Syrian Commando Units

[civdiv]

Sorry if I am regurgetating an old topic, but thus was I have only seen this discussed in the Syrian OOB thread. And there is a good chance the train has left the station on this issue.

But I had seen some mention that Syrian Commando units were not going to initially be included in the Syrian OOB. I think this is a big mistake, and I would argue that the forces a US invader would likely initially face would be primarily commando units. My reading has indicated that the Syrians will initially try to fight as Hezballah did in Lebanon, and use their commando units to conduct anti-armor ambushes against US forces, especially to allow the regular Syrian military time to get mobilized, and allow the identification of the US axis' of advance. I think this can be clearly seen as most of the most advanced AT systems have been issued to the commandos, vice, regular infantry units.

If necessary I can dig up some references. But as I stated, the game design has probably passed the point that this can be reflected, assuming I can prove it.

[C'Rogers]

If necessary I can dig up some references. But as I stated, the game design has probably passed the point that this can be reflected, assuming I can prove it.

I am more interested in were you saw mention that such units weren't neing included as I don't remember anything like that and know that there has been talk of special forces and how irregular forces will function.

[rudel.dietrich]

I hate speaking for BFC and if I am wrong I hope Steve corrects me.

But I believe that SF WILL be in the first release based upon my communications with Steve.

As will, milita units, regular army and guards.

That leaves out airborne units and Hezbollah units to be included later.

As for their use. I think you have it mostly correct.

I have read that they would be broken down into company/platoon size and inserted around the country among regular army units to assist them and give them a 'morale' boost.

I am of the opinion that the regular Syrian army would stick around and fight against the US.

It has training and planning to fight without being connected to a higher HQ.

And the US would be sure to sever communications like it always does.

The initial war would be bloody for both sides and then the occupation would be a bloodbath.

[civdiv]

If I was wrong about the lack of Commando units in the initial release, forgive me for starting the rumors.

And one thing I forgot to add was that in fighting like Hezballah did in Lebanon, I don't mean the Syrian Commandos would be anywhere near as competent as Hezballah, they would just do their best to emulate them.

Another factor that affects the Syrian military is the fact that the leadership is all Alawite, while the rank and file is mostly Sunni. Many Sunnis don't believe the Alawites are even Muslim. This is bound to cause a lot of friction in the event of hostilities between the US and Syria.

[civdiv]

In going back over that enormous thread on the Syrian OOB, I am mistaken. Syrian Special forces will be limited to smaller, company sized units, but they will be in there in the initial release. Airborne will not appear until a subsequent module. Obivously not all of the roles of Special Forces can be simulated in a game like CMSF, but obviously their ability to use small teams to ambush armor with advanced AT systems can be.

I'm also interested in how you are going to model advanced IEDs like EFPs- Explosively Formed Penetrators. Hezballah is the master at these things, so some will no doubt be in the Syrian T/O.

[civdiv]

Oh, and before I depart for my XMas party, here's something sort of related;

http://www.globaldefenceforum.com/archive/index.php/t-398.html

[Battlefront.com]

Glad that all got straightened out

Yes, Syrian Special Forces are in for the initial release, Airborne is not. The latter is more or less a conventional, well armed and well trained division. Special Forces are much larger and broken up into many smaller units as well as larger ones. We expect that the Airborne would actually fight as a large unit while Special Forces would be sprinkled around.

Airborne will come into play with the first Module.

Steve

[civdiv]

Here is an interesting article on possible Syrian

tactics;

The Jerusalem Post Internet Edition

Syria building 'death trap' villages

Yaakov Katz, THE JERUSALEM POST Dec. 21, 2006

Warning that Israel may face a "Syrian intifada," a high-ranking officer in Northern Command has told The Jerusalem Post that villages recently built by Syria along the border are planned to be used as "death traps" for IDF troops in Hizbullah-inspired attacks.

