Brigade Nord: Delaying Actions 2 (Delay at Overbygd)
 

The following is my next scenario in my Brigade Nord (Norwegian Army) series. It depicts a delaying/holding action by elements of the Norwegian 2nd Battalion (Mechanized) at their Skjold Garrison near Overbygd, Troms, Norway.

I must note that this is a longer scenario. I’ve set it to 38 turns although the action may (or may not) be decided prior to that.

The underlying premise of this series is a hypothetical Russian Invasion of Northern Norway set in April, 2015. The theory of the Russian Invasion Plan is a major thrust towards Finnmark from their bases in the Kola Peninsula first across the Norwegian border towards Kirkennes, with a flanking movement through northern Finland. This scenario is set on day 7 of the invasion, and depicts movement of those Russian forces advancing from Northern Finland.

Your Norwegian forces are comprised of B Company, the Command and Support Company, and Home Guard units. C Company and the Recce Squadron are forward deployed off map. You start the scenario with the remnants of the Recce Squadron retreating through your front lines. Pass through those units to your rear and use them as you will as a ready reserve. Additionally, elements of CSS Coy are available as a reserve in the garrison. Three CV9030’s have been repaired from the maintenance facility to act as a reserve.

Facing you is a Russian Motorized Rifle Brigade. Incorporated in that Brigade are Russian MBT’s.

B Coy is deployed in a series of defensive lines east of Overbygd, and north of the Malseva River. Home Guard Units hold the south side of the River, where a newly constructed service road allows access westward.

Facing Russian MBT’s with the Norwegian IFV’s is folly. Your defense is in depth, use it. Being a garrison location with military stores and mechanical facilities, holding Skjold would be the highest priority. But loosing what may be the last of your only active duty mechanized battalion would give the Russians an easy road south to Oslo. Protect your IFV’s as best you can.
You have a large number of ATGM teams (Skjold has been designated as a military supply center). Also, you have hunter/killer teams with Gustavs. These units have been ordered to hold their fire until the Russians are either in close range, or have moved into kill boxes. Hit them, drop back, reorganize, and hit them again. These tactics have worked in the north before.

In addition to the MRB the Russians also will have helicopter gunships and air assets at their disposal. However, some of these units may not be immediately available. One MRB is advancing towards Overbygd, and another north on the E6 drawing resources from this AO. Your Russian opponent’s units may or may not be top line forces. The restructuring of the Russian Federation has not been kind to all of their forces, and many units have been deployed along the border to the Baltic States where a face-off with NATO is ongoing.

I hope you will find this scenario interesting.

Grant1

Re: Brigade Nord: Delaying Actions 2 (Delay at Overbygd)
 

Well I'm on turn 14 and the Soviet steamroller has arrived. Unfortunately for them their infantry support got decimated and while their tanks are near invulnerable without infantry support they're being whittled down.

The key is to never allow your ATGMs to fire during their movement, use 2 or 3 Javelins per tank. That gives you 4-6 shots, the first two virtually guaranteed to be countered by the CIWS, the 3rd thru 6th will miss, be evaded, or bounce off at least 50% of the time, but with 2-4 you can be fairly assured of a kill. And keep your ammo resupply close!

You have tons of Carl-Gustaf RRs move them forward to the edges of the the woods ASAP (you sufficient vehicles) and place them where they'll get flank/rear shots. They've killed probably 6+ tanks already for me.

I will freely admit I cheat *gasp* when it comes to SAMs/MPADs vs helicopters. The MI-24 in particular. Again I only fire at helos during my turn, if they miss they miss (as they usually do), all well and fine. But at least 80% of the time when a missile hits it does no damage at all. When this happens I will reload and refire that same missile (often 10-15 times) until it does some damage. Why you ask? Because these are heat-seaking missiles, if they hit in the first place turbine blades are NOT going to just shrug it off (feel free to research how many real life helos have taken a missile up the turbine and not been damaged sufficiently to get the hell outta Dodge). And the Mi-24 in particular will not be damaged about 80% of the time (actually 81% according to my tests of 100 Stingers hits vs Hinds).

All that is to explain why the MI-24s were less of a problem for me then most players will find them to be. Not that the Norwegian 30mm's are at all useful vs tanks but they're great at shooting up APCs.

Now of course I'm low on AT ammo and sooooooooo looking forward to the second wave of the assault!

Nice job so far Grant1pa!

Re: Brigade Nord: Delaying Actions 2 (Delay at Overbygd)
 

Well got my *** thoroughly handed to me.

