Title: Some CPX and PBEM TacOps AARs Post by: Rattler on 5 January 2009, 23:58:41 ... of games I played or in which I participated can be found at my site at:
http://www.eventfoto.com/privat/mil/aars/cpx_aars.html Enjoy, Rattler Title: Re: Some CPX and PBEM TacOps AARs Post by: Rattler on 11 January 2009, 23:41:50 Just, by pure chance, ran into two of my favorite AARs, they are way old (from ´96 and ´01 respecitively) but still fun to read. This for people who find AARs dull:
#1: TacOps Mad General Scenario played between RickkiTikki and myself on Map 100... :-), started by Rikki (aka John McKinney) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi, all... One of my PBEM pals in Germany, Matt Ohlmer, and I just completed a game of the Mad General, a custom scenario based on a U.S. mission to capture a war criminal General in Bosnia behind enemy lines. (Yes, the one I was just blathering about in my last post.<g>). As a different sort of twist on AARs, we decided to create a sort of "puzzle" for you to sort out, consisting of a "file" filled with newspaper clippings, memos, letters, and a satellite photo (attached) to paint an impression of what happened, as if you were snooping through a classified file that was ordinarily off-limits. We will leave much of the battle to your imagination, however. (Yes, I helped create this scenario, so yes, I am shamelessly self-promoting here<g>). For those of you who haven't played it yet, the Mad General scenario also involves piecing together a puzzle, as the U.S. must use smart recon deployments, deduction, and good instincts to figure out the "General's" whereabouts, while maneuvering its main body elements in a way that pens him in before striking. The game Matt and I played turned out to be one of the most memorable -- and instructional PBEM games in recent memory. Without giving too much away up front, I will say that Matt played the role of the General masterfully, taking the concept of deceiptful tactics in TacOps to a new level! Watch out for that guy! Anyway, hope you enjoy it... RT The original "satellite photo" has been lost, but this is where the decoy HQ was, in the far north not far from the river. Note the inverted 'L' cut into the trees, which Matt refers to in his letter at the end of this report. ********************************************** (New York Times clipping, July 1, 1996) SERBIAN GENERAL AND WAR CRIMINAL OUSTED, BUT STILL AT LARGE The Bosnian Serb president, under pressure from the U.S. and other UN members, officially dismissed his commander in chief, a suspected war criminal from the early days of the Bosnian conflict. The Bosnian Serb Army is extremely loyal to the General, however, and apparently answers to no other leader. This has left grave questions as to who is controlling the BSA, which, due to a proliferation of Russian black marketeering, was, and still could be, among the best-equipped armies in the world. The General was reportedly conducting maneuvers in Western Serbia when the President's announcement was made, and has not been heard from in some days. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (New York Times clipping, July 5, 1996) WAR CRIMES TRIAL RECONVENES AT THE HAGUE Once again, public pressure has called for the trial of alleged war criminals from the early days of the Bosnian conflict. The most infamous of these suspects, however, the commander in chief of the Serbian Army, is still at large, though most people suspect he is hiding out in the woods to avoid capture. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (Translation of a news clipping from a Bosnian newspaper, July 8, 1996) SUSPICIOUS SOUNDS IN THE WOODS ALARM VILLAGERS (SARAJEVO) Villagers along the Drina River have been reporting sounds of "massive vehicles" during the night, giving rise to new fears that Bosnian Serbs are again on the march. Local UN Peacekeeping forces say they have sent recon units to investigate, but not a single sighting was made. The reports therefore remain a mystery... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (Transcript of CNN news broadcast, July 10, 7 p.m. EST) [SEVERAL HOMES AND LIGHT ARMORED VEHICLES SHOWN BURNING IN BKG., CHATTER OF MACHINE GUNS ARE HEARD THROUGHOUT REPORT] This Wolf Blitzer in Bosnia. Today old nightmares were revived, as Serbian tanks and troop carriers launched a massive attack on local towns and villages, sending thousands fleeing in terror. The attack was apparently well-planned and caught the Government and UN Peacekeeping forces here completely off-guard. The Serbs have advanced across the border along the Drina River, all the way to the Bosna River some 100 miles away. Serbia claims no responsibility for the attack, but U.S. officials suspect that this is just posturing, and that they are secretly supplying the "rogue army" commanded by their former commander-in-chief. And if this commander's treatment of Croats and Muslims is anything like it was rumored to be during the early years of the war, then these people have every reason to fear for their lives... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (Faded, partly crumpled memo from CIA Operations Chief) TO: John McKinney, Case Officer, Eastern Mediterranean Desk John: The President is all over me on this one! How could the Serbs have built up such a large force without our satellites picking it up? And how come those UN troops didn't spot anything either? You'd better come up with some answers or we can all start mailing out our resumes. And get me a personality profile on Mad Dog asap. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (A page from a Meeting Report of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) Due to the recent drawdown of U.S. and U.N. forces in the Mediterranean, it was decided that NATO does not have sufficient military strength in the region to meet the Serbian threat at this time. However, it was also decided that we may be able to successfully infiltrate Serbian defenses and capture their leader -- if we can find the location of his command post.... