A delay action

[Tcao]

DELAY
During an active defense the team may occasionally be required to conduct an independent delay, although this is rare. It is more normal for the team to receive a defend mission, even though the battalion or brigade mission is a delay. However, when frontages are wide or the enemy has overwhelming superiority, the team may be given the mission to delay
The delay is a defensive operation to fight an enemy force - usually in a specified area or a given sector and often for a specified time, in order to gain time for friendly forces to concentrate or deploy elsewhere. In delay operations a team trades space for time , usually at the least risk to its survival ; however, it may also be required to trade risk for time . In order to delay long enough , a team may have to fight harder and longer from each battle position , thus risking greater losses . In some cases , part of the delaying force (such as a team ) may have to occupy and hold a strongpoint at all costs
until told to withdraw . In any delay , however , the team will apply the defensive fundamentals discussed in this chapter ; only certain techniques will differ.

---FM71-1 5-13

So far there are some complaints that once we commit the troops in the fire fight, it is impossible to pull the units out. Here I would like to show how to fight a fighting withdrawal successfully by changing SOP setting.

This is a user made scenario based on map Coburg

A Soviet Tank regiment(-) march down the valley on highway B4, their target is to occupy the crossroad south of Coburg, which is 15km away from border/contact line. Soviet has two tank battalions, one BMP battalion was split and used to reinforce these two tank Bn. The third Tank Bn was kept as a reserve and they are not on the map.
Between the Soviets and their objective stands a US company team with two M1 platoon and one BFV Platoon.

The battle is set at 1984-1985, so the M1 are the one with 105mm M68A1 gun, Bradley carries BGM-71C, the Soviets are T-64B, they don’t have ERA blocks installed on but it is still a hard fight as the 105mm Sabot and ITOW will have some difficulty to penetrate the T-64B’s armor.

Scenario starts at 0700. The whole company team occupied the village on the hill, which provides good LOF on B4. Enemy contacts quickly pop up at 0705. US CT fire at max range. By 0715, the company commander reported the contact with five tank companies (3 can be detected on the map while the other two disappeared in the woods), he estimated that 10 T-64s had been destroyed, two of Bradley are out of action.
It is a good opening, however, there is no way the company team can stop the other four T-64 Co. So the company commander decided to pull out.

AFW 0715.jpg (1.02 MiB) Viewed 686 times

To do so I changed the SOP, I change relocate from “never” to “while enemy spotted”, stand off range set at the max (the system has max stand-off range as 12 hex). Put the movement preference to “road” so that troops utilize the road behind the company team to quickly maneuver to next defense position. Hit “apply to this and later unit orders” to ensure the new SOP become execute.

AFW 0715 SOP.jpg (109.65 KiB) Viewed 686 times

The company team immediately begin their withdrawal. Abrams exchange fire with the remaining two tanks in the mauled leading tank company. Knocked out the two T-64 while one Abrams got damaged. 5 min later, the village where they previously occupied was drown in a hail of Soviets artillery. At the same time Brigade HQ found some artillery support. A section of M109 is on-line. It is a welcomed news but still not enough firepower. The company team will have to rely on its mobility to survive.

AFW 0718.jpg (990.26 KiB) Viewed 686 times

Now it is 0730, the NATO side’s order phase. I can drag the withdraw order waypoint to the new defense position. The question to the company commander is, where he will choose as the 2nd line of defense?

AFW 0730 plan b.jpg (1014.27 KiB) Viewed 686 times

Setup an ambush site northern side of Lautertal is one choice. However, it has only two clear LOS on B4. The company team can be quickly overrun by the advancing T-64s. For this option, It is possible that we can change the SOP to “move after each fire mission”, in that case the company team can give the leading soviet formation a deadly salvo then retreat, the 1-2 hex distance doesn’t work in NATO’s favor. It is also a very big concern that Soviets will caught the company team in open when they are pulling out of town Lautertal. So this option is not a good one.

A decision made, the company team will dug in at a position further south, in a village called “Bertelsdorf ”.



From there they will keep the overwatch on highway B4, the elevation and buildup area behind Bertelsdorf provide good concealed retreating route to the next defense line. So I drag the waypoint to Bertelsdorf , change the SOP back to "never relocate" , standoff 0 hex.

[Tcao]

From 0800 to 0945. The company team engaged a Soviet tank battalion at long range. This tank battalion swing around Lautertal and attack Bertelsdorf. This reckless push caused the whole battalion annihilated, although 2-3 Soviets tanks stopped only 200m away from US defense position.

AFW 0811.jpg (966.59 KiB) Viewed 678 times

AFW 0936 knocked out 4 t64 on left wing.jpg (958.15 KiB) Viewed 678 times

[Tcao]

The Soviet's main push began at 1000, roughly 10-15 T-64 destroyed on B4 highway in less than five min, 1 Abrams was lost. However, by 1006, it is very clear that this assault cannot be contained, it is the time to move into the next defense position.

AFW 1001 engagement.jpg (966.98 KiB) Viewed 675 times

AFW 1006.jpg (965.76 KiB) Viewed 675 times

The retreat from Bertelsdorf was a success. However the company commander underestimated the speed and determination of the Soviets. Adding to the fray is the Abrams made a wrong turn. Later the company commander correct this error via Radio message, but that makes the whole company bump into the Soviet's marching formation. The next 30min will see several high intense, nail biting engagements. This company team has to fight its way out.

AFW 1018 situation.jpg (947.92 KiB) Viewed 675 times

[EwaldvonKleist]

Thank you for the explanations, very helpful. Do you have more such tricks/discoveries that you could share/AAR?
I am new to WEGO and tactical level games and the engine and am currently trying to understand the finer aspects and workarounds of the game.

One problem I have: I want to attack an enemy position. Natural IRL solution is to send recon forward and stop the attack if the recon elements have e.g. spotted strong enemy formations in prepared positions. But ingame it is hard to make the main formation behaviour dependent ln the recon element discoveries during the turn resolution. Am I missing something?

Best regards and thanks again
EvK.

[Tcao]

Thank you for the explanations, very helpful. Do you have more such tricks/discoveries that you could share/AAR?
I am new to WEGO and tactical level games and the engine and am currently trying to understand the finer aspects and workarounds of the game.

One problem I have: I want to attack an enemy position. Natural IRL solution is to send recon forward and stop the attack if the recon elements have e.g. spotted strong enemy formations in prepared positions. But ingame it is hard to make the main formation behaviour dependent ln the recon element discoveries during the turn resolution. Am I missing something?

Best regards and thanks again
EvK.

Sorry for late response. I think we don't have a good solution for this kind of scenario. Best we can do is to add time delay to increase the interval space between the recon elements and the main body, so that you can stop the mainbody's advance in the next command cycle.