Force on Force Battle Report

The Crown Jewel; Az Zubayr pumping station March 21,2003

This scenario was taken from the Road to Baghdad scenario book from Ambush Alley Games. We played the first scenario called The Crown Jewel and depicts a small group of US Marines  trying to capture an oil pumping station before the Iraqi forces can destroy it.

The Forces:

USMC: 1 squad(12men) and a squad leader with an AAVTP-7(amtrack)
             A Cobra Helicopter is available on turn 3+

Iraqi:     Fedayeen death squad(6 men) and a Ba'ath Party Official with a SUV
            Iraqi Army Section(9 men) and a leader

The miniatures are mostly by Elhiem Figures with the AAVTP-7 by Dragon Models.

Before we started we clarified a few things like when the helicopter would be available and how to breach the fencing around the perimeter. 

This was the setup. Here the Iraqi defenders are being placed. The large building is the administration building while the 2 smaller ones are the pump houses.

We usually play on a slightly bigger board than the book suggest. This is a 3' by 3' as opposed to the 2' by 2' suggested in the book. We do this strictly for the looks as sometimes the 20mm figures and vehicles can get a little cramped on the smaller area. To compensate for this I increased the turns available to complete the mission from 6 to 9. This was suggested to me on the Ambush Alley Game forums by one of the game designers when increasing the table size.

The Iraqi forces in waiting. The ones in the Admin building are hidden and hard to spot until they take some action.

Turn 1. The USMC comes on inside the amtrack avoiding the main road and crushing the fence while the Iraqi troops in the admin building adjust their positions to cover the rear.

And then a sand storm blew in reducing visibility though this did not have a big effect on the game

The amtrack continues to the corner of the building.

And the first team debusses.

USMC fire causes 1 casualty in the pump house.

The Iraqi view.

The other 2 teams head into the admin building.

Taking up positions to fire unto the pump house. The other team is going to head up stairs to the roof.

The team by the amtrack takes 2 serious and 1 light wound and the friction of war starts to build up against the USMC.

The state of things, the Iraqi forces have only taken 1 light wound so far.

The Iraqis get some help.

And they quickly take up positions overlooking one of the USMC teams firing on them, 2 down.

The situation so far. Both USMC and Iraqis occupy the admin buildings while surprisingly accurate Iraqi fire has halted the USMC advance.

Finally the Cobra comes on. It wasn't called in earlier because it was not allowed engage targets in the pump houses and until the Iraqi SF team opened fire the units in the admin building were still hidden.

The Cobra opens fire on the admin building causing little damage and then getting called away next turn.

The USMC clears out the first pump house with the help of a sniper team that lended a hand. But the team on the roof is taken out by the Iraqi SF team. One of the guns jams up on the amtrack!

The admin building completely held by the Iraqis and the USMC do not have enough of a force to continue the engagement.

 We called it at this point two turns early. The Iraqi side had caused too many USMC serious wounds for them to recover enough VP's to win. The game was fast and furious though and lots of fun to play. We had 4 Fog of War cards that came up that really added some twists to the game making things, for the most part, more difficult for the USMC.

We are planning on playing the next scenario, Umm Qasr, so I have started to assemble a DragonModel AVVTP-7 to have two.