You Folks Have It Kind of Easy

[IronMikeGolf]

Yeah, that's a bold statement. A line drawn in the dirt with a bayonet. Bear with me while I explain.

First, we release scenarios that are "balanced". That doesn't mean they track with the realities of the time. That means two equally matched players can expect a decent chance at victory and the difference depends on decisions each makes.

Let's talk offsets for a moment:
1. Problem: The WP (Warsaw Pact) has way more hardware than NATO
2. Offset: How to counter the numerical superiority of the WP
3. First Offset: Tactical Nukes. Enough said there.
4. Second Offset: Tac Nukes no longer acceptable. So, Precision Guided Munitions. In FCSS, that's really ATGMs. but both sides have them and WP really used them first! rue, but it's how you use them.

What's missing is a scenario where the Soviet Voldemort decides your battalion is where the hammer is going to hit. So what does that look like?
1. At the point of breakthrough, a Soviet division frontage may be as narrow as 4 km.
2. The artillery devoted to that would be 100 to 130 tubes per km of frontage.
3. OK, so 20 hexes wide, 520 tubes of arty
4. Can you crouch in your foxhole and survive? Probably not.

Again, we haven't done that in our scenarios. Why? Because that's Graduate Level stuff. I seriously doubt the Pro's today could prevail absent some coaching. If I have time, I'll make a scenario or two like this in the next couple of months. My dance card is kind of full at present.

i spent a decade of rotations at various Maneuver Training Centers learning how to survive. I got tot he point where either me and my guy or at least me alone were the Lst man standing in my company. The secret? Moving to avoid artillery. Although, that one time where I was last man standing, I made a mistake. Light infantry, so I went to the company mortar squad and shot a dozen rounds in hand held mode. Then grabbed Dragon and two missiles and started trudging to the obstacle breach the sounded like an interstate highway of tanks and BMPs. The Observer/Controller was rooting for me, but the OPFOR shot 192 rounds of 152mm on my pointed little head. Should bypassed the 60mm mortar.

Alright, I'll give some clues:
1. You need to kill all enemy recon.
2. You absolutely cannot park your guys in the best terrain and wait for the enemy to walk into your sights. The preparatory artillery fires will kill you. That means hidden from observation. Terrain dictates. If your hide position is more than 1 km from your defensive position, you need to reconsider.
3. You need to know when to move into your defensive positions.\
4. That means you need eyes forward (recon)
5. Your recon can't be in the path of the enemy advance. if it is, it will die.

All of the above gets you a coin toss. It doesn't take into account using terrain.

Anecdote: Combat Maneuver Training Center, June 1990. Squad Leader, M113 Mech. Deliberate Defense Mission. Had a TOW section attached (Sec Ldr was a BBQ Buddy). We looked at terrain and decided on rear quartering shots as the OPFOR pushed up the valley. Aked up the chain of command for more TOW missiles. Got a double load. We had zero Blade Time (engineer digger vehicles to make positions for our vehicles). My M113 was stashed 200 meters away after we unloaded everything, including the Maw Deuce. My bud unloaded his M901 and I put my guys to work digging him and his guys in. About 4 hours before the expected attack time, we moved (his guys in my track) about 2500 meters away to wait out the OPFOR prep fires. Then we moved back in to our foxholes. My plt lost one track and squad due to OPFOR shooting FASCAM, He was closest to the enemy direction. My guys shot down a recon helo. The TOW section got a couple dozen tank and BMP kills. Wasn't enough for my company, though. Learned some lessons there.

The teaching point here is you can avoid the WP prep fires. But the hard part is threading the needle in getting back into position before the ground forces attack. That requires some recon assets in the right place and surviving. it is quite hard to pull off on the ground. Like i d=said, this is Graduate Level stuff.

Here's another tip. Military history. Particularly doctrine evolution.

[byzantine1990]

I don't think there's any problem with a scenario where one side is heavily favored. The victory conditions just have to be adjusted so that it's not about defeating the enemy but how long can you hold on.

[erichswafford]

This is awesome stuff! Would love to hear more of your insights re: how to best defend against the WP hordes

Any advice on what to read? Also, what do you think about the impact of thermal imaging? Seems like it would've derailed quite a bit of Soviet technique, given their fondness for smoke in particular.

I'm new to the forum here, but I've been playing this Cold War Gone Hot stuff since "MechWar 2" back in the late 70's. I haven't pulled the trigger yet on FCSS, cause I never could get the hang of FCRS. The again, I was a psychiatrist in the USAF. What the hell would I know?

Thanks in Advance!!

Yeah, that's a bold statement. A line drawn in the dirt with a bayonet. Bear with me while I explain.

First, we release scenarios that are "balanced". That doesn't mean they track with the realities of the time. That means two equally matched players can expect a decent chance at victory and the difference depends on decisions each makes.

Let's talk offsets for a moment:
1. Problem: The WP (Warsaw Pact) has way more hardware than NATO
2. Offset: How to counter the numerical superiority of the WP
3. First Offset: Tactical Nukes. Enough said there.
4. Second Offset: Tac Nukes no longer acceptable. So, Precision Guided Munitions. In FCSS, that's really ATGMs. but both sides have them and WP really used them first! rue, but it's how you use them.

