New module - Combat Mission:Afghanistan?!

[Clavicula_Nox]

I'm not necessarily talking solely about holding up a raid but an enhancing the general simulation of minefields, which the Soviets/DRA seemed to use quite liberally to prevent the Muj from having full freedom of movement around an OP/base.

Also, in case anyone wants to read them PDF files of The Bear Went Over the Mountain, The Other Side of the Mountain, and The Soviet-Afghan War: how a superpower fought and lost are contained here: http://easterncampaign.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/a-book-that-will-be-good/

Thanks for that. I'm reading The Bear Went Over the Mountain now, and I'm amazed at how many casualtiesthe Soviets actually took. Insane!

[hcrof]

John - I have fought a couple of battles using real world soviet doctrine and it works well. However, they were fought under the assumption that the higher ups had done their jobs right so I had a large overmatch in terms of forces (About 2-1). I suspect that against a human player with similar combat power they would not go so well!

The way I did it was by giving all my orders at the start of the battle and once I pressed play, I was only allowed to keep my vehicles in formation, issue targetting information and use artillery. No last minute changes in plans! Formations of course were key as the Soviets placed a lot of emphasis on them.

As an example, I attacked a dug in and reinforced infantry company (Regulars) with a Mech company supported by a tank platoon and howitzer battery. I took 1 vehicle loss and less than 10 casualties using the above restrictions. I didn't even have to dismount my infantry!

My only regret is that we can't use bigger maps and so do it properly. I want to give my orders to a few battalions and watch the sparks fly!

[John Kettler]

hcrof,

Would love to have seen those battles!

Russian doctrine aims for more like 6-1 at the point of decision. That's their idea of a "positive correlation of forces" as they formally express such matters, and by formally, I mean there's an actual math equation. I've seen it. As for how they fight, there are procedures and norms for everything, as seen in stuff I helped work up for Assault Breaker during my Hughes days. At distance X from the line of battle, all hatches are to be closed and combat locked, for instance. At distance Y, it's time to deploy the Tank Company into platoon columns, and so forth. Generally, communication is top down, with radio silence mandatory by subordinates except to report critical targets, and prior to entering the battlefield, all communication is done with signal flags, this to prevent DFing the force in transit. Within larger formations, messages are delivered by motorcycles, light vehicles, even dropped by helicopter.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Vark]

I liked the tables for the artillery, with type number of guns and target type and then a list of times needed for each combination to suppress, neutralise and eliminate a target (not sure on the terms they used but it meant the same). I always thought the Russians God of war was not their artillery but their maths tables. As for combat loads my meagre resources say 120 rds for the AK (makes sense as in the eighties they were fielding the three mag rig) and 1000 rnds shared between the PK's, not sure what the RPK loadout was. I guess there was more for both in the BMP.

[hcrof]

I get the feeling that your average BMP is stuffed to the gills with ammo and rockets of all sorts which the squad has managed scrounge. Even if it doesn't fit inside, there are many pictures of BMPs with boxes lashed to the outside of the vehicle.

While this may not be parade ground practise it seems very common in combat zones.

[John Kettler]

Vark,

I stand corrected: one in the weapon and three extra 30-round magazines. Still, not much! If you don't have Isby's book, I highly recommend you get it. Very meaty! Have long wanted Bellamy's The Red God of War, but the price was insane. The MTLB is positively capacious compared to a BMP, and you wouldn't like it in there, much less with a full squad in combat gear or, worse, "slime suits." Bottom line? Precious little interior room in a BMP-1. Remember, it's already carrying 40 rounds for the 73 mm and 4 x SAGGER or later ATGM, plus 2000 rounds for the coax PKT, plus 2 x AKM (driver and commander), plus 10 x F-1 grenades.

http://books.google.com/books?id=6c1be4CjONoC&pg=PA28&lpg=PA28&dq=bmp+ammo+stowage&source=bl&ots=BWgLmbKszl&sig=AZsFh_Nv0OeE9wOK4TfpQ720ZWY&hl=en&ei=cONQS5X2E4biswPDz8HmBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CA0Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=bmp%20ammo%20stowage&f=false.

hcrof,

Given what I told Vark, I'd have stuff on the outside, too. We need some crew accounts from Afghanistan.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Vark]

John, I was astonished at the wealth of detail in Bellamy's book, given I got my hands on a library loaned copy in the eighties. Ah, Isby's book, I used to go into the specialist bookshop and pore through it's pages, but never bought it, might rethink now. All this talk about MMR's and BMP's has got me to dust off my collection of articles and collected notes about CRP's FSE's and and Mainforce Advance Guard units.

