The quest...

[DavidW75]

After the intial shock wore of that someone wanted my opinion two busy days at the hell I call work and much thought, here's my three cents (inflation) worth....

Fulda Gap 85- Great OOB, pretty good map, terrible combat engine. It worked well for WWII, but to loose three tanks in three hours of combat I think we can all agree on the lethality of modern combat.

Decisive Action- Good engine, wish it had an actual OOB with equip, didn't handle terrain well. I know it's based on how the army classifies terrain, but sometimes the 'army way' doesn't transfer well to the digital world. I think a system more familiar to gamers with different types of terrain would have been better.

TOAW II- Good overall game, sometimes the scenerios were lacking. If a scenerio was done well, like my Red Thrust 89 (shameless plug) :rolleyes: was very enjoyable. I wish Norm still had the rights to this one.

Steel Beasts- What? I know it's a sim but it's an outstanding game that should give anyone intersted in modern combat an idea about the deadliness and speed at which warfare now takes place. Lacks helos which I think would have been important in any war in Germany.

Tac Ops, BCT: I only played the demo of these games, and while they seem like they have potential, I just didn't ever get into them. There's only so many hours in a day.

Anyways...coming soon my ideal WWIII game

[DavidW75]

Now if I was going to do a game, this is what I'ld want.
1. Good Order of Battles, Andy Johnson's is great to start with. I still have my copy on the hard drive. Thanks Andy
Then some obscure resources, my personal favorite is Mike Skinner's USAEUR, circa 1989. Also Modern Land Combat, I think Chris Foss, also circa 89. Not to mention anything Jane's. Maybe also would get some Zolga stuff too.
2. An innovatie grid system. I've had ideas:eek: Maybe somethin akin to DA.
3. Accurate combat. Here's the part where a good programmer is required. Again I defer to Steel Beasts. Al Delaney, one man.
In all seriousness, warfare in the 1980's would have been devastating. Especially in Germany. Densly populated, the most heavily armed militaries squared off, are we lucky to see this day? I think so. I think warfare brought about the cold war bursting wide opened would have been...bad <understatement of the year> Warfare on an operation level would have been fasicinating. Warfare at a tacital level purely destructive. Warfare at a personal level unimaginable.
It would have been violent, history does bare that out. Wars in 1967, 1973, 1982, 1991, were bad for armies in the field. One side usually won, it was very intense combat. When the Iraqi's actually fought, they fought. Then think about this massed firepower, tripled. Then ignited in Central Europe. Germany wouldn't be rubble, it would be pulverized. Now you have the system to work within. Program away.

4. Where to focus. I would start at the lowest command denomanator, men and their machines. Find an algoritim. Then move up to platoons. What are they doing during the turn. On up the ladder. Go as far as you like.

5. The New Weapons. Stealth, amred helicopter gunships, the information age,and more, all participating, in combat for the first time. Each bringing a new dimension to war .

Combine all that and you have my plan for the ideal game. Any questions?

[Sabre21]

Hi David

I frequent these boards quite often. I made that OOB you mention to support Erik Rutins back during the heyday of TOAWII. I spent over half of my 26 yr career focused on the Russian Bear...5 of it actually in Germany.

You are right that WWIII would have pulverized Europe on a scale that we have yet to see. Millions of casualties...I pray to the Ranger in the Sky and am thankful it never happened.

But back to the OOB, I used a lot of data I collected from multiple military sources..all unclassified but hard to get..usually going through hundreds of old documents in some out of the way military library. I was lucky on one occasion to find the entire National Guard OOB on a single document that was printed in 1989 or so that was used for some type of AUSA convention display..all pretty colors...really detailed. The US OOB was pretty easy..as was the Warsaw Pact stuff in Eastern Europe. I have almost everything down to regimental and in some cases battlion level stuff. Western Soviet Union was a bit tougher considering I had to use a lot of Jane's sources along with a few others.

I never used any single source unless I knew it was exact, in many cases I used 3 or 4 or 5 sources that all said the same thing. There were several places where holes existed, and in these instances I had to use a bit of guesswork.

