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So while the good folks at M/S are putting the final touches into the Middle East installer, and with some time at our hands, herr von krieg asked whether there'd be two volunteers to test out his latest tournament scenario, fresh out from his drawing board. Certainly! So how about doing a little casual During Action Report of it all.

Edit: Yes, a reminder:

ORIGINAL: Jason Petho
Keep in mind, the scenario for that AAR won't be available until the 1.01 release.

Jason Petho

Into the Breach - Golan Heights - 6/16/82

I am playing as Side A (Israel) against Warhorse's Side B (Syria).

Here's the scenario introduction:

Jim Mays

16 June 1982

[Mount Bental, Golan Heights]:[H2H][TRNY][CSL]: As a result of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the leaders of Syria decided to test the defenses on the Golan just West of Kuneitra. Unfortunately for the Israelis,

their intelligence as to what the Syrians were up to around Kuneitra gave no indication that the Syrians were about to strike. As part of the Syrian plan, a commando force would air assault all along the Israeli

Main Supply Route and isolate forward units in the area. Following the insertion of Commandos, a battalion of T-72s would move forward to link up with the Commandoes and drive deeper into the Israeli defenses.

Despite repeated assurances from Israeli Intelligence that there was no threat in the area, the Israeli forward positions observed Syrian helicopters passing over their location as dawn broke and raised the alarm.

It seemed the events in Lebanon were spiralling out of control. [ALL][NONE][1.00]

Ah, June 1982. A modern battlefield! This should be fun...

As said, the ink has not yet dried on it, this is the first head-to-head battle on it, so things are subject to change.

So here we go!

Mike - no peaking!

Turn #1

The visibility is set as [font="Courier New"]1-1(n) 2-30(d)[/font] for this scenario, so this first turn is played under Night rules.

Here's the overview of the battle field, with 2D Zoom-Out view. I am a 2D/NATO counter player, so that's what you will mostly see.

Side B's the first to go, so when opening up the PBEM file and watching the replay, I observe a good number of unidentified helicopters passing my scattered forces. Here and there the few AA capable units open up, but to no result. It is night, visibility is only one, and no helos wonder next to those of my squads equipped with shoulder-to-air missiles.

I've hit 'A' on my keyboard to highlight all the AA capable units. Not many of them around. Towards the end of the replay I notice a couple of helos levitating next to my single tank coy in the area. Please stay there, that's a sweet landing zone there guys... And stay they did! Can't believe my luck.

Out of all places the Syrians decide to land right next to a high ground guarded by my Merkava tankers.

Battle Reports

So going forward, I will divide the map to three areas of reporting:

[*] Battle for the Rawia Vital Ground <- The area where Syrian airborne forces attempt to cut my supply route to the front sector
[*] Front Sector / North <- The area North of town of Kuneitra
[*] Front Sector / South <- The area South of the said town

Here's the overall map, with Objective Locations spread through out the Israeli key supply road to the front sector.

Edit: Added a new overview screenshot, as by the end of play Turn 5 it seems there's three distinct battles taking place in the map:



These pictures are at my photobucket account. If you want to look at them in larger size, right click at a picture and select "Open in new tab"

Here's a close up of the action with my rear echelon troops. Ready for some serious helo busting? So am I!

Battle for the Rawia Vital Ground

Here's a neat little detail: it is night, visibility is only 1. So how come I can see all the hexes highlighted for Visibility, when I hit 'V'?

Night vision equipment.

Still unbelieving my good luck, I tell my little tankers to open up at them. And open up they do. Dust settling from the barrage, I observe I have not hit a single chopper out there! That was extremely unlucky.

Slow to react to Syrian intrusion, my troops are mostly (but not all) Fixed for the first turns. Here you can observe my A Company will be one of the slow ones to wake up to the crisis, with reaction time of 5 turns until their relese. I am quite concerned any of them will live to see that, for the late war infantry, once out of the helos, will be armed to teeth with all sorts of tank busting gear...

