After-Action Report:  TacOps CPX via IRC on August 3, 1996

This report contains the following sections:

1) A brief explanation of how this type of CPX works, since this has 
proven confusing to some.

2) A summary of the orders given to each side, and the planning on each 
side.

3) A narrative of the course of the game, including the various 
difficulties encountered both by the players and by the CPX system

4) Lessons learned, both for running the CPX and for playing TacOps.

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1)  A brief explanation of how this system (CPX via IRC) works.

	This method of playing TacOps borrows heavily from the tradition 
of Kriegspiel, a wargame originally used by the Prussian General Staff 
for training in the early 1800's.  In Kriegspiel, each player sits at a 
map, and marks friendly and enemy positions on it (traditionally with 
small painted lead blocks).  The player sends orders to the troops under 
his command by submitting the orders to an umpire.  There are several 
umpires, who are responsible for running the game:  they get the orders 
from the players, they put these orders into effect on a  master map 
seen only by the umpires, they resolve combat, and they report the 
results back to the players.

	What relevance does this have to a TacOps CPX?  A lot!  First, the 
notion that "none of the players need to have a running copy of TacOps" 
breaks the Mac-PC barrier - since only the umpire needs to be running 
TacOps, the systems of the players do not matter.  This works because 
the players submit their orders and get their updates via text (typed 
over IRC) and pictures (in our case, in a .bmp format) that are readable 
by both systems.  In theory, it is possible to play in this type of CPX 
without owning TacOps, though I suspect that this would be very 
confusing since much of the terminology and methodology of the CPX is 
TacOps-derived.
	The second point of relevance is that the players are forced into 
more confined roles that is common in TacOps.  A TacOps player is 
normally anything from a tank platoon commander to a regiment commander 
in the same turn.  A TacOps CPX player will vary less in role - the 
umpire takes care of the details of movement of most units below company 
size.  This is not terribly boring since the CPX mode also denies the 
player much information that normally is available in TacOps - the fog 
of war is much thicker in a CPX (or a normal Kriegspiel) than in normal 
TacOps.  In my opinion, this is an improvement.
	The third point is that the focus on decision-making, the lack of 
information, the fact that the game clock continues to tick while you 
think, and the need to trust "subordinates" - either other players, or 
the umpire - to carry out your instructions, tends to produce a better 
"feel" than the normal micromanaged TacOps does.  One player, Jake Rose, 
commented that playing in a CPX felt like "sitting in a TOC [Tactical 
Operations Center] getting radio reports".  This, in my opinion, is the 
intended feel of the CPX.  

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2) The orders given to each side, and the initial planning by each side.  
The game was played on TacOps Map #15.

OPFOR: 

Commander:  Steve Weatherwax

Orders:  Your reinforced Battalion is acting as the Forward Detachment 
of the 8th Guards Army.  In this capacity you are to find a route across 
Map 15, overwhelming or bypassing any enemy resistance met.  You are to 
seize and hold terrain features you feel are key to ensuring the swift 
movement of following forces across the map, and exit the equivalent of 
at least 1 company off of the West edge.

Intelligence Summary:  No enemy forces are believed to be currently 
occupying your line of march.  However, Intel believes that the enemy 
may be attempting to move at least several companies into the sector to 
delay our thrust.

Forces available:

1x BMP Battalion (43x BMP, 6x SP Mortar (Battery #3)), and infantry)
1x T-80U Battalion (31x T-80U)
1x BRDM-AT Company (9x BRDM-AT)
1x BMP Scout platoon (6x BMP + 6x Infantry squad)

Off-Map:
2x 152mm Artillery
Airstrikes may be available if contact is made.

Moderate chance of more artillery ammo.

