Scenario: Acceptable US Casualties Against 3rd World Armies

[IronDuke99]

Originally Posted by Suhiir

VERY good series !

Yes much of it is good.
I've now watched all of it and it was, in my opinion, very uneven.

The Four British Staff College officers were, with the partial exception of the last bloke, very, very, bland, using a lot of words to say not very much at all. And why no infantry office?

As an Englishman I am not in favour of supporting a German/EU desire (despite lacking the military strength to do so) to confront Russia in Eastern Europe, something for which the British Army is not suited in size, and that seems to me considerably less than vital to British, or even NATO, self interest.

The ex RAF Officer who predicted a 35,000 man British Army honestly horrified me. UK might, with a considerable increase in the Royal Navy (and perhaps the RAF) live with an Army of a regular strength of 70-80,000, since that is not so different from the general historical strength of the British Army in the UK when the British Army had to garrison an Empire, but any reduction much below this will make it useless for almost any serious military purpose.

I thought the CGS speech was so, so, good in parts but really rather too PC when talking about a military force that is designed, at the end of the day, to kill the enemy. As Rudyard Kipling, rightly said, "Single men in barracks don't grow into plaster Saints." Nor should we expect them too.

[IronDuke99]

In some respects this is the most interesting speech at this Conference. He identifies a lot of common military thinking failures.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2zLzW86134

Worth noting though that the US Army took great note of the German Army in WWII because no one ever really defeated them with equal resources. All the Western allies required more men, more air power, more guns, more tanks and more supply to win large scale battles, the same was true of the Soviets (who also needed a whole lot of US trucks and half tracks often fought through to them, at considerable cost, by, mainly, the Royal Navy).

German doctrine and officer, especially staff officer training, was simply better than her enemies on a tactical and, often, operational level. Thankfully this was not true on a strategic level, were Anglo-US cooperation worked, on the whole, very well, despite disputes and often strong arguments.

A lot of the modern idea of a thinking and flexible Army, to me, has its roots in German WWI and WWII doctrine and Staff training.
Especially when you hear about Senior officers being "eyes on and hands off." That is pretty much exactly the pre WWII German idea of give a subordinate an objective but let him come up with the means. C. 1937-2016 and it is, supposedly new...

[Suhiir]

I know from personal experience up till the 80's the USMC was still working under the "achieve this objective" model, how it was achieved was up to the subordinate commanders.

During Gulf-I (I was with 2nd MarDiv) each regimental task force (more-or-less the equivalent of a US Army Brigade) was given a corridor of responsibility and the final objective, Kuwait City. Each subordinate battalion had it's own section of that corridor. Units were expected to coordinate with those on their flanks to insure they stayed in a more-or-less in a cohesive line of advance.

While it may not sound like a terribly large improvement from "Go to A, now go to B, now..." being assigned a sector of responsibility and an axis of advance is pretty significant.

[Airborne Rifles]

Originally Posted by Suhiir

I know from personal experience up till the 80's the USMC was still working under the "achieve this objective" model, how it was achieved was up to the subordinate commanders.

During Gulf-I (I was with 2nd MarDiv) each regimental task force (more-or-less the equivalent of a US Army Brigade) was given a corridor of responsibility and the final objective, Kuwait City. Each subordinate battalion had it's own section of that corridor. Units were expected to coordinate with those on their flanks to insure they stayed in a more-or-less in a cohesive line of advance.

While it may not sound like a terribly large improvement from "Go to A, now go to B, now..." being assigned a sector of responsibility and an axis of advance is pretty significant.

This is still how it is, in the Army as well. Operation orders can get voluminous, but in the end you get a mission and a commander's intent from higher, and you have great freedom in how you execute within those wide boundaries.

[Airborne Rifles]

Originally Posted by IronDuke99

In some respects this is the most interesting speech at this Conference. He identifies a lot of common military thinking failures.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2zLzW86134

Worth noting though that the US Army took great note of the German Army in WWII because no one ever really defeated them with equal resources. All the Western allies required more men, more air power, more guns, more tanks and more supply to win large scale battles, the same was true of the Soviets (who also needed a whole lot of US trucks and half tracks often fought through to them, at considerable cost, by, mainly, the Royal Navy).

German doctrine and officer, especially staff officer training, was simply better than her enemies on a tactical and, often, operational level. Thankfully this was not true on a strategic level, were Anglo-US cooperation worked, on the whole, very well, despite disputes and often strong arguments.

A lot of the modern idea of a thinking and flexible Army, to me, has its roots in German WWI and WWII doctrine and Staff training.
Especially when you hear about Senior officers being "eyes on and hands off." That is pretty much exactly the pre WWII German idea of give a subordinate an objective but let him come up with the means. C. 1937-2016 and it is, supposedly new...

Yep, we still study WWI and WWII German doctrine in our professional education.

[Suhiir]

There are always things to be learned from history. To bad so few seem to actually do so.

Thats a human constant I think because most people are too focused on the "here and now" or think they have "evolved" more than past generations so "assume" they could not possibly make the same mistakes.

I wonder if the Russians in Finland in 1940 remembered what happened to three Roman legions that were destroyed in the Teutoburg Forest 1,931 years earlier long before the term "Motti" was coined

Don

[DRG]

Oh-oh..........I really screwed that up, it was supposed to be a reply with quote not an edit !!...... Mea culpa

[shahadi]

In the game against third world armies, the force values of Western armies are significantly greater, putting a tremendous advantage to the third world or insurgent forces.

To achieve a DV requires near complete destruction of the opponent with minimal damage to the Western side. A loss of an aircraft, FOO, or an USMC SMAW team can negatively affect the ratio of damage points so much so that a DV is not possible with such a singular loss.

I am finding that in a timed objectives scenario, the placement of VFs impacts the game battle damage points more than in a non-timed objectives battle.

In general, when a Western army is faced against a determined insurgent force, the scenario must pay particular attention to the value and placement of VFs.

I am struggling to get a balance in my scenario given an extremely high force value USMC side (western forces are expensive) against a low force value Taliban side with mixed results. Therefore, I am forced to study Pros and his suggestions for the use of victory flags (although his tutorial proceeded timed objectives).

=====

[Imp]

Regarding timed objectives which I use them regulary to force the pace in any battle I sm supposed to advance including meetings, this could be the opposite of what you desire.
Western side vs third world my one adjustment would probably be to time, make the battle longer to allow better recon & use of support.
You only have to look on youtube to see how loses are kept low.
Infantry finds the target then requests backup & if needs be mops up. Fortified house, plane or artillery lends an assist.
Sniper, fire ATGM or finger of god at the building or if hes in a field break out the grenade launcher or better still wait for the Bradley to turn up.
Seems a bit like overkill but it certainly saves lives & to be fair thats probably more US side than Western side the rest are more likely to get their hands dirty.
Youtube videos as a reference may not paint a realistic picture though if things are getting up close & personel taking the video might take lower priority.

[Suhiir]

Time is really the big thing. While the action might be hot and heavy for a few minutes or hours it's rarely longer ... the battle of Ia Drang (from the "We Were Soldiers" movie) is the exception. The "West" has a lot of support assets and makes liberal use of them. For the most part "Third World" forces have what they carried to the battle and little else.