pmaidhof

Thanks Brad, I ws wondering about the type of ship given the 100+ crew.

Bees to Honey, sure did, but honestly once you fired the smoke missions between your northern force and those pesky RPG-7 armed recon survivors you were able to break contact and roll on toward the objective area.

It was fun to umpire and even watch. If anyone is interested, even for a beer and pretzels come as you are and blow stuff up, I'd be willing to host.

Bah, a CVH was sunk...sorry guys. No known Soviet CVN's that I'm aware of. AND, only one US CVN so if Gulf Strike was any indicator, it will be yet another Backfire victim real soon.

Dateline Ankara After two weeks of increasing tensions between NATO and the Warsaw Pact in and around the Turkish Straits, the Soviet Union has initiated military strikes against NATO ground, air, and naval forces in the area. There have small incursions of Greek territory by Bulgarian army units. A Soviet Air force raid penetrated deep into the NATO rear area, shooting down a number of NATO aircraft and chasing away the USAF AWACs aircraft supporting the theater. With that opening in AEW coverage, Soviet special forces seized a Greek airbase in the northeastern part of that country which allowed for the airlanding of a airborne division there. A similar Spetznaz strike in the vicinity of Istanbul failed. Several Greek and Turkish naval units have been attacked, with several ships being sunk. Turkish missile craft have scored an early success sinking a Soviet CVN which was supported suspected mining operations in the Aegean. We will continue to bring you developments as they happen, albeit weekly, on this breaking news.

Would you prefer using the map only, and giving orders and intent based upon sitreps, spotreps, etc received?

You know where I'll be

Or, I can send you the current .tac file already set up that I have. If you wanted to, you would be able to open Red Orders, go to enable Umpire, and then magic move individual units by holding shift and left clicking the unit, then left clicking where you want it on the map...within your area of operations of course. Before we start you would need to send me the file, entrusting me not to open Red Orders.

Weapons & Tactics of the Soviet Army Anti-Tank Weapons; 100mm anti-tank guns; Tactical employment Found in all but Tank Divisions. They are too large, too easily spotted and too vulnerable to be deployed in the first echelon. The T-12 has an offensive role, especially in the breakthrough attack. The anti-tank battalion deploys in the in the forward Soviet positions under the cover of darkness or an artillery barrage. During the artillery preparation they will repulse any enemy spoiling attacks, cover the deployment of the attacking units along the line of departure, and engage armored vehicles and anti-tank weapons in the enemy defensive position. During the attack the T-12s will use their fire to prevent enemy armor threatening the flanks of the advancing Soviet units and, if the attack is successful, they will cover the deployment of the division’s second echelon, and then move forward themselves to consolidate the objective. If the attack fails and the Soviets are forced to adopt a hasty defense, the long-ranged T-12s will support them against enemy counter-attacks. In the pursuit, or in a meeting engagement, the Soviets position T-12s in the open and engage enemy armor at close range. In these situations the Soviets are willing to accept the loss of three or four T-12s for each tank destroyed. T-12 batteries are often deployed on reverse slopes, as they can be depressed to a much greater degree than the Soviet tank guns. Depending on the direction of the threat, the guns will be deployed in line, in a two-line “checkerboard” formation, in echelon, or in a “U”. When all-around defense is important, the guns will be in a rhomboid-shaped formation. Guns are deployed between 200 and 500m apart, often in platoon firing positions. If time permits, one to three alternative firing positions will be designated or prepared for each gun, with concealed routes for changing positions. Each battery’s reconnaissance section deploys forward of the battery position to give warning of enemy tanks. * * * 48th Motorized Rifle Division is extreme right flank of a Soviet multi-division attack to the southwest. The Divisional Anti-Tank Battalion, reinforced by elements of the Divisional Reconnaissance Battalion and a company of T-80U tanks has been assigned the task to defend the division’s right flank from an anticipated enemy counterattack from the west. You command the reinforced Anti-Tank Battalion. Your area of operations is contained within the area 000014-060080-100080-075000-000014. The division second echelon is making its movement to the southwest using the movement corridor to the east of your unit along 10-12 Northing. Your mission is to prevent any enemy penetration through your zone that would allow its direct fire to interdict the second echelon’s movement through the corridor until no earlier than 0800. Your forces are as follows: Anti-Tank Battalion 2x Anti-Tank Battery (6x T-12 ATG, 6x MT-LB, 2x BRDM-2 each) 1x Anti-Tank Guided Missile Battery (9x BRDM-2/AT-5) Elements of Reconnaissance Battalion 2x Reconnaissance Companies (4x BRDM-2, 4x BMP-1 each) Tank Company (10x T-80U Main Battle Tanks) Artillery Support (15x ICM, 50x HE, 6x Smoke) 0% chance of resupply. Air Support (1x sortie, ground alert +8min), 10% chance of additional support. 4x surface laid mine markers with 25m visibility. Before thursday night, try and open a two person battle in TacOps, US Army Custom scenario, and then for the map go to TacOps Extras/More Maps to locate Map540c and its data. Go to map and select show grid lines and then again to show grid coordinates. Your unit's tactical boundaries are given above. Then give me an idea of where you would like to deploy the six sections and individual recon sections of the two respective Anti-Tank Gun Batteries, where you would like to position the ATGM platoons of the ATGM Battery, the reconnaissance company, tank company and the mines. With that I'll create the .tac file for thursday. If anyone else is interested, please let me know.

