Help With Soviet Meeting Engagements

[Simcoe]

Sorry to be that guy but I can't wrap my head around Soviet meeting engagement tactics.

With the Soviet deliberate attack training you follow a clear checklist:

1. Set up artillery/smoke
2. Set up ATGM's/grenade launcher
3. Wait for artillery to hit
4. Engage tanks/ATGM's/grenade launcher to soften the defenses
5. Move in with APC/IFV's and clear out defenses with infantry

With the meeting engagement this checklist is all out of order:

1. Single battery of artillery (useful for sniping single units but not enough to cover a movement of AFV's
2. Small group of infantry that has a single pair of binoculars and a platoon or two of tanks
3. 20 minutes in you get the main body with infantry/tanks/more artillery (sometimes in full view of the enemy)
4. 10 minutes later you get your ATGM's/grenade launchers (the useful long range kind)
5. your artillery finally starts hitting

Would anyone be willing to give a short walkthrough of the Soviet Meeting Engagement Training? How did you use each tool in the arsenal and in what order?

 

 

[womble]

I would be surprised if there was much official attention paid to "meeting engagements" in any armed forces training and SOPs, since they are, by their nature, both "unicorns" and outside of SOP in the first place. I would be doubly surprised if the Soviets spent much staff time on such occurrences, with their greater emphasis on pre-planned operations.

They're "unicorns", in the sense that really, they're very rare occurrences in the real world of armoured combat, and are mostly a gamist construct to enable "equal" forces to engage with neither having the advantage of being the defender in a prepared position.

They're outside SOP, because if they happen in the real world, something has gone wrong at a higher level and with local recon, so you won't have the support structures of planned assignments of fire from arty assets because the engagement is unexpected. They also are inherently wildly variable, so there isn't really any SOP that can be broadly applied, beyond the basics of good combined arms fire-and-movement.

[Grey_Fox]

1 hour ago, womble said:

I would be surprised if there was much official attention paid to "meeting engagements" in any armed forces training and SOPs, since they are, by their nature, both "unicorns" and outside of SOP in the first place. I would be doubly surprised if the Soviets spent much staff time on such occurrences, with their greater emphasis on pre-planned operations.

They're "unicorns", in the sense that really, they're very rare occurrences in the real world of armoured combat, and are mostly a gamist construct to enable "equal" forces to engage with neither having the advantage of being the defender in a prepared position.

They're outside SOP, because if they happen in the real world, something has gone wrong at a higher level and with local recon, so you won't have the support structures of planned assignments of fire from arty assets because the engagement is unexpected. They also are inherently wildly variable, so there isn't really any SOP that can be broadly applied, beyond the basics of good combined arms fire-and-movement.

Soviet doctrine has a lot about Meeting Engagements. You need to divorce the doctrinal term from the quick battle menu option.

This is a US Army training video about how the Soviets intended to fight a meeting engagement:

You can read more about it in FM 100-2-1, recommend the 1990 revision.

Edited December 30, 2021 by Grey_Fox

[Grey_Fox]

7 hours ago, Simcoe said:

Sorry to be that guy but I can't wrap my head around Soviet meeting engagement tactics.

With the Soviet deliberate attack training you follow a clear checklist:

1. Set up artillery/smoke
2. Set up ATGM's/grenade launcher
3. Wait for artillery to hit
4. Engage tanks/ATGM's/grenade launcher to soften the defenses
5. Move in with APC/IFV's and clear out defenses with infantry

With the meeting engagement this checklist is all out of order:

1. Single battery of artillery (useful for sniping single units but not enough to cover a movement of AFV's
2. Small group of infantry that has a single pair of binoculars and a platoon or two of tanks
3. 20 minutes in you get the main body with infantry/tanks/more artillery (sometimes in full view of the enemy)
4. 10 minutes later you get your ATGM's/grenade launchers (the useful long range kind)
5. your artillery finally starts hitting

Would anyone be willing to give a short walkthrough of the Soviet Meeting Engagement Training? How did you use each tool in the arsenal and in what order?

 

 

You have sufficient time to call in artillery on spotted enemy positions. What you should do is call in a maximum duration medium or heavy line artillery mission of about 200 meters in length around the tentative contacts, then after giving each position a dose of fire you adjust to another position. 

Once the advance guard shows up you will get additional fire support to call in and can start pushing forward to find and destroy other enemy positions. If you start taking casualties don't be afraid to pull back to a more defensible position to set up a base of fire for when your main body shows up.

Edited December 30, 2021 by Grey_Fox

[Lethaface]

9 hours ago, Simcoe said:

Sorry to be that guy but I can't wrap my head around Soviet meeting engagement tactics.

With the Soviet deliberate attack training you follow a clear checklist:

1. Set up artillery/smoke
2. Set up ATGM's/grenade launcher
3. Wait for artillery to hit
4. Engage tanks/ATGM's/grenade launcher to soften the defenses
5. Move in with APC/IFV's and clear out defenses with infantry

With the meeting engagement this checklist is all out of order:

1. Single battery of artillery (useful for sniping single units but not enough to cover a movement of AFV's
2. Small group of infantry that has a single pair of binoculars and a platoon or two of tanks
3. 20 minutes in you get the main body with infantry/tanks/more artillery (sometimes in full view of the enemy)
4. 10 minutes later you get your ATGM's/grenade launchers (the useful long range kind)
5. your artillery finally starts hitting

Would anyone be willing to give a short walkthrough of the Soviet Meeting Engagement Training? How did you use each tool in the arsenal and in what order?

