Dog and Sparrow delay action 1988 COOP; 28th nov15

[Kingtiger]

wrong damn thread... pardon.

[Tacbat]

19 user kills and 39 by units under his command.

Just lucky on that one, although an ammo truck would have been handy.

Also, PaladinSix and Connaugh were helping me out with two of my platoon's tanks, so I'm sure they added to the "command kill" count.

[Tjay]

Just lucky on that one, although an ammo truck would have been handy.

Also, PaladinSix and Connaugh were helping me out with two of my platoon's tanks, so I'm sure they added to the "command kill" count.

I saw that. Looks to me like they benefitted big time from your expertise in choosing perfect hull down positions. I keep reminding myself that firing at the enemy the moment he appears to your front is not the only way. Better to hide, let him come past you and smack him in the side. Of course, that requires good reading of the terrain and being prepared, on occasion, to pull back and bide your time. But in the heat of battle I can never remember to do it. :mad3:

[Tacbat]

It also helps if your Company CO puts you in a good position to start with.

[Tjay]

I'm not sure why we were awarded such a crushing defeat by the scoring system. Only one eny unit got past DL4 and none got anywhere near our last line of defence. Offers?

[Grenny]

I'm not sure why we were awarded such a crushing defeat by the scoring system. Only one eny unit got past DL4 and none got anywhere near our last line of defence. Offers?

Well, the idea of a delay is to trade ground for attrition of enemy forces while preserving your own.

So if not enough blue units remain in combat-shape past DL-4 you've blown higher ups plan* :-)

*edit: in most cases a delaying force is planned to be the reserve for the next-up echelon, during the next combat phase. so if the delaying force becomes combat ineffective, it constitutes a "major change of situation" for that battle plan.

[Gibsonm]

I'm not sure why we were awarded such a crushing defeat by the scoring system.

Grenny may have beaten me to it - but we (2 Company at least - can’t speak for others) didn’t do what we were told to do.

We died in place in exchange for a few units instead of shooting some, falling back shooting some more, falling back ...

Hence my concerns when people decided off their own bat to go forward (you ask before you do that stuff), others needed to be told to move 3 or 4 times before they did - if you don’t move the first time its too late.

I distinctly recall telling the Company ”not to be heroes" but most suffered from the pink mist and tried to get in one last shot.

“Delay” does not equate to “heroic last stand”

Edited December 3, 2015 by Gibsonm
Typos.

[Swordsmandk]

Grenny may have beaten me to it - but we (2 Company at least - can’t speak for others) didn’t do what we were told to do.

We died in place in exchange for a few units instead of shooting some, falling back shooting some more, falling back ...

Hence my concerns when people decided off their own bat to go forward (you ask before you do that stuff), others needed to be told to move 3 or 4 times before they did - if you don’t move the first time its too late.

I distinctly recall telling the Company ”not to be heroes" but most suffered form the pink mist and tried to get in one last shot.

“Delay” does not equate to “heroic last stand”

That hero stuff ring a bell. But with two tracks shoot off makes it kinda hard to run for the hills.

[Grenny]

That hero stuff ring a bell. But with two tracks shoot off makes it kinda hard to run for the hills.

True to the "death before dismount" motto. :-D

...Ok, you're kind of forced to it by steelbeasts limitations.

[Tjay]

I don't want to sound 'whiny' but I wasn't too impressed by being bypassed by at least one eny tank platoon operating outside the southern boundary who then cut back in to the lane BEHIND Delta Platoon and shot me up the posterior. I'm pretty sure that if I had gone outside the lane I would have got an IDP (Instant Death Penalty).

Delta also started the scenario with its forwardmost unit (D3) damaged and immobile. The platoon commander decided that D and D1 would cover its recovery by ARV, which we did successfully, but that left us in closer contact with the enemy than was desirable. Perhaps we should have simply abandoned it.

[Gibsonm]

I don't want to sound 'whiny' but I wasn't too impressed by being bypassed by at least one eny tank platoon operating outside the southern boundary who then cut back in to the lane BEHIND Delta Platoon and shot me up the posterior. I'm pretty sure that if I had gone outside the lane I would have got an IDP (Instant Death Penalty).

