Protecting Against ATGM's

[Simcoe]

How do you approach scenarios like the first mission of Ride of the 120th or the Hasty Attack option in the NTC in regards to ATGM's?

You know there are multiple ATGM's that will never be spotted before their first shot because they are vehicles in hull down positions or a couple guys on a mountain top. Also, there are too many angles to get shot from to sufficiently suppress with indirect.

Do you sacrifice a less useful vehicle in hopes of spotting the target?

Do you restrict your route? (There are some mission where there are no covered routes to an objective)

Could you bait out a missile by moving into the open, pause and reverse?

Edited December 24, 2021 by Simcoe

[Erwin]

1 hour ago, Simcoe said:

1) Do you sacrifice a less useful vehicle in hopes of spotting the target?

2) Do you restrict your route? (There are some mission where there are no covered routes to an objective)

3) Could you bait out a missile by moving into the open, pause and reverse?

3) does work.  A 5 sec pause can be tried as well.  It takes a few secs for the ATGM to target and fire, then depending on range another few secs to cover the distance.  

2) Obviously if there is a covered approach that is useful.

1) Last option to try.  But, it can also work.

[Codreanu]

First I would try and identify where they're most likely to be and hammer it with indirect fire if you can, barring that use covered routes, and barring that try to bait them into firing at you and then reversing. Having infantry close by to improve your chances of getting a spot on them when they fire would help too. I know in real life if you get launched on you're supposed to fire a snap shot towards where you think the launch came from, go evasive, and pop smoke but there's only so much of that you can do when you have to wait a whole minute for a turn to play out. 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Don't rely on Pause & Reverse.....Pop out in the last 15 seconds of the turn, that way you should get to give orders as the situation develops, rather than hope the ones you already gave will hold up. 

[MikeyD]

You can try sitting in place and observing... and sitting and sitting.  Eventually (?) sound contact icons may start popping up in the distance and you can start dropping smoke and artillery on top of them. You may have to do a bum's rush of the objective in the last few minutes after all that waiting and watching, though.

[chuckdyke]

From @Sgt.Squarehead use the heaviest piece of artillery on harass long duration and pop it on likely positions and when they reveal themselves.  

[Simcoe]

3 hours ago, Codreanu said:

First I would try and identify where they're most likely to be and hammer it with indirect fire if you can, barring that use covered routes, and barring that try to bait them into firing at you and then reversing. Having infantry close by to improve your chances of getting a spot on them when they fire would help too. I know in real life if you get launched on you're supposed to fire a snap shot towards where you think the launch came from, go evasive, and pop smoke but there's only so much of that you can do when you have to wait a whole minute for a turn to play out. 

Thank you for the advice. It sounds like there isn't much of a silver bullet for ATGM's. I might try baiting an M113 while having plenty of infantry spotting for the launch.

[Lethaface]

Move (sneaky) infantry scout teams / FO's to good observation positions and scout their positions. Allow this information to be shared through the c2 network. Stalk the assets and or try to shoot & scoot them with your own vehicles from good positions. 

Use smoke to conceal movement of vehicles into better position against the ATGMs.

[Phantom Captain]

11 hours ago, Simcoe said:

How do you approach scenarios like the first mission of Ride of the 120th or the Hasty Attack option in the NTC in regards to ATGM's?

You know there are multiple ATGM's that will never be spotted before their first shot because they are vehicles in hull down positions or a couple guys on a mountain top. Also, there are too many angles to get shot from to sufficiently suppress with indirect.

Do you sacrifice a less useful vehicle in hopes of spotting the target?

Do you restrict your route? (There are some mission where there are no covered routes to an objective)

Could you bait out a missile by moving into the open, pause and reverse?

I am playing the 1st mission of Ride of the 120th and I believe I am very much learning something about the Cold War and Soviet Doctrine.  Truly, it seems to me the best defense for what you say is to keep all your units moving.  Seriously, stopping equals death. The training scenarios do a good job of really trying to stress this but it is key.  Speed and mobility really are everything.  I just threw my whole force straight at the first objective, presented so many targets and just KEEP MOVING.  ATGMS will fire, miss and give their positions away to be destroyed.  Ride or Die!!  

