Title: Teleporting Tanks CPX AAR Post by: Rattler on 4 November 2009, 10:04:13 One of the stranger (nut nevertheless serious) TacOps CPXes run was probably the "Teleporting Tanks" CPX run by James Sterrett on JUL 11, 2002, I have found the main AARs and repuglish them here.
Enjoy, Rattler Title: Re: Teleporting Tanks CPXm Umpire AAR Post by: Rattler on 4 November 2009, 10:07:24 Teleporting Tanks: Umpire's AAR for TacOps CPX, July 11 2002
James Sterrett This was probably the most bizarre TacOps CPX ever run. Teleportation is rare in games - the only ones I can think of are SPI's StarForce: Alpha Centauri and the later stages of Microprose's X-Com 3: Apocalypse. The latter's scale is single soldiers and single aliens with personal teleporters, but the primary use of teleporters is for zipping in to drop large quantities of explosives into the enemy's lap. StarForce's primary game module is a star-system-spanning operational wargame, and the tactical space battle subgame bears little relation to the situation in TacOps. Two of the players, in particular, really sank their teeth into the issue of tactics in an army using teleportation with modern equipment. [Why such a force would bother with modern weapons is another matter. 8) ] Umpire: James Sterrett Blue: Corinne Mahaffey Allan Wotherspoon (unable to play due to severe ISP troubles) Red: Matt "Rattler" Ohlmer (commander) John Osborne Initial briefing, for both sides: This will be a *very* unusual game and can accommodate at least 5 players per side (4 companies plus a commander) on the Flaherty map (231). It will run from 30 to 60 turns. The actual game stop point will be determined by a die roll. Each side will get a US battalion task force (4 companies of 2x M-1 platoons, 2x M-2 platoons (with infantry and Javelins), and 1 HQ of 2x M-1 each - but no mortars) and 25 P1 bombs. The objective, for both sides, is to be in sole possession of Flaherty at the end of the game. Failing that, each side will gain one point for every minute in which it is in sole possession of Flaherty. Where does this go off the deep end? Magic move will be left on, for all players, throughout the game. This simulates the use of teleportation devices. All players may use magic move as much as they want, without restrictions. The P1 bombs are the team's artillery (why send shells when you can teleport the explosive?) Blast radii must be preset, but the timing countdowns are up to the players. Team commanders should let me know by noon on Thursday what their bomb radii should be; mix-n-match is legal. Planning: Blue's planning was somewhat broken because Corinne waited for continuation of discussions with Allan that suddenly stopped due to his ISP troubles. She did do a fair amount of thinking about the nature of the tactics that would be needed. However, a communications mixup left her thinking the maximum permissible radius for the bombs was 250m, not 1000m. Thus Blue was saddled with relatively weak bombs throughout the game. Cor's pregame commentary: ----------- I have this vision of everyone jumping around like demented bunnies. But, unless the units move every minute, any spotting of them means they will be shot at the next minute of play. So it might be better not to jump every minute, on the grounds that if you haven't been seen, you can stick around until you are, and then move. It also lets you get the drop on anyone who pops by (after which you'd better move so as not to get shot at). The greatest danger is probably the first minute after moving. So the best bet might be a mix of sitters and movers, with more of the former, placed to overwatch likely drop in points (that is, don't sit in good tactical positions, sit next to them). They should expect to move locally when found, so as to still be able to toast off anyone who drops by the tactical position(s) they are watching. Movers are there to surprise/flush sitters on the other side on whom we then drop a bomb (or several in a pattern in the area). Add a third group, that does nothing but spot for artillery and movers. They are hiding in small groups, and don't open fire, like the sitters do. Timely intelligence is going to be critical and a total pain It would be worth having a few infantry units go to ground in the area and try to ride out any enemy (or our own) bombs. If we are to deny Flaherty to the enemy, we (and they) are likely to drop the occasional town-clearing bomb just on principle, in case anyone is sitting tight there. Should the units on the ground move around trying to find enemies doing the same? Or sit tight? ------------ Matt Ohlmer, on Red delved especially deeply into the tactics, and did a better job of codifying them into the following minor treatise, "Strategies and Tactics in the Teleporting Army": ------------ As we approach tonight's game I have pondered the strategical and tactical consequences of having our and enemy units sport inherent teleport capabilities. Obviously this changes approach to recon, attack and defense quite a bit: We as well as the enemy can be everywhere