jasoncawley

Gentlemen: I think you should try Task Force Harper, or Henson (Marines and Army respectively). That is the basic set-up. Light rifle battalion, deployed to block a mot. rifle regiment via helos, with some gunship support, air support, fire support etc. Limited helos for the lift. They also throw in a limited number of tanks (a company) to reinforce the defense after 30 minutes (in Henson, also one mech inf platoon). Harder to run sequential ambushes without armored lift, and the helos (while great for an initial deployment obviously) don't reposition guys as easily if their positions are already "hot". Basically, because they don't hide in and pass through woods (etc) so easily. With the tank company in support, though, you can "drive" people around somewhat. The flip side of that "harder" is the gunships can really ruin part of the opfor advance, in an awful hurry - pretty much wherever you need it. Just don't run them so close the SAMs get them. The extra, vehicle ATGMs are in the air instead of on Bradleys. The total weapons available are about the same. Sincerely, Jason Cawley

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by MajorH: Is there another computer wargame title that has stayed on the market since 1994 - with continuous support and maintenance? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Different genre, only one I can think of is the space strategy game "Stars!". Started in shareware and has had continual upgrades and revisions, with a serious-gamer following because of its depth of play. War-economy strategy things mostly. Sincerely, Jason Cawley

Gentlemen: One fellow had a question about the Team Murray scenario (marine company tanking woods from opfor platoon+) over in the attrition thread; I thought I'd answer it in a new one (rather than read past 10 old posts). It isn't too hard to get to the wood area provided you avoid the low open ground along the road. To set up the attack into the woods, what I use is one platoon in the small level 0 woods about 1 kilometer west of the objective, on overwatch, and the other two platoons plus the tanks entering the southern end of the woods, down from level one. Key things are to get the overwatch platoon into position without losses, and to have them set up before the other guys "go". To get there, use the dead ground created by the hill that little wood starts on. Crawl the APCs into the middle of the wood, not too close to the treeline, then get out and walk nearer to the treeline. Drop off your 60mm Mortar platoon earlier, about 1/2 - 2/3rds of the way along the high ground, so they reach into the whole objective. Use the 81mm, the 60mm, and the off-map arty. Set up TRPs along the woodline, with the overwatch guys doing the spotting, and get those worked up to "5"s. It takes about half an hour to get that into position and set up, give or take. But once you have it, you can kill things along the wood line with fire from the overwatch platoon, drop HE in quantity anywhere along the front of the woods, and in addition quickly "shift" just once for accuracy 4 HE fire missions anywhere in the woods, whenever the attack guys run into baddies. Limited ICM for the tanks if you see them, though usually those kill something then die before you have a chance. Then for the assualt force, don't stay bunched up and all loaded into those huge APCs. Break down to 1-2 vehicle units, and spread the carried men around. Give everyone a SOP to unload when fired on. Leave 1 lead APC with nobody aboard, a little ahead of the rest of the force. Drop in some HE ahead of them to suppress infantry guys. Get on-line and charge. (You don't have time to attack at a walking pace, so it has to be delivered "mounted" until you hit things). Same time, you can send one scouting APC forward from the overwatch position, with orders to back up and pop smoke when shot; guys along the treeline may expose themselves to the overwatch platoon to take pot-shots at it. Most things you will run right over, though taking a lump or two. All the bailed-out guys should kill whatever is alive behind you. Don't move too fast; let the arty take its toll ahead of you. 3 fire missions is serious support, and if you set the overwatch and TRPs up right, you will get accurate fires from all of them wherever you need it. I usually lose most of the attack APCs, including several replacements for the "point man" position. The key is to not get the infantry killed in those first hits. They have the firepower to blast anything you meet, if they are alive after the first minute. At the end I have most of the overwatch platoon, most of the tanks (who are now carrying people), and have lost about 1 platoon of infantry and 2 platoons of their carriers. Once you get the ATGMs (3 of them) and the tanks (2), you can move about freely outside the woods. Arty is very good at getting the ATGMs - not many people to knock out, and it suppresses them in the meantime. The tanks wind up killing something but then dying themselves. What worked for me... Sincerely, Jason Cawley

Dear Mr. Tankersley: The light infantry scenario you are talking about has "optional forces" for the US side. One is a tank platoon, the other an armored infantry platoon. With either of those, you should be able to accomplish the mission, without too much difficulty. Without them, it is essentially impossible in my experience as well. Best I've done without the armor aids is getting about 1/2 the Opfor force by the time limit. Sorta shows why we have armor in real life, doesn't it? Sincerely, Jason Cawley

