Three ways to upgrade the “old” USSR Team Yankee list with the new book (spending less than $150)

By Paolo Paglianti

New tanks, both heavier and lighter; new equipment and artillery; and, above all, a new formation that fights as the Westerns do. The new book Team Yankee Soviet has a lot of new items: let’s see how an old player can upgrade his army without spending like water, Comrades!

After the US and British Army, it is now time to improve and modernize the Russian army. supertank, the Bradley to move the infantry with better cover around the table, the cheap but powerful RDF/LT, and the Apache. super tank, a new and better transport like the Warrior, new salvo artillery, and a new AA battery.

The Russian got a similar treatment: , they cannot complain to the Politburo.  Likewise their Western opponents, they got a new supertank like the T-80, the new 2S6 Tunguska AA to clear the skies, and the new BMP-3. Is it time for the experienced Russian players to throw away their collection and start a new collection with upgraded toys?

 

“Ho Ho Ho, now I have a supertank!”. Now the Pact has a T-80: cheaper than the Western counterparts and with some inferior stats, but equally effective and terrifying. Three T-80s cost 22 points (29 if upgraded to Shock), while three Challengers ROMOR are 39 and three M1A1HC Abrams come for 54 points. This means 3 M1A1HC will face almost 7 T-80s. 

I played a lot with Russians in tournaments here in Italy, and they were a powerful opponent in the Team Yankee 1.0 era. A mass of People’s steel, outnumbering the NATO players at least 3:1, but suffering the Achilles’ heel of the “Is hit on 3+”. It is easy for a USSR player to win a game, much harder to win 8-1, without suffering lots of platoon losses. You can be a tremendous good player, but when British or US tanks can hit with ROF 2 your tanks on 3+ while you assault their lines, and you shoot back with ROF 1 and hitting them 4+ or 5+ (a wise Western player hides his tanks at least in a crop field), the numbers and the math are against your survivability.

The new USSR list offers a choice to the Russian player. He can play the “old way”, outnumbering the enemy and assaulting with the strength of the mass, or he can choose the “new way”: still outnumbering the enemy, but with more accuracy. Let’s see how a player already with a good force of Russians can improve his list without spending too much money: our budget will be $150.

 

“The average Russky, son, don’t take a dump without a plan”, Jack Ryan, The Hunt for the Red October. So we need a good plan to fight back the Imperialists, Comrades!

The old way, but improved

My Russian “shelf” has 10 T-64s and a full BMP 2 Company, so I can choose to play the Tank battalion or the Infantry one. As supports, I have 8 Shilka AAs, 4 Hind-24, the 2S1 Carnation Artillery, a Storm AT platoon, and a couple of Su-25 Frogfoot.  I assume this is a good representation of the average Russian Team Yankee V1 army.

If you want to play the “old way” and you have the T-64s, you already have a very good tank able to worry about any Western counterpart. With AT 22 (both missile or gun), you have a small chance to destroy the precious Western tanks, with the exception of the Challenger ROMOR and the heaviest M1A1CH Abrams. However, I would not worry too much about these tanks: even if you play 120 points, the Western player will think long before deploying a force of supertanks: 3 Challengers cost 39 points, 3 M1A1CH 54 points. With such a small force, the Red player will have a lot of opportunities to hit them on the flanks with helos, planes, or assaulting BMPs/tanks. Compared to these expensive Wester luxury tanks, three T-80s cost “only” 22 points, a real bargain.

However, if you already have T-64s in your army it’s not that worthwhile to mass buy, build and paint T-80s. Your T-64s already have a good missile (AT 21/3+) and the same gun (AT22/2+). T-64s have a lower frontal armor (17 vs 20) but cost 3 points less (4.something vs 7.something) so you can literally take almost twice.

Similarly, the new BMP-3 is much better than BMP-1 or BMP-2. Better armor (but you will need to keep them in reserve if the scenario has Deep reserves), and a much better missile, with ROF 1 even when moving. You can mix infantry companies with different kind of BMPs, but I think I will go for a single new BMP-3 Recon Platoon: 4 BMPs with Spearhead, that I can try to deploy in an advance position and use to go behind the enemy line to hit AA units or Artillery. The Western armies normally can’t cover all front, so I will use the new improved Recon to hit harder and faster, shooting after they move. The front armor of 5 is equally ineffective against tank guns but can be really useful when you meet lighter guns like other scouts or MGs.