instantly, delaying actions are impossible, all this creates a permanent tactical surprise situation. Here is how I see the different tasks/attitudes influenced by that: a) Recon Recon in the traditional Army intends to provide the commander with information about location, composition and strength of enemy forces to enable him to react accordingly. In the Teleporting Army this is possible only within certain limitations: As the enemy can change his location instantly, the information about his location yields not much value for the commander, as his reactions to the information will most probably be too late and in the wrong spot. Still, there are areas where traditional recon might play a role (at least on a confined map as in our game tonight), as the enemy will have to assemble his units somewhere in order to have access to them and teleport them, a thorough search of rear areas will probably help locate them and prepare an attack against those AAs. In the battlezone, though, recon will be very different: A fight between teleporting units whose mission is known to the other side is mainly a game of minds: Who can predict first how the enemy commander thinks and what his plans are wins. So, recon against teleporting units must try and *predict* enemy location and strength by searching for patterns in deployment (Example: Enemy always positions units in the EAST of Flaherty, following a 4 min rhythm, or: We spot an enemy unit that keeps relocating every minute, always back and forth over the same kilometer). Those patterns are almost certainly to evolve over time and under stress and might be exploited for preparing coordinated attacks. b) Counter Recon Counter recon in the Teleporting Army is a bunch of methods to mislead enemy when his observing units search for AAs and for deployment patterns. The first is done by relocating frequently and assemble in terrain with short LOS to reduce the risk of getting spotted (i.e. assemble in woods, change those locs frequently). The latter is probably best done by introducing pure chance into the deployment schedules, i.e. roll dice for when and where to deploy. This will not allow enemy to make educated guesses about future deployment locations and timings. If you don't know where you will be in the next minute, enemy wont either...:-> c) Defense Against an enemy permanently threatening surprise attacks defense will have to rely on permanently being prepared: - All units at all times must be deployed in a defensive posture against a 360 degree attack, with inf dismounted and the units of a pln covering each other and all angles of attack. - Units must be dispersed, in our case all vehicle plns at least 600 mtrs apart, inf at least 1200 mtrs apart to survive surprise bomb attacks - SOPs must be in effect, e.g. to break an engagement immediately under smoke cover d) Attack Teleportation gives us something that had to be achieved in the traditional army by lots of training and co-ordination: We now can bring fire of attacking units on the targets in perfect synchronization and simultaneously. So, attack against presumed or suspected enemy positions has the highest chance of success when we attack enemy from several angles at the same time and in significant strength. If in suitable terrain the attacking units should always be accompanied by long range overwatch from a different location. -------------- Matt set the Red bombs such that 20 had a 1000m blast radius and 5 had a 600m blast radius, and figured out locations where Red forces could be deployed into the easternmost or westernmost edges of Flaherty while the rest of the city was hit by a teleported bomb. Both sides drew the same basic conclusions: - Most units sit tight, hidden, awaiting the moment to strike - Another force combs the map looking for enemy forces to hit - A small trickle of forces has to flow into the city to deny it to the enemy The battle proceeded in three distinct engagements separated by extensive periods of recon, with small units fighting - and being blown to smithereens by bombs - in Flaherty the whole time. The first engagement, in the northwest corner of the map, began when Red spotted a pair of Blue M-1s sitting quietly and decided to move in one of their strike forces of Bradleys and M-1s to engage it. The Blue tanks had been spotted by a Red Javelin ATGM team. Anticipating the arrived of the strike force, the Javelin team was ordered to open fire; but the plan miscarried when the strike force commander arrived too far away to spot the Blue tanks. The Javelins fired, but missed, alerting Blue to the plot. Blue, however, only knew of the Javelins, and deployed forces to fire on them. Over the next several turns, the battle proceeded in this radiating manner, with forces deploying in to attack positions the enemy had previously occupied or ones the enemy was thought to be moving to. The engagement ended when Blue decided it had done all the damage it was likely to, and left, just as Red set off a 1000m bomb in the area Blue vacated. The second engagement