DF30 and DF90 scenario

[ben]

I am working on a Belgian army scenario making use of the new DF30 and DF90.

 

I’m just guessing and have them operating in support of Infantry with Spike MR launchers mounted in Piranha IIIC with Lemur .50 cal RWS, and scout teams in LMV with RWS.

 

I cant find much info on Belgian forces in general, does anyone have any knowledge that could help make it more authentic?

 

Also it would be great to get a Belgian Skin mod for the Piranha III C if anyone has the urge!

 

[Splash]

5 hours ago, ben said:

Also it would be great to get a Belgian Skin mod for the Piranha III C if anyone has the urge!

From everything I've seen, Belgium's military vehicles are just basic green, like the DF30 and DF90.  The sim comes with a green Piranha III C in the US 2000 folder (and US 2010). I would just copy that to the "be" folders in your mods directory. There aren't any decals or markings to worry about.

[ben]

44 minutes ago, Splash said:

From everything I've seen, Belgium's military vehicles are just basic green, like the DF30 and DF90.  The sim comes with a green Piranha III C in the US 2000 folder (and US 2010). I would just copy that to the "be" folders in your mods directory. There aren't any decals or markings to worry about.

Thanks for the tip 👍

 

Edited December 13, 2019 by ben

[Apocalypse 31]

@ben,

 

I just played your new DF30/DF90 scenario.

 

It was like watching a magic trick: In one second I had an entire company. In the next second I had nothing. 

[Grenny]

21 minutes ago, Apocalypse 31 said:

@ben,

 

I just played your new DF30/DF90 scenario.

 

It was like watching a magic trick: In one second I had an entire company. In the next second I had nothing. 

Hmm, reminds me of one of my GÜZ exercises 😛

 

[ben]

5 hours ago, Apocalypse 31 said:

@ben,

 

I just played your new DF30/DF90 scenario.

 

It was like watching a magic trick: In one second I had an entire company. In the next second I had nothing. 

 

That made me chuckle

So was it the ATGM teams or the infantry with RPGs?

 

At first I gave the DF units Active Protection Systems,  it seemed a bit easy so I tried without and had a shock when I lost a whole platoon to a ATGM team.  More challenging though I felt..

 

Hope the difficulty is balanced ok in general..  they are limited vehicles there’s no getting around it!

 

By the way, with JIM LR for scouting and Airstrikes on call, ATGM teams can be dealt with quite well.

[Apocalypse 31]

2 hours ago, ben said:

So was it the ATGM teams or the infantry with RPGs?

Spoiler

 

It was actually the T-series tanks positioned on the flanks that tore up the DF's, piecemeal. 

 

Then the artillery fire finished the job on the survivors. 

 

 

[ben]

Yeah the scenario would be so easy with a platoon of Leopard 2 or similar

[Sunken]

Played a variant of this scenario yesterday for a coop with 2 cv90 plt and 1 leopard 2 plt. We  managed to succeed. 
 

The losses we had, roughly 1 cv90 plt and 2 leos was mostly due to ATGMs and artillery. 
 

really enjoy your scenarios, keep up the good work!

[Apocalypse 31]

1 hour ago, Sunken said:

2 cv90 plt and 1 leopard 2 plt. We  managed to succeed. 

I'd hope so. The opposition doesn't really stand a chance against that task organization.

[Gibsonm]

2 hours ago, Apocalypse 31 said:

I'd hope so. The opposition doesn't really stand a chance against that task organization.

Yes, I'd sort of hope the scenario would be "challenging, but workable" in its original configuration without resorting to massively increasing Blue's combat power in a variant. ;)

[ben]

7 hours ago, Sunken said:

Played a variant of this scenario yesterday for a coop with 2 cv90 plt and 1 leopard 2 plt. We  managed to succeed. 
 

The losses we had, roughly 1 cv90 plt and 2 leos was mostly due to ATGMs and artillery. 
 

really enjoy your scenarios, keep up the good work!

Glad to hear it Sunken thanks.

 

Yeah the scenario is much less challenging to win with tanks and cv90, but can still be enjoyable 👍

 

Anyone else have their opinions on the challenge / difficulty?

 

Keep in mind that the defending forces in the objective are random spawning so the difficulty will vary slightly each time.

[Sunken]

Maybe I did unbalance the scenario ”a bit” when changing to cv90 and leo. 🙂 

 

I will try it with its original composition come back to you in the matter of difficulty.

 

[ben]

1 hour ago, Sunken said:

Maybe I did unbalance the scenario ”a bit” when changing to cv90 and leo. 🙂 

 

I will try it with its original composition come back to you in the matter of difficulty.

 

It’s only adding the Leopards that make it unbalanced...  CV90 vs DF30/90 are in this scenario comparable in effectiveness.  Much better mobility with CV90s tracks though...

