Another great session, with 41 folks sighted at one point!
Nutcracker
An adverserial -- Us OPFORs had to get a broken T90 down a long stretch of road in 15 minutes while INDFOR tried to stop us. I took the Alpha FTL role, and we headed West and crested a hill to check out a nearby town just off the main route. At this point a hearty burst of automatic fire cut down the whole fireteam, killing me and wounding the others. Fortunately they were soon revived by Bravo, but by this point we were behind schedule. The tank powered down the road to try and make the deadline, but was shot out by about a bajillion rockets and finally blew up.
Fort EX
Commander. A bit of a debacle, to be honest! I survived right to the end though, so it wasn't so bad as all that, right? Right?
This is mostly gonna be me describing what I could have done better.
We started at the south end of a wide valley. At the north was a heavily-fortified enemy area holding two forts that we needed to take control of, with a small village in the middle of the valley. We had three two-fireteam squads, a sniper team, a mortar, an IFV, and two BTR-40s with DShKMs.
Based on past experience I was keen to avoid going through the middle of the valley, as I figured any emplacements up on the hills would be able to cut us up easily. I was further put off when the sniper team reported heavy fortifications in the village in the middle of the valley. I therefore took the whole team up a gulley to the East, where a series of hills protected us from the valley itself. Once we rounded the first hill we came under fire from the north, as there were more enemy positions there and in the village further to the northeast.
The BTRs and IFVs came up and dealt with them while I sent Charlie to scout further east and see if we could move over yet another valley, but was advised this was essentially out of bounds. Once the path north was clear, I therefore started moving the whole team in that direction to a hill east of the target AO, bypassing much of the valley, popping up occasionally to hit positions inside it. By this time, both the sniper and mortar teams had been taken out of action. The IFV moved along the ridgeline itself, hitting targets in the valley as well. By the time we reached the northern hill, casualties were mounting. Alpha moved around to the north to flank, with charlie staying on top with bravo, who eventually hooked around to the south to hit the forts too. We were still taking heavy fire from the forts, and by the time we finished taking the first one, most of us had been wiped out.
So.
There are a couple of ways I think this could have gone better. The first and most obvious one is to do what I think the mission maker intended, and move up north through the valley, taking and clearing the central village, digging in there to soften up the military presence to the north, and then storming the forts. The sniper team and mortar teams could have supported this admirably from long range, with the IFV either using the road or taking up a higher position to provide more fire support. There was quite a lot of tree cover in the valley which would have made a mass infantry approach relatively safe, especially given that there were few elevated fortifications -- they were mostly centred on the village. Up close, the infantry could have used their full strength. So by deciding to take us onto the hills, I was condemning us to the same problem we've had before of infantry being uncovered and unable to engage on open hillsides. It also meant the sniper team, who I foolishly ordered to start engaging targets in the valley, were the only targets for the enemy, and were thus killed quickly. What I should have done is coordinated mortar fire on the positions they had marked, using them as spotters.
The second option was to do the same plan I chose, but better. The BTR-40s, IFV, and possibly infantry ARs could have been used as a forward element to crest the initial ridge and take out the long-range targets, and then to skirt along the ridgeline horizon popping up to engage any enemies in range, covering the rest of the infantry troops in trucks directly to the northern hill -- making full use of the mortars with the sniper team and IFV as spotters. Once there, there was a reasonably safe gulley leading to the first fort that could have been used by an assaulting force, possibly with a base of fire set up on the north hill where there were some fortifications. If I'd scouted from the right position or got more information from people who could see, I would have been aware of this.
Here are some of the mistakes I made while carrying out the plan I chose, partly due to being under fire most of the time, partly due to just not thinking fast enough:
* Told the whole team to move to the initial position (the hill NE of spawn) without thinking through the best way to arrange forces for the task at hand (i.e. long-range weaponry at the front, everyone else behind with SLs and ARs possibly skirting up to the crest).
* Once contact was made at the first position, didn't do much to arrange troops effectively to clear the threat; in particular didn't call up and position the IFV fast enough.
* When sniper team reported fortifications, told them to open fire instead of coordinating the mortars with them. Didn't go and spot/call mortar missions myself, or delegate it to anyone else.
* Although I got a lot of very clear, specific and accurate contact reports, I didn't assign particular elements to destroy them and confirm back to me.
* Didn't check for presence of enemy anti-armour equipment when moving the IFV.
* Gave confusing, unclear orders about what the plan was for moving north. Didn't plan or specify clear positions for bounding and popping up in a coordinated fashion.
* Kept everyone moving on foot when we could have used trucks.
* Told whole squads to crest and engage enemies in the valley even though it was ineffective. Should have used only the useful elements.
* When I heard the IFV was having trouble taking out bunker positions, didn't arrange for RPGs and mortars to hit them.
* When we got to the hill, kept most of the force up on the hill taking casualties, while alpha went out alone into the firing range of two forts AND a shilka(?) that I knew was still operational, without any real cover from the hill.
* At the end, just gave a vague order to charge instead of rallying the remaining forces closer together and keeping them coordinated.
So, I definitely learned a lot from this and I hope my continued experiments at CO'ing are at least informative by counterexample.
Any thoughts/suggestions from the troops who were subjected to my buffoonish attempts at leadership, please do speak up! What did you want to be hearing from the CO? I'd also love to be able to practise this stuff in a workshop type environment some time. One thing I particularly need to learn is quickly reading the map, finding the location of positions I can see or that are described to be and quickly placing accurate, clear markers based on fast assessments of the situation. Too often I get tangled up while sorting out reports from the team, trying to make a plan, and trying to figure out relative positions at the same time. Assigning a DC to delegate tasks to -- e.g. handling the snipers, mortars, IFV and engineers -- would also have been useful in this situation.