After-Action Report: CPX August 11, 1996 ---------- "Mamechka: How are you? I am fine. Please don't worry about me; we are all very good at this now and the Imperialists are on the run. Plus, we've drawn a soft assignment - escorting trucks! They won't tell us what the cargo is, and the Chekisty guarding them won't let us look. It must be important - we've got two battalions of tanks escorting them. Some of us think it's nerve gas or nuclear weapons, but the Starshina says it's gold-plated fittings for officer's dacha's bathrooms. I guess he should know. love, Vanya." (Found on the body of an OPFOR tanker after the battle) (letter written by Corinne Mahaffey) ----- " This should be interesting: "4 companies engaged each other in the middle of 07/02 city. The commanders obviously didn't have a clue. Casualties were 50+%". - Jon Kiang, Canadian commander in the fight for the city at 07/02, summing up the action in the post-game debrief. ---------- This is an After-Action Report on the CPX game played on August 11, 1996. I'll skip the lengthy "what these games are" section that has previously been in these reports. If you would like a more detailed explanation of what an IRC-based CPX is, please email me (udrj007@kcl.ac.uk). The report contains the following sections: 1) The orders for each side and an explanation of the source of the scenario idea. 2) What happened. 3) Lessons learned. ------------ The scenario was played on TacOps Map 15. OPFOR Orders: Convoy mission: a modern interpretation of a typical 19th Century Kriegspiel scenario. OPFOR Orders: 300 trucks (represented by 30 in the game) are currently on the road (145053 - 112050). Your 2 battalions of T-80U are tasked with escorting the trucks and ensuring their departure from the map via the roads between 059000 and 070000. You are not cleared to know the contents of the trucks. You have one artillery battery available for support; no airpower is expected. 1st Battalion has been tasked with direct escort of the trucks and is in column with them. 2nd Battalion has been tasked with advance and flank guard and its companies are deployed as shown on the screenshots that are attached. (Total of 62 T-80U.) OPFOR Order of Battle: Detailed version skipped in this report. Two standard T-80 Battalions. The extent of enemy activity in the area is unknown. Air defense will be provided during your transit of this sector by the defenses of the airbase you are passing; 6x SA-16 and 4x ZSU-23. These units are not under your control. ---------- Canadian Orders: Airbase seizure: a modern interpretation of a typical 19th Century Kriegspiel scenario. The Royal Tank Regiment has been tasked with capturing the Nemo airbase. Once it has been secured, reinforcements will be flown in from the recently reconstituted (for this scenario) Royal Canadian Airborne Regiment. The airfield must be taken and secured from enemy fire and observation. The group of specialists on the truck must survive. When the landings begin two hours from now the airbase must be cleared, secured, and the specialists must have been at the tower (048029) for at least half an hour. They must be at the tower when the landings begin. You have two artillery batteries available in support, and air support is possible. The extent of enemy activity in the area is unknown. Order of Battle: (Detailed Canadian OOB retain since most people are not familiar with Canadian forces. Companies 1 - 4 are all Leopard C1A1 tanks.) 3rd Regiment, 4th Canadian Machanized Brigade Group Scouts: 11x LAV25: Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry 1x 2 LAV25, 3x 3 LAV-25 (1, 2, 3, & 4/PPCLI). 1st Company: The Lord Strathcona Horse 19x Leopard C1A1: HQ/LdSH, 1/LdSH, 2/LdSH, 3/LdSH, 4/LdSH The HQ platoons have three tanks, all others have 4. 2nd Company: The Fort Garry Horse 3rd Company: The Royal Canadian Tank Regiment 4th Company: The Calgary Tanks AT Company: The Loyal Edmonton Regiment 12x M-113 w/ MILAN; HQ/LER, 1/LER, 2/LER Also a truck carrying an HQ element (the air traffic controllers) and a TOC carrying an HQ element (the game persona of the Canadian players.) ----- This scenario is a modernized version of a Kriegspiel scenario designed around 1840 for use with Napoleonic troops and the Prussian General Staff's Kriegspiel rules. In the original, a rear guard force had to protect a convoy. The other force had to seize a bridge in a town - and the convoy had to cross that bridge. This collision of two forces with theoretically unrelated goals is typical of 19th Century Kriegspiel scenarios - it is very rare, in Kreigspiel games, for either side to know the nature of the other side's mission, force structure, or initial deployment. This was also the first Kriegspiel scenario I ever took part in. I was on the convoy side; we won by the skin of our teeth: a lot of luck, and some fast-moving cavalry riding to the rescue after we discovered we were completely out of position! Modernizing the scenario changed it a lot - it is much harder to protect the trucks from tank and artillery fire than it is to protect the carts from musketry, cavalry, and smoothbore cannon! The increase in range, accuracy, and lethality is dramatic and it completely changes the nature of the scenario from being primarily a battle of maneuver