Gentlemen: No, the two aren't really related, but the former is a real question and the latter an afterthought. The afterthought is about expected delivery times for TacOps. I ordered via the web ~2 weeks ago (have the demo of course) and wonder when to expect it. Is this a 4-6 weeks thing? I received one email that led me to expect it would be faster than that. But nothing since. The substantive question is about artillery effects. I haven't noticed any differences in the effects vs. infantry of 155mm howitzer or 81mm on-map mortar. Is that supposed to model something like rate of fire (the mortars do seem to use ~3 rounds per "shot")? In addition, I haven't noticed differences in the effect of full batteries and gun sections or mortar sections (expect that 3+ tubes of either type give a larger smoke pattern firing that). ICM vs. HE I see serious differences in effect, of course. But are all other HE FFEs treated basically the same? Or vs. infantry? What are the general chances of 155 mm or 152 mm HE vs. light armored vehicles? I haven't seen much more than suppression results there, and the occasional but rare 1 hit vs. brdm or bmp. I thought perhaps the effectiveness would rise considerable vs. the very thin-skinned BTR80s, but didn't notice any difference really. As previous articles have pointed out that BTRs where knocked out by Afghans with MGs, the idea a 155mm HE wouldn't have a better/decent chance of knocking them out seems a bit thick. Is there any reason not to split up mortar or on-map howitzer into gun-sections, to get more fire missions? How far can this go - will single tubes hit as well as batteries? A related issue is ICM use and on-map arty. I seem to have the same ammo whichever I fire, as though the on-map can fire ICM from start to finish. Does that make sense? Or am I overlooking something? (Former arty guy...) Sincerely, Jason Cawley

Gentlemen: Mr. Sterret in another thread relates that he and a regular opponent have reached the point in their games that the US side always wins in Gallagher battles. I am interested in people's thoughts on the proper way to balance the scenario. One thought is that a 2:1 "odds" attack, more or less, ought to be something the US side can plain stop, not just delay. (If the US can't stop 2:1 attacks, the line isn't going to hold, delay or not). So what about giving Opfor another 30 or even 60 minutes? I realize it might extend the game and those the playing time. But especially with the less rapid arrival times, the first hour is more like an approach-to-contact than a battle anyway. Another possibility, depending on what tactics for the US side you are finding work too well, is to restrict how far forward the US can deploy before Opfor's main force arrives. It is in principle possible to move the majority of the task force to near the east edge, and destroy Opfor elements piecemeal as they arrive. That is unrealistic. I will explain. The Opfor force would not remain on column-of-march and feed forces forward directly into such a defense. There is nothing magical about the east map edge. They would simply deploy farther back to bring more forces to bear simultaneously, or flank the "blocking position" with one battalion, etc. So, consider a restriction like - only the "scout" M3s and their teams are allowed to move into the last 3 grid-squares on the east edge. in the first hour say. That gives Opfor room to deploy, and prevents the entry schedule from being some artificial thing, rather than reflecting a real march order / time on road reality. With the added Opfor tank battalion, the overall "odds" by points is more like 2.5:1. Opfor, given time, ought to be able to "attrite" their way through a defense like that unless the defender plays quite well. Opfor doctrine is 3:1 for attacks - but stopping the extra battalion force with 150 or 180 minutes for Opfor should not be at all easy. One other idea is to alter the support slightly. Especially if the time is also lengthened, as the % chances of added support increase in their relative value with the length of the scenario. The 5% chances on the US side seem a bit high to me even for a 120 minute scenario - that means an average of 6 extra air-support and 6 ammor resupply events. 8 overall sorties would seem to me to by amply support and not very likely to only battalion. More artillery ammo every 20 minutes seems unlikely to me - every hour is more reasonable, for the US side that is. So, might try - 2 sorties for US side and 4% air support if 2 hours, 3% if a longer time limit is used. Only 2% ammo resupply. For Opfor, I'd use 2% air support only (2 planned), and 1 or 2% ammo resupply. Another balance thing to tweak is allowed resupply. You might forbid that for the US side (forward and pressed defense) while allowing it at pre-fixed times for the Opfor side only, in some limited amounts, and perhaps only to be used e.g. for the on-map artillery and mortars. It would represent overstocked ammo for the attack "trucked" forward for planned support fires - say at the 90 minute mark, perhaps. If that still does not achieve balance for Opfor, then I'd consider "attrition" on the US force, as though it were not perfectly fresh, to bring the point-totals down to 3:1 favor the attacker. That is a different sort of exercise, though, and probably should keep the 120 minute time limit (as a delaying action). Just knock 1 SP off the full-size platoons. Just some suggestions for reasonably historical balance, *if* you don't get even results from the existing scenario. Sincerely, Jason Cawley

Gentlemen: I was wondering if more experienced players, or the Major, have any pointers or interesting past experiences to share on use of the "combat delay" feature and its game effects. How long do delays have to be before they make a serious difference? Also, is it possible to set different delays for the two sides? I was interested in trying to model some of the Gronzy street-fighting (with the rebels as NATO, since they are only armed with small arms mostly), and I thought a high delay might model troop inexperience for one side ("green" Russian conscripts in this case). Sincerely, Jason Cawley