 

Edited December 24, 2021 by Phantom Captain

[Chibot Mk IX]

IMHO, these are all good measure to counter ATGM.  

First of all, put yourself into the defender's shoe. Study their defense position, ask yourself a question if you are the defender where you want to put your ATGM at? Then ID 3~4 likely ATGM fire position (man ,I hope the future CM can support put a marker on the map!)

If you have enough time, hide the main body behind good cover. Send out infantry, fanout them into good observation post. Then send out one or two APC as a sacrificial lamb, lure the ATGM fire and expose them.

If time is not on your side, use fire and maneuver . The fire section should be put into a good hull down overwatch position. The maneuver section use well planned cover route to move forward. Be liberal on area fire.

Edited December 24, 2021 by Chibot Mk IX

[Phantom Captain]

I meant to say, using this tactic and being at about 35 min in, most of my losses have been from American airpower.  But moving really helps defend against any strafing runs their helicopters do as well.  It seems to lessen the damage from that far more than sitting still, once again.

[Simcoe]

8 hours ago, Phantom Captain said:

I am playing the 1st mission of Ride of the 120th and I believe I am very much learning something about the Cold War and Soviet Doctrine.  Truly, it seems to me the best defense for what you say is to keep all your units moving.  Seriously, stopping equals death. The training scenarios do a good job of really trying to stress this but it is key.  Speed and mobility really are everything.  I just threw my whole force straight at the first objective, presented so many targets and just KEEP MOVING.  ATGMS will fire, miss and give their positions away to be destroyed.  Ride or Die!!  

 

Good point. One thing I'm looking forward to with the Soviets is using formations that have redundancy built in compared to the US. Feels like if I lose a single vehicle with them it's a significant loss of firepower 

[Grey_Fox]

Soviets are a heck of a lot of fun once you start to understand how to use them. 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

On 12/24/2021 at 6:01 AM, chuckdyke said:

From @Sgt.Squarehead use the heaviest piece of artillery on harass long duration and pop it on likely positions and when they reveal themselves.  

Thought I should probably expand on this.....With forces like the US & NATO, I'll quite often start a Harass/General/Maximum (often not using all the tubes in a battery) at, or shortly after, scenario start (preferably using mortars).

Then as I bait various OpFor units (like ATGMs & AT Guns) into revealing thmeselves (I'm absolutely not above recon by fire) the bombardment can be re-targeted as needed, taking them out or supressing them one by one.

Edited December 25, 2021 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Halmbarte]

46 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Thought I should probably expand on this.....With forces like the US & NATO, I'll quite often start a Harass/General/Maximum (often not using all the tubes in a battery) at, or shortly after, scenario start (preferably using mortars).

Then as I bait various OpFor units (like ATGMs & AT Guns) into revealing thmeselves (I'm absolutely not above recon by fire) the bombardment can be re-targeted as needed, taking them out or supressing them one by one.

General as opposed to VT? I usually use VT as it should have more effect than ground bursts against unarmored targets like ATGM crews. 

 

Since Sov infantry ATGM teams have a good supply I've used them to snipe US ATGM teams. No kill like overkill. 

H

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Tend to go for General as it seems to have a bit more 'Ooomph!' against a wider variety of targets.....Individual tastes may differ. 

[MikeyD]

This is where the topic of high casualties in CM comes up. The player rarely concludes 'The transit area is covered by unseen enemy ATGMs so we can't move forward'. You're compelled to take costly gambles when you're at a disadvantage. On the other hand, being smack in the middle of Armageddon is not a good time to be timid. No matter what you do, if you eventually don't die from nerve gas you'll probably die of radiation poisoning, anyway.

