Boyevoy Razvedyvatel'niy Dozor

[GaryOwen]

I just uploaded this new scenario.

Here's the mission brief:

Your battalion is marching as the regiment's advance guard. Your tank platoon has been assigned the task of performing as a combat reconnaissance patrol, moving in advance of the battalion along the axis of march in order to provide early warning of obstacles and to detect the location of enemy forces. A combat reconnaissance patrol machine (BRDM-2) is attached to your platoon.

At mission start, you will be directed to move to and occupy your next target objective. You will be expected to occupy the location within 30 minutes. This time limit is critical in order for the battalion to maintain its momentum. You shall preserve your platoon and not become decisively engaged. However, if the opportunity presents itself, you are expected to incapacitate any encountered enemy reconnaissance forces if you can do so without loss of tempo. Contact with enemy screening elements is possible.

DESIGN NOTES:

In order to occupy a target objective, you must have two operational vehicles in the region. The actual time for the scenario is forty minutes. The score is dependent on occupying the appropriate target objective. There is a penalty for taking longer than 30 minutes to do so. There is a bonus for counter-recon ---- killing the red screening units, and there is a penalty for lost friendly units. The penalty for lost friendly units is greater than the bonus for killed opposing units.

The opposing force is an H Series TOE U.S. heavy cavalry platoon, circa 1985, consisting of 2 M113 scout vehicles, 2 M901s, 4 M60A3s, a platoon leader's M113, and an attached heavy mortar track.

[dpabrams]

The opposing force is an H Series TOE U.S. heavy cavalry platoon, circa 1985, consisting of 2 M113 scout vehicles, 2 M901s, 4 M60A3s, a platoon leader's M113, and an attached heavy mortar track.

You had me at H series.

[Gibsonm]

I’m guessing this is only scripted on the NATO side?

[GaryOwen]

Roger.

[kylania]

Looks really interesting, can't wait to try it! I've played a few of your other missions and they were top notch.

[DrDevice]

Lots of fun, easy to hop into and play, and some good replay-ability with multiple OBJ options. Nice work GO!

[solus]

By "Siber" on the map, did you mean "north" in Russian? Then you should write it "Sever".

The mission is nice, especially TOW launching from unreachable for your tank distances and enemies in ambush.

[GaryOwen]

By "Siber" on the map, did you mean "north" in Russian?

Yes.

Then you should write it "Sever".

What little Russian I speak, I speak with an incredibly thick American accent --- at least that's what the guy at the barbershop says. (My Spanish is even worse, beinte - veinte, ??) I've always translitered it as 'siber' because I've always seen 'Siberia' as the spelling for the name of the region on English language maps.

The mission is nice, especially TOW launching from unreachable for your tank distances and enemies in ambush.

Thanks. There's cavalry scouts in those ITVs. They can be downright sneaky.

[Companion]

Just finished a single playthrough. Here's a quick AAR:

OBJ "Siber" was selected. Did initial forward recon myself with BRDM and found an ugly hammerhead sticking out behind a ridge.

Sent the whole force due north on top speed while masked by terrain and woods to outflank that M901 position and hopefully quickly overcoming any flank protection that M901 has with 3 tubes of 125mm.

Misread the terrain so that during maneuver, my tanks flanked and sighted the M901 in open but the range was too far to successfully engage the vehicle that immediately retreated back to alternate position upon sighting my tanks.

Pivoted almost 90 degrees to chase the ITV with BRDM leading from front-right of the tanks.

Spotted that ITV at close ranges, lost a tank (a micromanagement oversight that could be avoided: forgot to turn fire control from return fire to fire at will) before killing it with a long 14.5mm salvo from the flank.

Could discern no sign of enemy activity around "Siber" and indeed, no contact was made while the force approached "Siber" at top speed and occupied it.

Took about 35min. score 84, major victory (which surprised me)

It was a fun experience, but from the AAR, I found out that there was a M60 tank section east of "Siber" that could've moved to intercept me but never did so while that lone ITV was chased to hell and shot to pieces...

Why didn't this section respond to contact? Maybe because my forces were spotted outside of the region "North"?

[GaryOwen]

Why didn't this section respond to contact? Maybe because my forces were spotted outside of the region "North"?

They were told to stay put and watch the OBJ. You did well by using the terrain to mask your movement, they didn't get a shot at you.

[AlphaOneSix]

Great mission, really hammers home the need to avoid becoming decisively engaged. It's hard enough to reach the objective at fast speeds along roads, trying to stop to engage the enemy is a sure way to mission failure.

Luckily, the M60s are a more even match for the T-72s, and it seemed like firing at them on the move hurt them more than it hurt me.

The real trick, for me, was to find and neutralize the ITVs as soon as possible, since you don't have time to stop at every ridge line and deploy a scout.

By the time I finally won, I had lost the BRDM to the southern ITV (ridiculous error on my part) and I lost a T-72 when I forgot that I need to keep on the move and not get bogged down in a fight. After I lost the lead T-72, I remembered my objective, hit the smoke, and hauled ass. Score 84 of 100.

Thanks for the time and effort that went into this one!

[AKM]

Really looking forward to checking this out.

The cardinal directions in transliterated Russian for those who are interested:

N - Sever, E - Vostok, S - Yug ("Yuuug"), W - Zapad.

Not that the Soviets or Russians would label objectives according to their geographic position relative to the main axis, since they assume everything they write down, ever, will be compromised by some means of intelligence gathering. Not that it has any relevance here, just an aside.

[AKM]

Just wanted to bounce this back to top, replayed it this morning and it's as good as ever. Definitely lost my touch while I was abroad, because I waltzed the Combat Reconnaissance Patrol Machine right into the gaping jaws of H-series Death. Bit of a "clench" moment from the commander's seat, seeing the distant treeline light up with muzzle flashes. Compliments to eSim games for the incoming rounds sounds, very effective.

"Driving as the water flows" followed with the T-72 platoon, effectively approaching Objective NORTH, but doing a bit of a crap job at area recce thereby.

Just short of the village we stumbled into the rear left quarter of an M60 pair, who were promptly dispatched by yours truly from the lead tank. It's been so long that I forgot that the T-72's automatic loader isn't serial automatic, in that if you have one round type selected it will automatically reload the gun with that ammunition until ready stocks are expended. So as the second tank began to react to his friend burning, I had an opportunity to exercise some Russian non-normative vocabulary while hosing the other Patton down with the coax; which at least broke his tracks and kept him from swinging his hull around to face me. My wingman put a round through his turret from approx 600m and once I remembered to push the [non normative adjectives] button he caught fire from my round.

Shortly before entering the village that takes up the bulk of the objective area I lost a T-72 to undetermined means, and whatever it was that shot it disappeared because my remaining vehicles were able to occupy the objective and come out with an 87% Major Victory. This quite surprised me.

The M60s took quite some time to respond to being bumped by my T-72s, I don't know if this is a one-off thing or if v3.002 might not get along the best with older scenarios or what. I might have just gotten really lucky.