Free Whisky Video AAR

[Free Whisky]

Hi all, I uploaded a video AAR of Combat Mission Cold War to Youtube. I thought I'd post it here so you can all tell me what it was you believe led to my demise

 

https://youtu.be/qxLCkSFYq2c

[Combatintman]

Great video mate - I rarely get further than 5 minutes into these but yours drew me in with a succinct explanation of the ground, objectives and plan.  You followed up during execute with some great vignettes of the battle which were easy to place within the overall situation and some great cinematography.  All in under half an hour - definitely one of the best video AARs I've seen - have a like.

[danfrodo]

Oh boy!  Now I have something to watch while I exercise today. 

[MOS:96B2P]

1 hour ago, Free Whisky said:

Hi all, I uploaded a video AAR of Combat Mission Cold War to Youtube.

+1.  Great video.  I hope you make more videos in the future.  Very well done. 

[Codreanu]

Great editing, cinematography, use of insert graphics, explanations, use of music, and pretty much everything else. The fog seems to have played havoc on your troops and once you lost the initiative Megalon really made it difficult you to regain it, and initiative is your lifeblood when playing as the Soviets. Can't wait to see what you make in the future.

[The_Capt]

Outstanding.  "Speaking of post-mortem heroes..." is one of the best lines I have heard yet.  

[danfrodo]

Winner of the oscar for Best Combat Mission full length movie.  Easily.  And Megalon is a BEAST!  I thought Tiger's plan was pretty solid but what a defensive effort. 

"charge or gulag, comrade" -- priceless

[IICptMillerII]

Great video! Fantastic use of music, cinematic shots, editing and humor. Really enjoyed it and hope to see more. 

[Free Whisky]

4 hours ago, Codreanu said:

The fog seems to have played havoc on your troops and once you lost the initiative Megalon really made it difficult you to regain it, and initiative is your lifeblood when playing as the Soviets.

I agree that the fog of war played a large role in this battle, and that the trouble began when I lost the initiative. I had expected to get more intel from my recon in the opening phase, but since Megalon hadn't set up any troops in the first half of the map my scouts almost didn't find anything in the first fifteen minuten. And so I went in basicly blind. The setting to give the attacker some intel definitely looks appealing after this battle .

 

1 hour ago, danfrodo said:

And Megalon is a BEAST!  I thought Tiger's plan was pretty solid but what a defensive effort.

My wife watched the video today and halfway through she turned to me and asked me what the other half of the video was about since I clearly lost my battalion in the first half . Yes, I was a bit more nervous than usual to press play when Megalon had in sent a new turn, as my stuff was going boom a lot more than it had done in other battles so far .

[Gray man]

Your videos are awesome. it's not too detailed that it had to be broken down into several episodes. Good Stuff man!

[Suzuya]

Great video, really hope you keep making these.

[Chudacabra]

Thanks for making a great video. Maximum chaos makes for good viewing. Better luck on the next battle!

[Simcoe]

On 2/20/2022 at 2:40 PM, Free Whisky said:

I agree that the fog of war played a large role in this battle, and that the trouble began when I lost the initiative. I had expected to get more intel from my recon in the opening phase, but since Megalon hadn't set up any troops in the first half of the map my scouts almost didn't find anything in the first fifteen minuten. And so I went in basicly blind. The setting to give the attacker some intel definitely looks appealing after this battle .

 

My wife watched the video today and halfway through she turned to me and asked me what the other half of the video was about since I clearly lost my battalion in the first half . Yes, I was a bit more nervous than usual to press play when Megalon had in sent a new turn, as my stuff was going boom a lot more than it had done in other battles so far .

What would you have done differently? Do you think there's a world where you could have gone to the left? The Soviets were all about sneaking units into areas you wouldn't expect and the right just seems like the obvious route to attack.

Also, what is your opinion on BMP'S? it seems like they have a hard time defeating armor. 

Edited February 22, 2022 by Simcoe

[Free Whisky]

2 hours ago, Simcoe said:

What would you have done differently? Do you think there's a world where you could have gone to the left? The Soviets were all about sneaking units into areas you wouldn't expect and the right just seems like the obvious route to attack.

