THH149

I'm playing that very scenario right now PBEM, bagged a Leopard, Marder and two Weasal's so far and have another Leopard lined up at 100metres side shot from a RPG Vampyre, my own losses are a platoon of infantry, two AT-14s and T55MV. But that's of topic, back to BMPs .... in this there is some classic shoot and scoot BMP style ....

I'm not being critical, just encouraging, and your house rules looks interesting : its best to have fun no matter what. Some scenarios designers arn't looking to produce a H2H 'game" where both sides have a shot at a victory (and so a basic element to having fun) but are intending to replicate the french at agincourt though in a SF2 setting (ie a simulation).

This is important ... get eyes on with the smallest unit possible and then coordinate your own targetting. I think the BMP is to valuable to be hit while doing the spotting. But of course there could be reasons to do so ...

Red is much bigger challenge, ppl should love Red for that reason (Blue is just a Death Star).

I think thats the doctrine - the dismounts go the right and left in front of the BMP - the doctrine is silent mostly on distances involved and of course its all situational. I'd like to see a vid of someone using BMPs and dismounts well.

I'm so excited by that project, I can't wait for CM:CW! And I feel i've hardly touched BS and SF2!!

Nice one! I must try it. Note that I dont think that BMP 1 or 2's are bad, but like anything need to be managed mostly carefully. To me BMP 1/2s are more like APCs with improved arms, but theyre definitely not tanks or IFVs. The give away is their armour is only effective from the front against 50 cal, so if theyre "in the fight" they're too close. Thats not unusual or disappointing, For instance the Shermans couldnt take on the Panther frontally but the Sherman wasnt binned, just something to be managed. Thanks

To add more to the puzzle of the BMP, the -5 degree elevation limit is well known and measured, so its not a glitch. Also, the use of the BMP by the Russians themselves seems to put the BMP right up front (ie not way further back as I was expecting), see this doctrinal use of the BMP in platoon defense - only 50 metres or so behind its squad .... Clearly this is not the whole story, as the range its intended to target will have a bearing too. This squad range card suggests firing out to 1600/1700 mtrs (maybe the ATGM?) and seemingly close contact at 300mtrs or so. But I'm not sure this helps that much without a terrain analysis too, but I'm thinking that Russians are likely to prefer to defend behind ridge lines, which could mean reverse slope positions for infantry and the bottom or forward slope for their vehicles to the rear of the infantry. THH

I finally found a document that discusses the limited depression of the BMP and how to use it against it in battle. The implied suggestion though is that the BMP will be used by an untrained dummy. If the US can come up with this suggestion then the Russians would too. A better way to use BMP would be to sit on the forward slope to the left of the BMP in the top picture and then do what the US tank is doing in the bottom picture (ie raise the gun to fire flat). Do not crest the hill in face of enemy tanks. In fact, I'd suggest the BMP is way to close to the battle zone and should be way further back. But, even so, being forced to use the forward slope of any hill when there is incoming armour with any chance of LOS, is not advised to say the least. THH

