AT-14 ATGM Avoidance Training Range

[snake_eye]

The battle of "A Crossroad to el derjine" showed that a bad deployment of M1 tanks and AAV tracks on flat expense of desertic ground offering little if none concealment, where doom to failure against well planned ATGM fire plan and that as long as these were not suppressed and or annihilated by air asset, artillery, mortars or masked by smoke.

Unfortunately, you don't have all of these available and if you have them, you tend to set aside the basic rules to apply in such threat environment. Since an AT-14 first shot is usually a kill one, it is better to learn how to manage the ATGM SITUATION AWARENESS.

That what "A AT-14 AVOIDANCE RANGE is meant for (on the depository CMSF Marines). Just to make you move M1's tanks in a company size, in platoon size or individually from a parking lot to the 1st berm of the range, the 2nd and finally if you went it to the 3rd.

You will be able to practise hull down or partial hull down from behind a sand berm. You will notice the earth splashing your track with a near miss, before reversing and so on......

That won't be enough, you will have to destroy 3 BMP's and beware, eventually of their sagger missile, and 6 T-90's tanks coming in two separete waves.

You will know the time and the axis of their attacks. But you will have to crest the berm to be able to see them coming and the ATGM are just waiting for that moment.

You will be able to deploy a platoon of Humvees -Tows and use them more and more, just to learn the right way to use them.

I have before, rarely destroyed a tank with them and that despite the numerous battles fought in CMSF and in the Marines Module. They were, most of the time, instantly picked and destroyed while attempting to fire.

Well, I have been so surprised to score on BMP's as well as on the T-90's, to have a snapshot recorded.

There are, no air asset, no artillery and or mortars, no Javelins or bazookas of some sort. You don't have troops either , besides the Humvees and tanks crews.

You have the crews with their dotation rifles, the Tows, the tanks MG, shells (HE and Heat) and their smoke canisters.

Believe me you will be surprise to get all of your 14 tanks to the 3rd berm unscathed, think that you are the king of the road and get 4 or 5 of them destroyed in the following minutes. You might even destroy all of the enemy "simulated" tracks and tanks , but at what price.

The motto : "Kill them and stay alive" that way you will be able to kill more of them and reduce the taxpayer bill . A tank, cost a lot and more, the crews are priceless for their relatives.

"War is not a game, just a deadly game"

Feel free to let me know of your comments as indicated in the briefing.

That scenario has ben made having in mind the memory of a close relative "PARKER" French Commando de l'Air , fallen in Afghanistan in a joint French and US Special Forces Covert Operation, when an IED blew its 4X4 and its closest friend. RIP

[Pandur]

hm, i found ATGM´s in the game are no "big" threat. if youre hull down they fire 9 out of 10 shots into the dirt befor you(mostly they have only 5 or so rockets, means they never hit you mostly). thats due to the flight path they will take(note,the javelin doesnt count in there becouse of top attack). it flatens out in the end much too early and the crew wants to hit the vehicle center it seems, so the crew is unable to hit a vehicle center in hull down pos so it wont hit at all.

if you got a vehicle with ATGM´s youre better off "area fireing" the ATGM´s out the tube becouse they are a hinderance to the vehicles performace "mostly".

ofcourse ATGM´s can do some bad things to vehicles in a plain flat area, but well how often you get such a nice shot!? not often.

[hcrof]

hm, i found ATGM´s in the game are no "big" threat.

Just one question, do you usually play single player?

When playing as the Syrians I usually decide that I will never penetrate the front turret anyway and hold fire.

Everyone moves the tank eventually and then you can give it a nasty surprise!

Apart from anything else ATGM's (In my experience) are useful just because their presence severely restricts what your opponant can do and gives you room for maneuver.

An AT-14 in a concealed, elevated position with a route of egress is a devistating weapon if used carefully

[snake_eye]

hm, i found ATGM´s in the game are no "big" threat. if youre hull down they fire 9 out of 10 shots into the dirt befor you(mostly they have only 5 or so rockets, means they never hit you mostly).

Hi, are you talking about ATGM generally used in CMSF or of the AT-14 in the scenario "A AT-14 Avoidance Range", because pretty well aware of what is about to happen since I did it, I can assure you to get surprise more than once. A shot might hit slightly offset from an M1 being partially hull down, then the second or the third will get it. I don't tell you what AT-14 do when the M1 is atop the berm a bit too long, since the answer is known "it's a killmost of the time.

However you are right for ATGM when used in no appropriate ground and badly sighted.

[stoex]

ATGM effectiveness also depends greatly on the type of ATGM used and the experience of the team. Saggers with green crews will never, ever hit anything, while a Kornet with a team of regular experience will usually achieve a pretty good hit rate on static and slow-moving targets in my experience (maybe 2-3 hits out of 5 shots).

Pandur, ever played the Hasrabit campaign, first mission? I played it three times and had a grand total of 3 misses out of about 45 missiles fired.

[Pandur]

talking about...generally used in CMSF or of the AT-14 in the scenario...

talking about all of them. the AT-14 is special, it poses a threat somewhat but i found the biggest "scareing" potential they have after fireing "one" rocket, probably not beeing spotted than. so the opponen knows there is it but not where. if he gets where it is its pretty simple to take out for a blue player(arty in 2min, 40mm area fire, 105/120mm area fire...).

