[Matt Wiser]

A POW rescue operation....it can be set in Poland or Iran:



Mission: Breakout


This adventure is best run as a follow-on to a rumor, or resulting from an encounter if set in Poland, but if it is changed to Iran, it can be run as either an official mission, or while the PCs are en route to an objective or to an extraction point.


The target of the PCs is a column of prisoners held by a Soviet (or if in Iran, Tudeh at referee's discretion) unit. If in Poland, the Soviet garrison has its own prison compound, while in Iran, the Tudeh insist on holding a number of American and Iranian POWs separate from the Soviets' own POW system in the rear of the Transcaucus Front.

If a rumor, the referee may decide that the source of the rumor is a merchant, hunters from a nearby community, or the result of an interrogation of a captured Soviet soldier. If an encounter result, the PCs may actually encounter the prisoner column.

The prisoners are a mix of NATO nationalities and civilians. Americans, British, Germans, Danish, and Dutch are the POWs (if in Poland), or if, in Iran, Americans and Iranian military. The civilians can be suspected of partisan activities and counting themselves lucky not to have been shot, or simply those unfortunate enough to be press-ganged into forced labor for the Soviets or Tudeh. They are used for road repair, farming, cutting wood, digging trenches for fortifications, and other hard physical labor. Many are ill and all are undernourished.

Nearby is a prison compound where the prisoners are held. A barbed-wire enclosure with a number of ramshackle huts (wooden if in Poland, mud brick if in Iran) that house the prisoners, with a punishment compound of several small, one-person metal boxes (similar to that in the movie Bridge on the River Kwai) where disobedient prisoners are kept in between rounds of torture for infringement of “Camp Regulations”, disobedience to guards or the officers (real or imagined), A smaller compound houses a number of female prisoners-some are NATO, others are local. Some are used on the labor details, others work in the camp kitchen, or to clean the officers' and guards' quarters. They are also used as a source of “entertainment” for the camp personnel. Any female officers will be singled out for the most humiliating work the Commandant can think of. Four guard towers, each with a single PK machine gun, provide guards with a full view of the compound.

The Guards number about thirty, and are a mix. Some are too badly wounded to return to combat duties, having lost hands or feet, but are still able to serve on limited duty. Others are former guards in “Disciplinary battalions” and served as guards in Soviet or Tudeh military prisons or penal units. Some may be recent conscripts who found themselves in this assignment, and would like very much to desert. They are the ones who are the most likely to be sympathetic to the prisoners. The guards' barracks-built to a better standard that the prisoners' huts, are adjacent to the compound.

The Officers: Four officers, not counting the Political Officer, are present. One officer always accompanies the labor detail to supervise the guards assigned to the detail. The Commandant has a hatred of Americans, and views those who fight alongside Americans to be only marginally better-unless they are Germans, in which case they are worse. If in Iran, the Tudeh Commandant will view any Iranian prisoners as “Counterrevolutionaries”, and all are deserving of the most harsh treatment possible, short of killing them. The Political Officer, who is naive, will be trying to convert the prisoners to their captors' cause, or at the very least, to serve as trusties. The Commandant has an office/torture room inside the compound, but quarters for all of the officers are adjacent to the compound, in housing either newly-built for the purpose, or local homes taken over by the guard force.

The local garrison: in the settlement nearest the prison compound is a Soviet (Or Polish Army, or Tudeh) unit. The garrison numbers 1D10x10 soldiers. On a roll of 1-3 on a D6, they are infantry. A roll of 4-5 has them as cavalry. A roll of 6 has them equipped with armored vehicles, including at least one tank (type determined by the Referee). The Referee may determine the types of vehicles, or select from the Encounter table for APCs/IFVs, as well as any heavy weapons.

Running the Scenario: This can be done in several ways. First, the prisoner column can be attacked, and an attack from the outside is the last thing the guards are expecting. They do not have a radio, and only a fleeing guard returning to the compound would bring word of the attack. However, the other prisoners at the compound (1D6 who are seriously ill, or too injured to work, along with 2D6 female prisoners) would be left behind.

The column could be trailed back to the compound, where it can be observed, and a plan of attack devised. If the PCs have made contact with local anti-Soviet guerrillas, either Polish or Iranian, they may be of help (especially if the guerrillas have friends or family among the prisoners, or if they have American or other NATO Special Forces as advisors). If in Iran, the location of the compound can be marked, and the PCs make their extraction. A follow-on mission to assault the compound and free the prisoners, can then be laid on with approval from the PCs' command authority. Insertion and extraction procedures from King's Ransom can be copied.

Complications:

Marauders may attack-they may believe the prison compound has gold or silver mined by the prisoners (a rumor, but a false one).

More prisoners arrive, complicating plans for the rescue.

The local garrison is reinforced, and said reinforcements include armor and mechanized infantry. Are they passing through, or are they now assigned to the garrison?

Weather may help, or hinder, the raid on the compound, as would the moon (or a lack of one).