Aurelius vs SlySniper - Factory Outlet AAR

[Aurelius]

Hello all and welcome to my first public AAR of CM games. As such, it won't feature complex analyses and orders, like we've all come to expect reading the AAR's on these forums. Firstly, I have personally vowed, after demobilization, that I will never write another standard order (applied for and served as part of ROTC for the Serbian Army in 2017, Infantry 2nd Lt) and, secondly, the idea for the AAR came late in the game, after heroics of certain units.

As far as the scenarios goes, I made some modifications. Namely, instead of company of T 62 MV's, there were 6 T 72 M1's ( it is my personal preference, as it is closest to M 84A tank in service in Serbian Army). Soft factors for militia company were increased. Skill level was increased for anti tank platoon. BRDM's with ATGM's were eliminated fully. TRP's were added (still a 9 minute calling time for D30 howitzers). MANPADS were added . Nothing was changed for the US Army. I would like to give thanks and credit to the original creator of the scenario and to whomever edited it for Shock Force 2.

Now for the main part.

I was given the objective to hold at all cost the aforementioned factory outlet. For this task, I was given a militia company, two platoons of Special Forces, antitank platoon consisting of 2 AT 4 C's and 2 SPG 9's and 6 T 72 M1's. In support, I had a battery of D30 howitzers. Opposing me was a Stryker company (two platoons of infantry in ICV's, platoon of MGS and platoon of ATGM Stryker), reinforced by 3 M1 Abrams tanks and a platoon of engineers in Bradleys. They also had a lot of off map support, including two Apache helicopters.

As you can see, the question was how badly was I gonna lose. 

So here it is:

Now, you may ask: Aurelius, why are you posting an AAR about your defeat?!? Why isn't SlySniper posting about his hard won battle?!?

My answer is: because of these guys

I knew I had no chance to win. I knew my AT platoon couldn't do anything to Sly's tanks. So I devised a plan, a scheme of slowing down his advance and making him think twice about approaching the factory proper. Firstly, I had to destroy the Bradleys, cause they could wipe out all my fighting positions and easily interdict movement of my units through buildings with their 25 mm auto cannons. That would also mean that his engineers have to walk everywhere (the map is very elongated and there is a lot of ground to cover). Secondly, to take out any specialized Stryker (an FO vehicle, command vehicle). If any Stryker loaded with troops presented itself- to burn it and everyone inside.

 I managed to destroy all of the Bradleys, destroy an FO vehicle and burn two Strykers which I suspect were carrying troops.

I achieved this by utilising mobility of my troops (only the SPG 9 was left in place, because it is too slow to pack up and decision was made to sacrifice it). I would crawl them to the roof, wait a turn, give an order to fire and retreat them by use of the pause command.

As for my T 72's, this is how they ended up:

The only excuse I can offer: I wasn't thinking how their placement in editor was exposed to the possible avenue of approach of my opponent. 

But, there is a bright spot. This guy destroyed a vehicle, killed a guy with a Javelin and was a general nuisance to Sly's plan:

During the course of the battle, Sly tried to approach/probe my positions. This was the aftermath of any such excursion:

To my surprise, I even managed to surprise him with a howitzer barrage. Waited 13 minutes for the call up time and additional 2 minutes for spotting and got this:

There were more casualties, but it is a tedious process to document all of those.

Both Apache's were shut down immediately on the first turn, giving me some breathing space. 

I hope you will enjoy this quick recap of what happened and I would like to give thanks to @slysniper for a fun and challenging battle.

[domfluff]

Playing the Syrians is always tough, but it's an interesting problem to solve - it looks like you had a good rate of return for those ATGMs.

The AT-4 won't typically do a lot to an Abrams, but is fine against Bradleys and down - the missile flight time can be a problem, since a good Bradley crew can sometimes start suppressing the ATGM team before the missile hits.

Mobility is key. The AT-4 is a bit awkward for this purpose, but the AT-7 and AT-13 are fantastic - even in semi-deployed mode they're worth it for the ability to pop up, fire, then maybe live long enough to run away and set up in a secondary location. It's one of the main advantages that ATGMs have over the WW2 anti-tank guns. Often that's more theory than practice, but it can work out really well.

