Momentum and organisation in attack: I'm struggling

[JamesT73J]

In both ProPE and SB Gold found I'm much better at defending, especially if the map lends itself to simple defensive positions. Much of this is due to me enjoying playing 'in tank' and practicing gunnery; I'm less keen on having my head in the F5 screen.

However, I do enjoy trying to beat the attack / meeting engagement scenarios, but I tend to have problems. I try and keep my units concentrated, and maneuver them in reasonably coordinated fashion to the point at which I want to attack. When this works, a quick, violent battle normally results - I may lose a few vehicles but normally I've done enough to win the scenario.

The problems occur when I encounter 'defense in depth', like a forward tank platoon, a minefield, or a company of AFV's and infantry covering the approaches; I never quite recover quickly enough, or in an organised fashion, and end up 'fighting the map'.

Likewise, if contact with a main group doesn't occur where I think it will, I get a bit lost - especially bad is when units start getting picked off as I struggle for position.

I think I tend to fix on BP's a little too readily, and perhaps don't spend enough time thinking about the map beforehand.

Any pointers?

[IrishHussar]

James you have hit the nail on the head what you are describing are the fundamentals of armoured warfare. Concentration of mobile forces at the percieved weak points of an enemy defence equals force multiplication and therefore shock action. To defend against this one could utilise mobile reserves or indeed defence in depth, both valid tactics. Aplication of these tactics is another issue however, as a single player one can only give and recieve info to/from 3 maybe 4 different sources thats why multiplayer games offer such a valid opportunity to develope tactics. It also takes a practiced player to apply command and control techniques in order to carry out his plan.
This brings us to the real beauty of this sim ie its multi levels and differing facets that can be played. Look forward to seeing you online.

Irish Hussar

CO A.R.R.C

[DrDevice]

I'll be the first to say it again: Span of control.

I will hazard a guess that your attack was at least a company or more. With that much steel to manage, it can very quickly spiral out of control, due to the high level of guidance you need to provide units. (This is simply the nature of control for units in this sim.)

In the attack, coordination is key, as mentioned above. An attack tends to be more fluid than the defense. As you mentioned, things shift rapidly once contact is made. It is impossible to account for all the possibilities. So planning a defense tends to be easier to do with the tools at hand if the span of control is above a platoon or two.

Attacking on a company scale can become a nightmare of multitasking, especially for someone who wants to “get in and shoot” like many of us do! Not that it can’t be done. Just be aware that it is a real challenge to do without subordinates. Even folks that can do it usually have much higher loss ratios than a real CO would be permitted. That’s the price of having CC platoons instead of adaptable humans.

[Los]

Here's what can hurt, getting everyone going again! I'd suggest a work around. Before the mission starts and you are doing your map analysis try and guess where you might encounter resistance, where you'll have to emplace Assault positions and support by fire positions based on terrain likely friendly and enemy courses of action etc. (there's plenty of places on the web that go into mission analysis and panning in detail so I won't cover it here.)

Having done that create a few contingency routes from these positions to the next ones or to the actual Objective. You do this by placing a starting waypoint, create an engage or assault route to an ending waypoint. Do this before the mission starts when you have time to think (Or you can do it on the fly too) So if you run into trouble say along your axis of attack at some point and you have to deal with it, you can get your force moving very quickly by a quick:

Cick on unit-create route and link route to one of your contingency waypoints. And off they go back on track.

It's a two second thing- repeat for other units that are stalled stalled and it gets your guys going again. Then as they're moving it gives you time to think through getting the attack back on trackand customizing the advancing units waypoints with some subsequent waypoints. This keeps the momentum of the attack going and can be done on the fly.

WARNING: With the latest patch beware of having too many units in too tight a space manuevering around as the new collision model can cost you anywhere from 10-30% of your force, they're more deadly than the enemy sometimes!


Los

[RecceDG]

In RL, a combat team commander never just throws his forces into the breach willy-nilly; there is a whole battle procedure process that happens beforehand in which he develops his plan.

Specifically, there is a detailed map recce and a combat estimate that takes plce, whose whole purpose is to try and discover all the things that can go wrong and identify potential courses of action to fix them.

Describing the entire process is a subject for a book, but you can approximate it with two words:

"So what?"

Like this:

"The approach to the objective is over 2500 metres of open ground"

"So what?"

"So it is going to take my APCs 5 minutes to cover that distance, moving at 30 km/h"

"So what"?

"So they will be vulnerable to MBT and ATGM fire in the run to the objective"

"So what?"

"So I need a way to provide cover for them or to suppress enemy fire during the run up"

"So what?"

"I have arty smoke and a troop of Leo2s"

"So what?"

Etc.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

DG

[JamesT73J]

Some very interesting points. I find SB demanding in this respect - I'm used to a flightsims where you're pretty much looking after your own backside all the time - "go here and bomb this, then come back." The tactical and situational awareness demands in SB seem so much higher, and danger is a great deal trickier to both see and escape from.

When I played online in SB (about 2-3 years ago) the confidence of some players used to really astound me - how they would stride around the map; I tend to get comfortable in a good position and rely on gunnery and luck. Fear of the virtual sabot tends to make me put my defensive hat on too often.

RecceDG - it sounds like a case of good planning and risk-management. I guess I just need a lot more practice.

