6 replies to this topic

[pmaidhof]

Today's CPX was based upon the April 1999 Marine Corps Gazatte's Tactical Decision Game 99-4 Battle Along the Tziepov, by then Major John F. Schmitt USMCR. The general situation was that Blue Forces "(advancing north with the mission of destroying 'Red Forces' en route to an operational objective some 30km north)" and Red Forces "(advancing south) have clashed head to head along the trace of the Tziepov River." The OOB's were essentially as described in the TDG. "Upon contact, in an effort to sieze the initiative, both forces have started shifting forces west, trying to turn the other's flank and establish a bridgehead on the far side of the river."

Map997c

This map is my interpretation of the map features in Tactical Decision Games #99-4 Battle Along the Tziepov, and 99-6 Battle Along the Tziepov Continued authored by then Major John F. Schmitt, USMCR. The TDGs can be found in the April 1999 and June 1999 editions of the Marine Corps Gazette respectively, published by the Marines Corps Association.

http://www.mca-marin...te/PDF/9904.pdf
http://www.mca-marin...te/PDF/9906.pdf

Terrain is as follows:
E0 - Clear
E1 - R1
Towns - Town/R2
Woods - Woods/R2
Orchards - Woods/Clear.

Map997c will be submitted to Paul Csokay for posting on tacopshq.com for future use.

The RedFor Players:
Anthony Eischens - 1st Mech Bn (rein), Regt'l AT Battery, Regt'l Reconnaissance Company
Henk Stoffers - CO, 3rd Mech Battalion (rein), Fire Support Coordinator
TimA - T-72M Tank Battalion, Regt'l Anti-Air Battery

2nd Mech Battalion (rein) was planned but went unemployed.

The BluFor Players:
Frank 'Brains' Moody - 1st Battalion (Tank-heavy), Alpha Company 1st LAR (rein)
Bernard Cousin - CO, 2nd Battalion (Mech-heavy)
Brad Leyte - 4th Host Nation Battalion
Matt 'Rattler' Olmer - 5th Host Nation Battalion, Fire Support Coordinator

3rd Battalion (Motorized) was planned but went unemployed.

Neutral Observer: Paul Csokay

Both forces had a battalion of artillery in direct support, 152mm for RedFor and 155mm for BluForrespectively. RedFor also had a 122mm MLR system in DS. Air Support was essentially what comes automatically from the TacOps engine.

Friendly Fog of War was in effect

RedFor consisted mainly of the BMP-2 w/AT-5 Spandrel combo, T-72M tanks, BRDM2 recon, BRDM2-AT, and ZSU-23/4.

USMC BluFor consisted primarily of AAV-7P, M60A3, TOW HMMWV, 81mm Mortar HMMWV, LAV-25, and LAV-AT. The grunts anti-tank weapon was M47 Dragon. Host Nation BluFor consisted of Leo1 tanks, M113 APC, Milan ATGMs. The HN forces also had the only BluFor air defense assets, "Javelin" shoulder launched SAMs.

At the start, both forces start in the extreme eastern corners, RedFor in the NE and BluFor in the SE. For whatever reason BluFor seemed to more out of its assembly area somewhat quicker, although that may have been a function of RedFor be restricted somewhat by bridges to their close proximity west and south.

In what seemed like forever, the two forces advanced toward the two Tziepov crossings at Thorpe Bridge and Fouse Bridge. Red seemed to be feinting toward the closer Thorpe Bridge while sending what appeared to be their main body around through Emamiville and onto the Fouse Bridge. Blue seemed to have a somewhat balanced advance toward the two bridges although there was what appeared to be a slight weighting toward Thorpe Bridge.

Within the firt 8-10 turns as Blue's lead elements were closing on Thorpe a Red Recon-by-Air-Strike on the bridge actually took it, the Umpire Tools/Engineering Bridge, down. Most of us seemed surprised, I for one had not seen that before. An urgent request from Blue asked for bridging support, so I added two M60 AVLB's to the rear of their main force.

Despite my careful placement while viewing the map in terrain analysis mode, Red was experiencing some difficulty crossing some of my bridges, the so-called "pile up routine" taking its effect. In the spirit to keep things flowing I magic-moved some Red, and later some Blue, units that were hung up for what seemed to be inordinate amounts of time at bridge crossings.

