Hail To The Chief Hail To The Chief:
Building a Team Yankee Force with the British Chieftain
with Mitchell Landrum

When Team Yankee was first released, I initially held off. But having now gotten into WWIII: Team Yankee I have been exploring my options as far as armies are concerned. When I saw the release of the British forces, I was quite excited. As an American, the only thing that I would be more excited for is the M1A1.

I figured that a Chieftain Armoured Squadron was the way to go. The Chieftain's big gun, combined with heavy frontal armour reminds me of one of my favourite World War Two tanks, the M4A1 Sherman! Not really, I meant the Jagdpanther. But the Chieftain does remind me of the legendary tank destroyers of the 1940s.

Learn more about the Chieftain from WWIII: British here...

Hail To The Chief
The Chieftain is slow and heavy and can deal serious damage from a standstill. But the biggest weakness of the Chieftain is its drop in the rate of fire when on the move. The Chieftain has to pick a spot, sit there, and deal out its punishment. If properly deployed, Chieftains can create a killing zone that will destroy anything it faces. With an Anti-tank 22; Firepower 2+ gun, it is the literal Finger of Death, reliably killing anything it points at.

Along with such a powerful gun, the Chieftain has an excellent frontal armour rating of 17 (18 with the Stillbrew armour package). This allows it to bounce a decent percentage of incoming shots from the T-72, and makes it invulnerable to portable anti-tank weapons and the guns of BMP-1 and BMP-2. AT-3s coming out of BMP-1s have a very low chance of hurting them, and AT-5s out of BMP-2s don’t do much better. Chieftains even have a chance of blocking AT-6s out of a Hind.

Hail To The Chief

My gaming group likes to play games in the 50-point range. It saves us all some cash while still providing entertaining games. However, I am going to include a base 50-point army and then examine some different options with a 25-point and 50-point increase.

50 point Chieftain Armoured Squadron
Chieftain Armoured Squadron HQ  
with one Chieftain. 6 points
Chieftain Armoured Troop  
with two Chieftains. 12 points
Chieftain Armoured Troop  
with two Chieftains. 12 points
FV432 Mechanised Platoon  
with four GPMG teams with 66mm anti-tank; three Carl Gustav anti-tank teams; one 2" mortar team. 7 points
with two Milan missile teams. 2 points
Spartan Blowpipe SAM Section  
with four Spartan (Blowpipe) 6 points
Harrier Close Air Support Flight  
with two Harriers 5 points
Total Points: 50 points

The 50-point baseline is pretty limiting, considering 30 points must be spent on Chieftains. I chose to bring a full infantry platoon, because it packs a lot of punch, especially with those extra Milan anti-tank missile teams. The Blowpipes are a necessity due to the high level of air assets the Warsaw Pact forces bring.

The list rounds off with two Harriers. These bad boys can deal a lot more damage than you would think. We all know that player who brings as many BMP-1s as he possibly can, and how hard it can be to stop them all. The Harrier solves this problem. Bringing cluster bombs with an anti-tank rating of 8 hitting a top armour of 1 means no saves, it's just like having a huge salvo bombardment, but if it hits it is guaranteed to hurt.

Hail To The Chief
First 25 point Addition
Lynx Airmobile Company HQ  
with one SLR rifle team & two GPMG teams. 3 points
Lynx Airmobile Platoon  
with four GPMG teams with 66mm anti-tank; three Milan anti-tank teams; one 2" mortar team & three Lynx. 7 points
Lynx Airmobile Platoon  
with four GPMG teams with 66mm anti-tank; three Milan anti-tank teams; one 2" mortar team & three Lynx. 7 points
Lynx Milan Platoon  
with six Milan anti-tank teams & two Lynx. 8 points
Total Points: 25 points
Next, I would add a good-sized Gordon Highlanders company. They are a fun and exciting new type of company for WWIII: Team Yankee and pack a serious punch. Milan missiles for anti-tank; GPMG to lay down a serious amount of fire; and very tough in assaults all combine to provide a solid base for a quick, hard-hitting anti-tank unit.
Hail To The Chief
Second 25 point Addition
Chieftain Armoured Troop  
with two Chieftains. 12 points
M109 Field Battery  
with four M109s.                                                                                                                                   10 points
Tracked Rapier SAM Section  
with two Tracked Rapiers. 3 points
Total Points: 25 points

Finally, I round out with more general support. Not much needs to be said here, as more tanks, artillery, and some anti-aircraft are pretty basic.

Thanks for reading, I hope you can learn something from this, or at least get an idea of what some other people are doing.

~ Mitchell.


Last Updated On Wednesday, January 24, 2024