OPERATION VARIABLE 4

[MDF]

This was my first campaign and was very enjoyable. The fact that losses have implications for future missions makes force preservation a concern, which is good IMHO.

My suggestion for future campaigns would be to find a way to foster a more fluid FLOT. Each of the same missions fought over the same 1-2km "DMZ", for the most part. Not that it wasn't a blast sniping at enemy tanks, but a bit more maneuver would be nice. To this end, I would suggest:

(1) Reduce minelaying capabilities, or increase the frontage. The main front (Canadian beachhead excepted) was just 4km wide. This was partially a function of the alliance structure, but the alliance structure may have been influenced by the geography (I dunno -- I didn't take part in the US' diplomac)y.

(2) Create a mechanism to vary reinforcement schedules so that there are numerical disparities between the antagonists at different times during the campaign. It's difficult to attack when you have just a 1:1 combat power ratio. If the respective sides' combat power fluctuate more between missions, there will be more opportunity for the side with the temporary preponderance to advance.

In any event, though, I had a blast. A sincere "Tanks" to Tacbat for your hard work.:luxhello:

[Connaugh]

Great campaign Tacbat. Had a good time and thanks for all of your effort in designing and organizing the campaign.

[Hedgehog]

Thanks Tactical Bat. :thumbup:

[Tjay]

Thanks Tactical Bat. :thumbup:

+1

[Assassin 7]

Thank you Tacbat for the Campaign and Thank you Sean for hosting

[Tango29]

Thank you Tacbat for the Campaign and Thank you Sean for hosting

+1. Missed Sean on the first post. Mea culpa!

[Tacbat]

Everyone is very welcome. It's great to be able to give back to the community in a small way. Also, the campaign uncovered a few bugs, some of which were able to be resolved before 3.011 came out. So that was a positive side effect. I'm very greatful for everyone's participation, because without it, the campaign would have gone no where.

[Rotareneg]

I demand an immediate UN investigation into the illegal use of blinding lasers by the villainous UK and Danish forces against our commander!

The only issue I had was the same others were mentioning: mines, mines, mines, and more mines.

I don't know how many FASCAM missions were available, so this might not be an issue, but maybe limiting them to just one or two for the whole operation might be a good idea. Also, it could be interesting to restrict the placement of new minefields to be within maybe 500 meters or so of an engineering vehicle, which has to end the previous mission at that location and start the next in the same spot.

I'll link to all my videos in one post when the last one is done processing on Youtube.

[Rotareneg]

Ok, here's a link to my OP4 video playlist:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqQX4GWrO1D19aku5Gr4pfFL-6uaUcq3m

Apparently I didn't record the first one, oh well.

[Gibsonm]

Gentlemen one an all,

Thanks for a great competitive few weeks.

I'm afraid duty called so I had to cut away at an early stage to conduct, ironically, Steel Beasts training. But it was a bit weird sitting in the chair at home in my tanksuit before the Sun came up participating in the pre-dawn assault.

To my multinational colleagues on the "Canadian" side (Brun, Tango29, 12Alfa, Tacom and Colebrook) my tanks for coming together to achieve the common aim and for the privilege of being able to CO one mission.

It was of course fitting and right that a native born maple leaf guy got us across the line.

We few, we happy few ...

To Tacbat extra thanks for doing all the "fun" jobs that come with being a co-coordinator (I'm living the prelim phases of that dream at the moment too).

I understand our unassisted breach of the minefield achieved the "shock and awe" required (again confirming that an obstacle is only an obstacle when covered by observation and fire).

I'm watching Rotareneg's YouTube video now but is there any chance of the Server AAR (or someone else's) so I can see how the boys from the North did in a bit more detail?

Edited March 2, 2014 by Gibsonm

[Rotareneg]

Unless it got deleted, I left an zipped AAR in the 1st Canadian Arm Div file browser in TS.

[Tacom]

I also want to thank everybody that made this possible. Thanks Tacbat for a great campaign.

I think that we could improve it increasing the duration of the battles to a couple of hours. Then, we would be able to try to breach those minefields with miclics and do some maneuvering.

:luxhello::luxhello::luxhello:

[Tango29]

I understand our unassisted breach of the minefield achieved the "shock and awe" required (again confirming that an obstacle is only an obstacle when covered by observation and fire).

Just to put the record straight, the idea for our early move through the minefield originated from Gib. I had asked him if there were any lanes or gaps in the field left over from Mission 4 (which I was unable to attend). He told me that he had been able to approach the field successfully under cover by moving close to the bay. Subsequent map recces and practices led to the attempt. I was one happy (and very relieved) camper when we got all four tanks into the beachhead!

My thanks to Gib, Colebrook and Tacom for buying in to the plan. I am pretty sure that, when I asked them a few days in advance to start practising driving through a minefield, their immediate thought was probably "You want us to do WHAT??!" :eek2:

Again, thanks and "Well Done" to all participants in OV4!

[Gibsonm]

Unless it got deleted, I left an zipped AAR in the 1st Canadian Arm Div file browser in TS.

Got it - Thanks.

Some "C2 issues" on the US side.

[12Alfa]

Thank you Tacbat for the Campaign :luxhello::luxhello:and all who played.

Although I could only play 2 of the missions it was fun.

Again for no show for the last two missions sorry, life some times gets in the way of SB:mad3:

[hoggydog]

Great campaign and well fought on all sides!

[Assassin 7]

I demand an immediate UN investigation into the illegal use of blinding lasers by the villainous UK and Danish forces against our commander!

The only issue I had was the same others were mentioning: mines, mines, mines, and more mines.