In the end, time was our collective main enemy, and after 4+ hours we called it a game. Prior to ending, Blue's Alpha LAR, and 1st Battalion had effectively used artillery and mortar smoke to cover its crossing of a AVLB at the then destroyed Thorpe Bridge site, as well as "concealed" AAV-7 amphibious crossing, and had pushed 1-1.5km north of the crossing before entering in a sharp engagement with Red tanks and BMP's. 4th Host Nation occupied Leon Ridge while Blue 2nd Battalion held the Fouse Bridge site, and even crossed some AAV's across the river and up onto Lafferty Heights. Red units were somewhat non-descript in the scenario so I hope that individual red commander's chime in with who actually did what. It appeared to me that Tony went west-southwest while Tim and Henk went south.

In the shortened end, it appeared that both sides effectively contained each other, although given another hour or so blue may have punched through along Highway 9 toward the Clarkson and Heredia Bridges as Blue seemed to be beginning to take a toll on the Red units. Only time would have told.

Technical Issues:
This was only my second attempt at hosting a Tacops Multiplayer CPX. TacOps did crash three time in the course of the scenario which I'm sure amped up frustration on the part of the players. Despite the first time surprising me, all three I can trace back to using the umpire tools to add a player, change a PIN, Magic-Move a unit, or add something requested. I wanted to try to save each individual players orders that they had already input. It appeared that if I tried to use the tool that pulls in an individual player's orders, in the attempt not to lose them when I send the SitUpdate, if they had not yet "finished" their orders, a fatal error would occur and TacOps would have to close, causing me to have to restart with the last autosave and have everyone rejoin.

The question is that if a Host/Umpire does something that now causes the engine to require a SitUpdate to all players, how does the umpire send the SitUpdate without overwriting player orders, or causing this fatal error when selecting a player who had, according to the "Network Status" not finsished his orders?

One other point was the somewhat slowness of the combat turn. Realizing that the turn does not end at the same time for all computers, overall the turn does not end until everyone's computer completes the turn. Both sides and on the admin channel various people called out to others to ensure that "clicks" vice "animations" were selected for combat resolution, so without inspecting everyone's computer, I can only guess that everyone had selected "clicks".

All in all I enjoyed it. I enjoyed reading the communication and teamwork between players. It was also amazing to see how many unit markers were flowing across the map.

[pmaidhof]

Here are the Blue and Red respective orders.

Blue

Situation: During a movement to contact, friendly forces have met a
significant enemy force along the trace of the Tziepov River. Due to
prohibitive terrain to the east, both forces and pushing units to the west
in an effort to flank each other. The Tziepov and its tributaries of
approximately 400m in width. The riverbanks do provide for fording by
amphibious capable units. The terrain is rolling farmland. While there is
good trafficability in the lowlands (clear), higher terrain is considered
slow-go (rough1). Key Terrain in addition to the waterways consists of the
east-west Highway 30 in the south; the east west Highway 18 in the north,
crosses the Middle Brach at Heradia Bridge; the south-north Highway 7 in the
west, crossed the Tziepov at Fouse Bridge. Highway 7A branches of to the
northwest just north of the Tziepov; The south-north Highway 9 in the east,
crosses the Tziepov and the Middle Branch at Thorpe Bridge and Clarkson
Bridge respectively. Lafferty Heights in the west, north of the Tziepov.
Leon Ridge - center map, south of the Tziepov. Towns of Gunnington and
Pageton are along Highway 30 in the south as well as Emamiville along
Highway 18 in the north.

Situation/Enemy: Sensors indicate an unidentified regimental-sized unit
moving west along Highway 18 toward Heradia Bridge. The enemy is equipped
with the T-72-series tank, and BMP-2 APC. Their AT capability generally
that of the AT-5. They are expected to have moderate indirect fire support.

