Sulomon vs Oleksandr: A Quick Battle AAR

[Rinaldi]

On 3/17/2018 at 5:01 AM, kinophile said:

It's a very wasteful move. I'd use them judiciously in an urban fight, with lots if cover. And even then....

But in open country? 

 

 

This battle already took place and I got to see @Sulomon play it 'live and in real time' - the purchase of Tunguska's is the least of Olek's questionable ADA choices, I'll say that much.

[Sulomon]

Next post!  A little bit more combat.

I move my T-90s up to spot and shoot.  I'm looking to kill Bulats and BMPs mainly.  I send up a BMP-3 to get a reaction from the enemy and the BMP-3 gets destroyed by Ukrainian infantry which doesn't help me much.  Ideally some BMP-2s or a Bulat would have exposed themselves.

My immobilized T-90 shrugs off a corsair hit which is nice but it wouldn't have mattered much if the tank took significant damage or died.  It's irrelevant and can't influence the match.

One of Olek's Bulats makes some risky moves through the terrain and kills a BMP-3 while taking only a partial penetration from my T-90s.  The tank retreated the next turn with no more hits.  Risky move for little gain, I have plenty of BMP-3s.

One of his BMP-2s spots my forest infantry once again and fires off a few bursts and gets destroyed by one of my T-90s.  My T-90s start getting laser warnings so they all pop off smoke and back up, maybe I should have used the pause command to prevent that.

Other interesting notes.  Oleksandr's bombardment of the minor objective has ceased, 14 minutes of heavy artillery!  His bombardment on the major objective continues.  One of my BMP-3s fired a round at the corsair, they evaded death but they're not much of a threat.  My objective is to take out the Bulat in front of the forest hill on the far left.  After that I'll make a push with my T-90s and other units.  

Next post will be in two days!

[Kinophile]

I've had a nasty trick played on me before, using MBT tendency to smoke & bail. 

ID the enemy AFV approach vector. 

Place 1-3 ATGM teams with narrow Target Armor cones across project approach. Doesn't matter if they are realistic to hit, they're primarily  a trip wire. 

Get 1-3  drone equipped FO (ideally) overwatching the area just behind those trip wire target cones

Once the AFVs are 2-4mins away from your ambush, call the heaviest Arty/Drone strikes you can, staggered a minute apart (to adjustment for scatter). 

Let the tanks enter the target zones, even if they cause madness and grief - watch them freak out, pop smoke and bail and start rolling that arty in on top of them. 

This, obviously, is entirely down to timing. It works off the inherent habit of most players to let their tanks sit (safely) behind the smoke wall, reassess, then repo.

It's in that pause to reconsider the approach is where you're hitting them, literally inside their OODA, loop before they know it. 

I lost an entire UKR Bulat platoon+ in motion in a single turn to this tactic. 

 

 

Edited March 19, 2018 by kinophile

[A Canadian Cat]

1 hour ago, kinophile said:

This, obviously, is entirely down to timing. It works off the inherent habit of most players to let their tanks sit (safely) behind the smoke wall, reassess, then repo.

Oh that is such a bad idea. The US units can see, at least somewhat, right through that smoke an the Russians less so but they still can too. I usually assume the smoke is going to be a hindrance not a sure thing. Now I'm going to be thinking about this from now on.

1 hour ago, kinophile said:

I lost an entire UKR Bulat platoon+ in motion in a single turn to this tactic.

Wow, ouch. That is an elaborate and complex setup.

[Kinophile]

I think it was more opportunistic than heavily staged, TBH - but the end result was a double ended trap. Move forward, get ATGM'd. Hold still, get arty'd into (at best) immobility or (at worst) destruction. Bail left/right, lose the entire attack from dispersion and be extremely vulnerable to counter attack. 

If you're quick off the mark and prepared,  you could use this in some form or other. 

Edited March 20, 2018 by kinophile

[Sulomon]

Tomorrow or Thursday I'm going to make the a post of the last 15 minutes.  I was looking over 5-15 minutes and there wasn't enough action to justify it's own post.  Don't worry though the last couple minutes are very eventful.

[Sulomon]

Conclusion of the AAR!

The 5-15 minutes were the most uneventful of the match and nothing happened besides some tank maneuvering and the death of some infantry close to my minor objective.  I move my T-90s to the center to make an attack on the major objective.  I've also moved up some grenade launchers and BMP-3s while having mortars fall on the enemy hills.

Modern optics strikes again!  Oleksandr moves one of his Bulats out of cover and one of my T-90s shoots through the trees and kills it.

Oleksandr gets some shots off at my advancing forces, a BMP-3 is killed and one of my T-90s takes some damage from an ATGM hit.

Then Oleksandr loses his two remaining Bulats!  He only has infantry and BMP-2s to fight me off.  With the death of his Bulats I am good to move up as they were the main threat.

Oleksandr loses three more BMP-2s as the turn finishes.  There was more combat in 40 seconds than the previous 42 minutes.

The next turn goes by and Oleksandr loses two BMP-2s while I lose a BMP-3 and another is damaged.  I also lost another BMP-3 a little bit earlier in this fight, light casualties for what I inflicted.  Oleksandr surrenders this leading to a Russian Army Total Victory.  It turns out he had also brought two SAMs, this is an extreme amount of AA, one Tunguska and some strelas are probably fine for a medium battle.  This point sink reflects in his lower amount of units, 3 Bulats against 5 T-90s, 173 men against 247 men.  Another point sink and one of his biggest mistakes was his artillery.  A 14 minute bombardment on the minor objective and a 9-10 minute bombardment on the edge of the major objective.  I lost maybe 3 men to these bombardments.  I skimmed over my chat history with Oleksandr and he said the artillery was to prevent me from moving which doesn't make much sense.  His units were already covering the minor objective as evidenced by my platoon that got gradually destroyed that kept trying to move into the minor objective and he had los over the major objective too.  Even if this wasn't the case I could simply move when the bombardment ended or he could have waited for me to move up then he bombards my units.  A massive waste of artillery this match, he could have killed a ton of my units.  As for me I handled my units carelessly or poorly while being timid.  A lot of my infantry and BMP-3s died while I kept keeping my tanks in the back not wanting to make any pushes.  My infantry and my mortars were also irrelevant for the most part, not accomplishing much.  

This is a unique match for me, a lot of action at once.

 

 

 

Edited March 24, 2018 by Sulomon

[Kinophile]

I can understand his fear of air attack. It is hugely dispiriting to be constantly sniped/raked from above. But definitely over-egging the pudding, here. 

[BTR]

Something about this little "firing line" just cracks me up. Not saying it wasn't warranted in the situation, it just looks rather comical.