Those ATGM Strykers remain awkward to use. They often don't have the rate of fire to deal with an actual armoured attack (typically they'll kill a few, then get killed in response, unless they outnumber the attackers by quite a bit), and they aren't as small or concealable as man portable ATGMs or TOW Humvees. They're still powerful, but they have some serious downsides.

[Aurelius]

I am of the opinion that AT 4C is superior to both AT 7 i AT 13, simply because it has greater range. All of the missile move at approximately same speed ~600 km/h (~372 mph). All of them can reliably kill APC's/IFV's/ICV's, but AT 4C is not capped to 1.500 meters like AT 13 or 1.000 meters like AT 7. Even though both Metis variants can be fired semi-deployed, they are, at least for me, unreliable in that mode. Half of the time missile ends up in the ground ~100 meters away from launcher or it goes of course, in an unknown direction.

4 hours ago, domfluff said:

Mobility is key

Indeed it is. I can confirm that both from the in game experience and real life experience and training.

During the engagements that are at least 1 km in distance, your troops have approximately 20 seconds of invulnerability. After 20 seconds, everything from .50 cal, through 25 mm to 120 mm HEAT shells start flying towards the position. Two and half minutes in= you're at risk from PGM's. Four minutes in= 155 mm shells will obliterate your firing point. But, in those 20 seconds any operator for AT 4, AT 7, AT 13 and AT 14 can launch a missile, guide it, destroy the target and start retreating.

Testing the scenario against the AI, I have regularly destroyed M1A1's without a loss of life for my operators (with Kornets, was testing a concept) at ranges around 1 km. You simply find a position, wait for set up time, give a 20 seconds pause, a target and move order. Pretty soon you will have teams with at least two kills, with 0 or 1 casualty. 90% of the launches will be successful (missile hits the target). Your crews will be tired, but its better to be tired, than dead.

With that I developed a concept in which Kornets should be used to destroy tanks and AT 4C's for other vehicles. It works pretty good.

As for ATGM Strykers, from what I understand, they are a support asset and should be used as such. Mainly, to augment the firepower of the main axis of attack or to augment the firepower of the main resistance point in defense. To increase their survival chances, they too should be moved often. Coincidentally, the game counts them as tanks when you destroy them.

 

Edited May 22, 2019 by Aurelius

[domfluff]

I've found the semi-deployed ATGMs are highly variable - I had one test where every single shot they fired nosed down, regardless of conditions, but far more where the exact same team hit with every shot. In general, I haven't seen a significant increase in failure rate when semi-deployed, but I assume there is an increase there.

As ever though, the easiest way to reduce mean time between failures is just to add another team. Redundancy tends to trump reliability.

Kornets are certainly the only reliable AT weapon the Syrians get, and are capable of hitting Abrams from the front. The setup time does make it harder to relocate them, but not impossible.  do think they shouldn't be the first choice of missile though - the extra flexibility of the Motor Rifle ones are well worth the reduced power I find.

There are definitely uses for the ATGM Strykers, but I think  you have to work around them, rather than with them - they're certainly not awful, but they are awkward. 

Oh, since we're on the subject of ATGMs, one thing I did find playing Red in Passage at Wilcox was that ATGM positions on the second row of buildings are extremely useful. In that scenario, like many in CMSF, there's no great penalty for the Blue forces to just flatten everything, so putting an entire building in between the one you're sited in and the target can be very effective - the trajectory of returning bullets tends to be flatter than the arcing slope of an ATGM, so the situation can be in the missile's favour.

[Aurelius]

Yes, buildings are a great way to increase the survival rate of ATGM teams. It is exactly what I used and exactly how that one AT 4C team has 4 vehicle kills. That and move, pause, target, move again. Essential if you want your ATGM to survive.

At speeds of 800 km/h (that means that it covers 2 km in 9 seconds!), the Kornet is just too good to be left out. Instead, it should be used in tandem with AT 4C or Metis variants, if the distances allow it. That way you have a force that can engage any Blue Force armored unit and actually do something. 

The mobility of Kornet is not really an issue. If you have several firing positions for it and a little patience, even one Kornet can render an M1 platoon useless. After it fires its first missile, the team can move on Quick orders. Set up time is small price to pay for an 800 km/h missile that can knock out Blue Force tanks and then, because there is no packing up time, it can vanish, and pop up somewhere else.