Bil Hardenberger
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Posts posted by Bil Hardenberger
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Here is my post on the subject:
https://battledrill.blogspot.com/2013/09/movement-technique-005-hull-down.html
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1 hour ago, billbindc said:
So far, I’m only at the point of thinking I want the Sov’s to come to me first and then counter.
Bill, classic delay op... the key will be to ensure your tanks are hull down and if possible in key hole positions... this will maximize your chances that you will spot the enemy before they can spot you. If it looks like you are spotted (starting to receive fire) move under as much concealment as possible and get to a new position. Always try to set up with overlapping fields of fire
On my blog specifically look for the hull down, key hole, masked movement, and alternate firing positions posts... repeat this process as much as the terrain and enemy actions allow. If you see a chance to counter attack, or better to launch a spoiling attack, go for it, then fall back into your defensive positions.
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15 hours ago, billbindc said:
Gentlemen, just picked up CMCW and I am, to put it gently, entirely at sea on how to conduct my pixel truppen. Where can I get a good, pithy rundown on the dark arts of tactical warfare in the era of When Ivan Meets GI Joe.
Bill, take a look at my blog, gives a good basic run down on using real world tactics in CM.
https://battledrill.blogspot.com/?m=0
Look for the Tactical Toolbox on the left side of the screen
Edit: changed the link to the web version
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Rule of thumb that I use..
- Tank has thermal sights: STAY BUTTONED - do NOT expose the tank commander (TC)
- NO thermal sights: UNBUTTON - expose the TC
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1 hour ago, Centurian52 said:
... I really think computer wargames (which can have an almost endless number of rules, all being processed by a CPU instead of a human brain) are the only way to go (it's actually a bit distressing that the US DoD is still relying on tabletop wargames).
It also needs to be recognized that even the best game will never do a perfect job of modeling reality (no offense intended, but I could produce a pretty lengthy list of ways in which even Combat Mission falls a bit short of reality). Any attempt to use wargames to learn or develop modern tactics, or predict the course of a modern war, should begin and end with a discussion of all of the ways in which the wargame doesn't quite match reality, and how those deltas might have influenced the outcome. When using wargames as an aid to studying military history, I think they need to be combined with a healthy amount of reading to help identify elements that the wargame may have missed or imperfectly modeled (I really do advocate this approach, since I think you can learn a lot more about different eras of warfare from wargaming + reading than you can from reading alone).
My day job is developing wargames for the USMC, and I wanted to address the bolded part above. Computer simulations are great, but they do not answer all the objectives of professional wargames, in fact many time the result is not even that important, many times the discussion and insights learned from going through the process are all that we are after. Computer sims also have a way of stifling this conversation, trust me when you have 50 professional Marine, Army, and/or Navy officers in a room, a table top game is the best tool for the job if you want to invite conversation and in-depth topic discussions.
There is also a dopamine hit players get from the tactile nature of a map and counter wargame and rolling dice that you rarely get from a computer simulation. That also has a value to get player buy-in, interaction, and enjoyment.
Simulation based professional wargames are great when the results are important, testing a new tactical organization, weapon system integration, etc., but they usually turn into a series of in-depth planning sessions with a simulated vignettes occuring for flavor. There is also a stovepipe mentality with these types of games with different player cells huddled around their machines that is absent in table top games.
I've seen it all and there is value for all types of wargames in the professional setting and which is used depends on the objectives and research questions we are trying to answer. Table top games in professional wargames will not be going away anytime soon.
Bil
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5 hours ago, Vergeltungswaffe said:
Nice analysis Bil, and the reason why I agreed with @IanL that the best thing he said was:
"Fifty percent of tactics is dirt. Your techniques are meaningless if you choose poor ground"
If you know anything about me, you know that I will never argue with someone harping on the value of the wise use of terrain.
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Finally was able to read through this.. luckily for me, this is in line with what I do for a living so its billable.
