GCoyote
Member
I haven't seen the replay files yet but I want to get this down while I'm thinking about it.
In all truth I did not plan to play today. My wife and I got home around 1600 EDST by which time the game had been going on for six hours. I just planned to drop in and see if anything interesting happened.
As it turned out, the red player had to leave just as I got onboard. So I accepted the game in progress with no prior planning or coordination and provided target practice for the bluefor. :shock: I'll have to try to duck better next time. At the end of that round most of the initial group of player had to go except Tinjaw and myself. So I took red and he took blue and we went at it again.
Given one platoon of tanks, one platoon of mech infantry, and a few supporting units I set up a fairly straight forward defense with interlocking fires to stop the planned river crossing. Most units had restrictive dirct-fire TRPs focused on the bridgeing sites. I placed two squads of infantry near the northern bridge within range of their RPGs. I set all weapons to zero range initially to prevent them from giving my positions away too soon. Since the single attack helicopter I had was 30% of my combat power, I kept it back as a reserve. James offered to reposition my entrenchments but in the interests of getting the game going, I elected to leave them where the previous player had put them. The only extra item I asked for was a two-tube section of 82mm mortars.
I spent the first several minutes registering artillery on both bridges, the nearest treelines, posible air-defense firing positions and then as far to the east as I could see. I aslo used the time to adjust the SOPs and target priorities of my units.
First contact was with blue's recon elements. I spotted them advancing along both the northern and southern routes and enaged them with 155mm artillery. I knocked out a HUMMWV recon vehicle along each route within a few minutes. Blue may have used this information to estimate the limits of my LOS as I only got glimpses of his units for the next few turns. Those were all to the north so I began firing harrassing artillery along his estimated route and got a couple of additional kills on soft skinned vehicles.
I first realized he had gotten his attack helicopter behind me when it took a shot at mine from the west! I lost mine in the next turn but didn't see where the shot came from. At the same time I moved my SA-18 100M north so it could fire to the west. It shot his AH down a few minutes later.
Then things got quiet. I used the wreck markers from previous kills to plot harrassing artillery fire but got only one(?) more kill that way. I only saw one tank platoon actually moving in the open until around the 35 minute mark. It appeared to me that his main effort was going to be on the north but I felt I had adequate long range fires from my existing positions so I decided to stick with the original plan and let the Artillery do most of the work. I spent the next ten minutes wasting artillery.
At this point blue started to risk exposing his units to get me to reveal my positions. He had discovered some of them but putting air strikes on likely positions and was starting to do some damage with artillery as well. I still kept most weapons set at zero range to try to get him to expose more units and to pound him some more with indirect fire. But he kept picking at me with only three sections of tanks and a couple scouts, all near the northern bridge. When this activity didn't develop into anything I got suspicious and started targetting the woods near the southern bridge. My third volley [not "salvo" ] of ICM got me three secondary explosions near the southern bridge. So he was still holding his options open.
About the third time I got hit with a blue airstrike, I thought to check my own air support. :crosseye: doh!. :shock: . At almost the same time I got LOS on one of his air defense units [also a ZSU-23-4] and and tank-heavy team appeared to the south. I attacked the ZSU with the AT-14 ATGM I'd been saving for a high value target. It killed the ZSU and one other unit before it was destroyed. Finally one of his AVLB bridges appeared, approaching the southern bridge site. I made it a prioritiy target for three units with ATGMs. They got it but were all destroyed within about a minute. At the same time my airstrikes came in and hit with mixed results. James then called ENDEX realizing that I didn't know blue's other AVLB had already been destroyed by arillery.
All in all I had a good time. I thought my opponent, Tinjaw, made excellent use of the terraing to conceal his forces. He also reacted well when he lost several scouts to artillery by using small armored units to probe forward and find my positions. He kept me guessing up to the last second as to which site he would move against.
With thermal sights that penetrated his smoke I think it was my game to lose. As long as I preserved a few missile armed units until his bridges came forward, I was pretty sure I would win. I never had enough direct fire systems to take on his main force but with plenty of artillery and air support and only two critical points to cover, I really didn't have to.
One final thought occurred to me after the game - I don't recall a real river crossing being attempted under fire from tanks and ATGMs with thermal sights. Does anyone else know of one?
At any rate it was fun, my opponent gave me a good workout, and I hope he enjoyed the time as well. And thanks to James Sterrett for putting it all together and to MajorH for such a great value in wargamming.