As for other Nato forces..German, British, French, Dutch, and Belgium forces were pretty easy. The Danish were a bit harder but I got help on that from some overseas friends. Jo Van Der Pluym comes to mind (I hope I spelled that right Jo), I even had some former WP soldiers help me out.

The Italians weren't too bad although they were undergoing an organizational change about then and I most likely got some of that skewed, the Spanish and Portuguese forces have some holes..but by far the Greek and Turkish forces had the least available data. Only those Russian forces in Central asia were more difficult.

Sabre21/Andy Johnson

[Jo van der Pluym]

Originally posted by Sabre21


As for other Nato forces..German, British, French, Dutch, and Belgium forces were pretty easy. The Danish were a bit harder but I got help on that from some overseas friends. Jo Van Der Pluym comes to mind (I hope I spelled that right Jo), I even had some former WP soldiers help me out.
Sabre21/Andy Johnson

Andy

You have my name Jo van der Pluym spelled right. Thanks.
And also thanks do mention my name.
Alone, have I help you with the Dutch OOB and not the Danish.

[Sabre21]

Hi Jo

Yea I know you helped me on the Dutch OOB, but I thought you also helped me on the Danes..must have been one of the many other guys over there that helped out, many of whom I can't remember (getting old:)

Andy

[DavidW75]

Andy,
I remember when your OOB first came out. Then you updated it. Like I said it's still on my hard drive. I think between that, and any other sources a person can find is probably about the best one should expect.

[jrcar]

G'day I'll throw my bit in as well,

I think DavidW75 has a good comment on the personnel, tactical and operationl level. At the tactical level I don't think you would have seen many "fair fights" most of the time one side would've had a significant advantage over the other. IMHO the operational level is where its interesting, creating the circumstances where the decisive tactical battles would occur.

First a review of whats out there already...

Decisive Action (operational, low fidelity game)
I love DA, It would be great to see a elevation model under the MCOO and to model weapons. But its about manouvering brigades in a Corps battle. It would be good to have a game focussed on keeping track of individual companies and specialist platoons, with many of the features of DA.

Armoured Task Force/BCT (High tactical, Battalion-Brigade battlegroup, high fidelity)
Innovative (especially ATF) but too focussed on the physical effects of modern battle. Not much in the way of C4ISREW, Information operations or similar.

TACOPS4 (same as ATF but slightly lower fidelity)
I like TACOPS (especially the multiplayer TACOPS4), but the terrain representation lets it down. It also needs a command structure.

STEELBEASTS (crew-company, high fidelity)
Steelbeast is very good for the crew-company level level and does give a very good feel for modern combat at this level.


What I'd like to see is DA, ATF and TACOPS combined (I know, not asking for much).

I'd like a game at the BN-Div level (units are companies or specialist platoons, handle by a tacAI), focussing on the use of C4ISREW (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and electronic warfare), and the issues involved with the coordination of fires and manouvre.

The game should be co-op multiplayer and have appropriate command and control delays. Allow a player to be a battalion commander, or a member of a brigade or divisional staff/commander.


My background is as an Army Intelligence Officer, now working in the Australian Defence Simulation Office where I look after joint wargamming But these are my opinions and not official ones!

cheers

Rob

[IronManBeta]

These are all very interesting comments. As far as lethality goes, I don't you think you will be disappointed - the half life of most line units is under 10 minutes right now in most of my testing right now! It makes the Marianas Turkey Shoot look like a country fair and I feel now that I really know how the Japanese must have felt back then.

Subject to a lot more tweeking of course, it appears that when one side wins, it wins big. As a test I have a Soviet tank regiment attacking a full strength cavalry 'squadron' (ie bn) in a good position. The Soviets make every mistake in the book: piecemeal committment, inadequate arty prep, no radio jamming, wide frontage, somewhat inferior training and morale, etc. The turns are 30 minutes long and are resolved in six 5 minute increments with subincrements of 1 minute each. Once the shooting starts a tank company (10 x T80U) loses roughly half its strength (5) in the first increment, half again in the second (2 or 3), and then half again in the third (1) by which time its morale is utterly shattered and what remains (1 or 2) is streaming to the rear. The defenders then take apart the next company and then the next. Its like throwing eggs against a brick wall. Of course, a properly prepared attack does a lot better... Artillery is awesome when it can find a target, and nothing beats a judicious use of the nukes to pave the way to an easy victory.

