SAR CPX, OCT 8th 2005, Players AARs

[Rattler]

BLUE CO AAR (Chaim Krause)

As BLUE CO my main task was to insure that the Blue players had fun.
You'll have to ask them if that mission was accomplished.

My first question was why Blue was sending in such a huge force for a
SAR mission. So, I went on the assumption that this was just to get
things started and that something would be sprung on us during the
game. So I just sent out very simple plans. (Rattler's AAR sums them up
well). The forces under my command were to provide support to the 3
commanders as they requested it. It was also my understanding that
there would be some newbies, so I didn't want to make things too
complicated with the three groups being dependent on coordinating with
the other groups. Once we spotted the aircrew quickly I pulled one
group back and set them west of the river to support the zone with the
aircrew as they evacuated. I didn't give them any specific orders on
how to go about the SAR or the defense other than to set up far to the
east and search east to west with a delaying line remaining at the
eastern edge. At some point we got the pilots out so I told them to
just pull out what they could and we would go back in with the gunships
and heavy smoke from the 120s. The sub-commanders told me that they
could get some of the units out without my support. I think, but I am
not sure, those are the helos that got waxed. The game was stopped at
that point.

First of all, I want to reemphasize that I felt the main purpose of this
CPX was to have fun and get some new guys involved, so I didn't take it
all that seriously. John O (the original red CO) and myself sit next to
each other at work and we talked about just letting the sub-commanders
have some fun. I sure had fun and don't want my following comments to
be taken as criticism of this weekend's game. However, I do have some
comments about the scenario, if there is a desire to do something
similar in the future.

I don't think the scenario was well planned in terms of it providing for
an interesting engagement in a multi-player CPX. My mission was to
extract a downed aircrew. In RL I would not have just sent an airborne
unit of the size given to just blanket known enemy territory and hope
they stumble across them. In RL I would have done a lot more work to
locate them using specially trained SAR units that have the capability
to do this. Then I would have sent in a specially configured SAR team
to recover the crew fast and furiously. Probably two specialized SAR
helos max with fighter-bombers on station.

As a scenario, in effect, what I was given was an airborne unit with no
orders as to whether I was to defend or attack. I was not told what
amount of losses were acceptable (i.e. fight a delaying action or a
"hold at all costs" action). Because of this, I couldn't properly plan
or use my forces effectively. I would have had to have made several
different plans and briefed all of them to my sub-commanders. If I was
to assume attack, what was I attacking? A location? A enemy force? If I
was to defend, where? West or east of the river? At one, two or three
bridges? Etc.

So, once again, I had fun. Rattler, if you plan on hosting another CPX,
I would love to participate. To my sub-commanders, I'd love to have you
be on my team again.

[Rattler]

RED 1st Coy AAR (Ralf Pichocki)

As there have been quite some players and lurkers, I'll try to keep my AAR
short ;-)

Task:

RED had one reinforced BTR Bn and was roughly tasked to take hold of, keep
open and then destroy three bridges in the middle of the map, 6-10 km from
their starting positions.

Execution:

I was in command of the 1st Company, tasked with the northmost corridor of
attack and to reach or seize the northmost bridge. John, who was CO during
the planning stage, wanted to act the companies more or less independently
(probably because the attack corridor was 6 km wide), so I planned "on my
own".

I created a strong vanguard (2 T-72s + 2 BTRs), followed by two platoon
sized elements, followed by my engineers, AA, the trains and an SA-10 I had
to take with me. To shield my left flank, I created an AT element with 3
AT-7 SAXHORN on one BTR.

Things went fairly well - at least this was my impression: I was able to
advance quick, even had the opportunity to support my left neighbour with
long-range weapons. 1 km from my objective (sight was between 1500m and
1800m as far as I recall) I discovered some enemy at "my" bridge and in its
surrounding, but either I managed to destroy him, or he withdraw (cannot say
exactly, because the replays are not out yet).