Howdy fellas, I played Sabres at Dawn last night H2H turn based via LAN against my regular opponent, and had a blast. I was the loyal Syrians defending their country while my colleague WindyHillbilly was just another British invader. For those who dont't know the scenario, a brief recap: a Syrian Green mechanised force with BMP-1s, ATGMs and MGs defending an industrial warehouse comples (East Yard). The Yard is fronted by large wheatfields covering a hill to the front, and a hills to the rear and right flank of the Yard, with a stream between the field and the Yard crossed by a bridge. To the Syrian right is collection of buildings (Tool Factory) also behind the impassable stream with a bridge crossing, and behind them is the hill to the right of the Yard. The Brits advance from the North to capture the Yard as their primary objective, others relate Blue and Red casualties. The layout is shown below with the AI's Red deployment, Blue force has a collection of Spartans (with 7.62 MGs), Scimitars (x4) a Javelin team and an Apache helicopter, but were light on with infantry. So if I could destroy a Scimitar and keep the infantry out my rocket and missile teams would have a better chance. To get into the Yard, the Brits have a choice of forcing the Yard bridge crossing or using the Tool Factory or both. If the Brits choose the Tool Factory, they have the option of advancing directly ont he Yard or moving over the hill with sight lines into the Yard, then right into the rear of the Yard (a left envelopment). Either way, the Syrians need to oppose both crossings but the Tool factory cant be given sole focus as its a long way from the victory area. For my set-up I put one ATGM and a MG onto the hill behind the Tool Factory, an MG into the Tool Factory to cover the bridge, a BMP behind the Tool factory as well as a BMP on the right hill. I didnt move the trenches around (I forgot I could and should have as they're mostly on the front of the hill rather than the crest or reverse slope) The rest went into the Yard - including three BMPs that could fire onto Blue forces as they approached the Yard from the East or from its bridge. One key factory influencing my set-up: all the Syrians are rated Green, so are unlikely to stand up to a firefight of any kind - their first shot needed to be very effective before they ran. The ATGMs needed to stay hidden, fire at good targets and then crawl away to avoid return fire if possible. The Brits however only had 4 Scimitars with 30mm guns so would be the real trouble makers, while the Apache would stop me from moving and force me to stay hidden. My dispositions would likely be the same the whole game, with movement mainly between Yard buildings or moving MGs or ATGMs back into firing positions. RPGs would therefore likely need to fire from buidlings and suffer the backblast. The British attack was cautious, focussing on the Tool Factory, and securing the crossing. The MG team promptly surrendered, the BMP behind the buidlings was destroyed and the Apache knocked out the BMP on the hill behind the same. The Spartans and Scimitars moved forward up the hill behind the Factory. By this time, the ATGM team had fired two missiles - one hit the dirt and another went overhead the target - not unexpectd as the team was under pressure. Once the Factory was secured and those forces began to clear the hills to the right and rear of the Yard, Spartans approached the Yard from the north and pushed infantry across the bridge. All hell broke loose and they copped the fire from a squad, MG and BMPs firing area fire, but, very few casualties caused with Red force panicking from return fire. Spartans and infantry proceed to clear the road from the bridge to the rear of the Yard, but I had one trick up my sleeve. Of the two RPG teams i had deployed Hidden behind the Yard wall one was able to get his shot off and burn a Spartan. Finally, I felt I was putting some hurt on the Brits. The other RPG team lost heart and simply ran away. On the hill behind the Yard the Syrians were trying to re-locate their MGs and ATGM after running away from being fired on. Nothing worked very successfully, and I suspected they needed more time to recover than what I was giving them. The last remnants of the Red force were holdouts on the west side of the yard and the last two BMPs. One BMP reversed into the LOS of the Scimitar, and another died from a squaddies LAW. With 15 fifteen minutes to go but the last of my squads destroyed in a fire fight, it was all over and I offered ceasefire. WH, as a gentleman always does, accepted. I was surprised that the Brit Victory wasnt more complete: the loss of a Spartan and a few intense firefights at point blank range causing ten casualties was to much to earn a more compelling outcome. Am I surprised by the total loss of the Syrian force? Not really - they were Green, and had outmoded missile weapons (BMP-1s and AT-4a Fagot/Spigot) that were constantly being spotted and put under fire by Brits before the Syrians could spot them (I presume of function of the equipment and the units Green status). The game still had 15 turns, so if my opponent hadn't been overzealous he would likely have avoided his losses: Green troops would have more time to run away. If I had to change the scenario, I would give 10 minutes less time, make the victory point calculations fully transparent to both sides, and allow Red force to earn more VP for having a smaller force at scenario end (ie allow Red Force to suffer more casualties before losing VPs), allow Red force to earn more points if they could hold even a single room in the Yard, and maybe make the ATGMs teams "regular" rather than Green. The other factor I didn't fully appreciate was that the Yard was only worth 100 VP out of the stated 900 on offer - the rest were from casualties. So the Yard was essentially more important in the way it could be used to force Brit losses rather than its intrinsic value. Things I would try next time: shoot and scoot with the BMPs using their missiles to target vehicles, noting that spotting time would be slow and this would still expose them to Scimitars. extensively rework the trenches so they had better fields of fire, avoid the forward slope of hills and provide safe places for infantry to recover on the reverse slope. put the ATGMs in keyhole positions rather than wide fields of fire, so they were less nervous and had less return fire to be concerned about. build a stronger defensive position on the hill behind the Tool Factory to enfilade British forces attacking into the Yard (a calculated risk that Brits would suffer more casualties that way). Have you played Sabres at Dawn? What do you think? I've since played the scenario twice more - once as Syrians and once as Brits iin real time against the AI. The Syrians earned a Tactical Defeat (I guess that means it was a Brit tactical victory) and lost all their guys again. As the Blue force, I played with just the Scimitars and its HQ element, and a Javelin team, Blue lost two scimitars and the HQ vehicle, but still earned a Syrian minor defeat at ceasefire. That Blue force playing demonstrated that the Syrian AI can hit and destroy Brit vehicles if they're unsuppressed. Best THH

Ah, OK, I'll give it a try ....