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (Note clipped to an envelope full of aerial photographs. The envelope bears the CIA emblem.) Sir -- These just came back from the lab. Found something you might find interesting. They're aerial photos taken near the Drina River on July 9, a day before the attack. Looks like just a lot of empty mountains and woods, right? OK, see the fallen log sticking out of the scrub in the upper left of the first photo? It looked a little too "perfect" to me, so I blew it up 10x. In the 2nd photo you can see the log is actually some kind of tube or pipe -- painted to look like a log. I'm thinking, chemical weapons plant? Power plant? But no way would that be possible in these mountains. So I blew it up again. Take a look at the 3rd photo, at the end of that pipe. If that's not the muzzle of the main gun of a T72, I'll eat my shorts! Apparently Mad Dog didn't spend the last two years hiding out in the woods for nothing -- that's the best damn job of camouflage I've ever seen. Looks like we're going to have our hands full finding this guy. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (Personal File Folder for Col. Rick E. Tickey, Commander, 325th Infantry Rgt., U.S. Army. A Post-It note stuck to the outside of the folder says: "I think we found our man." You take particular notice of the following notations...) Evaluation: - Has studied search & extraction missions using computer modelling and wargaming. - Likes to use the computer to run "sandbox drills" before battle, if time allows. - Did surprisingly well in his first command in a CPX a year or two back. - Sometimes afraid of his own shadow, but often shows concern in trying to get his boys safely in and out of the battle zone. Recommendations of other officers: "He's something of a PBEM terror" (Maj. Holdridge) (Scribbled on top of this is handwriting that reads: "What's PBEM? Sounds hi-tech. He's probably up on all the latest weaponry") "Personally, I think his reputation is overrated." (Torsten Knop, special military advisor, Germany) "He kicked my butt once -- once -- in a CPX, and never lets me forget it!" (Brian Rock, special military advisor, Australia) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (Message from Col. Tickey, stationed in Rome, Italy) FROM: Col. Rick E. Tickey, Cmdr., 325th Infantry (SOC) TO: Staff Gentlemen: Just got word from NATO command. That scumrat of a dictator over in Bosnia is the target, and we've got the job. Fortunately the weather cleared up and our Space Cadets were able to get a very nicely detailed sat shot. I did some studying of the map and I think I know where the Serbs are hiding their base. I'll be more sure once our aerial recon boys give it a flyby. I'll go over the operation in greater detail once we reach Sarajevo, but here's the basic drill: Airlift support company from the 502nd will deploy across the Bosna at 07:00 and unload our hummers and scouts. (Watch out for enemy AD, we don't want another 'situation' like back in '95.) The hummers will be our eyes on the ground. We've got two battalion's worth of M2's, so let's cross the river by swimming until we're sure the bridges aren't mined. My hunch is that Mad Dog isn't too far from the Bosna so we should still have plenty of time. I want to deploy a third of our forces in the far north checking out that big ravine up there, which, if my hunch is right, is where I think we'll find our boy. Send another third along either side of that big east-west canyon, and the rest will spread out along the rest of the river (in case I'm wrong about the base being in the north). That is all. Good hunting. R. Tickey - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (Transcript of radio transmission) TO: U.S. Army Command Headquarters, Sarajevo FROM: Col. Tickey TIME: 07:05 Proceeding across the Bosna, light skirmishes but no major opposition during river crossing. All deployments are proceeding according to plan and on schedule. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (Transcript of radio transmission) TO: U.S. Army Command Headquarters, Sarajevo FROM: Col. Tickey TIME: 07:09 Just got the latest reports from our air wing. Sure enough, trucks are parked there, ready to bugger out. I'd say we've found our quarry. Am directing a general convergence on UTM vicinity 050058, in the far north about 2 km. from the river. Still light opposition in that area. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (Transcript of radio transmission) TO: U.S. Army Command Headquarters, Sarajevo FROM: Col. Tickey TIME: 07:20 Enemy defenses are still light in north. Having difficulty getting the rest of my forces acorss the canyon to the north. Defense there is tougher than expected, and enemy has chosen very good positions. Very frustrating, but still proceeding with relative ease in the north. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (Transcript of radio transmission) TO: Col. Tickey FROM: U.S. Army Command Headquarters, Sarajevo TIME: 07:30 Col. Tickey! Report situation! Over. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (Transcript of radio transmission) TO: U.S. Army Command Headquarters, Sarajevo FROM: Col. Tickey TIME: 07:31 Mad Dog not where we thought. Looks like he's a few more km.s east, somewhere north of Hellfire Pass. Still trying to wrest control of Hellfire but taking heavy casualties. Obviously we've run into the enemy's main defenses. Request more air recon to pinpoint Mad Dog. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (Transcript of radio transmission) TO: U.S. Army Command Headquarters, Sarajevo FROM: Col. Tickey TIME: 07:35 Trying to take control of the south edge of Hellfire but can't seem to mass enough firepower. Lots of hand-held AT weapons are taking out my mech forces as soon as they arrive. More losses every minute. Losing vehicular mobility. Confusion, surprise, lack of spotting reports. Concerned about casualties. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (Radio transcript from tactical air command net) This is Thunder 4... Jackpot! Spotted Mad Dog east of the Lion's Lair, just north of that tiny island on the north side of eastern Hellfire. Too many SAMs, didn't get off a shot. But he's all yours! Thunder 4 out. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (Transcript of radio transmission) TO: U.S. Army Command Headquarters, Sarajevo FROM: Col. Tickey TIME: 07:35 Roger that sighting, but it is doubtful whether we can even get across the canyon, and the northern force has hit mines. Down to only 2 M2s up there. The only way we'll get there at this point is on foot, which is still possible. But incoming artillery is killing my troops before they even get halfway across. Situation is grave... (EXPLOSION, TRANSMISSION CUT OFF) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (News clipping, New York Times, July 31, 1998) U.S. MARINES TAKES HEAVY CASUALTIES IN BOTCHED RAID IN BOSNIA; ATTACK FOILED BY 'CAGEY' GENERAL. Col. Rick E. Tickey of the U.S. Army's 325th Infantry Battalion had no comment today on what appears to be a failed attempt on the part of U.S. ground troops to capture the Serbian commander, an alleged war criminal from the early days of the Bosnian conflict. The attack was sanctioned by the U.N., who was under pressure to relieve the beleaguered Croats and muslims from the latest wave of Serbian aggression. Complete details of the raid are unclear at this time, but reports indicate that two-thirds of the U.S. force were killed, wounded, captured, or "out of action" within 45 minutes of the initial attack. The U.S. called off its attack before even getting within a mile of the General's base. It was clearly the most humiliating defeat of any U.S. military operation since Viet Nam. One of the reasons for the defeat, according to an inside source on Tickey's staff (who preferred not to be named), is that U.S. Intelligence was deceived into chasing after a "decoy" base some three kilometers away from the real one. "The General is a cagey one," says the source. "He is a master of camouflage, and his craftiness fooled even our experienced NSA boys. The whole attack was misdirected from the start." The ellusive Serbian General has been conducting his recent invasion of Bosnia and various other attrocities from a secret base somewhere in the mountains. Only 10 minutes or so before the attack was called off did the U.S. finally spot the real Serbian command post, and that was only due to a purely lucky aerial recon mission. Other sources attribute the defeat to the Serbian General's expert use of the terrain and excellent deployments to destroy the U.S. force piecemeal. "We just kept losing vehicle after vehicle," said one bloodied lieutenant. They picked well-chosen positions, and we never could never seem to get out of their crosshairs. After awhile we had to attack on foot while they dropped mortar on us. That's when the casualties really piled up." "We knew taking that canyon would be tough, but not *that* tough!" said a seargent, who saw his entire platoon massacred by mortar fire in just minutes. The defeat puts the White House in a precarious position. Both the President and the UN will most likely be forced to recognize the Serbian leader and his new sovereign regime in order to ensure the safety of the remaining American troops left behind. No doubt this will cost him dearly in prestige, both here and around the world. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (New York POST cover, showing bloody bodies) BOSNIAN BUNGLE! More gory photos on page 6 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (Time Magazine cover, featuring Col. Tickey) UNDER FIRE: The worst U.S. commander in history? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (Newsweek cover, featuring the Serbian General.) CRAZY LIKE A FOX How a 'mad' Serbian fugitive outsmarted Army Intelligence - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (Vogue cover) Fashion Flash! Serbo-Croat fatigues are IN! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: John McKinney CIA Eastern European Desk Matt: Tried calling you a number of times, but you never seem to be in. I'm getting to know your secretary better, though. She seems way too sharp to be working for you for much longer. Watch out, pal.<g> Well, all hell broke loose as you might expect. I kept my job, but only cause they need *someone* around here who can look at a sat shot. But I'm not a player anymore, I know that. Oh, no one has said anything, but I can read the writing on the wall. This 'Bosnian business' will follow me like a bad stain. Meanwhile my boss is history, and so is just about everyone else. A few people came in today to clean out their desks, but that's about it. Pretty depressing. Hey, buddy, do me a favor. I know you have some pull with the paper sifters. Just so I can sleep at night, let me know if you have any information that would explain how the General tricked our analysts so completely. I mean, I know Col. Tickey (real well in fact!) and he's not the kind of guy to commit troops to an area unless he's sure. In fact, that guy waffles so damn much, he's rarely sure of anything! So that camouflage must have been pretty convincing. Anyway, if you hear anything let me know. See you next month at the PM meeting. Regards to Arlette. John - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - (Envelope with German postmarks on it. You look inside...) Datum/Uhrzeit 230298/1732 Prioritaet: BLITZ BLITZ BLITZ Kopf: BLITZ-230298-1758-FMZ 254/01-FMZ 212/01-VIA SEC ======================================================================== = Von: BND Referat 734/2 M.Ohlmer Abteilung IV Zeichen:IV-734/2-1596/98 Auswertung Balkan An: CIA CC: John McKinney Case Officer, EED BC: Betr: Bosnian Adventure ======================================================================== Hi, John! Thanks for calling me, sorry I wasn't in. But Arlette made sure I started to work on your questions first thing I came in (for some reason she has a hack for you, though I cannot understand why ...<g>. Looks like she'll be at next month's meeting as well...<g>). I guess I do have something indeed for you. The following will reach you via the official channels as well, but you know, how long that takes.... I thought you might want it ASAP, so here is an (unauthorized) transcript of a letter we intercepted yesterday. The sender appears to be one Major MILORAD DOBRIC. Obviously he is writing to his German girlfriend, in English, we assume she speaks little serbo-croat only (we keep an eye on her, expecting more intel from that source in the future) What he writes make him very probably an aide to Colonel DRAGAN MUJACOVIC, alleged S1/S3 in the staff of your "friend". The contents of his letter throw an interesting light on nature and outcome of your operation in Bosnia. Hope it helps to solve a few of your questions. Let me know, what you make of it, I'll let you know if anything else comes up. (From the names of the villages mentioned we located the area he was writing about. For your convinience we took the liberty to add the UTM's of mentioned locations in brackets) See you in London next month, Matt Here goes: - Begin of transscript - Sabine, draga moja! I am so sorry, you didn't hear earlier from me, but my life has been very busy during the last few weeks. I know that is not an excuse, but then you don't know how the military life is. Don't think wrong of me, I always think of you only! Uvijek cu misliti na tebe! I have a lot of good news for us: First, I got promoted once more! No more Capitan Dobric, since two weeks I am a Major! In one year from