Your force may deploy in column east of Easting 10 on map 15.  The 
Company groups are:

The Scout Platoon  (1 group)
3 BMP Companies (3 groups)
3 Tank Companies (3 groups)
1 Mortar Battery (1 group)
1 BRDM-AT Company  (1 group)

1 BMP (HQ of the Bn) and 1 GAZ66 truck carrying an 8-man HQ (you and 
your fellow commanders) may be counted as part of, and deployed with, 
any group.

I need to know how you would like these subunits deployed.  They may be 
deployed anywhere east of Easting 10 on Map 15, in a march column.  The 
scouts may be scattered ahead of the column across the width of the map 
(but east of Easting 10).  You should leave about 1km of march-route per 
company group.  Small flank and advance guards are  permitted in the 
formation.  If the "tail" of your column is off-map that is OK; off-map 
Company Groups will enter at 2-minute intervals.

--------------------
US:

Commander:  Alan Lewis (in the event, actually John Crawford)

Orders:  The front line in this sector has disintegrated, and the 
resulting battle of maneuver offers both dangers and opportunities.   
Your Battalion Team is to enter the sector and ensure that the front 
restabilizes as far east as  is practicable.  In order to do this, you 
are to move into the sector and secure it, defeating any enemy forces 
found.  Exit at least a company equivalent off the east edge of the map 
to conduct deeper operations against the enemy.

Intelligence Summary:  Intelligence believes the enemy has no forces 
currently in the sector.  However, the enemy will probably attempt to 
exploit this opportunity.  Expect the enemy to arrive in at least 
company strength.

Forces available:

2x Bradley Company  (28 Bradleys, plus 18 Javelins, and infantry)
2x M-1 Company (28 M-1s)
1x Scout Platoon (6 Bradleys + infantry teams)
1x M-106 Mortar Battery (Battery #3)
1x Stinger Platoon (6x Stinger)

Also, 1 M577 TOC carrying 1 8-man HQ element.

Off-Map:
2x 155mm Artillery batteries
Airstrikes may be available if contact is made.

Moderate chance of more artillery ammo.

Your is deployed in march column in the West end of Map 15.  "Company 
groups"  are:

2x Bradley Companies (2 groups)
2x M-1 Companies (2 groups)
1x Scout Platoon (1 group)
1x Mortar Platoon (1 group)

The TOC  may be brought onto the map with any group.

I need to know how you wish these units to be deployed.  The should be 
deployed into a march column west of Easting 5 on Map 15.  The Scout 
Group's subunits may be deployed across the width of the map (west of 
Easting 5), the rest should be in column, leaving approx 1km per company 
group.  Small flank and advance guards may be placed as well by 
splitting one of your companies.

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Planning by each side:

	US planning was knocked into a cocked hat by a series of troubles.  
The US commander faced scheduling problems that delayed the submission 
of orders to me, though they got in on time.  The same problems then 
forced the US commander to drop out at the last minute.  John Crawford 
jumped into the breach but had to take the deployment he was given and 
run with it without much time to think about how he wanted his forces to 
move.  This had some serious consequences for the opening moves by the 
US side.  The US plan was, in essence, nonexistent as far as I knew; the 
force would move east down the road and react to whatever the scouts, 
out ahead of it, found.  I suspect that a more coherent plan would have 
exited if Alan Lewis, the original CO, had been able to stay, or if John 
Crawford had been able to have more time to plan.

	OPFOR planning was quietly dominated by Jake Rose, who has studied 
OPFOR tactics in some detail.  OPFOR split itself into a scout section, 
a Forward Security Element (FSE), of a heavily reinforced BMP company 
plus the battalion mortars, 1-2 kilometers behind the scouts, a main 
body of mixed BMP & tank companies, and a flank guard of a reinforced 
BMP company.  The overall plan was to find the US force, fix it with the 
FSE, and hammer it from a flank with the main body.

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3)  What happened.