[Los]

As you are probably aware SB is best experienced in multiplayer. That way even if you have one player per platoon, he can look after his sheep and keep everyone working towards the best interests of the PLAN. The AI leaves much to be desired.

Los

[DrDevice]

And therin lies the problem with SP and an Attack mission: a platoon is a good unit of action for one player, but platoons don't attack on their own. Unless the scenario is fully scripted (by the designer or by the player), something is bound to tangle up your plan.

The MP suggestion is one of the best. Whether you play Head-to-Head or Co-op, you'll find it very comforting to have a live player in the next platoon covering your flank. The alternative is to spend a lot more time in the planning phase working with your routes, waypoints and triggers. Time spent planning always pays off in the action phase, I've found. As Los mentioned: using pre-planned routes can really speed up your responsiveness.

[NEpi]

The tactical and situational awareness demands in SB seem so much higher, and danger is a great deal trickier to both see and escape from.

you should never ESCAPE danger, rather Evade it ;)

go MP. not only you'll cooperate with live (and thinking) COs, who can react to a situation much more quickly and effectively than scripted AI, your opponents will be alive and thinking, and will teach you mighty fast not to cling to your comfortable BPs for too long. you'll learn to manuever, and to be agressive.

[Black-6]

James, interesting discussion and lots of good advice from members. I enjoyed reading this thread so here’s my contribution (for what it’s worth).

PRE H-HR:

The ‘17 Steps of Battle Procedure’ is a ‘good thing’. However, you only need to concern yourself with the following steps: detailed map & time estimate and making a plan. These steps are the heart of “The Estimate” process.

Map/Ground: the general topography, identify important terrain features, sub-divide map into ground left/centre/right (or even L/center left/centre right/R) and again by close/middle/far for each ‘axis’. Look for avenues of advance, Cover, Obstacles (natural/man-made), Positions of observation, Positions of fire, likely En positions, Distance (expressed in time not meters). Military people will recognize this as COPPED. I like to put ‘thrust lines’ on my trace. If there is difficulty along one, or can exploit another, it’s easy to say “Switch from C2 to C3”.

The En: likely locations, KZ, strength, eqpt, probable mission, reaction to you: the en’s courses of action – COA – and rank by most/least likely and most/least dangerous. It could be the most dangerous is also the least likely. This is where you start managing risk to your operation by preparing contingencies for the en’s COAs.

A word about risk. Risks are not gambles. A risk is something that can ‘get you forward faster’ but you can recover from if it goes sour. A gamble is an all or nothing situation. Both need info inputs, intuition and luck. Save gambles for desperate situations only.

Once you mentally overlay the ground and en templates, you will naturally start to see various COAs pop up. War game each COA accounting for the ground and en. RecceDG gets into the ‘logical conclusion’ aspect of the “so whats”. The “so whats” of each factor should lead to a lead to a task. If it doesn’t then you’re probably chasing a sterile factor. For example, there’s a village in the middle of route “Left”. So what: it dominates the area. So what: would be a good place for en inf with anti-armour wpns. So what: Do I need to clear it? No: (not enough time or I’m authorized to bypass up to squad/platoon/company sized elements) select bypass route and have recce elements probe/piquet until bypass complete or hand off effected, factor into arty fire plan HE/SMK just in case en is there. Yes: (totally dominates route or I’m ordered to clear for follow-on forces). Probably a platoon size force, plan deliberate assault, recce to confirm en & secure/mark assembly areas & atk positions, B Coy with tank troop from depth sqn to assault, remainder of force by-pass and carry on (exploitation), block c/atks, cut off en withdrawal, etc. You can see how the village ‘factor’ boiled down to what specific tasks are given to which specific units.

Do this for L/C/R. Compare the COAs and select the best one. This will be your plan. Your plan is always great until you cross the line o’ departure. From that point on you are in the realm of ‘The Combat Estimate’.

H-HR & BEYOND:

Clausewitz’s ‘friction’ took a minimal toll on your move forward, you reached the atk position with minutes to spare and crossed the LD on time and in good order; “Driver, ADVANCE!” The first few bounds established good momentum for your force, you’re putting many kms under your tracks and morale is high. “4, this is 60C, Contact GR 123 456, 2 platoons T-72 dug in facing West, am moving south to seek…(static)”. Good news your recce picked up the en. Bad news, en is astride your route. Worse news, you probably lost 60C. Somebody hands you up a cheese sandwhich.

Time for The Combat Estimate; an abbreviated form of The Estimate. Take inputs from the radio, map and your binos. Apply grease pencil to map and sketch out a plan, throw in some routes, timings & tasks, issue frag o and get it done. You can do all this in minutes from the comfort of your turret.

So how do you manage all that clag in SB during the advance/attack? Simple, you don’t – not actively, anyways. Irish Hussar & DrDevice were absolutely correct about the span of control issue. The way to get around that in a big single player sce is to make sure that your forces are task grouped. Your recce out front to give warning looking for “gaps & surfaces” followed by your advance force to deal with minor en in your way. In SB this adv force could be a small as a platoon so you can gun and snipe your way forward. A battle group (US: task force) would have a sqn/coy combat team in that role.

About Recce; I prefer light over heavy recce. It’s not as ‘fun’ but the temptation to fight is removed. I learned this the hard way from personal experience moving from tank to light armd recce. It required a big change in my psychology. In the end, what you want from your recce is info on the ground and en. They can’t do that if they’re out of play. Leave the ‘fighting for info’ role to your adv force.