occurred in the other corner (southeast). After a few minor skirmishes in which Blue tanks teleported in on top of Red infantry units and wiped them out, Blue found some Red armor and teleported in its ambush force. There were no communications mixups, but Blue as not aware of the full extent of Red's deployment. Blue did deploy various overwatch forces, resulting in a brief general engagement before both sides departed to avoid the bomb explosions which duly arrived. Both sides used the first 30 minutes to try to find the enemy forces and ambush them with either bombs or mechanized forces, seeking to gain a decisive advantage in the battle for Flaherty when the uncertain game-end period arrived. Neither succeeded. Red used a novel tactic in which a cloud of infantry units steadily swept through several areas, but Blue was generally not present and the sweep missed those Blue units that were present due to insufficient density. The third engagement began in Flaherty after 30 minutes, but to get there we need to go over the events in Flaherty. Blue initially deployed 8 infantry squads into Flaherty. Red deployed a pair of 1000m bombs, which wiped out the Blue squads (and all of the civilian markers I'd out into town to track civilian losses.) Blue's error here was overcommitment in the early stages of the fighting, and the lesson was learnt; neither side thereafter sent in more than a squad or two at a time to try to control Flaherty, until the 30 minutes were up. Blue forgot about Flaherty for about 10 turns, which allowed Red to build up a substantial lead in points for free. After Blue remembered to contest possession, Blue gained 3 points and Red gained 4. The battle went through a series of seesaw jumps and counterjumps with each side trying to guess where the other might be next and place either a squad or a bomb in that location. Enough bombs went off in Flaherty to reduce the place to a very fine powder. When minute 30 rolled around, both teams were aware that the game would end at random sometime in the next 30 minutes. (I rolled dice and determined the game would end after minute 36.) Both sides therefore began to concentrate forces in and around the town. Red committed one major error at this point, accidentally teleporting a primed 1000m bomb to the same location as their Javelin team rally point. All were present, none survived. Red did a good job of moving its forces to one end or the other of Flaherty at random, dropping a large bomb on the other end in the process. Blue tended to stick to the middle of town, trying to gain better shots on Red's forces, but consequently remaining more predictable. As the game ended, much of blue's mechanized units died to a pair of Red bombs, but Flaherty's ruins were still contested. Lessons learned: Player's pregame theses on the Teleporting Army were generally borne out. When fighting an open battle (the first 30 minutes, outside Flaherty): Units teleporting into an area need to ensure that their arrival is unheralded, and that they arrived deployed in a formation that allows immediate mutual support in the event of contact with the enemy. Forces in contact should disengage immediately before the enemy teleports in a bomb. Infantry makes good scouts, because it can see armored units farther away than they can see the infantry. However, infantry tends to die when it gets into any serious firefight. Standing still gives the enemy the opportunity to deploy an ambush against your forces. Keep moving, and keep moving in tactically sound deployments. This is a non-trivial task. When fighting a pitched battle (control of Flaherty): Both sides know enemy forces will be present. Therefore, bombs will be present. 1000m bomb blasts are essentially tactical nuclear weapons. You must plan your deployments to stay out of range of your own blasts' effective radius, and to maneuver to prevent the enemy being able to effectively predict your locations without blanketing the entire area (and thus denying themselves control of the area as well.) These forces that are zipping around must still deploy in a tactically sound manner so they can effectively engage any enemy forces spotted. Both sides concluded it was necessary to deploy massive forces into Flaherty at the end of the game. This may not have been a correct decision. The attrition tactics of the previous 30 minutes had been largely successful in the negative goal of denying the enemy control of Flaherty. If either side had continued the same troop commitment coupled with an increased bomb commitment, that side might have avoided significant losses and thus come out ahead in the long term in attrition without relinquishing control of the city. This might also lead to a radiating battle away from the city as forces deployed and counterdeployed to snipe at enemy forces which were deployed on the outskirts of Flaherty in order to avoid both friendly and enemy bomb blasts. I'm looking forward to see the player's AARs on this one. 8) Matt Ohlmer suggested running the game again, but with a stationary