Meta Campaign for CM:SF?

[Cpl Steiner]

Marines 2nd MEB done!

[Cpl Steiner]

Anyway, i post also a docs where i give all docs i find to made an ORBAT and a TO&E, its a personal view, especially for the TO&E, because i find very fews indications of tactical organisation so i take classical old style soviet TO&E and adapt it.

Some indications and choices made by Battlefront are not followed in my TO&E because i don't know the sources they work on, and sometimes i don't understand their choices, for example the fact that in CMSF AGS17 teams are only present in reserve units...

this docs certainly need works to precise some points, if need i can work some something more precise and complete.

stemar,

Thanks for making that doc available. I've just had the chance to download it and give it a quick once over and have been very impressed by the level of detail you've provided.

To get a better idea of how an operational layer night work in practice I've just bought "Battefront" from Matrix games and have been playing the "Market Garden" scenario quite a bit. It's making me think the hex scale for the Syrian map needs to come down substantially, to maybe only a few km per hex.

[kipanderson]

Hi,

“It's making me think the hex scale for the Syrian map needs to come down substantially, to maybe only a few km per hex.”

In my view the best hex scale in operational games is the classic one mile to one hex.

At this scale it makes the operational game more fun and also gives a better starting point from which to build and draw information when constructing the CM contact battle.

Essentially like playing on a 1:50,000 topographical map but with hex layered over the top…

All fun stuff,

All the best,

Kip.

[Sergei]

Then you'd need all sorts of Zone of Control rules. Modern tank guns and ATGM's can reach out over several miles. I prefer Norm Koger's The Operational Art of War definition:

There isn’t really a hard definition of “operational level”

scale. The term is generally used to describe anything in the

gray area between strategy (overall conduct of a war, including

non-combat factors such as industrial production) and tactics

(the details of the actions of small units). If your primary focus is

the battlefield, it isn’t strategy. If you can’t smell the smoke, you

aren’t really dealing with tactics. Think of the operational level as

a view of the battlefield on a scale just exceeding that at which

differing ranges of various direct fire weapons are significant.

[stemar]

good definition...

1 mile/hex, its a little bit small to disperse a BN in desert or even a syrian brigade, a CMSF map is larger than that...

are of influence for a BN in NATO term is less than 10 Km, with a area of interest of something between 20 to 30 Km.

You had to think to turn frame, a 1/2 Hour turn during large engagement could be good, with a classical 4 to 8 hour turn for routine and movement, with a base movement speed of 20 Km/H, 1/2 Hour made a base displacement area of something around 5 Km...

IMHO i think that something between 5 to 10 Km will be good....

[Cpl Steiner]

I would borrow the "Battlefront" (SSG/Matrix) game's concept of friendly and enemy territory. Until a hex has been passed through by a Coalition unit, it is classed as enemy territory and reduces movement rates severely. Once "explored" by other units the penalty is removed.

In this way, the "tip of the spear" units would advance slowly and cautiously into enemy territory whilst leaving in their wake a "footprint" of explored terrain through which follow-on units could move more freely. It would highlight the importance of recon units for exploring enemy territory and identifying safe routes for follow-on forces, and get around the problem of vehicle top speeds giving units ludicrously large movement ranges per turn.

In this way you could use a hex size of say 5 or 10 km but units wouldn't be able to streak from one end of the map to the other in a single turn.

[Other Means]

Nice work Cpl Steiner.

[Cpl Steiner]

Just done 1/502 and 2/502 PIR of the 2nd bde, 101st infantry.

I need to add 1/75 cavalry squadron, which according to GlobalSecurity.com is the third battalion in the brigade since about 2004. Does anyone know what sort of battalion this is? I know it's an RSTA squadron (Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition) but what vehicles, if any, does it use?

I'm hoping primarily air-dropped Humvees as I haven't done any Humvee counters yet . Any assistance would be much appreciated.

[Cpl Steiner]

Well, I decided to go for the Humvee. I would imagine that's correct for the RSTA squadron of an IBCT, as I can't imagine they'd have armoured vehicles for reconnaissance and there are only so many vehicle types in the US inventory.

Here's the 1st, 2nd and 3rd brigades of the 101st Airborne Division.