The Advance Group: main task is to clear minor resistance IN ORDER TO prevent the main body from becoming prematurely committed. You can amend movement routes or halt this force while you are busy fighting with your adv group, as LOS suggests. This is your main striking power so you should preserve it until it is unleashed at the time and place of your choosing.

The Reserve: make every effort to have one – even with your recce group. Try not to double-hat the reserve with a task and “you will also be the reserve”. That is pretty lame. Imagine that your designated reserve is engaged with their other task and then you need them. The size of your reserve should be based on the threat type and force expected. Once the reserve is committed, you should try and raise another. It is difficult if you are fully engaged – but maybe you didn’t need to be in the first place.

Overall, I prefer the advance/attack over the defence. Maybe that’s my nature or maybe the Armour School’s nurturing. If an attack goes sour, and you have factored in some contingencies for this (like a reserve), you should be able to stave off defeat and try a different approach. When things go wrong in the defence, your problems usually tend to increase exponentially; i.e. forces fully engaged, new en threat, reserve launched, centre collapses, positions isolated….

I realize that I’ve rattled on far too long here so I’ll stop. I’ve been in Afghanistan since Feb 05 and can’t join you guys online. But I try and stay in contact by reading the Forum when I can.

Merry Christmas.

[RecceDG]

Engage THREADJACKER 2000! :D

About Recce; I prefer light over heavy recce. It’s not as ‘fun’ but the temptation to fight is removed. I learned this the hard way from personal experience moving from tank to light armd recce. It required a big change in my psychology. In the end, what you want from your recce is info on the ground and en. They can’t do that if they’re out of play. Leave the ‘fighting for info’ role to your adv force.

I've been recce my entire career, so I've never had to make that transition from tank "crush and kill" to recce "sneak 'n' peek".

I prefer a "medium recce" whose primary task is sneaky-peeky, but who has enough integral direct firepower to be able to extract themselves from a "whoops", to quickly crush enemy recce when encountered, and to (most importantly) take advantage of and exploit moments of golden opportunity.

Gettysburg (Buford forces Lee to deploy in the low ground so follow-on Union forces automatically get the high ground) or the Melfa River crossing, Italian campaign WW2 (Perkins finds the needed crossing, then seizes it and holds it for two days until the follow-on forces can take over) are prime examples of the disproportionate effect recce can have on the battle, if they are equipped to be able to fight for a little while when the objective is worth it.

The idea here is not to fight for information, but to have your lead force strong enough that they can fight and exploit if the reward for doing so is large enough.

Black-6, are you back home right now? If you are, the Men's XMas dinner is this Saturday, Dec 16th, and we'd love to have you make an appearance.

DG

[MrDalgof]

This is the thread I've been looking for - combining tank warfare concepts with the nature of Pro PE itself. And your post, Black-6, really gave me some needed schooling.

I'm completely new to tanks and Pro PE but with a lot of time in other military sims. Digesting everything here will really add a lot to my sim time with ProPE.

Thanks.

[Black-6]

Hey DG! I'll be home in time (just) for Christmas - if we're not snowed in. Won't make it to the Men's Dinner, though. Please pass on my regards to all.
You make very good points about medium recce. I agree.

Mr Dagalof; you're welcome. I felt kinda stupid after I saw the size of my post, "Who's gonna read THAT!" Evidently, you. Glad if it helped.

Links of interest:

Canadian Army Electronic Library: Land Force Tactical Doctrine. Good for tactical concepts from platoon to brigade:

http://www.army.forces.gc.ca/ael/pubs/300-002/B-GL-300-002/FP-000/B-GL-300-002-FP-000.pdf

US Army Field Manual: FM 71-1 - Combined Arms Heavy Forces; Armored Brigade, Battalion Task Force and Company Team.

Very good and probably of more direct use to SBers. Ch 4 has an interesting "European Defensive Scenario".

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/71-123/index.html

US Army Field Manual: FM 71-2 - The Tank and Mechanized Inf Bn Task Force. Lots of diagrams:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/71-2/Ch3.htm#s4p1

Happy reading!

[RecceDG]

Hey DG! I'll be home in time (just) for Christmas - if we're not snowed in. Won't make it to the Men's Dinner, though. Please pass on my regards to all.

Will do.

If you're in town, don't forget to attend the New Year's Levee - call me at home and I'll get you the info.

DG

[enigma6584]

I felt kinda stupid after I saw the size of my post, "Who's gonna read THAT!" Evidently, you. Glad if it helped.

No, there are others reading this thread with great interest and appreciation.:smile2:

[Chaplain]

I'll throw in my two cents.

Manging a force larger than a platoon in SB, especially on the attack, takes either:
1) a LOT of practice, which some of us don't have the time for, or
2) a lot of time creating a complex system of routes for almost each and every mission attempted (which makes playing a wide variety of missions impractical, again for lack of dedicated time for SB).
For the vast majority of missions, if you don't have time to do 1 or 2, you simply get your behind handed to you in a big way. That gets old fast.

I am really good at table-top wargames. I am mediocre at running a handful of vehicles in SB, and I stink at running anything larger than a platoon. Some SP missions are small enough for me to manage, but not many. Most mission designers seem to prefer the bigger missions, so the options for playing a single vehicle/section are very limited. I can make my own missions, of course, but then that takes a lot of time (which I don't have) and it gives me too much prior knowledge of what the enemy is going to do to be a proper challenge.

