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All,
It’s 1300 on 2 August 1986, and the Soviets have broken through the entire NATO front in numerous places, pouring armored columns through the giant gaps. This is true maneuver warfare, with Soviet formations seeking out gaps and NATO seeking to find and seal them. Battlefield reconnaissance takes on a role of huge import, with 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (11th ACR) at the fore, with attached deep reconnaissance elements of 10th Special Forces Group (10th SFG) providing support.
An SF element of 10th SFG, comprising two SF fireteams, was inserted yesterday evening into the town of Bad Stulz and began reporting, but has missed its last two communications windows (didn’t report in via radio). There’s been a lot of Soviet electronic warfare jamming going on, so Brigade is optimistic the SF teams are still alive, just unable to communicate. From Team Whiskey’s India Company, the sole remaining intact platoon, Lieutenant Teigner’s 3rd Mechanized Platoon, is dispatched to find and recover the SF teams, in order to bring back their intelligence information. Failing that, 3rd Mech Plt must make contact the Soviet 8th Guards Tank Army and provide that information to the Brigade Intelligence Section.
The US force: these are actually two separate forces, the two 10th SFG teams at top left, then Lt Teigner’s 3rd Mech Plt of the command section, four rifle teams, and five Bradleys. The Platoon Commander’s (PC’s) command section has a single Stinger surface to air missile (SAM).
The Soviet force: an infantry platoon of command section, two MGs, an Anti-Tank Guided Missile (ATGM, in this case an AT-5 Spandrel); a mechanized platoon of a command section, four rifle squads, and five BMPs; a tank platoon of four T-72s; a Spetznaz squad of two fireteams; and an Mi-24 Hind attack helicopter, which is also transporting the two Spetznaz teams.
A look at the table, from south to north from behind the US baseline, and you can actually see the Bradleys of 3rd Mech Plt spread across the bottom. The Soviet infantry platoons are scattered across the top of the map. To recap, the US force is charged with going in an finding the two SF teams, and getting at least one of them secured and off the map (back to their own baseline in the south), while the Soviets want to prevent this, and actually are looking to destroy the entire US force.And here’s the kicker: neither side knows where the two SF teams are! The Soviets aren’t the only ones who have to push into Bad Stulz to find the SF teams, the US does too because of the EW jamming is preventing link-up via VHF/HF comms (I’m guessing Bradleys can go HF? For sure Brigade HQ can).
So, the way I’m handling this peculiar situation is this: there are two SF teams in the center of the table, so I placed four ‘blinds’ (which are purple beads) spread across the center of the map, with both sides having to advance and ‘spot’ the SF teams (admittedly, I’ll be making the spotting easier for the US 3rd Mech Plt as I assume the SF teams want to be found by friendly troops). Despite them being on blinds, I will allow the blinds to move south each turn, albeit very slowly as they are trying to remain unseen. So each turn the blinds are out there, I will move the them four inches towards the southern baseline, and once they are correctly spotted, I will remove the dummies and place the SF teams.
Which brings up activation: I am still using Ivan’s excellent “5Core Company Command,” but I am using cards to determine when each unit activates. So, at the start of the game there is a card for the SF blinds, a card for the US 3rd Mech Plt, a card for the Soviet foot infantry platoon, and a card for the Soviet mech infantry platoon. Once the tanks come on (Turn 2), they will have a card in the deck. once the Hind comes on (also Turn 2), it will have a card in the deck. And once the Spetznaz are off-loaded from the Hind, they will have a card in the deck.
This is looking west to east at the center of town. The red circles show the four ‘blinds’ representing the two SF teams. The southern baseline is to right, where 3rd Mech Plt’s vehicles are off camera.From the Soviet perspective, they are actively and aggressively engaged in counter-reconnaissance, trying to keep NATO’s prying eyes from locating their armored formations, and the electronic warfare (EW) jamming is actually being conducted in support of this effort. Soviet EW sections conducted signals intercepts and radio direction finding (RDF), which is how they became aware of the two US SF teams nearby. As they were preparing to dispatch forces to deal with the US SF teams, their signals intercept made them aware the US forces in the area had just sent additional forces (3rd Mech Plt) into the area as well. The Soviets don’t know the size or composition of this new force, but absolutely want to keep them from linking up with the two SF teams, and ideally, both US forces would be destroyed entirely. The plan is for the two infantry platoons (one on foot, one in BMPs) to push into Bad Stulz from the north. Once contact with US forces has been made, and/or the infantry have pushed sufficiently into the urban area to help clear it of infantry anti-tank weapons, the tank platoon will dash into the town, straight down main street, as the Hind comes in and deposits the two Spetznaz teams on the southern end of the town to try to bottle the US forces in the center, preventing any escape.
An M3 Bradley looses a TOW at a T-72.
Lt Teigner fires off a Stinger, looking to knock down the Hind.
But the Hind dodges and loops around to deliver a salvo of 57mm rockets.
Even the dismounts get it in on the action, moving to point blank range to engage enemy tanks with LAWs. To see how the fight turned out, please check the blog at:
http://blackhawkhet.blogspot.com/2015/09/team-whiskey-fulda-gap-batrep-2.htmlAnother fantastic fight, super intense and decided by a whisker. That’s both games from this past weekend, I’m looking to get two more in this weekend, so stay tuned.
V/R,
JackJust Jack:
Presumably it is your job to command the Soviet forces on the board. Therefore you are either a Soviet Army commander in charge of the army assets at your disposal or you’re a GRU commander running the Spetznaz SOF operation. The moment you take over both operations, you have defacto placed both groups under the same command as you are controlling the actions of both during the game. So the argument that they are both operating in parallel but separately in the same battle space is a bit inaccurate given that you, Jack, are making the decisions for both.