Then one "funny" thing happened: I was ambushed from behind by some BLUE
forces (I reckon it was one or two ATGMs, one or two MGs or LAAWs plus some
infantry). Happily, I managed to get them very quickly with surprisingly few
own casualties. Exactly after this, Rattler's, i.e. the umpire's, machine
crashed, and we had to start again from before this last turn. In the next
round, however, (I think BLUE's units must have had some kind of
deja-vu-memory ;-) BLUE destroyed my whole platoon and still had a team or
so left...

After pounding BLUE down with my mortars, my way was free to the bridge, and
I took it. At this time the scenario was called finished by the umpire.

Result:

I guess that I fulfilled my company's task, although this most likely was
not a result of my own competence, but of the fact, that I only had very few
BLUE in my way.

Lessons learned:

RED's strength lies in speed: I think BLUE's ambush did not fight my
vanguard, but my second platoon only, because the first thrusted along the
road very quickly.

RED's strength lies in mass: Even in the second go, BLUE's ambushers were
doomed, after I threw in another platoon plus my mortars.

Flank protection is important: Otherweise BLUE can get "us" from the side
with his long-reaching weapons, and "we" cannot do anything against

Luck is a factor in war: same ambush situation twice, but *totally*
different outcome.

Technical:

Despite the fact, that the umpire's machine crashed and he wasn't able to go
on hosting, from my point, it ran quite smoothly technically.
Unfortunately, to start "only" one hour late, is a good time...

The scenario idea was brilliant (but to be honest: maybe it was a *bit* too
sophisticated for the normal dumb player like me to see through ;-)
Thanks, Matt; more of this stuff, please.

And at last - but, and I mean it, not at the least - my thanks to Jeff, who
jumped in as "executing CO" when John had to give up due to RL workload.
Jeff, you did a great job, I'd like to serve "under you" any time again.

Oops! But, for me, it *is* a short AAR ;-)

[Rattler]

BLUE 3rd pln AAR (Peter Gower)

This was the best CPX I have participated in.
It started promptly (for a CPX) and got finished the same day.
Rattler served up another interesting scenario.
But most of all it was fun.

CPX 051008 - AAR BLUE 3rd platoon
US Custom Scenario USMC, map 260, TacOps V4.0.6 [AA]
Joined BLUE shortly before STARTEX as a replacement.
mIRC nickname Nimrod.
Received units, mission briefing, and map with zones marked from CO.

Units(pin 4): 11th airmobile brigade 3rd platoon split into 3 teams.
North team(NT)
US Helo CH47 P4, x2
AU LUV LR 4x4 GL P2, x2
US Inf Team P6, x1
US Inf MG 7.62 Team P4, x2
US ATGM Dragon2 Team P2, x2

Central team(CT)
US Helo CH47 P4, x2
AU LUV LR 4x4 GL P2, x2
US Inf Team P6, x1
US Inf MG 7.62 Team P4, x2
US ATGM Dragon2 Team P2, x2

South team(ST)
US Helo CH47 P4, x2
AU LUV LR 4x4 GL P2, x2
US Inf Team P6, x1
US Inf MG 7.62 Team P4, x2
US ATGM Dragon2 Team P2, x2

US Mortar 60mm P3, x3

Mission briefing from BLUE CO:
You will get zone alpha. You are to set down on the eastern edge
of the zone and do your search westward for the downed aircrew.
Spread your six LUVs out evenly N to S and drive them westward
looking for the crew. The rest of your men are to set up facing
east as far east in your zone as is feasible to be able to delay
any advancing enemy forces.
Send the helos back westward to the river, searching as they go,
where I will control them until we need them for dust off.
Once the air crew is spotted, everybody in the same zone as the
aircrew will converge on the aircrew.
In the other two zones, have your men move to the centre of your
zone in one big blob for extraction. We want to avoid any set
piece fight. We have nothing to win by killing OPFOR.
We only win by getting you and the aircrew home alive.
Shoot and scoot at max effective range. Suppression is as good
as a kill in our case. Use your smoke. I don't want anybody coming
home with smoke leftover. Use the 60mm for smoke only. They are ineffective on vehicles and if there are ground troops on foot,
they can't move westward fast enough to be of any danger to us to
be worth wasting salvos on. If you need area fire, I will use the
120mm in my inventory.

