Bir GifGafaa - 1956 (TSATC)

[Bil H]

Bir GifGafa - 1956 (TSATC)

This is my first TSATC AAR, please be gentle

Battalion Order:

Col Ben Ari,

It has been reported that an armored column of the 1st Egyptian Armored Division was on its way to our prepared positions near Abu Ageila when it was attacked by our air force and sent into disarray. Your mission is to find this force and ensure that it cannot regroup and continue its march towards our positions. The last airstrike reported a number of vehicles heading back towards the Suez, but that cannot be confirmed. You MUST get the bulk of your forces across the 03 easting gridline by 0830. It is also imperative that the remnants of the Egyptian 1st AD are destroyed.

Gen Simhoni​

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TIME 0630: Welcome gentlemen; General Simhoni has given me our task.

It is basically a mop up of dispersed Egyptian armor of unknown type(s). It is good to see all Company Commanders present and motivated for the fight… time is of the essence, so we will discuss our orders as quickly as possible and then roll.

Battalion staff has done an excellent mission analysis, here is their data:​

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With this information I order the following movements:​

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• 1/79 - TASK: Fire support over central axis: with their AMX-13s will move down the central road in Column formation.
• 1/89 - TASK: act as Battalion reserve and will follow 1/79 (1Km back) ready to move as directed.
• 2/79 - TASK: move along the northern axis attacking by fire any enemy formations encountered.
• 2/89 – TASK: move along the southern axis setting up ambush locations against any enemy formations encountered. Use terrain to mask movement enabling them to engage in close to the enemy armor.

I am keeping these orders as loose as possible, the word for today is “flexibility”. We will maneuver as outlined to PL Alpha, then I will give orders to PL Bravo and Charlie based on the enemy situation at that time. Basically I would like to concentrate two Companies on each enemy Company as they are discovered, expect movement orders to come at any time.

Again, we will clear the zone to each PL in turn, once the enemy has been cleared up to the first PL then orders will be issued to the next, depending on enemy situation and contacts available at that time.​

 

[Bil H]

EXECUTION

TIME 0638

First enemy sightings, we have two widely separated concentrations of unknown units. No change to orders at this time.

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TIME 0642

For the first concentration (appears to be an enemy armor Company from the periodic armor contacts (T-34) I am getting) I want to fix them with 1/79 while maneuvering against their flank with 2/79.​

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TIME 0707

The maneuver worked well, I lost one AMX-13 to 10 kills (T-34). Not a bad exchange rate.​

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TIME 0713

Unfortunately, I could not re-deploy 1/89 in time to support 2/89 for the fight against the second Tank Company. 2/89 barely had enough time to get into positions before the enemy Company hit them causing serious damage (6 friendly losses) before being destroyed. One of the casualties was the Company CO. I will take it very easy with this Company for the rest of the action and will place them in reserve. 1/89 will take on their original role.​

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New orders issued 0713:

When we take a step back you can see that there are some contacts along PL Bravo.. Now that the enemy has been cleared up to PL Alpha I want to clear it up to PL Bravo. I expect there to be at least one more Tank Company out there somewhere, I don’t know if these contacts represent that formation, but with their separation I doubt it. I suspect these are AT weapons of some sort assigned to this enemy Battalion.
1/79 will again move up and take up the support by fire role, while 2/79 maneuvers down the flank of these contacts. 1/89 will move and provide flank protection in the South but stay out of enemy contact if possible. 2/89 will shadow them, but remain out of contact.​

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[Bil H]

TIME 0723

As suspected these contacts turn out to be SU-100s. I’ll have to be careful about wandering into their frontal arcs.

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TIME 0734

2/79 loses one tank at it maneuvers to unidentified enemy fire from the North-East, 1/79 orients North to watch for the suspected 3rd Tank Company perhaps coming from this area. 2/79 continues to work its way South and kills it’s first SU-100.​

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TIME 0740

While shifting orientation, 1/79 blunders into the sights of one of the SU-100s, losing two tanks before getting out of the way. Meanwhile I have ordered it across the road to block the movement of the enemy Company now clearly seen moving laterally across our AO to the North. I hope to be able to take out this Company with flank fire.
2/79 continues to roll up the enemy defensive line.​

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TIME 0746

1/79 has begun to annihilate the final T-34 Company, with flanking fire. But not without loss, the enemy Company swings South with the contact and manages to kill two 1/79 tanks. 1/79 will stay in this position until the enemy Company is completely dealt with, and then will move down the road towards 3 Easting.
2/79 continues to kill SU-100’s, while 1/89 appears from the South. The enemy cannot have too much left at this point.​

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TIME 0754

Battle ended due to enemy attrition, they had 3 SU-100s left, but those soon would have been mopped up.

I successfully killed the enemy Battalion by not allowing the enemy Companies to coordinate. Although the Company that 2/89 killed in the South I consider a failure as I could not coordinate my two Companies in that AO in time and it cost me heavily.

Loses suffered by the two AMX-13 Companies were similar to the Sherman Companies by the end of the day. But they only ended up losing one or two with each engagement and were responsible for 75% of the enemy kills. This was due to the coordinated nature of their movements, although the final enemy T-34 Company was blocked by 1/79 alone and again with only two losses because of the initial flanking position they attained (89 Armor killed 27 tanks for 6 lost). All of the Sherman kills came in one engagement (10 kills to 6 lost, including a Company CO). This map shows final dispositions:​

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[Bil H]

MISSION COMPLETE​

All mission objectives completed.

Excellent job, Colonel! Those Egyptian tankers seemed a bit out of their league, didn't they?! You need to move your forces east and link-up with 1-7 and return to Abu Ageila.