Players on each side:

US:	John Crawford
	Christian Simon

OPFOR:Steve Weatherwax
	Jake Rose
	Gene Rowell

"UN Observers": Alan Dunkin of the On-Line Gaming Review (present most 
of the time)
		    Major H. (present in the later stages)

		    And a few interlopers who stumbled across the #tacops 
channel looking for other things...  one caused a laugh by thinking it 
was the "Cop Sex" channel...!?

	We gathered on the Dalnet channel #tacops, most of us arriving 
early by up to an hour, and dealt with admin problems like last-minute 
redeployments and getting everybody securely onto IRC - a recurrent 
trouble.  We then delayed 1/2 hour to wait for Jake Rose to show up (he 
let us know well ahead of time that he would be late).  On his arrival, 
the game began.

	One source of trouble had already cropped up:  the second US 
player, Christian Simon, had a slow connection and was having troubles 
with getting the graphics.  In the end, technical troubles, and a 
growing unease with the unfamiliarity of the situation, caused him to 
drop out.  He later wrote me and apologized, explaining that a 
combination of factors caused this:  1) equipment failures at his end 
(couldn't see the graphics - a major pain); 2) not being fully aware of 
how things were going to work (which is my fault); 3) therefore not 
being properly prepared for playing it (I'll detail some of his 
suggestions later; they were on-target.)  I hope he will consider trying 
again, and I hope his experience does not drive off newcomers; I believe 
that a CPX is in some ways a very newbie-friendly environment: the other 
players on your side ought to be able to help and provide a wealth of 
helpful information and tips, and I, as an umpire, will tend to be more 
lenient towards players I know are inexperienced.  It is true, however, 
that the Kriegspiel/CPX style of gaming can be hard on the brain - you 
face yawning gaps of information that can be quite unnerving.  It 
doesn't always help to remember you still probably have more info than 
you would in reality!

	Nonetheless, play began.  The OPFOR scouts did somewhat better 
than their US opponents in the initial moments.  This, my 
misunderstanding of an order, and a mistaken order from the US side, 
gave OPFOR a big edge in the game as it developed.

	The misunderstood order:  OPFOR's flank company was intended to go 
to the finger of low ground in the 07/05 area.  These troops wound up on 
the high ground near 085/035 and we never really sorted out if they were 
to retreat out of that position and go around to the original 
destination.  In the event, they stayed put.  This turned out to be a 
very useful position; the BMPs and T-80s could and did snipe at US 
forces trying to move N/S, and trying to move out of the open ground 
around 05/02 - 06/03.  This restricted US movements, and at the same 
time protected much of the lower level terrain and kept it as a safe 
avenue of movement for the OPFOR troops.

	The mistaken order:  The US forces, by the time of the recon 
clash, were moving down the road towards the town at 07/02.  Their 
forward scouts were, in fact, nearly through that town - and the OPFOR 
forward scouts had at one point engaged not the US scouts, but the 
forward edge of the US main body.  The US commander ordered the forward 
two companies to take up position in a forest to the southeast (approx 
055/010.)  The commander of those two companies ordered them to move 
.5/1k NE - not SE.  As the umpire, I take orders from the commander of a 
given set of troops (not that I was aware of the nature of the error 
until afterwards, reading the IRC logs) - so these companies went NE 
into the open ground between the airport and the OPFOR flanking force.  
This caused the US nearly a company's worth of losses before the troops 
were extricated again, and also dropped off a lot of infantry and 
Javelins in the open field (as per the SOP "unload if fired on").  
Arguably, this was a good thing, since it gave the US a blocking force 
in that area, but IMHO this argument is weak.

	Meanwhile, OPFOR was in troubles of its own.  It took them a few 
minutes to decide what to do after the scouting clash and in the 
meantime I managed to prevent only some of a possible traffic jam when 
the main body caught up to the FSE, stalled after a short burst of fire 
vs. a US scout emerging from the east edge of the town at 07/02.  That 
scout succeeded in dropping off a scout team at that edge of the town.  
Eventually OPFOR decided to form a wedge with the FSE and send it SW 
from approx 080015 towards 070010.  Meanwhile the OPFOR main body was to 
swing around the NW of the contour line to the region 07/05 and from 
there launch a blow S/SW.

