John F Monahan

Ok ANZACs, How about a CPX that I will host against a standard Red force? I am thinking a variation of a standard scenario so the Red players will need very little planning. You guys get a team together, pick a time that is OK for US guys and use ANZAC units in place of the standard Blue. Use the scenario balancer to get equivalents. How about a week from this coming Sunday, February 25th? Please respond promptly.

Map 001c, 72.135.252.176, US ARMY Custom scenario

If you need an IRC client, MIRC is available at mirc.com. We will be at this IRC server comms.tacopshq.com:7024 Feel free to call with questions. I am in the USA. I can call the Netherlands, France, Spain and the British Isles (non mobile numbers) back for free. I will be on line by 15:00 GMT. Two sides, Red and Blue. One 14 tank company per player. JohnfMonahan at hotmail

Zulu time please.

Gibsonm and Agent Smith, What would a convenient time be? I am a single guy and flexible. John

Come on new guys! It's a blast.

One tank company apiece. Map 01c, the same as used for Task Force Anderson. IRC comms.tacopshq.com port 7024. If you need help with IRC, let me know. Will be done in three hours.

CPX AAR from John Monahan, Red CO First of all this was the best CPX ever. I have never participated in a CPX where the players wanted to quit before the game crashed. Jeff will explain what he did but the short answer is that using a normal PC behind a firewall is a recipe for failure. The Microsoft software is just too fragile. I am a geek and willing to discuss this with anyone but the proof is in the pudding! The Red team chose me as the CO by default a looong time ago. We had about 300 emails in our planning. Two dry runs. Over 50+ hours by Rattles, my staff officer, in preparation. Multiple iterations of task organization, OPPLANs, overlays etc. Rattlers’ work really made it happen for us. My using my Vonage phone to call him free for long discussions helped too (he lives on Majorca).. Out Brigade had two BTR Battalions, one BMP Battalion, one T-72 Battalion, one 122 self propelled Artillery Battalion reinforced with one each 122 and a 220 mm RL batteries, a logistics Battalion, reconnaissance Company and the other assorted stuff. I organized into three combined arms battalions and a tank battalion. This gave us BMPs in the forward elements to kill the 20mm armed Ratal APCs and tanks. The BTRs were infantry carrying targets with only a 14.5 MG. We attacked on a broad front. This was due to the traffic issues we discovered in a dry run. We did not want to put more that one Battalion over each bridge. We brushed aside the platoon of infantry on the border and ambushed a platoon moving south from the main SADF infantry company position with an airmobile dismounted BTR company with added engineers and ATGM. We failed to bypass this company and suffered about one battalion of losses in city fighting with them. This was our greatest failure. The SADF artillery was very effective with ICMs on units stuck in minefields. Our central thrust was not able to keep reconnaissance elements forward and repeatedly ran into problems head on. The southern axis, my main effort, was almost unopposed (due to the ambush of the SADF platoon trying to block them) and covered half the map very quickly. It then fought to the loss of all vehicles while gutting the SADF reserve Battalion. Good work HENK! The northern thrust was lightly opposed but very delayed by the bridge issue Jeff mentioned. Swimming APCs works great!!! Out tank battalion commander had to leave (shot by the DGI while deserting under fire) and I added his units to our central axis. By this time the southern axis was shot out so the northern and central combined to finish off the SADF reserve and were marching to Pretoria when we stopped for a cohiba and called it a game. We had about a battalion left, mainly tanks. Rattler will address the artillery and logistics issues, as he handled them with such aplomb. The only thing I can add is using the helicopters to move a logpack forward for a FAARP is the way to go. SADF killed every helicopter we had. Mostly do to the helicopters being too close to airstrikes targeted on ground units. Keep you helicopters moving as airstrikes are the best SAMs. We had a very successful turn one airmobile assault but after that the air defense was just too tough. SAMs in TacOps are just way too good. 500% better than the historical record. The SADF reserve was scattered in squad sized infantry positions all over the map. Very gamey. Not done, especially in Indian Country! The vehicles fought in platoons mainly and were defeated in detail. But Ratels gave a good account for themselves as the BTRs were way outgunned. The SADF infantry had panzerfausten as the infantry AT weapon and they were extremely effective out to 500 meters. A change to something different would have had a major effect. The battle overall unfolded as we had anticipated from our dry runs. They killed the BTRs and we killed them. Our artillery counterbattery was very effective killing 10 of 12 SADF pieces. Their trucks were too small to move their artillery. They had two batteries to support four maneuver companies. We had five to support 13. The battery of 122 RLs was worthless. The 220s were very effective. The biggest problem we had was trying to cross multiple rivers. The lack of bridges (some were blown by BLUE), the excellent mining of the approaches and the mechanics of TacOps combined to really slow us down. Opposed river crossings is not were TacOps shines. We used IRC nicknames that reflected roles and it really helped. Had a great time with a great team and that to Jeff for making it happen. A shameless plug for my upcoming Red Onslaught CPX, a doctrinal Red assault on the US next month. Please sign up.