Mission Objectives:

1. Eliminate all enemy vehicles or teams in 03 Easting and occupy it with at least 24 friendly maneuver vehicles or teams.
2. Attrit the enemy to 9 enemy maneuver vehicles or teams.
3. Achieve mission objectives no later than 310830OCT1956.
4. Prevent penetration of 03 Easting by 4 or more enemy maneuver vehicles or teams.

Results:
* You have won because the enemy can no longer achieve his victory conditions. He only has 3 maneuver vehicles or teams remaining.
1. No enemy vehicles or teams remain in the objective, 03 Easting. The objective is not occupied by any friendly vehicles or teams.
2. The enemy has 3 maneuver vehicles or teams remaining.
3. The 'No Later Than' time of 310830OCT1956 has not yet elapsed.
4. The enemy has penetrated 03 Easting with no maneuver vehicles or teams.

Enemy Starting and Ending Combat Power:

Vehicle Type-----------------Starting-----Ending
MBT; T-34-85;Egypt; 56_______30_________0
Tank Dest; SU-100; Egypt; 56__10_________3

Friendly Starting and Ending Combat Power:

Vehicle Type-----------------Starting-----Ending
MBT; M50 Sherman; Israel_______28_______22
Light Tank; AMX-13; Israel; 56___28_______22

​

 

[John Osborne]

Nice Bil. Dam good AAR. Now I will have to play Attack on Jenin and write up an AAr.

John

 

[Pat Proctor]

I am not seeing any of the pictures. Can anyone else see them?!?

 

[John Osborne]

I am not seeing any of the pictures. Can anyone else see them?!?

It takes a while for the maps to loadup. It may have to do with the size of the files, not sure.

John

 

[Bil H]

Sorry about that... damn free image hosting site.. I am using a different one, this one works, I think...

Bil

Thanks to ImageShack for Free Image Hosting

 

[Bil H]

Comments

In this scenario I basically am still trying to learn the interface and what everything does. I found this scenario an excellent training scenario, plus I love the older equipment.

Overall I am really enjoying this game... can't wait to see AATF and especially the WW2 game that is in the works. I might have to make a WW2 scenario of my own.. another thing I am pretty impressed with is the modability of this game.. I'm amazed that nobody has really taken advantage of that.


Query: Even though I had the patch installed I noticed many itmes where the enemy armor fired on the move.. I thought that was fixed in the patch? Most of my losses were from moving enemy armor (all but 3 I think).

Bil

 

[Pat Proctor]

Are you sure you put the patch in the same folder to which you installed TSATC (you have to explicitly do this; the installer sometimes does not figure it out by itself)?

Barring that, it is a bug. I will check it out.

 

[Bil H]

Yep, installed to same folder.

 

[Pat Proctor]

OK. I will check it out. I HATE BUGS

 

[Bil H]

Pat, just to double check... is there a way to confirm that I do in fact have it installed? The date on the ATF.exe is 4/5/2006 which seems to jive with the date on the patch installer.

I can probably send you some saved games where you can see it happening.. I saved quite often during play.

Bil

 

[JamesBailey]

Got to love it when a firing line - be it tank cannons or rifles - comes together to deliver overwhelming and, better yet, flanking fire! All those rounds going down-range...

Very nice AAR Bil. Two Q's:

(1) is that your METT-T analysis or is that TSATC (I don't have TSATC, just ATF)?

(2) what would you have done if that enemy tank company (plt) that you mauled with interlocking flanking fire from 1/79 and 2/79 at 0740 hours had arrived at 0730 hours? It would have been touch and go for 2/79...

Good planning + good execution = great result!

 

[Bil H]

(1) is that your METT-T analysis or is that TSATC (I don't have TSATC, just ATF)?

That was all me baby. I must admit I didn't put as much effort into the METT-T as I normally do... but as this was a fairly simple scenario I guess I got away with it this time

(2) what would you have done if that enemy tank company (plt) that you mauled with interlocking flanking fire from 1/79 and 2/79 at 0740 hours had arrived at 0730 hours? It would have been touch and go for 2/79...

Yeah, well I must admit that the thought did cross my mind when I lost a tank maneuvering against the SU-100 line at around that time... I probably would have been in serious trouble if they had been moving when that fire took place at 0730. I could have stopped 2/79 there and taken up positions, but after weighing the probabilities I thought they were safer if they just kept moving on their original tack.

BTW, the flanking fire at 0740 against that enemy tank Company was delivered by 1/79 only, 2/79 was busy far from that field.

Good planning + good execution = great result!

Thanks James, although I think my planning was incomplete (especially terrain analysis), and my execution was fair... I still have a lot to learn to be really efficient with this game. But I am having a great time!

Bil

 

[CPangracs]

Bil, the "patch" is to the database only, and if you installed the 1.32 update for TSATC, it should be working. Try installing the seperate database patch from HERE.

Very nice AAR, by the way, and thanks for purchasing the game, but more important is that you enjoy your purchase for years to come!

Curt

 

[Bil H]

Thanks Curt. I'll test it out when I get the chance.

Bil

 

[Bil H]

Curt, I tried that file and it worked perfectly... I replayed my AAR saved game at the 0713 mark and 2/89 managed to kill the entire T34 Company with no loss... they took 6 losses in my game.

Thanks! Perhaps they have the wrong database file in the patch?

 

[HercMighty]

Bil, the "patch" is to the database only, and if you installed the 1.6 update for TSATC, it should be working.

Curt

I only see patch 1.32 at Shrapnel, is there another place to find patches?

Thanks

 

[CPangracs]

Pat will check it out, I'm sure...

This gives a major advantage to the static defense over an attacking force, and even more important, forces you to use real tactics of bounding overwatch and such.