June 18, 2008

AFTER ACTION REPORT

BATTLE:  Landing at Muara
MAP:     Map 502
FORCES:  USMC vs. Royal Malaysian Army

The following is a recap of Saturday's CPX which featured the (very <g>)
long-awaited US Marine assault on Brunei on the island of Borneo.  The
master AAR for the entire MBX will follow in the next week or so.  This
report will be in 5 parts:

1) Situation
2) Game setup
3) The Battle
4) Results
5) Observations

*************************************

I.  SITUATION

The Royal Malaysian Army's 4th Division, made up of two brigades of
troops, had invaded the small kingdom of Brunei was preparing a defense
against an expected amphibious or heliborne assault by U.S. Marines. 
The 1st Brigade (commanded by Brig. Gen. Gainer) occupied the western
half of the country while the 2nd Brigade (commanded during the MBX by
Gen. Mortimer) occupied the northeast (the capital region) as well as
eastern Brunei.

The U.S., with UN authorization, was sending troops to the region to
evict Malaysian troops from Brunei.  A U.S. Marine Expeditionary Unit
(MEU) was tasked with establishing a beachhead somewhere along the
Brunei coast allowing the main assault to arrive safely and commence its
drive on the capital. This Marine landing was the battle represented by
the CPX, and was ruled to be key to the entire "war."  If it went
smoothly, the U.S. would be able to build up its assault forces quickly
and safely, in which case the liberation of Bandar Seri Begawan, the
Brunei capital (BSB) was a virtual certainty.  If it failed, the
invasion might have to be put off or abandoned which would be a huge
military and political setback for the U.S.

Attached to the MEU were three companies of Ranger paratroopers, a
detachment of SEALs and a special ops recon unit.  The MEU was also
supported by naval gunfire, 1 battery of 155mm Howitzers (once it
arrived on shore) and 6 AV-8 Harriers.  Carrier and land-based aircraft
would provide
CAP, as well as perform ground strike interdiction in other sectors.
(While the latter strikes occurred "off-map," they were actually
factored into the
CPX in real time.  See next section on game setup).

Fairly early on, the U.S. had committed to the town of Muara (Sector
502-S) as the site of their landing. Right off the bat there were two
strategic benefits of capturing this town:  1) it was a port, which
would facilitate the unloading of the main invasion force, and 2) it was
relatively close to the capital.  As it turned out, there were critical
tactical reasons for choosing Muara as well which became very apparent
shortly before the battle, as you will see.  (My guess is that the U.S.
chose Muara for these tactical reasons, and any strategic benefits were
probably considered icing on the cake.)

The Malaysians, on the other hand, had not comitted (or gambled) on
defending any one area, and instead dispersed its two brigades fairly
uniformly throughout the country with strongpoints of resistance in the
five major ports, particularly in Seria.  (Seria actually had almost
three times the defenses of any other locality, so if OPFOR was gambling
on any one landing site Seria was it).  This left a shoreline garrison
in Muara of about 2 mech companies, a tank platoon and an anti-tank
battery, supported by a single battery of 122mm arty.

A couple of days before the battle, however, U.S. air strikes, under
General Arraya's command and under Gen. Sterrett's supervision had wiped
out a couple of platoons of infantry and all of the 122mm arty (thanks
in part to the tireless satellite and photorecon efforts - supplied by
ME!<g>)  Much of the remaining defenses were spotted by Force Recon
units, commanded by Col. Barry Summers, and Ned Keneeder's SEALs had a
hand in getting snipers to "scope out" the defenses in the town (sorry,
couldn't resist the pun<g>) as well as disarm many of the mines
offshore.

About the mines.  Two rows of sea mines had been laid at Muara, one in
the shallow waters along the beach, the other just east of 000 easting. 
Most of these mines were dummy mines, though a fair number of real ones
were included in them.  U.S. satellite recon had spotted the laying of
these suspected mines, and planned to dismantle them by sending in a
SEAL team to disarm/detonate them before the landing.  Somehow these
orders got lost and they missed their intended insertion on the 15th and
instead inserted on the 16th, leaving the SEALs one less day to do their
dirty work.  The upshot was that some of the mines were still not
cleared by the time the landing began.

While the shore defenses were not terrifyingly large, the real threat
would be the large number of reserve forces around BSB and at Patrol
Base 4 (located between Muara and Tutong).  BSB was only about 10 km
away, or 15 min. travel time, and Patrol Base 4 was only 20 min. away.
(Not including friction/inertia response time).

