Top tip! - Don't kill the party in the final battle.
The collapse of the 5th is however a fab opportunity to get rid of the PCs excess ammo and anti armour weapons and to expose them to the horrors of war. Use sound and smell - dim the lights - get Saving Private Ryan on the telly and crank up the volume; strike a few matches and burn a sheet or two of paper. When I last ran Escape I gave an O group for my PCs (the Cav screen for 1-61 Inf) for a delaying action and then stood them to ......
"STAND-TO, ALL UNITS CHARLIE CHARLIE ONE STAND-TO. OUT.
The static-laden radio message is like a cold shower. Up, kit packed, engines running, weapons ready. Staring wide eyed into the dark. Distantly you can hear the crack of tank guns, the rattle of small arms fire suddenly close the WhoooshBOOOM! of an artillery shell."I landed the barrage on 1-61 Inf as they moved behind the PCs and the night disolved in splinters and flame, radio calls included someone screaming
"Oh Jesus! We're hit! I can see flames! I'm BURNIIIING!!!!!" (Let rip - who cares about the neighbours) and then pitched a Polish Cav troop supported by a couple of tanks against the team.
As the team is eventually forced back into the town I pushed them past the bits of 1-61 Inf. Ammo cooking off in burning vehicles, bodies in the street and the sickening bump bump of driving over them.
I tried to keep them moving - off balance. Short firefights with small groups of Polish Infantry or Cavalry and once almost ran them into a BRDM that came round a corner in front of them.
As the OPFOR gets in amongst the 5th I described tableaux, picking up the pace. -
*A tank fires at something behind the PCs vehicle - deafening and near blinding them,
*an RPG team catches them cold - no way can they bring the cupola gun to bear in time - only to have the Soviet weapon misfire or it's gunner cut down by another group.
*Having to backtrack due to burning buildings collapsing into the streets and the roiling acrid flames singeing helmet covers and canvas roofs of soft-skinned vehicles.
*as they pass the field hospital - An M113 ambulance on it's side, aflame. Wounded men claw crazily to escape a bullet riddled and collapsed tent as a T80 spins in place in it's centre, mashing men to unrecogniseable pulp.
*A man trailing bandages runs screaming from a squad of Soviet infantry intent on bayonetting him to death,
*A pretty medic wanders stunned through the carnage carrying a severed arm. Until a shell fragment decapitates her in a spray of blood and after a pause her body collapses to it's knees and then topples sideways into a puddle.
*A group of infantrymen is pursed into a house by a T-72. The last man pauses to shut the back door behind him as if it will keep the tank out. The tank pushes it's main gun through the wall and fires a heat round. And the night disolves into a random Kaleidoscope of awfulness.
I gave them the "You're on your own" message and then rejoined the group at dawn.
"The gathering light dims the glow of Kalisz in flames and lights the pall of smoke that marks the pyre. The rumble of artillery has died away.
Occaisionally the flat, murderous SMACK of a tank gun, the thump of far off mortars or the crackle of small arms speaks of other groups of survivors, broken and fleeing from the Soviets and their KGB interrogators.
Flares drift in lazy spirals, dying to sparks and then winking out, and the odour of smoke breathes over the dew.
HELLO ANY 6 CALLSIGN, HELLO ZERO, COME IN ANY SIX CALLSIGN. WHAT THE f'ing DO WE DO NOW? OVER.That got people going - the sense of shock, loss and imminent threat certainly concentrated the mind and we wen't from there.
