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So far, my players have been successful because of their Recon skills.

However, that's going to change now that the main Soviet forces are (vaguely) aware of their existance.

Because now the enemy will send out A+A Recon special forces to find out where they are. And that means no more perfect ambushes and so on.

In fact, it will most likely mean perfect ambushes from the enemy side, along with surprise artillery and armored assaults.

I highly doubt that my players will come out unharmed from those, since most of their success has relied on them getting the drop on the enemy, so far.

I imagine my game is taking the same turn. Since I haven't played more than, perhaps, 6 sessions and only a few soldiers have fled, not all from the same faction, it wouldn't be realistic to have the main factions mustering all their forces to get the PCs. Yet. They're about to encounter the first real recon patrol from a major faction soon though and after that, I believe they will start to miss the earlier, simpler encounters with low level mooks. Some recon forces will not even have to have recon A+A since they can hide in plain site...

Just as another thought - if your players are "tactical operators operating tactically", maybe throw them in situations that are dangerous for even the most qualified specops soldiers - urban warfare. Send them into buildings that are full of enemies in prepared positions and see how they operate. Toss some traps at them. Presumably not all of them have excellent recon; a floorboard with nails sticking up or a well-placed grenade tripwire will ruin someone's day. I had a character go to collect some trapped vest with a primed grenade underneath once - that was not a good time.

Thank you for your input. Yes, traps and environment are some of the things I try to incorporate into my encounters in order to properly challenge my players. It works sometimes but I'm learning for every encounter. As of now, the hardest part for me is to properly narate when the PCs move from outdoors to indoor hexes, to describe the indoor in a way that brings out the different challenge from what they see in the map, versus what their PCs see. Also remembering to hide tokens of enemies when they are inside, not taking cover by the windows, so the players doesn't know exactly where the enemies are. But I'm getting there...

Now, I don't mind players with a good plan and a powerful build "winning" encounters, meaning surviving and taking out most bad guys. I was just wondering how people handle the loot that might come out of such an encounter.

Your players seem to be the kind who game-ify everything. 6 PCs coordinating things so that half are aiming while the other half fire is ...

Some of them are and if that's what they enjoy out of the game, then I have to accomodate that. I don't want them to feel they have to enjoy game in a specific way to be "right", whatever that means. It's not ALL they want but it's a big chunk. Again, for some of them. They're all experienced role players though, with lots of years of experience, both reading rules but also about how I tend to set up encounters, twist and turns of the intrigue and to never, ever, take anything for granted. Naturally, they have evolved to not take chanses if they can avoid them...

Some of them are and if that's what they enjoy out of the game, then I have to accomodate that.

Well, they're metagaming: using out-of-character knowledge to have their characters do counterintuitive (and tactically nonsensical) things in character.

The fact is that if your PCs are winning a bunch of fights, they will accumulate a bunch of loot. If you want to reduce the loot, you have to reduce the success and restore the game balance. I'm suggesting that your players' metagaming the combat has a lot to do with the lack of balance.

I imagine my game is taking the same turn. Since I haven't played more than, perhaps, 6 sessions and only a few soldiers have fled, not all from the same faction, it wouldn't be realistic to have the main factions mustering all their forces to get the PCs. Yet. They're about to encounter the first real recon patrol from a major faction soon though and after that, I believe they will start to miss the earlier, simpler encounters with low level mooks. Some recon forces will not even have to have recon A+A since they can hide in plain site...

The best thing is that the main faction they're facing isn't even mustering all their forces if this happens.

there's like 1200 soldiers and 18 BMD-2's in Örebro... sending like a hundred soldiers and two or three BMD's isn't even a fraction of that.

Also, I think the 76'th is going to have a captured tank or two, just for kicks

I mean, their recon units are using captured humvees, so why not more captured equipment

I imagine my game is taking the same turn. Since I haven't played more than, perhaps, 6 sessions and only a few soldiers have fled, not all from the same faction, it wouldn't be realistic to have the main factions mustering all their forces to get the PCs. Yet. They're about to encounter the first real recon patrol from a major faction soon though and after that, I believe they will start to miss the earlier, simpler encounters with low level mooks. Some recon forces will not even have to have recon A+A since they can hide in plain site...

The best thing is that the main faction they're facing isn't even mustering all their forces if this happens.

there's like 1200 soldiers and 18 BMD-2's in Örebro... sending like a hundred soldiers and two or three BMD's isn't even a fraction of that.

Also, I think the 76'th is going to have a captured tank or two, just for kicks

I mean, their recon units are using captured humvees, so why not more captured equipment

I hear you. My players slipped through the net and traveled south, east of lake Vättern and now the Admiral is going to dispatch a coy of the 131 to intercept them. As a side note, they have still not found anyone to sell them a still for producing alcohol. Let's see how long they can hold on to their beloved bandvagn...

Some of them are and if that's what they enjoy out of the game, then I have to accomodate that.

Well, they're metagaming: using out-of-character knowledge to have their characters do counterintuitive (and tactically nonsensical) things in character.

The fact is that if your PCs are winning a bunch of fights, they will accumulate a bunch of loot. If you want to reduce the loot, you have to reduce the success and restore the game balance. I'm suggesting that your players' metagaming the combat has a lot to do with the lack of balance.

Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say they're metagaming but some of them ARE power gamers and like that part of a game. Any game.

But you're also absolutely right. A leniency on my part in the first couple of encounters, combined with the difficulty of the standard encounters and their power gaming is what led to them having so much loot in the first place. After a lot of advice in this forum, I now believe I have a better idea of how to counter that and maybe even tune the flood of loot coming their way in the future. The campaign has only just begun and they are still a long way from home...
Thank you for your insightful comment.

Barter and trading for things is definitely a way to offset PC accumulation of gear.

Last two sessions I had did some of this.

Case1: PCs encounter convoy of two vehicles (T72 leading a truck), their local guide gets out and talks to them to avoid fight, comes back with proposal for going around each other, but they then get hint of guide not saying something and find out the truck has american prisoners. Long story short, they were able to negotiate the release of the prisoners in exchange for some arms/ammo ($500 a head equivalent).

Case2: PCs convoy had to pay a toll to cross a river bridge owned/operated (exploited) by local warlord. $100 per person and $200 per vehicle equivalent of stuff. Easier to trade than fight and more convenient than going around/finding a ford in river.