I would liken the situation to air strikes and artillery programmes. In games with these assets, the controlling player has little or no control over such assets if the game is set up to accurately reflect the battle space. The air strikes happen where the FAC orders them to happen and this may or may not coincide with the wants and needs of company and battalion commanders whom the air strikes are supporting. The airstrikes could attack any targets of opportunity, including your own forces if mistakes are made, or prearranged terrain/infrastructure targets at prearranged times. Likewise an artillery programme set up before the game begins, according to a schedule and using only a pre-registered target list would be largely out of a commander’s control during the battle/game even though the shells keep falling through out the game. The ground force commander might be able to call for the cancellation of a mission but not otherwise alter the predetermined programme. Only limited control of artillery directly under the command of a company or battalion commander, such as a battery of 120mm mortars, might be able to actively support an attack by allowing the controlling player some latitude in mission choice and then only if that battery was not moving or was not having its fire redirected to other targets by higher echelons of command.
So, like the air strikes or the artillery programme, the Spetznaz operation might be better handled in a pre-programmed sense, with specific goals and timing as part of a predetermined plan made before the game and played out as the army units fight in support under the direct control of the player. The plan could be modified as events on the ground unfold but that modification should not be completely up to the controlling player. It could be controlled by a pre-game contingency plan, or less satisfactorily by random events rolls to see how it progresses. That is to say that the SOF operation should be able to be influenced by the actions of the player but not directly controlled by the player. The other alternative is to reverse the roles and have the player control the Spetznaz operation and have the ground forces in support played out automatically.
The best solution is to have two separate players control these separate but supporting elements so it’s time to abandon the whole solo thing. So, either dragoon the wife into playing along side of you
or cancel the kids’ baseball and conscript them into Just Jack’s Pendelton Street Military Academy for very junior officers in order to begin a very rigorous and accelerated training programme in air-land battle operations and special forces training.
Or, and I say this with full knowledge of the likelihood of dismal failure, you could take the radical and revolutionary step to make some new ‘friends’ and invite another person or two into Jack’s world!
Hee-hee-hee! Gotcha!Cheers and good gaming.
Rod Robertson.
Just Jack:
The price of eternal vigilance is very little sleep, and I’m watching you very closely!
Dr. Robertson was my father! I’m just Robertson, or Rod or Evil-Roddy or as my father used to call me, ” you fat-faced bastard!”. And he was the nice parent! My mum was ex-US Army and served as a nurse in WWII. You did not cross that lady and live without deep regrets ever-after! So, Jack, feel free to call me whatever you think you can get away with without breaking forum rules as I know you’re just joking and there is no way you could offend me even with your acutely honed Marine vocabulary and intensity. I’ve been shot and stabbed by relatives so friends and acquaintances have a high bar to reach to get under my skin.
Now, to the Cold War! Yikes, I wrote a note saying my apologies for triggering a lengthy response and I get an Opus Magnus on the scale of the Gettysburg Address back! What you wrote was eloquent and elegant and I largely agree with your rational for how your games are designed, planned and executed. However the Soviet Army was a giant kinetic bludgeon, not a surgeon’s finessed blade. Soviet Doctrine in the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s changed in flavour but not in substance really.
Soviet artillery was primarily a break-through tool and was thus massed to reinforce success and withheld to starve failure. Where NATO might task a battery or a battalion, the Soviets would task battalions, Regimental Artillery Groups (RAG’s), Divisional Artillery Groups (DAG’s), Army Artillery Groups (AAG’s) and larger level AG’s to support both breakthroughs and mobile warfare. There was a constant tension in the Soviet Army from the early 1960’s to the late 1980’s between centralization and responsiveness. But the Soviets never adopted a system where a FOO could call in anything from his own battery to a divisional or a corp level stonk. This was because NATO’s system was based on secure radio communications and the Soviets did not believe that NATO’s communications would survive EW jamming, nuclear generated EMP and inefficient use in an NBC environment. They also believed that they could not count on reliable and secure communications and so kept artillery control centralized at the expense of responsiveness and flexibility.
The Soviets centralized much of their artillery into these artillery groups to allow for effective command and control in an environment which was hostile to communication and thus decentralization. So a motor Rifle Regiment Commander or battalion commander would find some or all of the artillery needed to support his operation was not under his command but rather under the RAG or higher level Artillery Commander’s command and control. Soviet FOO’s and fire control teams would report requests to the RAG HQ which would then decide who got the fire support. After breakthroughs had been made and a more fluid maneuver warfare was occurring the command structure did not change. For supporting a meeting engagement during a march attack Soviet forces could expect little artillery support. They would have available their own organic artillery like 120mm mortars and perhaps some SP Arty directly off the march, often firing directly at the enemy rather than in an indirect role. The chief task of this artillery was the destruction, suppression or the blinding of enemy antitank defenses to allow a successful march attack to succeed or to allow the Soviet formation to bypass the strong points in the enemy’s defenses. If a march attack failed or a hasty attack was chosen instead then rapid deployment of some or all of the RAG/DAG would occur and there would be more arty for support and likely less use of direct fire over open sights by the SP arty. If a deliberate attack was called for more complete deployment and more thorough fire support would occur. This is how the Soviets reconciled centralization with responsiveness but you will notice that, platoon, company, battalion and often even regimental commanders had limited if any control over their artillery support and FOO’s could only request/suggest fire missions and not call them in from all levels like NATO FOO’s could. In the Soviet Army the decisions were made by the artillery group commanders and not by the maneuver formation commanders or the FOO’s attached to those maneuver elements. La!
Cheers and good gaming.
Rod Robertson.
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