I really wish BF would produce a Cold War module! Just to see a MRR deploy and begin to eat into the forward units or MLR of a BOAR force, complete with airborne blocking units would be worth quite a steep price. I tried SPMBT but after the initial excitement of all the units (the TO&E's are exceptional) the same old SP problems arose, especially the lack of any command simulation, apart from an effect on morale, so it got binned.

The stowage is probably needed to collect the money when they sell their opponents all their best gear, either that or the monthly gold run to buy off the competing tribes!

[John Kettler]

Vark,

The AKM and grenades came from one of those weird links with useful indexed info yet nothing on the page when you get there, but it fits, for the two named individuals are there to fight the BMP when the squad dismounts. Another good Isby book, of the period and with specific Afghanistan coverage, is Ten Million Bayonets, which looks at the Red army from the perspective of a number of different combat units.

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

Vark,

Correction! BMP commander is the SL when dismounted; gunner stays with the vehicle. See if you can find FM 100-2-1 through FM 100-2-3, The Soviet Army. Right down your alley, with lots of wiring diagrams, TO&E, etc. Suvorov's books show plenty of the Red Army's dysfunctional side, but a really bleak look is Cockburn's The Threat: Inside the Soviet Military Machine. His interviews make intriguing but not necessarily balanced reading.

Almost forgot! Is BOAR supposed to be BAOR? If so, I grok. If not, please explain. How about LMSDs, RODs and OMGs? Oh my! Many years ago, I was all excited to get AH's new MBT, only to give it to my nephews in sheer despair when I found I couldn't pierce a vanilla 105 mm M1 frontally with a T-80 while sitting in the hex directly in front! Call the disconnect between American uberness in the game and our real world dire armor-antiarmor straits at the time stupendous, and we now know that DU was in Russian service as of 1985. Eek!

Regards,

John Kettler

[Vark]

Stop it John! I'm a getting sentimental now, remembering my mispent youth. Ten million bayonets, sigh, it's all flooding back, I particularly liked the description of the M1-24's IR jammer, a blowtorch encased in a roughly cast ceramic turret! Come on BF, a Cold War module, I want Polish Marines battling Jaegers, I want Czech paras fighting Danish Leopards, I want T-64's and BTR 70's fighting meeting engagements against M60A3's and M-113's.

Surely the market has to be there? Look at the demographic, all us old 40 somethings, many ex-wargamers, getting the chance to refight these battles without having to wade through yet another table in our Combat Commander rule book!

[Vark]

Duh, BAOR, not BOAR, I had visions of Chieftains in Stillbrew armour battling in Berlin, not viscious brisly creatures. I'd been watching a stupid clip of a boar hunting a hunter and got confused.

MBT, hahahahahahah!!! Thanks, needed a good laugh before bed.

[MikeyD]

Reading over the posts I imagine - based on nothing really - that when this title finally comes out a lot of grogs will be complaining bitterly that it doesn't play like a Soviet army sim! And that most of the cause for complaint will be our own darned fault. I do not know how well I'd be able to issue orders according Soviet warfighting doctrine. Heck, I'm not all that good at simulating American doctrine in CMSF! My guess is a good deal of CM:Afghanistan is going to depend on the player to make it 'historical'. That might even turn it into something of a 'cult classic', loved by players who have been able to play the game the way it ought to be played.

[John Kettler]

Vark,

They stole our design, so much so we kept the same name for the system when we code named theirs.

http://books.google.com/books?id=_5mRFj5bWhEC&pg=PA24&lpg=PA24&dq=hot+brick+jammer,+alq-144&source=bl&ots=uwAyXP572m&sig=z5yV-YQ_YQZ_pibOM0IMj1i5gzk&hl=en&ei=7B1RS-7JLoiYsgOwz5yFCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CA4Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=hot%20brick%20jammer%2C%20alq-144&f=false

We fielded ours on helicopters in the late 1970s, and it looks like this. Later, it went on light fixed wing aircraft.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ALQ-144_IRCM.jpg

Rather pretty, in a techno geek way!

A Cold War module would be exciting--in a terrifying to be the Americans sort of way. You've read my exegeses, so I need not elaborate.

MikeyD,

I think that this requires something akin to a cross between CMSF and the SOPs in TacOps. I'd really like to see standard formations ordered by a menu or similar. would save a lot of work. But there'd need to be some sort of logic for tanks to run like water through the low ground when required. Suvorov speaks of being relentlessly drilled on this very issue. What's unclear is how to integrate two seemingly opposite tactical states. Maybe they flow through the approach, then shake out for the assault? I do know that the U.S. trained its forces to exploit the canned tactical formations, notably by killing the command tanks. Shades of the Germans at GOODWOOD!