Vodnik to Major, only in times of war can you climb the ranks that fast... The best news I am sure you have heard in Germany as well: Our Republica Srpska and our leader General Mladuvic have finally been recognized by the UN! Triumf! Pobjeda! And, believe it or not, your Milorad had a part in it happening, I helped in making history! Now you ask, how can that be... I will tell you, for our children to learn, for you to feel proud with me of what we achieved. It all began immidiately after my promotion, when I got assigned to the staff of our General, as an aide to Pukovnik Dragan Mujakovic. Now, that is a man to learn something from, we call him "Lisac", the fox. Clever, witty and brave as I have not seen many men before, he is the right hand of our General and organizing all the military stuff for him. General Mladuvic, contrary to what the people see him, is more a political inspirer than a military genius, but he sure has chosen the best man to do the job with the Lisac... I arrived in Pale (UTM 035 025) at a time when the general had decided to move his command post to a new hiding, which he did every few days fearing an attack of NATO or US troops. My task was to help Pukovnik Mujakovic to find a suitable place and to set up a camouflage of the vicinity, so that the US spy satellites wouldn't be able to determine its location exactly. We found a good spot just a kilometer northwest of Bistrica (UTM 077 033, location of CP probably 073 039) close to a clearing on a hill. Surrounded by dense forests from three sides it offered escape possibilities to the south and could be defended well with the light troops we had. Now, here I discovered why everybody around called my new boss "The Fox": Do you remember the old mine a kilometer north-east of Podgrad (UTM 052058) that I showed you once during our vacations a few years ago? Then you will remember the surrounding terrain with its characteristical inverted-L shape? Well, the "Lisac" decided to make use of this characteristical terrain feature and had us cut a clearing of the same shape into the woods surrounding the CP. We then set up a lot of trucks both around our CP and at the old mine in identical formation, hoping the US would misread their sat shots and think we were set up at the old mine and trying to cover that fact... If they were going to check with airplanes, they would find the formation they expected to see from the sat shot at the old mine indeed, and hopefully be even more sure about our location... What a deceptive mind! As fate wanted it, the Americans did attack us indeed a few days later. We got a telephone call Tuesday a week ago at seven in the morning, saying that some helicopters were headed in the direction of the old mine, so we knew an attack was underway. Our recon units quickly established that we were attacked by a US Army unit, and the deceptive precautions the Lisac had taken paid off, the beauty of his plan began to unfold right before our eyes: The main thrust of the enemy went away from us towards the old mine, where our decoy trucks were waiting patiently to be destroyed. Meanwhile we spotted a flanking attack that brought the attackers right in our sights in the canyon that went from Podgrad diagonally south-east to our Headquarters. The Americans did not expect our presence there and one by one their vehicles fell prey to our heroic fighters that attacked them from the woods, literally jumping from tree to tree. After twenty minutes or so they realized they had fouled up and that we were not at all were they thought we would, but when they finally sent in their recon planes to establish the true location of our CP, it was much too late and they had too little troops left to change the outcome of the battle: We pulled our remaining troops into a close circle around our CP and they never managed to plow through: After only 45 minutes we had won, killing almost all of their vehicles and many of their soldiers. Our losses were heavy too, around 40 per cent, but the death toll these heroes paid will never be forgotten, to be praised by the people of our reborn Republica Srpska! So, my darling, I am longing to see you in a short time, when we have established some form of order here and I will find time to travel. Lots of kisses, puno te ljubi pozdravlja tvoj! S ljubavlju, tvoj heroj Milorad **************************** End of "AAR." Title: Re: Some CPX and PBEM TacOps AARs Post by: Rattler on 11 January 2009, 23:48:02 #2: AAR of a "strange" scenario I had hosted: Two drug baron teams fighting it out with a third (unknown to both) in the middle, this is the AAR of one of the force commanders (if you read closely, you will recognize some names... :D)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Letter to Victor Valdez (RED Commander’s AAR) Dear honoured Senor Valdez, if you want to pass on this report to Matteo Olmero, that FDA (or FBI or whatever) guy being an advisor to the Official Colombian Troops last night, please feel free to do so. Me, your trusted and devoted Lieutenant Radolfo Pi, Commander-in-Chief of your Plantation Security and Defense Battalion, at this time, I am sitting on board a plane to an unknown destination with my notebook computer on my knees writing this report to you. But, one after another, I first have to present you a bitter PILL (short for Pi’s Indelible Lessons Learned) that you have to swallow whole. Admittedly, until last night, you, Senor Victor Valdez, were one of the bigger fish in the Colombian Coca business (“drugs” is such an ugly and derogative word!), but I fear that this is over now. Be assured please, that I utmost hope that you will come back to your feet soon, and – even more – that your long arm does not reach to the place I am heading for. So, what are the lessons I had to learn last night? First, preventive, strategic pre-battle reconnaissance is crucial and has to be correct! If it fails, as was the case, everything is doomed to go wrong. Second, my enemy’s enemy is my friend! Too bad, your direct order made it impossible to follow that rule. Third, don’t plan sophisticatedly if you don’t have the time and men to communicate – and best rehearse - this plan! Sadly, my brave men had virtually no chance to act according to my plan. Fourth, no plan survives first contact with the enemy! Ok, that’s an old one, but true nevertheless, only that we did not identify our real enemy all the time. But, to narrate things chronologically, I will start with the instructions I received from you last week: You informed me that, besides the notorious threat