In all truth I did not plan to play today. My wife and I got home around 1600 EDST by which time the game had been going on for six hours. I just planned to drop in and see if anything interesting happened.
As it turned out, the red player had to leave just as I got onboard. So I accepted the game in progress with no prior planning or coordination and provided target practice for the bluefor. :shock: I'll have to try to duck better next time. At the end of that round most of the initial group of player had to go except Tinjaw and myself. So I took red and he took blue and we went at it again.
Given one platoon of tanks, one platoon of mech infantry, and a few supporting units I set up a fairly straight forward defense with interlocking fires to stop the planned river crossing. Most units had restrictive dirct-fire TRPs focused on the bridgeing sites. I placed two squads of infantry near the northern bridge within range of their RPGs. I set all weapons to zero range initially to prevent them from giving my positions away too soon. Since the single attack helicopter I had was 30% of my combat power, I kept it back as a reserve. James offered to reposition my entrenchments but in the interests of getting the game going, I elected to leave them where the previous player had put them. The only extra item I asked for was a two-tube section of 82mm mortars.
I spent the first several minutes registering artillery on both bridges, the nearest treelines, posible air-defense firing positions and then as far to the east as I could see. I aslo used the time to adjust the SOPs and target priorities of my units.
First contact was with blue's recon elements. I spotted them advancing along both the northern and southern routes and enaged them with 155mm artillery. I knocked out a HUMMWV recon vehicle along each route within a few minutes. Blue may have used this information to estimate the limits of my LOS as I only got glimpses of his units for the next few turns. Those were all to the north so I began firing harrassing artillery along his estimated route and got a couple of additional kills on soft skinned vehicles.
I first realized he had gotten his attack helicopter behind me when it took a shot at mine from the west! I lost mine in the next turn but didn't see where the shot came from. At the same time I moved my SA-18 100M north so it could fire to the west. It shot his AH down a few minutes later.
Then things got quiet. I used the wreck markers from previous kills to plot harrassing artillery fire but got only one(?) more kill that way. I only saw one tank platoon actually moving in the open until around the 35 minute mark. It appeared to me that his main effort was going to be on the north but I felt I had adequate long range fires from my existing positions so I decided to stick with the original plan and let the Artillery do most of the work. I spent the next ten minutes wasting artillery.
At this point blue started to risk exposing his units to get me to reveal my positions. He had discovered some of them but putting air strikes on likely positions and was starting to do some damage with artillery as well. I still kept most weapons set at zero range to try to get him to expose more units and to pound him some more with indirect fire. But he kept picking at me with only three sections of tanks and a couple scouts, all near the northern bridge. When this activity didn't develop into anything I got suspicious and started targetting the woods near the southern bridge. My third volley [not "salvo" ] of ICM got me three secondary explosions near the southern bridge. So he was still holding his options open.
About the third time I got hit with a blue airstrike, I thought to check my own air support. :crosseye: doh!. :shock: . At almost the same time I got LOS on one of his air defense units [also a ZSU-23-4] and and tank-heavy team appeared to the south. I attacked the ZSU with the AT-14 ATGM I'd been saving for a high value target. It killed the ZSU and one other unit before it was destroyed. Finally one of his AVLB bridges appeared, approaching the southern bridge site. I made it a prioritiy target for three units with ATGMs. They got it but were all destroyed within about a minute. At the same time my airstrikes came in and hit with mixed results. James then called ENDEX realizing that I didn't know blue's other AVLB had already been destroyed by arillery.
All in all I had a good time. I thought my opponent, Tinjaw, made excellent use of the terraing to conceal his forces. He also reacted well when he lost several scouts to artillery by using small armored units to probe forward and find my positions. He kept me guessing up to the last second as to which site he would move against.
With thermal sights that penetrated his smoke I think it was my game to lose. As long as I preserved a few missile armed units until his bridges came forward, I was pretty sure I would win. I never had enough direct fire systems to take on his main force but with plenty of artillery and air support and only two critical points to cover, I really didn't have to.
One final thought occurred to me after the game - I don't recall a real river crossing being attempted under fire from tanks and ATGMs with thermal sights. Does anyone else know of one?
At any rate it was fun, my opponent gave me a good workout, and I hope he enjoyed the time as well. And thanks to James Sterrett for putting it all together and to MajorH for such a great value in wargamming.