Serbian commander's AAR: CPX Jan 16, 1998

  This is an after-action report by the Serbian commander for the CPX run by 
Gary Wollbach on January 16, 1998.

Serbian Players:

	James Sterrett (CO)
	Bill Buckingham and Corinne Mahaffey (CO's staff: they did a great job of 
keeping the situation map going, and suggesting ideas and plans)
	Brian Rock (Gadfly)
	Jeremy (Mantis)
	Steve Althouse (replacing Ian Barefoot, who had to drop out)  (Hornet)

Serbian Orders:


Serbian - Summary of mission

Administrative Note 1:  (For other team only.)

Administrative Note 2:  Although the TacOps program defaults to a start time of 
0700, I will be administratively adjusting the start time to match input from 
the players.  You will have to add or subtract time from 0700 to achieve the 
correct battle time.   The battle could occur, if there ever is a battle, at any 
time of the day.  I have  emplaced some randomization rules controlling some 
event actions, which may or may not occur.  These special rules may have impact 
on the battle outcome depending on the actions of the teams.  I explain the 
rules which apply to you in your teams operations orders.

You are the Commander of a local Serbian militia unit which was deactivated when 
the United Nation forces occupied this sector and have annexed this sector into 
Bosnian territory.  All of your vehicles have been impounded in a motor pool.  
In preparation for this mission, you ordered a cessation of all resistance 
operations and it has been very quite for over 5 months.  UN peace keepers are 
using this sector as an example that the peace mission is working.  You, however 
have other plans.  You have grown tired of the interference from other nations 
in your nations affairs.  You are angry that your sector was not allowed to 
remain part of Serbia.   You are planning an operation which will bring 
attention to the cause and force action from the sleeping Serbian government.  
Your plan is to activate your militia forces, seize your impounded equipment, 
and strike against the UN forces.

UN units in this area are United States soldiers and include a Cavalry Troop 
(Light), an MP platoon, and logistical units.  They have a base camp located 
vicinity of grid 045030.  There are two police units in your sector.  One police 
team is mainly ethnic Bosnian (not considered loyal) and one is mainly ethnic 
Serbian (which can be counted on as being loyal).  The local police stations are 
located in the vicinity of grids 130045 (a Bosnian station), and 070020 (a 
Serbian station).

The UN forces are enforcing UN mandates and attempting to control Serbian 
political action.  They guard the militia motor pool, conduct operations with 
local police units, patrol daily, and distribute humanitarian aid.  The motor 
pool is located vicinity grid 140033.

There is a UN wheeled patrol (two Hummers) twice every 24 hours. A team of US 
AH-64s over fly over sector twice in a 24 hour period, at least 10 hours apart.  
The wheel patrol leaves the UN Camp on random routes and times.  The helicopters 
enter our sector and fly random times and routes.

The motor pool is guarded 24 hours a day.  The guard force is usually 2 Hummers 
and eight soldiers.  Twice a day at breakfast and dinner, the Camp sends some 
trucks to feed the guards.  One of these trips include the replacement guards 
for the next 24 hours.  The convoy is escorted by two Hummers.  The UN forces 
inspect the motor pool once during night hours.  This inspection team is a 
patrol of 2 Hummers and the time and route is random.

The guard force has three means of communication with the UN camp; FM radio, 
public telephone, and land line.  All other patrols have only radio 
communications.

It is believed that UN forces conduct a communications check with their base 
camp every 30 minutes.  A loss of communication is declared if any UN unit is 
more than 10 minutes late for a communications check.

The Camp reaction force consists of 2 Hummers and eight soldiers and is capable 
of deploying from the UN camp within 15 minutes.  They have a platoon of tanks 
as a reaction platoon.  The reaction platoon can deploy from the UN camp within 
30 minutes.

The UN Force consists of the following units:

Camp Headquarters -
HQ Team
Hummers LMG

Cavalry Troop -
Hummers Mk19 with a dismount team
Hummers HMG with a dismount team
Hummers LMG with a dismount team
M1s

MPs -
Hummers LMG with a dismount team

Logistics -
supply trucks
maintenance trucks
fuel trucks
medical section
UH60 Blackhawk
OH58 Kiowa
support soldiers
Hummers

Police (one set in both towns)
Land Rover 90 GL
team of policemen (AU infantry)

The militia motor pool has the following equipment; 50 T55M 1974+
15 BMP1
50 BTR80
10 ZSU 23-4
30 BRDM2
15 BRDM2 AT
10 120mm mortar SP carriers
10 122mm howitzers
assorted command, support, and logistical  vehicles Ammunition is also stored at 
the mortar pool.