In the final hours before battle, the following events took place which
affected Saturdays' CPX:

- At around 10:00 of the 17th, a patrolling Osprey managed to dip an
active sonar within 2 miles of a Malaysian mini-sub (it was running a
very tight search pattern, but still beat the odds) detecting and
killing it before it could do any harm to the troop ships.  The sub,
hearing the approaching torpedos and realizing it was about to be sunk,
did manage to do two things: 1) reported the position, composition (sort
of) and heading (partially) of the U.S. fleet, representing the first
confirmed contact of the amphibious vessels, and 2) fired two torpedos,
sinking the only ship that was in range at that moment, an O.H. Perry
frigate.  (This, along with the Fletcher that was sunk some 10 days
earlier, reduced the amount of naval gunfire available somewhat.)

- At about 12:30 and 13:30, June 17, two single helos blundered into the
U.S. fleet (due to a completely brainless GM error) and promptly got
shot down, but not without first giving more information on the U.S.
fleet and its heading.  It was soon after this that the U.S. task force
(PHIBRON 11) turned on all radars.

- At about 16:00 hours, a Malaysian torpedo missile boat attack was
launched and even though their impressive speed got them well within
striking range of the troopships, their salvo of Exocet missiles failed
to penetrate the AEGIS defense system of the U.S. task force.  Once the
missiles were fired the FACs were dead meat, and in the next few minutes
the U.S. task force destroyed the last of the Malay navy and ensured a
clear seaward passage to the Brunei coast (Er, well, except for the
mines).

- Also during the night, U.S. airstrikes destroyed several key command
posts, including 4th Division Headquarters in the capital, adding a 30
minute delay for artillery, helos, and all other attached units.  (I now
realize I should have added 30 minutes delay to the response time of
*all* 2nd Brigade units, which would have had a dramatic effect on our
starting positions for the CPX, but later I felt this mistake was
cancelled out by a number of other mistakes that hurt the OPFOR side --
such as the scanty briefing on the OPFOR situation prior to battle, and
forgetting to use the IR-equipped Rooivalk helos to sight the U.S. task
force and/or landing force during the MBX phase).  1st BN HQ, also in
the capital, was also hit, so both companies of this Bn were delayed by
30 min. as well.

- At 06:00 hours of the 18th, submarine and ship-launched TLAM Tomahawk
missiles hit various telecommunications links and head-end radio towers
that connected Malaysian Borneo with High Command and the Prime Minister
on the Maylay Peninsula.  While the effect of this was not felt right
away, it had a dramatic impact on the way the battle ended, or at least
on how the final phase of the war would have ended.

- Also at 06:00, air force units from Cubi Point commenced broad-band
radio jamming.  This was not very effective, however, as the Malays
prepared for this by setting up separate, secure landlines shortly after
the conflict began.

- Perhaps the most important successes of the pre-landing operations,
however, were the air strikes on the bridges crossing the Sungai Tutong
River near Kuala Abang and the one between Sectors K and L (see Sector
Map).  Destroying these bridges effectively delayed all of Malaysia's
western forces from reaching the northwest (Muara area) for a period of
at least an hour for mech forces (they were amphibious), and 8 hours for
tanks... long enough that none of them would likely take part in the
day's battle.  This immediately made it clear [to me, at least] why
Muara had been selected: with just a few targeted strikes on these
inland bridges, it became completely unreachable by half of the
Malaysian forces.

- At about 06:15, 45 minutes before the landing, Malaysian shore
patrols, equipped with thermal goggles, were able to spot the
approaching LCACs and AAV7s some 30-45 minutes before the landing.  It
should be pointed out that Gen. Mortimer repeatedly forfeited many other
types of supplies and equipment -- some of it considerably deadly -- so
that he could equip as many patrols as posible with a few thermal
goggles.  It turns out this paid big dividends.  The early detection
helped compensate for the delays that so many Malaysian rear units
suffered.

- At 6:50, all mines not already disarmed were ordered to be detonated
by the SEAL teams.

- At 7:00 came dawn (well, in Tacops Land, anyway <g>) and the first of
the U.S. MEU hit the beaches in the far southern edge of the map.  It
was at this point that we began our CPX.

II.  SET-UP

In translating the above situation to a TacOps CPX, I pondered how to
game things like sea lift operations, Malay artillery/ATGMs aimed out to
sea at the landing craft and air interdictions in nearby sectors --
things that would be happening simultaneously with the main battle but
would be happening "off-map."

The solution I came up with was to game everything out a day or so
beforehand -- all of the landing ops, off-map air strikes, even
out-of-sector recon reports (the U.S. had a great many sorties looking
for targets along the major roads in northern Brunei), using the map and
various timetables to determine which units would find and kill which
other units.  I compiled lists all of these events and the time they
occurred on separate slips of paper which I taped next to my monitor. 
THen, during the CPX, I would keep an eye on these crib notes from time
to time and at the appropriate time report these events as if they were
happening afresh.  Hopefully this translated to an added richness of
information surrounding the battle without losing any time gaming these
events during the CPX itself.  (I have not heard any comments about this
so I cannot say whether it worked or not, but from a game mechanics
point of view I can say it worked fine.)

