Armata Romana, scenario #13: Ride to Odessa

Nice to get the early war Romanians back on the playing table and it is fun to play these odd unit matchup as well. First let me state and it was confirmed, that the (three more) is a typo by the Soviet leaders.

This scenario catches the soviets rear guard troops retreating easting but the advancing or probing Romanian recon in force is trying to cut off these disarray Soviet troops. The Romanian Cavalry, motorcycle troops and Platoon of R-1 tank racing on map 4 and both cut-off the Soviets escape route and attack them, strung-out on east-west road.

The Soviets made the mistake of trying to advance instead of just circling the wagons and fighting it out until the BT-7 tank reinforcements showed up. The Romanian air-force showed up too many times for the Soviets to handle the Romanian Cavalry and Motorcycle troops hammer away at the lower morale and mostly reduced Soviet troops with artillery types mixed in.

The Soviets were suffering a lot when their Armor finally showed up and went after the weak Romanian R-1 tanks to score some points but in the chase lost two steps to a Romanian cavalry charge with two platoons and rolling a two on the dice, getting a +1 modifier in the assault for a cavalry charge and another +1 in the assault for a have higher morale, and another +1 for having a leader. The other four steps of BT-7 tanks did manager to dispatch both Romanian R-1 steps and one Romanian Leader that was wondering around after recovering from a demoralization early. In the Infantry battles the Soviets lost almost seven to one in these engagements.

Final score was the Romanians 14 point and the Soviets 7 points, for a Romanian victory! The Soviets exited zero units off the east edge of the map from the 95th Rifle Division and lost seven Infantry steps, one 37mm AA steps, two BT-7 steps and one Leader, and the Tank and leader steps are worth two points each. While the Romanians lost only one cavalry step, two R-1 tank steps and one leader step worth two points each.

It was a fun, fast playing scenario! If I had it to do over again I would have pulled back as the Soviet player and forgotten to try exiting units off the east edge and made the Romanians come to me until my armor arrived.

The Romanians split their forces in two, with the motorcycle company supported by a cavalry squadron attacking the Soviet column from the west and the rest of the cavalry attacking from the east.

First thing the Soviets did was unlimber their towed weapons to provide fire support and AA protection should enemy aircraft make an appearance. The battle did not start off well for the Romanians as the eastern force lost four steps of cavalry with nothing to show for it in return, except frustration, but revenge was close at hand as the motorcycle company overran the Soviet towed weapons in the rear of the Soviet formation.

The tide was turning towards the Romanians when the Soviet armor reinforcements arrived that helped redress the situation, with five turns left, the only hope at this point for the Soviets was to try and get as many steps as possible off the map by using the BT tank company to cover their infantry’s retreat.

Keys to victory for the Romanians was the motorcycle company lead by a 10-0-1 Locotenent and two squadrons of cavalry lead by two other Locotenents, a 9-1-0 & 9-0-1, which used their mobility to get into blocking positions, denying the Soviets the victory points for units exited off the map. This scenario went down to the wire, with only 2 victory points separating the opposing forces, with the Armata Romana coming out on top.