All vehicle small arms weapons (ie machine guns) and firing mechanisms (ie 
firing pins and electrical firing circuits) are stored in a vault in the police 
station located at 130045.

Your militia units will attack the police station and recover the firing pins 
and machine guns.  Your militia will also attack the motor pool and seize your 
vehicles.  You will then attack the UN forces and destroy all their forces.

You have been able to get a commitment from three sub commanders and gather the 
following forces;
30 engineers
 6 SAM
46 infantry
 3 snipers
 3 82mm mortar
 3 command sections
 6 recon
12 SPG
 1 main headquarters

You may deploy these units anywhere on the map except that you may not deploy 
with 500 meters of any UN military or police unit.

You may attack at any time you determined.

You must destroy attacked units within 2 minutes after starting the attack to 
prevent an alert being sent.

Once the motor pool is under your control and the firing mechanisms are 
retrieved, you will receive vehicles.  Soldiers do not have to be in the motor 
pool, they only have to be alive and within 2 kilometers of the motor pool to be 
included in the distribution formula.  The formula is a one for one 
distribution, a soldier equals a vehicle; an engineer gives you a tank
a SAM gives you a ZSU 23-4
an infantryman gives you a BTR80
a sniper gives you a BMP
a 82mm mortar gives you a 122mm howitzer and a 120mm SP mortar a command team 
gives you a command vehicle a SPG gives you a BRDM2 AT
a recon gives you a BRDM2

All dismounts remain on the map and can be loaded and used in the battle after 
you get your vehicles.

The Serbian loyal police will come under your control once the motor pool is 
under your control and will convert to an infantry team, a AGS17 team and 2 
GAZ66.

You may put in place up to three mine fields before operations start as long as 
an engineer squad is with 100 meters of the mine field and remains to overwatch 
the minefield.

Remember, UN forces have superior night vision and they have thermal optics.

If the main commander dies, there will be 50% chance of desertion by half of the 
militia.  The percentage chance of desertion will increase by 10% every 30 
minutes thereafter.  Once desertion begins it will continue until all forces 
desert (one hour).  The main command element may deploy anywhere on Map 15.

If a subordinate command section is destroyed there will be a 10% chance that 
1/3 of the command will desert.  Every 30 minutes of game time the chance of 
desertion will increase 10% additional percent.  Desertion because of a sub 
command element's loss is restricted to the original 1/3 of the unit.  
Subordinate command units must remain within 5 kilometers of the forces.

What I need from you;
Start time for attack
Location of all units at Startex
Mine locations - if you want them
The overall intent of the plan
Location of your TRPs (24 maximum)

If you have any questions - please ask.


  We chewed on this set of orders...   a lot.  Jeremy wargamed the initial 
assault on the Motor Pool and the Bosnian Police, and we knew that if they did 
not pop smoke, we ought to be able to take them down inside of two minutes.  
Because Jeremy seemed intrigued by various defensive ambushes, I also tasked him 
with putting our SAMs into a combination of SAM trap and observation force near 
the IFor airbase. In addition, Jeremy discovered that a single sniper, properly 
positioned, could kill all of IFor's helicopters if they were on the ground.

  Bill Buckingham wanted to try to take a series of hostages and use them to 
force IFor's surrender.  Gary canned this idea - and he is probably correct that 
it would have been quite difficult to game out.

  However, from this, we had noted that we might kill an extra bit of the IFor 
by launching our attack near dawn and killing the Breakfast Wagon and patrol 
(known variously as the Brekkie Boys and the Brekkie Patrol).  We did not want 
to fight at night, to avoid IFor's superior nightfighting ability.

  Gary assured us that there would be no delays in starting up the motor pool 
vehicles once we controlled both the motor pool and the police HQ.
This left us - and mostly me - with a difficult decision.