Regards,

John Kettler

[jjhouston]

Two Unclassified Cold War era DIA titles for BFC to track down and read:

The Soviet Tank Company(U)

The Soviet Motor Rifle Company(U)

I haven't found either yet at an online dealer, but they should be in any number of military installation libraries. Have my own personal copies from my military aerospace days.

Scanned and uploaded at the Steelbeasts.com library. http://www.steelbeasts.com/Downloads/p13_sectionid/19

DIA Soviet Tank Battalion Tactics

http://www.steelbeasts.com/Downloads/p13_sectionid/19/p13_fileid/1786

DIA Soviet Tank Company Tactics

http://www.steelbeasts.com/Downloads/p13_sectionid/19/p13_fileid/1785

DIA The Soviet Motorized Rifle Battalion

http://www.steelbeasts.com/Downloads/p13_sectionid/19/p13_fileid/1788

DIA The Soviet Motorized Rifle Company

http://www.steelbeasts.com/Downloads/p13_sectionid/19/p13_fileid/1787

[John Kettler]

jjhouston,

Fantastic! I see I got pretty close on the titles, which isn't bad considering I last saw them in 1989, likely while packing to leave Rockwell. Used to have the 1980? one on the Soviet Airborne Company (BMD), which even had the then new to us Grad-V, but that one I had to leave behind. The links you posted are to very good studies, with a wealth of information in them. At worst, they ought to be good for the initial part of the Afghanistan War.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Vark]

John, can't remember where I read it (Red Thrust Star/Military Review perhaps) but the 'kill all the command tanks and we will be ok strategy', was shown to be based on a Western premise that it would seriously dislocate an attack. The writer said it was a classic piece of projection, if our command units are knocked out it cause serious problems as emergency command handover procedures take longer than textbook studies. Red Thrust had a great piece about a Blufor combat team shot apart because the change over took so long, and said it was all too typical.

Conversely, the highly coreographed and centralised Warpac were less like to suffer disruption, simply because they they were coreographed and centralised. The article conceeded that the loss of command elements would cause problems, especially in follow on operations and allocation and direction of fires, but critically momentum would not be so badly affected as hoped or expected. This last point was the reason for the article, the author's conclusion stated that any advantage gained from this specific targeting could be reduced by the realisation and attendent shock that the effects were not as drastic as expected. It was fascinating reading, because this fixation on eliminating command elements led to bizzare studies such as the studying of the Russian langage to see if commands changed the inflection of words and if so could weapons home in on these.

Assault, by GDW, had a clever way to show the different command strategies, NATO units had far more flexibility at a platoon/company level but could not transfer these command points to future turns. Warpac units were dead losses at platoon level but their command points could be built up over the turns. In practice NATO could shoot apart a Warpac attack if it was conducted like a Western attack, if the Russian player waited and stocked up his points, a battalion could sweep across the board with devastating results. Not perfect, but a clever way of showing the different command concepts and strengths/weaknesses of the forces wielded.

Again, SP III with it objective flags and renewable command points did a better job than CM's command delays, which punished the Soviet platoons far too harshly and did not focus on the real problem guys, the Company commanders. Reading accounts from Afghanistan and the GPW, one sees quite remarkable levels of low level unit initiative achieving success, only for the dead hand of the Company commander to sweep away the advantage, usually with heavy losses.

jjHouston you can dowload FM 100-2-1 from here

http://cgsc.leavenworth.army.mil/carl/docrepository/FM100_2_1.pdf

It can be a shaky link but worth it.

[hcrof]

Wow, thanks for the links guys. I look forward to reading through all this material!

I desperately want a cold war game from Battlefront, I tried WinSpMBT but I just couldnt fight my way through the user interface. I had no idea where all the hills where, the screen was too small and when controlling that many units you need to have a really streamlined interface!

BFC - Vark was right, look at the demographic! Your audience are all cold warriors itching for a chance to see 'what if'? The success of World in conflict shows there is an interest amongst younger players too and the battles would be even more balenced than WW2! Sounds like the perfect war game to me

[Sergei]

I desperately want a cold war game from Battlefront, I tried WinSpMBT but I just couldnt fight my way through the user interface. I had no idea where all the hills where, the screen was too small and when controlling that many units you need to have a really streamlined interface!

Three dimensional graphics suit very well for tactical wargames, especially when modern tanks and ATGM's are involved. In a top-down view it is difficult to achieve a zoom level where you can both see a unit and every place within its LOF and have a clear enough view of the closeby terrain to maneuver. This is not such a problem with musket era wargames, but in modern warfare engagement ranges may exceed that over 50 times. And it is even harder to visualize a large map with undulating terrain that way. In board games this is easier because you're not constricted to a single view angle (top-down), and in a 3D game you can just place yourself behind your tank and you can easily see what it can see, and the surrounding terrain is clearly visible. Well, in theory - have a large urban scenario and it all becomes more complicated...