Incredibly, the cavalry units on the attack seem to actually develop some forward momentum and are sometimes able to roust the Soviets out of their positions. Its terribly bloody but it works. I haven't quite figured out what the key factor is - it can sometimes be hard even with all the debug code to tell what the combat resolution is most sensitive to. At the moment I think that it stems from having the Americans move in a more conservative bounding overwatch (slower, but uses cover much, much better) versus the 'line em up and charge - quantity is its own kind of quality' Soviet attack.

I have noticed that there is surprisingly little range attentuation for combat effects in the modern period vs WW2. I was so ingrained that killing power falls off sharply with distance (both chance of hit and penetration) that the relatively flat curve right out to max range takes some getting used to! If the terrain accomodates, these guys can really hit hard at 3+ km....

My big problem right now is with helicopters - they get shot down the instant they are used. Sabre, you're a Cobra man - what did they teach you to do? Stay out of their range but within your range, or always keep moving and never let them see you, or what?

Cheers, Rob.

[IronManBeta]

Originally posted by jrcar

What I'd like to see is DA, ATF and TACOPS combined (I know, not asking for much).

I'd like a game at the BN-Div level (units are companies or specialist platoons, handle by a tacAI), focussing on the use of C4ISREW (command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and electronic warfare), and the issues involved with the coordination of fires and manouvre.

The game should be co-op multiplayer and have appropriate command and control delays. Allow a player to be a battalion commander, or a member of a brigade or divisional staff/commander.
cheers

Rob

We are not really trying to produce an army simulator here, just a game that is fun and tolerably 'historical' if such a thing is possible. You are the second person today to mention this business with co-op multiplayer. What would such a thing look like? What are the five most important features? I could guess, but if you have actually done it, it would be a lot easier if you could just tell me or point me in the right direction! I have Tac Ops 4 BTW and that appears to have some stuff in it. Should I go back and read everything that talks about the different colored forces?

I am also experimenting with different delay periods before orders take effect. Nothing terribly complex, but it doesn't have to be to reduce your plans to a shambles. Wargamers are so used to instant action and zero planning times, that even a short lag is really upsetting. I was looking at the intervals again last night and shortened them up a notch but still...

In your experience what time lag would be appropriate say for a bn CO calling in arty support from a unit that is on call and all set to respond? 20 seconds, 2 minutes, 6 minutes? If a brigade commander orders a hasty attack right now, how many hours would go by before the vehicles started to move. I've seen things that said 30 minutes and others that said several hours. The soviets apparently needed nearly 24 hours to launch a bn hasty attack! That can't be right, but apparently it was gleaned from their own military literature. I'm not looking for freakishly good or bad results - something more like an average and a standard deviation so that I can tell where 2/3s of the results should fall. Feel free to qualify it as much as you need to because that will tell me what the process is sensitive to.

Cheers, Rob.

[jrcar]

G'Day Rob, a few comments

Firstly have you got a copy of David Isby's book "Weapons and Tactics of the Soviet Army" (I think thats right). It has excellent documentation of Soviet doctrine at the tactical level. A Soviet force just doesn't blindly attack, it has a very strong emphasis on recon (but soviet recon elements aren't expected to fight for information like US units). He also gives planning figures for attacks at different levels of command.

Orders delay are really important (have a look at "Airbourne Assault"by Panther games, published by Battlefront). This is where the Soviet doctrine starts to fail as their command and control starts failing (then again start hitting the US with strong EW and Soviet C2 starts to look good )

Modern Arty fire really depends if its on call, or in support, anywhere from 30sec-3mins upto 5-10 mins. Here the US in particular has an advantage, but the Soviets would frequently assign arty units to point elements. The US/NATO system is more flexible, the Soviets have more of it, and it tends to be concentrated on the point of effort, where the US/NATO system can be diffused by multiple calls for fire on Soviet Feights or supporting attacks.