Also, what is your opinion on BMP'S? it seems like they have a hard time defeating armor. 

I did consider going left, actually. But it was a long way to the objective and going left meant that it would be slow going, with all the dunes that the enemy could be hiding behind and the forrests that could contain enemy units. I feared that Megalon would have plenty of time to shift his defences to that side of the map if I did. Ofcourse, I didn't know that he didn't put anything there.... Plus, I really would have needed to stick to the roads because of the mudfields in that area. I took two BMP's and one BRDM off road on the left side of the map and one of the three was immobilized in the mud. If there is a world where I would have gone left, it would have been a world with dry ground, I suppose.

yes, I suppose that you could say BMP's have a hard time defeating armor. But I would argue: so does everything that's not armor, in a general sense . Getting around eighteen cannon wielding, ATGM-toting vehicles with every single infantry company is one of the main selling points of the Soviet army for me. Imagine if I had attacked as the US Army and I had lost my tanks like I did in the video... It would have been harder to continue the fight with M113's rather than BMPs I believe, even if the US Army infantry has dragons.

[Halmbarte]

4 hours ago, Free Whisky said:

I did consider going left, actually. But it was a long way to the objective and going left meant that it would be slow going, with all the dunes that the enemy could be hiding behind and the forrests that could contain enemy units. I feared that Megalon would have plenty of time to shift his defences to that side of the map if I did. Ofcourse, I didn't know that he didn't put anything there.... Plus, I really would have needed to stick to the roads because of the mudfields in that area. I took two BMP's and one BRDM off road on the left side of the map and one of the three was immobilized in the mud. If there is a world where I would have gone left, it would have been a world with dry ground, I suppose.

yes, I suppose that you could say BMP's have a hard time defeating armor. But I would argue: so does everything that's not armor, in a general sense . Getting around eighteen cannon wielding, ATGM-toting vehicles with every single infantry company is one of the main selling points of the Soviet army for me. Imagine if I had attacked as the US Army and I had lost my tanks like I did in the video... It would have been harder to continue the fight with M113's rather than BMPs I believe, even if the US Army infantry has dragons.

The BMPs have more firepower if you’re going to stay mounted and fast moving, but the BTR company has ATGMs that are the equivalent or better of the Dragon (lighter and they have more AT7s) and access to AT4s, which are almost as capable as TOW and much more mobile. 
H

[Simcoe]

2 hours ago, Halmbarte said:

The BMPs have more firepower if you’re going to stay mounted and fast moving, but the BTR company has ATGMs that are the equivalent or better of the Dragon (lighter and they have more AT7s) and access to AT4s, which are almost as capable as TOW and much more mobile. 
H

I swear AT-4's are the strongest weapon in Soviet arsenal. Absolute wunder weapons.

[Halmbarte]

2 hours ago, Simcoe said:

I swear AT-4's are the strongest weapon in Soviet arsenal. Absolute wunder weapons.

They give up a little range to the TOW but they will kill everything the Americans can bring before the M1 is a thing, they are actually man luggable, and the supporting vehicle has loads of reloads. 

The Sov in '79 are scary. They have good kit and the doctrine to use it well. 

H

[Simcoe]

8 minutes ago, Halmbarte said:

They give up a little range to the TOW but they will kill everything the Americans can bring before the M1 is a thing, they are actually man luggable, and the supporting vehicle has loads of reloads. 

The Sov in '79 are scary. They have good kit and the doctrine to use it well. 

H

For sure. Would be fun to have a '79 soviet campaign to beat up on those yanks for a change!

[Halmbarte]

6 minutes ago, Simcoe said:

For sure. Would be fun to have a '79 soviet campaign to beat up on those yanks for a change!

There already is such a thing in the base game. 

H

[Monty's Mighty Moustache]

Watched it last night while trying to get my boy to sleep, very well done.

As for what you could have done different I think you did the right thing by going right into the open ground where you could mass your firepower but with only one company of T62s you were always going to be at a disadvantage. I would have brought more tanks and cut down on the infantry and kept what infantry I had mounted and moving to overwhelm his positions. More arty and some TRPs would help deny him overwatch positions too, but I realise points are limited (I assume it was a QB?). 

