May 28, 1999
After Action Review
Scenario: The Mad General
Map 100
The following is a series e-mail excerpts written during a recent game of the Mad General, with Chuck Bracey playing the US and myself in the starring role. <g> We thought that stringing them together might make an interesting form of AAR, for entertainment value if nothing else.
For those of you who are not familiar with the Mad General, it involves a US extraction mission aimed at locating and capturing the war criminal/leader of a rogue Bosnian-Serb army during an uprising in that part of the Balkans. The US is allowed to choose one of three types of forces for the mission: US Army task force, Marine Expeditionary Unit or a Delta/Ranger/160th SOAR Special Ops team. The General's command posts is unknown to the U.S. at the start of the game and must be located through the use of paratroopers or a satellite photo which must be composed by the OPFOR player, plus air missions and helo-depoyed recon.
Chuck chose the MEU and went with the satellite recon option. I went with the extra SAM shipment and used most of my expense account to splurge on a HIP helo. The helo was mainly for deploying units far to the west in order to delay the US advance across the main valley and to throw off his calculations as to the possible location of the command post. I placed my CP all the way in the northeast valley with the CP facing west into the valley (no roads or trails nearby). As for the satellite shot, I couldn't resist playing a nasty trick on Chuck (only because it was part of the General's character, you understand, not my own. <g>) . As per the rules, I created a 1x1 "sat shot" showing nothing but a large mass of my units and some patches of nothing but green woods. No landmarks or distinguishing features (like the valley) of any kind. Poor Chuck. I think he expected to get a few more clues from that photo. Things weren't helped for him by his declining to use his air power as recon. But events have a strange way of turning out, as we both would learn...
Wider view of rear defenses a few minutes after sat shot was taken. CP is in entrenchment just below the ATGM on the east bank of the river. (It is in exactly the same position, just the defenses around it have moved).
At the beginning of the battle my trucks and BTRs surrounding the CP immediately dispersed with mounted infantry and helped to form a cohesive defense along the valley, with BTRs crossing the nearby river to guard the entrance from the south. (The tunnel effect of the narrow end of this nort-south valley turned out to be *too* narrow, as I found out later, allowing many US units to approach along the outside of this cone of death.) I also laid a minefield on the opposite side of the river as well as along the narrow strip of woods at the southern end of the valley. Since I was almost as far away as possible to the east and surrounded by both natural and man-made obstacles, I felt very safe and secure indeed. :->
The HIP successfully dropped an AT4 and SAM team in the central (round) valley and as far west as the big town near the river, but was shot down less than 15 minutes into the game (by an airstrike?) as I recall. (The General threw a major tantrum!) but the delay caused by the forward-deployed AT4 and SAM in that town was significant -- well worth the price, in my opinion. I think in Chuck was being extra slow and cautious in the early stages because he probably suspected the main body of my defense was closer to the river than it really was, and also because very early on he found out how intense my air defense was further to the east (due to the extra SAMs). It wasn't until the last few minutes of the game that he became highly aggressive, which, by that point, was a safe decision since most of my air threats and defenses had been cleared or circumvented.
Some of the early e-mails were lost, but most of the ones with "reports" attached to them were saved after turn 17 or so. Here they are:
* = US entries.
All other entries are OPFOR (the General).
07:17
The General is pleased by the report of having downed a heavy
chopper
some minutes ago, and that his patrols are playing havoc on what
appears
to be a northward advance by Marine amphib units. His staff, not
wanting to evoke another violent mood swing [the General had a
tirade earlier about losing his helo <g>] decide not to
tell him about the troop transport that was destroyed by a LAV
in the central region, hoping it will go by unnoticed during the
heat of battle. :->
07:19
The General paces nervously, annoyed at the lack of sightings
of any
sizeable U.S. forces. He wonders where the main thrust of U.S.
Marines
is, and begins to survey the map once more to see if there may
have been
some holes in his defense. He absently massages the throat area
of his neck as he glances at a German newspaper lying on his table.
It bears a headline referring
to the war crimes tribunal at The Hague. <g>
07:21
The General is told that his spies have been discovered and
rooted out
of their buildings [in the large town located in the central valley],
while his AT team was killed without having fired a single missile.
He is not angry, however; he knows that they at least helped to
delay the American advance for a several minutes, which is as
valuable as a destruction of any LAV or hummer.