to being a short, sharp, and very bloody slugfest. (To paraphrase Hobbes: neither poor nor solitary, but nasty, brutish, and short.) ---------- This scenario was originally intended to be an instant-start backup to the scenario on August 3. Thus, there was little pre-game deployment to be done by the players. The Canadians did take one tank from each company HQ and attached one to each scout platoon. As the game began, the two forces were moving west on parallel routes, OPFOR to the north, the Canadians to the south, and OPFOR's column had just begun to turn south at 068043. Scouts and advance guards soon collided, both near the head of the columns and along the flanks. The flank spottings caused both sides to send forces - a company each - towards the refinery at 106030. These forces proceeded to play hide-and-seek with each other over the rest of the game, trading losses about equally. The Canadians also forgot that they had reset to course of their TOC and ATC truck to go through this area; both vehicles were destroyed and all of the command personnel were killed. Most of the Air Traffic Controllers survived because they were picked up and rushed to safety by their 2 escorting tanks. Near the end of the game, OPFOR's remaining two platoons headed west while the Canadian company's remaining platoons retreated back south to regroup. The other "flank" action was more closely linked to the main battle. This flank action took place between an OPFOR company advancing south through the factory/warehouse complex at 080035, and a Canadian company and the Canadian AT company in the 090015 area. This was a longer-ranged version of hide-and-seek, with both forces periodically distracted by events in the main battle taking place in the town at 0702. The Canadian AT company was a disappointment: the Milan missiles it carries have a range of only 2000 meters. Outranged for most of the fight, the twelve carriers got 1 shot off in the entire game and lost 8, all to fire coming from beyond their maximum range. The main fight took place in and around the city at 0702. OPFOR's initial orders carried 3 companies into the town and a fourth to the airport about 2km to the northwest. Meanwhile, the Canadians sent 2 companies to the area just south of the town - approx 074013, and began to move north from there. The initial stages of the fighting around the town were carried by leading elements of OPFOR's tanks and the Canadian recon forces. Things began to heat up when OPFOR T-80s, moving south down the road out of the town, were ambushed by Canadians tanks forming up around 074013. OPFOR took a bit of time to pause, and the Canadians moved a company north into the woods at 070015. As the Canadians thought about their next move, OPFOR sent the better part of 2 companies into the same woods from the southwest quarter of the town. This resulted in a titanic engagement at ranges of 50 - 150 meters, lasting one minute. When the dust cleared, the attacking OPFOR force had been destroyed and the Canadian company had been gutted. This battle, in combination with the destruction of 2 platoons of T-80s which came out of the east edge of the town (these T-80s accounted for an equivalent number of Canadian troops as they died), apparently convinced the Canadians that the town was clear - which was, in fact, basically true. Therefore, the Canadians sent the remains of their two companies into the twon to clear it out. Unfortunately for them, the OPFOR company which had been near the airport entered the town at about the same time that they did, and there were still a few OPFOR tanks, trucks (which carry RPGs), and ZSU-23 in the town. The result was a very confused tank battle that seesawed back and forth across the town as one side or the other got lucky, spotted some opposing group first, and destroyed it. While this was underway, the OPFOR company near 080035 was largely destroyed by the Canadian company to the immediate east of the town. The two Canadian companies near the town and the one to its immediate east were amalgamated into a weak company. These made another effort to clear the town. OPFOR, meanwhile, had two tanks remaining in the town and a platoon escorting its (now hiding) main body of trucks. There were very few Canadians in view, and, since the only ones visible were few and retreating (part of the reorganization to form one company out of the three), OPFOR apparently decided it had won the battle and gave chase with the tanks in the town. By some miracle, these two tanks met only light opposition in the town - LAVs and scouts which were promptly destoryed - and did not run into the reorganized company as it moved through the town. At this point, the OPFOR commander had to leave, and the game ended. OPFOR had 5 T-80s left of 62, and the Canadians had 19 of 72 C1A1 Leopards left. OPFOR had destroyed 79 Canadian vehicles all told, and the Canadians had destroyed 73 OPFOR vehicles, including half of the trucks. Canada lost 59 tanks to OPFOR's loss of 57. The Canadians had essentially won the scenario; OPFOR was broken and had taken 50% losses to its trucks, while the Canadians fielded heavily attritted force, but one that now outnumbered OPFOR by nearly 4 to 1. ------------ 3) Lessons learned. 