The Most Sophisticated Helicopter In The World

 This weekend sees the annual Cold War Commanders big weekend game at Grimsby Wargames Club. A massive intervention from real life however meant that I could not attend this year. I did still want to get a game in though so looked about for a suitable solo game.

This scenario is from issue 470 of Miniature Wargames magazine, June 2022. I didn't pay too much attention to the article at first as it was a sci-fi game featuring Rabbit People; not really my thing. On closer inspection though I noticed that it borrowed significant elements from Black Ops and could be easily adapted to a Cold War environment.

"During the Soviet invasion of West Germany of 1985, reports began to emerge of several Soviet units coming under attack by some sort of advanced stealth helicopter. Military intelligence managed to locate the forward operating base of this advanced prototype. Although they would have preferred to capture the helicopter and learn its secrets, there was not enough time to find a suitably experienced pilot. A hurriedly assembled Spetsnaz team was therefore infiltrated into the area with orders to disable the mysterious aircraft." The game was played using the Black Ops rules in 6mm, with inches substituted by cm for all distances.

 

The NATO compound.

The mysterious advanced stealth helicopter.

The defenders started with two 2-man patrols on guard duty, with their starting positions randomly determined. The first patrol started at the South East corner of the compound.

The second patrol began at the western edge of the compound, right by the Spetsnaz deployment area.

The Spetsnaz raiding party was split into an assault team with 2 demolition specialists, a security team tasked with dealing with local security and a support team led by the CO with a LMG team and RPG team. Here the Soviet force deploys and begins to move towards their objective.

The security team moved quietly up to the guard force patrol before engaging them in close quarters combat:

One of the guards was outnumbered and quickly despatched. The other one though fought back and managed to kill his attacker. The remaining 2 Spetsnaz troopers then attacked the guard, who amazingly fought them off.

The raiders didn't have time for a long drawn out melee though so the security team's NCO joined the fight and slipped a bayonet between the guard's ribs.

With the first patrol out of the way, the assault team climbed the perimeter wall and the demolition team moved in on their target.

Meanwhile, Starsky and Hutch of the 2nd patrol continued to bimble slowly along the perimeter road in blissful ignorance of the drama happening around them. By now the security team had occupied one of the bunkers and, backed up by the LMG of the support team, lay in wait to ambush the remaining patrol. As they got within range, the 2nd patrol had to make a roll on the guard reaction table. Their response at their big moment...

... was to turn 180° and proceed back the way they had just come. And so the 2 worst security guards in the world continued with their evening stroll.

The assault team had now infiltrated into the compound and lain their satchel charges on the stealth helicopter. The defending quick reaction force and off duty team had still not been alerted that anything was wrong. The defending CO finally became suspicious but wandered ineffectually in and out of his barracks, still not raising the alarm.

Having set the satchel charges to detonate in 3 turns, the raiding party began to exfiltrate the area.

All too late, the defending CO belatedly began to suspect that something was afoot and moved towards the source of all the noise. Unfortunately, that brought him within the blast radius of the satchel charges when they successfully detonated. Surprisingly, he survived the blast but the advanced stealth helicopter was no more.

An almost perfect stealth mission then, with just the one Spetsnaz casualty. The prototype helicopter is gone, Starsky and Hutch have been demoted to spud patrol and the guard commander is being bawled out by an Agency man who looks just like Gary Busey. I'm not sure that I read the guard reaction rules correctly but it was an enjoyable game nonetheless. I really ought to play some more Black Ops and definitely want to play this scenario again, after I've read the rules some more. Perhaps next time the target will be the stealth helicopter Mk II, the "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" project.