“Gosh! Ivan now has a new RPG with AT 19 and ignoring ERA armor. We need to call Mr Regan and ask for something better to defend freedom”.

 

Good news: three upgrades that came at no extra money

The RPG-7VR has AT 19 (Vs AT17 of the “older” RPG-7), and mainly it has the new Tandem Warhead trait: this will ignore the ERA armor, and gives a much better punch against assaulting tanks. The Storm Platoon has the At-9 Spiral 2 missile: improved range, AT 24 Vs AT 23, and, again, Tandem Warhead.

Similarly, the Hind-24 can equip now the same At-9 Spiral missile. Hitting the flank of an enemy tank with AT 24 is not that different from AT-23, but considering the upgrade for the average 4 helo company costs only 2 army points, it’s a good investment. You can now worry any Western tank even frontally: will the US player with those pricey Abrams even deploy them, knowing you can shoot 4 missiles from the Hind from the very first turn?

Three improvements you can field immediately without paying Dollars, Euros or Rubles – the models you already have are good for the new weapons.

Speaking of new weapons, the new BM-27 Hurrican Battery is a direct upgrade of the old BM-21. Better weapon (AT4/3+ vs AT3/4+) but twice the point cost. I prefer to invest some money in the TOS-1 Rocket launcher: 10 points for three models and its rockets are useless against armored vehicles (AT2) but are true killers if you shoot against that damn Western infantry so difficult to move away from an objective. They have firepower AUTO and Brutal, so basically, every infantry unit under the Salvo template will have to test twice from the first shot and removed immediately if they fail one of the two tests.

The new AA unit, the Tunguska AA Platoon. Every turn you can choose to fire ROF 7/5+ or go for the missile (ROF 2/3+). NATO flying force will have to worry about this. 

 

Another good addition I’m lingering on is the 2SA Tunguska AA platoon: 4 tanks with both AA guns and missiles. It’s much better than the already good Shilka AA since you can use them against soft ground targets – ROF 7/5+ is quite good to pin down infantry and to kill it if they are caught moving in the open – or against flying vehicles. Considering the new V2 rules for planes and helos, I would go for at least two AA platoons, and I think I will have both a Gopher platoon and a Tunguska one in my “upgraded” army.

The new list could be something like this:

T-64 Tank Battalion

T-64 HQ (1 Tank) – 6 Army points

T-64 Tank Company  #1 (5 Tanks + AT-8 missiles) – 27 p.

T-64 Tank Company #2 (4 Tanks + AT-8 missiles) – 22 p.

BMP-2 Motor Rifle Company (medium platoon 9 BMP-2s, + 6  RPG-7VR) – 20 p.

2S6 Tunguska AA Platoon (4 Tanks) – 8 p.

SA-13 Gopher Platoon (4 Tanks) – 4 p.

BMP-3 Recoon Platoon (4 Tanks) – 7 p.

Support

Storm Platoon (3 Tanks + At-9 Spiral 2 ) – 4 p.

TOS-1 Rocket Launcher Battery (3 Tanks) – 10 p.

Mi-24 Hind Assault Helos  (4 Helos) – 12 p.

Total Army points 120.

 

New boxes we need to buy:

TSBX25 TOS-1 Thermobaric Rocket Launcher Battery – $37

TSBX23 BMP-3 Company – $45

TSBX27 2S6 Tunguska AA Platoon x2 – $27 x2

Total cost for upgrade: $136

T-55 flood

Ever wonder why other Pact forces could field cheaper tanks than the Russian? The new USSR book covers this gap, giving you the choice to go from the top elite Shock T-80s to the older T-55AM tanks. But the Red Army is still better equipped than their allies: the Russian T-55s have the Stabber missile (AT21/3+), a slightly better main gun (AT18 vs AT17), and much better stats (Morale 3+ vs 4+, Courage 3+ vs 4+, although skill 5+ vs 4+).

