Red Commander's AAR
Red Commander’s AAR: Fester Wille, 22 January 2005
James Sterrett
Ralf Pichocki set up this CPX mid-December after another one fell through. Red got to work on analysis and the operations order in early January. About two weeks before the game, we had our orders out and were working on subordinate’s planning.
Red was:
James Sterrett (Commander)
Gary “Coyote” (HONEY and mortars)
Jonathan “PapaJ” (Blocking Reserve and SUGAR)
Bernard Cousins (Recce Screen, CUP, and MUG)
John Jones and Matt Ohlmer were present for planning but not the execution.
Our opord:
(See:
http://www.war-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21353 for the ops map.)
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MISSION:
In order to enable friendly forces to pass westwards over the
MITTELLAND KANAL, and prevent retreating enemy forces from doing the
same, 411 Air Assault Battalion will conduct airborne, airmobile, and
overland operations to seize crossings over the canal. Higher
requests a minimum of 3 crossings be seized.
Our key objective is to secure HONEY. Possession of HONEY enables
friendly forces to cross both of the water barriers in Bad Bevensen.
SPOON serves as a supporting objective for both HONEY and SUGAR.
The other major objective is to seize SUGAR and some combination of
CUP, MUG, and SAUCER. SAUCER can be blocked from forces defending
HONEY; therefore, we will concentrate on CUP and MUG.
ENEMY:
Elements of 5 PzAufklBtn are expected to attempt to punch westwards
past our positions. Strength unknown, but weakened through previous
fighting.
Elements of 21 PzBrig are expected to be operating in the area.
Recon has shown singletons and pairs of Marders and Leopards. It is
not clear if this is establishing a new security zone, or recon prior
to moving a major force into the area. the enemy's potential main
defence location is not known.
Enemy forces defending the bridges are not known but assumed to be
no more than platoon strength per bridge.
Task Organization and missions:
PARADROP: into the designated drop zone at 0700:
A Company: 10x BMD, plus infantry and SAMs
HQ 411
1x 2S9 mortar
Missions:
Seize and defend SUGAR; defend it against assault from the EAST.
Establish defence towards the WEST with reconnaissance at
least to easting 02 (Barum/Seedorf).
Secure SPOON.
HELIBORNE ASSAULT: arrives 0715:
B Company: 10x BMD, plus infantry and SAMs
2x 2S9 Mortars
6x grenade launcher teams
3x ZU-23
Missions:
Sieze and defend HONEY, CUP, and MUG, in that order of priority.
Each assault force gets 2x AGS-17, 1x ZU-23, 1 platoon of BMD.
HONEY assault force gets B Company HQ and mortars as well.
Prepare to defend to the EAST after taking the bridges.
Force at HONEY should be ready to destroy forces moving towards
SAUCER.
OVERLAND: expected arrival 0745:
3 trucks
3 ASU-85 (T-34/85)
3 BMD-1
3 BMD-2
3 BRDM-2/AT
Mission: Force reserve.
Assignment of units to players:
Everybody except James has forces in the initial assault and also
forces in the Overland force.
James (CO): None.
Gary:
HONEY assault force (2x AGS-17, 1x ZU-23, 1 platoon of BMD, B Coy HQ)
3 BRDM-AT (reserve force)
Chimera:
All air and artillery assets (3 mortars, 4 airstrikes).
ASU-85 (reserve force).
Berny:
CUP and MUG forces (each 2x AGS-17, 1x ZU-23, 1 platoon of BMD);
3 trucks (reserve force)
PapaJ:
SUGAR assault force: 1x BMD platoon from paradrop
3x BMD-2 (reserve force)
Matt:
Recon & west defence force: 2x BMD platoons, HQ 411, from paradrop
3 BMD-1 (reserve force)
All these forces are pretty small. Fight smart and it'll work. I hope.
If you are unhappy with the force you've been assigned to, please let me know.
EXECUTION:
We need to discuss this. Think over your role in the battle and how
you want to go about it.
I'd like to do the heliborne insertions in the order of HONEY, MUG,
CUP, where we cannot do them simultaneously. Flying stright in from
the east, dropping on or near the target, and bugging out, will make
best use of surprise but may get us butchered by ground fire. :-/
Plan to work with Chimera to get your support fires. You'll need to
tell him what spots you can see so he can fire registration rounds or
suppression. In the initial stages, any unit assaulting a bridge has
priority of fires over other tasks. HONEY has highest priority, SUGAR
is second, CUP third, MUG fourth.
It is my expectation that the battle will stage in more or less this manner:
1) We land and grab the bridges from local defence forces and/or lead
elements of 21 Brig.
2) 5Bn tries to push across the Kanal where we hold it.
3) 21 Brig's forces arrive from the west and try to retake the crossings.
4) Our overland force arrives.
It probably won't be that clear-cut; I fully expect that 1 will merge
into 2 will merge into 3. However, assault forces need to concentrate
on stage 1. The faster and better we accomplish that part of the
mission the better we can handle stage 2. Meanwhile, Matt's platoons
need to deploy to ensure that we're as ready for Stage 3 as possible.
If we wind up having trouble with 1 or 2, then having his force hold
off the bad guys well to the west is going to make it a lot easier to
finish 1 & 2 without a bunch of Panzers nosing around and asking for
lunch.
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What happened:
Early on, I wanted to delay the paradrop to land everything at once. Fortunately, the rest of the team talked me out of this idea! I am very happy with the degree of team input into our planning process. Everybody contributed something.