What's missing is a scenario where the Soviet Voldemort decides your battalion is where the hammer is going to hit. So what does that look like?
1. At the point of breakthrough, a Soviet division frontage may be as narrow as 4 km.
2. The artillery devoted to that would be 100 to 130 tubes per km of frontage.
3. OK, so 20 hexes wide, 520 tubes of arty
4. Can you crouch in your foxhole and survive? Probably not.

Again, we haven't done that in our scenarios. Why? Because that's Graduate Level stuff. I seriously doubt the Pro's today could prevail absent some coaching. If I have time, I'll make a scenario or two like this in the next couple of months. My dance card is kind of full at present.

i spent a decade of rotations at various Maneuver Training Centers learning how to survive. I got tot he point where either me and my guy or at least me alone were the Lst man standing in my company. The secret? Moving to avoid artillery. Although, that one time where I was last man standing, I made a mistake. Light infantry, so I went to the company mortar squad and shot a dozen rounds in hand held mode. Then grabbed Dragon and two missiles and started trudging to the obstacle breach the sounded like an interstate highway of tanks and BMPs. The Observer/Controller was rooting for me, but the OPFOR shot 192 rounds of 152mm on my pointed little head. Should bypassed the 60mm mortar.

Alright, I'll give some clues:
1. You need to kill all enemy recon.
2. You absolutely cannot park your guys in the best terrain and wait for the enemy to walk into your sights. The preparatory artillery fires will kill you. That means hidden from observation. Terrain dictates. If your hide position is more than 1 km from your defensive position, you need to reconsider.
3. You need to know when to move into your defensive positions.\
4. That means you need eyes forward (recon)
5. Your recon can't be in the path of the enemy advance. if it is, it will die.

All of the above gets you a coin toss. It doesn't take into account using terrain.

Anecdote: Combat Maneuver Training Center, June 1990. Squad Leader, M113 Mech. Deliberate Defense Mission. Had a TOW section attached (Sec Ldr was a BBQ Buddy). We looked at terrain and decided on rear quartering shots as the OPFOR pushed up the valley. Aked up the chain of command for more TOW missiles. Got a double load. We had zero Blade Time (engineer digger vehicles to make positions for our vehicles). My M113 was stashed 200 meters away after we unloaded everything, including the Maw Deuce. My bud unloaded his M901 and I put my guys to work digging him and his guys in. About 4 hours before the expected attack time, we moved (his guys in my track) about 2500 meters away to wait out the OPFOR prep fires. Then we moved back in to our foxholes. My plt lost one track and squad due to OPFOR shooting FASCAM, He was closest to the enemy direction. My guys shot down a recon helo. The TOW section got a couple dozen tank and BMP kills. Wasn't enough for my company, though. Learned some lessons there.

The teaching point here is you can avoid the WP prep fires. But the hard part is threading the needle in getting back into position before the ground forces attack. That requires some recon assets in the right place and surviving. it is quite hard to pull off on the ground. Like i d=said, this is Graduate Level stuff.

Here's another tip. Military history. Particularly doctrine evolution.

[sfbaytf]

This sounds like an interesting change from the standard fare. I use recon units as flank tripwire/security units and not for scouting. Setting up kill zones also seems like standard fare from what I’ve seen so far.

As for historical doctrine evolution it would seem like German mobile, flexible, defensive doctrine and practice on the Eastern front especially after the battle of Kursk in 43 would be a place to start, although they did use it in 42 when they were counterattacked.

Being the unlucky force that is heavily outnumbered and outgunned must really suck. I just got through reading This Kind of War. The American units that got hit at the start of the war were often ordered to hold at all costs, knowing they would be wiped out.

[tylerasmith1995]

Yeah yeah grandpa, you had to pull the track uphill both ways in the snow, each carrying a TOW on your back, hip firing the m2 while you went...

(Kidding of course)

Mad respect to those dudes who came before. Reading stories and interviews is a humbling experience. I'm truly glad it never kicked off for real.

I've been the lone survivor, at JRTC a few years back, light infantry TL. GMAN had broken through an adjacent unit's sector and ended up hitting our defense from the rear. I ended up chest deep in a swamp with the M240 while GMAN death squads roamed freely feeling like Rambo until the OC said I was "in danger" because of the "alligators" and that "he couldn't see me well enough" and "come out of there before I exroe kill you" before he shot me with the god gun.

It'd probably be really taxing to make and run, but a massive scenario where a unit like 3ACR needs to hold on against overwhelming odds would probably be really fun. I'd enjoy it. Have the victory conditions be asymmetric, the PACT commander has overly ambitious goals while 3ACR needs to fare better than a bug vs a windshield.

I think most of us would take up that challenge, but the game might benefit from a more detailed system of triggers and logic for individual unit decisions (God knows how hard that'd be.) Something where a unit of scouts in their LP calling up a SALUTE report triggers units to move up out of their hides and into the applicable battle position. That allows the player to delegate some level of decision making to the "company/bn commanders" and make up for the static, turn based nature of the command cycle.

Example:

Scouts in an op are watching two roads on either side of a valley. When they see which road the enemy is using they either call "New York" or "LA" to signify east/west side of the valley.

An infantry company standing by at their hide waits for the scout's report. When they hear the word, they move up to block the road that the scouts have identified. They don't wait for BN/BDE to give them the order, they move up on their own when they get the word. With the current system, the player would need to wait for the next command cycle to order those joes to move up to the right spot, and then there would be the order delay, prep delay, etc.

Maybe this deserves its own post

[Bagpipe]

Love it!

Thanks for sharing and as others have said, keep it coming!