I do have some feedback however:
- I found it interesting that he defined "Fire & Movement" as what the assault squad is doing, where the standard historical definition is for an attack consisting of two elements, a Support Element providing suppressive fire, and an Assault Element closing with and destroying the enemy. True, the Assault Squad could be conducting a Squad level Fire and Movement Battle Drill during its Assault movement, so maybe it's right? Seems odd to me though.
- Platoon level assaults versus a 3 or 4 man position seemed excessive to me, but that is the American way of war! I would expect a Squad to be able to deal with an enemy of that size alone, without the rest of the Platoon.
- I am surprised that there seemed to be little to no reconnaissance to find the enemy, you know, the first F in the Four Fs (Find him, Fix him, Flank him, Finish him)...
- The assault was launched before the enemy was located, this led to more casualties than necessary. This premature launching of an assault is the one thing I preach against over and over on my blog... you must find the enemy before you decide how you are going to deal with him. In several of the runs the assault squad was caught by surprise, or suppressed in the open. Neither of these would have happened if a scout team (or three) had been sent forward to recon and locate the enemy... only THEN deciding how to deal with them.
- The Support element seemed to be really a separate part of the action, where to increase effectiveness they needed to be working as a team, and they needed to be mutually supporting, not something I thought was happening as I read through the AARs.
All in all a very interesting series of posts, appreciate you linking it @MHW, but I can't help but think that I am left underwhelmed by this, and that I could have provided guidance that would have helped them close with the enemy with zero (or close to it) failed assaults, based on the forces involved and the support provided.
Bil
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6 hours ago, MOS:96B2P said:
@Bil Hardenberger you may already know about this CM related substack from USMC Lieutenant Colonel, Brendan McBreen (retired). But if you don't I thought you might find it interesting.
Thanks for the heads up... haven't seen this and its now on my reading list... I can't help but think that he could have saved some time if he'd read my blog.
Seriously, a study like this just hammers home how accurate and realistic this game can be. I wonder is the good LTC (retired) works at Quantico. I might have to reach out to him.
Bil
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@drewshotsfan I will be interested to pick your brain, after all of this experience with the Hard Cat Rules, in your impressions and thoughts on the system. Mainly how it worked, where it frustrated you, etc.
FYSA: @IanL
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The losses are concerning, but a lot of this Ukraine counter-attack force is green and they are still learning, mistakes are going to be made. I would only start to really get concerned if this trend continues.. but I have faith that they are smart enough to make the adjustments required in order to succeed.
This is a very small part of the entire force in action and is in a very concentrated area... I would suggest standing by and letting things play out; I suspect a lot of good news is going to come our way very soon.
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As we sit and wait for the Ukrainians to kick off their offensive, I am reminded of how Miyomoto Musashi handled a couple duels... he would arrive very late, letting his opponent stew and really mess with their heads. Could this be what is happening here? I don't think you can discount it, the Russians have to be pissing themselves with anticipation right now.
Bil
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Can’t say I’m surprised about this:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/05/politics/russia-jamming-himars-rockets-ukraine/index.html
Jamming GPS is a very effective tactic versus UAVs, interesting that the Russians are using it effectively versus HIMARS and Excalibur. Bet the Russians are losing a ton of jammers now.
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13 hours ago, Offshoot said:
It's interesting to see the video feed from the FPV drone in this case and how it breaks up before contact because we know the FPV successfully hit the target and exploded. Earlier in this thread comments were made that maybe this video effect was added to the video to hide a miss by the FPV. It seems, however, like it is an integral aspect of at least some FPVs.
There must be a second or so lag from the video transmission; so the last second or two (up to impact) are never transmitted because the warhead detonated. Makes sense that this would cause the effect we are seeing, with the static just prior to impact.
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On 4/6/2023 at 11:02 AM, drewshotsfan said:
A Combat Mission Fortress Italy story, using Bil Hardenberger's excellent C2 Hard Cat Rules v2I.
