Flames of War- Oil Wars Firestorm

I refuse to believe that anything that happened in my life time can be classed as History! And yet, major events that happened in the 1970s and 1980s are indeed the stuff of history books. Thankfully the Cold War didn’t turn hot in Europe at least but the latest offering from Battlefront takes the Iran Iraq war as the theatre for operations between the Free World and the East. Our campaign starts with mostly local forces to begin with but the Superpowers are busying themselves with arming their proxies. (Below) Iraqi forces with US allies lose their outpost to the Syrians.

My army had no need of allies. I chose Israelis to fend off the Revolutionary Iranians. Two tank companies gave me a mix of Merkava 1s and M60s. I dug my mechanised infantry in along the highway and trusted in quality over quantity. My M60 company was off table, waiting to flank the Iranian horde. I also had the shadowy Pereh platoon- an anti-tank missile system built on to the chassis of an M48. The Pereh does not require line of sight so this too would hopefully help slow the Iranians.

Pete went for two platoons of Basij, fanatical revolutionary guards to seek martyrdom and close with the dug in Israeli infantry. They are easy to hit but what came behind was worse!

The malignly inspired revolutionaries ploughed forward, their commander forgetting that this would obscure the tanks from giving covering fire. The Israeli defenders forgot to leave clear lines of fire also- the version four rules has the units moving around the battlefield in what can only be described as “orb” formation.

The machine guns of the M113s saved the day. The revolutionary guard was stopped by a hail of bullets and mortar fire.

The hand of the (Israeli ) God removes the heretics! The infantry would have to dig in and await the tanks to duke it out.

The problem was that the Merkavas and Iranian Chieftains have the same gun! M60s from both sides were the target of choice. I did switch to take out the Iranian triple A but the air power didn’t amount to much. As the Pereh missile strike arrived, the students and scholars of the Basij rose up and swept the Israeli  infantry off the objective. It had been a close run thing and the battle had been no walk over for Iran.

I can’t say I knew much about this period but the Flames of War ruleset appears to handle the modern period well. The addition of helicopters and jets did not seem to totally dominate the battlefield on the other two tables either. Track to track tank armadas do dominate but the play is fast and furious! Round two is on Friday at Firestorm Games.