I suspect the logistics of ammo resupply becomes the real issue, not the ability to get the rounds down range.

I can't comment too much on mechanised forces, all my experiance has been with leg infantry based forces, but a Brigade is going to take 2-12 hours to change orders, depending on lots of factors ( like was there a previous warning order- was this manouvre expected, do they have to talk to division, the terrain, degree of enemy threat). Changing from attack to defend is easy, defend to a simple attack medium, changing and axis of attack by more than 45degrees difficult, doing a prepared attack difficult.

24 hours for a Bn attack dosn't sound right at all, but it depends on the degree of difficulty, and if you have practised these things before.


On Multiplayer the key is that the commander can only see what his troops would see, and they need to coordinate with flanking units and the HQ to carry out the battle. To do this you need the ability to draw graphics such as control lines, objectives and ID likely threat positions. Its also good to have an After Action Review capability so that you can talk about what went right and wrong (like a god mode that records to a file so the participants can see their actions, and everyone elses including the enemy). Having multi sides (like Tacops with Civvies) adds to the frustration, and the fun

Need to go now, will try to comment more tomorrow.

Cheers

Rob

[Sabre21]

Hi Rob

There is no doubt that a WWIII scenario would be anything short of a bloodbath. Modern technology is deadly. You are right about the effect out to 3-4 kilometers. Good MI and Leopard crews would kill targets easily at that range. The only problem is that Germany is Kansas. There's lots of rolling terrain, small wooded areas and small villages everywhere. Great defensive terrain, but from the attacking side, if you make good use of the terrain you can get close to the enemy.

Speed is essential too, the shorter time the enemy has you in his sites, the fewer should get whacked. That's even more important from an aviation perspective. We trained a lot in the early eighties to use established battlepositions and engage targets at maximum range from a hover. There are plenty of places where a helicopter can mask itself within the folds of the terrain but still adequately engage targets. With the coming of the Apache, engagement ranges went from around 3k up to around 6-8 km using the hellfire. Plus the fact it is such a fast missile, crews could shoot and scoot quick.

Us poor Cobra guys in the Air Cav were left with developing tactics that would keep us alive. By the late eighties, soviet tactical ada was a killer, but we still had jammers, flares, and chaff on board...for what little good that does:)

In reality, we operated as a pink team as I mentioned to you before. An OH58 looking out ahead while we followed along protecting his (and our) rear end. The job of the Cav was to gain and maintain contact. Finding the threat usually wasn't the hard part, it was staying alive maintaining the contact which was the trick. In the majority of cases, we found the bad guys well within LMG range...sometimes they were close enough to spit on. In times like these you had to improvise. I loved my 20mm and rockets. The smell of cordite in the cockpit was great..hehe.

What I found that worked was once contact was made that aggressive high speed maneuvering was needed to close with and engage the target and then to egress out. I would use my doppler to store target locations and then mask below the trees moving at speeds around 120-130 kts. Using the doppler to tell me where my target was (course and range), I would use the terrain untill I got within about 3500 meters at which time I would unmask running towards the target. A Cobra is only 3 feet wide and a very tiny silouette and hard to see, especially if there is any backdrop behind you. Once unmasked I would see the target and unleash a dozen or so rockets followed by 20mm as I remasked and then turned away. You never turn away until you are remasked.

On some occasions, where the range was too close, it was better to attack aggressively, and overfly the target, which usually forced the bad guys to run and hide...mostly out of instinct rather than practicality. I've had my share of flying between tanks at 5-10 feet off the deck and get a few chuckles as tankers duck inside their turrets. It is not easy trying to engage a fast moving target that is jinking all over the place. I have had more than 1 copilot get sick on me:)

I wasn't concerned with sam's...not even manpads..they just aren't effective enough on helicopters in a noe profile. I have got to play with in a simulator before and it isn't easy getting the initial track on a jinking target. Small arms was the biggest concern considering the mission I had (Cav), and the SP AAA was just a bit too rare for me to be overly concerned..of course it only takes one to ruin your day.

