Team Yankee Battle Report – Danes vs Canadians: The Rematch

The mural in the main room of the Soldier’s Home

By Robert Kelly

You may recall that I played a game of Team Yankee this summer against Morten from Kolding, Denmark. Three Team Yankee Games in Denmark With Three Different Danish Mortens – No Dice No Glory  I managed to pull out a win, and now it was time for Morten to seek his revenge.

The local Soldier’s Home in Fredericia, Denmark is located just outside the base (caserne) and is run by the YMCA. YMCA Soldiers’ Home – YMCA Soldiers’ Mission (kfums-soldatermission.dk) Their website says, “The YMCA Soldiers’ Home is a sanctuary for soldiers. In soldier slang, it is called “Kuffen” and serves as the soldiers’ second home. Here they relax, eat good food, watch TV together or play games.

At the YMCA Soldiers’ Home, we make an effort to create a homely setting. This means a good atmosphere, shared activities and space to be yourself”.

YMCA in Danish is KUFM, hence the nickname Kuffen.  After Christmas they usually organize a gaming day which is translates to “Christmas Beatings”.  There would be other games along with our Team Yankee game. I did the hour long drive from Aarhus in my mother in law’s three cylinder Suzuki Celerio to face a determined foe in Morten. It was a toss up as to whether he would use his usual list with some refining or a fun list of 30 tanks and an infantry platoon. We went with the fun list.

The soldiers home in Fredericia, Denmark

The captain from the base across the street dropped by during his lunch break and set up the table for us. We rolled up the No Retreat mission with Morten as the attacker. Just to be “that guy” he decided on Night Attack.

We started at dawn. His list consisted of two 10-tank Leopard 1 squadrons, a 10-tank Centurion squadron and an allied German Panzer Grenadier platoon that look remarkably like a Danish platoon.  I had the same list that had managed to eek out a win against Denni and his Finns a week earlier. Team Yankee Battle Report – Canadians vs Finns from Denmark – No Dice No Glory

My army with casualties and destroyed vehicles from the previous week’s battle against the Finns replaced.

Morten’s tank army.

The panzer grenadiers.  Note the modified M113s with a 25mm turret. TOW are filling in for Milan.

 

Opening deployments

I chose to put one platoon around the white KFUM truck objective marker and the second one mostly in the red building to the right protecting the M577 objective marker. I put three of my four mine fields covering the hill with the road running through it.

The other I put between the pond and a rock feature. With the mines, pond, rock feature and woods, there were to be no easy armoured approaches for Morten. My ADATs were put as far back as possible to use their stand off range. Mortars were put in the woods on the left.  Tow Under Armour (TUA) was put in the woods to my front left. Coyotes were on flank security behind the right front woods, while my Leopard C1s were in ambush.  My Leopard 2s, as always were held in reserve.

Morten didn’t like the mines on the main highway and put all of his tanks opposite my TUA. His Panzer Grenadiers would use the highway approach. He then opens up with as many tanks as he could on my TUA. It was night time, the TUA were gone to ground and concealed. Only one Leopard hit a TUA and killed it.  His infantry rolled to see if they could see my infantry and were successful, but missed all of their shots.

Morten’s massed tanks on turn 1.

Night firing markers in front of Morten’s tanks.

At the end of the game, Morten admitted that it was a mistake to open up with most of his tanks as it made them visible to my army. I pop my ambush with my Leopard C1s on the rocks near the TUA. I also get my reserves and they take up firing positions behind some rocks in the left rear of my deployment area. My ADATS had no targets, so they jockeyed in order to get shots on turn 2. The Coyotes start moving to the left flank to deal with the Panzer Grenadiers as they had no answer to tanks.

The Leopard C1’s pop their ambush.

My Leopard 2’s firing their fist volley to great effect.

In my shooting phase I open up with all of my tanks and my TUA. My Leopard C1’s kill three of his tanks and bail one more. The Leopard 2’s kill three Centurions. My two TUA kill a Centurion but fail their shoot and scoot. Morten will now have to make three tests on his turn 2. My mortars range in on his infantry and hit all of his teams, but Morten makes his saves. My infantry stay gone to ground.

The results of my first volley.

Morten bypasses his burning tanks and continues the advance.

Thanks to his commanders re-rolls, only one Leopard 1 runs away for Morten. His infantry are pinned and decide to move away from my mortar fire. I lose two Leopard C1s to his Centurions and their thermal sites. My TUA are safe for this turn. Most of his Leopards decide not to fire for fear that my Leopard 2’s will see their muzzle flashes and destroy them. His “Marders” fire at my infantry but miss.

On my turn 2 my Coyotes move closer to my left flank and score six hits on his Marders. Two are killed and one is bailed. He loses one stand of infantry to my mortars. My ADATS then miss all of their targets. My Leopard C1’s only kill one Centurion thanks to not having thermal sights. My TUA miss their targets but make their shoot and scoot this time. My ADATS are successful in their shoot and scoot. My Leopard C1’s remain in place to take advantage of the cover provided by the rocks.

