Command delay and movement status

[Tcao]

So, compare "Assault" with "Move deliberate"
what is the pro and con of these two command?

[byzantine1990]

Thanks for the information. This will help look into this more when Rob is back on Monday.

Any update on this?

[byzantine1990]

Thanks for the information. This will help look into this more when Rob is back on Monday.

Any update on this?

Any update on this?

[CapnDarwin]

Just what William and Charles have noted above for the transition of orders state. Is there another question?

[byzantine1990]

Just what William and Charles have noted above for the transition of orders state. Is there another question?

To confirm, if a unit has a 10 minute command delay and is dug in. The unit will get out of their fox holes and go to "covered" and stand around until they finally get moving?

In your last message it sounded like you were going to make sure that was the intended outcome.

[IronMikeGolf]

Going back to the OP:
"What is the unit doing during the command delay? "

First off, think of "Hold" as "Deliberately Defend". Second, right now, transitioning from Hold to another Order state is "one size fits all", meanign it applies to all units, regardless of nationality or type.

The Order Delay has two components: Order Transmission Delay and "Transition Delay". We can set Order Transmission aside in this discussion. The one-size-fits-all is informed by my experience as a mech inf guy in this time period.

So what happens when a mech platoon goes to Hold? I'll use a Bradley platoon, since the M113 had WAY more cargo space. You may have seen pic of Brad with some concertina on the front slope/engine cover. Those are likely training pics, with one x 50 meter coil. Combat load might be 4 to 6 coils. So that's at least 500m of triple strand concertina. But wait! Reinforcing straight barbed wire. Pickets! Yep, space for those in the bustle rack and between the hull and side skirts.

Oh, mines. Anti-tank, bounding anti-personnel, Claymores. Then the really fun stuff: 1/4 pound TNT blocks and a couple hundred foot spool of det cord. Detonators and firing devices.

Let's not forget small arms ammo. You unload a lot of ammo cans of rifle an MG ammo and put it with soldiers.

Did I mention missiles and rockets? Those too. And for the Dragon, a tripod and cradle mount tht was sooo sweet compared to using the bipod and body english with a bare tube.

Comms? Radios between Platoon Leader and squad? No, Oh No! 10 meters of telephone wire per track and the platoon in a "hot loop" with sound powered telephones. No EM signature for radio direction finding. And another wire link from Platoon to Company.

Along with all that is squad members scratching out prone fighting positions.

Then the word comes down, "Change of mission. We're gonna move." Platoon leader goes to see the Old Man to get the Order. . Everyone else starts recovering all that stuff and stowing it correctly (Sqd Ldr: "Don't you mess up my load plan!) because the next time things are needed, soldiers need to know where to find them and just maybe they didn't load them back up. So packing up takes more time, but it's offset by not having to dig. Setup and breakdown times are roughly the same.

"Yeah, but a tank platoon doesn't have all that crap, right?"
Going into Hold, vehicle crews are not without work to do. Platoon Leader tell the Vehicle Commander "I want your around here. Your sector is from that church to the barn over there." So the Vehicle Commander scout s around He want a place where he can be in turret defilade (just his sights exposed and observing) and in a short distance move to hul defilade to unmask weapons Now back in peacetime gunnery, that is pretty sterile. A nice concrete pad and moving straight forward 2 vehicle lengths unmasks the gun. This is called the Berm Drill.

But they're out in the countryside and terrain does not always cooperate. Maybe you can get turret concealment if you can't get turret defilade. If not, maybe you can harvest shrubs and tree branches to make up for that.

What if instead f=of driving forward to unmask, you have to drive backward?? This is exactly opposite from all the experience of your 18 year old driver. What if there's a giant rock and you have to not only back up to unmask, but turn to the right as well??? what do you do? You help the driver. Pound in fence pickets for him to loom for for knowing when he is in turret defilade, needs to run, and in firing position. You hang chem lights on then for night time, because he has to look out hist left periscope which has not night vision capability. And you rehearse him.

You repeat it all this for your Alternate Position. Then the Platoon Sergeant shows up to give you a Supplementary Sector. You just might get done before the infantry Joes get done trolling out all their toys.

[Tcao]

Jeff
Thanks for the explanation. Pretty clear on the first part (what mech inf have to do when leaving the defense position).
But the 2nd part, if I don't misunderstand, you described what a tank unit has to do after arrives in a new defense position. How about the "to do list" for a tank unit when they have to leave the defense position?

[IronMikeGolf]

Tcao,

Like a mech platoon, a tank platoon would get a warning order about a change of mission. If they are not in contact, there will be some abbreviated maintenance and armament accuracy checks. Personal gear may have been offloaded. Tank commanders would have likely been told where they are going and the route to be taken, so map recon, etc. It's not outside of plausibility that a tank unit runs telephone wire between tanks in a deliberate defense and uses that for comms until the enemy is sighted by forward recon. There is a good argument that most of the pre to move occurs in hull or turret defilade with a slight increase to vulnerability to indirect fire.

As I said earlier, we do "one size fits all" and that means we go with the most restrictive case. One thing I pay attention to is heterogeneous units. Mech is like this (APC/IFV plus inf) and many HQs units. Consider WP companies. Take an MRR (3 x Mech and 1 x Tank Bn). Perfectly fine by Soviet doctrine to reinforce an MRB with a Tank Company that results in a tank platoon in each MRC. OK, so you treat it like mech. But are the vehicles (tank, APC, IFV) more vulnerable during Order Delay and Transition? This falls into a Simplification issue. If that breaks your plan, well...

A richer model would be to push the vulnerability evaluation down to the Subunit level and look at type of Subunit. That's a lotta work, given the plethora of subunit types and the potential for those to grow (making it a maintenance headache). What is gained by the effort? What's the trade-off? Push air drop and air assault back further? The revision to CAS for more realistic stand-off munitions? The ability of AD assets to shoot down CAS before even coming on map? There come some downsides to a richer model, too:
1. Scooting doesn't incur an Order Delay and the Transition Delay is much less. That likely means abandoning stuff offloaded (think x% ammo for dismounts. Including ATGMs, mortar ammo for dismounted mortars, MG ammo, etc).
2. Good chance of leaving night vision equipment behind. Maybe not all, but enough to make it dicey if you do and need it later in the battle after sunset.
3. Stuff left behind as a result of scooting from indirect fire is likely doubled. When you run from arty, you DO NOT repack your gear. At least double the ammo loss and special gear loss. Roll dice on heavy crew served weapons being abandoned. Spare missiles and mortar rounds? Ammo cans of MG ammo? Hah.
4. You scoot and you leave behind some comms gear (telephones and wire). What does that do to combat effectiveness? I haven't given it much thought, but off the top of my head: higher EM signature. We only paint HQs, but that could change. Telephones (over copper) were retained then (US Army had MSE, a precursor to cell phone tech) in that era, but line units didn't use them. Not because they'ed get targeted by arty but because they reveal the front line trace. So what happens? You fall back to WW II tech and use runners. At least 2 per plt - one at Company CP to deliver Co Cdr orders to the Plt and one with the Plt Ldr to send reports in to Co CP. Oh joy! Command Delay increases.

I get the desire for more fidelity here, but I am really unsure this brings anything to the experience of Bn/Bde/Regt Command that we strive to deliver. I honestly think the current one-size-fits all works well enough and conversations with serving line officers that have used this game engine for training reinforce my feelings on this and other things.

That's not to say we won't respond to a vigorous demand signal. If y'all want it bad, well it's quite possible you'll get it hard. We diligently look at the upside and downside and work hard to provide both.