As you reported though, even leopards are vulnerable!

 

I gave the player 12 SPIKE MR teams to balance the difficulty..  this is probably  unrealistic but I don’t know for sure..

[Gibsonm]

1 hour ago, ben said:

I gave the player 12 SPIKE MR teams to balance the difficulty..  this is probably  unrealistic but I don’t know for sure..

 

12 Spike Teams in one Mech Company?

 

Yes I'd suggest that is unrealistic.

[ben]

4 minutes ago, Gibsonm said:

 

12 Spike Teams in one Mech Company?

 

Yes I'd suggest that is unrealistic.

 

The 4 DF-30s have their own SPIKEs..  Would it be reasonable for each Mech Platoon to have a 2 SPIKES?  And I guess the other SPIKES replaced back to MMG teams...

 

Having only the 4 Spikes was tested, and too challenging agains the Tanks!

Edited December 20, 2019 by ben

[Gibsonm]

I guess it depends on what you aim is.

 

If "realism", then you need to dial down the enemy so that the Mech Platoon with one or two dismounted Spike teams can still do its job (do they have dismounted Spikes as well as mounted Spikes)? I seem to recall that PzGenadiers in Marders only had one or two teams and they took those launchers from the vehicles.

 

If you are more interested in entertainment / "blowing a lot of sh*t up" then you can give Blue whatever you want.

[ben]

1 minute ago, Gibsonm said:

I guess it depends on what you aim is.

 

If "realism", then you need to dial down the enemy so that the Mech Platoon with one or two dismounted Spike teams can still do its job (do they have dismounted Spikes as well as mounted Spikes)? I seem to recall that PzGenadiers in Marders only had one or two teams and they took those launchers from the vehicles.

 

If you are more interested in entertainment / "blowing a lot of sh*t up" then you can give Blue whatever you want.

 

Good point,  I suppose I am not aiming for total realism, but for an authentic feeling in general. So  your advice is much appreciated.

 

I will test with reducing the Spikes to 2 per mech platoon against the same enemy force.

 

Is it plausible that given a specific mission extra ATGMs would be attached to the company?

[Gibsonm]

Well its always possible, but "plausible" perhaps not.

 

Companys are designed to fight as units, not to have lots and lots of other stuff added to them. Certainly doubling the number of dismounted ATGM teams (If I understand correctly, 2 per Pl = 6 per Company. You gave them 12 plus whatever is on the vehicles) would seem unlikely.

 

Edited December 20, 2019 by Gibsonm

[ben]

11 minutes ago, Gibsonm said:

Well its always possible, but "plausible" perhaps not.

 

Companys are designed to fight as units, not to have lots and lots of other stuff added to them. Certainly doubling the number of dismounted ATGM teams (If I understand correctly, 2 per Pl = 6 per Company. You gave them 12 plus whatever is on the vehicles) would seem unlikely.

 

 

Understood.

 

I will scale it back to 2 per platoon, and as there are only 2 platoons in the scenario, thats 4, plus 4 in the DF30 platoon.  Less unrealistic but still unlikely in reality.

 

It is clearly aparent that the task would be more suited to a simple tank platoon,  but hey I wanted to test the DF30 and 90 and all wheeled force idea against a fairly strong enemy force and see if they can be effective.

 

 

[Gibsonm]

Its entirely up to you.

 

I'd maybe suggest though that in the description or briefing you tell people "fictional organisation used for entertainment purposes" or something.

 

Off hand I don't know what a Belgian Mech Battalion has but I'm guessing it might have something like an Anti Armour Platoon in its Heavy Weapons or Support Company (unsure what terms they use).

 

Usually those weapons would be allocated by the CO where needed.

 

Maybe your Company gets them all, maybe not.

 

But certainly if the Anti Armour Platoon only has say 4 ATGMs and somehow your company gets its own, say 4 from the 2 x Platoon (I don't even know if 2 per Platoon is right) + 4 from the Anti Armour Platoon + 4 from "never never land" to make 12 it might generate comment if you are trying to be "realistic".

[ben]

6 hours ago, Gibsonm said:

Its entirely up to you.

 

I'd maybe suggest though that in the description or briefing you tell people "fictional organisation used for entertainment purposes" or something.

 

Off hand I don't know what a Belgian Mech Battalion has but I'm guessing it might have something like an Anti Armour Platoon in its Heavy Weapons or Support Company (unsure what terms they use).

 

Usually those weapons would be allocated by the CO where needed.

 

Maybe your Company gets them all, maybe not.

