Con Report: NOVAGcon, pt 2

Third Scenario:  Assault on Carter Island.  Rough map:

_______________________________________ 	 Beach
CCCC	   HHCCCCCCCHH	 HH	 HHHHHH
HHHH	   HHHHHHHHHHH	 HH	    HHH
		AA2
	AA1	FFFFFF		HH
FF		FFFFFF	   AA3	 HH   
   FF		FFFFFF		  HH  
    HHH*H	FFFFFF

	    PDC

F Forest
H   Hill
C   Cliff

There was also about 5 feet of open ocean north of the beach, which was 
6" wide.  PDC indicates the location of the Planetary Defense Center 
"Barsoom", which was built from a piece of stryofoam a full foot 
square, 3" tall with 3 HEL/5 laser turrets, plus a Class 5 Beam Battery 
made from a distributor cap and part of a Swedish lightbulb.  It looked 
incredible, much kudos to John Wilkes.	The asterik marks the location 
of a GMS/H turret.  I told John (Defender) he had the mines to install 
1 block mine group, 2 fix groups, or 4 disrupt groups.	He had me stick 
in a block group across the avenue of approach marked AA1.  AA2 was 
covered by 6 Wide Area Munitions groups.  John had 2 platoons of grav 
tanks, both of which were held back sort of in the center of the board. 
 He had 1 missle carrier in a set of ruins north of the PDC, and 1 IFV 
in the woods in the middle of board.  Plus about a company's worth of 
infantry, mixed powered and unpowered, with 4 GMS teams, 2 each PA and 
Line.  These were spread out covering the entire area, including two on 
the hills next to the central cliff on the beach as spotters, and two 
missle teams on the hill on the far right of the board.  I also gave 
him a four-gun off-board medium artillery battery.

Dave attacked with a cross-attached armored company.  One Platoon of 
MDC heavy tanks, 1 of DFFG heavies, 1 of MDC medium tanks, 1 platoon of 
IFV-carried infantry, 1 section of 2 mortars.  Plus he had a platoon of 
engineers and an artillery battery in support.	All as tagmatic troops, 
see my home page.  He basically ignored the mines and headed down AA3, 
with the DFFG heavies coming through the small gap between the central 
cliff and the small hill to it's right.  The rest of the company headed 
down the gap on the right of the board.  The DFFG-heavies took it on 
the chin from the laser turrets, eventually loosing 3 tanks and 
routing.  The rest of the company got about where the notation "AA3" is 
on the map.  They attempted to use their infantry to assault up the 
hill against the missle teams, but rolled a 2 on the confidence check.	
Leadership of 2.  Ooops!  The fighting degenerated into a slugging 
match, and two of the MDC heavies got knocked out, along with an IFV.  
Then Dave started running out of the smoke he was using to cover the 
IFV in the woods, and it lit up the command section, knocking out the 
unit XO's tank.  Then a series of really bad rolls resulted in the HQ 
section breaking, and we called the game.

Lessons Learned:  HEF!	The artillery was equipped with nothing but 
smoke and MAK.	This is useless against infantry.
Smoke:	Smoke was heavily used, but IMHO misused in two instances.  It 
was used to cover some annoying defending units.  Sure, they can't 
shoot, but they can't be shot.	The terrain was waaaay to open to be 
able to smoke for a turn and bypass.  It would have been better to use 
the smoke to break the defender into a series of fortified sections 
which can't support each other.  Then take them down one at a time.  
YMMV.

John M. Atkinson