Timetable for reinforcements:

As most of you know, there was a timetable that was put together and
available on the MBX website (with help and approval from Jerry Hall)
that attempted to reflect the lag time between the issuing of movement
orders and the time they begin to be executed.  As the table indicates,
the lag time increases with the acceleration, direction, and size of the
unit.  So while a tank platoon might only take two minutes to change to
a new speed or direction, a mech battalion might take fifteen minutes. 
This time interval is multiplied times the number of speed/formation
changes requested, so that a dug-in (defilade) mech battalion ordered to
proceed to a new location at 30 kph (4 speed shifts) would take 1 hour
to begin moving at that speed (15 min. x 4).  This formula was used to
represent the various amounts of planning, preparation, radio traffic,
logistics concerns, traffic snarl-ups, and other assorted friction that
may come up in military maneuvers (actually, according to Leonard who
authored a book on this subject, these figures are probably extremely
optimistic <g>).

The result was a list of each separate company and recon unit in the
Malaysian 2nd Brigade (the easternmost force) and the time at which they
could arrive on Map 502 once ordered to go there (Delay of orders was
added on top of this).  I sent this list to Gary shortly before game
time, seeing as a good S3 would have figured out all these things
themselves at some point (right?).  I actually meant to send them the
night before, but could not because the calculations took me much longer
to get through than expected.

As far as setup, I weighed the advantage of keeping these units off the
map and adding them as they arrived or having them already on the map
but having them show up in the player's sitrep reports and possibly in
the U.S. spotreps.  I decided to go with the latter approach, opting for
speed of game play over surprise.  As it turned out, the U.S. should
have been able to see a great many of those off-map units anyway due to
their having a fair number of troops both on and off-map in the southern
region of Map 502-S, and northern 502-R.  

Once the list of entry times was compiled, I lined up all these units
along the southwestern portion of the map -- and had them crawl along
that edge until their appointed time to enter, at which point they would
enter the map at the highway going north at the appropriate time.  Both
teams were informed that units touching the south edge of the map were
all actually "off-map" and not yet in the sector, which I admit may have
been a confusing concept to spring on people.  (Being pressed for time I
did not have the chance to explain my modelling procedure in detail.). 
People seemed to ride with it, though. :->

The time of OPFOR's first confirmed sighting of the landing was
calculated to be 30 minutes before the first U.S. units hit the shore,
or 06:30, based on the fact that the shore patrol was equipped with IR
goggles and that there were no other seaborne landings of any
consequence happening anywhere else to act as a decoy.  The narrow sea
lane and nighttime navigation to the beach slowed the U.S. approach down
somewhat during the last 3 kms or so, giving the Malays another 15
minutes lead time on top of that.  This equalled a 45 minute early
warning, which partly cancelled out the friction/inertia time as
described above (generally 45 min.- 1 hour for most units).  The
remaining delay was thus mostly attributed to simple speed and distance
from the sector, which was around 15 minutes for BSB units, and 25
minutes for Patrol Base 4 units. This resulted in several companies of
reinforcements arriving at about 07:17 from the south and arriving in 5
to 10 minute intervals thereafter.

Timetable for airstrikes:

Using a rough table I had worked out with Jorge Arraya (US Air
Commander) to figure out how much time U.S. aircraft could remain over
Brunei airspace without running out of fuel, I guestimated which of
these aircraft would be in which part of Brunei at what time, and for
how long.  I drew these out on an acetate overlay on my computer screen
showing the GroundOp4 map (large map of Brunei showing Malaysian
deployments).  Then, using the time-of-entry list for the Malaysian
ground units that I just created, I figured out which ground units these
aircraft might have a chance of spotting, factoring in terrain, roads
and basic "gut" guessing.  I then rolled the dice to see if the pilots
spotted them or not (33% if 2 pltns or less, 50% if a coy or so, and 67%
if more than 2 coys.)  Out of about 20 ground targets enroute to Sector
S (mostly company sized), the U.S. spotted about 6 of them from 7:40 to
1:05.  

I then played out these six air strikes in a separate TacOps simulation
(factoring in any casualties already incurred during the MBX) and
learned how many units suffered losses, and the nature of the losses.  I
then entered these findings to my timetable of arriving reinforcements,
so that everything off-map was compiled onto one master list, which I
referred to frequently during the game. For the most part this worked
pretty smoothly and was easy to follow, once it was compiled.