Teleport unit and one-way teleportation. This would be interesting, but it is fraught with potential for accidental player error. It's all too easy to change a unit's location when magic move is permitted, and it is not possible to restrict magic move to only a few units. Thus such a game would impose extra demands on the players to be extra-careful to magic move only those units that could legally shift. I suspect that would slow the game down substantially. [The game in this case ran at 1 minute of orders for each one minute turn, eventually moving to 2 minutes when Corinne, alone on Blue, needed more time to keep up with the two players on Red. The game started a bit after 8.30 PM and ended at around 10PM. That's a ration of 2.5 real minutes to every 1 game minute. Note that TacOps V3 and prior CPXes (run manually by the umpire) hardly ever approached this rate of play; 3:1 was considered quite fast.] Title: Re: Teleporting Tanks CPX RED CO AAR Post by: Rattler on 4 November 2009, 10:10:19 Teleporting Tanks: Red CO's AAR for TacOps CPX, July 11 2002, Matt "Rattler" Ohlmer
As James Sterrett´s AAR already has most of how the game went I will refrain from repeating briefings etc and just go into some detail and fill in some gaps from RED´s point of view. When James announced the CPX I was intrigued by the underlying ideas and decided to participate despite the unholy hours the cpx was played for us Europeans (game start was 0230L here, had to get up in the middle of the night; as I stated during the the game thats something I had not done since the Muhammad Ali/Joe Frazier fight in the 70´s...:-> ). Before starting to plan I had run some tests on bombs with following results: - No terrain masking helps against bombs, they affect high ground from low ground within their explosion radius as well as low ground behind a hill in the way. - no hiding behind LOS blocks, like woods, towns etc. The bomb affects everything within its radius, boom. - bombs have the same effect in town terrain as in rough 2 - bombs do NOT kill other bombs (I had hoped they would take some enemy bombs with them when exploding) - The effect of the bombs depends largely on the target type, vehicles are much less effected than infantery. All vehicles are more or less affected the same, tanks suffer equally as APCs. - the bomb effect decreases with distance of the target unit from ground zero, if you combine that with the smaller vulnerability of vehicles you get the folowing pattern (tables to be viewed in monotype font like Courier or Monaco; S = Supressed, NE = No Effect): BOMB vs Vehicles (percentage destroyed + Supression) ---------------------------------------------------- 50 200 400 600 800 1000 (Bomb Radius Nominal) Dist. 0 75+S 100 100 100 100 100 140 NE Blink 40+S 75+S 75+S 92+S 270 NE NE Blink S 50+S 25+S 410 NE NE Blink Blink S 25+S 560 NE NE NE NE Blink Blink 700 NE NE NE NE NE Blink 840 NE NE NE NE NE Blink 1000 NE NE NE NE NE NE Target Distnc Things become much different when it goes vs infantery (note I changed one radius to 270 mtrs): BOMB vs Inf (percentage destroyed + Supression) ----------------------------------------------- 50 270 400 600 800 1000 (Bomb Radius Nominal) Dist. 0 100 100 100 100 100 100 140 NE 80+S 100 100 100 100 270 NE S 30+S 90+S 100 100 410 NE NE S 30+S 65+S 100 560 NE NE NE 5+S 30+S 70+S 700 NE NE NE NE 5+S 30+S 840 NE NE NE NE NE 10+S 1000 NE NE NE NE NE S Target Distnc Going with these tables we decided to set our bomb radius to 1000 mtrs and some (5) bombs to 600 mtrs for use inside Flaherty. My basic problem was that I obviously had not read the first announcement for the cpx well enough, so until about 4 hours before battle I was not aware of the type of forces we (and the enemy) would have, whether we would have armor, inf or mech inf. Consequently, I had to make plans in a very general fashion and had not much time to refine them until game start. Had I kept and read the original announcement I am sure we would have fared much better in the CPX as I would have asked my teammate John to do some practice rounds before game. Like it was, when I became aware of our force structure I prepared following OPORD proposal for our forces: ----------------------------------------------------------- OPORD proposal We are tasked to take and hold FLAHERTY in sector 23 within a time span of between 30 and 60 minutes. We know that enemy has the same mission. Whoever has sole possesion of FLAHERTY at game end wins. Also, for every turn of sole possesion of FLAHERTY before game end the side that meets this condidition gains 1 point (I assume that in case of a draw, i.e. nobody or both occupy FLAHERTY at game end, the points decide game winner). Our forces as well as enemy forces will be equipped with the new teleporters, i.e. can move everywhere on the map instantly. We are given 4 coys of Brads and 4 coys of tanks to fulfill the mission, as support we have been given 25 teleportable bombs, 20 of them with a blast radius of 1000 mtrs, 5 of them with a blast radius of 600 mtrs. We expect