	The FSE went down its garden path and met with the slowly but 
steadily deploying element of 2 US companies; the FSE got the worst of 
this exchange of fire and both sides settled in to try to register the 
other with artillery, figure out the other's location, and maneuver to 
engage them more effectively.  Over the rest of the game, the US did 
this rather better, partly by virtue of being nearly twice as large, and 
partly because the FSE succeeded in its mission of drawing US attention 
to itself.  By the end of the game the FSE was largely destroyed and the 
US was engaged in a slow advance through its positions.

	While the OPFOR main body struggled itself into order and moved 
north, the US player organized a mixed company of M-1 and M-2 and sent 
it north.  The US commander intended to try to sneak this unit across 
the north edge of the map and thus achieve his exit goal.  This plan was 
suddenly scrapped when an infantry scout, left over from the destruction 
of its M-3, spotted the lead elements of the OPFOR main body at 076060 
(OPFOR had decided to push these forces to the region of 045060 before 
turning S).  The US company was hurried into a blocking position in the 
woods at 030/055.  When the game ended, the US company had destroyed 
about a company and a half of OPFOR troops in exchange for one M-1 lost.  
OPFOR was beginning to get a handle on this problem and the US comapny 
had retreated to the next woods west - clearing the route for OPFOR if 
it chose to follow its original "strike south" plan.

	At this point we were out of time - we had been playing for nearly 
6 hours and the game had gone for about 50 minutes of game time (each 
TacOps turn was taking, on average, 7.5 minutes - not bad for an umpired 
TacOps game.)  Where the game might have gone from there is hard to say; 
OPFOR still had a large force in the north, while the US had largely 
destroyed the OPFOR forces in the south and center.

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4) Lessons Learned

A) For running the IRC CPX

	1) if the scenario involves any degree of pre-planning, having the 
same player in command of a given side the whole way through is 
essential.  Players who are side COs must be rock-solid in their ability 
to get to a game, or must have a detailed explanation to hand to whoever 
is going to take over.  Otherwise their side gets disorganized at the 
beginning.

	2) Specifically for IRC: make all the players channel operators.  
This means you don't have to ditch an invite-only channel when the only 
channel-operator gets dropped from it - as happened to us once.

	3) All players ought to have printed out a copy of the map 
beforehand.  Christian suggests that having it on a piece of cardboard 
with colored pencils, or in plastic with overhead markers, on which a 
player can mark spotted units, locations of own units, and the direction 
of movement of own units, is a good idea; he is correct. 

	4) All players ought to make sure they understand how the game 
will work.  This, of course, is also the umpire's job - the umpire 
should try to explain it so it's clear!  If it is not clear, please let 
me know.

	5) Shakedown games: John Crawford has suggested that we run short 
shakedown games of approx 1/2 hour real-time duration to break people in 
more gently.  This is another idea I'll try to implement.

	6) While IRC is in some ways ideal (it has multi-channel chat and 
file-transfer abilities), its unreliability is not - we had players 
dropping off and popping back on, which is a Bad Thing.  I am looking 
into way to move this to the Web or to some other form of Net 
communications while retaining IRC's flexibility.  If anyone has any 
ideas please let me know!

	7) Umpire responses to orders:  it helped a lot for me to type 
back at players my understanding of their orders before going to execute 
them - they got a chance to tell me I was wrong.  In addition, I started 
to provide the occasional "message from the front", providing players 
with info that their on-map troops or arty FOs had that the players 
might not be aware of.  This usually took the form of "FO: We could 
probably put ICM on target such and such" or troops reporting that what 
they could see made a given order none too sensible.  I think this is a 
good way of bridging some of the gaps in player's knowledge and the 
limits of what the umpire ought to do for them.  Speaking of which, ....

