British Campaign AAR Points

[RecceDG]

For operational reasons. The Syrians need a continuous front in depth if they want to have any hope in fighting the coalition in a conventional campaign.

Exactly. So they set up a series of small-ish sacrificial static defenses on the best available terrain, with a view to inflicting whatever attrition they can and imposing delay so as to set up a large-scale tank-heavy countermove force.

That countermove force is not guaranteed to be success due to the factors you have identified (powerful Blue tanks and missiles) But really, a large concentration of armoured force on a flank of a Blue force that has already been fighting a series of battles (and so is tired, worn, and perhaps less than 100% scale of equipment, pers, and ammo) is Syria's only real chance for a local conventional victory.

The elephant in the room is Syria's ability to keep that force hidden until the blow lands... probably unlikely with the sky full of Pred and Reaper as it is these days. But at least it is something before the Syrian army collapses and we move to transitional ops and insurgency missions.

But that didn't mean the people in CMBB made scenarios that featured a whole Panzer Reg. with Panzergrenadiers overrunning the borderguards while they were still sleeping. There is no fun in that. No tactics or strategy. It is a movie.

A mission that involves an understrength force mismatched to the role it is to play is also a movie - "Rambo". That's no fun either.

I guess CMSF's setting is to blame for this one. Sure you can adjust settings to balance victory conditions. But still, not many red players like to see their Republican Guard battalion mowed down in 5 min in exchange for a squad or two of infantry. This imbalance has been one of the biggest gripes on the board, if you look around.

Which is a further argument for an integrated campaign. Blue is going to take every objective in every mission - is there anyone who thinks that Syria could outright defeat a combined NATO army? But if Red bleeds Blue in every single mission, he can generate the kind of media outrage and lack of political support that can defeat the invasion on the strategic level.

DG

"Sometimes, it's not about the attack - it's about the COUNTERATTACK. Sure, your combat team steamrolled that poor little platoon - but then a tank coy hit your flank while you were consolidating on the objective... how about them apples?"

Sounds like a scenario? Javelin's make short work of those. Or airpower. Or Abrams, Bradelys and Challengers.

[average]

Having started on the campaign and some of the stand alones, I can make a couple of observations:

1. the forces given to the player are inadaquate, especially in FIBUA where you have a rifle plt trying to clear a bn size objective,

2. the sensitivity for blue force is casulaties, not terrain, but the objectives allow for signifigant casualties if terrain is captured;

3. the attacking force should always have at least in theory, a substantial margin over the defending force;

4. the ratio of 3:1 is ideal (or higher in FIBUA), but in the open a lack of numbers can be compensated for with supporting fires;

5. it is not realistic to attack a force 5 times larger than your own without a very signifigant overmatch in fire power nor is it fun to be forced to rely on the off map flank and guess work to have a fighting chance of carrying your forces to the objective;

6. sometimes deliberate steps are taken to remove organic direct and indirect fire weapons without justification (this is inexcusable) which is not realistic or desirable, this leads to a force that can't operate at full capacity and which wouldn't be committed to a deliberate assault;

6. i suspect the reason why you have such strange force packages is that designers and beta testers play the scenario mutliple times and each time you play the scenario it gets easier and terrain objectives are favoured over casualtity objectives; and

7. one of the reasons why it must be tempting to have such strange scenarios and force mixes is because the AI doesn't have the ability to manoeurve effectively in reaction to an assault (this has been pointed out above), and the result is that red force to inflict casualities relies on a static defense of trying to draw a strange blue force into a series of kill sacks or close ambushes (which is fair enough, but only up to a point) that end in red force being chewed up and spat out when they lose the initative (unless your rifle coy runs into a syrian special forces regiment in depth which sometimes happens).

Take for example mission 2 of the campaign. There an attack goes against the most poorly sited defensive position imaginable, but by an inadaquate force package for the size of the the objective given that the suspected oppfor is a bn - with anti tank assets.

Why does Blue care about this position sufficently to attempt to overrun it with half a company of armoured infantry in a hasty attack ? It doesn't make a great deal of sense, although it is fun to listen to the 30mm autocannon fire on Syrian conscripts (with patchy results).

[Cpl Steiner]

Hi RecceDG,

You said you had to go back to Afghanistan soon? Are you in the British Army then? Just thought I'd ask.

Well, I don't mind a bit of "tough love" and I can take criticism no problem. To declare an interest here, I designed most of the missions in the "southern" route of the campaign, the one in which the Brits head south to secure the Jordanian border rather than head into Damascus.