by the Colombian Army trying to spray all coca plantations with agent orange, this time the danger would come from a different direction. You said, this time we had to expect an attack by our neighbour, the less honoured Senor Casillas, roughly from Northeast. You gave us, your three lieutenants Radolfo Pi, Honk Stoffo, and Jaime Sterreti, one of your three Battalions, in addition to the already present Plantation Security. After a short discussion, we chose the Battalion with the highest lethality value, doing without tanks, APCs, helos, but having lots of infantry and even a few ATGMs with thermal sights. After no one else seemed to have the time, I stepped forward during the second half of the preparation week, and volunteered to come up with a plan to fulfil our mission. Our mission, as stated by you, was to defend the plantation and coca laboratories against Sr. Casillas’ villains, and even to defeat him as a punishment for rising his hand against us. This mission was the utmost guideline for my plan. As we knew from your briefing that Casillas would have not more than two battalions, I reckoned that we could dare to not defend statically, but – we had to defeat him – play a much more active part. You know that our plantation, situated in Valdez Valley, has many spots of vegetation to its East, whereas the labs, lying south of the plantation, have quite open terrain on their East side, and south of the whole valley again, terrain grew thicker again. So my plan was the following: Build up a strong ‘anvil’ in the centre to protect the labs – our most valuable goods – and to dam up the enemy East of the labs. To ensure that Casillas would jam onto this anvil, I ordered a flexible defense starting far ahead in the North, steering the enemy in South-western direction –into the open arms (in double sense) of our main defense effort. If this would work, we would smash the bound enemy with a fierce counter attack from North, conducted by our strong reserve. In addition to all this, I planned to apply a mobile surveillance force south of the valley, just to prevent being circumvented down there. I still think that this plan, provided the given info were correct and complete, would – or at least: could – have worked. But it didn’t. Why didn’t it? There were four decisive buts, leading fifthly to a decisive defeat. How did it come to this? First of my mistakes was to trust the information you gave us, BUT this information was neither fully correct nor fully complete. Ok, I should have known that informants always are somewhat unreliable and sometimes even lie, but I thought, this time, you would have ensured that no important topics are missing. Decisive, however, in this aspect was that you required us not only to defend, but even to defeat Casillas’ troops. My second mistake was to make up a plan for a well-educated, well-prepared battalion, BUT neither me nor my men were. Decisive, however, was here that my plan required my subcommanders to have some time to read and understand its idea and do some detail planning for their own units to be able to fulfil this plan. Third mistake was that we let it happen that both of my subs retreated personally, BUT we would have needed prepared sub- lieutenants. Decisive was that Jaime had some problems with the Computer Mafia, burning his PC equipment, and Honk only narrowly did escape an attempt to hang him, having a sore neck being unavailable therefore ;-) Fourth mistake was that we had some last minute changes being applied to my subs, BUT I decided to stick to my original plan. Decisive was now, that both replacements we were able to recruit had virtually no time to get into the plan before battle, so everything had to go awry automatically. Let me present, at this place, my sincerest thanks to both of my then-new sub-commanders, Lieutenant Kendo Echancar and Lieutenant Charro Rost. Both of them did a great job, as far as they could, regarding the non-existing preparation they had. What did happen after those two stepped in, replacing the two deserters? As I said already, most of the things very destined to fail from the beginning: First, my subs didn't have any time for pre-planning, so they couldn't place a single one of the entrenchments they were entitled to. I don't want to mention that - after a terrible crash of Matteo Olmero's global satellite system causing a one hour delay already - he felt obliged to urge them into the game not willing to give them any more time for preparation - understandable under the circumstances. Then Charro's troops, originally forming two forces - mobile Defense North plus Reserve - were crammed up together and thus applied together. I never learned through the whole game whether he really used them as two different forces with different tasks. Maybe you could ask him for me. Furthermore, of course, he had no time and room to reach his positions in time that laid three kms East of the valley. He tried his best to get there, and I think he did a good job anyway. Kendo, on the other hand, had his two forces divided into Defense South plus Surveillance Far South. He did well by sending out the surveillance units right away and then placing his defense units, making up a quick sort of plan I assume. while he was still fiddling with the people there, however, his surveillance force ran into some Colombian Army (GREEN) ambush right after start of the game. Darn! Not only Casillas, but the Officials, too! I decided to ignore them so far and concentrated on our preparation for the main defense. When the Colombian Officials, however, attacked our camp from South-West after dropping some sniper teams from a chopper, I allowed all my men free fire on the Colombian Army. During the next minutes, we soon found out that those bastards of the GREEN troops seemed to fire on anything and anyone moving in front of their guns, so we had to reorganise a little. I ordered Charro (remember: Defense North and Reserve) not to dare too far East with his defense force and keep the reserve at the alarm. Kendo was to attack the Colombian GREENs with his mobile force coming from South. So far so good. Thinking everything was running smooth so far, I had to have a brief - hmm, retirement - with my lady, having promised her long ago. This lasted little more than an hour ;-)) After I returned to regain command, my subs had to report that, in the meantime, all recce was gone, and Charro had thrown his reserve together with his main defense force fighting cleverly in the North, slowing the advance of Casillas' attacking villains. At