Task Force Wolverines Introduction

All,

Well, it's time to start another too large project.  My son and I will play a series of games (how many I don't know, we'll go 'til we're sick of it) using a modified version of Too Fat Lardies' "I Ain't Been Shot, Mum!" rules, in 10mm on a 6' x 4' table.  We're using some beautiful Cold War models from Pendraken, supplemented with two pairs of plastic jets for air support, with terrain (mostly 15mm stuff, actually) from various sources, but lots of JR Miniatures, Novus Design Studios, Crescent Root Studios, rivers from Wargamers' Terrain, and hills from Warzone studios.  Now for the backstory:

It's 1966, and the world has been in flames for than two years.  I don't know if anyone on our side actually knows what really happened, or how it happened, but it seems after the abortive Bay of Pigs invasion and the near apocalypse of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Reds were scared enough they figured something needed to be done.  They massed men and machines in Western Europe, and when the balloon went up, all hell broke loose.  NATO and the Warsaw Pact clashed from Norway down to the boot of Italy, trading blows like two heavyweight fighters.  We were so intent on getting our reinforcements embarked and dispatched to reinforce Western Europe that we didn't even notice whole Army Groups go missing from the Soviet order of battle.  Forces that were in reserve, just inside the Soviet borders, simply vanished, but we were too busy to contemplate that, or divert significant resources to figure it out.

And then all hell really broke loose.  No one knows how they did it exactly, but in one fell swoop the US was decapitated and all alone.  It was late November 1963 and the President was visiting Dallas when 6.5mm rounds fired by Soviet agents ended his life and that of the Vice President.  Simultaneously, scores of nuclear detonations rocked the United States, destroying the capital and ruining major cities on each coast, while over the Atlantic, Soviet bombers approached the massive convoy carrying US reinforcements bound for Europe, then eliminated them by detonating a nuclear airburst to blind the US radar and dropping nuclear bombs on the convoy.  Nuclear weapons were unleashed elsewhere by the Soviets as well, most notably upon China, Canada, and the United Kingdom, and it wasn't long afterwards that those missing Soviet Army Groups began appearing.  The US mainland was subjected to daily (conventional) bombing raids as Soviet forces crossed the Bering Strait, conquered Alaska and marched south through Canada into the US' Pacific Northwest.  Soviet forces also crossed the northern Atlantic, staging in Nova Scotia before launching their invasion of the US through New England, while Soviet forces staging out of Cuba landed in Mexico and pushed north into Texas and New Mexico.

The initial strikes, with Soviet advances in red, purple stars are nuclear detonations that occurred 22 November 1963.  We nukes weren't missiles or dropped by aircraft, we believe they were smuggled onto the continent by sleeper agents, detonated on command.  Either way, they caught us totally by surprise, and really fractured our ability to defend ourselves.

And here we are today, January 3, 1966.  The lines have pretty much settled.  Sure they knocked us back on our heels, but we eventually got around to reorganizing ourselves, rebuilding or moving industry to support the war effort, pulling folks and machines out of the line to rest, re-fit, and train.  And we were just about to strike in north Texas, cut off that salient in New Mexico that's reaching for to link up with the Reds on the West Coast in Arizona and Colorado, not that we don't need to worry about them linking up in the north, too, with their push into Michigan, looking like they intend on meeting in Minnesota.  But things have slowed down a bit up north and out west due to pretty bad winter weather, so the Russkies opened a new front, caught us off guard again. 

They opened the new campaign by popping another nuke, this time on Cape Canaveral, down in Florida, and then they made an amphibious landing just north of there, up around Daytona Beach and Saint Augustine, where they immediately dashed west, through Orlando and St Petersburg, cutting off the southern half of Florida.  So we've got real problems.  First, ain't no bad winter weather down in Florida, so I'm sure they're looking to push north and west to effect linkups, and second, we've got a lot of Americans down there in Florida that need our help, ASAP.

As you might guess, we've been critically short of heavy weapons and equipment, and what we have is spread all over the country in penny packets, and by now is pretty much worn out.  But we've got industry stood back up in the heartland, and we're once again turning out tanks, planes, and guns.  With the new stuff rolling out of the factories we've created an armored brigade; sure, a single armored brigade is pretty pathetic when you look what we're up against with the Soviets, but we need them to help hold the line while we get production back into full gear.  Our armored brigade won't be our only armored brigade for long, but we do need it to hold off the Reds and buy us time, so it's going to be used as a fire brigade, dashing wherever it's needed most.  They're headed up by a tough guy, Brigadier Andrew Tanner, US Army:

The General, seen here with his aide, Captain Erica Mason.

General Tanner is already, as we speak, preparing his brigade, known as Task Force Wolverine, to move southeast to and stop the Reds cold in Florida, then roll them up and push them into the sea.  Failure to do so means a whole lot of Americans south of the front line will perish...

**Enough BS, here's the deal: my son and I are going to play out a US vs USSR campaign set in the 60s, occurring on US soil.  We're playing in 10mm, 99.99 % of which is from Pendraken, with me being the US and him being the Soviets.  Each side has a battalion commander, a Mech Infantry Company, a Tank Company, an Anti-Tank Platoon, a Reconnaissance Platoon, a Heavy Mortar Platoon, an anti-aircraft detachment, and close air support.  That's what I have in terms of toys; it's not likely, but it is possible either side could have all of that on the table for a single fight, but not likely.  We'll be using a modified version of Too Fat Lardies' "I Ain't Been Shot, Mum."  They were rumored to be working on "I Ain't Been Nuked, Mum;" maybe I should use that title?