Personally, I don't see a way out of this. I thought MP would be the answer, as it would allow participation in a realistically-sized attack mission without forcing each player to control more units than he can handle. In practice it didn't work out very well. I gave up on MP because I was almost always handed multiple platoons to control, and therefore I was always the weak link on my side. I spent the entire time in the map screen and still did poorly. About the only time I did any good for my side (and had fun in the process) was with the Canadian battle labs - in those I only ran infantry units, and infantry in SB is much more forgiving in this respect. (In other words, they are slow to move and quick to die no matter how you manage them. :-P ) It is more difficult now, because of the 8-player limit. Since most people want to play in HtH games, you end up only have 3-4 players on a side, and therefore each player on the attacking side usually has to control a company-sized force.

In the end the only answer is that one has to dedicate a LOT of time to SB Pro PE to get any good at it. I'm not surprised that we have already had a bunch of people put their copies up for sale because they just don't have the time for that.

As for me, I still have a lot of fun with SB Pro PE, but I spend almost all of the limited time I have for it playing the gunnery ranges with the various vehicles. As a ITV platoon leader, I had only very limited time in the UCOFT and none on the actual range in any AFV. For me it is worth $125 just to be able to go back and learn how to act as gunner & TC for a single M1 or M2. I'll stick with SB Pro PE even if I can't get to use it for a broader gaming experience. Which, for the foreseeable future, is exactly what I expect to be the case.

[DrDevice]

Just to re-iterate an invitation from another thread:

Chaplain, the 29AR has been trying to get back into a regular rotation of playing MP games on Tuesday nights, 1900PST. The focus is on 1-man per platoon ops, and we usually have about company team, cooperative scenarios. We are believers in the cult of span-of-control!

We are also flirting with the idea of "Head-to-Red" organization, with 3-7 blue players and 1 human helping out a heavily-scripted red AI side. This helps make red unpredictable, but avoids the idea of "equal force size" HtH scenarios. So we can play doctrinally correct, realistic scenarios, but the human puppet master (ShotMagnet is the usual volunteer) can keep us guessing.

So you (and other interested folks) should join us, if it suits your schedule. The span of control is small, the players are there to spend quality planning time and execute the plan, and it's a whole lota fun!

[RecceDG]

Manging a force larger than a platoon in SB, especially on the attack, takes either:
1) a LOT of practice, which some of us don't have the time for, or
2) a lot of time creating a complex system of routes for almost each and every mission attempted (which makes playing a wide variety of missions impractical, again for lack of dedicated time for SB).

While I too am a big believer in limiting span-of-control problems in scenarios by limiting scenario unit size, it shouldn't be this bad, even in larger scenarios.

The trick is that you don't have to be everywhere at once - by which I mean, not every unit has to be doing something at the same time. This means you can "park" units until you need them, and keep your span of control at any given point in time reasonable.

So let's say you've got an advance to contact scenario that puts you in charge of a tank squadron and a mech inf company - so 4 x 4 tank troops and 4 x 4 IFV platoons, plus supply vehicles and a few other odds and sods. That's a lot of vehicles to manage, and your span of control on the whole set is stretched to the limit.

But you're doing advance to contact, which means that the enemy is probably in a fixed defensive position, or moving around on prescripted routes. You should be able to do a quick combat estimate on the map, and figure out where the enemy is likely to be - and sometimes the scenario designer helps you out by drawing a big red circle around likely positions.

So pick a tank troop, divide it into two two-tank elements, and call this your recce element. Send them down the axis of advance, one patrol at a time, in bounding overwatch. I like to gun the leading element personally (I find myself crew commanding from the gunner's hole a lot in SB) but on an Engage route, the AI isn't horrible so you can let it run.

Span of control here: 2.

Periodically, as you clear ground, you move the follow-on units forward. You can treat them as a big mass; the units don't need to move particularly tactically. And as you've proved the ground and found overwatch positions on the way, you can put tanks into overwatch and tuck IFVs into the low ground.

Once you make contact, don't get sucked into a firefight between your recce elements and the contact; instead, fall back to a safe place and approach from a different angle. Keep doing this until you have the enemy position mapped out - or until you run out of recce.

Span of control is still two throughout this phase. Yes, you occasionally move your other forces, but that's mostly to keep the time lag between first contact and your attack down - and if you've got good overwatch, if the scenario designer has a hasty counterattack built into the scenario, you've got forces in place to deal with it.

Once the position is mapped out, now you can do an estimate and come up with your plan of attack. Ideally, you want a firebase and a flanking movement - so pick where your firebase is going to go, where the Line of Departure for the main attack is going to go, and move units around in preparation for this. Done properly, all these movements are out of sight of the enemy, so the routing doesn't have to be super-detailed - and the final destinations of the routes should be short of the actual start positions, not on them.

Once all the prepositioning is done, drop some arty on the bad guys and smoke off the approach from the flank you're attacking on. Get the flank attack rolling, then move the firebase up onto their positions. Now you can gun firebase tanks, or shepherd the advance.

Span of control here is 2+ - firebase and attack. I say "+" because individual units may need a little assistance from time to time, but you shouldn't need to micromanage every individual unit. You'll take losses, but they should be sustainable.