07:23
[The ATGMs and machine gunners] are obviously...
not-well-trained, given how many 'easy' shots they missed just
now [firing at the Marine-laden AAVs].
07:24*
Upon hearing the news of the latest reports in the CIC, the
American
commander gives the orders to launch the TRAP team from the USS
WASP.
He wonders if any Marines have survived the crash. If not, he'd
better get started writing letters home. This is the part of command
he hates the most.
07:25
Cheers are heard from mountaintop to mountaintop as the two
Blackhawks
are swatted out of the sky. The General's only disappointment
is that
they were shot down west of the Bosna River, otherwise he would
have
sent out patrols to try and capture the pilots before the U.S.
arrived
and subject them to some of his newly developed methods of torture.
:->
07:26*
Second-guessing himself won't change things, as the American
commander
ponders what impact the news has on the operation. He has bearly
digested the reports that a media pool was onboard one of the
Blackhawks
downed when his G-2 informs him that Brussels has radioed.....
07:27
The General orders his aide to draw up a nice hot bath, and
another
glass of uzo. He smugly slips into the warm water and begins to
read
his favorite book, the Memoirs of Tito. Obviously, he is not worried
that his headquarters will be threatened anytime soon.... <g>
07:29
The General is informed of increasing activity in the northwest
on both
sides of the valley. He is delighted to hear of another downed
chopper. This time, he may be able to capture the troops that
were on board.
07:30*
The G-2 scratches his head as he tries to answer the commander's
questions regarding the intel pictures provided by the NSA. And
the
commander is getting an ear full from Brussels for allowing the
INN news
crew onboard the Blackhawk that was shotdown just minutes ago...<g>
07:31
The General finally realizes what is taking the Americans so
long to
advance. His expert camouflage techniques -- a tactic he learned
after
years of hiding out in the woods while being hunted by UN peacekeeping
forces -- must have deceived the U.S. as to the whereabouts of
his
command post even more than he had hoped. He lets out a fiendish
cackle
at the thought that the mighty CIA and NSA with their satellites
and other high-tech toys might have been fooled by his handiwork
with paint, tree branches and a shovel. The cackle, however, quickly
turns a bit maniacal, almost psychotic-sounding, causing looks
of concern among his staff. <g>
07:33
The General, upon hearing nothing more than occasional machinegun
chatter in the far distance, and no new reports of any other U.S.
advances, summons his manicurist and his hair stylist and continues
his
primping. He obviously expects to be making a triumphant announcement
at the upcoming press conference, and wants to make the best impression
possible... <g>
07:36*
The Serbian forces must be using a futuristic camo like the
alien in the
movie "Predator." US forces are radioing back to the
ship that they
can't shoot at what they can't see.<g>
07:37
Serbian troops run for their lives as heavy artillery zeroes
in on their
positions in the northwest woods...
07:38*
"...I'm hit!!!", is the last radio message heard
on the ship intercom.
Apparently, the recon flight has crashed surmises the American
commander. Intel reports that the Serbian forces appear to have
the new
improved SA-16 SAM. And lots of them, by all the individual sightings
from thru-out the area of operations. He can only sigh as he looks
over
the overlay maps.<g>
07:39
The General orders a search team to move in and capture the
downed
American fighter pilot -- this time the location of the downed
plane is
well within his grasp, and already stories are being told of the
local
Serb peasants dancing on the torn off wing of the aircraft. He
orders his
medical unit to bring a full assortment of dental tools. <fiendish
grin>
07:40*
Borrowing a phrase from Peiper in the Ardennes Forest, the
US Commander
hollers to the top of his voice, "Damned those engineers!".
The General
has managed yet another surprise for the Marines. Those Serbian
sappers
could mess-up a wet dream.<g> [It is at this point that
Chuck ran into the first of my minefields near the northeast valley.
-- RT]
The CIC is abuzz with news of machine-gun and small arms fire
in the
northern region. The US commander revises his ROE to take no Serbian
engineers prisoner. "To hell with the Geneva Convention!",
he tells his
chief of staff. The staff officer wonders if the commander is
cracking
under the pressure?<g>
07:41
The General is displeased by the poor performance of his frontline
defense [Chucks forces managed to consistently overwhelm my defenses
in this sector, or circumvent them completely, as it turned out.
-- RT] and inquires of his staff the names and backgrounds of
all of his lower-level field commanders. He is obviously mulling
over some battlefield promotions while simultaneously relieving
several
captains of their command.