Run by our gallant host Jeff Gilbert. TacOps Server: 67.79.147.244 Port 7023 IRC: comms.tacopshq.com:7024 IRC will have the following channels: #TacOps - main entry for all #SADF - for the Blue/South Africans #Cuba - for the Red..... soon to be in Pretoria...Cubans If observers show up there will also be a #Observer channel

Guys, did you read the post? The playable area will be the Soviet doctrinal regimental frontage, approximately three to four kilometers. Blue will deploy to defend its doctrinal frontage and will have very limited redeployment.

I will host a four player game at 16:00 GMT on Saturday, November 25th. I am looking for four players, two red and two blue. One experienced and one new on each side. Details to follow. Who wants to play? It will be a short meeting engagement with two companies per side, one per player. If you are interested in the CPX just post a note here.

Red Onslaught is a CPX of a Soviet deliberate attack against the US 7th Army forces in Europe circa. 1987. Contemporaneous doctrine will be provided to the players and enforced by the umpire. It will be a four stage CPX. Planning, reconnaissance/counter reconnaissance fight, more planning and the assault. The playable area will be the Soviet doctrinal regimental frontage, approximately three to four kilometers. Blue will deploy to defend its doctrinal frontage and will have very limited redeployment. The engaged forces will be a Red regiment and a Blue brigade. The Red goal will be per their doctrine for a first echelon regiment. Attachments and detachments will be appropriate for a Combined Army main axis of advance. Lots of artillery on both sides including Red prep fires, Blue entrenchments, limited redeployment after the reconnaissance/counter-reconnaissance battle, etc. I envision a week or two between the reconnaissance/counter-reconnaissance CPX (which could be one on one) and the main assault CPX. Anybody interested? I am thinking over the Holidays but am very flexible. I don’t want to interfere with the Cuban capture of Pretoria.

The cowardly Blue forces need an additional sacrificial victim to join their soon to be overrun force tomorrow morning. See JohnOs post at SZO for details or email me at johnfmonahan at hotmail.com Game starts at 14:00 Z. Monahan, CDR, 207 MRR

1 Which feature would you instantly add to TacOps given the opportunity ? Scenario Editor 2 What aspect of TacOps do you find the most rewarding ? Ease of play 3 What aspect of TacOps do you find the most problematic ? OOB editing 4 What area of TacOps do you feel future efforts should be aimed at improving ? Scenario editor 5 In what way does playing TacOps improve your life ? None

A Great game! I can't wait for the scenario editing tools though. Any chance of an urban Iraq scenario with AI? Then we could change the US forces and enjoy.

Major H, Could we please have a scenario where red player is the human and the blue player is computer controlled. I was thinking of a red Regimental sized attack so that we could modify the Red OOB to our hearts content.

Are there any other ways to modify existing scenarios ?

Is there any way to attach or post OOBs to the board ?

I may be wrong (for a change , but the only way I can find to change solitare scenarios is to change the forces. The easiest way to do that is to import an Order of Battle, OOB. I think that we should post saved OOBs, with comments, to this board to facailitate this. What say ye?

How about posting TO&Es to share? This will greatly simplify the only method I know of getting new solitare scenarios, by changing the Blue force. Perhaps a new sub forum ? This would allow discussions of a TO&E instead of just a quick description. I have several I can donate.

Maj H, Any Windows based tools to beta? It would certainly make a great game greater!