And then you roll over the enemy, and win. :)

It REALLY helps to have a reasonable grounding in tactics, enough so that you can see groupings. It's not 16 tanks and 16 APCs, or even a tank squadron and an infantry company - it's recce, and everybody else, and then firebase and attack (or firebase, attack, and reserve).

See?

DG

[Kingtiger]

I like this topic, keep it going, learning something from this... :)
/KT

[HotTom]

Black Six, excellent post! I think your COPPED is what we call OCOKA but it all amounts to understanding and using terrain wisely.

DG, I agree and disagree with you.

Yeah, while you're doing the recce portion span of control is pretty small. (BUT, take a look at your LT Perkins sce -- which is one of my favorites. You have to plan the routes of every two-vehicle section. You can't just park most of them while one section moves out. As I understand it, they each scout different routes and that takes lots of map time in advance, especially if you want to avoid detection -- and you do!).

Where your post breaks down is in the second phase of your example, after contact: When the main body moves forward into attack positions, crosses the LD and attacks with some units doing Support By Fire and others maneuvering.

I don't see how your span of control remains only two.

Let's take your four tank companies and attach one of your four mech platoons to each of them making four tank-heavy company teams. That's a reinforced battalion task force (I believe tank battalions normally have three companies).

That's four reinforced companies, each with four platoons or 16 platoon "units" you have to move around the SB battlefield. Not two. Your span of control is 16 or three to four times what a RL military commander would have. (That doesn't include your XO, the FIST, or any of the support vehicles, either organic or attached).

And that's where the problem of task overloading comes into play. You can send your units forward to fire and maneuver but the AI isn't smart enough to react correctly. The AI TCs can (and often do) easily use up all of their ammunition firing at targets that are on another unit's objective or wander into streams that you routed them around or, these days, whack into trees and kill the whole crew (I sure wish that would get fixed).

So, you have to spend the whole mission studying the map (like a battalion commander) and then micromanaging each platoon (unlike a battalion commander). If you jump in a tank the whole mission can go to hell while you are taking out T-72s with your main gun. There are no subordinate company commanders or platoon leaders or platoon sergeants to react to each change in the situation and make the appropriate decisions and issue Fragos. You have to do their jobs, too.

Then it becomes a board game, not a tank sim.

In the scenarios I've written I've tried to avoid that by scripting everything (although I'm not sure that's the perfect solution, either, again because the AI can frequently be Artificially Stupid). Pick a platoon, erase the solution I've provided and fight it your way. The rest of the battalion will fight by AI and it will (usually) come out the way it was supposed to because I've tested it many times before I posted it.

I know, for those who enjoy a lengthy planning phase and going through OCOKA and METT-T and writing an Op Order, that takes much of the challenge out of the scenario. But if you go through that planning for each platoon in the scenario, then you must stay glued to the map through the whole exercise.

Battalion-level exercises for Multi-Player? Absolutely as long as you have enough players to keep the span of control small (a company of four platoons at the extreme limit).

The key to success in large MP missions is to have a CO who does keep his nose in the map. You simply can't avoid it in a battalion-size scenario. The difference in MP is that you have human subordinate leaders who can react to changes much better (hopefully) than AI. (Device -- thanks again for allowing me to jump in with your squad last night. The span of control (two platoons) was just right, You guys really know how to plan and execute a mission! :cvcsalut:)

But to go beyond company level for SINGLE-player (and platoon level is better) is asking more of the AI and the player than either is capable of performing.

My $0.02 (US).

HT

[Chaplain]

That's all great in theory, DG. I for one have no trouble doing it in tactical-level table-top games. I have not played hundreds of scenarios, but I have only lost once when the odds were even when playing such games. (There were a few where the victor was not clear, too, but only a few.)

To do this with the interface and AI limitations in SB, however, is a whole different ball game. One needs hours and hours and hours of practice to get it where he can do what you say in an efficient manner. (Maybe a lot of practice with other real-time strategy games would have helped. I know that I never spent time on any RTS game other than SB.)

You can tell me that I simply don't spend enough time playing. That would be a fair comment, but I think there are a bunch of people who appreciate SB but have my time constraints. I also think that a lot of you who have gotten good at the game seriously underestimate how much time you have put into it.

I'm not criticising you for this, either. You have time, I don't, I expect you to be a lot better than I am at it. What I think frustrates people is that I see a lot of posts that imply that if one merely puts a few extra hours of practice in and understands things like, "you don't have to be everywhere at once," he's on the road to success. I firmly believe that is not true. I think that for most people it will take tens of hours over a concentrated period of time, or hundreds of hours if spread out of a period of months, to get any good at what you are describing. This is even if one fully understands armored tactics and can apply them properly in other contexts. For those of us without lots of time to dedicate to mastering the SB interface and quirks of its AI, most scenarios are just out of our reach.

There are lots of people who are hackers at MS Flight Simulator. They know the learning curve is high, and they know that their lack of progress at virtual flying is simply related to the time they put into it, so they continue to putter away at it. I just don't see a recognition of that within the SB community. If we don't get better at telling people how steep and high the learning curve of effectively controlling multiple units in SB is, then we should expect to see a continued trend of people buying the game, getting frustrated because they can't get as good as they "should" be getting for the time they put into it, and then dumping it. If they knew their oh-so-slow progress was to be expected, maybe they could better accept it and keep plugging away at it.

[Los]

one option. The scenario designer can make this happen by say scripting things so the payer's forces will most likely have to commit one of two or three COAs depending on what he sees during recon or what the enemy's doing at this or that NAI for example. Then his main body can commit based on a conditional routes based on a trigger for each of the three likely COAs.

