Staff Exercise: Origins 2015

[IronMikeGolf]

I participated in the Staff Exercise hosted by Grogheads and run by Capn Darwin and Rob this week at Origins. They ran it 3 time and I played in the middle iteration. This is going to take me several posts to write up. W1ll1am thoughtfully provided me the planning map and Capn D is getting the the game saves.

Exercise Format:
A number of players are organized as the Commander and battle staff of a Brigade sized unit. Capn D facilitated the exercise and coached the players. Rob handled executing orders (i.e. 'drove' the game). The players work with paper maps and manually update their situation map. For this exercise, we used small post-its for making unit icons, decision points, obstacles, etc. Our situation maps was a repro of the game map and covered a table top. Our planning maps were military topo maps. Planning map is below. The exercise occurs in Germany, about 30 km southeast of Stuttgart. The planning map is below:

[IronMikeGolf]

Player Organization

Players are assigned the following roles:
Commander
XO
Intel
Maneuver
Fires
Future Ops

Some of these roles correspond directly to real counterparts in a Brigade Command and Staff. Some differ, owing to the mechanic of the game and time/space compression for such an exercise. The Commander, Intel, and Maneuver roles map to the Commander, S2, and S3 respectively, with attendant duties and authority. The XO acts as a Chief of Staff and is the interface between the player team and the game operator (Rob). Fires acts as the Fire Support Officer, S3 Air, and the Aviation Commander (rotary and fixed wing). Future Ops represents a planning cell, constantly assessing the current situation with respect to planned operations of reinforcing units that have not yet arrive.

For this iteration, my team did without the Future Ops and I played the Maneuver role.

[JohnOsb]

That is a beautiful map.

[kipanderson]

Hi,

Yup... I agree with John, stunning map..

Added to which, these command post exercise style methods to play wargames such as Flashpoint... and Combat Mission for that matter... are the way to go... .

Great stuff,
All the best,
Kip.

[IronMikeGolf]

John: The map is what we players had (both paper and acetated) for diagramming plans and enemy Courses of Action on.

The war up to this point: 2d ACR has taken about 30% casualties and conducted reconstitution. Each squadron now has 2 Troops. The Regt has 4 Troops of M1 tanks and 2 troops of M3s. The Air Squadron (OH-58/AH-64) is largely intact. Corps has put a 155mm FA Bn in Direct Support of the Regt. The Soviets have formed an Operational Maneuver Groups and a reinforce Regiment from that is attacking west to seize bridges over the Neckar River. Corps has allocated 4-4G sorties for SEAD and A-19 sorties to engage the OMG.

More to follow when I get the game saves so I can give you folks the pretty pictures.

[CapnDarwin]

I'll be extracting saves for Jeff Monday evening when I get in from the dreaded day job...it pays the bills. [;)]

[Tazak]

Get to the good stuff already [:D], how much of a mauling was handed out !!!

[CapnDarwin]

[:(][:(][:(] Now the bad news. I screwed up and did not have the game saving each turn of Iron Mike Golf's Staff Ex. All I have is the very last turn. This one is all on me. I should have checked all the settings when we switches laptops and also drives with the game. [:@] Mad at myself for this one. Along with a list of other tech issues, Check the @#$%'n autosave will be #1 on the Check List for next years action.

I will discuss with the team this week the idea of posting the scenario used (maps and scenario file) on the OTS site so you can fight the fight and post AARs of your glorious victories. [:)] Also see if we can post the Staff Ex slide deck that has the mission handouts and such.

Again I apologize for messing up Jeff's AAR report. His group did kick the crap out of the Soviet force and they executed a well thought out plan. [&o][&o][&o]

[IronMikeGolf]

Oh well. Stuff happens.