 

But certainly if the Anti Armour Platoon only has say 4 ATGMs and somehow your company gets its own, say 4 from the 2 x Platoon (I don't even know if 2 per Platoon is right) + 4 from the Anti Armour Platoon + 4 from "never never land" to make 12 it might generate comment if you are trying to be "realistic".

I tested with 8 Spike teams and it’s still very much possible to win, with a less ridiculous number of spikes. So I will make some adjustments and an update soon.

 

Maybe the 4 spikes currently with the infantry should be in a separate section from the anti tank platoon as you suggested, not sure if they should be mounted in an unarmed Piranha IIIC or something like unimog or pinz? Any ideas?

 

All of my scenarios have a partly fictional organisation for simplicity, entertainment  and often my lack of knowledge!  I think the players can see that as soon as loading the map in briefing, so I never felt a need for a disclaimer

[ChrisWerb]

On 12/19/2019 at 2:23 AM, ben said:

 

By the way, with JIM LR for scouting and Airstrikes on call, ATGM teams can be dealt with quite well.

I actually love the DF30 for all its faults and the JIM-LR so much that I wrote the SB manual for it  - the DF90 much less so. They're vehicles that were appropriate for the real world scenarios for which they were purchased at the time and would be near ideal for the kind of situations currently faced by French forces in Mali, for example. As I understand it, both will be replaced by French "Jaguar" 6x6 recce vehicles that will feature a 40mm CTA cannon and two launchers for the MMP dual mode networked ATGM.

 

With Spike you need to be aware that there is a known bug that results in the gunner not being able to break lock on the target they just killed. I have only experienced this when using the missile in "first person" mode - AI gunners don't seem to suffer from the problem. Also, Gibson has pointed out that modern, image seeking ATGW are quite sparse in some ToEs/ORBATs - part of the reason for this is that they are staggeringly expensive. Javelins are currently running at $174,000 per missile according to Wiki. You can make an argument that they're highly effective and that what they kill (outside of counterinsurgency scenarios) is vastly more expensive than the missile, but it is going to put a crimp on how many of the missiles you will ever be able to deploy. In conventional warfare, they will also be subject to the usual attrition that affects all munitions stocks  and in reality they would certainly prove less reliable than in SB, and somewhat less infallibly accurate, particularly against vehicles with appropriate countermeasures. Due to their much greater user input requirement and other limitations, you will probably find earlier SACLOS missiles like MILAN and BILL a lot more fun to play.

 

I also find it's a great learning experience to see how well I can do against a larger, technologically advanced force with a much smaller one with less highly spec'd equipment. Last night I played a scenario with 13 Armatas, 13 BMP-Armatas, 3 Bumerangs and various other supporting types coming up a German valley where I had a total of four Le02A6 and four Javelin teams (substituted for Spike MR as the latter has an issue with the Armata that I have already covered ad nauseum) mounted on two unarmed Boxers, plus one Fuchs (40mm AGL) recce, two supply trucks and a battery of six off map 155mm tubes.  I restricted the missile teams to one return to their vehicle for a reload, but in the end did not need it. Ditto the two MAN KAT series supply trucks for the Leos which ultimately did not need to replenish.  I managed to destroy the entire attacking force of 38 vehicles and all surviving infantry and only lost one Leopard (to a stupid mistake on my part!) and two missile teams that again suffered from my inattentiveness at a crucial moment. It took me a long time to get to the point where I could do this. I learned a lot from listening to and watching other more experienced players and made many, many mistakes along the way, which SB punished mercilessly. I'm not a professional, but I can see the huge training value in this simulation and I would imagine SB-based training is a significant "force multiplier" for real world units.

[stormrider_sp]

Regarding the DF-90, lately I was testing a peculiar unit, which is of interest to me for other reasons and the results quite surprised me. I used Armored Brigade for these tests because it allows for any kinds of mods: units, maps...

 

During the 80's, Brazil sold Iraq quite a few EE-9 Cascavel Scout Cars, which were developed by Engesa, a former brazilian military industry. The Cascavel was a development over the 6x6 M8 Greyhound, provided as surplus by the US Army and was armed with belgian 90mm gun system.

 

 

If employed like a tank, it will die. On the other hand, it shines particularly as counter-recon unit when making full use of its great mobility and firepower against BMPs, MTLBs, BRDMs and most scouts of its time.

 

I had great success using it as a maneuver unit when fixing the enemy with my MBTs, and flanking or enveloping them with the Cascavel. I guess thats why its called cascavel = the rattle snake.

[Gibsonm]

10 hours ago, stormrider_sp said:

If employed like a tank, it will die.

 

Because its not a tank ... ?

 

Seriously though if you employ tanks frontally they will die too.

 

If you are shooting at the enemy's frontal arc then you are in a poor battle position. Flanking fire is your friend.

 

Edited December 22, 2019 by Gibsonm