Andrimner

Of course, but for the sake of this discussion, the sketches illustrate the principle well enough without over-complicating the issue. The question here is about a general technique - should we merely accept leapfrogging as more secure "by definition", or should we consider the circumstances in each case before we determine which method provides the most security? Supporting elements don't change the principle for several reasons, some of which are: 1) Support isn't perfect. The idea that one unit is "covering" an area doesn't mean it's covering 100% of that area - that is close to physically impossible. And unit boundaries are guidelines at best in terms of control - how likely is it that the neighbouring units control will extend EXACTLY to the map-drawn boundary, and no less? There will - as you point out - always be blind spots, and the farther away the supporting unit is from the supported, the larger the blind spots will be and the harder it will be to get mutual support (as a general rule). Minimising the blind spots will usually increase your security level. Minimising the ground your gunners need to cover will usually (but not always) increase your security. Bounding overwatch is contrary to both these factors. The only upside is that you have some tanks in stationary, presumably superior BPs. If the BP isn't superior at all, the advantage just isn't there. At that point, you're just leapfrogging for the sake of leapfrogging. 2) And let's for arguments sake suppose that supporting units WERE able to cover your flanks as you advance. If you're covered by another unit, just move ahead in formation - that way, when you make contact, you'll have all of your guns with you. Have a look at figure 3.1 on this site, and note how a platoon of 4 tanks -. after the first bound - never face the enemy with more than 2 tanks at once: http://www.steelbeasts.com/sbforums/sbvwiki/Tactics (Assuming each successive hill blocks the field of view further north, they almost seem handcrafted not to do so - reality isn't quite so forgiving). Guderian said something about proper punching techniques in his day - how would that apply here? Note that I do not think that other units can provide this level of support, this point is written under the assumption that they can, to follow the premise in your post

This might serve as an example from SB: The different paths from the starting point to 101 all go past plenty of vertical lines of exposure, while there are virtually no horizontal ones. Covering all the blind zones while bounding will be a pretty exhausting task, and it will impact negatively on the units ability to provide mutual support. And this is by no means the worst case scenario - in this case, range is limited, which limits the problem. Combine frequent vertical lines of exposure with long range exposure, and the deal is much, much worse. [Edit: See map in post below]

Yeah, I call the optics on the RWS a sight, it certainly can be used for target aquisition. What happens if the loader discovers a target? Hand-over to gunner if he can't engage it himself (like TC's used to do before hunter-killer-systems). Wrong ammo in the gun? Exactly the same solution as if the loader WASN'T scanning. We aren't laploading, so that isn't really that big of an issue. More than one target? Set priority, call on the other tanks. If the tank crew detects TWO dangerous targets, they'll be quite happy to know that they have 3 other tanks beside them to face the enemy, as opposed to 1 - as would be the case if the other section was far behind them or off scanning a blind zone. The closer you are, the easier it is to get support. Well, there might be misunderstandings involved, I'll admit that. That's why I tried the sketch. I might try to create a SB sce to illustrate the point. But I certainly don't accept the notion that tactics can't be challenged on a theoretical level. They certainly can, and they should be. And you have to accept the fact that other users might disagree with you. Yes, "statement-counterstatement" is a discussion as long as the participants argue the case. Until then, I'll restate my point: I suspect that the notion of leap-frogging as a more secure form of movement as "default" exists because it has been imprinted into the minds of tankers, not because it really is. IMO, the idea of a "one-size-fits-all"-tactic should in it self cause alarm bells to go off, a technique that ALWAYS work regardless of the environment is what I would call a very, very rare species. The idea that leapfrogging=security is a generalisation from a previous generation that should not go unchallenged as techniques evolve. Examine every situation individually iot determine whether leapfrogging is right, don't just go on reflex. That's the point I'm trying to make.