Thursday could definitely be a "go". It is not a days long affair, it's only 2hrs game time. Should not take much longer than that real time. What would interest you generally, attack or defend?

Anyone with TacOps wanting to test a scenario over the TacOps TC/IP function one night this week, let me know. It would be a Custom US Army scenario that I have orders and OOB's for on Map540c (See More Maps folder in TacOps Extras within the TacOps directory). It could be you vs me, or bring a buddy and I'll umpire it. Your inner Creighton Abrams may be calling.

To be clear, not "my" questions. Copied the meat of the two posts from CSW. yes, dreams of H5.

Taken from two posts over on the Harpoon4 folder over at CONSIMWORLD: "Persian Incursion" looks like the next Adm. Trilogy release for Harpoon... might even make it for Historicon. Contents: 120 page scenario book, map, 1/2 sheet of counters, 2 decks of cards, box and dice. The first time I'll have a reason to send review copies to the Washington Post and NY Times. Larry is currently digging up another big shot to write the introduction. Status: Now in the Art Dept. Readers of The Naval Sitrep issue 37 got a preview, and one or two scenarios were played at Origins last summer. * Larry's answer to my questions about Persian Incursion: "Persian Incursion will use Harpoon rules, but we're arranging it so that the buyer won't need to own the Harpoon rules set (we're hoping some non-miniatures gamers might be interested in it). Since we're dealing with a limited target and system set, we'll boil the rules down to a series of tables. Everything will be consistent with Harpoon, but he won't need the rulebook to figure out if a GBU hit a building, or a SAM hit the plane that dropped it. Everything will be in Harpoon terms, so it will work with Harpoon 4.1 and should work with the upcoming Harpoon V. If a player wants to change a scenario by adding new aircraft or weapons, he'll have to do the math himself, and he will need the rules, but it will match perfectly with the tables in Persian Incursion. As far as updating earlier H4 products to Harpoon V, first we get the rules updated, then we'll see about earlier products."

Well, I'm just over 100 pages in to From Normandy to the Ruhr: With the 116th Panzer Division in World War II . Kleine Heinz and the 116th PzD, or more like what is left of it, had its baptism of fire in Normandy, fought at the Falaise Gap, and now has closed on the French-German border with the Allied forces slashing and thrusting their way east in pursuit. Apparent so far is the German high command (OKW) issuing orders to "divisions" which could only muster between single company to battalion strength to defend locations already occupied by the "opponent" or to attack with units out of place, already engaged or simply phantom units. These events taking place in the west, while only alluded to is that the Soviet Union's Red Army pulverization and collapse of the German Army Group Center during Operation Bagration in Belorussian SSR and eastern Poland from June 22-August 19, 1944. A very interesting look at the command and control of a mechanized unit in an extremely fluid movement, taking its lumps, and doing so using only radio and messengers. More to follow.