[John Kettler]

Speaking here of real combat lessons from the Yom Kippur War. YMMV based on terrain, etc. When the IDF 190th Armored Brigade counterattacked to recapture part of the Bar Lev Line captured by Egyptian troops, the tanks went in unsupported and got massacred, first by AT-3s, then RPG-7s when inside AT-3 Rmin. After swallowing that bitter pill, the IDF began to use combined arms against the ATGM threat, and the first part was immediate suppressive fire on and near the where the launch signature was seen. If manpacked, the operator is either very close to the launcher or can be as far as 15 meters away. If a BMP-1 is firing the AT-3, the operator can be up to 100 meters away. All it takes to neutralize the MCLOS weapon is to distract the operator, causing the ATGM to go out of control and crash. Many IDF tanks had lucky crews. Why? Their came back covered with missile guidance wires (some with as many as 5 sets) from AT-3s that flew right over them! The Israelis did this immediate suppression drill not just with the weapons of the tanks, but with MG fires from their halftracks, .30 cal and the great distractor, the Ma Deuce. The IDF used the main gun firing HE as part of the immediate suppression scheme, too. The IDF habitually fought with TC's head out, because, despite the resulting TCs wounded and killed, it had found that a TC up tank was twice as effective as a fully buttoned tank.Pretty sure they had defensive smoke on the tanks. US anti-ATGM tactics (which I've read directly from the Army manuals and ARMOR magazine articles by Armor officers typically) not only called for what the IDF did but added a refinement in the form of APERS-T aka Beehive. Best thought of as delayed action canister, Beehive wellplaced would open up well in front of the launch site and blanket a considerable frontage with a cloud of flechettes, not only posing a direct threat to the all-important operator and huge distraction, but throwing up a cloud of LOS-breaking dust, defeating MCLOS guidance instantly. Additionally, there was a small possibility of damaging or destroying one or more missiles ready to fire. Never saw it mentioned anywhere, but for the sake of thoroughness needed to mention it.

While the US in CMCW has no MG armed halftracks in CMCW, it does have the M113, usually in Ma Deuce only configuration (have no info on whether we still had the 3-MG (Ma Deuce covering forward and 2 x  M60 typically firing L&R but also covering rear)  ACAVs from Vietnam War in service. Nor do I know what fighting options are available for infantry in the troop transport part of the M113. If in range, these must be part of your immediate suppression scheme. In late game timeframe scenarios, you may or may not have the super weapon Bradley, with its excellent sensors and infantry-eating Bushmaster, which is also fond of light armor.

Effective use of terrain is crucial, as is overwatch, best done in hull defilade. In truth (no idea whether the modeling supports it), you could go for positioning your M60s (if so equipped) such that only the .50 caliber MG turret is exposed. Make short dashes from cover to cover. Use smoke to help shield your move and get away from where you were when you saw the missile launch. Don't recall the specifics, but the Anti-SAGGER maneuvering drill involved abrupt jinking, whipping up dust and such to throw off the SAGGER operator, and the SAGGER was pretty slow. Things got worse in a hurry when Gen 2 SACLOS systems were deployed. It was much harder to disrupt missile tracking, evade the missile; the ATGMs were much faster, and the Rmin shorter than the SAGGER, thus expanding the threat envelope considerably. 

The last part of the counters to the ATGM lies in FS, especially, in a breaking situation, via organic fires from own mortars. The drill is Immediate Suppression and whatever pattern gives the greatest area coverage. You want fire on the launch area and surrounds now! If it lands in the target area, great, same if short. All it really has to be is on and around the launch site or between your tank/s and the launch site of the ATGM. Am not sure whether the Dedicated Battery scheme was in use in CMCW timeframe, but if you have it, this is the fastest non-mortar tube artillery you can get. Registration Points are a huge help in getting fires now! 