I want you to demonstrate your idea on a map, yeah. If you're not able to do that on my map, feel free to choose your own. Apparantly, it wasn't too childish when you thought you had the solution at hand. As I've said before, the top left flank is uncovered in all of your solutions, and your sections have given up any notion of mutual support as well. The left and right sections will have to inch their way forward if they want to avoid exposing themselves from the opposite flank of the one they're supposed to cover. The left section can't move to cover the left flank too quickly, because that will expose it to the right flank. The right section can't move too quickly to secure the right one, or it will expose itself to the uncovered left flank. (And who's covering the northern hill while they're at it?) Only by moving simultaneously will the sections be able to cover their respective flanks without exposing themselves to an area uncovered by the other section. Since scaling seems to matter, I take it you agree that bounding DOES create blind zones - since you comment about the "size" of them. Besides, calling me the "new troll" because I challenge what's in your field manuals....what's wrong with you? Are you that insecure about this? Is the idea of leapfrogging some sort of holy cow that cannot be discussed? Or do you not want discussions on tactics in the forum clearly labeled....Tactics? I've made my case, if you want to challenge it like an adult argue the case. Oh, to answer your question about the tank with 3 stabilised sights: A tank with a stabilised GPS, a stabilised commanders periscope, and a stabilised RWS-station operated by the loader has 3 stabilised sights. It doesn't need to cover 360 degrees if it moves in formation. That's the upside of moving in formation. If you split up your vehicles, however, you will quickly find yourself with a growing sector.

That's my whole point, the idea is that leapfrogging is secure "by definition" - it isn't. A "definition" doesn't make it secure, it's just been said so many times that it's entered the mind as a "holy truth" that goes unchallenged. Just saying "blind spots are another drill", and arguing that the bounding element moves too far doesn't change that, the lines of exposure from the enemy threat means that the difference between covered and exposed can be as little as 2-3 metres. There is no point in leapfrogging if you can't point to what justifies leapfrogging in each specific instance, you don't leapfrog just for leapfroggings sake. Leapfrogging does not in itself equal support, there isn't necessarily a point to it. Leapfrogging makes sense when the bounding element can move in cover and/or the covering element has a superior BP. In the map above, that isn't the case. Therefore, bounding is a poor idea. I'll give you the same challenge I gave Eisenschwein: Draw up a movement plan from the southern to the northern hill that doesn't expose the bounding element to an area the covering one can't cover, while at the same time maintaining mutual support. It can't be done. Bounding overwatch with 100% coverage AND mutual support in any other terrain than a wide-open plain isn't physically possible. The alternative isn't moving forward "hoping for the best". It's moving forward in a fluent formation, adapting to the terrain, with every sight scanning the terrain for the enemy. Uncovering a dangerous right flank with 4 tanks moving in formation is a lot safer than doing it with 2 tanks in formation, with 2 tanks too far behind to see. The US manual supports the idea of moving overwatch. This isn't that far from that, the idea is to use fluent formations to ensure that the plt can cover the relevant areas as it advances. The difference between a fluent formation and moving overwatch is mainly the distance between the sections, and distance doesn't necessarily provide more security. Fluent formations means smaller fields of fire (ie: quicker TA) and mutual support readily available. Oh, and Eisenschwein: Yes, my manuals taught me that leapfrogging was the safer method too. But they had failed to evolve from the days of unstabilised tanks. I dug up an even older copy of the manuals, from the days pre-dating stabilisation. In those manuals, the drill we call "roadturn" was supposed to be achieved by leapfrogging as well. Individual tanks leapfrogging along the road through the roadbend. Maybe a necessity in those days, but not in ours. The fact that something is stated in a manual isn't enough to convince me, I want to see the reason behind it properly laid out.