I had a similar system worked out for the landing procedure.  However,
the MEU's landing orders arrived much later than originally requested
and were not as complete as I had hoped (my fault for not being more
specific).  There were also a few discrepancies between them and the
overall Invasion Plans as laid down by James, which took me a long time
to sort out.  The result is that I stayed up all night trying to piece
together a landing schedule that was faithful to the situation at hand
but I finally just chucked the whole thing and "winged" the entire
landing operation by nudging units forward across the water every now
and then.  This led to much of the MEU arriving late or simply being
unattended to at times, another umpiring gaff, but I felt it was the
best I could do given the amount of "homework" that I did not expect to
be doing during the CPX.

In order to have some way of modelling durability of the ships (An LCAC
might be toast with a single ATGM, but an LCU might take several such
hits) I created a fairly arbitrary system but one that might work very
accurately in the future with a little research.  For landing craft, I
used a large stack of M113s to represent LCUs, the logic being that it
would take a fair number of hits to sink the whole thing, and pairs of
Blackhawks to represent the faster LCACs (since in TacOps I needed units
that could travel over water more quickly than the average vehicle and
could be quickly identified from the land units they were carrying.) 
Their cargo was placed up at the top of the map, in a safe sector out of
sight of OPFOR during the approach to the beach.  As the LCACs and M113s
arrived at the beach, I would magic move the ferried units in the safe
sector to the beach.

These are just a couple of examples of the ideas I was forced to come up
with to make the ampbibious transition work.  As it turned out, the game
involved a *great deal* of improvisation, which I tried to explain here
and there as I went along but for the most part could not until this
moment. :-<  About all I could do was simply warn the players
(especially the U.S., who were no doubt extremely curious about what the
hell was going on with their landing) that I was improvising as I went,
and to please just go with the flow on this.  (In other words, "trust
me.")  I have a feeling that this was a source of much frustration for
the control freaks on the U.S. side, but if they were they were nice
enough not to complain too much. :->

III.  THE BATTLE

U.S. Plan:

I expect James and Steve will be able to explain their choice of
maneuvers with some detail, but the basic plan, from my POV, appeared to
be:

1) Insert two blocking force detachments off-map, one just east of the
map and one just to the south, to intercept approaching reinforcements.

2) Land Ranger paratroopers in the rear areas to hold key strongpoints
like the river town, the town where the main roads intersect, and the
southern flank where the highway entered the map.  (Another advantage of
assaulting Muara: no need to cover the northern flank).

3) Have SEALS detonate any mines at H - :10.

4) Zero Hour.  Three companies of AAV7s (A, B, C) would hit the
southernmost point along the beach, and fan out in three directions to
the northeast and east. Each company consisted of 9 AAV7s loaded with 9
13-man inf. units, 6 SMAW, 6 MGs and 6 ATGMs.

5) 4 LCACS would follow, bringing the Marine's tank platoon.  2 more
LCACs would follow after that, dropping off Hummers (HMG, LMG, AT,
etc.). This was the HQ Company.

6) 4 CH-53 helos would ferry in a platoon of LAVs, to the same beachhead
in the south. 

7) 2 LCUs would arrive and land a large portion of the remianing LAVs,
LAV-ATs, and mortars.

8) Naval gunfire of 2 batteries of 60 HE (reduced somewhat because the
U.S. lost two ships en route) would hit shoreline defenses.

9) 6 AV-8 Harriers were on call, 4 min. away providing CAS.

10) During this battle, all U.S. air assets based in the Philippines
were assigned to ground force interdiction in the western and interior
portions of the country.

11) The naval task force, with the far-reaching umbrella of its AEGIS
ships, would provide AD for the ground troops. This I somehow missed in
the initial orders which caused a huge argument during the later stages
of the battle.  More on that later. (!)

The Malaysian Plan:

No formal plans were submitted for the OPFOR side of the CPX, only
general plans of intent.  Which makes sense, since they did not know
where the battle was going to take place.  For the most part the
standing orders sufficed.

During the MBX, the OPFOR team was clear about what they needed to do to
defeat the U.S.: Since they could not commit troops to any beach in any
great numbers without knowing the landing site beforehand (which they
never did learn), it was up to the shoreline garrison to contain the
landing and delay its advance long enough for the rest of their forces
to converge and amass firepower, hopefully  overwhelming the Marine
units more quickly than the U.S. could land them.

During the early weeks of the MBX, General Mortimer gave a general
intent for the main forces in Muara and Tutong to be stationed in and
around the port towns, with a few platoons of infantry along the
beaches.  Tanks were to be in overwatch/support positions behind the
infantry, and anti-tank batteries were to be positioned along the exit
routes from the port to the east (TacOps east).  Artillery was supposed
to be even further to the east, but the arty in Muara was destroyed
several days before the landing. 

