The Battle of Radom, Part Two (10 September 2000)

The hit on the Soviet QRF base west of Radom will rely on a successful convoy ambush to draw off enemy forces. Without dividing the Soviets’ strength, the raid team will be severely outgunned. But they do have a plan…

The team splits up into four elements. Pettimore and Zenobia move in first, creeping up before dawn to take position in an abandoned house southeast of the base.

The main assault will come from two teams, each approaching on the main road in an APC. The team coming from the north will be Bell (driver), Cowboy (gunner), and Miko (dismount) in the BTR-70K. The heavier south assault will be Turner (driver), Leks (gunner), Magda, Minka, and Novotny (all dismounts) in the OT-64. Finally, a three-person RPG team on loan from Von Bahr will approach on foot from the southwest in case any QRF elements try to break out through their compund’s back gate. All three of these teams spend a couple of agonizing hours easing into position. If they’re seen or heard, the whole operation will be blown.

[Bell, as readers may recall, is the trombonist and SIGINT linguist rescued from the POW column in mid-August. Turner is the MP from the same group. Both of them are still NPCs. Cowboy is also a liberated POW, a former MLRS crewwoman who’s now the secondary PC for Red’s player. Finally, Notovny is a fourth ex-POW and NPC, a Czechoslovakian defector who’d subsequently been a grenadier in the 5th ID.

I probably need to do a roll-up post for all the characters we’ve introduced who haven’t yet gotten much screen time here.]

Everyone reaches their starting position without apparent detection. They’re committed now – without radios, they have no coordination between the four elements. On paper, the numbers still suck for our protagonists. Even with the planned diversion drawing off enemy strength, they’re still going to be outnumbered by veteran troops who are equipped at least as well as they are and who are in their home. On the other hand, they actually have done some pre-fight management for this assault, and they should have the additional advantage of…

Leks needs this t-shirt.

Pettimore and Zenobia have been hunkered down in their hide for hours. It’s now mid-morning. Without a radio (the team’s only unit is in the BTR-70K), they don’t have direct communication to tell them when the convoy ambush goes off, but they can tell anyway. There’s a boil of action around the QRF base’s radio room. Within minutes, engines are cranking and hatches are slamming shut. The initial counter-assault package rolls out: the Scorpion, followed by the OT-64 with an infantry squad on board and the UAZ-469 gun truck with its AGS-17.

The rest of the QRF doesn’t rest. The other vehicles pull around to the front of the compound, ready to move once the ambush scene is secure. With the departure of the first package, this leaves a BTR-80, a HMMWV with a DShK, and the unarmed bukhanka ambulance and the Zil-131 recovery truck – plus, of course, the remainder of the infantry, the command element, and the mechanics and medics.

The sniper team waits. At a hundred meters out, they can’t hear the enemy radio, but their rifle optics give them a window into the command element’s body language. They can tell exactly when the counter-assault package hits the White Eagle ambush.

Pettimore sights in. Thoughts and Prayers cracks once. The QRF’s tower guard falls.

A kilometer to the north, Bell hears the distant shot. “I guess it’s that time,” he sighs, and cranks the BTR-70K’s engine. An equal distance to the south, Leks clanks the OT-64’s hatch shut and nudges Turner with his boot.

Pettimore and Zenobia move back into the shadows, watch, and begin marking targets. The Soviets are scrambling for cover, shouting back and forth as they try to determine where the shot came from and who was hit. They’re just getting organized when the bellow of engines heralds the arrival of both APCs.

From the previous week’s reconnaissance, the team determined that the Soviets’ initial reaction package should usually by the Scorpion, one of the APCs, and one of the gun trucks. Their plan calls for removing the biggest threat first: whichever APC remains at the base. Cowboy and Leks swing their KPVs onto the BTR-80 and cut loose. The Soviet APC’s hatches fly open and it shudders in a cascade of internal explosions as the 14.5mm deluge finds its ammunition feed.