  Storming the police and the motor pool was not going to be a big challenge.  
But how were we to kill off IFor beyond that stage?  There were 3 basic options:

  1)  We could move really quickly, and strike en masse in an attempt to catch 
IFor off-guard, move our T-55 tanks into the point-blank range necessary to kill 
IFor's M-1s, and either die en masse or win at a stroke.
The problem was that our travel time to IFor's base was about the same as the 
time we expected IFor to take to get its vehicles moving (we expected that units 
would take half or less of the "no more than" times Gary listed.)

  2)  We could deploy scouts, and hold our main force as an ambush force to try 
to kill off IFor units moving to engage us.

  3)  If, after #2, IFor stayed holed up in its base camp, we would have to move 
carefully and quietly to try to nip off its outlying defenses and attack the 
base - probably a very unhealthy mission.

After a lot of discussion, I issued the following (along with a map that marked 
the basic sites and routes):


OK...  Rocky is correct, we do not want to juggle assets on the day of the 
battle.  [In an earlier proposal, I had set up different arrangements of forces 
for the direct assault and for the wait-and-ambush variants.  That got 
scrubbed.]  My gut instinct is that doing the all-out attack is a Bad Thing; yet 
if the opportunity arises, we ought to take it.  Splitting the difference, let's 
do an aggressive version of the Ambush scenario, using a modified force split 
from the Big Attack: we will move rapidly into position for the Big Attack, but 
not show ourselves until/unless we are sure we want to attack.  If the sniper 
and SAMs are positioned properly, then we will have intel on enemy movements to 
make the decision and to alter our routes in order to kill off enemy forces.  If 
the enemy chooses to move the Hummer and M-1 ready patrols out early we will do 
our best to kill them right away.

Because the elint data does not seem to produce a set pattern of commo checks, 
we will instead use one of two triggers on the morning of the attack:

1) if the IFor helicopters show signs of pre-flight, the sniper will report 
this, and attack the helos.  We will immedaitely attack the Police and the Motor 
Pool.

2) otherwise, we will ambush the Brekkie Patrol, and launch the Motor Pool and 
Police attacks at the same time.  This is the expected variant.

-------------

Initial Assault: force assignments and tasks.

At the airfield:
	One sniper vic 055030, tasked to destroy the IFor helicopters on order; 
the sniper will then hide and open fire at will on order.  Use a range setting, 
with a range just longer than the range to the helos, which we will then open 
out.

	All of our SA-7 SAMs ring the airfield - loosely - in order to create a 
SAM trap.  This will both prevent the helicopters from escaping the sniper, and 
also hopefully can kill the Apaches.  **Expect the Apaches to arrive.
Expect that they will try to ruin our day.**
	Note that the SAM guys have the equally important job of observing the 
airfield base - and how the IFor force departs from it.  This is potentially 
more important than shooting down helicopters.  We need to know how they react.

	Serbian Police at 070020.

	Airport force commander:  Jeremy

At the Motor Pool:

	1 sniper and 1 Recon team
	1 SPG-9
	2 infantry squads
	1 mortar
	1 HQ
	Overall HQ at 145030.

	Assault and kill the Motor Pool guards as fast as possible:  Jeremy

	We will snip all land lines, phone line, and, after 1 minute 45 seconds, 
jam radio commo if possible.
  
At the Bosnian police:

	1 sniper and 2 recon teams
	2 SPG-9
	2 infantry squads
	1 HQ
	2 mortars

	Assault and kill the Bosnian Police: Rocky

	We will snip all their commo lines at the start of the assault.

Brekkie Boy ambush:

	2 infantry squads
	1 engineer team plus minefield
	HQ

	Ambush the Brekkie Boys as the move along the road vic 135024: Ian

	Jam them if they last more than 1 minute 45 seconds.

Also emplaced, under Jeremy's control:

	2 engineer units with minefields.  Engineers *must* be within 2km of the 
Motor Pool.  I am not willing to lose tanks in order to emplace mines.


-------  When we have killed off these three targets, we move to Stage Two -----
-

We will have a backstop force under Jeremy (Mantis); a decoy force under Rocky 
(Gadfly), and a striking force under Ian (Hornet).