Free to interpret these orders as I saw fit (no grid coordinates were
sent to me), the shoreline garrison at Muara consisted of the following: 

- 2 mech companies (-) with two platoons in the port area, two
thinned-out platoons at 030048 overlooking the high ground in the north
(they had been carpet bombed by iron bombs two days earlier), and two or
three other platoons in the mangroves near the beaches with LOS out to
sea.

- A tank platoon entrenched in overwatch position near the east-west
road at 04 easting.  (A good location, as it turned out).

- An anti-tank battery (125mm) spread out in entrenched positions along
the north side of the road from 04 easting to the "crossroads town."

- A battery of 122mm artillery in the patch of jungle at 08 easting. 

07:00 - The Landing Begins:

The battle began with AAV7s hitting the beach in a long single file at
029000, as Alpha then Bravo  companies arrived safely on the beach.  The
entire landing procedure was spotted the whole time by an infantry
platoon at 031011, just 500 meters north, but they did not ambush any of
the AAV7s.  Rather, they laid in wait and reported all of the landing
activity throughout much of the game and only ambushed some Hummers
later on.  (GM error - I had the firing rnges set to zero.  As it turned
out it may not have been a bad thing, as an early ambush would have most
likely led to an early death from combined fire and naval gunfire
support and the two other AAV7 companies, imho, but who knows?)

While this was going on, SEAL snipers were picking off infantry in Muara
(which took awhile, as they were near the end of their range)... and
directing naval gunfire to the various infantry positions spotted up
near the town.

Barry's Rangers were succeeding in all of their initial assignments, as
A company had taken over the west side of the river town and was in the
process of shooting and killing the AT team on the east side... C
company was assaulting   the crossroads town... and B company was in the
south getting ready to ambush any forces that broke through the blocking
force in the adjoining Sector R.

Fighting in Sector R: 

At about 7:15, the first of the reinforcements showed up in sector R,
about 3 km south of the 502-S map edge (which corresponded to the town
at 075040 on an identicle map 502 <g>).  This was a recon patrol (from
Patrol Base 4) and an AD platoon.  The recon patrol was immediately
despatched by Blocking Force South and the AD unit ran and hid, waiting
until mech company 2BDE/2/B) and a tank platoon close behind it
(2BDE/C/2) moved in.  While the blocking force managed to get in another
couple of kills on the Malay mech company, the tank platoon kept most of
the force suppressed, allowing the mech units to regain the initiative
and consolidate their fire.  The mech company and the tank company could
have waited to finish them off, but I received no orders to do so so
they continued northward and into Map 502-S.  Five minutes later, two
tank companies arrived in Sector R from BSB just behind the other
units.  The blocking force was heavily attritted by these tanks, but the
remnants would make for more of a nuisance later.  (This fighting was
all pre-gamed on Friday night)

Reinforcements arrive:

As soon as C company set foot in 502-S, it was attacked by javelins from
Barry's B company Rangers.  They missed in their first volley, actually,
and once again the 2 companies (+) of tanks which were arriving helped
suppress and partially kill them as both they and the mech coy drove
north along the main road.  At this point Malay casualties were light to
moderate, with more than half of each of these units still intact.

That changed by the time these units reached the two towns to the north,
where Barry's Rangers were continuing to work over the AT battery at the
river town and had now taken over the crossroads town.  A bloody
close-range battle ensued at both locations which killed off most of the
mech coy and a good half of the tanks.  Gary ordered a pair of APCs
stationed with the AT units at 042045 to return eastward and crush the
snipers in the river town, which they began to do obediently, but were
later lost to either LAAW fire fomr nearby infantry, or sniper fire
(believe it or not).  The two towns were steadfastly held by the U.S
paras, a thorn in the side of OPFOR that never went away.

The Marines Claw their way inland:

Safely circumventing the shore ambush points (which they managed to
avoid out of sheer luck, or perhaps they knew about them from reports
sent to them days before during the Force Recon maneuvers) the three
AAV7 companies fanned out east and north.  

The ill-fated Charlie Company moved north to take the "military
compound" at 044035, but got hit in the face with AT fire from the north
side of the east-west road and by tank fire from the tiny patch of
jungle at 042042, also near the east-west road.  The troops quickly
dismounted, but had difficulty getting out of the line of fire from
those two units.  A few minutes later, around 7:30 or so, Malaysian
122mm artillery arrived and was ordered to pummel the dismounts at the
compound.