Map: Zone Alpha designation
East of river, North of 000040, and West of 105000

Initial assessment:
Search and Rescue mission. Find downed aircrew and evac.
Avoid enemy contact. Units too week for firefight.
Zone Alpha has little cover.

Planning:
Assumption RED is deployed East of zone Alpha.
Assumption RED is also looking for the aircrew.
Insert units as far east but behind cover.
Visibility 1800/2200m.

STARTEX:
Helos loaded and split into NT, CT and ST teams.
Teams inserted at 093056(NT), 090046(CT) and 083040(ST).
Helos all safely recovered west.
Downed aircraft located 078044.
First aircrew located 087038. ST ordered SE to first aircrew.
Second aircrew located 097042. CT ordered SE to second aircrew.
CT caught in open 091045 and eliminated.
Units from Bravo zone locate and extract both aircrew.
Remaining units ordered to remain in cover and avoid enemy contact.
Mortar unit ordered to destroy aircraft wreckage.

Real life interruptions:
Handed over to my No2 as I had to leave for 30 minutes real time.
On return found game had halted due to host problems. No2 reported
NT had been eliminated just prior to this.
Confirmed with CO that both aircrew were safe and requested to
attempt evac of remaining units.

CPX resumption:
ST ordered SW out of woods.
NT ordered N out of woods.
(NT were going SE but had a vision, some say deja-vu-memory)
NT overrun and in firefight.
Helos extract ST.
Helo sent to extract NT shot down.
Helo sent to assist evac in zone Charlie. Mission aborted as landing zone advised too hot.
NT informed they are on their own and not to expect evac.

ENDEX:
Rattler called a draw.

Loses:
North team(NT) KIA/MIA
US Helo CH47 P4, x1

AU LUV LR 4x4 GL P2, x2
US Inf Team P6, x1
US ATGM Dragon2 Team P2, x1
Also MIA/POW
US ATGM Dragon2 Team P2, x1
US Inf MG 7.62 Team P4, x2

Central team(CT) KIA/MIA
AU LUV LR 4x4 GL P2, x2
US Inf Team P6, x1
US Inf MG 7.62 Team P4, x2
US ATGM Dragon2 Team P2, x2

South team(ST)
None

Total casualties:
KIA/MIA P38
MIA/POW P10

Total Equipment lost:
4 LUV
1 CH47 Helo

Lessons learnt:
LUVs don't survive any kind of encounter.
Transport helos can't operate behind enemy lines.
_______________________

[Rattler]

RED CO (acting) AAR

Jeff Gilbert
US Army [Ret]
Palm Harbor, FL USA
-------------------
Original Team List:
Bn Cdr: John Osborn
1 Co: Ralph Pichocki (Pi)
2 Co: Jeff Gilbert (me)
3 Co: Bernard Cousin
Arty: Valentin Dumiitriuc
--------------------------
1. Mission: (excerpt from Bn OPORD, boundary overlay included)
Our PRIMARY mission is
- To secure the bridges over the river both against ground and air
attacks and rig them for destruction (once our troops have fallen
back)
- To bring forward and install in the vicinity of the bridges the
three SA 10 Batteries and to employ them in their defense both against
Cruise Missiles and air strikes.
- And once our troops have fallen back over the bridges we are to fall
back and destroy the bridges to render them useless to enemy.

SECONDARY Mission:
- Report to HIGHER all INTEL you might gather on enemy during
execution of your primary mission

2. Execution:
A. Planning Phase: each company commander prepared a Warning Order
(WARNORD) in support of the battalion plan. Mine was the last
presented on Wednesday evening. Val was to be the Bn Arty officer and
take control of the Off-Map arty and have 3 x FO, one to follow with
each company.

