoke. Leks comes to one knee, aims, breathes, and fires. The RPG-22 warhead strikes squarely on the SPAAA’s turret. The gunner’s hatch belches flame and a severed arm. The quad 23s fall silent.
A blood-covered Miko gallops past Minka, Magda, and Zenobia. Having exterminated the southern fireteam and, from their vantage point, having seen the survivors board the BTR, the women decide it’s time to withdraw. They abandon their firing positions and begin heading for their horses. The second fireteam hesitates – they can’t catch Miko on foot, they don’t want to run into an ambush if their opponents are feigning retreat, and they don’t want to walk through the gunfight between the vehicles.
Pettimore abandons his skirmish with the northern groups, runs into the smoke, and hauls himself aboard the BTR. With every seat occupied, he pulls himself onto the roof and settles in to provide desantnik-style suppressive fire.
The fireteam that was escorting the ZSU draws ahead of it and opens up on Red and Leks. Leks takes a hit and is suppressed. Red attempts to drag him to the BTR but doesn’t have the muscle necessary to haul the machinegunner and his golf bag of weapons. The men drop prone in the middle of the road, exposed. Red takes a round through the arm and topples, spraying blood [from the night’s second severed artery crit].
Ellis, head out the commander’s hatch with his sidearm raised, sees this happen. “Driver! Reverse, slow! Easy left! Halt now!” The BTR hisses to a stop, shielding Red and Leks from the bulk of the enemy fire. The two men painfully climb aboard, Leks and Pettimore holding Red, who can’t quite cling to the hull with his one good arm.
Five minutes of aggressive flight gets the team out of range. Everyone not engaged in tactical medicine fans out into a threadbare defensive perimeter while Minka and Leks frantically work to stabilize Red and Miko. Miko’s wounds are relatively easy to get to the point that his little geometrically-regular friends can start their work. It’s touch-and-go for Red, but eventually he, too, is relatively safe. With that, the team cautiously crosses the bridge and begins the long trek back to Ponikla.
This was one of those fights where the team didn’t hold the field at the end. They came away with a net loss of supplies and four injuries – two of them critical. However, they did accomplish their mission with more success than I anticipated. I probably made the withdrawal a little easier than it should have been, but we were past midnight at that point and everyone was dragging. OTOH, the opposition had just lost both of their fire support platforms, so they probably weren’t too eager to press the issue, even with the motivations they had to finish the job.
This one is probably going to result in some hard conversations about tactics, both in and out of character. Especially around Miko.
The ZSU was an absolute monster, but like most SPAAA, it was a glass cannon, vulnerable to heavy machine gun fire. The fight likely would have gone much worse if Leks hadn’t made that RPG-22 shot, though.
The team is now out of 14.5mm ammo, leaving both their APCs without significant offensive capacity. Their remaining anti-armor assets are one LAW, two RPG-22s, and one HEAT rifle grenade. They also burned through about half of their trauma medicine supplies to save Red, Miko, and two of the rescuees. While they’re in no danger of running out of small arms ammo, they’re at a point where they need to approach enemy vehicles very carefully – and the Radom situation is not cooling off…