From the OT-64’s air guard hatches, Magda and Minka open up on the workshop at the compound’s southeastern corner, suppressing the mechanics before they can get organized. The HMMWV’s gunner starts to swing his weapon in their direction, but Zenobia has been waiting for this. A single round from her M21 takes the gunner’s head off and sends the rest of the HMMWV’s crew scurrying for cover.

Miko jumps out of the BTR-70K and advances through the junked cars on the compound’s north side. He lobs a tear gas grenade into the former restaurant/tavern that now serves as the QRF barracks, then hunkers down as that attracts the attention and fire of the troops who’d already made it out of the building.

To the south, Leks turns his attention to an RPG team that’s trying to set up for a shot on the OT-64. Magda and Minka continue trading fire with the mechanics. Novotny dismounts but heavy fire forces him into cover before he can execute his assigned task of tear gassing the workshop.

Despite Cowboy and Miko’s best efforts, there isn’t enough weight of fire on the north side to pin all of the enemy troops in the barracks and headquarters building. One of the troopers manages to get an RPG-18 into play. The rocket hisses toward the BTR-70K and slams into its flank. The HEAT jet tears through the rear compartment, striking the priceless radio. Miko retaliates with more tear gas.

Heavy fire from the headquarters rattles off the OT-64’s armor. None of it penetrates but it forces Minka and Magda under cover and damages the APC’s coaxial PK.

Pettimore finds the source of the heaviest fire, a Soviet with an ancient Degtyaryov DP-27 propped on a window of the HQ. He sights in, breathes, and puts a round through the man’s heart.

Leks puts PK fire into the remaining members of the HMMWV’s crew, permanently deterring them from re-boarding their vehicle and getting their DShK into operation. Minka and Magda stay in the air guard hatches, sending short bursts toward targets of opportunity.

The Soviet RPG team sends a round toward the OT-64 but it goes high. Pettimore, Leks, and Zenobia focus fire on them.

There’s a momentary lull in the action as both sides maneuver and take stock. Miko, closest to the HQ, is the first to hear the call for surrender. With all his heavy weapons out of action, the Soviet commander seems to have realized the futility of continued resistance. The team moves in cautiously, but there’s no treachery afoot here. Under the guns of the APCs, the survivors lay down their weapons and have a seat on the pavement.

Aware that they’re on a clock, the team begins looting everything they can get. Zenobia goes for the HQ first and finds that the Soviet commander’s last action before surrendering was to toss a thermite grenade onto his radio and codebooks. There’s still at least one major intelligence win, though: a large wall map of Radom and its surroundings (which has some interesting implications about the Soviet commander’s headspace).

Miko and Magda head into the recently-fumigated barracks, working in quick bursts before ducking out to get fresh air. Minka makes a beeline for the workshop. Leks, Cowboy, and Novotny, aided by the East German RPG team (who are suitably impressed with the carnage), supervise the Soviet medics’ treatment of their wounded and herd the prisoners into the back of the Zil-131.

The team is about halfway through a good thorough looting when Pettimore, who’s remained on security, spots two heavy trucks approaching from the north. They halt about a kilometer away and an infantry platoon begins deploying. Through his rifle scope, Pettimore can see the ZOMO armbands.

The team drops what they’re doing and scrambles for their vehicles. Miko tosses a Molotov into the barracks; Leks drops the HMMWV into gear, aims it at the workshop, and leaves another Molotov in the driver’s seat. The impromptu convoy turns south, heading for a rendezvous with the White Eagles at the ambush site and hoping that side of the fight turned out as well as this one did…


We had an entire game session devoted to planning this fight before actually executing it, and that really showed the difference between randomly running into enemies and taking the time to think through and coordinate actions. Surprise and suppression played huge parts in the players’ success. The Soviets actually had a fair amount of anti-armor firepower that could have splattered the team’s APCs, but they didn’t have a chance to get much of it into play. At the end, the PCs killed 12 and captured 19 in exchange for minor injuries and stress. They also got away with the UAZ-452A ambulance, the Zil-131, and about half the Soviets’ gear and supplies.