Within an hour of me posting 2 Co WarnOrd, we lost our Bn Cdr do to
"Real Life" commitments. We've all been there ... I was promoted to
take over within a few hours. I decided to make no changes to the
original battalion plan at that time. The personnel changes that were
required were to move Valentin to 2 Co Commander and take over the arty
& FOs myself. Sent Val the 2 Co WarnOrd again just to make sure and
ensured that each company commanders had organic control of his
mortars.

Opinion. overall, planning went well and all company commanders
understood their missions and had a viable plan to execute their
portions. If I had a bit more time, I would have liked to have created
a supplemental overlay with objectives, march times, NAI & TAI. Other
than that, I doubt I would NOT have strayed too far from John's
original plan. So, we head into battle with the following
organization:
Bn Cdr: Jeff Gilbert (arty also)
1 Co: Ralph Pichocki (Pi)
2 Co: Valentin Dumiitriuc (Muadib)
3 Co: Bernard Cousin

B. StartEx. Everyone came on board early enough but Val had some
connection issues. Once those were corrected, we found that Val had
mistakenly deleted the "Custom Scenario USMC" file. I think both
rattler and I sent him the file attached to email. Then Val had issues
"joining" the game. Rattler decided to ask for a substitute player as
we were about an hour late at this point. Delta99 stepped up, my
thanks to you, Sir. I sent Delta the 2 Co WarnOrd ... he would never
get a chance to read ... and the Red Team, Pi, Berny & I sent him a
series of "one liners" via IRC to give him the highlights of the
mission. Okay, so we hit StartEx with an untried Bn Cdr, no Arty
Officer, and a newly promoted 2 Co Cdr who barely received a decent
"Commander's Intent." So the game kicks off with Red:
Bn Cdr: Jeff Gilbert (arty also)
1 Co: Ralph Pichocki (Pi)
2 Co: Delta99 (sorry, I never learned your name)
3 Co: Bernard Cousin

Opinion. Despite the turmoil, Pi & Berny were rock solid in being
ready to go, offering good advise and helping prep Delta for the game.
Only regret, I still would have liked to get Val in the game and put
him back in charge of the Arty. He is a new player and I did not want
to sour him on the experience.

C. Game Play.
(1) Initial Movements. All companies moved out well toward their
respective objectives (bridges). A slight boundary issue occurred in
Turn 2 & 3 when 2 Co was using a road assigned to 1 Co. Delta (2Co)
probably did not get a chance to get the overlay set-up. My FOs
trundled along with their supported companies without incident and
without being too much in the way.
(2) Contact. Approximately Turn 5 or 6, 2 Co came under fire
from AT & MG fire to their front at about 1200m distance (vic 092046).
2 Co proceeded to deal with this threat as my initial assessment was it
might have been a Blue forward recon or delaying force. 1 Co supported
2 Co's counter-attack with some long range fire. Question as to what
to do from Co Cdrs, my instructions were to deploy and deal with the
delaying force but the primary objective was to reach the bridges. As
2 Co was mopping up this enemy force, they also came under fire from
the woods at (095042) in a kind of ambush. Had the initial enemy force
held their fire for another turn, 2 Co would have been in a hasty cross
fire. As it was, 2 Co was able to maneuver to defeat these threats
with the loss of over a platoon. About tis same time, 3 Co came under
fire AT & MG from (090014) and a turn or two later from (vic 099015).
3 Co deployed to meet and defeat this threat while still pushing a
recon element toward his bridge.
About now, it became obvious, even to me, that there were stronger
enemy forces east of our river than Higher's intel had suspected. My
initial reaction was to formally request additional Off-map Arty
support be dedicated to my Bn. 2 additional batteries were shifted our
way and I was able to dedicate one battery to each company sector with
the understanding that I would shift tubes to meet the enemy Main
Effort when and if required.
1 Co then came under ambush from BEHIND (098054) and requested
immediate Arty suppression of the enemy. Due to the 2 minute reaction
time for Red Arty, I was not able to support this as quickly as desired
by all parties. ! Co also had enemy ATGM fire from it's front (vic
075054), I was able to smoke this area fairly quickly. 1 Co advance
elements were rapidly approaching the northern-most bridge.
All Co Cdrs expressed clarification and if there were any changes
in Bn Orders in light of enemy deployments and actions. My response
was to deploy as needed to deal with their enemy threats but that NONE
of our mission objectives could be reached if we did not get to the
bridges. All Co Cdrs acquitted themselves wonderfully.
By EndEx, 1 Co