Try playing the Syrians as the underdog, its a new way to experience modern war, and the experience will develop new skills that you never knew you needed. Even if your total force gets shot to pieces, learning to get the hard kills is valuable. THH

In ASL, a player can combine the movement of a tank with a squad so the squad gets the benefit of cover from the tank. Once i had an opponent launch a russian human wave including a vehicle, that was a tough day in Russia. Experimenting with CMSF2, the tanks using Slow and squads using Move/Quick commands pointed at the same route and objective can kind of replicate the effect of tanks providing cover for the infantry. This combo is useful when crossing exposed ground, and is talked about in some US manuals. But its a bit tricky to stop start the combo as they can get out of alignment quickly - eg infantry run from behind the tank to being ahead and get cut down. Does anyone know of an order combo that would 'automate' (broadly speaking) or simplify the squad/tank movement to retain a particular formation or unit spacing? Best THH

he he, 1 bunker, 8 T-62s and a BRDM, and no shells left .... yes he can get a reload package ...

A much closer game against the AI as compared to the H2H attempt, mainly because the AI just stopped advancing in the objective buidlings despite still considerable combat power, allowing the SAA to prevent their US control.

This fella needs a medal and a promotion to Regular for destroying an Abrams ...

I re-tried this one against the AI as the SAA, kind of a worse outcome. Some highlights - at least a few heroes on my team:

Give this man a medal and a promotion!

I was hoping for CMBS for Christmas joy, but no joy, is it really coming to Steam?

The other star of Factory Outlet ...

Star of Factory Outlet - see the AAR ...

Howdy I played Factory Outlet H2H the other day and wanted to give a rundown of the action and learning from the encounter. I was the Syrian Red Force and my opponent's turn to take US Army Blue Force. US attack with a first wave of three Abrams, accompanied by Strykers with the Abrams old gun and a selection of Bradleys with TOW launchers, and second wave as reinforcements were a company of infantry and engineers in Strykers, plus OBA and Apache helicopters. Their mission is to control four buildings spread across a factory complex (one however was outside the complex walls - the "Offices") with largely open ground either side of the complex (long fields of fire) and a wadi along the rear left of the complex. The buildings are arranged factory/warehouse/admin building in a front to rear format with the Office building on the center left. In front of the Factory there is a unmanned trench protected by scatter minefields (neither the mines or trenches can be moved at set-up), and there are trenches and a bunker or two on each flank. Red force was a mixed bag of special forces infantry with a large number of green/conscript infantry, plus a AT company armed with two AT-3 Saggers, 2 RCLs and 2 HMGs plus some squads with RPGs. At around turn 25, Red force receives a company of T-62MVs (these are an upgraded model with ERA blocks) supported by three BRDMs with AT-5s. Red Force set-up is broken into three set-up zones - the AT company is forced to be on the syrian left of the complex, a platoon plus of green infantry is forced to set-up on the right, with the rest spread across the four buildings. As my friend and were playing live via network play I didn't feel I had time to adjust the provided set-up to much (more on that later), but I did move a sniper team out of the Offices and put them into the Warehouse, and fiddled a bit with the saggers so they had a chance of a side shots on US vehicles. The Offices were already isolated and didnt feel like throwing a sniper team away. I didn't man the bunkers as they stand out like sore thumbs and are immediately targetted. In the read Admin Building there was a command squad, a sniper team and an observation team which spotted for batteries of 152mm. The observer let his first barrage go at minute one as pre-registered as airburst (a mistake) over the zone forward of the factory. As much as possible I hid everyone for as long as possible (too long perhaps, another mistake). Broadly, the Abrams advanced with Bradleys behind, followed by the Strykers with the big guns shooting up the left and right flanks. Mostly the green Syrians cowered or ran as soon as they heard firing. A highpoint was one Sagger team destroying an Abrams (IIRC), but they quickly retreated from supporting vehicles return fire. The left bunker was first thing targetted along with the two bunkers on the right. The right flank was more misery as the Syrians were shot up by Bradleys and Abrams and friends who all stayed well out of RPG range. No more right and left flanks. Once the flanks were cleared the factory assault began, but one Abrams was immobilised by the minefield. By then the US second wave had arrived and Strykers began to pour fire into the factory. The Strykers advanced to far into the complex and two went down to RPG fire, and several US squads were shatted by heavy infantry fire. A trade-off was the Syrian special forces squad (rated Crack) all died in the firefight. However, the Syrians kept holding on moving about the rear of the building, attempting to force the US to move adjacent and take point blank fire as they did so. Unfortunately, the US was on the roof and was using that advantage to interdict my own movement upstairs. The Syrian's knew all this was coming and planned their all batteries barrage onto the complex itself. While that was happening, other Strykers were streaming past the Factory and moving infantry to assault the Warehouse and Admin buildings, (they'd taken the Offices and were using the roof to spot for OBA). I didn't have many units to defend those buidlings - a few squads and the threat of RPGs. All the buidlings are awkwardly constructed with several windowless walls and limited internal doorways so we both had to be super careful about orders in case our fellas ran into the streets and firelanes. Anyway, while all this was happening, the cavalry arrived! yeeha! The ten T-62s will save the day right? As soon as the T-62s appeared (in a very close clump of vehicles which is unlikely to be a realistic tactical employment) they started firing and knocked out three US vehicles. In the first orders phase after they appeared, I decided the best thing to do with them was to move Fast/Quick forward so they could move and shoot (a mistake) more out of position US vehicles, for the BRDMs to get hull down and seek out targets. In response, the Abram, strykers, TOWs and Bradleys plus Apaches had a field day with all reinforcements knocked out in 2-3 minutes. Nope, the cavalry didn't save us. The ERA blocks weren't enough to save the vehicles from repeated hits. Anyhow, the US returned to the grind of clearing out the complex, and once my last OBA ended and due to the hour of the night, I called for a ceasefire. Here's the result (sad face): All credit to my opponent Andrew who played a very careful game. The US ground objective wasn't realised at the ceasefire as some objectives weren't solely controlled, but with a lot of time on the clock, the US would have captured all the buildings. Some things I liked/didn't like about the scenario: - I've got to do better playing old soviet armor. Researching the T-62 tells me they have poor move and shoot abilities, so a better play would be to move and then shoot from a halt, rather than shooting while moving. Syrians can only hope that Apaches aren't around when they enter. - Set-up and reinforcements entry is to restrictive and probably not according to doctine. Why would Syrians put Saggers in front line when they have a 500 meter minimum range? reinforcements cant be entered as the player prefers but arrive as one tight group - only 2-3 spaces between vehicles which is weird. Se-up should allow the human player to put the Syrians anywhere behind the current most forward Red set-up zone, and let the player use their judgement on the spread of forces. There's no possibility of moving mines or trenches in front of the Factory, making for boring repeated play as H2H. - The victory conditions are unbalanced. Despite the designer notes saying that both sides get the chance for equal points, the Blue Force can score 1500 points and the Red force 1200. The specific allocations are unbalanced as well - for instance if the Syrians keep their own casualties below 50% then they get 200 points which is completely unrealistic (it should be 90-95% casualties), and Red force gets 200 pts if they score 35% casualties against Blue (the % is way to high). There is also a pts allocation of 400 pts for elimating the US force or share there-off - the only points Red force scored (184 of 400, or 46%). The VC are complicated (they need a monte carlo simulation to work out if both sides have a chance of winning the game) and as usual not shown to the players before they start. - Red force should have some anti-air capabilities. - There are some entrenchments near the Factory, why would Syrians occupy those? My only idea is to use them in some reverse slope/ambush/enfilade position and man them with RPGs (or RCLs if they can be moved from the left flank) and avoid the backblast, but they'd be exposed with few retreat options (depends on access to buildings' door ways). Though that's something to explore. Overall, I did like the contest and there were some dramatic moments (a cheap as chips Sagger defying the odds to take out an Abrams), but overall the balance as a game (where both players have an equal chance of winning the game even though Red force will get hammered) is probably 75-80% in Blue's favour. I'd reduce the length of the scenario, allow Red set-up across one deployment zone, change the deployment of Red reinforcements to be more tactically aware, and change the VC to have the US only score points for the ground captured, while Red only score points for US casualties. Another change I'd make is to bump the Conscripts to Green and Green units to Regular. Have you played this scenario? What do you think? THH