Mantis:

	3 engineers & minefields
	3 SPG-9
	2 infantry squads
	1/3 BRDM-AT	
	up to 16 BTRs (those Ian and Rocky do not get)
	all mortars and arty (centralized battery)
	Command Vehicle
	1 HQ
	2 snipers
	1 recon team

	Mantis is to emplace a defence in the vicinity of the Motor Pool, around 
which the other elements of the force can maneuver.  The mobile sections of the 
force may wind up moving farther afield.  

Gadfly:

	2 BMP
	1/3 of the BRDM-AT
	5 tanks
	10 BTR
	2 infantry squads
	1 recon team
	2 BRDM
	1 HQ
	

	Gadfly should expect to be sent on Route Gadfly up to the Decision Point.
In the event we transition to a fullbore assault, Gadfly will attempt to 
distract IFor.  If we go to the ambush plan, it will become the forward recon 
element.  It should destroy small enemy forces such as groups of Hummers, but 
pass anything too large to handle back to Hornet and Mantis.

Hornet:

     	25 tanks
	20 BTR
	1/3 of the BRDM-AT
	1 BRDM, 1 "Command Vehicle"
	1 HQ
	2 infantry squads
	1 recon team

	Hornet is either the main strike force of the full-bore assault, or the 
hammer in an ambush.  It will move rapidly down route Hornet to the Decision 
Point.  If we go for a full-bore assault, it will continue down Hornet to the 
attack axis and charge through the airbase; the objective is to get through the 
base fast enough to catch the M-1s facing the wrong way, kill them, and then 
sweep back through the (hopefully) dazed defenders and clean them out.  If we 
turn to an ambush then Hornet will move as appropriate to concealed positions 
from which to attack.

	We will decide if we will launch the full-bore attack when both forces are 
at their Decision Points.

	Both forces should be ready to move sharply off their routes and into 
cover, on detecting enemy tanks headed their way.  We can probably destroy 
Hummer-mobile forces on the march but the ready tank platoon will be a different 
story.  Suggested tactic is to hide a tank-killer force in woods or a town, and 
emerge on order from a spotter who can inform that the M-1s have gone past the 
killer force.

	In general, we want to engage IFor tanks at extremely close range if not 
from the rear; close enough range will allow us to get *to* their rear.  If they 
move into our ambush zone the game will rapidly become one of cat and mouse, 
with each side trying to destroy the other's recon.


Gary complained at one point that the plan was too complex.  If so, that is my 
fault; I tried to make the various contingencies we expected clear, and to have 
a clear plan at least up to reaching the decision points.

You know what Mr. Burns has told us about the best-laid plans.

A few last-minute pieces of scripted activity caused us a lot of heartburn 
(notably the grandfather of one of our soldiers getting drunk and cursing an 
IFor patrol in the street - "The Serbian Army is coming to get you" - which 
raised IFor's alertness levels.)

In addition, stupidly, I had not bothered to ask Gary about the nature of the 
transition from night to day, and had assumed "night bad, day good, dusk/dawn do 
not exist".  Rather dumb given the light show that occurs outside my window 
twice daily.  Anyway, on the day of the game, this resulted in some initial 
confusion as I cancelled, and then re-ordered, the Brekkie Patrol ambush.

  Nonetheless, the battle began as expected and seemed to roll very smoothly.  
The Brekkie Patrol, the Motor Pool, and the Bosnian Police were swiftly overrun, 
though not fast enough to prevent the alarm being raised at the IFor base.  
(And, in fact, the Bosnian Police were reported dead too soon, and took about 15 
minutes to kill.)

  Since our scouts reported that the IFor base was on full alert and preping to 
send out troops, we ordered the sniper to shoot up the helicopters.  This 
mission was accomplished, and the sniper has been awarded the medal "Hero of 
Serbia" and inducted into the order "Knight of Kossovo".  Posthumously...  the 
IFor security shot our sniper soon after the helicopters began to burn.