I did fall back from the first couple defensive positions, rearm, and set up again in secondary positions but the tanks just shrugged off everything I could throw at them.

The second wave of Russian tanks had infantry support (remnants of the 1st wave + what came with the 2nd) and the Russian tankers had a REAL good time destroying everything in sight. Sort of reminded me of the first part of the Korean war.

The T-72B3's were essentially invulnerable to the Norwegian ATGMs, 2x CIWS plus applique armor blocks plus the usual dodging and less then effective hits. It took an average of 6-8 ATGMs to take out each and the Norwegians just plain don't have that many.

Fun scenario tho, GOOD fight!

Re: Brigade Nord: Delaying Actions 2 (Delay at Overbygd)
 

I haven't got to far with these as RL is hectic at the moment but my first impressions are good looking forward to this series.

Just one thing if possible can you also release it with units names as standard if its easy enough.
I know many people like the renaming but I find it far quicker to play if units names are standard

Re: Brigade Nord: Delaying Actions 2 (Delay at Overbygd)
 

Yeah, I find it easier gameplay as well to use the default unit names, however I do rename the command units as well.

Sometimes it can get confusing very fast. For instance, the Russian BTR Rifle Co formations have the following unit designations:
BC0 3/2 Hq
BC1 Isla-1 SAM
BC2 3/2 Hq

Also, formations F, K, & P are listed as platoons when it appears they ought to have company designations

And, some of the leader units are led by Sgts with sub units led by Ltgs

Finally, Player 1 units are not in contiguous order, not a big thing I suppose, but you'd find it makes for better design to have your units in order by player.

Oh, I would give the SU-27's targets especially since they are the SEAD element on an northeast Air Entry in pre-bombardment.
And, there's an SU-27M at RC11 and an Mig-29SM at RC18, I'm not sure they will ever enter the fight without targets. Gotta check on this myself.

With a two battalion-sized Russian TF, I'd purchase at least 2 strike elements assigned CAS and maybe an additional element assigned interdiction in addition to the SEAD.

Nevertheless, I should have fun!

Re: Brigade Nord: Delaying Actions 2 (Delay at Overbygd)
 

Imp and Shahadi, Thanks for the feedback.

Sorry about renaming the units. I've always done that in my scenarios to help me keep to the "script" I make during the initial design. When I design these, I do a lot of research on the TO&Es', terrain, weather, historical basis (or hypothetical basis), and then hard copy map the attack, defense positions, etc. It's exceedingly time consuming, but it helps me work around the quirks with the AI the game gives the OPFOR in advancing units, deploying dismounts early, etc.

Bad habit I guess to carry the designations over into the actual computer scenario. I can easily change that in future designs and I do understand how it can impact on game flow for someone who didn't design the battle.

I design the Russian Air support's targeting dependent upon the scenario. In the first one I presented (Bardufoss), a Spets FAC was there to target. In the last two, the FAC gets there late and targeting was to arise from the unit level. I'll work on that concept to find the balance between what's reasonable for the conditions on the ground combined with expectations on what's reasonable on the operational (prior intel) level.

The unit leaders were an error. Sorry. Working 10 hour watches and then trying to decompress with scenario building creates errors. I'll work that out better as I progress in the series, and then when I complete the 12, I'll go back on the three I've posted to date and resubmit them as the proofed scenarios.

I truly appreciate your feedback. I've been playing this game since the first month it came out with SSI. But merely designing games for yourself is a poor system at best. I'll get better. Thanks mates!

Grant1

Re: Brigade Nord: Delaying Actions 2 (Delay at Overbygd)
 

I generally rename player controlled command units as well but for AI units I make it a point NOT to because a player has no way (or frankly need) to know what the unit designations are.

As to aircraft, the AI will find appropriate targets for them, it's pretty good at that. It just won't/can't find "specific" targets.

Re: Brigade Nord: Delaying Actions 2 (Delay at Overbygd)
 

I'm not so certain. In my experience with this scenario the SU-27 SEAD element does not engage the NASAM's at all. However, when I plot a target for the SU-27's, the AI will engage the NASAM targets. So, I repeated the process over and over about five times. Each time there's no target for the SEAD guys, they do not engage any target at all. So, what I did was to plot an attack in turn 1, 2, and 3 with my SEAD element in the Bombardment screen. And, each time, now the SEAD guys engage targets.

Now, I reasoned, Russian satellite intel would pick up the NASAM and would target those threats very early. Although the RBS-70 SAMs pose a viable threat to strike aircraft and attack helos, it is the NASAMs that carry the first priority.