Scaling doesn't enter in to it, the principle applies no matter what. Apply any scale you want to that map, the blind zones will still be there. You're splitting up your unit in order to cover all the dead zones, and in that process eliminating mutual support. When you spread out, you're exposing yourself to a bigger area, that creates more blind spots - to cover them, you spread out more, and so on. It isn't possible to cover all the blind spots, that's my whole point. I never said 50 metres was standard, my point was that unless you limit your bounds to very small steps, bounding WILL create dead zones. 50 metres was picked as an arbitrary number, I might as well have said 30. This principle can be seen just driving or walking to work - how many metres do you have to walk/drive before you see a new piece of terrain? Probably not that many. Imagine leaving the "covering" element in your original position - that new piece of terrain is now a threat to you the covering element can't see. And arguing that tanks aren't meant to fight here or there isn't really saying anything. When you're in the spot, you need to make do. And in those situations, I don't think bounding is the way to go. Modern tanks have 2-3 stabilized sights pr tank. The ability to cover themselves on the go is much greater now than it was 30 years ago. By advancing in formation, your unit is exposing itself to a much smaller area, and the potential for mutual support is much, much greater. Edit: No, the top-left flank is uncovered in ALL of the situations you suggested. And if you meant that as a 4-platoon unit, then you have eliminated every possibility of mutual support. Do an analysis of that map with the sections in different positions: How many areas can be covered by all 4 guns at once? If you want to continue with this example, set up a movement plan that eliminates all blind zones with specific positions for each section while maintaining mutual support. (And keep in mind: This is something the plt ldr has to do "on the go"). If you can do that, colour me impressed. And don't throw the "never seen a real tank"-stuff at me, you can do better than that. I've served 10 years on Leos, and have served my time as a platoon leader.

As I said: Don't get hung up in the specifics in that one particular scenario. It is supposed to illustrate the principle that when the bounding element moves forward, it WILL expose itself to areas that aren't covered by the overwatching element. Do a quick experiment in SB: Use the LOS-tool at one spot and note the coloured areas. Then move it 200 metres in any direction. Notice all those areas that changed colours? Those would be the blind zones that the overwatching element CAN'T cover. Oh - and in your solution, you still have plenty of blind spots. You're stretching out your unit, and by that you are exposing it to a far greater area. The more you stretch out, the more difficult mutual supprt will become. It also means facing the enemy with fewer guns at a time. The further you bound, the bigger the problem gets. And I'll wager your bounds are bigger than 50 metres. The point remains: Bounding WILL create mutual blind zones, and your solution doesn't remedy that. Playing further with your example, since we're already there, we might as well keep at it: There's STILL blind spots in the top left flank, and out of a total of 6 tanks, only 2 will actually be able to deal with any enemy threats from the positions of the centre hill! And in this example, the centre section no longer has any support towards the northern hill as it advances, because the left section covers the left flank, and the right section will have the centre section square in its sights if it tries to bear on the hill. Moving tanks forward means uncovering new pieces of terrain, that's the point of moving. If you choose to do that in sections, it means that when the uncovered piece of terrain proves to have an enemy threat in it, the available firepower is limited to that section. As is the case in your example. 6 tanks, but in which areas are those tanks able to bear at once...? Not that many. That isn't mutual support.

Some tanks can get quite shiny if you want them to shine...

The idea that the overwatching team can fire on or at least warn the bounding team is by no means an automatic consequence of leapfrogging. Assuming that the overwatching element always will be able to detect and engage/warn about the enemy threatening the bounding element ignores the fact that bounding means creating massive amounts of "blind spots" that the overwatching element cannot cover. If the overwatching team can't see that area, then the bounding team will face that threat alone. If the threat manages to temporarily or permanently disable one of the tanks, the remaining tank faces the threat completely alone. And in most environments, even moving forward some 10-20 metres will expose you to new areas - especially in heavily wooded areas. Blind spots are unavoidable unless you're in completely open terrain. I've uploaded a poorly drawn bmp to illustrate improper use of leapfrogging. The red question marks indicate areas OUTSIDE of the overwatching elements coverage that the bounding element will expose itself to. Enemy units in those areas will be able to fire freely on the bounding element, and the overwatching element will be powerless to help or warn. Also note that the location of the blind zones means that is is precisely the sides and rear of the bounding element that are exposed to the area not covered by the overwatchers. And this is on a very basic level - in the complex reality, the amount of areas will be even larger. Imagine zooming out on this map, and the amount of "danger areas"/blind zones becomes larger still. Add to this the fact that when the bounding element reaches the next hill, it will expose itself alone towards the north, while still being exposed to 2 flanks that the overwatching element cannot cover. In theory, the overwatching element covers the flanks - in reality, the 2 tanks in the bounding element need to cover a 180+ degree sector by itself. That's a security issue in my book, and this is why leapfrogging IMO should not be considered as a superior choice wrt security. And what happens if the overwatching element detects enemy threats on the hill the bounders are headed for? The bounding element might be straight in front of them, and depending on the safety rules you play by, firing APFSDS might not be possible. If you do, it might pose a security risk to the bounding element. For these reasons, security can quite definitely be a downside to leapfrogging. (Please don't get too specific about this example, it's drawn in a hurry and is meant to illustrate a general principle)

