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.

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. 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.

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.

They are same, you can knock them out with 7,62x54R from the sides and the rear. Only BMP's and BRM's offer all around 7.62x54R protection, although if you get behind a BMP 3 with PKM, you are going to enjoy some fireworks.

@Chibot Mk IX Did something similar with a PKM and an MTLB.

Could be organisational, maybe you are going through so many levels horizontally, vertically and diagonally of the chain of command that it simply doesn't work. Sometimes highest HQ's of different formations on map "wont speak" to each other.

@Falaise You're welcome.

To elaborate further: Some years ago, inspired by that C2 & Information sharing post, I did some tests in Battle for Normandy and it mainly concerns vehicle spotting . I made a small map in editor, put some German forces in a forest (Pak40 and some MG's and also one infantry squad), put an American scout team in another forest to observe the Germans. One Sherman tank was placed on the map and I made sure that there was no way for it to observe the Germans or the scout team. I also made sure that there was no radio contact between the tank and the scouts. With that set up I tested the spotting times and it was pretty conclusive. When the scout spotted German positions, I ran him to the tank, waited until the info was passed (waited a full turn). Then I moved the tank forward so it can have LoS on the forest occupied by Germans. When they were unbuttoned/opened up, they spotted almost instantly (less than 2 seconds). When they were buttoned up, they spotted in less than 5 seconds. I also did some tests with no info sharing, unbuttoned came to about 10 seconds for the spot and I was under the impression that the crew tac-ai prioritized spotting AT positions. Buttoned up was above 10 seconds and I didn't really test it that much, cause I felt like I was just asking for someone to come and burn my tank. So this was my conclusion: Unbuttoned with previous knowledge>buttoned with previous knowledge>unbuttoned with no previous knowledge>buttoned with no previous knowledge. So guys, make sure your AFV's have the information, unless you want them to end up like 131st Separate Motor Rifle Brigade in Grozny.

I also happen to be an ROTC graduate, Infantry 2nd Lt. I have some hands on experience, knowledge, training on some of the WP kit, weapons, tactics and mentality. Spent the practical part of my ROTC training people to use AGS 17 and I participated in the training of designated marksmen. I enjoy using that knowledge in CM games, it's great.

A bit of both. When an 9M14 operator launches the missile, M1 will spot the launch in a second or two and it will rotate both it's turret and hull towards the launch site. Thus it will open its flank. The missile itself will be eaten by frontal armor, but its optics and radio will be degraded or destroyed (though to be perfectly honest I don't know if there is any place on an M1 that Malyutka will do any real damage). Eventually, you will end up with an M1 with spotting capabilities of an BTR 60 (next to none) and with no real way of communicating with the platoon headquarters and other tanks in platoon. Perfect opportunity for flanking. There are two more things to consider when using 9M14. The 500 meters "blind spot"- in game it means that sometimes the missile will nosedive couple of seconds after launch. The second one being that the missile is relatively slow and an MBT can destroy the equipment or personnel.

I bailed my Coy HQ tank and used the crew to observe enemy movement (harder to spot a man that lies in prone position, than it is to spot a T62 turret). I parked one of the Plt HQ tanks near my company commander, who then shared his spots with platoon commander. The information got passed through the platoon network. Next step was choosing hull down positions. With contacts already passed through platoon network, the job was already half done. Having my tanks unbuttoned/opened up and with previous knowledge of enemy positions and movements, has made my tanks spot M1's almost instantly. I was lucky to catch one platoon on the move. Movement reduced their spotting ability, which I fully used to my advantage. The second platoon of M1's was destroyed by combining efforts of my Company commander observing, 9M14 Malyutka's blinding the M1's and T62's finishing the jobs with flanking shots.

Some examples of gunnery, related to the previous post.

Making the old tech work!

Specnaz clearing one of the guard posts.

It looks like my mine-laying training from ROTC is paying off

Fear the PKM!!! Side note: I knew PKM was a beast the moment I fired it during training!

While am at it, here are some screenshots from the first mission of TF Spartan Resolve campaign (may contain spoilers) Whats left of Objective Nightmare

Here are some (if not all)

Does this work?

What?

Standard trench clearing procedure

Just another day in a life of an insurgent sniper

Preceeding.

From my experience, shells will land on the area where the vehicle was at the end of a turn.

Hunting BTRs Hunters Prey One down The gunner must have a killer headache Two down