Caveats

Have described what the real tactics were in this period. How doable they are in CWCW is unknown to me. Something I didn't mention is that major obstacles to ATGM use included brush and water features. In addition to causing LOS issues, brush broke guidance wires. Water obstacles shorted the guidance wires, causing the missile to crash. When it provided the maps for the tactical board wargame Firefight to SPI, the Army cheated in order to showcase its high tech weaponry by simply removing brush and water obstacles alike from maps based directly on a chunk of Fort Leavenworth's vast military exercise areas. This made TOW a much deadlier threat than it really was. Also removed were telephone wires (not sure about poles; don't recall any depicted), a huge problem for helo launched TOW and presumably all other wire guided ATGMs. Remember, AT-2 platforms (HIND D helos) do NOT have guidance wires, so are immune to all issues I have listed where the Army cheated. What BFC did ref these real world issues I don't know, just as I don't know the situation regarding anti-SAGGER driving, APERS-T availability and treatment, and other ancillary issues. Our non-Mod testing community could be extremely helpful in understanding these issues, minimizing what's lovingly referred to as Recon by Death, although in the case of the armor, it would be Armored Assault by Death.

The best advice I can give, unless and until we get word from the testers, BFC or both, is to emblazon in your brain this: "What can be seen can be hit: what can be hit can be killed. As much as possible, don't be seen. If you must be seen, minimize duration of exposure by moving short distances dashing from cover to cover. Have as much mutual support as possible.Use overwatch and traveling overwatch.  Employ on tank smoke. Use Immediate Suppression fires first from organic mortars and also with Dedicated Battery, should it be available. Buy Registration Points. Immediate Suppression FS should be HE, not Smoke. This is because artillery smoke isn't near instantaneous, like tank smoke is. There's nothing quite like  soft fluttering sounds (mortars),  rapidly approaching shriek (field artillery) or both, followed by thunderous explosions, the landscape fountaining skyward, and clouds of jagged metal splinters dangerous hundred of meters away and fatal closer in to make ATGM operators far more concerned with surviving than staying on target. If you've got proximity fuzed ammo, it's marvelous for immediate suppression because it carpets a far greater area with splinters than a surface impact does. Most Soviet and Warsaw Pact ATGMs are highly exposed, with either no protection or minuscule (glass fiber tube) when ready to fire. If you've got fires raining down (and if in-game modeling permits), then you may be able to dud, set afire or outright explode exposed ATGMs in the impact zone. Even 81 mm mortar fire can be deadly to light armor. Mr. Tom (?) found that 82 mm HE landing a few meters away from a BTR-70 could punch right through the side armor. A typical burst would put something like ten fragments clear through the side, creating interesting possibilities for ATGMs inside said light armor!

Naturally, if you're executing a hasty or prepared attack you need to do the best possible map analysis to identify where to move, how, etc., and prepare your support fires accordingly. Here, you have enough time for mortar and artillery delivered smoke to be useful, because you tie it to your maneuver scheme. Thus, your blocking smoke goes down first, followed by whatever the smoke cloud blooming time delay is, and then you come across open ground only when you need to. Pay attention to wind direction and wind speed.

Here's the US Army training film on defeating Soviet ATGMs. Not as thorough as I'd like but nevertheless useful. Would be a LOT more useful if the res wasn't horrific!
 

Regards,

John Kettler

Edited December 26, 2021 by John Kettler

[Simcoe]

On 12/25/2021 at 10:57 PM, John Kettler said:

Speaking here of real combat lessons from the Yom Kippur War. YMMV based on terrain, etc. When the IDF 190th Armored Brigade counterattacked to recapture part of the Bar Lev Line captured by Egyptian troops, the tanks went in unsupported and got massacred, first by AT-3s, then RPG-7s when inside AT-3 Rmin. After swallowing that bitter pill, the IDF began to use combined arms against the ATGM threat, and the first part was immediate suppressive fire on and near the where the launch signature was seen. If manpacked, the operator is either very close to the launcher or can be as far as 15 meters away. If a BMP-1 is firing the AT-3, the operator can be up to 100 meters away. All it takes to neutralize the MCLOS weapon is to distract the operator, causing the ATGM to go out of control and crash. Many IDF tanks had lucky crews. Why? Their came back covered with missile guidance wires (some with as many as 5 sets) from AT-3s that flew right over them! The Israelis did this immediate suppression drill not just with the weapons of the tanks, but with MG fires from their halftracks, .30 cal and the great distractor, the Ma Deuce. The IDF used the main gun firing HE as part of the immediate suppression scheme, too. The IDF habitually fought with TC's head out, because, despite the resulting TCs wounded and killed, it had found that a TC up tank was twice as effective as a fully buttoned tank.Pretty sure they had defensive smoke on the tanks. US anti-ATGM tactics (which I've read directly from the Army manuals and ARMOR magazine articles by Armor officers typically) not only called for what the IDF did but added a refinement in the form of APERS-T aka Beehive. Best thought of as delayed action canister, Beehive wellplaced would open up well in front of the launch site and blanket a considerable frontage with a cloud of flechettes, not only posing a direct threat to the all-important operator and huge distraction, but throwing up a cloud of LOS-breaking dust, defeating MCLOS guidance instantly. Additionally, there was a small possibility of damaging or destroying one or more missiles ready to fire. Never saw it mentioned anywhere, but for the sake of thoroughness needed to mention it.