Well. I have 10 years of first-hand knowledge of navigating on armoured vehicles, but we never used compasses - never brought a compass near my tank. Specifically for the reasons mentioned above. I never tried using a compass, I just accepted the idea that that was unfeasible. In the first few years we got by on maps alone (not so hard when you're used to it), and eventually we received vehicle-mounted GPS which gave us the grid. And then BMS came along.

I'm assuming the "shift" you're talking about involves moving the entire sight picture up/down when you index ammo, not a relative shift where the reticle moves in relation to other elements in the sight? This will happen in normal mode, because the gun is still slaved to the FCS and the GAS is slaved to the barrel (the tank doesn't know/care which sight you're using). It should also happen if you alter any of the other ballistic parametres in the computer - such as range. It doesn't affect the GAS itself, though, its relation to the barrel is still the same. So it shouldn't matter what the FCS index is, as long as you do your GAS-things right. Note that I'm not familiar with M1s, only Leos, but I can't see how this question could be fundamentally different. On a side-note, the relationship between the GAS and the barrel means it's an excellent tool to determine whether you can fire from a turret-down position. A rather neat feature when your tank is equipped with TIM/CITV - through careful use of the GAS it can be perfectly possible to fire at targets while exposing no more of your own vehicle than the commanders periscope.

Would a "line-drawing"-tool be possible to implement? Draw a "line" of poles the same way you draw battlefield graphics, and the poles are placed at regular intervals along that line (except if that results in placing them at a road, in water etc), tall obstacles (trees) along the line are cleared? (I'm assuming this isn't how it already works, based on your comment)

If Norway was mentioned, then I suspect I was involved in that thread, under a different callsign. Leapfrogging was considered the "standard" method in the norwegian army in the older days. Back then the idea that leapfrogging was safer was in the Field Manuals, now it is not, the statement vanished betweed editions. Continual movement hasn't replaced it as the "standard" as such, it is rather considered as a choice individual commanders have to make in each individual situation. This was never the subject of any high-level official debate. It was merely more or less unformally discussed in and amongst tank units, and the testing involved comparing how well the different methods fared on exercises. I did the share I could to move my fellow officers' minds away from the notion that leapfrogging was, by default, safer than the alternative. And enough of them seemed to share the same view that I deemed it safe to say that leapfrogging was no longer automatically considered safer - as it had been in the past. Not an official change of TTP, rather a question of de facto evolution.

I'll counter this. Don't leapfrog unless you know specifically what you want to achieve by leapfrogging in this particular instance. Allthough statements to the contrary can be found in many places, leapfrogging does NOT in itself make movement more secure. In many, many cases it is directly detrimental to security. It is the most common way to ensure that when you face the enemy, you'll be doing so with only a fraction of your units potential firepower. This is not ideal. There used to be a general opinion that leapfrogging was a more secure way of movement than continual movement. I suspect this notion is mainly a relic from the times before tanks were equipped with proper stabilization. There are still situations were leapfrogging is a sensible approach, but it is far from a general rule. I'd say that the situation now is that leapfrogging vs continual movement is a question on the same level as most other tactical questions: the commander needs to weigh the pros and cons of the different methods in each individual instance and make his decision based on that, the major factors being the terrain and the enemy. My instincts tell me that this weighing process when performed by a rational/pragmatic commander will result in continual movement being favored over leapfrogging more often than not, at least on the platoon level.

Wow. You learn something new every day!