Alpha company didn't fare a whole lot better: At about 7:33 a pair of
Rooivalk helos (Havocs) arrived and cuaght their AAV7s emerging from the
mangroves near the north side of the swamp, killing all of their
vehicles.  The helos were pounced on by Harrier AV-8s a minute or two
later in an airstrike intended to hit the 122mm arty.  Anyway, one helo
was shot down while the other miraculously got away.  A ZSU battery
staved off another two Harriers from hitting the artillery, and somehow
the artillery battery survived that strike.  (Here there may have been
some confusion on my end - I may have been given standing orders to keep
hitting the arty but I think I only sent in that one strike.  I'm not
sure).  The surviving Rooivalk was sent north to survey the extent of
the U.S. advance, but once it reached the northern edge of the map it
seem it was completely forgotten about (I forgot about it, too) and was
never used again during the battle.

Bravo Company, which lagged behind the other two and moved more
cautiously, was still intact and was taking up positions on the eastern
side of the swamp.  (NOTE: I'm not sure whether or not the movement was
truly "cautious" on the U.S. part or "forgetful" on mine.  I may have
simply forgotten where it was supposed to be going and neglected to move
it. :-/).

More landings:

By 7:30 the LCACs had arrived, leaving a platoon of M1 tanks and the
Hummer-AT and -mortar carriers on the beach.  One LCAC hit a mine,
sinking a platoon  of HUmmer mortar carriers and Hummer-ATs).  4 CH-53s
had also just dropped off a platoon of LAV-25s, the first of several
platoons to come.  All these units were sitting there for quite some
time (again, due to umpire forgetfulness) before finally being
re-ordered to move them to various destinations inland.  Here is when
the first beach ambushes occurred, as the infantry at 031011 finally
opened fire and started killing off some of the Hummers.  By 7:30 the
LCUs were reported nearing the shore (they were stuffed with 8 LAV-ATs
and 8 LAV-Mortar carriers).

The SEALs, meanwhile, after killing off the only targets it could see
began to get bold and move closer to the town of Muara along the
northern docks.  It promptly ran into a firefight with a pair of mech
units there, but the mech units were ultimately suppressed then killed
by naval gunfire.  The port was far from taken, but it was a start.

Off-map death:

Perhaps the biggest factor in the game wasn't really gamed.  It was the
off-map airstrikes that were worked out the night before.  Four
sightings were made between 7:35 and 8:00, all of them significant, all
of them leading to massive carnage.  2nd BDE/1 BN B coy was completely
eliminated. 9th Bde/A and B tank companies, 2nd Bde/2BN/A and 3BN/A mech
companies all took heavy losses, leaving them at about half strength
when they entered the Muara sector.

The back-breaker was when the U.S. ordered a pair of Cobras forward to
strike an approaching tank company that had just been reported by the
southern blocking force in sector R.  The cobras took up a perfect
position at 072012 at the foot of the hill, enabling it to hit units
proceeding down the road with almost no risk of return fire and out of
sight of the SAM units that had arrived on the high ground.  From that
position it was a non-stop turkey shoot, with a massive slaughter of
OPFOR's companies as they moved onto the map.

These losses were a key factor, imo, because they cut down enough
critical mass to prevent them from overcoming the heckling Ranger
infantry/sniper fire that they encountered when they entered the two
towns in the north.  These sniper units decimated the survivors of these
companies to the point of reducing the entire flow of reinforcements to
merely a trickle.

Psych-Ops:

All the while, the U.S. was getting reports from its Blocking Force and
its Rangers (B Company) in the south about all these "companies" of apcs
and tanks arriving on the main highway, headed northward, about one new
company or battery of some sort every five minutes.  I learned later
that this information was very unnerving, as one could well imagine, but
what was not reported was that these "companies" had been greatly
attritted in most cases, either due to previous fighting in BSB against
the Royal Guards, U.S. air attacks (BSB air base, Patrol Base 4, etc.),
or the current air interdiction strikes which were turning out to be
quite devastating.  This little bit of "friction" (not reporting
attrition) was not intentional, I just didn't have the time to add this
detail, and "company" was more accurate than "platoon," but in manay
cases it would have been a close call between those two words. <g> Yet
the friction seemed real to me, in a way. (Why wouldn't radio operators
make the same hasty ommision?)

Gary's "Right Hook":

It was midway through the battle that Gary made it clear what his
intentions were: to drive his forces along the fastest routes possible
(the roads) punching through the towns to the north then west into
Muara, which they still held, then turn south and hit the beach landing
from the north.  Had the flow of reinforcements not been so delayed or
thinned out during the battle, this plan might very well have been
pulled off.