1) T-80 vs C1A1: The T-80 is a fair match for the C1A1 in TacOps. This is suggested by the stats in the unit info database, but given the age of the C1A1 it is not what we expected on the gut level. I included the Canadian AT company in the scenario because I worried that the exchange rate might be too unfair to the Canadians, even given an inital advantage of 16 tanks - an advantage that dropped over the course of the game to 14 (though the ratio of tanks did turn sharply in the Canadian favor by the end). The AT company was never in position to be used to best advantage - it mostly found itself trying to advance into firing range while already under fire. 2) Assumptions and planning: TacOps players have certain set expectations about the nature of a scenario. Each side assumed that the burden of attacking lay upon it - neither considered, as far as I know, that the other might have an offensive mission until the debrief session. Furthermore, TacOps players expect to find OPFOR in the east and the US in the west. This scenario deliberately played upon this expectation to create a bit of confusion by placing both forces in the east. The Canadians seemed to think that the bulk of the OPFOR forces were defending the airbase (expecting direct opposition to their goals, and a reversal of the usual east-west deployment). OPFOR apparently figured that the Canadian forces had simply moved fast, and at one point expected that attacking through the town at 0702 would, by turning east, bring OPFOR forces into the Canadian rear. These expectations, combined with the limited information available to each side (information is even more scarce in a CPX than it is in TacOps played with full fog-of-war), combined to have both sides react to the situation by attacking. The outcome of the game hinged on the reaction of the two sides to contact. Either side could have won this scenario handily - by making the decision to set up a defensive position and let the other guy come to them. Making that decision was, on the basis of their orders and the information available, probably nearly impossible. I was surprised, however, at the bulldog persistence each side displayed in attacking into the town at 0702. Attempts to flank it to the west were few and those made to the east were derivative of other actions. Each side was, it seems, determined to grab the far side of the town as a secure position for overwatch to advance further, and the see-saw nature of the battle encouraged repeated attempts because victory kept seeming to be within their grasp. While the previous CPX brought to mind the phrase "order, counterorder -- disorder", the phrase that came to mind for this CPX was Churchill's "Errors towards the enemy will be lightly judged." Not counting losses into the judgement, presumably. 3) Pregame orders & SOPs. These are a source of a lot of what may look like odd behaviour to the players. Most forces in the game begin with movement orders - often orders that take them a long way. OPFOR's initial orders were enough to carry half of the force off the map via its intended exit area. These orders *do not get changed* without player intervention. This means that forces keep trying to carry out their orders. However, most players also assign SOPs to stop or retreat if fired on. This results in one of three things: A) A column rolls along with the "stop if fired on" SOP and hits the enemy. A clump forms at the point where it makes contact, with units further back in the line piling into the contact area. B) A column rolls along with the "retreat if fired on" SOP and hits the enemy. The units that have been in contact immediately back up - through their column - while the rearward units in the column move forward into the battle zone before they, too, begin the retreat. C) A column rolls down the road with either of these SOPs, and runs into intermittent contact with the enemy. Only those unitswhich have been fired on - perhaps 1 platoon of each company - stop and/or reverse. While the previous two situations produce traffic jams, this produces companies that have platoons scattered around trying to catch up. I'm not sure any of these results are necessarily bad things - but players ought to know of the interaction of orders, SOPs, and contact. There is only so much I can do to sort these things out as an umpire - I try to keep an eye on stragglers and get them to catch up, but I'm often moving fast enough that I miss one or forget to do that. When the units clump, the companies have no orders - which is really a situation that the players need to deal with. I can see the propriety of the umpire getting platoons to rejoin a company that has moved on under player-generated orders (from Case C, above); I do not think it is proper for the umpire to generate new orders for companies (cases A and B, above.) ---------- I would be happy to hear of any comments or criticisms of the CPX or of my report on it. Please email me at: udrj007@kcl.ac.uk The next CPX game will run on August 17, 1996, on Dalnet, channel #tacops, at 15:00 GMT. Please email me if you are interested in playing. Newcomers are welcome; you need IRC ("Internet Relay Chat"), a printout of the map and a means of marking it up to reflect the changing situation, and 6+ hours free on your Saturday.