I got to fly against a site that was set up in Florida on a naval gunnery range back in the late eighties. The intent was to infiltrate to the target area, blast it with rockets, and egress out. The problem was it was surrounded by multiple layers of overlapping soviet ada (sams and aaa) out to about 15 km. The terrain was pretty flat with about 40-50 foot pines. Only the target area and the threat sites were a bit bare with one exception...a freeway passed within about 6-7 km's of the target.

Now they didn't actually shoot at us, but it was all computer controlled and you had to squack a particular transponder code so the computer would know who was who. I figured the only way in was high speed, and as low as I could get. I was carrying live ordinance which made the task a bit harder. So I did the old doppler trick, and ducked down on the 4 lane freeway below treetop (and radar) level. Once I got as close as I could get I dashed in jinking all the way, fired up the target and egressed out. The AAR revealed that they didn't see me till I popped up and could only engage me with AAA of which none of it got close enough according to the simulation. The best part was looking at the faces of the truckers as I passed them by just above their trucks:):)

I miss the good ol days.

Sabre21

[byron13]

Hi, Rob:

I'll probably be sorry that I brought the thing up. I can see where it would be a pain to design in one-size-fits-all delays to fit every situation. It may not be possible.

Arty should react fairly quickly. The best situation would be to have a battery in direct support and you call the first fire mission on a TRP. It should be as simple as the FIST calling the battery and saying, "shoot TRP 7." The rounds should go down range in a matter of seconds. The worst situation is that your arty is moving, general support and shooting higher priority targets, or low on ammo so that you don't get any arty at all. The most likely is going to be in between, and I think JrCarr's 3 minutes may be right - if you're going to get it. If it takes 10 minutes, they must be busy doing something else, and you might as well forget about it (unless you're in a deliberate assault mode). I know I'm not going to want to sit around in one place for ten minutes on the attack waiting for twelve rounds of arty to hit that hill.

As for hasty attacks, the unfortunate answer is "it depends." You could have an entire brigade leap forward 1 km pretty quickly because everyone just moves up 1 km; the trains don't move, there's no passage of lines, no need to really coordinate extensively with neighboring units. But moving 1 km is not realistic. What may be more realistic is having a battalion in reserve in a high readiness state. If the brigade commander calls and says there's been a breakthrough and I need you to hit the flank of the breakthrough along the Steinburg - Oberfeld axis now, the combat power may roll within thirty minutes with the battalion headquarters not even moving. And, of course, if the order is simply for the 1st battalion to fall back to its next set of planned and prepared battle positions, it wouldn't take hardly any time at all.

At the other end of the scale is, as JrCarr says, the deliberate assault by a brigade that was not expecting the mission. Division would like time to plan for road usage in the rear, brigade needs to know about threat levels, recon bridges for weight capacity, etc. If the brigade is moving in conjunction with other brigades, there is a delay while division plans the coordination between the brigades. Assuming it is only the brigade or a portion of the bridgade moving (so division doesn't need to get too involved), they'll give the battalions a warning order so that can at least start to do some planning and preparation. But it will take awhile before brigade can get the plan of manuever to the battalions so that they can then begin planning in detail the movement of its companies. Battalions may have to do a resupply of certain companies, put tanks back together that were broken down thinking there was a lull, plan TRPs for arty, etc. The biggest expenditure of time, though, is simply planning the scheme of maneuver. Brigade needs a plan to pass down to battalion, and battalion can't do much other than pack their bags before they have the plan. Battalion gets the brigade plan and it takes a while to devise a battalion scheme of maneuver to pass down to the companies. And the company needs awhile to devise its own scheme of maneuver and disperse it to the troops. None of this is done simultaneously; it necessarily involves consecutive planning periods. Add it up, and you're talking about a lot time. A company probably only needs an hour to draw up a plan and move, but battalion and brigade need significantly more time. I think twelve hours is reasonable for a large-scale attack over some distance.