For those of you who like to take game accuracy/authenticity to the next level, I highly recommend you give Bil's rules a run out. They make the game far more challenging by, amongst other things, removing the player's ability to react to situations that the troops on the ground would be unaware of.
I will be producing these DARs as I play the game, so I'm as unaware of the outcome as you will be!
Feedback appreciated, as always
Drew
I will take a gander at this tomorrow.
Also, these rules were developed in partnership with @IanL, aka the Canadian Cat, hence the naming.
I am happy to see another AAR using these rules.
Bil -
1 hour ago, kevinkin said:
Report that I never ran into before:
Posted here because of quotes and the end of page 40 and the top of 41 - and overall interest.
Small units + technology is preferred. Large units are to be avoided. Sounds familiar even today. Not to mention the role of strong leadership and that unit training and cohesion is also vital. Small units can win vs larger force if well led and synchronized if the larger force is disorganized. Sounds familiar. No mention of ISR, which wound have been useful.
The generals come across as very arrogant; as if they should have won the war if not for the USSR rolling snake eyes all the time.They were arrogant, and for good reason... what they did as a team against massive odds along the Chir River is legendary. They definitely provide a good model to base a defense against long odds. Balck is one of my inspirations and favorite Generals from WW2.
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3 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:
I am absolutely positive that is why the AQ-9 was targeted. The ramifications for taking out something unmanned vs. manned are still in flux. Dare I mention balloons?
Even though the Chinese balloon was over US soil I'm not sure it would have been shot down if it had been manned. The paperwork alone is a disincentive!
My overall premise is that Putin decided something needed to be done to change the equation. There's a couple of different things he could hope to achieve, any one of which he would be happy with (this is Putin's core way of thinking). The AQ-9 was chosen because it would have the most benefit and the least risk. And so, splash one AQ-9.
Steve
Not to be "that guy".. but the proper designation for this UAV is MQ-9.
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12 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:
Who will be the first to ID the second destroyed tank? T-62 without reactive armor? (edit, I see commentators thinking the same thing)
Without a doubt.. you can even make out, if you look close enough, the bore evacuator in the middle of the barrel.
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25 minutes ago, Haiduk said:
Burning Russian tank on knife-range. And DShKM-TK - upgraded HMG, "main caliber" of position warfare of 2018-2021 still in service
The guy manning that DShK has played his Vlad the Loader card!
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6 hours ago, akd said:
Mounted assault on a Russian trench line:
A lot to unpack in that video. Very nice Battle Drill display.
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1 hour ago, Sojourner said:
Also reported by Reuters - https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/us-hosts-war-games-ukraine-ahead-next-phase-russia-conflict-2023-03-02/
"The multi-day, table top exercises have been carried out at a war-gaming facility at a U.S. Army base in Wiesbaden, Germany, where the top U.S. military officer, Army General Mark Milley, visited on Thursday.
U.S. officials declined to talk through the potential battlefield scenarios that Ukrainian military staff were examining during the drills, which involve thought exercises to evaluate potential military courses of action."
Sounds to me that they ran the Ukrainians through a bunch of Tactical Decision Games (TDG), a method of which I thoroughly support.
From the article:
QuoteU.S. officials declined to talk through the potential battlefield scenarios that Ukrainian military staff were examining during the drills, which involve thought exercises to evaluate potential military courses of action.
Bil
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6 hours ago, BletchleyGeek said:
I am finding this gentleman's tactical analysis to be a must read
in the comments he foresee that these adaptations won't be very successful (?) in light of the top-down approach that dominates the Russian Army.
I think this links up nicely the ongoing conversation about the duality of mission and direct command with a case study that is quite fresh. In this case, DC is needed to allocate the resources (manpower, supporting arms) that make up these units. Obviously, MC kicks in when these formations are set in motion (much like a robot but made by people and "dumb" vehicles and weapons) and they need to handle whatever contingencies follow from engaging the enemy (e.g. interesting to see the allocation of a demining vehicle).
