byron13
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Joined: 7/27/2001
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Blackhorse
[B]
three cavalry "troops" (A, B, and C/1/11)
one tank "company" (D/1/11)
one artillery "battery" (How or Arty/1/11)
one headquarters "troop" (HQ/1/11)
The screen shots refer to a tank "troop." Horrors! [/B][/QUOTE]
Actually, I didn't know they referred to the tank company as a tank company. So each squadron has three line troops and a company? You Cav guys - sheesh!
Blackhorse mentioned getting the flavor of the lethality of modern combat. This would be important, but I don't know what effect it might have on the game. Robert, you say you've played HPS' Fulda '85. That game seriously under represents the lethality of modern war. Each turn is three hours, and it pisses me off to no end when I have a company of tanks shooting at an enemy tank battalion in the open from 1 km away and all I get is 3 or 4 kills in that time. I guess you can write it off to representing the lead platoon getting knocked off and the rest of the battalion not advancing to contact. But I don't think that is really what is happening because that same battalion can assault you with virtually no losses. It may also be a game balancing feature since, using the loss rates I could foresee, both armies could be virtually decimated in the first day or two, leaving the gamer with nothing left to play with.
Blackhorse can provide additional comment, but any company-sized WP unit or larger was going to take some serious losses upon contact. Let's assume you've got a company of tanks (funny how tanks seem to be at the center of the universe, huh?) with maybe two platoons oriented on a kill zone, e.g., a major road running through the middle of a wide open area with woods on either flank. There weren't too many places in the Seventh Army AO where you couldn't start an engagement in turret down - these aren't the North German Plains, after all. Our tactics called for WP recon elements to pass through unscathed (let the cooks and mechanics deal with them). For an extreme example, next comes a battalion of BMPs or BTRs with maybe two companies line abreast and the third following. La-la-la, what a nice day for a drive in the country. The platoons give their fire commands from turret down positions and then move to hull down to start firing. Before the bad guys even know they're there, eight rounds are fired essentially simultaneously from both forward flanks. All eight could easily hit, but let's say six do and, because of the target type, they're definite kills. Within about five to seven seconds, another eight rounds are on their way. Due to drastic evasion or possibly doubling up on targets, let's say only four hit. That's ten kills from eight tanks in less than ten seconds.
According to doctrine, the tanks are then supposed to pull back down to turret defilade and move laterally a ways so that the enemy can't zero in on your position. Within twenty or thirty seconds, the tanks are ready to fire again and send another sixteen rounds down range for another ten kills. The enemy is still some 1500 meters away, and they've suffered twenty vehicle kills. Even if they dumped their passengers after the first two volleys, the first ten kills would have killed the passengers. So that's twenty vehicles and ten infantry squads and possibly more. That's basically the two lead companies completely destroyed in a matter of a minute. From that range, none of the ATGMs could have reached their target in the roughly ten seconds the tanks exposed the top half of their turrets, so no losses among the good guys. I don't think this is an unrealistic scenario at all.
It may have been different against a tank battalion. I'm not sure what kind of armor the T80 has, but it is reported to have some kind of composite armor to reduce the effect of sabot and HEAT rounds. And, if the good guys are still using the 105mm, you might have some problems penetrating. But the hit rate would still be the same, even if the kill rate was reduced. If the tanks keep bearing down on you, they just get easier to kill. If they jink wildly to make themselves harder to hit, they spend that much more time in the kill zone and make their own shooting less accurate - even with stabilization. I've also got to question whether the WP - especially non-Soviet units - would have properly synchronized and bore sighted weapons, which are a must for long-range engagements. If you started with 1800 meter shots, they would have to close 500 meters before the good guys might break contact to move to their next position. In that 500 meters, each good guy should be able to shoot four to six rounds. If the good guys were not intending to withdraw and were going to hold the position instead, then it gets even bloodier.
This would change somewhat if there were no turret down positions available, e.g., you're shooting from a woodline on flat terrain. That would be a riskier proposition since you can be seen easier and it is more difficult to disengage through the woods. Against stabilized tanks, the losses are going to be more even. But in this situation, neither side can really disengage, and they're forced to fight until most of one side or the other is dead.
Anyway, the axiom of "If you can be seen, you can be hit. If you can be hit, you can be killed" is accurate. U.S. and, presumably, all NATO tanks would have a very high hit rate of at least 50% on average. With the 120mm, this would result in either a total kill, fire kill, or mobility kill probably 80% of the time. Undertand that these numbers are coming completely out of my a--, but I don't think they're far off.
So how do you incorporate that in a game? A unit on the defense could vaporize twice its own number very quickly and without taking many losses of its own. The biggest risks for the good guys is becoming decisively engaged and overwhelmed at short range or getting shot in the butt as you're trying to move to the next battle position which, in the M60, was a very real possibility.
Blackhorse, am I far off?
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