Situation/Friendly: The MEF has dispatched a brigade-sized task force to
locate and exploit the enemy's rightflank. The brigade consists of a tank-
heavy battalion (1st Bn), a mechanized-heavy battalion (2nd Bn), a motorized
infantry battalion (3rd Bn), a reinforced Light Armored Reconnaissance (LAR)
Company (Alpha), and two Host Nation (HN) mixed battalions (4th Bn and 5th
Bn, each consisting of two tank companies and two mechanized companies).
The HN battalion are battle-hardened and capable of most basic missions.
The brigade is supported by a battalion of direct support (DS) artillery.
Your USMC forces are equipped with M60A3 tanks, LAV-25/LAV-AT, HMMWV-AT, and
AAV-7 AMTRACs, the HN is equipped with Leopard 1A5 tanks and M113 series
APC's. Your AT weapons consist of TOW, Dragon, and HN Eryx and Milan.


Situation/Friendly/Higher Intent: Move with all due haste west along Highway
30 to secure the bridges in the vicintiy EMAMIVILLE-GUNNINGTON-PAGETON, or
at least deny the those crossing sites to the enemy until relieved.

You forces will enter along Highway 30 in the southeast corner. The lead
unit is the LAR company and the 1st Bn. The remaining forces are staggered
and will appear based upon player availability.



RED

Situation: During a movement to contact, friendly forces have met a
significant enemy force along the trace of the Tziepov River. Due to
prohibitive terrain to the east, both forces are pushing units to the west
in an effort to flank each other. The Tziepov River and its are
approximately 400m in width. The riverbanks do provide for fording by
amphibious capable units. The terrain is rolling farmland. While there is
good trafficability in the lowlands (clear), higher terrain is considered
slow-go (rough1). Key Terrain in addition to the waterways consists of the
east-west Highway 30 in the south; the east west Highway 18 in the north,
crosses the Middle Brach at Heradia Bridge; the south-north Highway 7 in the
west, crossed the Tziepov at Fouse Bridge. Highway 7A branches of to the
northwest just north of the Tziepov; The south-north Highway 9 in the east,
crosses the Tziepov and the Middle Branch at Thorpe Bridge and Clarkson
Bridge respectively. Lafferty Heights in the west, north of the Tziepov.
Leon Ridge - center map, south of the Tziepov. Towns of Gunnington and
Pageton in the south as well as Emamiville in the north.

Situation/Enemy: The enemy has been stopped along the trace of the Tziepov
River. They are equipped with M60 series tanks and marine APC's. They are
expected to have moderate indirect fire support.

Situation/Friendly: Division has dispatched a regimental-sized force to
locate and exploit the enemy's left flank. The regiment consists of a Three
mechanized rifle battalions, a tank battalion, an artillery battalion and
one MLR battery. You have T-72M and BMP-2 IFV's. Your reconnaissance
consists of the regimental reconnaissance company (BMP/BRDM-2). Your AT
missiles are essentially AT-5 and below.


Situation/Friendly/Higher Intent: Move with all due haste west along Highway
18. Attack south to cut Highway 30 vicinity PAGETON-GUNNINGTON.

You forces will enter along Highway 18 in the northeast corner. The lead
unit is the reconnaissance company and the 1st mechanized battalion. The
remaining forces are staggered and will appear based upon player
availability.

Questions?

[TonyE]

Pete tells me I was "Commander 1st Mechanized Rifle Battalion". Luckily I wasn't the lone Red commander, Stoffel really took the grand commander role and TimA came later to whine about our predicament, the game, and the paltry size of a rather large bridge .

Bridge sums up what went wrong for Red, first I piled up units on the Heradia Bridge, but managed to divert most of the APCs thru the water before the situation became really nasty. But the damage was done by that point, the scouts didn't make it across the bridge quickly and so did not play a role in proper scouting. The hope was that they could zip to Emamiville, then South across the Fouse Bridge to make a stand there.

As it played out, Blue got to Fouse long before my scouts and had their positions dug in and ready to use smoke to their advantage (and they did!). I was a bit surprised Blue hadn't pushed North from Fouse in more strength, perhaps they had some bridge trouble as well, or weren't worried about pushing their luck with offensive action. My short TacOps experience has shown that dug in Blue units are going to regularly rout the advancing in the open Red forces. The only Blue unit I ran into North of the Fouse Bridge was a AAV playing scout just outside the Lafferty Heights woods. One of my scouts ran across it and even got a shot in.

Somewhere in there Tim joined the action with a boatload of T-72s, unfortunately the boat was not included in the deal and a much more serious traffic jam developed at the Heradia Bridge with his efforts. If he had made an orderly crossing, maybe his tanks and my numerous APCs could have rushed the Fouse bridge in force (but would it have worked...).