Turn #2

So that was that for the previous turn. Being the weekend, I receive another turn from Warhorse quite quickly. With some trepidation I watch the replay to see the score.

Battle for the Rawia Vital Ground

Replay shows the Syrian special forces out of the choppers, and already sending the first salvo towards my tanks in the higher ground. Luckily, the shots bounce off the armor, and my tankers will live to see if not another day then another turn at least.

Clicking at the enemy stacks, I notice one of them includes a ATGM unit, so I decide to fire at that. My commander and the other tank platoon became unfixed for being fire at, so after the first salvo it is a retreat to them.

This time my tankers are up to the task, and the ATGM team is quickly dealt with.



Another new thing is that with Extreme Fog Of War optional rule in place, there's no visibility information from a hex where there's no friendly units in place. You actually have to send a team to a location where you want to observe its surroundings from. This is a nice little tweak, on our quest to make Extreme FOW a bit more... extreme.

See above: the hex with enemy stack is selected, show visible hexes is toggled on, yet there's no info on visibility from that hex available.

You want to see it you must first be there to see [:-]

Here's the situation then at my rear echelon. I have switched to Alt counters and to 2D unit graphics for a change.

Battle for the Rawia Vital Ground / End turn

I send my tank platoon and commander to the north, while the other tank platoon remains Fixed and needs to stay put. The Fixed tank platoon fires at the closest Syrian commando platoon, but to no effect... I don't think they will see another turn, too bad as I don't have too many units in the area.

Well, at least half of the garrison are there to fight another day. 'You will be avenged!' they shout at their comrades staying put, and dash to the north.

While retreating my tank platoon was able to fire once being helped with the paved roads not absorbing many movement points, and luckily I score a 1SP kill and a Disruption at the enemy special forces heading up the highway.

I have also send two Cobras to do some helo hunting in the vicinity. They are out of action point, but as the visibility is good maybe their mere presence is enough to thwart the enemy helos for reinforcing the area.

I had them flying at low altitude for speed, and for being able to cover the two air levels, one below (Nap of Earth), and one above (High).

To conclude my turn #2 here's a recap of the action at my front lines.

Front Sector / South

The wreck marker above marks the opportunity fire of my ATGM team, while the lower wreck marker marks the remnants of the recon team who stopped there, just in LOS of my teams.

Missile teams are deadly in this game, so your recon assets are worth their weigh in gold. Yet, they must be cautious too.



Victory levels are at -250, 0, 250 and 500. At this stage Side B (Syrians) are at -24, so they do have a little mountain to climb.

I am about to lose the 100VP objective in the rear though, so this seems already like one of those nailbiters...

double post removed

Waiting see heavy action, as usual i am with the loser side... sorry but all my cool waves are with Warhorse sure hi is going to need them [:)]

Some notes on this scenario:

Syrian ground force is locked inside Kuneitra by minefields and blocks. They need to clear a path with their engineering assets (KMT, Engineers, and to move forward with several options, left flank, right flank, hey diddle diddle straight down the middle. Syrians have limited air assets to move their Commandos to the MSR so they have to move quick and repeat the process over and over again while the T72s push forward against fortified positions and lots of Dragon and TOW ATGMs. Helicopter assets are limited so hazard them at your own risk.

Key units for the Syrians include, T-55 KMT (mine/block removal), Mi-8s for the multiple Commando Air Assaults, Commandos with RPGs and ATGMs, T-72s for the relief column, ZSU-23-4s and SA-7s to give some anti-aircraft coverage, and T34/122 SP Arty.

Israeli units are initially locked down in their bunkers (ie fixed and can't move) to simulate the hold at all costs order that's been given. The local reserve is a company of Merkavas. Essentially, the Israelis have to hold out until the heavier forces enter the picture. Once the reserves in play, they should, in theory, fight their way to clear the MSR and open up the supply route to the defenders in the bunkers. Cobras with TOWs are flying from a nearby airfield so Syrian tanks do have to have their head on a swivel.