You can then choose to play with lower rank tanks: a very aggressive style, similar to the Iranian tactics to use massed Chieftains. With our budget, we can buy 15 T-55s or 15 T-62s: not that “Hi-Tech” upgrade, but a dangerous opponent for the sheer amount of guns charging at enemy positions. Both of them can’t do much frontally to the new tanks like the Challenger or the Abrams. For this reason, if you want to play with masses of older Russian tanks you need something to kill easily the enemy tanks: Mi-24 Hinds and Su-25 will excellently do the job. The tactic I would use is to charge at the fastest speed with all the tank platoons, keeping some Formation units behind to avoid the destruction of the Battalion (remember, you lose the game if you are left with a single Formation unit). If you attack the AA units in the same turn with 6 Hinds and 6 Su-25, you can bet you will kill them; once the NATO player has no air cover, you can destroy any target with the surviving helos and planes. If your opponent is incautious during deployment, you can kill his AA in two turns with the T-55s, charging with two huge platoons to reach the AAs and shot them in no time.

If you already have the BMP-1 or BTR infantry Company, you can go with T-55s. If you have only BMP-2s, you need to go with the more expensive T-62s.

 

Comrade Mitchosky, I can’t understand Capitalism. We can deploy 20 T-55s at the army point cost of a single M1A1HC. How can the Blue even think to win against us? – BOOM!

 

T-55AM Tank Company

HQ (1 Tank) – 2 points

T-55 AM Tank Company #1 (7 tanks+ missile) – 13 p.

T-55 AM Tank Company #2 (7 tanks+ missile) – 13 p.

BMP-1 Motor Rifle Company (big, 12 BMP-1s + RPG-7VR+AGS-17 + Gremlin AA) – 23 p.

Shilka AA Platoon (4 Tanks) – 4 p.

2S1 Carnation Battery (6 Tanks) – 10 p.

BMP-1 Recon Platoon (4 Tanks) – 4 p.

SA-13 Gopher (4 Tanks) – 4 p.

Support

Su-25 Frogfoot Company (6 planes) -21 p.

MI-24 Hind Assault Helicopter Company (6 helos + AT 9 missile) – 18 p.

Storm AT Platoon (3 Tanks + AT-9 Spiral missiles) – 4 p.

BM-21 Hail Rocket Launcher (3 Tanks) – 4 p.

Total Army Points 120

 

New Boxes we need to buy:

TSBX22 T-55AM Tank Company x3 – $45 x3

or

T-62M Tank Company  (TSBX19) x3 – $45 x3

https://www.flamesofwar.com/hobby.aspx?art_id=6235

 

 

The new Western way

 

The Shock Formation has everything you need to bring Communism to all continental Europe. Three Platoons of T-80, a BMP-3 scout section, a Motor Rifle to defend an objective, double AA to clear the skies, and a Carnation battery. And if you play 100 or 120, you can take almost all of them.

 

The really good news for the Russian player starts on page 53 of the new USSR book: the Shock Tank Company. It’s like to have a Company from the West: tiny small tank platoon, but with that “is it on 4+” that could save so many times our vehicles and infantry. Yes, the Shock Tank Platoon instantly upgrades all tanks and also all infantry/BMPs to “is hit on 4+”, changing completely your game style.

For this upgrade, you need to spend a bit more: you need to take at least 7 T-80s since you need the HQ + at least two platoons. Under Team Yankee v2, you don’t want to play with 2-tank platoons: if just one is destroyed or even bailed out, you need to test to keep the tank on the table.

The good news is you can have an Infantry Company with BMP-2s, so you don’t need to upgrade all transports. Since the T-80s are costly (both in terms of money and army points), in this version we will keep the old Shilkas and supports. However, we will have 3 BMP-3s for scouts and still be under the $150 budget we set for ourselves.

T-80 Shock Tank Platoon

HQ (1 Tank) – 10p

T-80 Shock Tank Platoon #1 (3 Tanks) – 29 p.

T-80 Shock Tank Platoon #2 (3 Tanks) – 29 p.

BMP Shock Motor Rifle Company (Medium Platoon, 6 BMP-2s) – 21 p.

BMP-3 Shock Recon Platoon  (3 Tanks) – 9 p.

Shilka AA Platoon (4 Tanks) – 4 p.

SA-13 Gopher Platoon (4 Tanks) – 4 p.

Support

BM-21 Hail Rocket Battery (3 Tanks) – 4 p.

Hind-24 Assault Helicopter Company (4 Helo) – 10 p.

Total Army Points 120

 

New Boxes we need to buy:

TSBX21 T-80 Tank Company x2, $45 x3

Total cost for upgrade: $135