There would be a myriad factors that affect the time it takes to plan and execute. The distance you are to move (does arty have to recon firing sites further forward, do supply trains have to move, route recon, extra supplies or supply vehicles), whether you're advancing over familiar terrain, the number of other units you have to interract with (passage of lines, passage of fronts, MP units in the rear, CEOI issues, coordination of fires, flank coordination, air support, engineer support), the level of threat forces (air support and other special combat enhancements, arty pre-planning, possible mid-attack re-supply planning, human casualty and vehicular recovery planning), water crossings, urban operations, NBC threat. And the list goes on.

Obviously, there is no one answer. I don't think you were expecting one, though.

[DavidW75]

Originally posted by RobertCrandall

I have noticed that there is surprisingly little range attentuation for combat effects in the modern period vs WW2. I was so ingrained that killing power falls off sharply with distance (both chance of hit and penetration) that the relatively flat curve right out to max range takes some getting used to! If the terrain accomodates, these guys can really hit hard at 3+ km....

You only get ranges of 3+ km in the deserts. Anybody in Europe ever have an obustructed view like that?

[DavidW75]

Originally posted by RobertCrandall


I am also experimenting with different delay periods before orders take effect. Nothing terribly complex, but it doesn't have to be to reduce your plans to a shambles. Wargamers are so used to instant action and zero planning times, that even a short lag is really upsetting. I was looking at the intervals again last night and shortened them up a notch but still...

I always thought a better system was to have a unit have a certain posture, and if they want to change it would take x amount of time.

[IronManBeta]

Originally posted by DavidW75


You only get ranges of 3+ km in the deserts. Anybody in Europe ever have an obustructed view like that?

Ah, yes, length of LOS - the eternal question! This came up early on when Iain C and I were talking about map design and there are no real hard and fast answers. Worse, the more you look the more confusing it gets!

Soviet studies showed that the average LOS in Western Germany in the 1980s was just under 500m. Other studies have produced different results - largely irreconcilable apparently until you look closely at the assumptions that went into them. There is agreement though that long range views would not be very common at all.

While there is no one agreed upon set of rules for determining this kind of intervisibility, there was a good discussion of it in Richard Simpkin's _Race to the Swift_ in 1985. (He was 30 years in the Royal Tank Regiment, became a general and was involved involved in techy weapons design issues for the Chieftan, Swingfire, Scorpion and some others that I forget.) He did a survey of target aquisition ranges comparing Flanders (typical rolling European terrain) and Libya (typical desert). To his surprise he found that the desert terrain was only slightly more 'open'. Eyeballing the chart from his book puts 50% of aquisitions in Flanders at 1 km or less and maybe only 1.5 km in Libya. He rationalized this by saying that even the relatively flat desert is only relatively flat, there are still enough 2 to 3 meter objects to provide cover. This leads to his second observation that whereever possible, soldiers will find the best terrain (not the average terrain) to fight from. Certainly NATO troops were very choosy about defensive terrain and avoided urban areas for that reason and not humanitarian grounds. There are lots of places in Germany where the gentle hills provide a vista of sorts for the carefully sited unit.

There are, of course, also "terrain tunnels" - LOS may be quite short in most directions from your location, but in one particular direction may be quite long. Think of the length of a highway for instance. They are rare, but soldiers are pretty enterprising about picking them out. The French, in particular?, were keen to have defensive locations that had a 'smart shot' ie a tunnel unexpected by the enemy, rather than a sweeping all-around vista. You can tell by a glance at a map where such locations must be and plaster them with artillery fire before the engagement started. A lot of people intended to fight smart should the need arise.

Simpkin's other observation was that the most important targets were at the extremes of range - near and far. At the far end you can get them to deploy prematurely and greatly retard the speed of the advance (50% or more he says). The short ranges are critical because they offer "an immediate, extreme, and perhaps critical threat." Targets in the middle are less attractive - they aren't super threatening but it is too late to make them waste their time. The advantage of a few long range shots is not killing so much as imposing delay and loss of tempo.