As it was, my units were finding that approaching the Fouse Bridge embodied deadly experience for themselves, M60 tanks and even a TOW or three fired on my units without a counter-detection. Blue was masterfully using smoke to further decrease the chances I would see his units. Not wanting to wait more hours for Tim to show up (he was taking HWY18 to HWY7a despite my declaring HWY7 in firm hands south of Emamiville), I planned to move in force from the break on the forests South of Emamiville SW towards Lafferty Heights in hopes of attacking Fouse on its flank. Just after starting that move it was time for me to exit the game, just as things were getting really messy for us Red players. I was happy to see my APCs launch a few ATGM against the M60 tanks and I think I at least damaged something else with a mortar strike (my first use of TRP and shifting fire from a TRP).

All this time Stoffel was fighting along HWY 9 towards the Thorpe Bridge. Blue beat us there too, the 'narrow' passage on HWY 9 made for a killing field, Blue massacred a number of Red units. Both Stoffel and myself sent some probes along the river between HWY9 and HWY7. Blue had it covered but I wonder if it might have been an area to launch a major assault, instead of focusing on the bridges.

So what was good:
* I successfully used a bridging unit, without help!
* Lots of players, more than two was a good experience.
* Learning more from said players, hiding units with checks was added to my abilities and is handy in addition to the other hiding capabilities. Stoffel suggested a useful formation for my units, protecting and playing the strengths of the anti-tank units (generally fragile but long ranged).
* Terrain I could work with

What wasn't so good:
* Way too many units/markers for me to control. I'd be happy with 5-8 markers <g>.
* Have I mentioned what I think of TOW?
* Lack of Red cohesiveness. I think we all had good intentions but at the very least Tim was not understanding my reports about the situation around Emamiville.
* I'm still very 'green' at the game, moving a large number of markers took me time, thankfully by the time we made contact with the enemy I was doing okay with moving so many markers.

Thanks again to all of the other players, and especially Pete for making this happen and then being the umpire!

[pmaidhof]

Here's some good "battle management" perspective from Matt/"Rattler"

>From my POV, even for a not experienced player it
should be possilbe - after some warm-up phase and
giving long term orders) to run a Battallion in 1
min orders phase w/o too many problems as TacOps
provides a lot of help in this respect:

- On the march: lay out the route for the lead
vehicle, after that its just for any follow on
vehicles to lay pout a route to the lead vehicle
(1 or 2 clicks) and then hit "add orders" taking
them from the leader (and so on for each next
follower, that makes about about 20 klicks for a
whole BN broken down in platoons. Enough for one
minute usually (remember you dont have to order
*all* platoons every turn)

- After this there is nothing to be done on the
march than maybe adjust distances for selected
platoons, again easily possible in way less than
one minute

- Alternatively you have always the chance (e.g.
for sudden unexpected maneuvers laterally to the
plotted route or to unbunch) to order one center
unit with one click to go to 10km away, copy
orders and paste into all units with another
click (mass selecting them with a selection
rectangle drawn up). The remainder of the orders
phase give differing direction one-click orders
to selected platoons.

- During the march you can think up how your
units should behave when making contact, SET SOPs
+ - if necessary - target priories, thats whath
theyre there for, saves you a lot of hassle and
clicks upon contact

- Upon contact, and to adjust your fighting, give
long term orders to your units that combine with
the SOPs, give orders for at least 5 minutes
duration to every coy alternating through the
coys every orders phase, you DONT HAVE TO
MICROMANAGE, thats orders for 4 or 5 markers
every orders phase (make it 10 with inf
deployed), again in combination with the SOPs
enough for 1 min orders phase (though thats
surely some stress)

- Basically, think and order as a BN commander,
ordering pln commanders and let them handle the
rest, dont try to give orders to individual
sections or squads (of cause sometimes there is
some need to do so, but in the minority of cases)

- PRIORITIZE YOUR ORDERING TASKS: Arty first (you
can give arty orders - if you have chosen
plotting it - before end of combat phase on other
machines). then defensive measures for units
under fire, then units moving to contact, etc.
.Cycle through your coys, you will be back with
each coy every three minutes

If you ffollow those guidelines you will find
that you will fall into a rhythm and structure
your thinking (and tactical awareness), game flow
becomes faster and more coherent, and overall you
will have a better gaming experience.