SO he has a phase of the scenario where he's say being a PL of the recon element, then based on what he sees and does he hops into the role of CO/Bn Cdr and makes some map decsions and just sets of a trigger simulating ordering the force to execute prearranged COA 1 2 or 3, then he can jump into say the FIST vehicle and be mister SBF pl for a short while and finally get his jollies as as assaulting platoon tank leader. All along every vehicle's route is scripted so they'll g about their business based on his COA.

Lotta work on the designer though but this can be fun.

Los

[DrDevice]

This means you can "park" units until you need them, and keep your span of control at any given point in time reasonable.
The problem with this is that it denies you mass. Parking units means they aren't in the fight. You are buying span of control with piecemeal deployment.

I agree that in the recon/MTC role, your main force will be out of contact and "parked," but when it comes time to attack, you need all cylinders firing, and that whole company in the fight, plus the arty. Even with good timing and route management, it becomes overwhelming.

So let's say you've got an advance to contact scenario that puts you in charge of a tank squadron and a mech inf company - so 4 x 4 tank troops and 4 x 4 IFV platoons, plus supply vehicles and a few other odds and sods. That's a lot of vehicles to manage, and your span of control on the whole set is stretched to the limit.

Let's take your four tank companies and attach one of your four mech platoons to each of them making four tank-heavy company teams. That's a reinforced battalion task force (I believe tank battalions normally have three companies).

HT - I DG is talking about only 1 squadron and 1 company, or a total of 2 company teams, rather than 8. A US squadron = a battalion, a Canadian squadron = a US company. (And a Canadian Troop = a US platoon)

Once all the prepositioning is done, drop some arty on the bad guys and smoke off the approach from the flank you're attacking on. Get the flank attack rolling, then move the firebase up onto their positions. Now you can gun firebase tanks, or shepherd the advance.
A critical issue I have with this is that you have to rush about getting the units rolling. Once you are in the action phase, you cannot use "Embark if" conditions to tie the LD to a trigger. In effect, your FRAGO is being executed as you speak, vs. waiting for a coordinated move. This makes the span of control a platoon at a time, but many times in quick succession. It's still a "whack a mole" game where you try and get the mass and firepower applied to the right place at the same time.

Again - different players have different skill levels at this. Some can manage multiple platoons quite well. I often think that the scale of losses reflects the realism of that span of control, however. The job gets done, but there's a price to pay in lost elements.

[RecceDG]

Yeah, while you're doing the recce portion span of control is pretty small. (BUT, take a look at your LT Perkins sce -- which is one of my favorites. You have to plan the routes of every two-vehicle section. You can't just park most of them while one section moves out. As I understand it, they each scout different routes and that takes lots of map time in advance, especially if you want to avoid detection -- and you do!).

Actually, it doesn't work that way in real life.

The Lt Perkins scenario is a route recce to a river crossing, not an area or zone recce. What you care about is the condition of the route and if there are any enemy capable of influencing traffic along the route.

The way this is typically done in the lead two vehicle patrol moves along the route (or when terrain and vehicles permit, along the route corridor, but not necessarily physically tracking the route) by leapfrog movement within the patrol, and the rest of the troop follows along behind by caterpillar.

For most of the troop, movement consists of moving forward into the position just vacated by the vehicle in front.

This changes when obstacles are encountered; the lead patrol secures forward - in sim terms, they park in place - and a rearward patrol moves forward, through the lead patrol, to deal with the obstacle. Depending on the obstacle, the drill SOPs, this may mean the "obstacle patrol" taking over the lead, or not.

If that sounds like a lot of people being effectively on autopilot (local security and observation excepted) - that's because it is.

That changes once contact is made. The exact sequence of what comes next depends on orders and if the lead callsign got whacked or not, but ideally, you drop a patrol in place to piquet the contact, then find a bypass and carry on - less one patrol. The idea being that a follow-on force will take over for the piquet, and once the handover of the contact is complete, the piquet patrol will follow the bypass himself and rejoin the troop farther down the trace.

If you are doing a lot of piqueting, it doesn't take very long for your 4-patrol, 8-car troop to be whittled down. An 8-car troop can basically picquet three contacts before forward progress is stalled - it's all about maintaining a reserve.

A troop that proceeds on multiple routes has that much less of a reserve. It is possible for a troop to prove 4 routes, but if anybody makes contact, all forward progress stops (and the Tp Ldr's patrol is committed, so he cannot influence the result. The most I've ever done (aside from patrol-level practice where the Tp-level context didn't matter) was two routes.

In sim terms, the span of control of the Perkins scenario is never really greater than two. Break the lead patrol up into two individual vehicles, hop into the lead one's crew commander hole, and position the vehicle in a good turret-down. Observe until you're sure the next bound is clear, then hit the map screen and give each follow-on patrol a route that ends at the position of the patrol proceeding it. Once they are moving, hop into the crew commander's hole of the rearmost vehicle in the lead patrol, and go forward of the lead vehicle, carefully observing forward and using ground until you reach your next position. Lather, rinse, repeat.

In the real world, the lead vehicle will pick a spot that looks like a good position for the other vehicle in his patrol to occupy, and he will flash a hand signal to the other car as it goes by - usually a distance value (in fingers representing 100s of m) and sometimes an indication of where. The follow-on vehicle crew commander hasn't had time to study the ground yet, and these signals indicate how far forward the vehicle he is leapfrogging can support.