Since this summer's war in Lebanon, Syria, the officer revealed, has invested large amounts of money in replicating Hizbullah military tactics, particularly in establishing additional commando units and fortifying its short- and long-range missile array.

The idea is to draw Israel into an asymmetric war, the officer said, like the warfare the IDF encounters in combat against the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as well as against Hizbullah in Lebanon.

Over the past two years, Syria has built a number of villages along the border with Israel, some inhabited and some not. At first, the IDF was not sure of their purpose. But now, following the war, the officer said, it was understood.

"Syria drew motivation from Hizbullah's surprise success this summer," the high-ranking officer said. "They now want to copy that type of guerrilla warfare."

While for years it was assumed that Israel had a major edge against Syria's military with regard to a conventional war - tank versus tank, jet versus jet - in an urban setting, the Syrian military would be able, the officer said, to wreak havoc against IDF infantry and armored units like Hizbullah did.

According to the officer, Syria has drawn three major lessons from the war and has begun to implement them. The first is that rockets - 4,000 struck northern Israel during the 33-days of fighting - can paralyze the home front. The second is that antitank missiles can penetrate the Merkava tank and force infantry units to abandon armored personnel carriers and trek into enemy territory by foot. And the third is that in villages and cities the Israeli Air Force's abilities are limited and IDF ground forces can be defeated.

During the war, the IDF fell into several deadly ambushes in southern Lebanese villages; one in Bint Jbail killed eight soldiers from Battalion 51 of the Golani Brigade.

The Syrian military, the officer said, was conducting urban warfare exercises in preparation for the possibility of a war with Israel. The IDF has also dramatically increased its training regiments and has, at all times, between two-to-three brigades training in the Golan Heights.

Lacking clear intelligence regarding Syrian intelligence, the officer said that the Northern Command's "working assumption" was that there was a possibility of war and there was a need to prepare accordingly.

While defense officials have crisscrossed in recent weeks concerning the sincerity of Syrian President Bashar Assad's offer of peace, the top officer said that, according to "all the signs," Syria was preparing for war with Israel. The Syrian military has beefed-up forces along the Golan Heights and Israel has done the same. In the Hermon, for instance, the IDF has doubled the number of troops.

"The feeling is unfortunately that another round is needed before we will be able to engage in a dialogue or peace talks with Syria," the officer said. "It is like with the Egyptians. The war in 1973 was what made it partially possible for [Egyptian president Anwar] Sadat to come to Israel."

Syria, the officer said, has since the war ended, transferred truckloads of weapons and missiles to Hizbullah. Due to the convoys, Hizbullah, he said, was almost back at its full strength where it was before the war with Israel.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1164881949707&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

[Battlefront.com]

Interesting report! I've seen similar reports mentioning that Syrian forces have been quite active in the construction of defenses. This not only includes the Golan but also the shifting of hundreds of tanks over to the border with Iraq for static emplacement. Somewhere on this Forum is probably a post from me a year or two ago predicting this very thing In fact, one of the early battles in the campaign will have dug in tanks.

The lessons drawn from Israel's attack into Lebanon are spot on. There are some other ones too, such as Israel's inability to effectively penetrate the bunker/tunnel system and lack of substantial reduction of the ability to launch rockets into Israel itself.

Other sources, including Hezbollah itself, have stated that they recovered to pre-June levels of weapons and equipment some months ago. They are probably stronger now than they were before the offensive.

No matter how people try to spin the attack into Lebanon as a success for Israel I just don't see it.

Steve

[Pete Wenman]

From CivDiv

During the war, the IDF fell into several deadly ambushes in southern Lebanese villages; one in Bint Jbail killed eight soldiers from Battalion 51 of the Golani Brigade.

I suspect that this quote is the key to the

Victory conditions from a Syrian point of view.

Interesting how in 2006 the death of eight soldiers is a "deadly ambush" while in WWII

it probably wouldn't have warrented a mention.

Pete

[Battlefront.com]

Peter,

I suspect that this quote is the key to the

Victory conditions from a Syrian point of view.