This is an example of adaptation rather than devolution. It's not clear though that they can implement it well due to materiel and personnel issues. But clearly there is someone, somewhere with both brains and time to come up with ideas...
Really short on infantry... each Assault Company comes with what looks like two Assault Platoons of 10 to 11 men on four BMP/BMD, etc. and 12 flamethrowers (actually these units are equipped with the RPO hand held thermobaric launchers) which I'm sure ideally would be spread throughout those 20-22 infantrymen... which would give the Battalion sized Assault Detachment from 60-66 infantry... thin.
I doubt the ability of this formation to really hold any ground it might take. At least the Russians are trying to adjust to the conditions, but I have doubts as to how successful it would be.
There must be a higher level HQ over these Battalion sized Assault Detachments... did I miss that somewhere in that link? Where are they getting their ISR from? Coordination with neighboring formations? Logistics coordination?
@kevinkin let us know how your experiments go.
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3 hours ago, The_Capt said:
Ok and @Kinophile can jump in on this one too. So we are muddying up some stuff here, so to clarify:
- The original point on MC vs DC was to point out the cultural constipation of conventional services and how they are nowhere near as innovative or open to disruptive thinking as is often sold. Over the military generations, military doctrine becomes dogma and counter-thinking in an organization that literally exists to create uniformity in behaviour is not well accepted. We in the west have built a democratic myth of "empowerment and gumption" but it really does not translate well into actual military reality. We can debate this but I know what I have lived for the better part of 3.5 decades.
- The UA is a hybrid mix of Soviet and Western schools, and for them I think this was a major advantage. It was not because we peppered them with western doctrine and training, it was because they had both worlds to pull from. If we had an all western force in this thing, with the same restraints/constraints and capabilities as the UA, my hypothesis is that we would have done worse because we would have tried to apply an all-western approach. I can definitely see in Phase I where this would have gotten us into a lot of trouble. The UA is already outside of boxes and pulling in so much from the civilian side so quickly also helped in breaking doctrinal group-think and creating whatever this has turned into. As to which school MC or DC, that the UA employs I do not think we have a clear idea but it is also likely a hybrid - which was how the entire thing was actually designed to work.
- MC vs DC schools of thought. Ok, this is a whole other thing. Mission Command is a essentially (and I will just use my own descriptions, feel free to go look up others) is essentially empowered command. It arms subordinates with context and intent, "why we are doing this and here is what we are looking for". This, plus allowing them to exercise initiative to exploit opportunity - the alignment of circumstance, context and capability, theoretically provides a force with higher potential for tempo advantage. The thinking goes that empowered tactical commanders can see opportunity well before formation level and as such if they exploit it without waiting to be told the entire force can OODA faster than an opponent. This is a cornerstone of Manoeuvre Warfare which is really a strategy of Annihilation through Dislocation. We seriously bought off on all this and drank the Kool Aid on it about 40 years ago, to the point it became so dogmatic that it left little room for counter thought.
DC is one of mission control being held at higher levels. Subordinates are empowered to do a task (The terms are actually derived from the Germans largely because Depuy and Starry really were hot for German warfare - Auftragstaktik and Befehlstaktik, The first meaning "mission tactics" the second "detailed orders tactics"). They then wait for further direction before exploiting opportunity. They can still execute initiative in execution of the task but not the overall mission.
So was born the Great American Military Myth (and frankly almost every western nation jumped onboard). We were a democratized military built on "good ol 'merican innovation and initiative." Further this All-Yankee Doodle (sorry but we really got beat over the head on this one back in the day) approach is very economic as it yields quick nearly bloodless wars. The Persian Gulf became the poster child for this type of warfare, but more than few put up their hands and asked if it wasn't a false-positive. The Gulf War was highly attritional and mostly driven by air supremacy - the land battle of mission command and manoeuvre warfare was basically executed against an already beaten foe, and one crushed by far more Detailed Command approaches of the Air Force. (This brings up the other problem with the Kool Aid, it really does not work for either the Navy or Air Force - and does not work enough for SOF, kinda).