Delta also started the scenario with its forwardmost unit (D3) damaged and immobile. The platoon commander decided that D and D1 would cover its recovery by ARV, which we did successfully, but that left us in closer contact with the enemy than was desirable. Perhaps we should have simply abandoned it.

Well unfortunately you don't get a say in the Enemy's plan. They are not constrained to our boundaries - indeed they shouldn't even know what they are.

As we spoke about on the day (i.e. to the whole Company) if you control more than one vehicle you need to hop from vehicle to vehicle look around, listen (hence the idea of turning the engines off) and then move on to the next vehicle.

Of course there is the possibility that something will happen while you are "away" but if you have given the vehicle a suitable tactic and listen out for tank gin fire, read a text update, and or hear something on Teamspeak you can jump back to the vehicle closest to the action.

At the end of the day its judgement, experience, risk management, understanding what the enemy is likely to do based on the terrain their tactics and their mission and of course a bit of luck.

Yes D Coy started well foward and in less than a perfect state - that is what happens in RL. You don't get fresh 100% effective vehicles every morning.

And a slight correction, the Platoon commander asked me and I arranged the recovery, including tasking onther vehicle in the Platoon to provide escort.

This proximity to the enemy and the reduced effectiveness was exactly why I was concerned when I noticed on the map (no one had asked and permission wasn't given) when the forward vehicle decided to advance unsupported to "have a look" and was promptly destroyed.

A delay is hard enough without people wandering off on adventures of their own without co-ordination with the bigger plan, just like the Coy plan has to align with the Bn plan.

Edited December 3, 2015 by Gibsonm

[Tjay]

Well unfortunately you don't get a say in the Enemy's plan. They are not constrained to our boundaries - indeed they shouldn't even know what they are.

Well, I realise that in RL the enemy is not constrained by the boundaries that apply to a particular friendly company. But in RL there are friendly forces covering our flanks. In SB there are not. So if in an SB scenario the enemy is scripted to bypass us outside of our area of responsibility they willl be able to do so with impunity. Not very realistic IMHO, especially if, should one or more of our units detect this activity and move to counter it, they are hit with a 'death penalty'. So it remains, and will remain, my opinion that in SB scenarios scripted enemy units should be subject to the same geograhpical constraints as the human players. Otherwise you might as well have them bypassing our positions totally out of sight and sound and reappearing suddenly in our rear.

[Grenny]

Well, I realise that in RL the enemy is not constrained by the boundaries that apply to a particular friendly company. But in RL there are friendly forces covering our flanks. In SB there are not. So if in an SB scenario the enemy is scripted to bypass us outside of our area of responsibility they willl be able to do so with impunity. Not very realistic IMHO, especially if, should one or more of our units detect this activity and move to counter it, they are hit with a 'death penalty'. So it remains, and will remain, my opinion that in SB scenarios scripted enemy units should be subject to the same geograhpical constraints as the human players. Otherwise you might as well have them bypassing our positions totally out of sight and sound and reappearing suddenly in our rear.

If you spot the enemy moving past your flank, you should be able to judge that situation and act accordingly. And the accordingly does not always mean "go after them" but can be => report to higher up and fall back or make front against a possible flank attack..

[Kingtiger]

And, often when armoured forces clashes the frontlines changes rapidly. So for example the unit flanking us might have been able to do so because our sister unit was pushed back/destroyed without the information coming to our chain of command.

Often during combat you get gaps in the frontline and enemy can infiltrate and show up behind you, for example during a fieldex 2004 we got a battalion aid station shot up by a tank coy who found a gap in our defence and rushed forward (to their defence regarding it being a medical aid station they didnt see the red crosses because of forrest and didn't see them until they had charged them).

So just because you have sister units and boundaries, do not trust them. Of course never shoot over a boundary without uppers approval as there might be friendlies but keep an eye out for your flank at all times.

This week at work we did squad and platoon dismounted combat drills. My squad was annihilated because an enemy squad manage to find a gap in our quick defence (was movement to contact) and used it to flank us.

So now we are extra alert on watching our flanks even when in contact front. And that is something you should take away as a lesson from this engagement to.

