Matakishi's Tea House
A simple little site...
Mogadishu game one
I took my figures and scenery along to the Guidford Wargames Club recently and had a couple of games using my modern Crossfire variant rules with Mike Lewis of Black Hat Miniatures. My terrain boards won't fit in either my new small car or Mike's new small car so I was stuck using my old desert felt cloth but I think the table managed to look okay despite this.
I laid the town out in a basic square pattern with the apartment block in the centre. The mosque was placed at one corner and contained the Somalian leader, the main target for the Americans, who were going to enter from the opposite corner.
Two groups of Somalis took up positions in the town ready to repel the foreign troops.
Somali forces:
2 Platoons each of three bases of infantry, one rpg stand, one technical with .50cal and a leader.
1 HQ force comprising one infantry base, a recoilless rifle and a command stand.
American forces:
1 squad of two infantry fire teams, a SAW base, a Humvee with .50cal and a leader.
Objective:
The Americans need to capture or kill the Somali leaders whilst keeping their casualties to a minimum.
Each Somali leader captured/killed 1point
Somali Command stand captured/killed 3 points
Each American figure stand/vehicle killed -2 points
Major American victory if they score 3 points or more and a minor victory if they score 1-2 points, otherwise the Somalis win.
The Americans began by entering the table with a group move but were halted early by reactive fire from the apartment block.
Flushed with success the Somalis sent a technical down a back street to try and finish off the suppressed American fire team. Shots were traded and the technical was destroyed.
The Americans probed forward with their armoured Humvee but it was wrecked immediately by Somali rocket fire from the market.
One American fire team took station in a building and started trading shots with the Somalis in the apartment block whilst the other Americans worked their way along through buildings to engage the Somalis holding the market. The Somalis occupying the apartments were assisted by the recoilless rifle which unfortunately used up all its ammunition without effect (this became something of a habit for it in subsequent games).
Finally reaching their jump off point the assaulting Americans stormed the market buildings, losing a fire team in the process, cut down as it ran across the open ground to reach the enemy.
Undaunted, the remaining Americans rallied in the face of relentless enemy fire and charged the building again. This time, after fierce hand-to-hand fighting, they carried their objective. Unwilling to lose their momentum they continued on to the neighbouring building since the enemy fire from it had ceased.
Another round of close combat and the unstoppable Americans had cleared this building also. The mosque and their ultimate target lay open ahead of them guarded by a single Somali infantry stand.
Knowing that if they relinquished the initiative now they would be unlikely to regain it, the Americans pushed onwards. Sadly for them reactive fire from the Somali defenders felled their remaining combat stand and the attack failed.
The last American troops traded some more fire with the entrenched Somalis, killing the occupants of another technical in the process, before retreating off the table defeated.
Despite killing a large number of Somali fighters, including one of the leaders, the American losses made it pointless for them to continue and the Somalis won this encounter.