 

 

What I did was order a preplanned smokescreen across a part of the front 5 min in (the left half). Let recon spot a bit and supress the spots with tank fire, especially there where the smoke won't provide cover. When smoke screen hit, moved all to front while firing at enemy positions (keep firing! I had tanks on rotation fire 30sec or target light, with APCs firing all the time on light / heavy). Disembark infantry few hundred meter from first objectives. Order artillery on TRPs in front of your attack when smoke barrage lifted. 

Reinforce the push with the main body. Keep firing at enemy positions, you have a lot of fire power.
I mainly took losses with the first tank company on the move to objectives and from dragon teams in foxholes IIRC. Also it's easy to get sloppy after breaking the main line and rush to the exit zone ;-). But I think enough hardware provided to do the job.

Spoiler:
The ATGMs are of limited use in this scenario imo, by the time the long range can get setup the enemy ATGM vehicles will hopefully be dead or under artillery fires. The short range will need to be setup forward on freshly conquered positions, but probably won't see much use.

[arkhangelsk2021]

On 12/30/2021 at 12:33 PM, Simcoe said:

With the meeting engagement this checklist is all out of order:

1. Single battery of artillery (useful for sniping single units but not enough to cover a movement of AFV's
2. Small group of infantry that has a single pair of binoculars and a platoon or two of tanks
3. 20 minutes in you get the main body with infantry/tanks/more artillery (sometimes in full view of the enemy)
4. 10 minutes later you get your ATGM's/grenade launchers (the useful long range kind)
5. your artillery finally starts hitting

Would anyone be willing to give a short walkthrough of the Soviet Meeting Engagement Training? How did you use each tool in the arsenal and in what order?

And the worst thing is ... you can't stand still, because the enemy calls arty onto your starting position and isn't even too bad at walking it up to match your actual rate of advance. You really need to keep moving to avoid losses to artillery.

As I suffer through that scenario, I had a whole new understanding of BMP-3, to the point I wonder if they sold the design over alternatives (including 45mm autocannon and 76mm medium velocity guns) with this exact scenario.

What would really dip the difficulty of the scenario are units capable of rapidly responding to a request for semi-direct fires or firing ATGMs that are faster than TOWs, hitting just on and a little behind that ridge where those stupid TOW jeeps are hiding out. Plus, they can fire HE rounds at stupid villages and other places just outside the reach of 1000m class Dragon missiles.

The reality of course is that you don't have BMP-3s. And Combat Mission doesn't let you do semi-direct fire anyway.

What I try is commit the artillery battery to suppress that ridgeline on the right side where those jeeps are camping out. There are two TRPs and they roughly designate the line where the TOW jeeps are hiding. That leaves the stupid TOW jeeps on the left side but with only one ready artillery battery you can't have everything. I then try to bum rush the enemy.

I hadn't managed to get much further than that. I have managed to make it if I alter the scenario so more of the assets are deployed (especially artillery batteries) rather than still on the march. I hadn't managed with the scenario as is yet.

Edited January 5, 2022 by arkhangelsk2021

[Simcoe]

11 hours ago, arkhangelsk2021 said:

And the worst thing is ... you can't stand still, because the enemy calls arty onto your starting position and isn't even too bad at walking it up to match your actual rate of advance. You really need to keep moving to avoid losses to artillery.

As I suffer through that scenario, I had a whole new understanding of BMP-3, to the point I wonder if they sold the design over alternatives (including 45mm autocannon and 76mm medium velocity guns) with this exact scenario.

What would really dip the difficulty of the scenario are units capable of rapidly responding to a request for semi-direct fires or firing ATGMs that are faster than TOWs, hitting just on and a little behind that ridge where those stupid TOW jeeps are hiding out. Plus, they can fire HE rounds at stupid villages and other places just outside the reach of 1000m class Dragon missiles.

The reality of course is that you don't have BMP-3s. And Combat Mission doesn't let you do semi-direct fire anyway.

What I try is commit the artillery battery to suppress that ridgeline on the right side where those jeeps are camping out. There are two TRPs and they roughly designate the line where the TOW jeeps are hiding. That leaves the stupid TOW jeeps on the left side but with only one ready artillery battery you can't have everything. I then try to bum rush the enemy.

I hadn't managed to get much further than that. I have managed to make it if I alter the scenario so more of the assets are deployed (especially artillery batteries) rather than still on the march. I hadn't managed with the scenario as is yet.

I understand your struggle.

I decided to read some of the literature on the designer notes page and it really helped with understanding the concept being taught here. I'll see if I can dig a diagram up from one of the manuals but I think it describes a meeting engagement better than this scenario.

The concept for the meeting engagement is that you are moving through a lightly defended area and you need to get through it as fast you can. This scenario is teaching you that losses can be tolerated if it speeds up the advance. 

You have 16 minutes of artillery, I set it to heavy and maximum. Spend four minutes hitting the left most hamlet, then four minutes on the one in the middle, then use the remainder on the wooded hill on the left. In the meantime you will use your tanks in hull down positions to snipe the TOW jeeps. About four minutes before the artillery ends move up your tanks first then your BTR's onto the wooded hill on the left (being careful of any remaining capitalists in the hamlets). The artillery should just be ending as you get there. Taking the wooded hill on the left gives you an safe area to engage the right wood line. Once your 2nd line force shows up, hit the right ridgeline with artillery and move the BTR company that is vulnerable to artillery fire up to the left wooded hill. After around 5 minutes, move the remaining BTR's to the right ridgeline to clear out the remaining capitalists.

Not my favorite example for a beginner but I think it still taught me good amount.