  So far, so good, right?  Except that we did not get vehicles at the expected 
rates, and, because Gary did not name the forces, there was an enormous bit of 
confusion over who owned what troops.  We were faced with a somewhat incoherent 
mass of vehicles identified only by their TacOps ID numbers; and their 
quantities did not match up to the quantities of vehicles we had expected from 
the briefing, our planning, and the combat reports.  It is not clear to me if 
this was intentional on his part (to create confusion, in which case: well 
done!) or unintentional.  When we complained, he tried to fix one aspect of the 
trouble (the number of tanks - we got 20 instead of the expected 30; no 
explanation was given as to why - not even engineer losses) but in fact nothing 
substantially changed (we still had 20 tanks after the fix).

  Worse for us, it took us nearly 45 game minutes to get any of these vehicles 
to move.  Partly this was our disorganization (and kudos to Steve, Jeremy, and 
Rocky for sorting out rapidly who would own which units).  We had an opportunity 
to give orders once every 15 minutes, and orders were, throughout the game, 
taken in a pretty haphazard manner; and furthermore units not infrequently went 
to completely unexpected locations.

  A few of Rocky's units wound up with the Serbian Police in the town at 07/02.  
Steve's tanks moved, eventually, to the woods north of the airbase.
 And, towards the very end, we managed to get our mortars and most of our light 
armor and infantry up to the woods at 095030.  One of our SAMs shot down one of 
the IFor Apaches; and IFor airstrikes landed to no great effect on 07/02.

  The combination of command troubles, and inability to see how we were supposed 
to overrun the airbase in the teeth of IFor airpower and invulnerable M-1s, 
caused my subordinates to tell me I was crazy to continue the attack.  (I 
thought we could sneak-and-peek forward, carefully scout locations, and then try 
to maneuver for kills on isolated chunks of the IFor defense.)  Remembering the 
briefing, which had rules about Serbian forces melting away if commanders got 
killed, I figured that if the commanders themselves thought it was time to 
leave, the battle was over.  I threw in the towel, and the bulk of our forces 
escaped.

  We thought we had mostly been slaughtered.  In fact, we had dished out more 
punishment to the IFor than we realized.  Gary provided these stats at the end 
of the game:

 UNIT                 START   NOW     ELIM    EXITED  Land Rover 90 GL        2      
0       2        0  Inf Section             1      0       1        0  Command 
Element         1      1       0        0  HMMWV w LMG            16      9       
7        0  HMMWV w MK19            4      0       4        0  HMMWV w HMG             
4      2       2        0  M1A2 Tank               8      8       0        0  
Inf Team                6      3       3        0  Inf Scout Team          8      
6       2        0  Truck                   8      6       2        0  M977 
HEMTT Cargo        2      2       0        0  M978 HEMTT Fuel         2      2       
0        0  Medical Section         2      2       0        0  M113 Ambulance          
2      2       0        0  UH60 Blackhawk          2      0       2        0  
OH58 Kiowa GP           1      0       1        0  Inf Squad               6      
6       0        0  HMMWV                   4      4       0        0  AH64 
Apache GP          1      0       1        0  AH64 Apache AT          2      2       
0        0  Force Lethality Value, Start: 3943
 Force Lethality Value, Now: 2537
 Casualty percentage: 35
 Force Lethality Ratio, Start: 1:1.6
 Force Lethality Ratio, Now: 1:1.9
 OPFOR
 UNIT                 START   NOW     ELIM    EXITED  Inf Engineer Squad      3      
3       0        0  SA7B SAM                6      3       3        0  Inf Squad               
6      6       0        0  Inf Sniper Team         3      2       1        0  
82mm Mortar             3      3       0        0  Command Element [-]     3      
3       0        0  Inf Recon Team          3      1       2        0  SPG9 Team               
9      9       0        0  Command Element         1      1       0        0  
Inf Team RPG            3      3       0        0  GAZ66 Light Truck       2      
0       2        0  AGS17 Team              1      1       0        0  Inf Team                
1      1       0        0  BRDM2 AT                6      3       3        0  
BRDM2 APC               3      2       1        0  1V14/15 ACRV            3      
3       0        0  BMP2 IFV                2      0       2        0  BTR80 APC              
25     25       0        0  2S 120mm SP Mortar     10     10       0        0  
122mm SP Hwtzr         10      0       0       10  T55M M1974+ Tank       20      
0      20        0  Force Lethality Value, Start: 6460
 Force Lethality Value, Now: 4795
 Casualty percentage: 25
 Force Lethality Ratio, Start: 1.6:1
 Force Lethality Ratio, Now: 1.9:1

Gary declared the scenario a draw, but a political victory for the Serbs.