When crews get good, this process just rocks and rolls along; you'd be amazed how fast ground can be covered this way.

But getting back to sim terms, the only vehicle that really requires your attention is the lead vehicle - the others can take care of themselves. I have successfully completed that scenario by parking 7 of 8 cars and just manning the lead one; the tail is superfluous. (they're the reserve, and I never needed them)

An attack is somewhat similar - you park everybody except recce until the recce is complete. Then you make a plan. Then you get the firebase rolling towards their position. Once they are moving, you get the flankers rolling. You keep an eye on them and shepherd a little, but intelligent routing and choice of formation should allow everybody to get to the LD with a minimum of micromanaging. Then you set engagement distances, hit the enemy with arty to distract him, smoke off the flanking approaches, and get the firebase up in their positions. Once the enemy and the firebase are firing at each other, get the flankers moving, and shepherd as required.

If you did your combat estimate correctly, it should *almost* run itself.

And sim-specific weirdness is part of the estimate; if trying to force a tank troop through a treeline is going to result in 75% casualties due to the AI drivers bumping into (apparently explosive) trees... well then, don't force the troop through the treeline. If attempting a river crossing under the eyes & guns of the enemy is liable to cause the AI to get all higgedly-piggedly... cross someplace else where you aren't under the eyes & guns of the enemy. Etc.

"Doctor, it hurts when I do *this*". "Don't do that."

Admittedly, this doesn't work on all cases. A nefarious scenario designer that launched simultaneous counterattacks on your firebase, flankers, and rear area would quickly exhaust your span of control - and I'm a fan of reduced span of control missions for this kind of reason. But span of control issues are largely manageable *without* requiring super-detailed preplanning of routes if you do some mental grouping of the battlefield.

DG

[RecceDG]

One needs hours and hours and hours of practice to get it where he can do what you say in an efficient manner.

Well... I get in maybe two or three hours of SB a week. I don't get anywhere near as much time as I 'd like to spend.

But I've also got several years crew commanding and troop leading, and I've recently moved up to the Battle Captain's slot, so I do have a fair amount of time mentally processing tactical information.

At first, the sheer volume of information coming through the radio was overwhelming... but you learn to adapt.

It's a simulator, after all, and it does a pretty good job of simulating. That need to process information quickly is present in RL.

A critical issue I have with this is that you have to rush about getting the units rolling.

Agreed - but one can do that in pretty short order. Setting up the firebase is just click-route-engage-endpoint-tactics-defend-rotate BP line, which just takes a couple of seconds per unit, multiplied by however many units you have in the firebase.

Done cleverly, one could arrange units a suitable distance behind the LD such that the time it took to set up the routes was taken into account, and everybody crossed the LD at the same time.... I'm nowhere NEAR that clever, but it has never seemed to matter much.

DG

[HotTom]

DG, thanks for the explanation on LT Perkins. I do it by bounding overwatch but usually by splitting each section into two vehicles. And, yes, when my lead element is engaged, it seeks cover and (if it's still alive) provides SBF for trailing units who then begin to maneuver. That sounds pretty close to what you describe. I've played it so many times, I think I've used every possible route. Actually. I've never tried it doing a recon on just the one route. I'll give it a go. It really is the best terrain exercise I've found.

Device -- You're absolutely correct. I looked it up and, yes, the Canadians have their TOE all screwed up :biggrin:

A Canadian company and a battery are the same as US. But a Cav Company in the US becomes a Cav Squadron in Canada. In the US Cavalry, Squadron = Battalion, troop = company.

In Canada, it appears a company/battery/squadron all are commanded by majors. In the US they are commanded by captains. Our majors usually are staff officers. I have no idea what their captains do....

And a US platoon = a Canadian platoon except in the Canadian cavalry where they are called troops (which, to me, would be a company).

It's okay. I've worked for Canadians. I'm used to being confused...eh?

:c:

HT
LTC (ret.) (except in Canada where I'm probably either a retired corporal or a retired major general, I'm not sure which)

[Black-6]

Of course, a lot of these issues would disappear if you could aggregate/de-aggregate companies (as in Janus).

You could still use coy formations: column, line abreast, wedge, box, etc. Would make life in SB a lot easier in SB and realistic. Armd/Mech Platoons (almost) never operate in isolation.

Ssnake: how about it?

In response to Colonel Tom, aka HotTom;



British and Commonwealth unit terminology:

Armd/Arty Bn = “The Regiment”
Inf Bn = Inf Bn
Armd Coy = Squadron/Sqn
Arty Coy = Battery/Bty
Inf Coy =Inf Coy
Armd Pl = Troop
Arty Pl = Troop
Inf Pl = Inf Pl

Why majors command sqn/bty/coys and what do captain’s do?:

I’ll focus on the tank/recce sqn side of this. In general, this is “the way it has always been” in our system and these sub-units are pretty big. When I started (in 1985) a tank sqn consisted of:

SHQ (sqn HQ): 3 tanks, sqn ldr, battle captain and the dozer tank.
Tank Troops x 4: each with 4 tanks.
Sqn Echelon: commanded by the sqn sgt-maj (SSM) with a warrant offr (WO) as 2i/c, usually the maint WO. Without getting into specifics, there are as many vehs in this part of the org as there are tanks, maybe even a few more! It ‘depends’. Sections incl: ammo, fuel, hard rations, water & kitchen, supply, maint, medical, comms techs, fire control systems (FCS) techs and even a baggage truck.