Key units for the Israelis include, TOW and Dragon ATGMs, Merkava tanks, AH-1 Cobras w/TOW, and an experimental pillbox/highwall construction to simulate the concrete fortifications in the Golan...

Like Jason said in another thread, this scenario will be a later release. Current plan is for five tourney scenarios around the Golan '82 "what if" theme by me. This is the first. More to follow.

This looks like a good opening, I didn't expect such a Hail Mary for the deep objectives, but its clear Mike's being very aggressive.

I'm very much looking forward to seeing this unfold.

Regards,

Jim

Turn #3

And the battle continues...

Battle for the Rawia Vital Ground

Having waged our goodbyes to our brave Merkava platoon at their vital ground positions, their comrades watching from some distance observe at least two fire missions towards their positions, followed by an assault. As the smoke clears, instead of advancing Syrians they observe the two rear guard tanks at full retreat! As the two fire missions failed to cause an Disruption, I can only assume that is the reason how they survived the assault to their positions. If I was unlucky at those shots at landed helos, this time Lady Fortuna was with me!

Recovering quickly, my advanced mortar team in their M3 lays out some covering fire, causing two SP kills, while the other tanks further in north score on SP at the other Syrian Special Forces platoon advancing up the north.

My plan for the location is to contain the Syrian advance, to keep them disrupted and at bay, and chew their strenght little by little in this 30 turn scenario. So far so good!



All that is left to do here is to move my troops back a bit, to stay at safe distance from Syrian foot infantry. Reversing their tanks, their crews spot a group of CS Vets observing the situation. "Check out that dude there, Ari! He's brought a chair and some pop corn. Can you belive that!" "Watch out pops, its about to turn nasty here!"

ORIGINAL: **budd**

Before going further, it is finally time to set the Opportunity Fire defaults in place. It is a 4x4 grid with Helos added there, and what I put in place was something like this:



Front Sector / South

Next, time to visit those helicopters sneaking back to their lines down at south, flying at Nap Of Earth, so I saw them only sporadically during the replay. I toggle Save AP for Firing on for the helos, and they close in. Miss! However, the HGM platoon near by finish what the Cobras failed to do, and down the two choppers. Escorts, as they were. Hopefully that causes some due alarm with Syrians, so they'd keep from reinforcing their troops at the western edge of the map!

See the neat little icons in place in Infobox counter: Has Moved, Has Fired, Save AP for Firing:



Back to the front lines, then. The mood among the civilians is much more dark, as they eagerly await their Syrian liberators.

ORIGINAL: Hexagon

Waiting see heavy action, as usual i am with the loser side... sorry but all my cool waves are with Warhorse sure hi is going to need them [:)]

A few well placed canister shots of pink paint quickly disperse the mob. A neat little trick they learned from some WW II vets:



Front Sector / North

However, the intel report on advancing Syrians makes for some worrying reading:

ORIGINAL: vonkrieg
Syrian ground force is locked inside Kuneitra by minefields and blocks. They need to clear a path with their engineering assets (KMT, Engineers, and to move forward with several options, left flank, right flank, hey diddle diddle straight down the middle. Syrians have limited air assets to move their Commandos to the MSR so they have to move quick and repeat the process over and over again while the T72s push forward against fortified positions and lots of Dragon and TOW ATGMs. Helicopter assets are limited so hazard them at your own risk.

Key units for the Syrians include, T-55 KMT (mine/block removal), Mi-8s for the multiple Commando Air Assaults, Commandos with RPGs and ATGMs, T-72s for the relief column, ZSU-23-4s and SA-7s to give some anti-aircraft coverage, and T34/122 SP Arty.

Regardless, the few squads manning the Israeli front line check their weapons. The orders are strict: This far, but no further!