Just one question, do you usually play single player?

When playing as the Syrians I usually decide that I will never penetrate the front turret anyway and hold fire.

Everyone moves the tank eventually and then you can give it a nasty surprise!

mostly, yes, in armor attacks(single) you can exploit this to the fullest for example(playing as blue).

but i also played with a friend the 1.11 demo battle "going to town", i had two AT14´s there. unfortunately in realtime becouse i tried PBEM, but i cant bother with this (sorry)crap. i and my friend needed 4 or more file transfers befor the game even started. we wanted to recreate TCPip wego with it, but no joy its verry boring that way.

however i blew up 9 strykers with 10 missiles from the both AT14´s but that was due to idiotic movement of my opponent, max 300m distance and never anything like a hull down position.

when i played blue than, i killed his AT-14´s with my infantry, they didnt fire a single rocket.

in WEGO, ATGM´s are even more pain for me becouse of the missing cover armor arc. you can "unmask"(seen from blue perspective) a ATGM by running a worthless halfsquad into it. and if the ATGM sees them it will mostly shoot.

and also, yes, i played first hasrabit mission, i was angered by them shooting away on thin skined BTR´s as there is no cover armor arc. so i had a few tanks left after they ran out of rockets. that wasnt all to nice.

what ever, all that isnt so bad by itself but in combination with the nearly unhitable vehicles, if their parked in hull down pos, tips it off for me.

to illustrate what i mean i made a verry hasty, unskilled, shematic and primitive attempt to do a paint picture wich shows what i mean. here it is, have your fun but still it shows what i mean

"red line" is the ATGM flight path

"yellow X" is where the missile will detonate generally.

[snake_eye]

PANDUR and STOEX

Your drawing shows a ballistic flight of a missile having not reach its top speed making it follow the wind turbulence and heat bubble found in desertic and or long strecht of sand landscape. The missile has a tendency to bobble up and down and right to left following the attempt to correct the flight path by the crew. If it is unguided like RPG the kill probability is hopefully low. For AT-3,AT-4 and the ultimate AT-14 that is all different, since the missile picks up speed more quickly and goes faster.

In my scenario A AT-14 Avoidance Range that you can download from the Marines Repository and play Blue only againts the Red A.I having CSMF & Marines modules with V 1.11, you will find out with some tries, that the AT-14 makes pretty good kills.

Just before posting the mail , I tested it again and from 2 M1 tanks separated waves of 4 each, with smoke screen used from their canisters the result was the following a track from the firstwave immobilized just cresting the 1st Berm and two of the second wave destroyed almost simultanously just doing the same at a different spot.

3 tanks out of the game from the initial 8. No missiles missed that time.

You can if you like change the AT-14, in the editor, for another ATGM and see what it does. Let me know.

[hcrof]

Pandur

I am sure you are right about the missile hitting the berm. But even if it hit the tank (M1A1) it has a very low chance of killing it.

If you don't want the tank there, then you don't have many choices, maybe you could use artillery (Preplanned) to persuade it to move on.

I never use target arcs with ATGM's. I use a spotter to watch the target and then only unhide the ATGM at the last moment. This is easier of course in WeGo as you can micromanage! After the ATGM has taken its shot you have about 45-60s to move it before your opponant will fire HE back at it so you need to move straight away.

A typical turn would look like this: (Not for an AT-3, they shoot too slowly)

TURN STARTS

0s Unhide + Fire command/Target arc

20-30s Fast Move away from area

40-50s Team starts to move

TURN ENDS

The HE rounds will come in the first 10s of the next turn and will continue for the next 1-2 mins

This works most of the time and means your opponant will quickly lose vehicles for the loss of no ATGM teams

Make sur your ATGM's are given a 'face' command the turn before otherwise they won't get their shot off in time!

I would be interested in hearing what other people have to say about this but it seems to work for me

[stoex]

Pandur, I can understand that Hasrabit 1 would feel a lot different in WeGo - in RT of course I was able to perfectly coordinate my ATGMs. There are however about as many missiles at your disposal as there are enemy vehicles, so if you manage to maximise LOS for your launchers in the setup phase you should be able to get a pretty good result in WeGo as well. Plus you have a lot of other VERY useful AT assets in that mission. I found it a cakewalk every time, actually.

[stoex]

hcrof,

I find that well-placed ATGM teams don't usually need to be moved after every shot, but it's an interesting idea that I will try (depending on the situation).

What I really don't understand is how you can find micromanagement easier in WeGo???? In RT I can coordinate every action of the ATGM team (and their spotter, if applicable) to the second and don't have to guess how long something will take...good organization in RT means that no unit ever wastes a second on the battlefield. I must admit that my RT battles take between 2 to 5 times as long as the net time to play out when I really get going with my micromanagement .

I do, however, agree in that I never give target arcs to ATGMs either. I want full control as to when they shoot at what.

[hcrof]

Well I almost always play WeGo PBEM so I find it easier! I tend to lose patience when playing a battle all in one go so my micromanagement starts to suffer

Of course there are many times a well place ATGM doesn't have to be move but really good positions are rare. Against a human player who will replay the last turn a couple of times and spot the smoke cloud it is often better to be safe than sorry. He will often have something in overwatch that I havn't seen yet!

I use my ATGM's as my primary tank killers and I never have enough so I am very cautious with them