This makes the sqn a self-contained unit which is not reliant on HQ sqn (US: the supply/maint coy). Although, we have that too. In general, a sqn has 3 days combat supplies with it: 1 day combat load in the tanks (F – fighting - echelon) and 2 days in the A1, A2 echelon (all armd vehs). The sqn 2i/c, a captain, and sqn QM sgt (SQMS) is co-located with HQ sqn and coord resupply; major assemblies, entire vehs, personnel, admin, etc.

(The armd regt consists of: RHQ, 1 x recce tp, 4 x sqns, and HQ sqn)
The battle captain (BC) is the tactical 2i/c and coords ops, comds the fire base, looks after reserve troops, coords local security when sqn halts for extended periods, etc. If the sqn ldr is knocked out, the BC takes over until the sqn 2i/c can take over. A sqn like this can be split to support 2 inf coys and still be quite effective.

Another reason majors usually comd sqns is that the task groupings can get pretty big. I once had the pleasure to comd a tank sqn, recce sqn, air defence tp, helo sect, engr sect and FOO/FIST during a defensive covering force op. THAT was fun!

The sqn ldr or OC (officer commanding), with rank of major, has comd & staff college and understands the bigger picture. Some OCs are captains and have as a minimum their tank sqn course, the necessary experience and some good evals. I have been a tank sqn ldr as a capt and recce sqn ldr as capt/maj. I believe that it is especially important for majs, with comd & staff qual, to comd recce sqns because the recce sqn works directly for the bde comd and has to see the operation in terms of the bde/div context.

As an aside, when I arrived at my first recce sqn, I was amazed at the troop ldrs and sr NCOs knowledge of bde ops and their level of initiative.

(FYI) Canadian Bde Recce Sqn:

1 x Sqn Ldr’s veh
2 x CPs (TOCs) that can leap frog/catepillar forward to maint fwd/rear C2
3 x Recce Tps with 7 or 8 vehs each
1 x Assault Tp with 5 vehs, can conduct dsmnt patrol, ambush, seize & hold, and pioneer tasks. Very hand to help break contact.

There are plans to add anti-armd tp for more firepower or equip one patrol (2 vehs) per tp with AA weapons. Depends on the armd board’s TTP of the month 

The echelon is as per tank sqn.

More ramblings from Kabul…..

[HotTom]

Black-6,

Actually, the Canadian Recce and US Cav sound pretty similar (which shouldn't be surprising). In the US Army, the Cav is a Division asset although it often is attached in slices (usually troops or squadrons as you call them) reporting to Brigades. It is the usual practice that each Cav unit always support the same Brigade so the relationships are always well established.

As an MP officer and former Division MP Company commander and former Division Provost Marshal (4th ID), we work pretty much the same way but with only one five-platoon company rather than a full battalion as most CS units have. In the field, the first platoon normally supports the First Brigade, the second the Second Brigade and so on.The fourth platoon runs the PW cage and the fifth is the Palace Guard for the Division TOC. The Division PM is on the "personal staff" of the Division Commander.

The three platoons attached to Brigades normally draw supplies from that Brigade (that's part of the definition of "attached," at least in US units).

It sounds as though you've had lots of opportunities for command time, which is rare in the US army. Most career officers get a company command as a captain and a battalion command as a lieutenant colonel and that's it. Tours usually are three years and then you have to move on and give someone else their turn. Command time is very dear (and the best job in the world).

I never even submitted a packet for full COL because there were (and are) only two paid slots in Arizona (and very political). So, if you got the promotion, the chances were you would be unemployed with an eagle on your shoulder. Like most Reserve LTCs, I was content to remain in grade and continue receiving a paycheck until they threw me out for being too old :)

I spent five years in the Regular Army, got out after Vietnam and went back to work in my primary profession as a journalist but hung around another 23 years in the Army Reserve. I spent my entire career in the Military Police, although I managed to find quite a number of very interesting "branch immaterial" jobs. I had a small part in testing most of the toys we play with in SB while assigned to Yuma Proving Ground quite a few years ago.

I was lucky enough to be a company commander on active duty (best job I ever had) and later commanded a Reserve MP battalion (which I took to Kuwait during Gulf War I and they thanked us by immediately deactivating the unit when we came home; whoever would have thought the Cold War would be "The Good Old Days"?).

I think it's very wise of the Canadian Army to make sure their unit commanders have the proper schooling before taking command. In the US Army, captains usually get their company command time in and AFTERWARD go through the course that teaches them how to be a company commander ("Charm School" is the unofficial title of the course).

I only disagree with you on one point. I was an honor grad of the Command and General Staff College and picked up many reserve tours going back to Fort Leavenworth as an instructor. I NEVER felt I knew what the "Big Picture" really was :confused:

I will tell you this: I spent a lot of time at Leavenworth when they were rewriting all the doctrine on "Peace-Keeping" and since I was a writer in my civilian profession, I was volunteered to spend considerable time working on it. It was stolen almost entirely from Canadian manuals. You guys are the world champs at that mission :cvcsalut:

Sounds like you're heading home for the holidays. If so, have a safe journey.

Enough rambling from Phoenix (for the moment).

HT Out