Operation Dragon Forge, Fight #2

All,

AKA, Unit 101's 2nd Fight of Operation Payback

It's 0330 on 5 Jul 1990, and Unit 101's Team 2 has just captured The Sheikh and is on the way to the HLZ for extraction.  But they run into a little trouble; luckily Major Villanueva figured this might occur and had planned accordingly.  The Platoon Sergeant and Team 3 are standing by on overwatch.

Overview, north is up.  The HLZ is at right, Team 3 will be in overwatch at bottom center and bottom right, covering Team 2 coming in at top right, while bad guys enter via the road at left.  The objective is simple: Team 2 gets The Sheikh to the HLZ and is extracted.

I'm playing these fights using Ivan Sorensen's rules "Five Men at Kursk," modified a little to make them a bit more modern and deadly.

Opposing forces, with bad guys on the left and good guys on the right.  On the right is the entirety of Unit 101, though they will not all be participating in this fight.  Unit 101 is composed of:
Commander
Platoon Sergeant
Two five-man teams
1 Sniper team
1 Machine Gun team
*Most of the troops are 15mm Khurasan, but the shooters have two Battlefront figures, and the sniper and MG teams are Eureka.

The good guys: the Major and Team 2 (Mouse, Trinity, Link, Ratchet, and Slate) are at right, with The Sheikh.  They are pretty much just for decoration, the fight is between the Platoon Sergeant (Rake) with Team 3 (sniper team: Neo and Treak; and MG team: Apoc and Crate) and the bad guys.

The bad guys: ten hostiles (Flytrap Factory Taliban).

Team 3 is in position (bottom center and bottom right), eyes to 360 degrees, as Team 2 (top right) nears the HLZ.   But then the Platoon Sergeant, Rake, calls out on the radio: "we've got movement, two unidentified vehicles from the west (left).

Here comes Major Villanueva and Team 2 escorting The Sheikh.

In the south, we've got Rake and the MG team (bottom left) and the sniper team (bottom right).

Neo behind the sniper rifle, Treak spotting.

Rake on lookout with Apoc on the gun and Crate feeding him.

The bad guys pull into the battle area (passenger-less, apparently, and with a ghost driving the Land Rover).

The enemy vehicles halt and kick out their dismounts.

Rake (bottom center) on comms: "Boss, you seein' this?  We got problems, ten tangos just dismounted, practically on top of the LZ."

Major Villanueva: "Well, what're you waiting for?"

Fight's on!

The stillness of the night air is shattered by a long burst from Apoc's M-240G machine gun.

Two enemy riflemen are mowed down, an RPG gunner is suppressed (red bead), and another Tango is knocked down (white bead).

Neo, the sniper (bottom center), fires on the northern group, at the other RPG gunner, suppressing him next to the red pickup truck.  The bad guys are unable to locate Neo and Treak.

Standing behind the MG team, Rake fires his M-16.

He knocks another bad guy down (white bead at bottom center), and pins one (yellow bead at top left).

The bad guys (top left) return fire on the Cuban machine gun position (bottom right), to no avail.

In the northeast, Trinity lays down fire with his Mk 48 while the rest of Team 2 hops the wall.

Then the Major covers Trinity as he joins them.

Bad guys in the northwest (bottom left) fire on Team 2, but miss.

The pinned bad guy at top left fires on the MG team and misses.

As does another bad guy.

He then tries to rally his suppressed buddy.

But he says hell with it and runs (bottom left, from top center).  He then rolls to self rally, but fails that too and runs off the map!

The enemy RPG gunner at bottom right self rallies, but only makes it up to pinned.

A bad guy in the north moves up (top right).

But Neo (bottom right) spots him (top left) and fires.

He goes down like a sack of potatoes.  Another bad guy moves up, but he can't spot the Cuban sniper either.  Just give it a minute, buddy ;)

Not able to determine where Neo is, he fires on Team 2 (top right) and misses.

Apoc and Crate slap a fresh belt in the -240 and start rockin' and rollin' again.

A bad guy goes down (center right), another falls back (bottom left), and the guy that just shot at Team 2 (top right) is pinned.

Rake fires at the guy that just fell back (top left).

But he misses, and the bad guy (bottom left) returns fire on the machine gun position (top right), suppressing Rake.

Things are not looking good for the bad guys, and get worse when Neo fires again and drops the bad guy right next to the guy Neo shot previously (top right).

Half of Team 2 lays down fire while the other half begins moving into the HLZ.

A bad guy opens fire on them, but misses.

The bad guys are down to two men still in the fight: the rifleman at top left, and the RPG gunner at center, between the wall and the Land Rover (the two guys next to him have white beads, meaning they are knocked down and cannot get back in the fight until a buddy moves into base contact and rolls to see if they're okay).  The guy at top left opens fire on the MG position (bottom right), pinning Apoc.

The RPG gunner self rallies, and is back to fully operational (bottom right).  He needs to shoot, then get back to check on those two guys that are knocked down.

With Rake suppressed and Apoc pinned, the A-gunner, Crate, opens fire on the guy at top left, dropping him.  Apoc and Rake self rally, but Apoc stays pinned and Rake only gets up to pinned.  Snakeyes!

That leaves only the RPG gunner (top left) as a threat, but Neo and Treak can't see him.

The point element of Team 2 reaches the southwest corner of the HLZ (bottom left), but the enemy RPG gunner fires his AK, knocking Slate down (white bead at center).

Then he launches an RPG at the machine gun position!!!

The rocket strikes further up the hill, but close enough to knock Rake down!

Apoc gets the gun back into action...

And ventilates that pesky RPG gunner (center).  All the bad guys are kaput, but the one that ran off the map.

Team 2 continues to move to the HLZ.  They check Slate, he's hit pretty bad.  Gonna miss some time, but he'll be back.

The MG team, Platoon Sergeant, and sniper team come down from their perches to join Team 2 on the HLZ.

They set a perimeter and make comms, bird is on the way.

It's in (NATO buzzsaw, anyone?).

And down.  Major Villanueva stuffs The Sheikh into the helo.

And they're off!  Another successful mission.  Beat the bad guys up pretty good, but suffered a casualty this time; Slate will be out of action for a couple weeks.  The Sheikh is turned over to the intel guys, and he talks.  Next stop, gotta see a guy about a bomb maker in northern Italy.  Next fight, coming right up.

V/R,
Jack