Scenario: Battered Bastards

[Grant1pa]

The War of the Fleas Scenario.

It's April, 2016 and the Russian attack through the Baltic States is reaching a critical stage. Estonia and Latvia have fallen. NATO entered the fray but is being pushed back. The Russian Army tried an assault through the Ukraine, but their forces met stiff resistance and this has stalled. Russian Commanders decided to set loose their considerable forces in the Kaliningrad Oblast, who moved east into Lithuania.

You command units of the US Army's 101st Airborne 1st Brigade Combat Team: three companies of the 506th Infantry Regiment, a screening elementof the 32nd Cav. Regt, artillery support from the 320th Field Artillery Regiment, and Apaches from the 101st First Battalion of the 101st Aviation Regiment.

Facing you are elements of the Russian 336th Independent Marine Regiment. Expect the 336th's motorized infantry supported by main battle tanks. They have rolled over Reserve Units of the Lithuanian Army while regular army units have been focused on their northern and eastern borders. Their axis of advance is along Rt. A7 from Vilkaviskas towards Marijampole. Their objective is Vilnius. NATO Air has attempted to interdict their advance and their route march has been disrupted. Due to air attacks, their regimental artillery support is limited.

Your Airborne Infantry are arrayed in a blocking position between Gizai and Balsupiai. Cavalry units from the 32 Cav are screening in the woods to the north. Elements of the 320th FAR (the "Balls of Bastogne") are located in Balsupiai and offmap. Use them wisely. Apaches are enroute but not immediately available.

NATO Air is heavily engaged all along the front. You may receive some assistance but it will be limited.

Your orders are to hold your positions in order to facillitate the rear elements of the BCT to establish a more viable defense around Marijampole.

History revisits the 101st. Marijampole hosts a key crossroads comprised the the east-west Rt A7 to Vilnius, and Rt. E67 leading into Poland. The Russians must control this crossroads in order to block any intecession by Polish Forces, and to quickly end the debate. The Battered Bastards of Bastogne must again do the impossible.

Good Luck

Design by Thomas Garlock

[RetLT]

Got an error message trying to unzip the file.

Has anyone else been successful?

[Grant1pa]

Originally Posted by RetLT

Got an error message trying to unzip the file.

Has anyone else been successful?

Try this one. I compressed it with Windows8.

Tom

[Suhiir]

Originally Posted by Grant1pa

Try this one. I compressed it with Windows8.

Tom

You have a .zip file compressed inside another .zip file.
WinZip7 had no problems with this but it may be you compressed the other (faulty) zip file with Windows8 rather then the original scenario files.

[Grant1pa]

Originally Posted by Suhiir

You have a .zip file compressed inside another .zip file.
WinZip7 had no problems with this but it may be you compressed the other (faulty) zip file with Windows8 rather then the original scenario files.

Sorry about that. I must have grabbed the wrong folder, long day. Thanks for checking the first upload. Disregard the second one. I'll try to take it off the post.

Tom

[shahadi]

War of the Flea: Battered Bastards Battle Report
Date: April, 2016
Battle Location: Gizai, Lithuania.
Battle Type: United States Defense v. Russian Assault.
Design by: Thomas Garlock, “Grant1Pa”

Battle Date: May 27-29, 2016

Background: Russia began its incursion into Norway in April 2015, following by a flanking attack into Finland in December. Now, in April 2016, the fighting to the north has stalled and battle lines have stabilized. Realizing the initiative has to be regained, Russian Forces now move into the Baltic States.

Situation: NATO air is attempting to interdict the Russian 336th Independent Marine Brigade with at least one MRR supported by tanks, movement east to Vilkaviskis, with Vilnius as the enemy objective.

Enemy Forces: Elements of the Russian 336th Independent Marine Brigade with at least one MRR with tank support.

Friendly Forces: Three companies of the 506th Infantry Regiment, supported by a screening elementof the 32nd Cavalry Regiment, fire support from the 320th Field Artillery Regiment (on and off map), and Apaches from the 1st Battalion of the 101st Aviation Regt.

Mission: The 506th Infantry Regiment will deny the enemy access to Marijampole by destruction of his forces engaged in area.

Design Notes: A very well thought out scenario, unfortunately, the AI is most stubborn when it comes to mechanized assaults. Here again, we have the APCs out running the leg infantry. When in practice the infantry dismounts and approaches ahead of the Infantry Fighting Vehicles or Armed Personnel Carriers. There has been considerable discussion between members on the dismount and advance of leg infantry in front of APCs in the forum. Click here for discussion:
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showp...38&postcount=1.

Russian assault doctrine has had considerable discussion on the forum by Tomas. Additionally, in the game guide, assaults or breaches are covered in length too. The obstacle is how to plan AI artillery bombards forward of an assaulting force. Click here:
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showp...73&postcount=1 .

In my opinion, Army Air is crucial to defeating the Russians. Keep your Apaches in sections, while moving them in concert. Keep them at low altitude and behind cover, rising to high altitude to fire at targets, then return them to low altitude behind cover. When attacking APC’s inactivate missile stores and use canon fire only. Alternately, when attacking tanks, turn off canons and use missiles only. You will have to carefully manage the ammo trucks for reload of the Apaches and FA units.

Reserve at least one section of 155mm FA for counter battery fires.

Grant1Pa has already range and filtered the US forces. Great job at it too. So, for the most part sit back and let your side respond with opportunity fires.