Lessons learned:

Tactics:

	In a sense, not a lot learned here.  Our initial set-piece attacks worked 
pretty well, and it is not known why the Bosnian Police were able to hold out 
for so long.  M-1s are not invulnerable, but it takes good planning and tight, 
careful control to set up the conditions to kill them when you badly outgunned, 
as we were.  (Our missiles were not advanced warheads; we could only kill the M-
1s from the rear.)  IFor's tactic of staying in its perimeter, and trying to use 
airpower to dig out elusive Serbian units, was a good one that made our task 
quite difficult.

Running CPXes:

	Most of the lessons this time revolve around running the game.  Players 
came away from this game very frustrated - on both sides, we discovered in the 
debrief - and I think the frustrations could have been avoided.

	I have heard no complaints from anyone about the scenario idea; indeed, 
the concept and set-up were excellent.  I know that Bill, Cor, and I spent 
several evenings batting about ideas for our side, in addition to the extensive 
pre-game discussion over the Net.

	From the Serbian perspective, problems cropped up once the Motor Pool 
vehicles were supposed to be appearing.  With no explanation, we got rather 
fewer vehicles than we expected.  In addition, they also did not move out of the 
pool in response to orders (neither the immediate order to roll out according to 
the initial plan, nor very responsively to the orders we put in as time ticked 
by.)

	This may have been intentional; maybe it was not.  However, since this was 
never made clear, it was a source of significant frustration.  In general, 
players do not mind having surprises sprung on them if they are sure it is an 
intended part of the scenario.  (For example, we could have been told that the 
vehicles unexpectedly needed to be fueled and to have their batteries installed; 
and that the ones we were not getting were a combination of casualties and 
vehicles that would not start.)  We were never certain that this was the case, 
and the responses we got from Gary did not clarify the issue.

	Lesson: if you are screwing the players over intentionally, let them know 
it is the case; especially if they ask why things are not working.

	If the mistake is unintentional, tell them that; and tell them if you are 
going to fix it, or force them to live with the results.  If the players know 
the score they are a lot less frustrated by the game *system* (as opposed to the 
game *situation*...  which may still frustrate them plenty.)
  
	The 15-minute orders timeframe was troublesome at first, and less so as 
the game went on and everybody got used to it.  If we had been told beforehand 
to expect it, it would have been less of a problem.

	The lack of naming of our vehicles, and the time spent during the game to 
add them in, could have been avoided by adding them before the game began and 
holding them in some remote corner as "ghost units" until they were active.  
Once active, Gary could adjust their numbers as necessary and magic-move them 
into the motor pool.

	The other major problem that cropped up was in giving orders.  I do not 
know if Gary missed a lot of them; many seemed to go unseen, and few were ever 
acknowledged.  A number of those that were acknowledged did not send troops to 
the intended destination (although some did exactly what was expected).

	Lessons from the orders troubles:

	Players: if the umpire is garbling the orders, or does not seem to be 
seeing them, ask why.  We didn't, really, which was a mistake.  Try to send 
fewer orders, and keep repeating orders until they get acknowledged.

	Umpire: if the players are sending orders whose format you do not like, or 
that scroll off your screen often, then tell the players.  If they do not 
listen, then it's their funeral.  Also, always try to acknowledge orders so that 
the players know that you have seen and input a given order.

	Less of a problem, given that there was not a lot of contact, was that the 
reports on contacts were very thin.  I am well-known to be no fan of detailed 
contact reports, but when there is little fighting going on, the detail should 
ramp up a touch.  Both sides (judging by the NATO side logs and our own) had to 
ask to find out why units of theirs had disappeared from the sitrep in the past 
15 minutes, when (from the sitreps and the occasional spotreps, and Gary's 
responses when queried about the unit) the action that blew the unit away had 
been the only one in that 15-minute period.  NATO, for example, had to ask to 
find out that our sniper had blown away their helicopters, an event of some 
import to their actions.