While the US in CMCW has no MG armed halftracks in CMCW, it does have the M113, usually in Ma Deuce only configuration (have no info on whether we still had the 3-MG (Ma Deuce covering forward and 2 x  M60 typically firing L&R but also covering rear)  ACAVs from Vietnam War in service. Nor do I know what fighting options are available for infantry in the troop transport part of the M113. If in range, these must be part of your immediate suppression scheme. In late game timeframe scenarios, you may or may not have the super weapon Bradley, with its excellent sensors and infantry-eating Bushmaster, which is also fond of light armor.

Effective use of terrain is crucial, as is overwatch, best done in hull defilade. In truth (no idea whether the modeling supports it), you could go for positioning your M60s (if so equipped) such that only the .50 caliber MG turret is exposed. Make short dashes from cover to cover. Use smoke to help shield your move and get away from where you were when you saw the missile launch. Don't recall the specifics, but the Anti-SAGGER maneuvering drill involved abrupt jinking, whipping up dust and such to throw off the SAGGER operator, and the SAGGER was pretty slow. Things got worse in a hurry when Gen 2 SACLOS systems were deployed. It was much harder to disrupt missile tracking, evade the missile; the ATGMs were much faster, and the Rmin shorter than the SAGGER, thus expanding the threat envelope considerably. 

The last part of the counters to the ATGM lies in FS, especially, in a breaking situation, via organic fires from own mortars. The drill is Immediate Suppression and whatever pattern gives the greatest area coverage. You want fire on the launch area and surrounds now! If it lands in the target area, great, same if short. All it really has to be is on and around the launch site or between your tank/s and the launch site of the ATGM. Am not sure whether the Dedicated Battery scheme was in use in CMCW timeframe, but if you have it, this is the fastest non-mortar tube artillery you can get. Registration Points are a huge help in getting fires now! 

Caveats

Have described what the real tactics were in this period. How doable they are in CWCW is unknown to me. Something I didn't mention is that major obstacles to ATGM use included brush and water features. In addition to causing LOS issues, brush broke guidance wires. Water obstacles shorted the guidance wires, causing the missile to crash. When it provided the maps for the tactical board wargame Firefight to SPI, the Army cheated in order to showcase its high tech weaponry by simply removing brush and water obstacles alike from maps based directly on a chunk of Fort Leavenworth's vast military exercise areas. This made TOW a much deadlier threat than it really was. Also removed were telephone wires (not sure about poles; don't recall any depicted), a huge problem for helo launched TOW and presumably all other wire guided ATGMs. Remember, AT-2 platforms (HIND D helos) do NOT have guidance wires, so are immune to all issues I have listed where the Army cheated. What BFC did ref these real world issues I don't know, just as I don't know the situation regarding anti-SAGGER driving, APERS-T availability and treatment, and other ancillary issues. Our non-Mod testing community could be extremely helpful in understanding these issues, minimizing what's lovingly referred to as Recon by Death, although in the case of the armor, it would be Armored Assault by Death.