/KT

[Gibsonm]

So it remains, and will remain, my opinion that in SB scenarios scripted enemy units should be subject to the same geograhpical constraints as the human players.

Well that's up to you of course and I guess there's no point in continuing the discussion as you've already decided, apart from warning you that most PzBtl 911, LNoT, Rolling Thunder, Cold War Battles X, ... activities wont appeal to you because the scenario designers don't share your view.

Even KT's Reserve Demolition Guard one has the enemy being "unfair".

Edited December 3, 2015 by Gibsonm
Typos.

[Tacbat]

It's not always a bad thing to find the enemy behind you, because at that moment you are also behind him.

[D u k e]

Hi Tjay,

yes our neighbors were not scripted in this Mission.

But during the Mission came radio reports in with sitreps from these neighbors. Do you used the brevity list to encode? Try it and you know why the red units were able to flank us.

Cheers

D u k e

Edited December 3, 2015 by D u k e
Bloody Smartphones

[Grenny]

The thing that I find unfair in sce design is when enemy is spawned on top or behind you. :-D

If they actually move there, I'm ok with it...

[Tacbat]

Airborne!

[Tjay]

Thanks for the informative replies. I didn't see the units outflanking Delta's position because in SB I had never before encountered eny units operating outside the 'allocated' lane. Also, IIRC (I need to go back to the AAR and check this) they were in dead ground. So to spot them I would have had to drive to the edge of our lane and look into the adjacent one - just in case something was there. It did not occur to me to do so because previously I'd thought that scenarios were always designed so that the human players need only be concerned with eny units in their designated lane in view of there not actually being any virtual units on either side as there would be in RL. If that is not the case and 'Blue' units operating out on the flanks need to check for enemy units outflanking them in the adjacent lanes (perhaps on the other side of some high ground) that changes everything. And IMHO makes things impractically difficult. Certainly for this player.

Edited December 4, 2015 by Tjay

[Tjay]

Hi Tjay,

yes our neighbors were not scripted in this Mission.

But during the Mission came radio reports in with sitreps from these neighbors. Do you used the brevity list to encode? Try it and you know why the red units were able to flank us.

Cheers

D u k e

Hi Duke

Please explain 'use of the brevity list to encode'. Obviously I have been missing something important here.

[Gibsonm]

On the PzBtl 911 site (I can't access it from here) in the Briefing post was a list of code names for neighbouring units.

I can't recall the exact names but lets say "AJAX" was the unit to our right/south (the list has a table where "AJAX" = PzGBn XYZ).

During the mission there were text messages coming up saying:

"AJAX reports BMPs at Gr 123 456"

Ideally you go to the map, look to our right and know that at that time there were BMPs at GR 123 456.

After that they have no doubt moved but you get a feel for where they are.

Hence my earlier comment inter alia:

Of course there is the possibility that something will happen while you are "away" but if you have given the vehicle a suitable tactic and listen out for tank gin fire, read a text update, and or hear something on Teamspeak you can jump back to the vehicle closest to the action.

At the end of the day its judgement, experience, risk management, understanding what the enemy is likely to do based on the terrain their tactics and their mission and of course a bit of luck.

[Tjay]

Ah, that's most helpful information - thanks Mark. Clearly I paid insufficient attention to that information, thinking that it was operational background chatter and not of particular importance. I didn't realise that enemy movements outside of our lane required direct intervention or defensive manoeuvre. Also, I admit to being crap at monitoring the 'chat bar' as I'm usually fully absorbed in what is going on in the 3D view and/or the map screen. A valuable lesson learned.

Is the text in the chat bar what Duke is referring to when he speaks of the 'breviity list'?

[Gibsonm]

Is the text in the chat bar what Duke is referring to when he speaks of the 'breviity list'?

No, the "brevity list" is the table that I mentioned where:

A Coy, 11 PzGdr Regt, 21 PzGrd Div = "AJAX"

"AJAX" being a useful contraction of the full name.

"AJAX" then appears in the chat bar.

[Gibsonm]

So from this link:

http://www.steelbeasts.org/showthread.php?8154-COLD-WAR-BATTLES-Hund-und-Sperling-Vzo-1988-Dog-and-Sparrow-delay-action-1988

You should see the attached.