	Lesson: hard to formalize.  There is a fine line between maintaining fog 
of war, and providing so little information that the players are in the dark.  
If I knew of a way to express my view on where the line lies (other than by 
example in my umpiring - and not everyone agrees with that!), I'd do it; but I 
do not have a way to phrase it.  Practice.

	Aspects of the start of the scenario were pretty complex.  One way to 
simplify the scenario:  Run the initial assault outside of the game itself, and 
report the results to both sides.  In this way, the confusion and adding of 
units could have been avoided, and the Serbs would start at some point along 
their route to the decision point while the IFor would start as the word arrived 
to them of the assault on the Motor Pool.  This would have changed some of the 
way the very early parts of the scenario were run, but it would perhaps have 
kept things more manageable.

	Finally, a private frustation:  the scenario ended before I thought we 
were beaten.  I don't think there was any point in dragging people, who no 
longer felt there was any chance of winning, through the motions; but I also 
think that the situation we were in was not hopeless.  I used the word mutiny at 
the time, and that's what it felt like...   a bit novel.  We were all surprised 
to see we had fared better than we thought when the information came out in the 
debrief.  In my opinion, the lesson is: Don't give up!

	A final word on the scenario and Gary's umpiring:  This was Gary's second 
run at umpiring.  His first scenario went extremely well and raised our 
expectations pretty high.  This second scenario was considerably more complex.  
It is true Gary did not live up to our high expectations; but this doesn't mean 
he won't live up to them in the future.  The scenario idea was superb, and in 
his first run as umpire Gary showed a a lot of raw umpiring talent.  I hope he 
learns from experience and umpires again.
People did not give up on me after some of my disasters (and they did occur); it 
is only fair to extend the same to Gary.

James Sterrett

---------------------------------

Umpire AAR for Jan16 CPX

I conducted my second CPX on Jan16.  My first CPX had been very simple to the 
point where it did not even include dismounts.  I wanted my next CPX to stress 
me as an Umpire so I developed a complex CPX scenario with many units and 
dismounts.  I got what I asked for and then some.

The basic scenario takes place in Bosnia.  US troops are participating in 
peacekeeping operations and every thing is quiet and very routine.  The patrol, 
do liaison, guard a Serb army motor pool and distribute humanitarian aid.  The 
US mission was to accomplish the UN mission and maintain peace.  Meanwhile there 
is this renegade Serb militia leader who is upset with the presence of foreign 
troops and the non action of the Serb government.  He decides that he will 
assemble his battalion, take back their equipment, rid the land of the 
foreigners, and force the Serb government into action.

I put out an early notice of the CPX and assigned teams knowing that the 
holidays may interfere a little with team planning.  The US team had the most 
problems with organization.  It was not until the week of the CPX that I started 
to get any kind of planning.  Many of the OPFOR actions and the CPX itself 
depended on the US players actions.  The OPFOR team was organized and had many 
discussions on their mission.  I had three plans and each had phases of 
operation.  It was not until the day prior that I was actually told which plan 
was to be executed.  I had scheduled my time to expect this.  I worked late 
friday night, to no avail.  I overwrote my save file with an older save file and 
lost all of the unit naming and initial setups.  I also had planned to be on 
line one hour prior to the Startex, which worked wonderfully.  Both teams were 
there and I got all the last minute setups and posted them to the battle map.

One big mistake I made was not prepositioning the follow on forces.  OPFOR was 
to liberate their motor pool and receive equipment.  I had the order of battle 
for those formations but had not set it up.  This caused me and the Opfor team 
much grief, more to the team then me.  If I had intended to replicate confusion 
and frustration this was a perfect vehicle for it.  I could just see all those 
Serbians running around trying to get their track into the right place, 
everybody rushing around like an ant hill that had just been disturbed.  I got 
the number of vehicles wrong, even though I had it all written down,  I did 
correct that but by know the OPFOR team was convinced that I was out of control. 