In the game we model elevation to the nearest meter with a range in map #1 of 225m at the high and a low of 6m. The contours are quite natural too. Terrain obstructions are 5, 10 or 30 meters high depending on what they are. The LOS routines are sufficiently 3D that quite a lot of dead ground can be created and some interesting terrain tunnels show up. This is both good and bad. Good in the sense that it is more realistic, bad in the sense that you now have to manually check each location with a Ctrl-L los check to know 100% what it can see. That gets tedious fast but we may have to live with it. Or maybe I can think of a better shortcut...

Besides elevations are the obstacles formed by the cover on the terrain itself. We discussed how much 'hindering' should go on and to what degree each terrain type should degrade overall LOS. That conversation is still unresolved but it is only a matter of changing a few weightings now based on playtest experience to tweak it just right. For the record, with current weights, the average LOS on map #1 is 2,760m. That's pretty darn open IMHO and greatly favours the NATO defense. Different maps will have different averages too.

I should also mention that just because you can see up to 5 km in perfect weather, lighting and position, does not mean that every unit within that range is visible. The rules are that small, inactive units are much harder to pick out. An HQ element of, say, 3 vehicles under cover cannot be picked out beyond 1 km by anybody. Also, not all units will even be aware of what is going on at a distance around them - max spotting range fluctuates depending on what else is going on in their lives at the moment! (This was one of the really nice parts of the original SimCan design by the way.)

Lots of fun, cheers, Rob.

[IronManBeta]

Originally posted by jrcar
Firstly have you got a copy of David Isby's book "Weapons and Tactics of the Soviet Army" (I think thats right). It has excellent documentation of Soviet doctrine at the tactical level. A Soviet force just doesn't blindly attack, it has a very strong emphasis on recon (but soviet recon elements aren't expected to fight for information like US units). He also gives planning figures for attacks at different levels of command.

Hey, now that I think about it, I do have that book, and also James Dunnigan's _How to Make War_. I should check what they have to say again re timings and such.

Thank you for your other comments too.

Cheers, Rob.

[IronManBeta]

Originally posted by byron13
Hi, Rob:

I'll probably be sorry that I brought the thing up. I can see where it would be a pain to design in one-size-fits-all delays to fit every situation. It may not be possible.

Obviously, there is no one answer. I don't think you were expecting one, though.

Thanks for the excellent post! I see now why Steve Newberg did not want to go any higher in scale now because it would start to draw in all the considerations that you mention. For the purposes of Flashpoint I think we can assume that all the divisional and brigade planning has been done (more or less) even though it is not represented in the game. The forces are there and ready to party - everyone is prepped and looking for action. It may not go quite the way it was planned, but they know they are going to do something and are not unprepared to do so.

Looking at things again, I realize how important preplanned target reference points and the like are to keep tempo up. I hadn't really thought a lot about it before, but we should stick in a way to register TRPs such as you describe for each side before the battle starts. If you use one then it is very quick and accurate, otherwise it can take a little longer. Arty that is otherwise ready should be able to respond to a request within 1 to 5 minutes most times. NATO will be consistently quicker than WP thanks to superior training and equipment, but both will be pretty good.

The other stuff, particularly with damaged troops will take 30 - 120 minutes to get organized. The basic AI supreme commander is set to work on a 4.5 hour cycle and I am inclined to keep it there for now. That gives it time to issue orders, stage forces, execute the maneuver and see what happened. It can then start over if need be or go to the next thing.

Thanks for the great explanation, cheers, Rob.

[Sabre21]

Rob

Don't forget that the Allies had over 40 years to prepare for this war. Every conceivible battle position, engagement area, avenue of approach, target reference point had been mapped out. I mentioned earlier where we had pre-determined battle plans depending on what avenue was taken by the enemy. We practiced time and again on large scale ambushes..attritting the enemy while on the move.

