Matrix Games Forums

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I gotta stick my 2 cents in here. After observing several scenarios, I noticed that yes the mortars and HQ's came up with the companies they were attached to.....but the ones not attached stayed around HQ. This seems to follow Soviet doctrine somewhat....of course the mortars should stay a klick or 2 back....but Soviet commanders are suppost to lead their forces. Here's a quote from an article I read.

Quote:
"The lack of western-style senior noncoms means that low level Soviet units key around their officers. Therefore a platoon almost always moves together, as a single unit. Company commanders normally join up with a platoon, often the leading one. Armored units are trained to keep moving, with infantry remaining aboard BMPs and BTRs as much as possible. Lines and wedges are favored formations in the battle area."
end quote

I don't have a problem so much as the HQ's coming forward....but the SP arty....yes...that is a problem. And the Hinds not engaging....another big problem. They use their Helo's like airborne tanks....they don't play footsy like NATO's...hiding behind terrian features....they come out of nowhere, low, fast, and in groups and do attack runs on your arse. All the while firing AT-3/5's, rockets, and 30 mm. I don't know how effect they would be, but I'm sure they would the would tear up the crunchies pretty good. I haven't a clue on how to program AI but it sure would be great if their helos could be tweeked to follow Soviet doctrine. [8D]

Now being a former Tanker back on the M1A1's I'm very baised about our equipment vs. their equipment. Iraqi's in the 1st Gulf War used mostly T-72's and Tungstun steel rounds vs. our DU rounds...no contest verus penetration ability. The Soviets would of used DU, but thier penetration values (even though there a larger calibur) are still lower than NATO's, not to mention their weapon sites, rate of fire, firing on the move and most important, their training. I think that the killing ability of early T-72/80's in this game is overrated. I liked Chelco's game study...but I think the ratio should be closer to 4-1 or 5-1 in perfect conditions ...i.e. range of about 1200 to 1800 meters, noon, not a cloud in the sky, not a hair of wind. Anything over 2000 is almost pissing in the wind for T-72's....and probably close for the early T-80s.

One last thing I noticed....or the lack there of....Soviet Artillery Preps! COME ON PEOPLE! The one thing the Soviets had to much of is Arty! The AI should be given and programed to have rolling barrages on key terrian...i.e. hilltops, towns, treelines....in their axis of advance. THIS IS A MUST! MORE ARTY FOR THE COMMIES! And when NATO is in the defense....just sitting there...after mopping up a tank company or 2 or 3....and they just sit there....and .....NOTHING HAPPENS!

The Soviets should be plasting any area that is known to contain forces. And if the going gets tuff....dump nerve, blood, blister agents all over the place. Not NATO doing that...not that they would...but it would be out of desperation...before nukes. And let me tell you....that stuff don't just go away....where talking about hours and hours for non-gas agents in "Clear weather". There should be 2 different Chem agents....gas and non-gas. This would add a great deal more realism don't you think? And another cool thing would be there duration of bad weather...ie rain, snow....WOOT!

I'm sure....very sure that Matrix Games did research on NATO vs. WP, the equipment, weapons, but I'm not so sure how indepth they went into tactical doctrine. So please, Erik Rutins or any other Admin, please if you have any control over what they put into updates, please see if the AI can be tweeked and arty/chem adjusted just a bit to more emulate the Soviet Doctrine.

*Carnage steps off the soap box and looks back*

Woooah.... a little over board.... Thank you [8|]

Hi All,

Once more after completing more play against the A.I. ( Nato versus WP A.I. ) here are some further observations.

1. When moving due to doctrine units do not very often move logically. That is they often move towards last known positions of enemies and they do not move in generally the same directions. I doubt that under enemy advance the components of a company would scatter.

2. The WP A.I. did not use its Artillery to much advantage.

3. There were frustrating occasions where a WP unit would move right next to a Nato unit , or into Nato's line of sight and the Nato units did not fire. Full ammo and doctrine to fire.

However I was generally pleased with the way the WP A.I. moved its units. Except of course for moving forward HQ's and artillery.

Regards John

From the following link:http://www.knox.army.mil/center/ocoa/ArmorMag/mj02/3MRC02.pdf
Title of article:
How to Defeat the Motorized Rifle Company
At the National Training Center:

In a one-on-one fight with an M1A1/
A2 firing at the front slope of a T-80,
and the T-80 firing at the front slope of
an M1A1/A2 with its main gun (the
most common engagement), the M1A1/
A2 is three times more likely to kill the
T-80 than the T-80 is to kill the M1A1/
A2. Even if a T-80 uses a missile
against an M1A1/A2, the M1A1/A2 is
still more lethal than the AT-8 is
against the front slope of M1A1/A2.
Against the flanks, the AT-8 has an
equivalent probability kill to the
M1A1/A2’s 120mm.