On turn 3 Morten’s infantry remained pinned and his Marders run away as does one Centurion. He now swarms my Leopard C1’s and my TUA and kills my last two Leopard C1’s. He shoots at my Coyotes and kills one while bailing the other one. He hits my ADATS with his Leopards but due to some unlucky dice rolling he bails two of them. He kills my observer for my mortars along with killing a TUA and bailing out the other one.

On my Turn 3, I roll for daylight and fail. Its still dark. Only one of my ADATS gets back in but collectively they kill two more of his Leopards. My TUA is still bailed but decides to stay in the fight, which is not what the remaining Coyote does.

He leaves the field to do some flank security somewhere else. My Leopard 2’s move up to get a better angle on his tanks and manage to only bail one tank. The infantry have been gone to ground long enough and with their ERYX the right platoon bails two tanks and the left platoon kills one tank. That’s the advantage of the ERYX, it has better range and AT which means they don’t have to wait to be assaulted to get some tank kills.

Come Morten’s Turn 4 he makes all of his saves but one, as a Leopard runs away. That is the disadvantage of having only three tanks in your platoons.  They tend to test early and often. At times Denmark had four tanks in their platoons and the Danish Team Yankee players wish that the new book would have given them the option of three or four tanks per platoon.

As his armour continue towards the objective, two of them bog. Their friends take out my last TUA. His infantry move up to the river and with their Milan take out a Leopard 2. Morten realizes that he can’t assault the infantry in the red building (who are contesting the objective) and must destroy them all in order to win the game. He opens up with machine guns and pins the platoon. The last of my ADATS are killed by Leopards.

I roll for daybreak on Turn 4, but its still dark out. I am able to unpin the platoon in the red building.  This is crucial as it allows the ERYX to shoot at his tanks. Having said that, it is an M72 that destroys a tank. For all their expense, my Leopard 2s only kill one tank while bailing another. The platoon on the left bails two tanks with ERYX. One of the disadvantages of ERYX is that is FP is +4 versus the +3 that most missiles have.

The game starts moving quickly and on Turn 5 Morten makes all of his tests, though one Leopard company is just hanging in, as are the Centurions. The dice are against him as he takes 17 cannon shots at the platoon in the red building. He only gets two hits, which I save. I must say I got lucky there.

Its finally daylight on my Turn 5. The platoon in the red building kill one Leopard and one Centurion.  The other platoon kills a Leopard. ERYX aren’t doing too bad. My horrible dice rolling continues for my Leopard 2s as they only kill one Leopard.  However, Morten will now have a lot of test to make. I have only two stands within four inches of the objective.  If Morten can kill them on his next turn he wins.

Morten makes four of five test on his Turn 6 and only one Leopard leaves the battle. He then puts every tank he can onto the objective. He takes 11 shots at my two closes stands plus four more shots. I make all five of my infantry saves while also making use of the mistaken target rule, though I am now pinned.

On my Turn 6 my platoon luckily unpins. They then do a blitz move to get to within four inches of the objective marker. The Leopard 2s adopt new firing positions. My Commander moves towards the right hand platoon to assist in re-rolls.  This is something I should have done much earlier in the game.

The Leopard 2’s kill only one tank only having to hit on 4s. My mortars move out of the woods to machine gun any Panzer Grenadiers who attempt a river crossing. The platoon in the red building with ERYX and M72s from the kill one tank and bail two more. It would have been worse for Morten if he hadn’t made two armour saves.

Due to his casualties from Turn 6, Morten has a lot of tests on his Turn 7. One of his Centurions stays in the fight while one leaves. One Leopard remounts and stays, while one leaves and is abandoned. One of his Leopard companies fails a formation test.  He then has only one tank contesting the objective. He realizes that he has no chance to win the game and we call it there.

His revenge against my Canadians will have to wait for my next visit to Denmark. I think my platoon in the red building won the game for me. I few dice rolls either way and maybe I would have lost the game. I also erred in not putting more stands within four inches of the objective. I was hoping to kill his tanks before he got that close. After Turn 1, my Leopard 2’s didn’t really earn their pay. In hindsight I should have put at least one of the minefields on the right hand road.

It was certainly a fun and interesting game.  Had Morten chosen his normal list and if a different mission had been played, he might have won the day. Denni was standing by with his East Germans to play a second game but I was keen to get on the highway. It gets very dark at night during the Danish winter and the weather was starting to turn rainy, so I thought it best not be out too late.

Denni’s list had 30 tanks and a lot of BMPs with infantry.  They had been beaten by Morten’s usual list previously but I’m not sure I would have had the firepower to stop him. They have seen my type of lists and will be better prepared for my next visit.  I’ll have to come up with something completely different just to mess with them.

By the time this goes live I will be on a six month deployment to Latvia. I plan on bringing some new Canadian infantry to paint and hope to get some modelling inspiration after seeing the vehicles that the various national contingents bring with them. I will also try to take a lot of vehicle photos.