The battle began with the US team sending out a routine daily patrol and the 
morning logpack to the motor pool with breakfast.  The OPFOR had planed to 
ambush the logpak and launch a simultaneous attack on the motor pool and the 
Bosnian police station.  The logpak died rapidly and the motor ool fell into 
thier hands.  The police station however took longer.  The equipment was not to 
be available to the OPFOR unless the motor pool and the police station both were 
taken.  The police station housed the firing pins, machine guns, and firing 
devices for the vehicles.  I had initally play tested this operation several 
times, as did the OPFOR, and found that the police died each time in less than 2 
minutes.  (The two minutes is the time it would take for an alert message to be 
sent to the base camp.)  I thought the police had died, they weren't showing on 
the battle map, but they were not dead.  During play testing I had used the fog 
of war option 'show all units' and now during the CPX I was in fog of war option 
"show only spotted units'.  Another error on my part.  I should have checked the 
sitrep to insure they were dead.  But no matter the alarm was sent to the base 
camp by the daily patrol which had follwed the logpak.

Now my problems multiplied.  I had units being manuevered on the battle map that 
ranged from one man elements to company sized elements.  On the most part all US 
units were two vehicle or team sized units.  The OPFOR were usually platoon. 
with a few exceptions.  The mineute detail of moving a two man team to scout 
woods (which had little or no impact overall) was demanding the same attention 
as the tank company on the assualt (which had major impact).  Each phase had me 
recieving a multitude of orders.  As I recieved the orders I would write them 
down and roger them.  I would plot the actions and then execute the turn.  I 
used 15 minute game turns, another mistake.  I had not recieved enough orders 
from players to make a 15 turn work.  I also think the players hated 15 minute 
turns.

The OPFOR reorganized and then sent forces toward the US base.  They manuevered 
north and south getting within 4 km of the base, tank heavy in the north and 
infantry in the south.  The tank force was spotted and engaged but continued 
west.  They Serb T55s went into hiding in some woods which caused the US great 
concern because they had lost contact.  The OPFOR also stoppped manuevering 
because they had made contact with the M1s (the uS player had 8 M1s split into 
four two tank sections).  The US had started to move east to the motor pool but 
puled back to the vicinity of the base when the T55s showed up.  This is about 
where the CPX stayed stayed for the next several hours.  The US held close to 
thier base camp and the OPFOR waited for the US to come after them.

The US player got some attack air and during the strikes relocated the OPFOR 
T55s.  They then slowly manuevered two M1 sections to the woods.  One section 
entered the woods to flush the T55s out and the other remained outside to kill 
them as the exited.  All the T55s died.

The US player had recieved two flights of AH64s.  The did not accomplish very 
much.  The US player was also recieving air strikes from NATO each turn.  All 
the strikes were targeted in and around the US base camp.  No strikes were ever 
sent to the Serb motor pool.  I stopped the battle as it was clear no one was 
going to confront the other and it became a case of stalemate.  US air strikes 
were ocuring every turn by now and eventually the Serbs would either die in 
place or move to another map, which they had already started doing.  I beieve 
the US team suffered most from the lack of a clear plan.  I believe that fate 
may have had a big hand in this.  The US team, I believe, were mostly new to 
CPXs and the OPFOR team seemed to be heavy with strong willed experienced 
players.

I learned alot.  My next CPX will be much better.  I am sorry that folks had to 
suffer through my learning curve.  Here are some of the things I want to do 
better;

1.  I must be more detailed in my breifings.  The OPFOR team aggressively asked 
questions and got me to realize that I had left out some details.  In correcting 
those details I noticed some things which the US team never asked about.

2.  I need to prepostion all units that may be used in the battle on the map at 
the beginning and make sure they are all named.

3.  Use smaller turn phases and give teams a little more time to digest the 
sitrep.  The US team had a problem with sitrep distribution.

4.  Back up your back up file.  Be careful with the file management.

5.  I had it in my mind to move the battle along regardless of whether the teams 
were ready or not.  I need to slow down.  It is not like this is a real time 
battle or that we are in the service or doing this for real.

There were a few things that I think I did right and want to keep doing.
These are;

1.  Being on line early.  This has worked very well twice now and cleared up a 
lot of things (commo checks, final setups) before the game starts.

2.  Early announcement of the CPX.  Giving time for questions and team 
wargamming.

I am sure there must be some other things but I cannot bring them to mind right 
now.  I enjoy the CPXs we have been having and look forward to the next 
scheduled battle.  (I will be a player this next time.)  I will work on another 
CPX and plan on doing it in a couple of months.  Thanks to all.

gary