One tank company almost succeeded in acomplishing that plan
single-handedly.  The tanks - Scorpions from the 9th Bde, I believe -
slipped by the Rangers while they were engaging other units. They were
seen by the Marine's Charlie Compnay heading toward Muara but they
couldn't do much about it because they had problems of their own --
tanks and AT fire and arty landing on their heads. The Scorpion tanks
meandered through Muara, survived the naval gunfire which was targetting
it, then proceeded south through the mangroves and were about 1 km. away
from a perfect firing position that would have devastated the remainder
of the landing but for the fact that they were unluckily spotted by the
M1 platoon which had passed by it on the opposite side of a mangrove (to
the east).  The M1s opened fire first, into its rear, killing half the
tanks.  The Scorpions fired back, and killed 2 M1s (which even these
T-55s could do since they were firing into the M1's rear) but the next
two rounds of return fire from the M1s finished them off.  A potentially
bloody moment on the shores just barely averted!  It was at this point
that I could see Gary's plan possibly working very well, if only he were
able to muster enough forces to reach that location.

The Later Phases:

At around 7:35 the 155mm arty became available to OPFOR (after having
their orders lost in the confusion of the destroyed Division HQ <g>) and
began hammering the shore area where the Marines had been landing.  By
this time, however, most of the amphibious units were ashore and already
fanning out along the beach.  It was difficult to target these types of
units.  A couple of more ambushes or two occurred along the shoreline as
the fanning out of the Hummers and LAVS uncovered more of the hidden
Malay infantry.  At 7:45 an LCU struck a mine and was damaged, though I
never did complete my calculations as to how many units were destroyed. 
Probably not too many - they were LAVs, which can swim on their own.

At around 7:50 an incident happened which I am sorry to say was a total
screwup on my part.

Shortly before the battle, the Malays had begun to deploy the last of
their secret weapons acquisitions from China... a squadron of 7 MiG-21
(F7) Shenyang fighters.  Against all odds, this squadron had survived
the war and had just fueled up at the (abandoned) civilian airport in
Seria, and was en route to the battle scene.  The only munitions they
had were air-to-ground ordnances (cluster bombs) so they were completely
defenseless against air attacks, and hence lost 3 more aircraft from two
F-18s that just happened to be within intercepting range with enough
fuel to pursue them.  This left four planes remaining to hit the Marines
on the beaches (or wherever).  But... when I reported their arrival near
the sector the U.S. went bullsh*t!  and promptly reminded me that their
AEGIS defense system from the ships was to take care of such threats.  I
did not recall that in their orders so I probably just didn't read them
or read them and forgot about this, but apparently this was a key point
of their defense plans so I couldn't rule against it.  My only dismay is
that the whole Shenyang saga was an incredible bother, all for nothing,
and would be just one more heartbreak to a team felt it did not have
much of a chance of inflicting much damage, let alone winning the war. 
Had I been aware of this ahead of time, I would have come up with some
other idea to make the playing field seem a little more level, but it
was too late by that point to do anytning about it.

By 8:00, the situation looked bleak indeed for OPFOR.  Nearly every
company-size unit had been pummeled almost as soon as it entered the map
(thanks to the spotting by the Blocking force South and the infantry of
Ranger B company) and was unable to muster anything that could be
considered a line of defense that might ultimately contain a Marine
breakout.  The U.S. had most of  B coy AAV7s still intact which was on
its way to linkup with the B Rangers across the swamp, thus putting a
solid clamp on the faucet of reinforcements that might well have lasted
for hours.  Most of D Company (LAVs) was intact, as was the headquarters
company (Hummers) which were sweeping through the Mangroves now in a
sweep-and-search effort to root out any last spotters and firmly secure
the vital beachhead area.  C Company was almost completely shattered,
but were finally getting their SMAW teams into the action and getting
the upper hand on the tanks to the north.   The M1s were now all dead,
having taken AT shells in the side as they emerged from the mangroves.

Cease-fire!

At 8:07 Gary called for a cease-fire and asked to meet with the senior
U.S. commander.  Perhaps he did this in hopes of bluffing his way to
some kind of draw in which he could regroup for a battle at some point
later on (just conjecture on my part, I don't know).  In any case, he
was not surrendering.  I think it was a chance for him to feel out the
other side's resolve. (again, conjecture).  When the U.S.  Commander
responded with the modern-day version of MacAuliff's "Nuts!" Gary
huddled once again in his headquarters in conference with his staff and
then commanded that the missiles -- YES, the NUCLEAR ONES! -  be
launched on command at Cubi Point!  This order I had to deny, as only
the Prime Minister could authorize this and he was cut off from Army
command due to the massive C3 strikes earlier.   (Gary would ordinarily
have been allowed to play the PM role in addition to his Army Commander
role, but being cut off made this a moot issue).