The consistent description I have for these kinds of vehicles - whether Marders, Bradleys, LAV, et al - is that they drop infantry 100-300 metres from battle zone and then let infantry advance with the vehicles providing fire 100-300 metres behind infantry both to suppress and destroy strongpoints etc to help speed the infantry along in their mission. They also have option of dropping infantry closer to objective, on the objective (very dangerous/aggressive), or past the objective, as well as forming a kind of battle group of AFVs (eg bronegruppa) to perform specific tasks including fire group onto the enemy from a different angle or relocate to a different part of the battle zone. The US and NATO vehicles seem to be able to be used more variably/aggressively as they have ERA which helps protect against RPGs. The combat power of their weapons doesn't require them to be point blank to have an effect, a hull down position 200metres behind the infantry is fine if it has LOS. The BMP is a little different as it has a low silhouette and has difficulties using reverse slopes to get hull down as the gun depression angle is just 6 degrees. BMP1 and 2 is more exposed to fire and has to find other cover or a greater distance behind infantry, and doesnt have ERA. The BMP3 seems more comparable to modern western vehicles.

Bad day for Germany ...

I'm not sure if the AI is modelling reality, or the effect of reality: perhaps even if the spots are shared in a colloquial sense but the receiving unit has no way (given their equipment, skills, motivation etc) to see the spot anyway (no Borg spotting!). US and NATO have little ipads that have a map and precisely the location of the spotted unit, which is networked to other units ipads, so the receiving units can decide what to do with it (which is another part of decision tree for the C2 to decide whether there's enough info to allow the player to spot the unit (which would then allow spotted unit to be targetted if the player wants to). The manual says IIRC that spotting and spot sharing is complex. But heck I dont know THH