Bear in mind, combat and movement values are just for show at the moment. This would have to be worked out properly once a suitable rules set had been adapted or devised.

I have so far avoided doing artillery batteries attached to brigades as that would open up a whole new can of worms! At the moment I'm hoping this can be abstracted - i.e. we know the artillery is there but not necessarily where it is; just as we know there must be an HQ company in some undefined location near to all the units.

Whoops, I pasted a second 2/502 image down instead of 1/502 for 2nd brigade. Take my word for it, 1/502 hasn't been left out.

[JonS]

I have so far avoided doing artillery batteries attached to brigades as that would open up a whole new can of worms! At the moment I'm hoping this can be abstracted - i.e. we know the artillery is there but not necessarily where it is ...

Yeah, I'd leave it at that. What you might want to do, though, is couple that abstraction with some kind of penalty/bonus based on proximity of units of a BDE. I.e., if all three (or four) bns in a bde are within ... I don't know ... 20kms? of each other, then they get some kind of bonus (or avoid a penalty for if they were further apart).

The max seperation could/should be based on effective range of the bde artillery asset - be it M777 or M109A6. Say, max seperation no more than 2/3 or 3/4 of effective range. (And equiv rules for Syrian divisions)

That, in turn, might help drive the size of your hexes, and unit's speed of movement.

[Cpl Steiner]

Yeah, I'd leave it at that. What you might want to do, though, is couple that abstraction with some kind of penalty/bonus based on proximity of units of a BDE. I.e., if all three (or four) bns in a bde are within ... I don't know ... 20kms? of each other, then they get some kind of bonus (or avoid a penalty for if they were further apart).

The max seperation could/should be based on effective range of the bde artillery asset - be it M777 or M109A6. Say, max seperation no more than 2/3 or 3/4 of effective range. (And equiv rules for Syrian divisions)

That, in turn, might help drive the size of your hexes, and unit's speed of movement.

JonS,

I like this idea but I'm not sure I follow what you are saying. If a brigade artillery gun or mortar has a range of 24 km, 2/3 or 3/4 of that is 16 km and 18 km respectively. Is this then the diameter of the brigade "footprint" or its radius? If a hex is 5 km across, would all units of the brigade therefore need to be within 6-8 hexes of each other (30-40 km) to benefit from "brigade integrity"?

[JonS]

More or less, yes that is the idea. The basic thesis is that all units have to be within range of the bde artillery to gain the benefit (or avoid the penalty), with the guns assumed to be located centrally (thus 2/3 or 3/4 of range is a radius). You can fiddle around with the numbers a little, but I urge you to not use max range as the basis - max range is never used for planning purposes.

At first glance 6-8 hexes seems like an awful lot, but I guess that really depends on how many hexes wide and deep Syria is at 5km/hex. If you boost the hex size to 6km, then it drops to 4-6 hexes which might be more reasonable (and manageable), although of course in proportion to the total number of hexes in Syria it amounts to the same thing. Alternately you could use 50% of range, which would have the effect of dropping it to 2-3 hexes at 5km/hex scale.

5km hexes has the added advantaghe of conforming to Kroger's OAW definition of 'operational level'.

Edit: Clarification - the range used is the range of the dominant indirect weapon in the unit's TO&E. So, if the bde has a bn of M109A6 and a platoon of 120mm mortars, then ignore the mortars and just go with the M109s. Etc.

[SlapHappy]

So how would the smallest of support units, the 60mm fit into this scheme? Even the improved M224 60mm Mortar maxes out at about 3.5 KM.

Do you need another scale layer below 5 KMs or do you just make it an in-hex only asset?

[ChrisND]

More or less, yes that is the idea. The basic thesis is that all units have to be within range of the bde artillery to gain the benefit (or avoid the penalty), with the guns assumed to be located centrally (thus 2/3 or 3/4 of range is a radius). You can fiddle around with the numbers a little, but I urge you to not use max range as the basis - max range is never used for planning purposes.

This. 2/3 to 3/4 is the rule.

[JonS]

So how would the smallest of support units, the 60mm fit into this scheme? Even the improved M224 60mm Mortar maxes out at about 3.5 KM.