least that was correct: they came from North-East! Kendo, on the other hand, was fighting with more and more GREEN Colombians trying to drown the camp and laboratories from South-East. Did those bastards cooperate? Impossible! Whatever we think from one another, how great ever the hatred between you and Sr. Casillas, none of you both would ever cooperate with the Official Colombian Army! So this simply had to be a very unlucky coincidence. Then I did another mistake. My plantation security being positioned on the heavily reinforced watchtowers was pounded by BLUE and GREEN mortars - although to no avail - and panicked! They tried to move themselves from one tower to another - and got killed. Bad idea! With lots of camp security gone it was more or less easy for GREEN to sneak into the camp and blow your laboratories with two heavy bombs. In the meantime, Charro and Kendo were doing a good job in slowing and attriting the attacking BLUE Casillas' men. Those, however, slipped through a gap between both defense positions and entered the plantation from North or North-East, I don't know exactly, but they did it. GREEN, smelling a good opportunity, called in his agent orange choppers then and sprayed most of the plantation with their despised herbicide, thus destroying our work of the whole last year... But what could we do? Cooperate with Casillas' men to drive off the Colombian Army and fight ourselves again later on? Never! This was out of the question all the time. It never even came to my mind; and then, you had ordered me to defeat him, not only to defend the plantation. Maybe I should have ignored that order and make friends with our neighbours, but I didn't. Maybe next time. To come to an end now, I feel obliged to inform you that I took my salary for this and the next ten years from the plantation's safe. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to get onto this plane so quick and I would have had no chance to go somewhere in the world where you can not reach me. Thanks so far, Sr. Valdez, I stay Your faithful servant, Ex-Lieutenant Radolfo Pi. Credits/Performers (in alphabetic order): Kendo Echancar - Kenneth Chan Matteo Olmero - Matt "Rattler" Ohlmer Radolfo Pi - Ralf Pichocki Charro Rost - Gary Rost Jaime Sterreti - James Sterret Honk Stoffo - Henk "Stoffel" Stoffers Victor Valdez - N.P.C. Title: Re: Some CPX and PBEM TacOps AARs Post by: Rattler on 11 January 2009, 23:55:31 just out of curiosity, does anybody read those?
Rattler Title: Re: Some CPX and PBEM TacOps AARs Post by: stoffel on 12 January 2009, 09:40:24 LOL,
I just did, I think this was one of the rare ocasions I got beat with Tacops :) Title: Re: Some CPX and PBEM TacOps AARs Post by: Rattler on 12 January 2009, 10:28:39 yeah, I remember rolling on the floor laughing when I named the two drug barons (Victor Valdez and Iker Casillas) after the two goalies from Barcelona and Madrid respectively... I think this tidbit never was realized by neither force commander :D
Rattler Title: Re: Some CPX and PBEM TacOps AARs Post by: Rattler on 12 January 2009, 10:43:00 Found another one that had never been published on my pages, the so called SAR CPX:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is the Umpires AAR for the TacOps CPX run on OCT 8, 2005, US customs scen USMC, map 260 UMPIRE: Matt Ohlmer (ES) BLUE TEAM Chaim Krause (IL), CO Peleg Wasserman (IL) - did not turn up at STARTEX Martin Cracauer (US) Paul Csokay (AT) RED TEAM John Osborne (US), CO - had to drop out for RL reasons Jeff Gilbert (US) - took over for John as CO Ralf Pichocki (DE) Bernard Cousin (FR) Valentin Dumitriuc (RO) - could not play due to tech probs REPLAY FILES: http://www.eventfoto.com/privat/mil/dls/cpx_replays.html top link ------------------------------- AAR CONTENTS: 1. Setup 1.1 BLUE Brief 1.2 RED Brief 1.3 BLUE Plan 1.4 RED Plan 2. How It Went 2.1 STARTEX delay 2.2 Actual Game 3. Lessons Learned a) Umpire b) Players 4. Questions to the Major --------------------------------- 1. Setup I had planned this CPX for a long time, the setup was simple and supposed to be especially newbie-friendly provided the newbies played RED. Accordingly, I balanced the scenario a bit in REDs favor forcewise to keep it rewarding even after heavy losses. As it turned out only one newbie signed up (Valentin from Romania) but in the end could not play. The scenario was placed on map 260, basically a map 1 where the central NS road is replaced by a river - I had chosen this map as I assumed all newbs would be familiar with map 1 -, and it featured two completely different missions for BLUE and RED: - BLUE had to search and extract the crew of a downed German Tornado ERC with a TaskForce comprised of elements of the Netherlands 11th Airmobile Brigade - RED had to secure and rig up for destruction the three bridges over the central river employing three SA 10 btys against air. 1.1. BLUE Brief see: http://eventfoto.com/privat/mil/aars/pages/081005_bluebrief.html The crew, unknown to BLUE, were located about 2k EAST of the middle bridge over the river, spaced 800 mtrs, and they had hidden in the woods (I had not received specific orders from them by BLUE, so the followed SOP). I had placed a Tornado Wreck about 300m EAST of the middle bridge, both as a clue to BLUE and RED where to search for the crew. BLUE CO never gave orders to the Tornadoe Crew, so there was no radio comms at all that could have been detected by RED (I had, with help from Paul Csoky, foreseen to run dice to determine detectiona dn pinpointing loc of the crew by RED had they communicated) 1.2 RED Brief see: http://eventfoto.com/privat/mil/aars/pages/081005_redbrief.html The SAM 10s in TacOps have a min range of 5000mtrs (I had assumed 4000 from tests) and so had to be trailed this distance behind the forces to provide effective cover for the bridges, one of the things RED was supposed to figure out during planning. 1.3 BLUE Plan BLUE CO divided the zone EAST of the river into three search zones (alpha-charly) and assigned each to one of his three strike plns. CO ran the HQ, arty, support and air. Plan was to set up blocking positions against eventual enemy forces in the east of each search zone, locate crew and extract them, and not to engage enemy forces where not necessary for the mission completion. 