In the event, neither Matt nor Chimera could make the game. Berny took over the recon aspect of the western blocking & defence force. Jonathan (PapaJ) took over the defence aspect of that force. Gary took over the mortars, and I took the airstrikes. We knew they would not be there about a week before the game.
In planning for their missions, the players with helicopter assaults planned to move an Mi-8 in as reconnaissance, then move the main force in. Both players had planned primary and alternate landing sites.
Our paradrop scattered forces near the drop zone, and we started the game. We soon spotted blue helicopters, in ones and twos. Since there were never many in view, and they were flying at medium altitude, they took a lot of fire. We did not think we had accomplished much, but it turns out that the occasional (to our eyes) kills were amounting to a significant fraction of Blue’s force.
Events unrolled pretty much according to plan for us. By the time our heliborne assault was able to come in, we had units on SUGAR, SPOON, and HONEY, our recon screen was reporting itself in place, and the blocking force had been placed as a reserve.
Shortly after our heliborne assaults landed on HONEY, CUP, and MUG, Blue tossed in the towel. After a discussion between the commanders and the umpire, the game started again, with additional forces for Blue, including a great deal of artillery support and more ground forces. Blue’s westward-retreating recon unit showed up at about this point. After some initial bad luck, we found that we defeated much of this force pretty handily. The HONEY force took a pounding, especially from artillery, and I sent the reserve to shore it up. A mistake, it turns out, though not a game-losing one.
I should have sent the reserve towards SUGAR. Blue put in its most successful assault of the game there, eventually clearing us out of the area despite our desperate attempts to reinforce or retake it. Blue also blew the 60-ton bridge there with an airstrike. We spent the last of our mortar ammo trying to hold SUGAR. However, in the end, we got a reprieve of sorts - Blue fired its artillery mine strike onto the western side of the bridge. This denied it for our use, and incidentally trapped a couple of blue units in the mine pattern.
However, we still held HONEY, reinforced by our overland force’s arrival (and these units were then slung into the attempt to hold SUGAR). The lead units of our approaching Recon battalion finished off the last of Blue’s retreating recon battalion (with some trouble in the north, where Berny had to take down a Blue tank without any heavy anti-tank assets) and one third of the force proceeded across the southern section of the map and off the west edge. Towards the end of that process, Blue began withdrawing from the map via helicopter (which we did not know at the time).
Major changes to the plan during the execution:
- The force initially designated as blocking vs enemy land forces to the west got used to reinforce HONEY. It should have reinforced SUGAR, though the indicators to know this were not available that the time.
- We originally intended to pass the northern elements of the recon battalion over CUP/MUG and SUGAR. After the mine strike made this impossible, we rerouted those recon battalion via HONEY.
- The overland force was initially committed to taking out enemy forces near HONEY in the mistaken belief that there were some. It was then sent to try to shore up SUGAR. In a perfect world, we would have gone directly towards SUGAR.
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Lessons learned:
1) Used badly, helicopters are dead meat. Blue suffered heavy losses to its helicopter force because they flew over our paradrop at medium altitude and in small numbers. This ensured that virtually all of our paradropped company could engage one or two helicopters at a time. As a result, even these low-odds fires eventually shot the helicopters down.
As a test, I took the initial save file and altered blue’s helicopter movement orders: one third took an NOE path across the top of the map; one third took an NOE path directly over the paradrop; one third took an NOE path along the southern part of the map. Each one headed to a major bridge site. The Blue helidrop took moderate losses, but dropped significant forces onto each bridge site, which then proceeded to obliterate the red helicopters sitting at the edge of the map waiting to arrive.
Also, after the initial massacre, Blue started flying at NOE, and their loss rate plummeted. They did not lose any of their reinforcement helicopters, despite flying them into hot areas.
Despite ground fire and SAMs, none of the airstrikes in the game were driven off.
Lesson: handle your helicopters properly, and they will live a lot longer. Keep them at NOE unless you have specific reason to fly them higher. When entering hot areas, enter in mass. If the enemy can shoot down 2 helicopters every minute, and you fly 2 helicopters past them every minute, you lose all your helicopters. However, if you fly 8 helicopters past them all at once, you lose 2, and 6 get through unhurt. Nasty math, but saturation has long been a principle of overcoming air defence.
Second point: Had Blue gotten its forces onto the bridges, this battle would have gone very differently. Grabbing bridges fast, and forcing the enemy to come to you, appears to have been the key to victory in this scenario. Blue retook one bridge, and had lots of artillery with which to do it. We had no artillery, and I’m not sure we could have taken our bridges if Blue had gotten its forces into place unmolested.
2) I ran the battle without owning any ground units or seeing any Red units on the map. This was possible because my subordinates gave me timely reports on their status, activities, and position. This left me in position to try to figure out if we were on track with the plan, think about where the battle was going, and to try to stay ahead of events. We intended, at one point, to have an S2 player – a player who did nothing except try to figure out what Blue was up to. Unfortunately, that did not happen, but I’d like to try it next time we get a chance.
3) Getting the entire team involved in planning paid off well for us, because everybody not only knew their job, but also knew how their job fit into everybody else’s job. This meant, among other things, that there was no complaint when some units were denied mortar support on the grounds that they were not the main effort. No plan survives contact with the enemy - but a well-understood plan is a mutually agreed upon basis for change, providing a common frame of reference for actions. My thanks to the rest of Red: this would not have worked without you.