[Vark]

Regarding WinSpMBT, I had no problem with the interface (SP addict) and as for elevations there is quite a neat 'what I can see feature' which shows all visible hexes, in normal colour, and all blocked hexes greyed out. Again the targeting button allows long range targets to be selected, but the tiny screen is a pain, on monster maps. The map editor was my favourite, I'd spend hours creating little fragments of the globe (once did a whole Goose Gree map to replace the awful SP II one and the not so brilliant WinSp one). The TO&E's, regularly updated, are fantastic resources in their own right and the models of units are colourful, although the infantry are pretty spartan.

Why did it get banished twice from my hard drive then? The problem with SP was never with the graphics or the options available, it was the actual game engine, which now, in comparison to BF's offerings is Neolithic.

My top peeves

Opportunity five V's movement.

Example one

If you look at the text when you click on a unit you see for each hex it travels its speed increases, but opportunity fire occurs when ever a unit has a chance to fire. You get the ridiculous situation where a unit travelling at 50mph (BTRD-2) breaks cover for 50m and gets engaged by an ATGW from 2000m, before the BTRD can get into cover again it is KO'd. In reality it would offer such a fleeting target by the time the crew aquired it, it would be gone.

Example 2

Because each unit is moved individually yet op fire is for all units in range, another silly situation occurs where numbers mean little. A battalion of T-64's crests a ridge and engages a tank company from the flank, quickly overwhelming it? Er no, each tank crests the ridge and is engaged by each tank, until it is destroyed or survives the gauntlet of fire. This process is repeated until most of your force is in tatters, and heaven help it if it has the temerity to fire back then the whole process is repeated. Soviet deployment from column to line is suicidal as a result. Infantry suffer from this as well especially crossing open ground or roads.

No effective Command and control

Because the WinSp engine is a modified SP II engine it has no real C2 function and therefore dislocation of forces by rapid, aggressive manoeuvre and getting into your opponents OODA loop is a non starter. Any attempt to turn flanks lead to minimal benefit as an enemy reserve can instantly react and poor quality troops are far too flexible.

Infantry firepower model

When a Navy Seal unit in cover, fires at a Hezbollah militia unit 200 metres away and suffers 2 casualties in the return fire, you know something is wrong. When an elite USMC sniper team approaches a house, from a jungle, is instantly spotted and destroyed, you know something is wrong. Ridiculous ammo loadouts remove any sense of fire discipline allowing 20 minutes of sustained firing. SPWaW is even worse, with infantry sections regularly being slaughtered at 400+ metres.

So, in the end, after the initial excitement, battles became repetitive slogging matches or bloody slaughters, shame.

[jjhouston]

[Y]ou can dowload FM 100-2-1 from here

http://cgsc.leavenworth.army.mil/carl/docrepository/FM100_2_1.pdf

It can be a shaky link but worth it.

Here's a stable link for it:

http://www.steelbeasts.com/Downloads/p13_sectionid/250/p13_fileid/1747

[jjhouston]

BTW, if you've a more than passing interest in the subject, I'd recommend:

Tactics by Reznichenko

amazon link

Basic Principles of Operational Art and Tactics by Savkin

amazon link

Soviet Military Strategy by Sokolovsky

amazon link

Manoeuvre in Modern Land Warfare by Novikov and Sverdlov

amazon link

Of course Glantz is excellent as well. For example highly relevant to a discussion of Soviet operational art would be,

Soviet Military Operational Art: In Pursuit of Deep Battle link and The Soviet Conduct of Tactical Maneuver: Spearhead of the Offensive link

[Vark]

At this rate I'm going to have to phone in sick for a week just to look at all these links! With the Steelbeasts site ,jjhouston, don't you have to be a member to download?

[jjhouston]

At this rate I'm going to have to phone in sick for a week just to look at all these links! With the Steelbeasts site ,jjhouston, don't you have to be a member to download?

No. You needn't log in nor register in order to download files from the library.

[MikeyD]

All those links! And I've been procrastinating on reading "The Bear went over the mountain" for the past 2 months - I've got to get cracking!

[hcrof]

Just finished FM 100-2-1. (I have a hangover so wasn't going anywhere ) Its very good and while it does overlap with Isby's book it complements it very well by filling in a lot of gaps. In fact it pretty much answered all the questions I had after reading it!

It really makes me want to go back to designing my RvR metacampaign (All that information makes it pretty easy to model a Soviet style force!) but unfortunately the game still can't handle it

When CMSF can handle 4x4km maps and includes red trucks ill start development again.