enemy to have a similar force. Enemy bomb blast radii are unknown, Plan: As we as well as the enemy are new to this type of warfare, we will concentrate in the beginning of the game on finding out how enemy uses his teleporters and try to discern patterns which make it possible for us to deal some devastating blows to his force structure. At the same time we will deny enemy finding patterns of our movements or attitudes by introducing die rolls to decide between possible alternative COAs. Our Javelin dismounts are tasked with this job, as they have a very low signature and can jump close to enemy units w/o getting spotted and can see through bomb explosion induced smoke. Parallel we will attempt to have at least one unit inside FLAHERTY at all times to have an eye there as well as to secure the possible point after each turn. Our infantry dismounts will be tasked with this job, one or more of them will jump to FLAHERTY every turn, either to the westmost or to the eastmost point of it (die roll). The alternative to this strategy is to wipe FLAHERTY clear of enemy troops (2x Bomb), which we will do occasionally to not present a pattern of action (die roll). When we have established patterns in enemy use of teleporters and organisation of his troops we will try to anticipate those movemnts and attack enemy in force with our strike formations. These strike formations are formed of one tank coy and one or more bradley overwatch plns. If we dont find any enemy move and deploment patterns we will attack strategically interesting points with our strike formations and secure them. After 30 minutes game time we will attempt to keep FLAHERTY free of enemy troops while occupying it, i.e. employ a bomb every turn. Execution: At game start our strike formations will distruibute in woods with a distance of at least 1200 mtrs between each pln. This is to make them less vulnerable against enemy recon attempts and against enemy bomb detonations. The Javelins will distribute over the map and jump one quadrant each turn until they spot enemy. When enemy gets spotted, javelin stays in place to report enemy reactions. Javelins will start on the west side of map and jump closer to Flaherty as the game proceeds. We will start the game with two bomb explosions in Flaherty to clean it of enemy units and to find out whether he had units deployed there (secondaries). If enemy uses bombs at game start as well we will get a clue about his blast radii. The strike formations will attack known or suspected enemy positions always as a coy, the three platoons forming a triangle of variable side length (up to commander, depends on terrain). The idea here is to attack simultaneously from at least three directions. Any return fire should be dealt with by the overwatch units that go with each strike formation. The unpredictable occupation/withdrawal rhythm in FLAHERTY requires good coordination of commanders: Everytime we use two 1km bombs to "clean" Flaherty our own units have to withdraw to at least 2 km away from town to avoid fratricide. END OPORD ------------------------------------------------ How it went: At game start all seemed to go as planned: We encountered some enemy units in their rear areas in the NW quadrants of the map, after waiting one turn to see whether they moved we decided to attack them. Johns strike force moved in, but not close enough to the enmy tanks to open fire on them (he positioned his attack force about 600 mtrs away from them qand they only were visible at 400). In the course of the resulting fight we took heavy losses, as our overwatch units were not in a tactically sound position and fell to return fire from enemy overwatch units. The second battle ensued when I was afraid that enemy would by chance jump on my stacked inf teams (they were all in the SW most corner of the map) and take them out with a bomb. I decided to distribute them over some 10 sqkm and happened to spot a lot of enemy units that obvioulsy had learned from us and were looking for our units in our rear areas. Again, we moved in to strike, this time the strike force went close enough,m but again the enemy overwatch units took out most of our strike forces. It was during those two enegagements that we lost most units. I decided to close ranges in my recon force and had all Javelins sweep sectors of the map in 500 mtrs distance. We never found enemy units (James said our ounits were too far apart, but I had figured with 500 mtrs distance to each other they would have a good chance to spot enemy). After that, at about 30 minutes into game, we started to go for Flaherty seriously, and things improved a lot. We had established that enemy only used bombs of 250 mtrs blast radius (destruction risk for our vehicles within 150 mtrs), which would not effect our vehicles over a big distance, also it seemed enemy had run out of bombs (I had kept a count and whiloe it was not precise due to me dropping from game for a turn, I had counted more than 20). All this gave us a clear advantage and we managed to deal some heavy blow to