One of our battle options was the "Deep Attack". Where we would penetrate the Flot at Battalion strength to a predetermind battle area and ambush the follow on division. 20+ cobras each carrying 8 tows would devestate the leading regiment...and that's only assuming a 75% kill factor. ADA and C&C vehicles were the prime targets and would be hit first. After that went the tanks and BMP's. We would lose a few cobras considering we had to do this in daytime and usually within 3k's, but once the ada was stripped away, A10's would swoop in and help with the ensuing massacre.

An Apache Battalion would be even more immpressive at longer ranges. Five to six 6's away...16 hellfire x 18 apaches at about a 90% kill rate...well..that's nearly 170 dead vehicles...nearly 2 full regiments worth...and thats just one sortie each.

In 88-89...we had 12 attack battalions in Germany plus the attack aircraft in the 2 ACR's and Divisional Cav. Once Reforger was in place, there would be over 20 AH Bn's and 3 ACR's.

IMO, the only real chance the WP had in 89 was the "Out of the Barracks" scenario that only provided less than 72 hours notice to the west. If the Soviets were lucky, they would catch Nato units on the move prior to occupying their GDP sites negating the defensive bonuses the west would get on the initial round.

Sabre21

[jrcar]

Big combined reply in sequence

byron13, the TRP's are a good idea to help with this. Even then it will take 30sec-1 min for rounds to land. TRP's should be ID'd as either pre-registerd or map. If pre registerd then Fire For Effect (FFE) occurs and the rounds land. If map there should be the choice of adjusting or FFE. Unless adusted (which can take another minute) the rounds may land upto 500m off (but normally 100-300m). Maps are never completely accurate (I was a miliatry surveyor for a few years...) and relating the ground to the map introduces more error, as does atmospheric conditions and mistakes in reading coords DO occur. Soviet fire onto TRP's should be not too much different than NATO fire assuming the guns are assigned to support the unit.

Shooting at a target not within 500-1km of a TRP should take a few minutes longer. Soviets should have a slightly longer delay (1-3mins?)

Soviets placed a BIG emphasis on the use of arty, and the use of massed fires.

Good points on the orders, thanks!


DavidW75 I agree on the ranges in Australia (which is fairly open) you do get the long shot (sometimes upto 8km, but this is NOT usual). Normally its under 2km. Your idea on posture is a good one, with a time penalty (plus random number and distance from HQ also factors) to change from posture to posture.


Robert Training should determine the ability to find good ground. This was emphasised in many Soviet publications, in part to get their people to think about it more than what they were (its always a reasonable sign to read publications to see what gets emphasised, this can mean they arn't doing it well.... hence the emphasis on "mission orders" is Western armies, few of which do it consistenly well, we ALL tend to micromanage like we blame the Soviets for!)

What about a LOS Lan in addition to a point to point LOS.


Sabre21 has good points... there is a reason the Soviets didn't attack OTOH most simulations in the 1980's predicted that the Soviet penetrations would make the Rhine, hence the "AirLand" battle concept, which is still flawed if the Soviets had more SPAA and they fully utilised their potential EW capability. If anything "AirLand" borrowed from the Soviet Doctrine of Spetznaz, and forward detachments flown in by helos. similar solutions to the same problem of carrying the fight beyond the FEBA.


Cheers

Rob

[byron13]

Originally posted by DavidW75


I always thought a better system was to have a unit have a certain posture, and if they want to change it would take x amount of time.

Just so you know, I didn't prompt this response. I agree with David that having an offensive and defensive mode with a turn to change may be the easiest. You then get into the other issues that I mentioned in my other, non-posted e-mail, e.g., units withdrawing to a prepared battle positions should not have a delay. I don't envy you're trying to program this.

Me thinks the vast majority of TRPs are going to be unregistered. Assuming you're not worried about your FIST's radio signature, you should plot TRPs everywhere you go. Registering them would be a waste. But I agree with David's assessment of time.

Is JrCar actually Rob? I might have been quoting Rob to Rob!