The greatest differential between
weapons systems exists between the
M1A1/A2 and the visually modified T-
80. Because the M1A1/A2 has stabilization,
it can fire on the move. In contrast,
a visually modified T-80 lacks
stabilization and must stop before it
fires its MILES laser. The M1A1/A2
also has a tremendous advantage with
its range. According to the SAWE/
MILES II Handbook, the range of the
120mm main gun of an M1A1/A2 is
3750m, whereas the range of the T-80’s
125mm main gun is 2500m. In practice,
most T-80 lasers cannot kill targets
beyond 2000m. As a result, the M1A1/
A2 has nearly twice the range of a T-80
on the MILES battlefield. While the T-
80 does have a complement of five AT-
8 missiles with a similar range to that
of the M1A1/A2 main gun, the limited
number of missiles fails to
establish range parity during
longer engagements and the
T-80 must expose itself for
ten seconds to guide its missile
toward a target.

Thanks GamerGuy!
Wonderful post. I have to change my mindset regarding NATO vs WP equipment quality.
Cheers,

Chelco,

What's interesting here is that one basic problem with WP vs. NATO scenarios may be, as suggested earlier, a question of numbers. Assuming that those ratios are true, approx. a 3:1 kill ratio, then balanced scenarios would need to reflect that kill ratio in order to be challenging for a NATO player.

I remember an old game, Firefight, which I used to play as a youngster against a guy in the Pentagon. I only learned later what he was involved in there - he's now retired - but even in that game NATO seemed to do very well.

Possibly, Warsaw Pact numbers could not have compensated for their qualitative inferiority. The argument is also made that the Gulf War and the use of Soviet equipment in other settings did not reflect actual Soviet capability (export models, etc.) Just browsing some books I have here Iraqi gunnery was poor in 1991.

Perhaps we had much less to fear from a conventional Soviet attack in Western Europe than we thought.

For example:
Israelis, in 1967 "On Wednesday, June 7, the 7th Armored Brigade engaged a massive Egyptian presence at el Hama and Bir El Hama obliterating dozens of Egyptian T-34s, SU-100s , and T-54/55s...At ranges of 1,500 meters and beyond, tanks from the 82nd and 79th destroyed hundreds of Egyptian tanks and endured very few casualties."

Admittedly this example is again not against Soviet forces but against Egyptian forces with inferior training.

Still, Western doctrine seemed based, on my rough reading of some material, on one-shot, one-kill at long range. No western force has been defeated in an armor battle against a Russian-equipped force since WWII. Is that correct?

What's also interesting is that Israeli tanks didn't have a consistent qualitative advantage in 1967.

Just some observations.

Hi again GamerGuy,
I really appreciate your post. As a total ignorant of warfare and equipment in this era, I was starting to become a complainer about this particular issue of weapons capabilities.
Thanks to you and to all other people for pulverizing my misconceptions.

ORIGINAL: GamerGuy
What's interesting here is that one basic problem with WP vs. NATO scenarios may be, as suggested earlier, a question of numbers. Assuming that those ratios are true, approx. a 3:1 kill ratio, then balanced scenarios would need to reflect that kill ratio in order to be challenging for a NATO player.

According to some artificial tests I have performed with the FPG game, a T-72 scores 0.23 tank kills per firing event at 1500m. The M1 scores 1.5 tank kills at the same range. I am compiling data for the T-80 against the M1 and the T-80 scores way better. I will post these data when they are ready (I discovered some flaws in the experiment design). I am leaning towards even more numerical advantage for WP in order to offer a challenge for NATO solitaire play.

I remember an old game, Firefight, which I used to play as a youngster against a guy in the Pentagon. I only learned later what he was involved in there - he's now retired - but even in that game NATO seemed to do very well.

That's interesting. Was he gaming just for fun? What were his comments about the particular game you guys played?

Possibly, Warsaw Pact numbers could not have compensated for their qualitative inferiority. The argument is also made that the Gulf War and the use of Soviet equipment in other settings did not reflect actual Soviet capability (export models, etc.) Just browsing some books I have here Iraqi gunnery was poor in 1991.

Perhaps we had much less to fear from a conventional Soviet attack in Western Europe than we thought.

CarnageINC has posted some frightening numbers in his thread "My thoughts on Soviet Doctrine". It looks like the threat was mainly numerical superiority.

Cheers,