3. Aftermath.

A. Successes.
Primary Mission. Secure Bridges. 1 Co secured their bridge
before EndEx. 3 Co was well on their way and would have done the same
within 15 minutes (well within the games 60 minute limit). 2 Co would
have "probably" made it in the 60 minute limit. They has spotted enemy
mines blocking the EASTERN approach to their bridge however, 2 Co had
engineer assets to be able to breach. Would have been close but I
think Delta99 could have pulled it off.

B. Failures.
(1) Secondary Mission. Reporting intel back to HIGHER. I NEVER
did specifically address any intel to higher.
(2) Correctly assessing enemy intentions. With the early
destruction of the "Aircraft Wreck" marker (probably by BLUE) the
enemy's helo-borne raid to rescue a couple of downed pilots never
became evident.
(3) Lack of intel from "Higher."
(a) From all briefings, there were sporadic "friendly"
forces WEST of "The River" that should have given us some reports on
the air-armada of helicopters flying over and heading EAST.
(b) If we (Red) had shot down a NATO aircraft, I missed the
message on it. This would have been a vital clue as to what was going
on. Lacking this, and my own pig-headed determination to complete the
Primary Objective, never let me develop an accurate assessment of the
battle.
(4) I never "request" intel from Higher. This might have
mitigated my Failure (3)(b).
(5) SA10 deployment. I did not look up that unit specifically in
the OOB so I failed to notice that it has a MINIMUM engagement range
and I was deploying them too close to be of any use. bad oops on my
part and good catch from Delta on noticing.

C. Lessons Learned.
(1) Battalion Commander MUST command. I was also the arty
officer and just running three FOs and the three off-map arty batteries
left me precious little time for updating my SitMap and respondig to
the company commanders in a timely fashion.
(2) Click Sounds vs Regular. We all moved to Click Sounds to
speed things up as there were some slower connections or machines out
there that were causing a delay. My problem was, my machine moved thru
the turn so QUICKLY on click-sound that I was missing some important
detail. At one point, I did go back to NO click-sound and I was still
done and "waiting" for the turn to complete on other systems. I will
need to play with the delay between combat actions to see if
click-sound can be slowed enough for me to be usable.
(3) Trust your company commanders. I was blessed with three VERY
good company commanders. To a man, they required very little direction
other than a mission statement, commander's intent and some arty
support.

4. Parting Shots. Wonderful game. Tricky scenario. A great time!

Hat's off to Rattler for setting this up and to ??? for taking over
when Rattler's machine locked up.

[Rattler]

BLUE 2nd platoon cmdr AAR

A few words from me as CO of the 2nd Platoon of the Blue forces.

I got the WO in turn 11 and the pilot a few turns later into helicopters and
on the way back. I stumbled upon them very early, but luck is probably part
of every good plan :-)
>From my point of view my (primary) mission was done at turn 15, when I had
all my helos at a secure LZ ready to fly west. I left some infantry behind.
They were fighting heavily with red troops and were in close contact. I did
not see a realistic chance to get them out there by helo, that's why I sent
only one helo to get them out. This was of course doomed, because I did not
prepare a proper smoke screen. A better wy would have been to prepare a
proper extraction with more units, more arty support etc. But everyone else
was also fighting.
As I said before, I had in fact nothing more to do with my platoon after
turn 15. I sent the rest of my units west. At this point Rattler's computer
problems started and so I volunteered to be the new host. My units were than
taken over by Chaim.

Overall a very nice experience, and it was especially nice to have a CPX
again, Thanks for that Matt!

[pkpowers]

A very enjoyable game, thanks to everyone involved and also to the good Major for putting the game replay up so quick. I hope I can play in the next one!