1.4. RED Plan RED CO divided his three coys between the players, gave the offmap arty to Valentin and kept himself as observer/reporter. At this point - as Valentin was new and with FFOW on wouldnt have seen any friendly forces to supprot with arty - I assgned three motorized FO teams (one to each coy) for liasion. REDs plan was to rush as fast as possible to the bridges (they assumed enemy would be there before them) and take them against assumed resistance. About 2 days to STARTEX John, the CO, had to drop out and Jeff took over, he assigned 2nd coy to valentin and himself took the arty and the FO teams but did not change the plan. 2. How It Went 2.1 STARTEX Delay I had planned to keep STARTEX c.t. (i.e. with a delay of max 15 minutes), as I know that those delays are on of the things that annoy players most about participating in CPXes. Hence, I had briefed the COs and players that I would start with all players present or not and that everybody had to come with the latest patch installed. Also (having implemented one of my earlier LessonsLearned from another CPX) I had called for reserves to be present at STARTEX to jooin in case players didnt turn up. Alas, Murphy was with us as always, and problems arose right from start: - A BLUE player never turned up, so it was decided to give his slot to a reserve (sorry, dont recall who took his slot, the reserves playing where callsigns Nimrod - probably Peter Gower, UK - and Delta99), but of cause the guy had first to dl the löatest patch and to get briefed - On RED similar things occured, Valentin came unprepared and had first to dl the patch, and then found out he had no scenario USMC (I had told him in one of our earlier test games that - given he wanted to train US only and that he has limited disk space - he could safely delete all non-US custom scenarios.. stupid me, he deleted all except US Army...). Sending him the USMC file didnt work either (he couldnt load it for some reason), and as time was getting short I decided to replace him by another reserve present - who in turn had to dl the patch first and go through the briefing cycle. - when a player got disconnected during orders phase, he took his units with him and I had to manually add them As a result we got off playing about 1 hour late, not bad given the problems i think, but not what I wanted. 2.2 Actual Game Once we were underway, things rapidly started to run differently than what I had imagined: I had not anticipated the effects of FFOW, so, at turn 4/5 (the time BLUE helos got LOS to the crews) they "magically" (if in total concurrence with game engine design) appeared on their maps at spotting distances of 500 and 800 mtrs respectively despite theoretically only being visible 100 mtrs and in hiding. Consequently BLUE deployed to extract them, and already in this early stage the planned setup for a Search-and-Rescue mission had turned into a "simple" extraction mission, something I feared might have been resolved rapidly without even contact occuring. Via private message unbeknownst to his team I informed BLUE CO of my screw-up, he suggested I should down a 2nd plane with other force color crew, but I let it run and prepared to throw in difficulties in the style of Israeli CPXes should the mission be too easy. In turn 6 contact evolved finally and RED took out some extraction vehicles, still, in turn 7 the first crew member (WO) had been extracted, and in turn 10 finally the pilot. After this BLUEs only goal was to extract the forces deployed, until game end in turn 29. BLUE proceeded doing so without much coordinating forces, sending in the helos peacemeal against not smoked or not supressed enemy and so in the cause lost another 8 CH47s. At turn 28 BLUE decided to let the last stranded forces fall POW and withdrew the rest of his forces with 19% losses. RED, on the other hand, throughout all the game showed high coordination and execllent communicative and tactical behaviour and had almost made it to bridges by turn 29. The had also in the course of the deployment discovered the min range problem with the SA 10s and decided to rear-deploy them. In turn 16, after heavy skirmishes that they thought to be enemy SOF ambushing them they requested more support from HIGHER (which was granted in form of two additional offmap 152 btys assigned to them), but it was clear already then that they had not assessed enemy intention nor compostion correctly and so couldnt fulfill their secondary mission fo providing higher with exact intel (they even shot up the Tornado wreck in turn 25 IIRC but never got the clue this supposed, nor did they try to prevent the extraction). At ENDEX they had suffered 16% losses, but all key units were intact. In summary I would access the CPX outcome as a draw in favor of RED: Both teams performed and succeeded in fulfilling their primary missions, but failed in other aspects. For RED, the loss of 10 blue CH47s are supposed to be a good start in producing "newsworthy losses to NATO" (if here only to Netherland forces) in anticipation of the ground offensive and in the overall scenario. As a sidenote: In turn 16 my TacOps hung up fatally and I coulndt get it to let me host again (later turned out that my hosting port had been blocked by a net helper program that refused to quit), so we changed hosts to paul, who ran the game to the end with myself joined as observer. 3. Lessons Learned a) Umpire - if you want a team to search for friendly forces give the target units another force color. In the set of this CPX this would have meant to make the wreck and the crew maybe green force color, like this they would not have become visible on large distance to BLUE due to the FFOW mechanisms and a true search would have had to be performed (interestingly, I had them green until just before STARTEX but changed them to blue fearing a TacOps crash if the blue helos had had to load green troops) - always have the briefings ready for reserves or players taking over: I had changed machines to run the CPX and had the breifings left on the other. Next CPX I will post the breifings to my webpage before STARTEX so that any reserves find an easy way to get to speed - same goes for OOBs in excel form: When BLUE CO got disconnected a few times before STARTEX he took his units with him, i.e. BLUE was suddenly lacking forcesa dn I had to re-add them manually without a clue what I had given to them, another delay of 10 minutes. - have a copy of the savegame file you start from: During the theoretical 30 minutes to STARTEX players were giving orders and I pulled them when they were done and then saved the file. As we had lost some units in the process of cause my start file was overwritten and the original setup not present anymore, a copy of the setup file wouldhave solved that. - Try to hold STARTEX at all cost; despite having announced that