The ATGM team checks their missile system, and coolly targets the largest APC platoon at their range, ignoring the plethora of T-72s or even the AA-tanks at their disposal. Smoke clearing sees 4 BPM-1s destroyed, and 6SP of Syrian infantry out of the battle. These guys are deadly. I am certain I can handle the T-72s later, now that my Merkavas somehow miraceously still all are in the game. Infantry is very vulnerable while deployed, so better get the shots out while the opportunity remains.

With 40 AP remaing, I opt to keep them at their pill boxes. Possibly a mistake, given how strong the Syrian tank force out there is...




End Of Turn Status

And that's it for turn 3!



Score at the end of T3: -101VP and a Minor Israeli Win at this stage. Syrians bled heavily during the turn, while the friendly losses are yet to occur. That is about to change, I am afraid...

The first screenie was with 2D Zoom-In view, the two others with 2D Normal. Quite handy, with plenty of detail available from the battle field.

Over to you Mike!

Turn #4

Turn #4 Syrian replay was mostly about my ATGM team being shelled at their pillbox, but since the Syrian tanks are still some distance away behind the mine fields my guys take no casualties.

Battle for the Rawia Vital Ground

Back to the rear area, where the Syrian Special Forces coy finds themselves in the open, being fired by my tank coy and mortars from a close distance. They take casualties and fall back. Not a happy place for them, out there, without any weapon systems that can take my armored targets beyond a one click range I am keeping between my and their units.



Front Sector / South

In the front line, the Syrian helos land to take in more infantry and ATGM teams to be carried over my front line. If only I would have some artillery assets there for direct fire!

Instead I call on my Cobras, who engage the landed helos from a long distance, given there's Syrian AA present in the vicinity. Firing... No results!

Note that since I've highlighted the target hex here, with EFOW in place, I do not see which hexes have visibility to the target.



Front Sector / North

Finally, a couple of clicks to the North my ATGM teams deploy again against the enemy armor. They catch one retreating APC with passengers. No quarter given. BANG! It is gone. Then, to clear the skies for my Cobras, the AA tanks. BANG! Wreck marker marks where they were.



End Of Turn Status

It is late here, ended my turn and sent back to Warhorse, now realising I did not look at the VP situation nor the casualty report. I can only assume it was another costly turn for the Syrians.

Turn #5

... and the rest of my Merkava Tank Coy is released, those that were not fired upon yet. Also, a couple of platoons of Arm'd Infantry becomes available, and I am rushing them towards the Syrian special forces who are threatening to cut my supply route towards the front.

Battle for the Rawia Vital Ground

There was some indirect fire shelling hitting the area, obviously plotted by the commandos. I lose an M3 Mortar vehicle to them (the wreck marker on the map), and as they are now under low Combat Efficiency status (Out of Ammo symbol showing), they need to resupply and regroup before returning to firing missions. I drive them out of LOS of Syrians so they'd be safe against further casualties from Syrian shelling.

At the same time, I am swinging my Merkava's towards the Syrian armored push, but not before they've released an HE barrage towards Syrian commandos. Here's the end-of-turn situation at my rear, with Contours ON, showing the height differences in the area:



Front Sector / South

Meanwhile, the situation at the front sector is becoming critical. The Syrian artillery and T-72s keep shelling my forward positions, and I lose an ATGM SP to them, while the remaining squad (2SP) becomes Disrupted. They recover in time for my turn, so time to return the favours! With no APCs nor AA assets in range anymore, it is time to start hitting those Syrian Engineering AFVs, to keep them from removing the minefields and blocks.

In 2D, the terrain markers show only a Block, when there might be a minefield in the same hex too. The minefield becomes visible, once the block is first removed. So either assume all blocks are mined, or click at the hex, and check the Hex Info Box information, for it tells not only the minefield too, but its strength while at it as well. No need to be guessing should you just check them out one by one.

As the ATGM teams done their damage, there's still a Syrian Engineering AFV in the south. There's a Syrian what seems a MANPAD team next to it, so time to hit 'F3' to bring up Arkady's Unit Viewer, and to find it under the Syrian OOB, to see its range.