Looking forward to more.

MMM

[Free Whisky]

5 hours ago, Monty's Mighty Moustache said:

Watched it last night while trying to get my boy to sleep, very well done.

As for what you could have done different I think you did the right thing by going right into the open ground where you could mass your firepower but with only one company of T62s you were always going to be at a disadvantage. I would have brought more tanks and cut down on the infantry and kept what infantry I had mounted and moving to overwhelm his positions. More arty and some TRPs would help deny him overwatch positions too, but I realise points are limited (I assume it was a QB?). 

Looking forward to more.

MMM

I agree, in hindsight. Didn't dare to move past the forest where I first disembarked (part of) my infantry because I was afraid I would find one or two M60's shooting my batallion in the back as they passed. But perhaps I should have relied on the artillery more to suppress whatever was there as I moved through. It was a QB and I did bring TRP's, you can see them at some points in the vid. Like on top of the mound, and near the ambush site at the bend in the road. I never go without them

[domfluff]

Great video, thank you man.

I'm really curious why you stopped the advance on the right. Allowing your force to grind to a halt is what cost you here I think - the hills look like the M60 could engage you 2-3 tanks at a time, and that's always a fight they're going to win. Halting then meant the artillery could catch up to you, to seal the deal.

Your comments as to recon - the correct use of recon assets in the Soviet sense is to send a formation (typically a platoon, sometimes a platoon with an attached tank or even two) to roam ahead of the main force.

They're not trying to spot the enemy, strictly - instead they're progressing along the line of advance - the exact same line of advance that the main body is going to follow - with the idea of finding and impacting the line of resistance. They're not trying to get themselves killed - the encounter with the M150 is a good example of the right kind of thing - but the M60 that halted you should have been engaged with a single recon platoon, rather than the main line of your armour. That would have allowed you to work out where that position was, and to pop over the crest with all of your tanks, looking in the right direction.

I did like the "feint" to the left, but flank security is a thing, and having a platoon dedicated to that as well is important. It's hard to see your fireplan explicitly, but it didn't look daft. I do wonder if you could have pre-emptively cut the possible reinforcement lines with some of that though.

 

[danfrodo]

I am wondering if there was an opportunity to use smoke to mask your movements?  or would M60 see through that?  I think that's my biggest failing in offensive battles (which is really saying something considering all the other ways I find to fail) -- not using smoke.  I always instinctively want to destroy the offending tank/gun w arty or regular forces instead of masking, flanking, and then hitting it.

[Free Whisky]

2 hours ago, domfluff said:

I'm really curious why you stopped the advance on the right. Allowing your force to grind to a halt is what cost you here I think - the hills look like the M60 could engage you 2-3 tanks at a time, and that's always a fight they're going to win. Halting then meant the artillery could catch up to you, to seal the deal.

All I knew was that there was 'a' vehicle in the forest and that it could be an M60, that would not have been taken out by the arty. I saw no choice but to clear to forest with infantry before letting my tanks pass by it, exposing their flanks and rear, but figured it was no big deal because it would take three minutes (and it did). That's why I stopped in the first place.

Then, when the 2nd M60 appeared, my tanks were standing still. I figured that this was a good thing because their chance to hit the M60 would increase, opposed to when they would have been on the move. But then, after the 2nd M60 killed two of my T62's, still none of my (by this point remaining 4 or 5) T62's had spotted it yet, while they did have line of sight. What was I going to do? Risk yet another turn of the M60 shooting at my tanks and MAYBE that my tanks would spot it? Nerves got the better of me, I suppose, and I steered them out of harms way. I knew that it wasn't very 'doctrine' but I had fully expected the AT inf to clear the way in a clean, neat way in a matter of minutes.

2 hours ago, domfluff said:

(...) the correct use of recon assets in the Soviet sense is to send a formation (typically a platoon, sometimes a platoon with an attached tank or even two) to roam ahead of the main force.