Rattler


>pmaidhof@optonline.net a écrit :
>> Thanks for writing up the Blue CO AAR.
>>
>> Please recommend a time frame for orders, given the scale of a
>> battalion per player. I was going with whenever every player had
>> selected Begin Combat, but some players requested the umpire use Begin
>> Combat w/Options after a 3min period. It was then bartered down to 2min.
>>
>> I'm open to suggestions.


>To not have a too long game, I think that short order phases are the
>better (between 2 or 3 minutes or less if possible). Thus the size of
>the forces allocated to each player should be reduced (less than a
>battalion, if you want to maneuver by platoons and have some individual
>scouting units).
>What we have to count here is Tacops markers (you have to control each
>Tacops markers, each marker containing one to 14 identical elements).
>And also (for instance) one offmap arty count for one marker. Beware
>loaded vehicles may increase the burden when unloaded.
>
>For instance during the game on the map at 0726, there had about 110
>BluFor markers (for 4 players = > 27 markers/player) and about 70 RedFor
>markers (for 3 players => 22 markers/player).
>
>Bernard
>

[CV32]

I didn't see much action during the game, having been tasked to occupy Leon Ridge (away from the fighting).

The fog of war between friendly units was nice to see. I had no idea how Brains' tanks were doing but it sounded like quite the exchange of fire over there. A look at the revealed map afterward seemed to show Red forces in disarray, at least.

[pmaidhof]

From TimA, RedFor Tank Battalion Commander over on the TacOps mail list:

"Just a couple of quick comments in no particular order:

Yes, RED's issue was mainly the bridges in the North. Both bridges were a
serious bottleneck until the umpire stepped in to help. That alone wasted
maybe 5-6 turns. Some of it was my fault as I forgot about splitting the
units up even more to cross the bridges. I caught it just in time for the
Heradia Bridge but still had some units bunch up there.

I sent half my force to the Thorpe bridge and the other half were on their
way to Fouse. A much better fight was put up at Thorpe because I managed to
get close enough to put up a fight due to much less delay on the bridge.
However, blue was already in a good defensive position and also used smoked
way to well for us to really be able to regroup and do anything useful. I'll
have to go to the replay to see how many units I actually took out. It may
have been a 1-1 exchange or close to it (I could be wrong). The other force
on there way to Fouse never really made contact with BLUE so not a unit went
down. The plan changed as we thought the Red scouts were fully overrun by
BLUE so it would have been a while before my forces were in contact anyway."

[pmaidhof]

RedFor CO (Henk) comments, posted from the TacOps mailing list.

Here is my Report:

I joined the battle late, I was checking in i fit allready started and got
just in time
I had not a clue what to do, sinmce I joined late.
Therefor I had no clear plan available(something that's gonna change in the
future)
I looked at the map , my forces and had to guess what the enemy would have
or what they would do.
I quickly saw the importance of the centre Leon ridge.

So, I split up the two forces.
Tony got orders to move towards Amaivill, head down south from there.He had
to clear both lafferty and Leon ridge.
I was going down south towards Thorpe bridge.
My original plan was to cross the river with the BMPs, destroy the
bridges(so blue could not get his tanks across).
Two parts prevent us from doing that, the umpire(who gave blue a new bridge)
and blue thermals.
Overall it was a fun fight though.
And I have to give credit to my bn co's that they did manage to kill several
blue units, although we suffered from the smoke.
Well done guys!
Specially Tony who is a new player learned fast.

Some thoughts about playability.
Red had to attack, therefore I thought blue wouldn't have that many troops
as we find out they really had.
Normally with Head to head play and equal forces both should have thermals,
a side without them suffers bad and will most times lose every fight against
another human player.
In several test Matt and I have made that very clear.
When you do decide to give 1 force thermals , there are some things that
can add to could playability.
Blue should have less off map artillery.
All arty blue has should be on map, the red player should get more MLRS for
counterartilleryfire.
If blue has to much ATGM the game gets one sided affair too, reduce blue
ATGMs if red has no thermals.
Adding helicopters for red is also a good thing.

Henk(stoffel)