The best advice I can give, unless and until we get word from the testers, BFC or both, is to emblazon in your brain this: "What can be seen can be hit: what can be hit can be killed. As much as possible, don't be seen. If you must be seen, minimize duration of exposure by moving short distances dashing from cover to cover. Have as much mutual support as possible.Use overwatch and traveling overwatch.  Employ on tank smoke. Use Immediate Suppression fires first from organic mortars and also with Dedicated Battery, should it be available. Buy Registration Points. Immediate Suppression FS should be HE, not Smoke. This is because artillery smoke isn't near instantaneous, like tank smoke is. There's nothing quite like  soft fluttering sounds (mortars),  rapidly approaching shriek (field artillery) or both, followed by thunderous explosions, the landscape fountaining skyward, and clouds of jagged metal splinters dangerous hundred of meters away and fatal closer in to make ATGM operators far more concerned with surviving than staying on target. If you've got proximity fuzed ammo, it's marvelous for immediate suppression because it carpets a far greater area with splinters than a surface impact does. Most Soviet and Warsaw Pact ATGMs are highly exposed, with either no protection or minuscule (glass fiber tube) when ready to fire. If you've got fires raining down (and if in-game modeling permits), then you may be able to dud, set afire or outright explode exposed ATGMs in the impact zone. Even 81 mm mortar fire can be deadly to light armor. Mr. Tom (?) found that 82 mm HE landing a few meters away from a BTR-70 could punch right through the side armor. A typical burst would put something like ten fragments clear through the side, creating interesting possibilities for ATGMs inside said light armor!

Naturally, if you're executing a hasty or prepared attack you need to do the best possible map analysis to identify where to move, how, etc., and prepare your support fires accordingly. Here, you have enough time for mortar and artillery delivered smoke to be useful, because you tie it to your maneuver scheme. Thus, your blocking smoke goes down first, followed by whatever the smoke cloud blooming time delay is, and then you come across open ground only when you need to. Pay attention to wind direction and wind speed.

Here's the US Army training film on defeating Soviet ATGMs. Not as thorough as I'd like but nevertheless useful. Would be a LOT more useful if the res wasn't horrific!
 

Regards,

John Kettler

Great write up! Really cool info. Any good books on the Yom Kippur war? It's really the closest thing we will ever get to Modern peer fighting during the Cold War.

I agree with your analysis. I've found that if you're going to cover ground that is likely to have ATGM'S it must be done with a covering force of tanks in hull down positions and tons of smoke/artillery. With this in mind, I've moved to large set piece attacks rather than slow fire and movement. If you can only move your tanks under cover of artillery then you might as well move all of them. 

 

 

Edited December 30, 2021 by Simcoe

[Erwin]

On 12/25/2021 at 11:57 PM, John Kettler said:

the Anti-SAGGER maneuvering drill involved abrupt jinking, whipping up dust and such

Unfortunately we cannot do that IN CM2.  If given a sharp turn, the CM vehicle won't jink, but stop and slowly rotate.

[John Kettler]

3 hours ago, Erwin said:

Unfortunately we cannot do that IN CM2.  If given a sharp turn, the CM vehicle won't jink, but stop and slowly rotate.

Though I can't play just yet, that is really unfortunate ref jinking. Any idea how big a course change would induce the stop and slow rotation situation? In any event, what you report is potentially vital information for CM players. CMx1's CMAK was quite the challenge with all the dust trails tank movement threw up, never mind with FS added in. How much dust do moving AFVs generate in CMCW, and is the Soviet capability to create smoke by burning diesel fuel on a hot plate modeled?

Regards,

John Kettler

Edited December 30, 2021 by John Kettler

[Erwin]

9 hours ago, John Kettler said:

Any idea how big a course change would induce the stop and slow rotation situation?

One usually should use multiple waypoints for most turns.  Generally, you don't ever want a vehicle to have to make more than a 30 degree change in direction or it may simply stop and rotate on point.  I get the sense that the faster the unit is moving the smaller change of direction it can make without stopping.  ie 30 degrees max if moving FAST or QUICK.  Maybe 35 degrees if moving slower.  But, have not tested this latter phenomenon, so may not be true.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

I think it may be even less than that to maintain Fast speed, couldn't say for certain, but 22.5⁰ might make sense (given the general format).