Bucha, Ukraine - 27 Feb 2022 - 15mm
Battle Report: Battle of Novoselivka Druna
Good afternoon, everyone.
So last week my friend Damon and I had an interesting game of Panzer Leader (TCME modern rules, with a few additions of my own thrown in). My objective with the scenario design was to take an imagined, educated, “wargamer’s guess” at what a full-scale engagement might look like between larger-scale maneuver formations of the Russian Federation Army and the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
While honestly not exhaustive, I did invest some relatively robust research into the kinds of units these formations actually have, their interrelationships and technical progression, and actual combat capabilities against each other (as best I could). I’ll admit my findings clashed badly with presumptions I had erroneously made which earlier attempts at these find of RFA-UAF scenarios. So I wanted to run and broadcast this game as much as a correction as anything else.
Damon ran the Ukrainians on defense, I played the role of Putin’s invaders. I started with the more powerful force, but as the attacker I also carried the “burden of victory” and Damon’s task was simply to hold on and inflict as much damage as he could. However, Damon also had some high-tech gadgets in his force, reflecting some 21st Century additions to the battlespace, like Javelin ATGWs and surveillance drones supplied by the United States and Turkey.
The fuill battle reply is available on video below, but here is a quick summary for those with less time on their hands.
Let’s see what happens!
So first off, here is a map of Ukraine for context. To the far east, we see the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts (roughly, districts), the epicenter of the current conflict and rising tensions. I have broadly marked where this IMAGINED Russian invasion is taking place. Please note this imagines an open, conventional forces mass-army invasion, not the covert Russian incursions which have been made through separatist-controlled border crossing points since 2014. The site I chose for the battle was just north of Adviika, which saw heavy fighting in 2014-15 phase of this war, and another major incident (bordering on full-scale battle) in January 2017. In the case of a Russian “above-board” invasion, I would venture a guess Adviika would again be center stage, given its southward access routes toward Donetsk International Airport, just north of Donetsk itself. This is still a massive separatist stronghold, and I would imagine Russian planners may want to link a northern artery to Donetsk as a means of dividing the oblast and perhaps cutting off UAF forces further east. 
Here is the battle map, with 200-meter hexes, based on satellite imagery, showing a few square kilometers of the countryside immediately north of Adviika. The scenario will imagine the advanced guard (reinforced battalion with brigade support assets) of 27th Motorized Rifle Brigade / 1st Guards Tank Army moving onto the norther edge of the board. This is a real unit recently transferred near the Ukrainian border. If (God forbid) this war actually kicks off, we may be hearing from these guys in particular. Opposing them are elements of the actual Ukrainian Armed Forces unit charged with defending this area, the 93rd UAF Mechanized Brigade (CDO East). The Ukrainians currently hold all five objective hexes. The Russians have to take at least three. 
Things start off well for the Damon’s Ukrainians. My Russian column of T-90A main battle tanks rolls down that two-lane highway (three counters = 15 tanks), confident that the trees will protect them from the Ukrainian Mi-24V Hind-E gunships lurking beyond. Well, normally that would be true. But note Damon has high-altitude drones in Hex 1411. At high-altitude, they see OVER those trees, spot my tanks as soon as they enter, and with special rules for thermal imaging and laser range-finding, they succeed in their roll and track the T-90As through the trees. This is picked up by the UAF HQ unit (out of shot), who downloads the target acquisition telemetry to the Hinds. This allows the Hinds to engage the T-90As as soon as they emerge from cover, rather than the “1/4 of target unit’s movement rate in continuous LOS” normally required for Panzer Leader opportunity fire. In game terms, the drones spot, the “pass” that spot to the Hinds via the HQ unit, and the Hinds can bushwhack the T-90s as soon as they break cover. One unit of T-90As is lost. A second is lost as I roll up to the crossroads highway rest stop to spot Ukrainian BTR-80As and UAF infantry. The BTRs 30mm chain gun disrupts one of my Hinds (who shot at Damon’s Hinds but missed) while the infantry close-assaulted and destroyed a SECOND unit of T-90As. Putin is not pleased. 
To the east, things are going better for my Russians. Here, my column of T-72B3 upgrades comes down that wooded country track, running into concealed UAF antitank section with AT-4s, RPGs, etc. Okay, my lead unit of T-72B3s took the hit and was disordered, but quickly recovered. Meanwhile, a company of motorized rifles dismounted from BMP-3s behind the tanks. On my next turn, the other ten T-72B3s (again, five tanks per counter) blew the AT section off the map and this battalion-minus juggernaut plowed south, past the woodland crossroads, using the gully to screen in approach.
