Seven Days To The River Rhine: Advancing With Thunderous Roar...

 It has been a long time for the soldiers, 

 Advancing with thunderous roar, 

Swearing never to return, 

 Except with epoch-making victory.

Walla Zaman Ya Selahy (Egyptian National Anthem 1971-79)

Following on from attempting to liberate Lidl from the capitalists and bourgeoisie, I suggested to Andy that it might be fun to try Seven Days To The River Rhine (7DTTRR) in the Sinai Desert using my 6mm October War miniatures. So back to 1973 we went with the Egyptians attempting to overrun an Israeli outpost and the IDF sending in armour to relieve it (the Capture scenario from the rulebook). 7DTTRR author Roger Gerrish has uploaded an Arab-Israeli PDF supplement on the 7DTTRR Facebook page so we didn't have much work to do other than dust off the models and dig out Andy's Bag The Hun desert mat (you might notice the hexes in some of the photos which had no part in the game).

Unfortunately for Andy before the game got started his hidden units and dummy tokens got a good stonking from the Egyptian divisional artillery seeing four units (or were they dummy tokens?) take Morale hits.

"Advancing with thunderous roar..." two platoons of T-62's supported by infantry in BMP-1's deployed to liberate the village from the occupying force...

As the first tank platoon advanced...

 It spotted the nearest building was occupied by an IDF infantry unit.

The Egyptian T-62's were activated again and poured HE shells into the Israeli unit causing it to break and flee.

Pushing into the village the T-62's were ambushed by a second IDF infantry group who fired a bazooka at the Egyptian armour. Unfortunately for the Israelis they missed...

As the BMP's followed the tanks in, their infantry de-bussed and attacked the enemy infantry.

Fortunately for the IDF infantry in the village help was on its way...

A lone Centurion advanced towards the village...

Followed by a platoon of IDF Centurions who opened fire on the enemy...

Destroying one T-62 and inflicting Morale markers on two more.

Andy then followed this up by playing one of the Tactical Advantage Cards he had been randomly awarded at the start of the game. Whilst written with a Cold War action in mind, we took it to mean the Israelis had some special forces around... Another T-62 brewed up!

In the space of minutes the Israelis had taken out four of the Egyptians T-62's! However fate is fickle and regaining the initiative the first T-62 into the village opened fire...

Destroying the first of the Israeli Centurions that had arrived in the village.

Andy deployed the remaining IDF infantry in the village in an effort to destroy the Egyptians who had concentrated their efforts on the second unit they had uncovered.

A bit of period ignorance then occurred as I deployed a BRDM-2 with AT-5 Spandrel (historically it should have been BRDM-2's with the less effective AT-3 Saggers which the Egyptians had).

Unfortunately for Andy the AT-5 Spandrel was incredibly effective, immediately knocking out one of the Israeli Centurions.

However their return fire took out a fifth T-62.

And a BMP-1 which exploded taking its infantry squad with it, and inflicting Morale markers on its comrades.

Wary of the AT-5 Spandrels, the second Israeli Centurion hugged cover as it moved in to help try and hold the village from the Egyptians who had now taken the mosque.

Using a hill for cover, another Centurion loosed off a shot...

Destroying a second BMP, though the very shaken infantry unit inside managed to de-buss.

The table was now covered in burning tanks, Israeli...

And Egyptian.

In the village the Egyptian infantry and armour took out a third IDF infantry unit...

Whilst one of their BMP-1's fired its AT-3 Sagger....

Destroying a Centurion which blew up!

At this point Andy realised the game was up and conceded.

For our first October War 6mm 7DTTRR game that was a lot of fun (especially as I won!). We did get some things wrong early doors (it was only Andy's third 7DTTRR game and my second) and we didn't use Break Points this time which may have seen a different outcome given how quickly the T-62 platoons succumbed to the Centurion fire! But getting my head around the token activation system and being able to hand off the initiative (when your opponent may not really want it) means we'll be revisiting 7DTTRR very soon and I'd recommend them to anyone interested in 6/10/15mm 1970/80's wargaming...