07:43
The General continues primping in the mirror as his personally-funded film crew begins setting up for the first shot, but stops when he hears that a sizeable force of Marines has been spotted at the east end of the southern ravine. Without removing his makeup bib, he looks at the map and begins to fine-tune his defense, barking out orders to his aide-de-camp as he does so.
07:48*
The time is definitely becoming a factor for the US forces.
Being short
on time may make the US commander try something radical.<g>
07:51
With only 20 minutes to go before the arrival of his armored
brigades,
the General calls for the press conference to commence exactly
at 08:10,
local time. He rehearses his victory speech in front of the
teleprompter for a few minutes, then orders another glass of uzo
from
his aide. He openly declares that he expects to be both a national
hero
and a local legend by nightfall.
07:53
More rebellious cheers are heard across the mountains, as another
menacing Cobra is brought down, this time by an AK-47. The previous
pilot was never found but this one will be easy meat -- the wreckage
is
still visible in the western section of Dead Man's Ravine.
7:55
With only 15 minutes to go before his armored brigades arrive,
and with
the sound of machine gun fire still far away in the distance,
the
General raises his glass of uzo in a toast to the new Srpska Republika.
He then asks discreetly about the condition of the American Cobra
pilot,
to see if he can stand a live broadcast long enough to confess
to
killing local civilians due to the indiscriminant use of rocket
pods (thereby
helping to cover up the fact that the civilians in question were
actually killed
by his own forces. <g>)
07:56*
Where, oh where is that war criminal? That is the question
that the US
commander is asking his staff. Dumbfounded, they reply "Sir,
we have no
idea!" Perhaps he is underground in one of the numerous caverns
that are
in the mountainous terrain.<g>
07:57
Good news. The General has learned over that last 30 minutes that not one, but two MiG-27s have managed to enter Bosnian Serb airspace with no sign of American fighter interception. Arrival time is estimated at 8 minutes, and destination is set for the northeast valley.
The General, heartened by this piece of luck, cannot resist taunting the American commander with a short but incisive radio message... "Tick, tick, tick." <g>
07:58*
...tock and the mouse ran up the clock.<g>
It's getting to be crunch time for the "jarheads" and
they still can't
locate the war criminal.
The Serbians are putting up one helluva fight. Semper Fi!
07:59
The fighting is moving far to the east now, and US troops are
beginning to filter across the eastern river. The Serbian infantry
is more densely distributed here, and are putting up a great deal
of resistance. The General notes with pride that his troops really
fight ferociously the closer the enemy gets to his command post.
They are also fighting for themselves; they are strongly connected
to the idea of homeland. Of
course, it may also be because they're led by officers who, along
with
the General, have their own reasons for wanting to avoid the proceedings
at the Hague. <g>
08:00*
"Blackhawk down!!!", is heard over and over on the
intercom in the CIC
onboard the USS Wasp monitoring the ongoing battle. The airboss
realizes he doesn't have anymore TRAP teams to send out, he wonders
if
the Serbian general will abide by the Geneva Convention regarding
the
treatment of POWs?<g>
08:01
The General, upon learning that several US helo pilots are
in the
process of being brought back to his command post, smiles and
orders
medals for each of the riflemen who helped bring down the choppers.
As if to
refresh his memory about something, he reaches for a dog-eared
copy of the Memoirs of the Marquis de Sade...
08:02*
As Elmer Fudd might say, " Where is that crazy wabbit?".
Been beating
the bushes and no luck.<g>
08:03
The General is alarmed to hear sniper fire and machine gun
chatter
within earshot of his command post, and barks at his aides to
cancel the
press conference. It perturbs him that his nerves would suddenly
be
rattled when he felt so secure for so long. But he is relieved
to hear
that his armored brigades are only 7 minutes away from closing
in and
trapping the US forces. He grabs his Barretta and slaps in a cartridge,
just in case.
08:04
Bombs and artillery land squarely on the command post, and
it is only a
miracle that the General is still alive. The Serb pilots who flied
death-defyingly low altitudes to reach the battlefield in time
did not
do the job the General had hoped for. In the aftermath of the
artillery and air attack most of his staff is dead, and only a
few remnants of infantry remain. Suddenly, the smug look of victory
on the General's face has changed to sheer fear and paranoia.
