Operation Freedom Fries: A WWIII: Team Yankee Event

Operation Freedom Fries: A WWIII: Team Yankee Event

Operation Freedom Fries: A WWIII: Team Yankee Event
With Antti Arajärvi

A 16 person WWIII: Team Yankee event was played out in the popular miniature wargamers club "Nopat ja Taktiikka" (Dice and Tactics) in Helsinki Finland on 26.3.2022. Battlefront Miniatures generously sponsored the event with each attendee receiving an objective marker to commemorate the battle. The event included roughly 900 pts of Soviets and 900 points of NATO -forces.

The event was the largest Team Yankee event in Finland to date, with the first event having been played out in early 2022 with seven players. The Team Yankee -scene in Finland has been quite small up until summer 2021, when a few players in Western Finland Turku decided to reach out to other players in Finland and see if we could grow out the community. To our pleasant surprise, the enthusiasm spread like wildfire, with older Flames of War players from Lahti, Helsinki and other areas of Finland hopping on the bandwagon in steady increments. What started as a small three-person community has now expanded to almost 30 players!

The event took 10 hrs in total from start to finish. We managed to play 8 rounds, each lasting roughly 1 hour each and we even squeezed in a sliding lunch break without breaking the tempo. The gaming area was set up and organized the previous evening in three hours, with the local players painstakingly creating a wonderful table to play on.

Operation Freedom Fries: A WWIII: Team Yankee Event


Mission DetailsOperation Freedom Fries: A WWIII: Team Yankee Event

Operation Sudden Strike was played in January as a lead up to this event

The operation was a follow up to our January event, where the NATO forces of the 5th. AD (Armored Division) had managed a successful decisive flanking breakthrough attack upon the Soviet 100th  AC (Army corps) flank security regiment, which was conducting a fighting withdrawal in order to organize a counter attack at a later point. 

Having failed in their previous battle, the battered lead division 100th AC was now cut off from the rest of the corps and prone to be destroyed by the encircling 5th AD and other NATO  elements in the west tying it into place. The 5th. AD is trying to maintain operational momentum by quickly flanking and destroying the remaining soviet forces, who are trying desperately to break out East, in order to link up the with the rest of the 100th AC.

Operation Freedom Fries: A WWIII: Team Yankee Event

NATO Forces Disposition

  • Combined German and Dutch armored battalion consisting of two Leopard 2 tank coys was tasked in flanking the enemy forces by attacking from SW.
  • The Main assault was lead by an American Armoured Battalion consisting of a mechanized coy, tank coy and a cavalry coy leading the attack from SE.
  • A flank security battalion consisting of a British tank coy and a Finnish mechanized infantry coy was formed in the NE.
  • A combiend air assault battalion was tasked in the NW sector to tie the Soviet reserves. This consisted of two german Falschirmjäger coys, and one US and one Finnish air landing platoon.

Operation Freedom Fries: A WWIII: Team Yankee Event


Soviet Forces Disposition

  • Two Kazakstanian battalions, the 888th and 444th, were charged with flank security in the SW sector. The player had an Iraq army, but we narrated it into Kazakstanian force having been moved to bolster the attack. A Polish tank battalion, the 666th later enforced this sector.
  • The 88th East German motorized infantry battalion was tasked with engaging and destroying the air assault into the rear.
  • The 27th and 555th tank battalions as well as 69th tank regiment were tasked in breaking through the to the SW sector.
  • The 11th and 21st reinforced battalions were tasked to flank the NATO forces from NE and link up with the breakthrough forces.

Operation Freedom Fries: A WWIII: Team Yankee Event


Battle Report
The battle kicked off with the soviets starting their breakthrough on the NATO flanks with large scale bombardment and advancement of tanks. The flank security sprung ambushes and delayed the Nato advances. In the middle the soviets aggressively pushed deep into US forces causing a surprising amount of casualties as the NATO players were plagued with a dreadful amount of 1's.

The NATO forces managed to halt the Soviet advance by concentrating their firepower on the lead tank company and pinning infantry near the objective. The cavalry company thrust deep, but was depleted by a retaliatory tank battalion. The rest of the game was a game of cat and mouse, as both sides in the middle had depleted each other's maneuver forces thoroughly. This resulted in a stalemate in the middle board.