NOTE:  What Gary may have suspected but did not know was that the U.S.
had an SOP to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike against *any*
Malaysian missile launch automatically.  Gary's order would therefore
have won a Malaysian victory -- at the cost of Malaysia!<g>  Thus, the
C3 strikes by the U.S., in a way, was an act that ended up saving a
significant portion of the planet from glowing in the dark for the next
2000 years!

With this option denied, Gary gave a single order: "withdraw to BSB." 
There was much discussion over the meaning of this word "withdraw",
versus the word "retreat," and I myself wondered about it.  (My favorite
definition was Rocky's: The other guy retreats... *we* withdraw! <g>)

In any case, the battle was over.  And so, in effect, was the war.

IV.  RESULTS

With the Malays on the retreat - er, I mean *withdrawing*, the securing
of all of the U.S. CPX victory objectives were a certainty -- except for
the most difficult one: the ability to push on and pursue OPFOR.  I did
not feel the U.S. had quite the horsepower to muster this safely.  A and
C companiese were in a shambles, and there was still some weeding out to
do in the mangroves and in Muara and along the northern road before the
beachhead could be termed 'secure.'  There were also SAMs to ferret out
in the north jungle near the rocky shore.  These operations, while not a
problem for the U.S,  would have been somewhat time-consuming with the
forces they had left.

However, given that the U.S. not only cleared the map (by forcing a
retrea- harumph - withdrawal) but captured a port, one of the two ports
closest to the capital... and did so with less than 1/3 losses (32% I
believe was the tally.  I think Malaysian casualties were around 45%)...
this battle has to be considered an unqualified Major Victory, with
strong promotion-worthy commendations (er, pending the outcome of the
War Crimes Trial! <g>).

The overall MBX results are slightly less clear, and I will need some
time to ruminate on them.  That will be the final chapter of the MBX
AAR, which is my next and final chore. <Reaches for another shot of
caffeinated beverage>.

V. OBSERVATIONS

While we certainly had more than enough people to conduct an MBX, the 
players who couldn't make it were missed -- if only because of their
presence being felt so strongly during the MBX playing.  I would have
liked to see what cockamamie ideas Nick would have come up with, or how
Scott Mortimer would have done, or what kind of trouble Deven would have
gotten into <g>.  It's like if you were to coach a team all through the
season, you kind of miss people if they're not there for the
championship game. :-< This may not have changed the results, but I
would have liked the added comeraderie of having more of the MBX players
participating in this little gala.

I understand from James that the pace of this CPX was once again
excrutiatingly slow compared to most CPXs.  (I meant to run another
training game on Friday night but ran out of time).  While I continue to
be painfully frustrated by my lack of abilities in this regard, I was
encouraged by Steve Althouse's remark that this CPX sought to accomplish
a lot more than the usual CPX, or certainly more than the ones I have
run in the past. There were quite a number of simultaneous events to
keep track of, both on and off-map, and the improvisational aspect
(sh*t! An LCU just hit a mine -- how do I calculate the results of
that?) was something that should be factored in as well, I think.  Also,
there were a couple of times where unfamiliar rules or situations
inititated very long discussions which stopped the game mid-stride. 
With this in mind, I feel less ashamed at my pace and actually rather
proud I pulled it off at all. :->  At any rate, I was encouraged enough
not to give up on CPX umpiring, which I have come close to doing many
times.

>From what little I've heard so far, it appears the players, or at least
the two C.O.s, were not happy with the way this CPX was run.  On the
U.S. side the reports were not informative enough, and on the OPFOR side
Gary felt ill-informed about the events leading up to the CPX.  I have
to agree with both of them.  The latter problem was merely one of time
-- I ran out of it.  So I couldn't get Gary the detailed reports he
wanted. That is a problem of time-management, not a disagreement,
really. Hopefully I will plan my time better in the future.

The other problem -- not supplying useful information in my reports --
is something I am having a difficulty getting a handle on.  I think I
may have to play in a few more of James' CPXs and see how the master
does it. <g>  It's a left-brain, right-brain thing, maybe, I don't
know.  Even James had difficulty describing what was lacking for him. 
Anyone else want to take a shot at it?  Go ahead, I'm tough - I can take
it! (NO I'M NOT REALLY -- PLEASE BE EXTREMELY GENTLE AND CONDESCENDING!
<G>)

Stay tuned for the El Monstero AAR, as Nick calls it, for the entire
MBX.  I look forward to hearing from those of you who participated who
have not yet offered comments on the game.  It will be a great help to
me and to other MBX umpires in the future to know what went right and
what went wrong with this one.