	8) Interpretations of Orders by the Umpire.  This is an issue in 
Kriegspiel of any kind.  The player writes out and order, and the umpire 
has to execute it.  Sometimes, players write beautiful, clear orders, 
which explain who needs to do what, how, and enough why to enable the 
umpire to make intelligent use of the forces to accomplish the mission.  
Sometimes players hand out a dog's breakfast that the umpires eventually 
hand back saying "we can't understand this - write it up again" (Yours 
truly, of course, has *never* had this happen..... ;)  )  The point I'm 
getting to here: players have to trust that the umpire won't screw them 
in deploying their troops.  I will handle your troops according to two 
things: 1) what you have ordered them to do and 2) what seems sensible 
from the situation as they can see it.  #1 has precedence but players 
ought to be aware that #2 is there - their orders will get interpreted, 
and writing in an intent for the order can go a long way to helping the 
interpreter come closer to your intended action.  Players should also 
realize that the umpire won't get very creative in the interpretation - 
the umpire never has enough time!

B) For playing TacOps CPX:

	1) Speed kills.  If you do things too quickly, then they may be 
disorganized and kill you - but a fast and reasonably well-executed move 
now really is much better than a perfectly-executed one 20 minutes from 
now.  The US could easily have been in better position to counter 
OPFOR's main body, but due to confusion it took the US a while to get 
itself sorted out.  Relative speed counts, too: The OPFOR main body, 
despite what I considered to be a snail-like pace, surprised the US 
commander with its speed of movement.

	2) Demonstrations work.  Every turn the players on both sides get 
a report of what fire was exchanged.  Generating fire in some area will 
guarantee it stays in your opponent's mind.  The FSE could have been 
held down with a force a quarter of the size used - but the US player, 
of course, didn't know if it was a holding force, or the spearhead of 
the main body (and, to be fair, had seen the main body close behind it 
at one point with an infantry scout).  Equally, a sharp heavy burst of 
fire can stop the other player and make them move onto your now-vacated 
positions with some real caution.  Demonstrations also can get your 
forces killed off - witness the near-destruction of the FSE by the end 
of the game.

	3) A covered deployment area is worth fighting to get.  OPFOR had 
many options on axis of attack handed to it by the presence of the Flank 
company in the 08/03 area because it  kept the area beneath the contour 
line free of US observation and fire - and the contour line followed the 
line of contact for much of its length.  The Flank company also forced 
the US covered areas to be well to the rear of the US front line.  In 
addition, it put most of the US main body under observation in the 
beginning of the game, making the US redeployments at the beginning much 
more difficult. 

	4) Order, counter-order - disorder.  This didn't quite occur, but 
on occasion some bodies of troops were getting their orders changed 
every turn or two - going back and forth.  In my mind's eye I could 
easily see the troops involved wondering what was going on "up top", and 
if it had continued the result would have been increasing disorder for 
the side involved (without any action of the umpire's - simply that the 
troops would get less and less well-positioned for the next order by 
virtue of trying to carry out the previous at short notice from some 
other order....)  This is a hard thing to avoid in any game with fog-of-
war - new information comes in and it's hard to avoid tweaking a plan to 
make it take account of new data.  However, it pays to avoid making 
major changes hard on each other's heels unless it is absolutely 
necessary.

	5) Lastly, both sides forgot to call for artillery for several 
minutes, and both equally forgot to register it the first few times they 
called for it.  While registration before contact had been outlawed by 
the umpire, registration upon contact ought to be virtually automatic.

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A complete set of screenshots (those used for reporting to the players) 
and IRC logs can be email on request to James Sterrett, 

udrj007@kcl.ac.uk

These files are 900K zipped together; I can send it as a MIME or BINHEX 
attachment.  The IRC logs can also be sent by themselves; they would be 
considerably shorter.

I would be happy to hear of any comments on this CPX from the players, 
the "UN", or from those reading this after-action report.