I don't know how many FASCAM missions were available, so this might not be an issue, but maybe limiting them to just one or two for the whole operation might be a good idea. Also, it could be interesting to restrict the placement of new minefields to be within maybe 500 meters or so of an engineering vehicle, which has to end the previous mission at that location and start the next in the same spot.

I'll link to all my videos in one post when the last one is done processing on Youtube.

Lol, yeah I had to uninstall both versions of SB and reinstall SB. Thanks for the advice Volcano

[Toyguy]

Well planned, executed and contested campaign. Thanks for organizing Tacbat, and thanks to all who played, regardless of the side you were on. Sadly, I had to miss the last one but I'm looking forward to sitting down and going through the AAR.

Now where's my rifle? I think I heard a bear outside...

[Marko]

A special thanks to Tacbat.

Well done.

Unfortunately I tried to change ISP mid campaign and my connection went from bad to Unusable, So I missed the last three missions.

Events like this shows what SB is capable of. Also the high calibre of the players really

Makes the difference compared to some other Sims out there.

[Tacbat]

Thanks for the points. I'll try to explain why things happened the way they did.

Minefields: Yes, I felt that there were too many of them too. They really restricted movement. I had originally given each side 3 minefields each, thinking that with such a large area to defend, they would be needed. However, once sides began making alliances, the amount of territory (or frontage) that needed to be defended was cut in half, but the number of available minefields available to defend it doubled. So, that was my fault for not anticipating that. Afterwards, the number of available minefields/FASCAM missions was set to 2 each per side. So in the future, I will be more cautious about mines, or find a bigger map so that there's more room to maneuver around them. Restricting the placement of the minefields to within 500m of an engineer vehicle is a bit of a problem because the other side will see where the engineer vehicle was in the AAR. They can then figure out, within reason, the likely locations of any new minefields. This is why they have a 2km circle, so that it keeps the other side guessing on where the minefield could be placed. I would love to be able to script the creation of minefields, but that just hasn't made it into SB yet.

Alliances: I thought they were a good idea since it fostered teamwork. However behind the scenes it basically doubled the workload making each mission. Had the save in progress feature worked properly, then that would have significantly reduced the work. I'll have to think about doing this again in the future. It might be easier to combine two sides into one side, each with their own points and equipment.

NZ LAV: It turned out to be amphibious because of a bug which has since been addressed. I was happy to leave it in as I couldn't very well take something away that one side had already been given and were forming their strategy around. In the end, I don't think this issue had a negative impact on the campaign. It was just one of those things that everyone had to deal with, for better or worse.

Insurgents/Paramilitary forces: These were used in OPV3, but because of the small map size, I didn't incorporate them this time. Using them for bonus objectives could be an interesting idea to consider for the future.

Force structure: In the past, I think I've made just about everything available to each side. This time I wanted to keep things organized by country just to be a little different, and to make it easier with the post mission admin. I don't think this caused a gap in capabilities. All sides had a tank, PC, recce vehicles, infantry and support vehicles to choose from. I agree that when all sides are equally balanced, it is difficult to go on the offensive. I'm not sure how to address that in a manner that would be fair to all sides. In OPV2 one side was designated as the defender and had to delay the attacking side's advance to win the campaign. Perhaps giving more value to newly captured territory would motivate more aggressive tactics, and help offset the higher casualties that would be taken for doing so. Perhaps giving one side a higher point allowance initially, then slowly decreasing it while increasing the other side might work, thereby giving both sides the same amount of points overall.

Time limit: I could increase the mission time to say 90 min, but I wouldn't want to go any longer then that because we are playing on the weekend, and people have other things that they want/need to get done, including myself. I would still have the mission end at a random time.

[Tacbat]

To Tacbat extra thanks for doing all the "fun" jobs that come with being a co-coordinator (I'm living the prelim phases of that dream at the moment too).

Yes, it's a special kind of pain that I hope more will experience in the future.

[MDF]

Some "C2 issues" on the US side.

Yeah, unfortunately as soon as the execution phase began, Assassin7 had DirectX problems and had to drop from the session. I had to take the CO spot without prior notice. I had never prepared to CO any OPV4 mission. My pre-mission analysis was limited to the small portion of the battlespace for my initial task as section commander. It was a bit of a scramble initially, and we never seemed to get on top of things. Seems we achieved a good kill ratio, but got overrun by a combined UK/Denmark attack.

[Marko]

Yeah, unfortunately as soon as the execution phase began, Assassin7 had DirectX problems and had to drop from the session. I had to take the CO spot without prior notice. I had never prepared to CO any OPV4 mission. My pre-mission analysis was limited to the small portion of the battlespace for my initial task as section commander. It was a bit of a scramble initially, and we never seemed to get on top of things. Seems we achieved a good kill ratio, but got overrun by a combined UK/Denmark attack.

Congrats on your battlefield commission.

A pay rise and better food pending. LoL

[Crusty]

I'd like to say a big thanks to Tacbat for organizing and running the campaign,

as the UK team captain I had an absolute blast, and I had great team mates

So thanks to all who turned up to play, friend and foe, and made it such a close fun campaign :bigsmile:

[Hedgehog]

Yeah, unfortunately as soon as the execution phase began, Assassin7 had DirectX problems and had to drop from the session. I had to take the CO spot without prior notice. I had never prepared to CO any OPV4 mission. My pre-mission analysis was limited to the small portion of the battlespace for my initial task as section commander. It was a bit of a scramble initially, and we never seemed to get on top of things. Seems we achieved a good kill ratio, but got overrun by a combined UK/Denmark attack.

Huzzah!