I am all in favour of making scenarios as realistic as possible but I can tell you it isn't easy. If the Syrians are on the offensive for instance, it's pretty hard to give them a fighting chance against Blue force without hamstringing Blue in some way. If Blue had all the assets it should have, Red would be massacred every time - which is in fact what happened most of time in Afghanistan when the Taliban were assaulting the "Platoon Houses" set up around 2006. A single Brit platoon with adequate air and artillery support should have no problems holding off waves of enemy several times its own number. These are the sorts of dilemmas we face when trying to design a challenging scenario.

As for Blue offensive operations, your line of thought seems to be the following:

1. Blue should be totally tooled up for the job with every sort of asset available such as tanks, air and artillery, and that they should significantly outnumber Red.

2. Red should be in good defensible terrain with assets designed to slow down and cause attrition to Blue.

3. Blue's overwhelming superiority in firepower and numbers should be mitigated by making them very sensitive to combat losses - such that taking the objective but losing a few men in the process should be at best a Tactical Victory. Lose a dozen or so and its a Tactical Defeat or worse.

Well, there's nothing wrong with that approach, and as far as I can tell, it should even be workable within the framework of the existing Scenario Editor's capabilities. What I will say though, is that it's often very hard to give Red even a remote chance of winning when Blue has lots of Air and Artillery support available. Remember the first mission of the "Task Force Thunder" campaign, when Blue attacks from behind a berm? Most players now can crack that mission with virtually no casualties at all by just cremating the enemy with artillery strikes.

[RecceDG]

Canadian. But I've worked with Brits and Yanks. And it isn't "have to go back" but "want to go back" - if I am successful in getting on the next ROTO, I'll know soon.

As for Blue offensive operations, your line of thought seems to be the following:

1. Blue should be totally tooled up for the job with every sort of asset available such as tanks, air and artillery, and that they should significantly outnumber Red.

2. Red should be in good defensible terrain with assets designed to slow down and cause attrition to Blue.

3. Blue's overwhelming superiority in firepower and numbers should be mitigated by making them very sensitive to combat losses - such that taking the objective but losing a few men in the process should be at best a Tactical Victory. Lose a dozen or so and its a Tactical Defeat or worse.

Modified slightly:

1. Blue should be at full strength in manouvre units at the start of the campaign and those manouvre units should be well tuned to the job at hand (invasion and mechanized offensive action). Artillery and air can be reduced or even eliminated as both a concession to playability and reality (guns and air are much more closely controlled these days than they were in, say, WW2) With the possible exception of smoke missions - it it possible to limit arty to just smoke?

1A. Blue is going to carry this unit through the entire offensive operations phase of the campaign - so casualties taken in Mission 1 will follow into Mission 2, 3, 4 etc. Once we transition to full spectrum ops (the Syrian army has been shattered and we're into a counterinsurgency mode) Blue units will be much smaller and the timeframe is longer so we don't care about unit continuity as much so Blue subunits can be back to full strength.

2. In early missions, Red should be set up in well defensible positions and seeking to delay and attrit with small (platoon or so) tank counterattacks. On the third (ish) mission, Red gets a large (force ratio 1:1 or higher) armoured counterattack from a flank, representing the arrival of the larger-scale Red strategic countermoves force. This is a branch-point mission.

2A. If Blue succeeds, we move to a series of missions that represents the collapse and forlorn hope missions of the Syrian army - I see at least one Blue assault on an urban centre (that will need reinforcements - although our "main character" unit will participate, we'll need more forces to take a city properly) and perhaps an attempt to capture a Red base, where Red's victory is predicated on breaking contact and escaping. Etc.

2B. If Red succeeds, we have a mission where a reinforced Red is chasing the remnants of our "main character" unit across the map, and then is rescued by a substantial American force. Follow on mission is our "main character" unit relegated to a rear area task. Second follow on mission is a similar task, but with the arrival of a substantial (and unexpected) Syrian mechanized force. Victory here moves us back to the 2A track.

What we are shooting for here is "Comd JTF has lost confidence in your ability, so you get sidelined while the adults take over - then an opportunity for redemption arrives"

2C. With the Syrian army defeated, we now move into the full spectrum operations and counterinsurgency missions, where Blue will rarely be operating larger than Coy size, and armour will be fairly rare (except maybe a Coy sized cordon and search - but even that would get a Tp of tanks, max). Most missions will be Pl - Pl+

3. Blue is very sensitive to casualties throughout, but some missions may have extra conditions on top of those - the safeguarding of a convoy, the destruction of a countermoves force, etc.

DG

[SlapHappy]

I like it. Makes a lot of sense.

If you're performing poorly as a group commander you would be sidetracked to auxiliary tasks rather than be given the lion's share of the critical ops.

It's similar to other games downshifting difficulty level in ongoing battles where the player is performing poorly - but with a foundation of realism to back it up. It simulates the "higher ups" over-viewing and critiquing your results.