Battle for Red Bridge

Today two of of my good mates, Nathan and Leroy came down from Townsville for a couple of days gaming. Now Townsville is about 1300 kms away so I wanted to make their trip memorable. I decided to do a really large Dust game to get a lot of my stuff on the table and perhaps prick their interest as they are pretty in Catholic in their historical gaming.

Table set up ready for troop deployment. The scenario was simple the Axis had to capture the factory complex on the right of the picture. They deloyed along the left edge of the table and in the park near the large governement biulding (light coloured building).

Axis attacking forces included most of my tanks which I have never used before in a game and they did not do that well. From L to R they are: Thor SPG with a very big gun (210mm), E100 with twin 88s, two E50s with 88 L70 and three King Tigers with 173mm gun.

Gorilla platoon with four squads led by Markus and four squads of Armed Zombies led by the Totenmeister.

New version Sigrid led some Zombies and laser troops.

 The Axis also had two Hortens and two platoons of four squads of type 3 infantry.

Deployment

Axis armour try to push through the open parkland

Factory objective looks close (famous last words).

Right flank along the river, lots of enemy in sight.

Axis sniper team deploys.

SSSu in the dawn light await the assualt.

More SSU in reserve.

SSU troops deploy around the factory.

SSU view of the advancing Axis armour.

The bridge was not to be given up to the Axis aggressors and the SSU trains proved to be solid as a rock.

SSU infantry were heavily entrenched in all of the buildings and the Axis gorillas suffered crippling casualties including Markus assaulting the strongholds.

                                   

Axis troops move through the park and past a statue of the hero of the Revolution ( must destroy that later).

Right flank was delayed by stubborn SSU stay behind volunteers and it took the Axis troops several turns to destroy them

                                      

Axis air support screams in drops a load of bombs and is promptly shot down.

Axis E50s find it tough going and eventually one is severely damaged and the other is knocked by the fire from the armoured train and heavy SSU walker. 

       

Armoured train could see the whole battlefield and took a heavt toll of the attacking Axis troops.

Three SSU helicoptors appeared on the Axis left flank and dropped troops a walker and administered lots of pain upon the advancing armour.

Valiant Axis forces pushed on despite the threat from the rear.

Despite crippling losses that would have stopped any other army the Axis forces reach the last building near the bridge and finally knock out that heavy SSU walker. The factory is close but do we have enough infantry to take it?

Tiger turrets turned to face the attack from a rocket firing airdrooped walker.

The final SSu defence before the bridge but unfortunately there are lots more in the factory complex.

Some of the SSU reserves.

View of advancing Axis armour.

Axis highwater mark, next turn the E100 is destroyed and the high command cancel the attack.

Burning E50 and E100. SSU victory despite the inexperienced command (Nathan and Leroy).

Great game and one that we all enjoyed. It was Leroy's first game and Nathan's second (we played one this time last year). The SSU trains were pretty awesome as were Nathan's heavy walker and heavy AA tanks. I think Dust just gets better and better the more I play it.

Onto my next table and to see what the Allied forces find under the hill where the SSU lighthouse shines out onto the Caspian sea.