"Iraqi Patrol Disaster - game." Topic

Patrol Disaster – game.

Should have been an easy game for me to win. But wasn't Still, I thought it was interesting if not a little surprising and shocking, the way it panned out. And mortifying. Hope you like it. I didn't.

Right, what could be easier? A novice opponent and a simple task. The army FOB (forward operating base) in a sleepy town are called up from the local police station. They've lost contact with a police car that was patrolling a nearby village.

Two policemen missing. Other police refuse to go in and search. Would the army send out a patrol to search the village and find out what's happened?

How such a simple task ended up in such a disaster beats me, so any advice on better tactics, much appreciated.

1) Set up:
link

2) Loosing control:
link

Try it again, same tactics, see if it was just bad luck???

Oh, it was bad luck all right. But, how to prevent the bad luck happening – that's the Q? It's just all too frequent against a certain family member who beats me every game!
:-)

Couple of things…
1: What was the rules you were using?

2: Were you ever able to id your bad guys (Could they have been local police elements?)

3: Why move your troops into an urban area lit up with streetlights??? They have no cover and are nothing more than illuminated targets.

I like the way you've presented that report.

Very nice battle report.

I have no military experience…and don't game moderns, but the skirmish gamer in me would have done the following tactics:

I would have gone in during the day and not waited for night. The visible day show of force might have made some less disciplined enemy reposition and give away their location. A smaller force might retreat, a larger force might get brazen and open fire sooner. I'd prefer taking inaccurate fire at ineffective range and if I received fire at a greater distance then I could ID the positions, fall back to better cover and call in the air support sooner..

If forced into a night action, potential IEDs would be harder to see at night, so definitely would not have moved down road with the vehicle, but left it back initially and moved it up to an area secured by the ground section.

I also would have gone in on the other side of the road, clearing the single building first with the weapon section and vehicle in a support fire role. The two buildings on the other side in close fighting would allow possible defenders to be more mutually supporting. I would have dealt with that side of the road after clearing the easier side first.

After taking the first lone building, I'd move up the rover behind it. Set up heavy weapon for support. Move foot section to clear woods. Investigate car. Report back. The water crossing near the single building was also more narrow on that side from the overhead map, so when later moving across, I'd use a likely ford and not the bridge. And if I started taking fire from across the river, then again it is time to bring in the air support.

Now if you're stuck in the night scenario and east approach, I'd simply have gone in with section A and held section B back to provide support fire from a position covering the two buildings and the woods at a minimum.

I have no idea whether it would have worked under the rules you used, but I would expect a British multiple to patrol as four or five separate bricks, rather than two clumped sections. Given a suitably unpredictable patrolling pattern, potential ambushers who spot one brick can never be sure that they are not about to be flanked by one of the other bricks.

I don't understand why the decision was made to go in at night. If left to me, I would have gone in in daylight, so that you can see what the local kids are up to (and if you can't see any kids about, there will soon be trouble). I would also have insisted on taking local policemen with me, assuming that we are supposed to be bolstering their ability to maintain law and order. And I would have called for help immediately on contact, something more useful than an airstrike -- mortars, light guns, a decent-sized QRF, anything, really. Indeed I would have wanted more help before going, in terms of local background from the int folders and some UAV tasking to take an aerial snoop around before going in on foot.

I don't understand why the GPMG man seemed to be having so much trouble getting the gun into action. And weren't there Minimis in the sections?

Splendid photos and a rattling good yarn, by the way.

All the best,

John.

Thanks for the ideas, chaps.

Murphy …
1: ''What was the rules you were using?''
Our own based upon Dadi & Piombo's 'Breaking News' rules.

2: ''Were you ever able to id your bad guys (Could they have been local police elements?)''
They were all insurgents.

3: ''Why move your troops into an urban area lit up with streetlights??? They have no cover and are nothing more than illuminated targets''.
Good question. Inexperience!

John D Salt
'' Indeed I would have wanted more help before going, in terms of local background from the int folders and some UAV tasking to take an aerial snoop around before going in on foot.''
The areal 'photos' and the intel were described at the start. i.e. not much.

''I don't understand why the GPMG man seemed to be having so much trouble getting the gun into action''

That was me. He was simply out-numbered and I wanted to un-supress another member of his team to help him, before I put him in line of sight. Unfortunately, it never happened.

After reading your kind advice, I might summarise it as:

1)Go in in day time.
2)Take a morter.
3)Split into smaller teams.
4)Recce the area with one first.
5)Go for a single target first.
6)Bring up the second section to a position from where it can provide fire support if needed.

The only other thing I might have done before, would have been to break off contact with one of the sections so it could support the other section as soon as possible. Except that the rules we played meant you couldn't abandon a man down. The Black Hawk Down problem.

One method of tackling a single house, is the 'doughnut' approach. After recce-ing the house at a distance, you establish arcs of fire across a wide perimeter with one team, basically facing outwards. Then the other team goes in and secures the house. Certainly I should have done some variation on that, I guess, so that the men can support one-another from secure locations, without exposing them all at once. It was also pretty unlucky that I attacked the two places where most of the enemy had been put. Not as easy as it looked!

This was an exciting report and makes me interested iun checking out those rules you used! Thanks for posting

Aha, so the D&P rules do work. Excellent, excellent… bit of a poor show from the Army, though, what? :p