Planning For Fall-In: Part 2

Planning For Fall-In: Part 2 - Oil War

Planning For Fall-In: Part 2 - Oil War
with Dave Danner

With the two sides for the Fall-In convention game decided, it’s time to construct the lists. List building for tournaments, historical scenarios, and demo games is different on many levels. Because this Oil War game is meant to be a convention game as well a demo of Team Yankee, I imposed the following restrictions upon myself: 

Check out Fall In! 2019 on their website here for more details...

1) The game has to be as balanced as possible so that each side feels like they have an equal chance of winning. 

2) The lists have to show off each part of the rules (armor, infantry, artillery, air, etc.) This way, players have the opportunity to experience everything Team Yankee has to offer.

3) The lists will be limited to 60 points. This will ensure that there is plenty of space on the table to maneuver and will ensure that everything gets painted in time for the game.

With that in mind, let’s build the Iranian list.

Using 2 Cavalry Regiment in Team Yankee

The Iranian List
Iran began the war with about 1,700 tanks, this included over 800 Chieftains and over 400 M60A1s. Since I already own eight Chieftains, I decided to build a Chieftain Company. The extra armor of the Chieftain will also come in handy considering the small size of the tank platoons. Unlike history, I want to make sure that the tanks have some infantry support, so I added a full mechanized infantry platoon. To this, I added a full Scorpion Recce group to hopefully avoid any Iraqi ambushes. When it comes to artillery, the Iranian army enjoyed an advantage in heavy guns early in the war. Because of this, and because the Iranians are going to have to deal with a lot of Iraqi infantry, I chose to include a half-battery of M109 SP 155mm guns. For air support, the Iranians have access to the Cobra gunship. Conveniently, the Ayatollah’s Revolutionaries box set comes with two! With one point left to spend, I opted for two ZSU-57-2 instead of adding a Grail AA team. Although they have a much shorter range, the ZSUs can chew up Iraqi BMPs.

Chieftain Tank Company

  • Chieftain 2-Tank Company HQ (7)
  • Chieftain 3-Tank Group (10)
  • Chieftain 3-Tank Group (10)
  • Chieftain 3-Tank Group (10)
  • Full Mechanized Group (4) with Dragon team (1)
  • 4-Scorpion Recce Group (4)
  • 3-M109 SP Artillery Battery (5)
  • M113 OP Artillery Observer (1)
  • 2-AH1 Cobra Attack Helicopter Group (7)
  • 2- ZSU-57-2 AA Group (1)

Total= 60 points

Option: 4-Jeep TOW Anti-Tank Group (4)- The Scorpion Recce Group can be swapped out for this if the Iranians are on defense.

Using 2 Cavalry Regiment in Team Yankee

The Iraqi List
At the start of the Iran-Iraq War, the Iraqi army had over 2,500 T-55 and T-62 tanks. This constituted the vast majority of its armored divisions. Only the 10th Independent Armored Division was equipped with 100 T-72M. As the war went on, Iraq’s armored forces grew to over 4,500 tanks. This included 170 more T-72 tanks purchased from the USSR in 1986 and 22 others from Czechoslovakia. While building a T-62 Tank Battalion might be more historically fitting, I chose to construct a T-72 list. I felt that this would make the tank battle more even and would be less models to paint. (An additional benefit will be that the T-72 tanks can be used to fight the Gulf War once Battlefront releases the Bradley!) Iraqi armored divisions were mostly supported by BMP-1 mounted infantry instead of BTRs, so into the list they go. This will give the Iraqis a solid unit in attack or defense. The VCR platoon was added to give the list more high-end anti-tank in case the T-72s have difficulty with the Chieftains, while the Shilkas are there to defend against Iranian Cobras.

Although Iraq purchased many types of helicopters during the war, the Gazelle and M-24 Hind were the most prevalent. I only had room in the list for one, so I chose the Gazelles and their HOT missiles. Although it would have been nice to include some artillery, I know that the Iranian list does not have much infantry. If it did or if I was building this list against “all-comers,” I would have included some AMX AUF1 SP Howitzers. These French guns were used to equip Republican Guard units and provide some serious firepower.

When considering my purchases, I opted to buy Hussain’s Republican Guard, a box of T-72s, and Potecknov’s Bears. While this might seem odd, purchasing Potecknov’s Bears gives me two Hind gunships at a discount that I can use in a later list. The Iraqis often utilized Gazelles and Hinds together in combat operations. 

T-72M Tank Battalion

  • T-72M Tank Battalion HQ (3)
  • 4 T-72M Tank Company (10)
  • 4 T-72M Tank Company (10)
  • 4 T-72M Tank Company (10)
  • Full BMP-1 Mech Company (14)
  • 2 ZSU-23-4 Shilka AA Company (2)
  • 4-VCR/TH HOT Anti-Tank Platoon (4)
  • 2 BRDM-2 Scout Platoon (1)
  • 2-Gazelle HOT Anti-Tank Helicopter Company (6)

Total= 60 points

 Using 2 Cavalry Regiment in Team Yankee

Below are links to two documents that I found useful while researching the types of vehicles used by the forces or Iran and Iraq during the conflict.

Read Part 1 here...

The Lessons of Modern War, Volume II: The Iran-Iraq War...

Iraq: Major Weapon Deliveries and their Impact on Force Capabilities...

~Dave


Last Updated On Thursday, October 10, 2019 by Alexander at Battlefront