Again, given the Norwegian anti-air envelope, the Russian forces need at least 1 SEAD element and 3 strike elements.

Also, I would purchase and deploy attack helos as a section fighting together.

It remains a challenging scenario.

Thanks for posting.

Re: Brigade Nord: Delaying Actions 2 (Delay at Overbygd)
 

Interesting? I've never seen the AI have any particular difficulty with SEAD aircraft targeting radar using weapons. In fact if they have bombs other then AARMs they go after MPADs fairly regularly if there are no radar using AA units around.

Might it be in part due to the flight path? Did you plot them to overfly the front lines before they could even get to the AA units?

Re: Brigade Nord: Delaying Actions 2 (Delay at Overbygd)
 

No, the SEAD performs a stand-off attack, the attack vector does not matter. The Su-27's never engage without an assigned target, as such the AI will not fly the SU-27's, at least not in my copy. However, once the SU-27's are assigned a target, attack path does not matter, the SU-27's will attack the Norwegian NASAM units.

Are you saying that in your copy of the scenario, the SU-27's attack the NASAM units in turn 0?

So, I reloaded the original scenario package and found that the SU-27's SEAD element does not engage any target as I've reported in an earlier post.

Re: Brigade Nord: Delaying Actions 2 (Delay at Overbygd)
 

The SU-27's aren't plotted to attack anything at the start of the scenario.
So even if the AI plotted an attack on turn 1 it's HIGHLY unlikely the NASAMs would be the target since it doesn't know they exist yet.

Re: Brigade Nord: Delaying Actions 2 (Delay at Overbygd)
 

The SEAD aircraft will attack the NASAM due to the NASAM's radar signature; so, yes the AI will know of the NASAM. Further, if you assign an arbitrary hex to SEAD aircraft, they will attack opposing radar anywhere on the map.

If you don't give the AI controlled aircraft a target, they will not engage, at least they did not in this scenario.

It is routine that a SEAD element precede a strike package in order to suppress radar controlled SAM's. In our game, the designer may simply assign any hex to the SEAD aircraft and the AI will then attack the NASAM. Moreover, it is important to purchase the SEAD element first, then purchase strike, and COIN as the game will launch the aircraft in order of formation number; i.e. AB, then AC and AD following in order. However, without a target, AI controlled aircraft will not engage.

My suggestion is that the SU-27's should be assigned a Hex, any Hex if you prefer in pre-bombardment as I prefer to open with air strikes to suppress radar assets early in the scenario. Or a SEAD strike could be planned later in the game prior to turn 11 when the first strike aircraft appears, and again in turn 18 with the appearance of the Mig-29M. These are considerations of the designer. Again, without assigning targets the AI will not engage aircraft. Unfortunately, the strike aircraft were purchase before the SEAD in this scenario, so the strike aircraft will launch before any SEAD suppression.

As a note, after checking the bombardment screen, none of the aircraft are assigned targets in this scenario. I suggest that is why the AI controlled aircraft do not enter into the battle, well, at least not in my copy of the scenario.

I am not confident, given Grant1pa intention as stated above, will occur without explicitly assigning targets for the Russian aircraft.

IMHO

Re: Brigade Nord: Delaying Actions 2 (Delay at Overbygd)
 

"As a note, after checking the bombardment screen, none of the aircraft are assigned targets in this scenario. I suggest that is why the AI controlled aircraft did not enter into the battle, well, at least not in my copy of the scenario."

But, ah, as long as the FAC remains a passenger it will not provide targeting?

So, I put a test without a FAC and no air strikes occurred. Also, the FAC riding in a vehilce resulted in zero air strikes. However, once, I added a FAC the AI targeted the NASAM and other targets as well. I was so pleased!

Challenging scenario

Thanks for Grant1pa for the post!

Re: Brigade Nord: Delaying Actions 2 (Delay at Overbygd)
 

Well I had at 2x SU-27 and 1x SU-27M myself (at least, could be more but that many were damaged at the end of the scenario, others may have attacked enough to run out of ammo but were undamaged).

So I'd say they were a bit of a wildcard. And that's actually good because it makes the scenario a bit less predictable.

In my own scenario designing I've see AI aircraft totally ignore pre-plotted strikes set for like turn 15 and attack targets of opportunity on turn 5. The only way I've found to insure they attack no earlier then a given turn is to set them as reinforcements a turn or two before you want them to attack.