tenemy in Flaherty In this phase coordination with John was perfect, we only needed a few words every time to relocate our entire force ("west", "east"). Had I not commited the error of blowing away the majority of our Javelins: when drag-selecting them to evac from our own bomb (as it turned out the bomb was within the rectangle and went with them), we would have been much more effective, but even with this blow to our overwatch we did well. I do not cocnur with James that we would have been better off following our original strategy after minute 30: As far as we knew, game could end any minute, so probably no chance to correct errors, also we knew enemy would go for Flaherty and try to hold it, and, since we had not encountered enemy in other areas of the map anymore, going therte as well seemed (and still seems) a good idea. In the enbd James declared us the winners because we had scored more occupation points, but I thin k a bit of luck was involved here. Lessons learned: - when moving strike formations have them deploy in sound tactical formation, i.e. overwatch deployed as during any regualar engagement - we should have priority targeted for enemy units in our various strike force elements (Brads for APCs, tanks for Javelins) - we should have attacked from various angles once spotting an enemy unit, this didnt work throughout game - training: We should have run some trainging runs just before game within the team to make sure we were all singing from the same sheet. I had expected our attack formations to always deploy in triangle formation within a 400 mtrs radius of the unit we wanted to attack and overwatch at least 2000 mtrs away, if we had tried that out before we would not have had to adjust during the game with all the relatedd stress/comms problems. In all, it was the fun I expected when James announced the CPX, as well duirng planning as during the actual game. I want to especially thank John Osborne for being such a great team mate, his patience with my slow recon efforts and with the big errors I commited, it was a lot of fun to communicate with him and run this strange scenario the way we did. Matt "Rattler" Ohlmer Title: Re: Teleporting Tanks CPX AAR Post by: Mad Russian on 5 November 2009, 01:56:59 That looks like a heck of alot more than 10 minutes a day.
Good Hunting. MR Title: Re: Teleporting Tanks CPX AAR Post by: Rattler on 5 November 2009, 02:57:14 ? What do you mean?
This was *not* a MBX, it was a live multiplayer net game of approximatly 80 minutes duration (hence the friendly fire incident under stress as reported). From the umpire AAR: Quote The game in this case ran at 1 minute of orders for each one minute turn, eventually moving to 2 minutes when Corinne, alone on Blue, needed more time to keep up with the two players on Red. The game started a bit after 8.30 PM and ended at around 10PM. That's a ration of 2.5 real minutes to every 1 game minute. From my AAR: Quote Had I not commited the error of blowing away the majority of our Javelins: when drag-selecting them to evac from our own bomb (as it turned out the bomb was within the rectangle and went with them), we would have been much more effective, but even with this blow to our overwatch we did well. Rattler Title: Re: Teleporting Tanks CPX AAR Post by: stoffel on 6 November 2009, 17:20:02 Steve,
Like Rattler said this was something different. A cpx basically is very simple, below are the major aspects. Two teams are formed. a) Umpire sends team CO an assignment. b) CO receives a map with units on it. c) CO makes plan and discuss it with team. d) CO sends order to Umpire e) umpire plays out game in sequences of 1, 2, 5 ,10 minute turns or any duration he chooses. f) start again with item c after each turn played, adjusting and/or change orders :) Only the disscussion part will take somewhat longer, the rest plays out very fast and smooth. Henk Title: Re: Teleporting Tanks CPX AAR Post by: Rattler on 6 November 2009, 20:26:14 Steve, Like Rattler said this was something different. A cpx basically is very simple, below are the major aspects. Two teams are formed. a) Umpire sends team CO an assignment. b) CO receives a map with units on it. c) CO makes plan and discuss it with team. d) CO sends order to Umpire e) umpire plays out game in sequences of 1, 2, 5 ,10 minute turns or any duration he chooses. f) start again with item c after each turn played, adjusting and/or change orders :) Only the disscussion part will take somewhat longer, the rest plays out very fast and smooth. THe big difference is that the players all run the game on their own computers and just connect to the host (umpire) via net in a CPX. Order exchange is done by the game engine, time pressure is high (as umpire in a CPX I usually try to match one minute game time to 1 minutes orders time per turn, i.e. witht he exchange and exectuion try to achieve a 2.5 ratio RL vs. game time. In an MBX you wont need the game, as it is only running on one (umpire´s) machine, orders are exchanged in written and time pressures are virtual. Rattler |