BAORing the Russian Bear.

Game of the cold war, gone hot, in West Germany 1980s.

Using Seven days to the Rhine in 20mm.

Organized, using terrain and models and umpired by Chris Caves.

AAR by David Maltman, so mostly written from the Russian perspective.

Players
Russian  : David B, Charlie and David M.
NATO     : Andy, Josh and Mark.

Field of Battle :

Victory conditions : Have sole control of the most of these 3 areas : Airfield , Train station , Town square.

The pretty little German town of Schloss Holstien before the battle.

The Russian forces made their first advance on their right flack with 3 T62s, 2 moving trough the woods and the other heading up main strass. No contact at this point.

BAOR countered this move with a chieftain a centurion and a section of infantry in an APC.

On their left flank the Russians moved up their Recce vehicles to the forest.

The Russian make a large push up their center left with their 5 T72s. Going through the village towards the airfield. Looks like rush hour on the West link, but with less violence.

BAOR starts moving up on their armor on the center and right flank to cover the town and the airfied.

The Berlin camouflage on the chieftain makes it stick out like a sore thumb. 

Everybody seems to want to fly out on their holidays today, probably best before the whole thing goes nuclear.

As an aside here is what the Berlin camouflage look like when it is amongst West German housing. Much better.

The Russian recce units get taken out on the left flank.

The Russian T62s advance on their right flank , all looks ok.

Only to have 2 of them taken out by the BAOR tanks, which you can just see between the woods and the house on the right of the picture. The 3rd T62s gun barrel can just be seen peeking out from behind the house in the center right of the photo. Just about to have a go at the Centurion.

The center bogged down to mainly infantry fighting over the railway station, with little effect on each other.

At the airfield the Russians have advanced 4 T72s managing to get the centurion defending the airfield and the chieftain coming over to reinforce it. Still leaving the British infantry to contest the hold on the airfield.

At that point it was agreed to end the game.

The BAOR got a narrow victory as they had sole control of the town, the other 2 objectives had both BAOR and Russian units in them. 

If there had been an additional move it would have probably swung towards the Russians they would likely have captured the airfield and then turned their tanks attention to the town.

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Editors comments.

For those who do not know : 

BAOR was the British Army Of the Rhine. Their role was to slow the Russian advance until more troops could be got into the area from the rest of Europe and America.

Photos curtesy of Chris and the Editor.