Those American-supplied Javelins make their presence felt. Given their extremely broad field of fire (good job on deploying these, Damon) and their incredible range and hitting power, they cause me to basically avoid the whole western third of the table. Avoid them as I may, I still get clipped as I maneuver BTR-82s with motorized infantry into the western wing of that highway overpass rest stop. Yes, I have that objective hex (yellow target icon) flanked, but it cost me. Good news, I have that Javelin position spotted now, and two batteries of BM-21 “Grad” rocket trucks with nothing to do …
By the end of Turn 3, the battle has well and truly kicked off. To the east, that T-72B3 / BMP-3 task forces has thundered up out of that wooded gully and smashed headlong into the town of Novaselivka Druna, assisted by insurgents and mobs of the “Vostok Battalion” separatists. The Vostok Separatists take hideous losses, as do my BMP-3 motorized infantry. But concentrated tank and autocannon fire soon pin down two platoons of UAF mechanized infantry, then followed up by a “close assault” street battle of my thoroughly-disposable Vostok Separatists. They succeed in mopping up Damon’s infantry and HQ unit, which means the laptops controlling the drones are lost. Gotta admit, I breathe a sigh of relief on that one, given their “spot under cover on a 1-4 roll” rule, NOTHING was hidden from Damon’s missiles with those surveillance drones in the air. Damon scrambles to reinforce his crumbling right at Novoselivka Druna, including his two flights of Mi-24V Hind-E gunships. I try to counter with my own two “Krokodil” Mi-24 gunships (no, Russians do NOT call Mi-24s “Hinds” – that is a NATO designation) – but Damon SHOOTS ONE OF THEM DOWN with a hidden section of SA-18 “Grouse” MANPADS missiles. You can see the crash site in Hex 2311.
Stinging as Russian losses may be, they’re still steadily winning this battle, especially in the southeast. Sadly for me, Turn 3 is also where Ukrainian reinforcements arrive in the form of 15 T-80UD main battle tanks. However, they are brought on directly in my path, in a vain hope of saving the objective hex 3020 (just cleared by my Vostok separatists). I’m not saying that hex didn’t need saving, but the Ukrainians might have been better served doing so with nearby infantry rather than sending two counters (ten tanks) of T-80UDs directly into point-blank range of fifteen T-72B3s, ten BMP-3s, and a flight of Mi-24V Krokodil gunships (two birds). Yeah, Ukrainians lose 2/3 of their reinforcements in a single throw, and my Vostok separatists move into the target hex anyway. However, Ukrainian gunships, AT-5 Spandrel ATGWs (launched from BMP-2s) and American-supplied Javelins also destroy two units of my T-72B3s (if those hapless T-80s had emerged from cover NOW … this whole end of the table might have seen a radically different outcome). Long story short, the “Battle of Novoselivka Druna” has definitely become one for the record books. 
A wider angle of that same moment, showing the launch points of some of those Ukrainian missiles (some from 2800 meters away). It also shows where my SA-25 “Verba” MANPADS slung up a missile at Damon’s Mi-24V Hind-Es … and missed. In other news, I’ve taken that highway overpass and surrounding buildings in the center of the table (upper left) giving me three of five objective hexes. I’ve paid a brutal price getting here, but if I can hold what I’ve got, I win. 
End of Turn 5, and looks like I have this one about wrapped up. I can’t even claim credit, Damon had some “brick” dice results and then I threw some good dice (a “6” for him and a “2” for me, which means his autocannon on some Vostock Separatists didn’t go well, and then those same Separatists close-assaulted and destroyed his last units in Novoselivka Druna. Once that happened, he no longer had my last T-72B3 unit spotted for a second Javelin / Hind / Grad strike. That was *basically* the last real shot he had to shift me out of those objective hexes. In fact, I wound up taking one more. So I now hold four of five … and the Ukrainians have lost any real chance of taking any of them back. 
One of the last face-offs is where the five remaining Ukrainian T-80UDs and a platoon of mechanized infantry stared down my last unit of T-90As, two platoons of motorized infantry, an ATGW section, and three BTR-82 sections which tried flanking around that tree line, perhaps with an eye toward engaging that SA-18 Grouse MANPADS section or even his two batteries of BM-21 Grad rockets. But honestly I don’t think either of us had the weight left to shift each other out of these covered positions. THANKS TO DAMON for the great game! 
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