I have a problem understanding why the Russian objective is Vilnius and not Marijampole. Moving east to control the crossroads at Marijampole makes sense but to Vilnius far to the east near the Belarus border does not given the significance of Marijampole. So, when I opened the scenario and saw US forces arrayed in the east or left side of the map I was dismayed. Alas, the Polish border is near, thus US forces would advance up from there to control the crossroads at Marijampole but why the Russians passing Marijampole for Vilnius going east? Would they not come from the east, thus placing US forces on the right side of the map?

Russian objective


Battle Report



Battle Results




Thank you Tom for another enjoyable and informative scenario.

[Grant1pa]

Originally Posted by shahadi

War of the Flea: Battered Bastards Battle Report

I have a problem understanding why the Russian objective is Vilnius and not Marijampole. Moving east to control the crossroads at Marijampole makes sense but to Vilnius far to the east near the Belarus border does not given the significance of Marijampole. So, when I opened the scenario and saw US forces arrayed in the east or left side of the map I was dismayed. Alas, the Polish border is near, thus US forces would advance up from there to control the crossroads at Marijampole but why the Russians passing Marijampole for Vilnius going east? Would they not come from the east, thus placing US forces on the right side of the map?

Russian objective

Thanks Shahadi, I had more fun with this scenario and for once, time to work on one (I'm on leave).

I should have put more information into the post giving a background to what I envisioned for this scenario. In short, deciding to break the resistance to the Russian drive through the Baltic States, I initially envisioned a move to envelope the remaining Baltic State forces from Russian forces in the west. Initially, I considered an assault through Belarus to Vilnius, but after some research (in part):

http://belarusdigest.com/story/belar...te-terms-23814

I decided not to do this. I opted for a continuation of the Ukraine conflict. In my overall background for this scenario, I projected that the Ukrainians would put up a stiffer resistance even with non-concealed Russian Army units, thus stalling their drive and coming up with the decision to let loose the Kaliningrad forces.

Still in time proximity to the initial invasion, I considered NATO's first units would have to be light mobile ones, hence the 101st 1st BCT. How they got there, well, I didn't think that through to certainty. However, the 1st BCT's OPPLAN was to establish a blocking position against any incursion from Kaliningrad.

Going to the Russian side, an examination of possible routes to Vilnius showed two primary routes. I opted for the lower route through Marijampole as it was shorter in distance (through still usable roadways). Also, it provided a Russian blocking position for reinforcement of NATO through Poland. (see jpeg).

Vilnius was the strategic objective, Marijampole the tactical objective.

You'll see this better in the next scenario once I get it play tested.

I'll try to give a better background in the future.

Still glad you liked it. You did better than I did even on my last run through, I only got a marginal victory.

Tom

[Suhiir]

I'm only on turn 11 but one thing has come up that caught me by surprise ... the lack of Russian mortars.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...-battalion.gif
In an assault scenario in particular being able to suppress the defenses with indirect fire can be critical.

Overall tho it's looking pretty good. After the mad scramble the first 3-4 turns to re-position some of the US forces, better line-of-sight for ATGMs mostly. Personally I rarely leave ATGM fire to the AI and turn the weapons off selecting my own targets during my turn. The Apaches have been pretty successful vs the T-80s by ganging up on one at a time till it's defensive measures are breached.

At this point I foresee an easy decisive victory for the US.

The only way I've found to keep APCs from outrunning their infantry is to use the editor to reduce the movement allowance of the APCs. If they don't have to cross large open areas while under fire to get to their probable deployment locations it works fairly well.

[Grant1pa]

Originally Posted by Suhiir

I'm only on turn 11 but one thing has come up that caught me by surprise ... the lack of Russian mortars.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...-battalion.gif
In an assault scenario in particular being able to suppress the defenses with indirect fire can be critical.

Overall tho it's looking pretty good. After the mad scramble the first 3-4 turns to re-position some of the US forces, better line-of-sight for ATGMs mostly. Personally I rarely leave ATGM fire to the AI and turn the weapons off selecting my own targets during my turn. The Apaches have been pretty successful vs the T-80s by ganging up on one at a time till it's defensive measures are breached.

At this point I foresee an easy decisive victory for the US.

The only way I've found to keep APCs from outrunning their infantry is to use the editor to reduce the movement allowance of the APCs. If they don't have to cross large open areas while under fire to get to their probable deployment locations it works fairly well.

Thanks for the advice on the APC movement. I'll try that in the next scenario. As far as the mortars, wait for them. Remember the NATO air interdiction of the route march (also, I credited them with strikes on their SPM). I also break down and use individual unit selection for targets for both ATGM and MBT.

You people are doing better than I did (marginal victory) and I know where they are coming from. Glad I'm a POG, at least my troops are!

Tom

[Imp]

thanks for another one Grant however Suhirs comment about the ATGMs reminded me that's one thing I have noticed as a trend in your scenarios.
You often deploy them so they can only engage at fairly short range. This is good for RPG users but not ATGMs as they are far more likely to give their position away & don't need/want to be up close.

As deploying will talk hexes
The most common modern ATGMs have a range of 40 hexes.
At short range 6 hexes or so they are less accurate than they are at greater ranges.
Most seem to have the same accuracy from 7 or so to max range though some seem to drop off in the last 5 or so hexes(older 70-80 accuracy at a guess)
However I think (gut feeling)the longer the range the more likely it is that the unit will try to avoid the shot.
Deploying them at a distance from the platoon can often benefit their survival.
Dragon ATGMs are a bit different though firing at medium range is still better than short but they are still far more likely to be spotted.
I often have a covering squad near them who can pop smoke so they can relocate.
Simple rebalance replace 2 Apaches with 2 or 3 scout helos. Combat Aviation Brigades are made up of 24 Apaches & 30 Scouts.
Dang I would be motivated to become a better pilot & get my bum in the big boys toy.