He begins to lacerate his surviving staff with incoherent profanity;
he has completely flipped out. Even his most
loyal followers are wondering whether to keep fighting or surrender,
now
that their leader is completely incapable of command...
08:04*
US Commander does a double-take when he hears the news of the
spotting
of the war criminal. But his first thoughts of those brave crewmen
lost
in the Blackhawk that spotted the target. His G-2 remarks, "Sir,
those
guys should be recommended for the CMOH." The commander agrees...<g>
08:05*
The US commander stresses to his staff, "The criminal
must be brought to
justice!" Yet he has a gut feeling that his marines with
take out their
vengance on him. Not because of the general's alleged war atrocities,
but for their fallen comrades. He can only hope that his orders
are
followed to the letter.<g>
08:05
The American artillery and mortar blasts the Serbian command
post into a
burning, smoldering heap of wreckage , turning once-proud Serbian
officers into gory, hunks of charred flesh. Miraculously, the
General survives the shelling and is still clinging to a combination
of frail hopes: his artillery,
is almost ready to hit the US M1s with its few rounds of secretly
acquired ICM, specially saved for just such a moment (but unfortunately
has lost sighting accuracy) while an ATGM team which was stupidly
left unattended to during the
General's paranoic tirade and withdrew from LOS is finally ordered
to move forward and kill the tanks if possible, or at least the
AAV7s.
Also, his SAMs are poised on the high ground along western side
of the valley and may be able to bring down some of the enemy's
attack helos. His hope is that he can
cause enough damage to the U.S. forces to make them give up the
hunt, in spite of the fact that he is well within their grasp.
Also, mortar smoke was to hit the area
at 07:66:50 and prevent any ground units from gaining sight of
him
while he hid under the smoldering timbers.
But as luck would have it, this was 5 seconds too late! The
SAMs inexplicably did not fire, and the helos killed the last
of the trucks and the BTR which represented
the General's only remaining escape route. A US recon (sniper?)
team
spotted him and rushed inside the demolished command post, the
rifleman
training his scoped rifle on the General's head as his buddy grabbed
the star-shouldered quarry and began to tie him up. In less than
a minute, the General
was prisoner of the U.S. Marine Corps. By this time tomorrow,
he
would be sitting in jail cell in the Hague.
08:06*
The coded message " Bag'm&Tag'm" is heard in
the Sitroom at JSOC HQ, Ft.
Bragg, NC. This is the signal that the criminal has been taken
into
custody by members of the elite Seal Team 6. Meanwhile, onboard
the USS
Wasp the US commander has asked his assistant to get him one of
his
cuban cigars out of his humidor.<g>
----------------------
FINAL OUTCOME: With 4 minutes or so to spare, the U.S. found and captured the General, losing a total of 45% casualites. (65% were needed to force the U.S. to give up the chase). The General, who was interviewed later in his cell, reports that he was flabbergasted that the US managed to pull off the mission, given how long it took the Marines to locate his command post. He also claims that the loss could have been easily avoided if he wasn't so smug about how well his camouflage tactics and the helo deployments appeared to work. All he needed to do was to redeploy some of his rear defenses a few minutes sooner, and make sure he did not lose sight of his artillery at that critical moment so that he could have brought his ICM-firing arty to bear on the U.S. tanks and AAVs. Even a few smoke rounds, carefully placed, could have easily cost the U.S. another 4 minutes. But he also gave credit to the US commander, whose tenacity and resolve never waned, and who relentlessly sought his quarry to the end regardless of the poor intel and mishaps suffered earlier.
The General later learned perhaps the most significant reason for his defeat: the U.S. had split up its forces into two main groups, one in the north and one in the south. The northern group was sufficiently attritted and detained by combat and smoke, but somehow most of the southern force threaded the needle between the General's pickets in the southern half of the map and slipped by undetected. This explains the sudden appearance of a sizeable U.S. force at the eastern end of the main valley in the last 10 or 15 minutes -- they had infiltrated and circled around to the north, for the most part unopposed. This, (in addition to the somewhat pared down overall defense on account of the expensive HIP helo) accounts for the General's inability to cause more attrition to the U.S. forces than he had hoped.
The General faces life plus 99 years for his ethnic cleasing of Bosnia some years ago. The General does not seem worried, however, perhaps because he has hired attorneys Shapiro and Cochran -- the same lawyers who defended OJ Simpson in 1995. <g>
END REPORT.