Just to make sure I identified the Syrian unit properly, I hit 'Ctrl+i' to display 2D Unit icons, then switch back to NATO icons with another 'Ctrl+i.

MANPAD team it is. Helos are a Soft target by the way. 12 hexes it is, and just outside their range my Cobras swing in firing a salvo of ATGMs at the Syrian AFVs, causing some kills for the first time in the scenario.

Helos are good for four Missiled attacks before they need to return to their HQ to resupply. One more mission left with them, then.



Having completed their attack, I swing the other Cobra to High altitude, and send it to spot on the Syrian commandos who've gone hiding. No way I am sending any ground vehicles their way blind! The other Cobra swings to south to return for some serious Syrian helo hunting.

Front Sector / North

To the North, the Syrian armored forces are breaking out to the north. They've built a bridge over the anti-tank ditch there, with their bridge-laying vehicles. I need to do something, so I swing in two sections of Jeeps armed with ATGMs to hit at their rear.

The cat and the mouse game in this modern battle field then swings against me. I lose the other Jeep section upon the approach to Syrian Op Fire, I hit at their Engineering AFV platoon, but when retreating back to cover another op fire salvo destroys the remaining two! The hunter became hunted, and did not live to tell about it.

Here's the end-of-turn situation at the Northern edge of my front sector, showing the break-away Syrian battle group, and my remaining Jeep ATGM section, celebrating their successful fire mission on those Syrian Engineering AFVs (wreck marker), just seconds before being killed-in-action while scooting back towards the orchards for security:



Visible is the remaining Syrian Engineering AFV. It is Disrupted, I hope it does not recover by the beginning of Syrian turn, so the block would stay in the road. There's no minefield there, so it is a hindrance at best, but since it is targeted by my ATGM teams I very much like all vehicles having problems by-passing the sector.

End Turn Statistics

At the end of turn #5 the losses are accumulating, with friendly casualties beginning to stack up too.



The score is at -149, with the Syrian armored battlegroup determined to capture the Objectives upon my supply route...

Over to Warhorse, for turn 6!

Hope you don't mind a question. Has how supply is handled changed from the WW2 campaign games? in an earlier post you mention having your supply lines cut, as i understand the WW2 games as long as your in HQ command range you get supply.

ORIGINAL: Hexagon

Waiting see heavy action, as usual i am with the loser side... sorry but all my cool waves are with Warhorse sure hi is going to need them [:)]

Thanks, now throw me some positive vibes!!![8D] Those pesky ATGM's are a real PITA!

ORIGINAL: **budd**

Hope you don't mind a question. Has how supply is handled changed from the WW2 campaign games? in an earlier post you mention having your supply lines cut, as i understand the WW2 games as long as your in HQ command range you get supply.

Sure thing **budd**, the whole purpose of this DAR is to high light the new game play. Any questions guys let us know!

As for Supply, the whole concept on how what was called Supply affects units is now referred as Combat Efficiency. While part semantics, it better addresses the whole concept of Supply in this scale we feel.

Many things are just like they were. Especially when playing under C&C optional rule, you need to take care the chain-of-command to your front units is coherent: from 1st platoon to Bn HQ to upper echelons of command, just as it was. Depending on Base Supply levels, as set for the Nation as a default, and as specified by the scenario designer, especially, it is likely your units 'drop out of supply', ie. operate under reduced Combat Efficiency as it is now called. This all remains the same.