I would start with all players present or not I decided far too late (at STARTEX) to employ reserves; they stood by to start at STARTEX -30 but I let them wait. Next CPX I will exclude players that are not present STARTEX -30 - have a channel #observers for observers: One thing that kept disrupting me a few times were observers trying to log without announcing this intent during orders exchanges or situpdates; use the channle to brief observers to expected routines (e.g. only join at umpire command) - If your TacOps crashes, *physically* reboot your machine: I had selected restart three times but the hosting port remained blocked, only after physically shutting down the machine (i.e. switching off power) it was free again (discovered after ENDEX... :-< ) b) Players - read the briefings with time and in detail: 90% of the questions that I received from players were covered in the briefings already (e.g., "where do we start from?", "do we need a new patch when its out?" etc. one player even set up his units in enemy territory in the first orders...:->) - come prepared: always check on the list whats the latest patch and have it and the map ready at STARTEX-30; despite having advised that 3x in the course of preparation, one player still dint turn up with the latest patch. 4. Questions to the Major - when some players get disconnected they sometimes take their units with them (this seems to happen when umpire gets the notification that they got disconned but the player not: After then manually disconnecting the player the units were lost everytime). Any chance to avoid that? - if BLUE helos load green units, would this put the game process at risk still? ALL: Thanks for an interesting and fun CPX, thanks for bearing with me when Murphy hit, I could re-affirm a lot of my formerly present umpiring skills and learned a lot additionally. Great game from my POV, hope you all saw it like that also despite the quirks. Rattler (aka Matt Ohlmer) ===================================================================================================== BLUE CO AAR: As BLUE CO my main task was to insure that the Blue players had fun. You'll have to ask them if that mission was accomplished. My first question was why Blue was sending in such a huge force for a SAR mission. So, I went on the assumption that this was just to get things started and that something would be sprung on us during the game. So I just sent out very simple plans. (Rattler's AAR sums them up well). The forces under my command were to provide support to the 3 commanders as they requested it. It was also my understanding that there would be some newbies, so I didn't want to make things too complicated with the three groups being dependent on coordinating with the other groups. Once we spotted the aircrew quickly I pulled one group back and set them west of the river to support the zone with the aircrew as they evacuated. I didn't give them any specific orders on how to go about the SAR or the defense other than to set up far to the east and search east to west with a delaying line remaining at the eastern edge. At some point we got the pilots out so I told them to just pull out what they could and we would go back in with the gunships and heavy smoke from the 120s. The sub-commanders told me that they could get some of the units out without my support. I think, but I am not sure, those are the helos that got waxed. The game was stopped at that point. First of all, I want to reemphasize that I felt the main purpose of this CPX was to have fun and get some new guys involved, so I didn't take it all that seriously. John O (the original red CO) and myself sit next to each other at work and we talked about just letting the sub-commanders have some fun. I sure had fun and don't want my following comments to be taken as criticism of this weekend's game. However, I do have some comments about the scenario, if there is a desire to do something similar in the future. I don't think the scenario was well planned in terms of it providing for an interesting engagement in a multi-player CPX. My mission was to extract a downed aircrew. In RL I would not have just sent an airborne unit of the size given to just blanket known enemy territory and hope they stumble across them. In RL I would have done a lot more work to locate them using specially trained SAR units that have the capability to do this. Then I would have sent in a specially configured SAR team to recover the crew fast and furiously. Probably two specialized SAR helos max with fighter-bombers on station. As a scenario, in effect, what I was given was an airborne unit with no orders as to whether I was to defend or attack. I was not told what amount of losses were acceptable (i.e. fight a delaying action or a "hold at all costs" action). Because of this, I couldn't properly plan or use my forces effectively. I would have had to have made several different plans and briefed all of them to my sub-commanders. If I was to assume attack, what was I attacking? A location? A enemy force? If I was to defend, where? West or east of the river? At one, two or three bridges? Etc. So, once again, I had fun. Rattler, if you plan on hosting another CPX, I would love to participate. To my sub-commanders, I'd love to have you be on my team again. ===================================================================================================== AAR Comander 2nd Platoon BLUE: A few words from me as CO of the 2nd Platoon of the Blue forces. I got the WO in turn 11 and the pilot a few turns later into helicopters and on the way back. I stumbled upon them very early, but luck is probably part of every good plan :-) >From my point of view my (primary) mission was done at turn 15, when I had all my helos at a secure LZ ready to fly west. I left some infantry behind. They were fighting heavily with red troops and were in close contact. I did not see a realistic chance to get them out there by helo, that's why I sent only one helo to get them out. This was of course doomed, because I did not prepare a proper smoke screen. A better wy would have been to prepare a proper extraction with more units, more arty support etc. But everyone else was also fighting. As I said before, I had in fact nothing more to do with my platoon after turn 15. I sent the rest of my units west. At this point Rattler's computer problems started and so I volunteered to be the new host. My units were than taken over by Chaim. Overall a very nice experience, and it was especially nice to have a CPX again, Thanks for that Matt! Paul |