Simply? They don't.

The preceding conversation was about artillery bns and such, which in theory 'should' have their own on-map unit (since they're the same size as the inf, mech, armd, and recon bns being shown), but aren't for simplicities sake. If you were to include them, then the preceding conversation is moot.

The 60mm and 81mm are already modelled, since they are integral to the inf, mech, armd, and recon bns that are already included. Thus there is no need to abstractly model their presence or absence.

[SlapHappy]

Gotcha.

Nice work, Steiner.

[Cpl Steiner]

5km hexes has the added advantaghe of conforming to Kroger's OAW definition of 'operational level'.

JonS,

Thanks for this.

At this scale, I think it might be pretty hard to find a suitable map or to make one. I've looked on Google Earth (free edition) and the detail is very sparse. For an operational map the main features you'd be interested in would be urban areas, rivers and bridges, forested areas, and hilly or mountainous areas. Trying to decipher all that from GE satellite images is pretty difficult - at least for me.

It would be nice if there was some sort of non-satellite map of Syria at this scale that more clearly identified pertinent features. If anyone knows of such as resource, please let me know.

[EDIT]

Never mind - I've just remembered I bought some Russian military maps at a very good scale for this sort of thing a while back. I'd completely forgotten about them but looking at them now they would be ideal for this.

[vincere]

I wish you luck with this Cpl Steiner. For me the operational part really gives the tac battles meaning, so I'm in the "me too" camp for paying money for an operational layer for csmf.

I was also wondering if you plan on including Brit formations and if you're going to include insurgents?

[Cpl Steiner]

I was also wondering if you plan on including Brit formations and if you're going to include insurgents?

Most definitely! The Brits module makes it a cert that I'll be including elements of the British 1st Armoured Brigade, Royal Marine Commandos and 16 Air Assault Brigade as counters as soon as I get to them.

I was also going to include insurgents but I wanted to do something interesting with them there, along similar lines to the "OIF" VASSAL module I downloaded from Armchair General. In other words, some sort of insurgency level which affects a random chance of Uncon Fighters and Combatants appearing behind the Coalition lines to disrupt supply. As we have seen in Afghanistan/Pakistan recently, shipments of supplies including lorry-loads of Humvees are prime targets for insurgent attack.

[JohnO]

Just done 1/502 and 2/502 PIR of the 2nd bde, 101st infantry.

Does anyone know what sort of battalion this is? I know it's an RSTA squadron (Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition) but what vehicles, if any, does it use?

I'm hoping primarily air-dropped Humvees as I haven't done any Humvee counters yet . Any assistance would be much appreciated.

Cpl Steiner, I have the updated copys of FKSM that I can send to you. I'm at Ft Rileys' Warfighter Exercise right now and will send tonight after my shift. The FKSM shows the HBCT, SBCT, and IBCT vehicles and personnel.

JohnO

[Cpl Steiner]

Cpl Steiner, I have the updated copys of FKSM that I can send to you. I'm at Ft Rileys' Warfighter Exercise right now and will send tonight after my shift. The FKSM shows the HBCT, SBCT, and IBCT vehicles and personnel.

JohnO

That would be great. I don't think you can email my profile but I'll private message you with my email address. Better still, I'll email you.

[JohnO]

That would be great. I don't think you can email my profile but I'll private message you with my email address. Better still, I'll email you.

Email sent with the documents.

John

[vincere]

Based on the recent Israil attack into Lebenon, do you think that the Syrians may hastily put tegether 'uncons' that their central command could position?

BTW eager for any updates...

[Cpl Steiner]

BTW eager for any updates...

Latest..

I've been working on the map. I tried a scale of 5 km/hex but the map file was too big to edit, so I had to make it 10 km/hex instead. For all units of a brigade to be in range of it's artillery at this scale, the distance between the furthest separated units would have to be no more than 3 hexes, which keeps a brigade nice and compact. At the moment the map is made of images from Google Maps, so I will need to rectify this before it can be released to the community.

[vincere]

3 hexes sounds good. I downloaded Vassal yesterday to find that it's not as straight forward as it looks, which made your impresive efforts even more impressive.