They're not trying to spot the enemy, strictly - instead they're progressing along the line of advance - the exact same line of advance that the main body is going to follow - with the idea of finding and impacting the line of resistance. They're not trying to get themselves killed - the encounter with the M150 is a good example of the right kind of thing - but the M60 that halted you should have been engaged with a single recon platoon, rather than the main line of your armour. That would have allowed you to work out where that position was, and to pop over the crest with all of your tanks, looking in the right direction.

Thanks, I like that. Sounds like, after a few video's, I could do a "lessons learned" summary with the info from this thread . My main army experience was as a FO attached to a recon platoon of a tank batallion (Netherlands) - so kind of what we're talking about here. But unlike Soviet tactics, all of our SOP's were centered around seeing without beeing seen, so that's what I went with in this battle (even it wasn't really featured in the video). Now that you mention it; I do remember an instructor telling me that the Soviets did (or would do) recon with tanks. Seemed incredibly impractical to me at the time, but since CMCW came out and I became a bit more versed in Soviet doctrine, it makes more sense to me.

2 hours ago, domfluff said:

 It's hard to see your fireplan explicitly, but it didn't look daft. I do wonder if you could have pre-emptively cut the possible reinforcement lines with some of that though.

That's another suggestion that I quite like... I do wonder if it would work in Combat Mission, tough. In real life, it'll be pretty hard to tell someone "see that road with all the arty falling on it? Go through there". But in CM, your troops will do it without question (until hit) and specificly tanks will likely come out unharmed. Moral is a factor in CM, but only as a response to current and immediate threats - not in the sense of fear of what MIGHT happen if I do this or that. The only sense of that is the fear that your opponent might have of sending his pixeltruppen into a situation, and I'm using that word to expres that your opponent might not be as afraid of giving that order as he would in real life . But then, I do enjoy a realistic fire plan in Combat Mission, even if it's more because of the 'authenticity' and realism of a plan than because of the effectiveness in game. In that sense, I'll add it to my lessons learned .

 

31 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

I am wondering if there was an opportunity to use smoke to mask your movements?  or would M60 see through that?

It's a QB so I could not be sure what Megalon brought. If he had brought M60A3's, then he would have had thermal optics and smoke would have been a bad idea for me. He brought M60A1's, but I didn't know that until I made contact. I did consider to smoke some area's, but then, I was shelling every location where the enemy could have been with HE, so why bother also putting down a smoke screen? That was my thinking at the time, anyways.

[The_Capt]

Not going to weigh in here on @Free Whisky's tactics I will leave that to the rest of the group.  I so want to highlight somethings that jumped out at me though as I watched this excellent AAR.

First, CM is really unique, or at least one of very few, in that it is a game about 'managing chaos' or in this case "surviving chaos".  Free Whiskey had a plan going in, it met an opposing plan and not a small amount of just random acts of tactical turbulence in that collision.  

Second, clicks per minute are not going to save you.  In CM, it more likely that "re-thinking per minute" or re-strategizing (e.g. 4 Plans) faster and better than an opponent is going to carry the day.

Points 1 and 2  are in constant dynamic competitive motion, forcing players to constantly make decisions.  These are what makes CM realistic, in many ways beyond its contemporaries; not the vehicles and weapon systems, they are the means to the end.  I play other wargames (I can hear the gasps) and in a lot of RTSs it is about clicks and strategy is very attritional (i.e. how fast can I throw more stuff in that direction).  This is not to say they are not without merit, and they can get the blood pumping but one does not get the same "combat chess on a ship deck, in a storm" feel.

So when I look at what Free Whiskey did right, I see a lot of adaptation of "the plan" and improvisation with limited resources in the face of an opponent under the same conditions.  His ability to re-think and adapt with what he had (e.g. Toothless) is the real stuff and frankly what led him to a solid draw.  "But how could he have won there Capt?".  No idea, in fact in this QB, on that map, maybe there was no way to win.  But I do see those skill sets that need to be nurtured and enhanced that will lead to more wins than losses.  

I also see bottle madness as the red god laughs his ass off, and that is simply outstanding.