I'll add another feature I'd want to see: - The ability to move dug-in battle-positions around in deployment zones during the planning phase, to simulate preparing your own defenses. (Give the scenario editor an option to turn this on and off)

The real terror (IMO, at least) was night-driving during the winter before Battle Management Systems and the like. Once you're off the road, tellling the difference between a snow-covered plain and an ice-covered pond is next to impossible. And this is true even with NVG (We had those, I'd never venture off road without them in areas close to water). Better be sure about your navigation in areas with plenty of small ponds around! My army lost at least two tanks this way during my service, with fatal outcomes for crew members in the last case.

So....there's no point in listing The Incredible Hulk with the ability to tear off tank turrets and fling them around like frisbees on the content wish list as a playable unit, then?

Oh, it wasn't meant to question the accuracy of the model as compared to real life, I only wondered why tankers would place it there. As long as it doesn't obscure the FOV, all is good! Although it's almost hard to believe that it doesn't affect it in reverse slope battle positions....looking forward to trying it out!

Looking great! But I can't help but wonder - why would one place a spare road wheel almost directly in front of the TC's sight?

Yep*. It's not difficult, just set the computer to display superelevation or lead, and then fiddle with the knobs that set elevation and temperature. The computer will display the results in mils. Obviously, the results will differ based on the ammo type as well, but I seem to recall we tested them with the HEAT-values as the norm. * Well, I say the A5 because that's the common denominator. The truth is, it has been tested on Leo1A5s and Leo2A4's - but the computer is the same, so there's no cause for any difference for other modern Leo[apart from the obvious difference in muzle velocity]. Some years ago, there was some murmuring amongst norwegian tankers regarding the accuracy of practice rounds, And since the live firing range was located in the mountains, speculations arose as to whether zeroing guns at elevation A could produce deviation at elevation B. The [very uofficial] experiment I'm talking about was conducted in light of this. And the conclusion was that misjudgements wrt altitude could not possibly account for misses, because of the miniscule effect air pressure has on the trajectory.

What's the fleet method, and why would it affect ones attitude towards air pressure and temperature? On a side note, I remember playing with the A5 ballistic computer to see how big an impact altitude (ie: air pressure) and temperature had on superelevation. It's been a few years now, but I seem to remember that the margin of error is quite considerable wrt those factors...

I might be the odd one out, but I actually miss conditions in the executing phase. When setting up battle positions, I usually create two or more positions with a retreat-route from each one leading to the other - routes that will be activated two minutes after the unit reaches the BP. (safeguard against artillery) It's always been a minor annoyance that I couldn't do this once the planning phase was over (more often than not, I need to set up BPs in areas I haven't planned any) I suspect I'd get the same feeling with dismounted infantry. Maybe "mounted/dismounted" could be added to the right-click menu as separate options during the executing phase, in the same way "tactics" and "spacing" are? That way, players can create a route during the executing phase, right click on the route, select "dismount" as an option, and infantry will dismount and advance ahead of the vehicles once a unit reaches that route? Anyway, I certainly welcome the news that dismounting can now be scripted!

Nice work! A well-written and knowledgeable article. If you're open to suggestions, the part about movement techniques might benefit from a few sentences about suitable and non-suitable situations for overwatch. Overwatch provides more security if it is used properly in situations that call for it, but it also carries a significant risk: in the end, you might end up reducing the amount of firepower you can bring to bear on the enemy by 50% (there might be a detrimental effect to target aquisition as well). Without gaining that much in security. Figure 3.1 is an in-between example: the overwatch element provides extra security when the advancing element moves, but once the advancing element gets into positions, it might have to face the enemy by itself. In other situations (especially situations where there are a lot of dangerous areas in the flanks) the security provided by the overwatch element might be even smaller. In those situations, continuous movement will provide more security for the entire platoon. I know there's been plenty of discussion on this in the US Army, and I'm sure you're all already well aware of the point I'm making - I'm just suggesting it could be mentioned in the article, for the benefit of newer/non-army players.

Maybe this forum could have it's own AAR-section for offline scenarios, to share experiences on tactics in SB? Players could post a description of their pre-battle assessments and plans, along with a debrief of how the battle turned out. Other players would then be able to comment and question on the planning and execution (both tactical and technical). I think there's a fair amount of learning potential in it both for the poster and readers. I'd sure like to see how other players approach different scenarios in SB.