Yes Yes Time All of the above Having re-read many of the AAR's at TacOpsHQ, and recently linked by Stephen I'd be willing to put together a relatively small, old style TacOps CPX. By old style, players need not be running TacOps, but would need a paper copy of the map, a way to mark the map, and IRC connection, and least necessary, a basic understanding of TacOps. The last one was the full blown everyone connected on TacOps, order transfer, the whole 9 yards. Hopefully I can better structure it than my previous attempt where both sides were ok with closing on the river line, then setting into a defense. In the AAR, the side that I viewed as the attacker did not feel his orders were to continue push forward in the attack. The fault was mine.

Thanks for the links to the ENN broadcasts. I remember following that MBX.

Yes, interested.

Multiplayer Harpoon 3: Advanced Naval Warfare for naval action, and Point of Attack 2 for the ground combat. Wow, POA-2. Tried to like it over the course of a number of years, most recently this past year. Not my cup of tea.

Yeah, a largish China vs Taiwan wargame being run by Ronald Munie (navwarcol on Matrix forums. Can't access that right now...what rule set/engine is being used? Thanks

No, not solo. Me and the same two guys from Gulf Strike, and perhaps one more for the larger gaming group.

Aegean Strike Scenario 2: World War III Southwestern Front was set up last night. Gaming will take place on Wednesday nights. It is a 20 turn scenario, the last one was thirty. Soviets essentially have to sieze the Bosphorous Straits, while NATO has to prevent that. The main NATO belligerents appear to be the Greeks and Turks. The US has one carrier, pitiful ground units, and significant post game start reinforcements by USAF units flown into Italy. I think that I will lobby for the Turks this time around. A couple of army corps, a plethora of assorted aircraft, and side order of naval forces. As the American last game in Gulf Strike, mine was a primarily an air and sea affair. Also in Aegean Strike the soviet has THIRTY spetznaz units to manage. US player in GS had half that at most and it can become tricky. I will try to provide more consistent and timely updates on this one.

Spring Tiger? Any info on that one?

provided an interesting contrast/comparison between the French and German command structures. As I believe that it was the final 1904 Schlieffen Plan, or possibly the after-actions descussions from the 1871 Franco-Prussian War, that even described how in the "next" war command could no longer be exercised, as it had become accepted from the Napoleonic Wars, where a commanding general would find high ground to direct the battle in his full view. A commanding general had to be back further away from the front, with a large map, and plenty of staff and messengers/dispatch riders in order to effectively command. Joffre exhibited this while von Moltke the younger did not. It was also interesting in that incompetent leadership of German High Command, OHL, could not effectively coordinate and control the dynamic personalities of von Kluck and von Bulow, German First and Second Army commanders respectively. These generals essentially would blow off von Moltke and do their own thing whether or not it negatively impacted on their neighboring forces. Joffre had a similar problem with Sir John French, commander of the BEF, and the original French Fifth Army commander General Lanrezac, but he was able to effectively, after much work, nuance, and direct intervention, get these two forces to finally stop the their retreats and actively participate in the counter attack which forced the Germans back from the Marne to the Aisne River about 40 miles rearward. It was along that line that the trenched began to appear and the race to the sea took place. I do submit that the there was something inherently wrong about having the British commander named French. Makes for troublesome reading, or perhaps it is just me.

Hi guys, Perhaps in either shore leave or here in Military History you can create a "Currently Reading" subfolder where participants can enter what they are reading, how it relates to Harpoon, Naval Warfare, Warfare, or History in general. I just finished a very interesting book on the First Battle of the Marne by Robert B. Asprey, and am currently reading From Normandy to the Ruhr: With the 116th Panzer Division in World War II by Heinz Günther Guderian.

And it looks like up next is Aegean Strike - Scenario 2, World War III: Southwestern Theater of Operations.