Operation Freedom Fries: A WWIII: Team Yankee Event

Operation Freedom Fries: A WWIII: Team Yankee Event

On the Soviet flank, the combined Germ and and Dutch battalions had a hard time pushing through the Kazak-massed infantry battalion securing the town. The polish tank battalion also put up a stiff resistance and the advance was halted. For the rest of the game the NATO forces concentrated on depleting the Poles, before making advancements into the objective zone in the last rounds of the game.

In the NATO flank the combination of small but effectively placed minefields and delaying actions by infantry and light vehichles bought valuable time for the NATO player for roughly 6 turns before being overwhelmed by the soviet spearhead, which managed to link up with the main attacking body in the middle.

Operation Freedom Fries: A WWIII: Team Yankee Event

Operation Freedom Fries: A WWIII: Team Yankee Event

In the rear sector, the air assault battalion managed to tie the Soviet reserves, but due to the heavy AA coverage in the rear, it had an awful time trying to use its PAH-helicopters effectively. It did its job by tying the reserves, although the result here was also a stalemate on both sides. The East German forces could not push back the air assault battalion and capture the landing area, but secure the Soviet rear artillery and AA assets.

Operation Freedom Fries: A WWIII: Team Yankee Event

Operation Freedom Fries: A WWIII: Team Yankee Event

Outcome
In the big picture, the NATO attack has failed to destroy the Soviet breakthrough, but the casualties inflicted were horrendous on both sides. NATO  now must organize a defence in depth and wait for reinforcements to arrive in order to survive being encircled itself in turn. The next event will probably see a wide, large scaled, defence in depth type of a fighting withdrawal scenario against a massive Soviet full scale assault. We might see a Soviet air assault by the VDV, in turn.

Casualties:

Main Battle Tanks
NATO 39  out of 54   
SOVIET 125 out of 160

 Artillery
NATO  3 SPG's
SOVIET 29 SPG's

Armored Personnel Carriers and Infantry Fighting Vehicles
NATO 23 
SOVIET 32

 Anti Air
NATO 3 SPG's
SOVIET 5 SPG's

Infantry
NATO 44 teams
SOVIET 16 teams

 Air (airplanes or helicopters)
NATO 15
SOVIET 14

Lessons learned and the future
What an absolute carnage! The event was well received and the gamers seemed to enjoy the scenario and challenges set to them. We enjoyed a good debrief after the game counting the scores of destroyed tanks and musing over what had transpired on the battlefield.  Many ideas were thrown around regarding the next game, with fog of war being the main theme in many comments. This included hidden objectives and pre-planning sessions for both teams. We might look into creating separate channels for both forces next time to coordinate and plan the use of forces - a pre-game event if you will. Nuances concerning the ratio of anti air assets and airforces was also brought up, with a ballpark feeling of 1 AA asset per force seeming like a good limitation.

All in all this was a great event, and Im super glad that we could bring the Finnish community together from all sides of the country to play this fun and fantastic game. I enjoyed creating the scenario and learned a lot from setting up such events. Most importantly, this was a great way for the community to meet and share the hobby, as many of us previously knew each other only through whatsapp and facebook. This has been an important boost to the community, as the past two years has been very challenging due to COVID-19.

I'd like to thank Battlefront for sponsoring our event with objective markers, which we distributed to each players present. Big thanks to Antti Arajärvi for helping in organizing this event! Special thanks to Nopat ja Taktiikka -gaming club in Helsinki for hosting us and providing the means to set up a wonderful gaming board. Lastly, I’d like to thank the Team Yankee community in Finland for being awesome and contributing to the hobby with your wonderful armies and stories. For new players in Finland looking to join the group, look into Nopat ja Taktiikka or Team Yankee Finland -Facebook pages for more information!
~Antti


 

Operation Freedom Fries: A WWIII: Team Yankee Event

Operation Freedom Fries: A WWIII: Team Yankee Event
Operation Freedom Fries: A WWIII: Team Yankee Event
Operation Freedom Fries: A WWIII: Team Yankee Event
Operation Freedom Fries: A WWIII: Team Yankee Event Operation Freedom Fries: A WWIII: Team Yankee Event
Operation Freedom Fries: A WWIII: Team Yankee Event Operation Freedom Fries: A WWIII: Team Yankee Event
Operation Freedom Fries: A WWIII: Team Yankee Event