The truth is far more complicated. The largest problem with Mission Command is that while it is great in theory it runs into serious problems in full execution because of all those pesky enablers. Tactical commanders can run all over the place all empowered but there is only so much ISR, artillery, engineers and logistics to go around. So what really happens is far more control in practice. The Main Effort gets a lot more empowerment but if you are on a side gig, well you might very well get held back because the boss simply does not have the stuff to support you if you go all manouvrey. Detail Command it far to restrictive and you get into micromanagement, so in reality neither systems works in extremes.
The future. Well the problem was seen coming way back during the RMA days. "What happens when a higher level commander knows more than a tactical one?" I suspect if the UA has created a sort of ad hoc JADC2 system then this has already happened. If a higher formation commander knows more than the tactical level, then DC starts to make a lot more sense. And then what does Manoeuvre Warfare turn into? Well a form of Corrosive Warfare is one option apparently. There is a lot of sense to this, we already do it with unmanned systems, which are going to expand in use not contract. Detail Command that controls the battlespace like a production line and not a jazz band is not totally out of the question.
So at one end we have "lets go all DC because higher can see all". While at the other end we have "remove higher command entirely." This is hyper-Mission Command, or self-synchronization. Here tactical units are loaded up and basically command themselves with their peers - this gets a lot of traction in SOF circles. They then share enablers in a hand-off system where "higher" is really coordination and not command and control. Here we get into military effects clouds and inverted command systems. This also makes some sense but many are shy as to human nature. How are enablers going to be shared? This is always a friction point, and higher commanders are the referees. What happens if we get rid of them. Some have suggested AI does the job as it can calculate requirements far faster than a human can, or a human AI pairing because human can do context.
So in the end there is no "answer". We should continue to try both, and maybe have a C2 system that can swing wildly from one to the other based on good ol human art of war. But service cultures and equities already get in the way. This is way tanks got resisted, the machine gun and even unmanned systems. We make idols of our history and sometimes it gets in the way of evolution. Experimentation and paying attention to wars like these are absolutely critical as we can start to get some idea of where things are going and then plan to adapt at a better rate than an opponent.
Warren, as an old school maneuverist and die-hard Boyd School mission command advocate this was a very interesting write up. Probably my favorite post of yours in the entire thread. You have actually given me some things to think about, rare for you.
The future of the tactical and operational battlefield is an exciting thing. We are lucky to have something like Combat Mission to enable experimentation.
Bil
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On 2/16/2023 at 6:18 PM, Butschi said:
As an update, my latest map build:
I (once more) reworked the buildings algorithm and roads/railways/streams. Mostly playing along nicely, although one has to take care not to have a too dense network, because then the algorithm won't be able to find a valid solution.
Now also with fence-like objects...
... and flavour objects.
So basically by now all the necessary functionality is there and working. Some things can be improved but that is more tweaking of cost functions, etc.
I am going to be working on maps for my first Agger Valley campaign, probably consisting of three missions. But afterwards I will go about making the tool available for everyone, I think.
(Which will involve tyding up, making a tutorial, etc.)
This is simply incredible work. I will be taking this for a spin in the near future, well done and answers a need that has been left wanting for years.
Bil
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1 hour ago, akd said:
Longer version sees even more weapons in use by this one guy:
Just one soldier, doing the job of an entire squad... no wonder the Ukrainians are winning most of these engagements.
Fascinating video, thanks for posting it @akd... you can feel the fear and panic, you don't need to understand the language, but that man carries on. True bravery in action.
Even though the Chinese balloon was over US soil I'm not sure it would have been shot down if it had been manned. The paperwork alone is a disincentive!
Best way to learn the game
in Combat Mission - General Discussion
Posted
I've heard that's a great blog.