Yup. From a pure "who lost more stuff" point of view the IDF trounced Hezbollah. But I think it is fair to say that they lost the battle (I don't think "war" is a good term for what happened).

Steve

[Ivan Drago]

Im sure this was brought up before, but since Steve is checking this thread and the topic is on Israel...

Steve, does Battlefront have any interest in modeling the Israeli-Arab wars in the future?

Or does the topic bring about as much enthusiasm as NATO vs. Warsaw Pact?

I think somebody asked this before, but I couldn't find the answer.

Thx in advance!

[Battlefront.com]

Ivan,

We've talked about it before. I think an IDF vs. Syria/Arab Alliance (or whatever) type game set in the near future would sell better than a NATO vs. Warsaw Pact game or a previous Arab/Israeli conflict. However, I don't think it would sell all that well for the effort it would take. However, if the IDF wishes to pay us to make such a game, heck... why not?

Steve

[MikeyD]

Do you think the IDF would really want to see people faithfully recreating and replaying the last Lebanon conflict on their home computers? It was painful enough the first time around!

A title backdated to '68/'72 might be more palatable. '72 was such a closely-fought thing that recreating those battles should be less humiliating to see for potential arab customers. Plus it would give the Cold War grogs much of the armor and aircraft they're clamouring for.

No, I'm not expecting or requesting such a title - at least not until Space Lobsters has been released!

[Battlefront.com]

If the IDF really wants to figure out how not to repeat this past summer's experience, they're going to need to "wargame" possible alternatives. The cheapest, easiest way to do this is on computers. So if the IDF wants something from us, it won't be something from their glorious past. Anything short of that is a waste of their Sheckles and time.

Steve

[FAI]

Say, Steve, do you have any estimate of foreign intelligence services browsing and lurking in this forum?

[Battlefront.com]

No idea. However, I do get surprise contacts every so often, which means there are probably quite a few people waiting for CM:SF to come out that aren't wargamers

Steve

[Ivan Drago]

Thanks for the reply, Steve!

I was honestly more interested in what MikeyD went on about, that is the war of 1972. The future of combat there, at least to me, was summed up in the Hezbolah guerrilla tactics we've all seen on CNN a few months ago, and it wasn't exactly as interesting as previous wars.

I like what you say about military contracts though - I'll see if the Russian military wants to model what would happen if China decided to claim Siberia as it's new oil field

Thinking about it, that would actually be an awesome game (but since Americans probably can't find China on a map, it wouldn't sell).

[John Kettler]

Ivan Drago,

There was a technothriller on this theme some years

ago, Clancy's? DRAGON VS. THE BEAR or somesuch, which not only had the two giant players, but the U.S. as well as the high tech QRF assisting Russia.

What was cool was that not only was the expected armored clash depicted, but Chinese tactics to defeat the Russian fortified zone, American attacks on CPs and TOCs, even the TVD oil reserves. I think the game would be doubly interesting to me since the Chinese have so much unusual looking equipment, some of which looks more SF than traditional. Maybe I'd finally learn to ID it! Goodness knows, there wasn't much to do

on that score back when I was a threat analyst, there being only a few Chinese AFV types then. How times have changed!

As for American pathetic geographic skills, I'd laugh had tests not shown half of high schoolers couldn't ID the Pacific Ocean on an outline map!

Regards,

John Kettler

[flammenwerfer]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

... I do get surprise contacts every so often, which means there are probably quite a few people waiting for CM:SF to come out that aren't wargamers

Steve

Courtney Love?

[hellfish]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

Ivan Drago,

There was a technothriller on this theme some years

ago, Clancy's? DRAGON VS. THE BEAR or somesuch, which not only had the two giant players, but the U.S. as well as the high tech QRF assisting Russia.

God that was a terrible book.

[Moronic Max]

Indeed. Either Clancy's gotten much worse, or my taste has much improved.