A snippet from Game Manual, on Combat Efficiency:

3.3.2 Combat Efficiency System

At the beginning of each friendly turn, a check is made for each non-Isolated unit that fired the previous turn to see if it maintains its Combat Efficiency. A unit attempting to maintain efficiency does so through its “parent” Headquarters. If the units “parent” Headquarters is not on the map, the program will search for the next Headquarters that commands the unit; for example, the unit’s regimental or divisional Headquarters. The program measures the range from the “parent” Headquarters to determine a base probability and then makes a percentile die roll. Combat Efficiency is maintained if that die roll is less than or equal to that base probability. If the die roll fails, a second percentile die roll (0-99) is made against the Base Ammo level for the friendly side. If the second die roll fails, the unit will not have its Combat Efficiency maintained and will be considered Conserving Ammo.

Additionally, each friendly non-Isolated Headquarters will conduct a check to see if it maintains Combat
Efficiency. Like with combat units, the check is made against the distance to the Headquarters “parent
Headquarters”. If that fails, a second percentile die roll (0-99) will be made against the Base Ammo level.

If the Headquarters does not maintain efficiency, it will be considered Conserving Ammo.

Artillery utilizes the same system above, but performs the checks against the Artillery Ammo level set for friendly side of the scenario.

So as you see, a lot remains the same, while hopefully the new terminology makes it easier for the new gamers to understand the concepts of C&C under CS series scale.

So the purpose is not to propose a situation where platoons are out of ammo come one turn and back to full stocks the next. The model proposed is rather the confusion of battle field, where depending on situation units would be Conserving Ammo they carry with to last longer perhaps than what was originally thought out.

Then, what has changed? A lot!

What has changed quite drastically even is the data parameters that drive this aspect of the game (among other aspects too). Berto is penning a Coder Diary on Adaptive A/I, and when it hits the streets it is deffo worth reading. Plenty of chances to tweak how the units behave and function! It is one of the most fundamental changes going on under the Campaign Series, and we are only starting to exploit it fully under CS:ME 1.00. Watch that space!

Back to Supply, there is one fundamental change in this too, in that certain units can now resupply their stocks of ammonition in the most traditional sense of the context. It is only applied to Helos with ATGMs in CS:ME 1.00, and as I wrote in the DAR these types of gunships have ATGMs for four (4) fire missions only, after which they have to return to their own HQ hex, land there, and wait to be resupplied, after which they can return to next four fire missions.

This is something that can be taken further on in future releases. There's plenty of units that could benefit from this capability. For instance Mine Laying Engineers continue to function as they did in WW II era titles: once they've laid the one minefield they are done, and are more or less useless for the remaining length of the scenario.

Turn #6

A quiet turn from Israeli point of view...

Rawia Vital Ground

Syrian special forces come forward again, perhaps with an intention to dig in around the Objective Location. They seem to have plenty of smoke available for their artillery somewhere in the eastern edge of the map.

My Armored Infantry is still traveling, it will take some time for them to arrive here. For the moment I am happy to keep a contact to Syrians, to see what they are up to. A couple of recon teams on Jeeps arrived last turn, so I spread my forces around a bit.



Front Lines

Having moved my helos back a bit I realise I lost the visual on the Syrian battlegroup moving north. In this game of cat and mouse, I move one of my Cobra flights to High altitude air level, and have them observing the Syrian deployment from next turn again. There's a Syrian MANPAD team in the city, better stay away from it.



Front Lines / Northern Sector

The Syrian armored column arrives to the vicinity of my forward post. There's a helo landing there as well. I move my Infantry team closer to them, while taking care to stay out of LOS of the Syrian tankers. Note the 750m (three hex) range on hard targets by modern infantry here.

Meanwhile, my ATGM team is there too to greet the Syrians, wiping a couple of T-72s out of equation.



Front Lines / Southern Sector

A bit of a stalemate at the moment. Syrians have brought their helos forward, protected by a MANPAD team, while my other Cobra flight keeps an eye on them, well clear from the MANPADS...



And that's it for this turn! Over to you Warhorse.

Switched to Alternate Counters last turn, to be able to better observe the contents of stacked hexes, friend and hostile.

maybe i missed this but can helo's just hang around and recon forever. I know you said they had to resupply armaments but what about fuel? Sorry if this has been covered already.