"So, how much fire does it take to fully suppress a squad?" Topic

foxweasel:

Nothing in life is simple. But OK! OK! I'll back off and I won't even mention the well camouflaged SPG-9 RCL 500 meters away which is zeroing its sights in on your section's fire base muzzle flashes. Keep your company dogs off of me!

Cheers and good gaming.
Rod Robertson.

Weasel,
In attempting to answer your question of "fully suppress" here is the best I can find:

WO 291/471 Weight of small-arms fire needed for various targets.

"These figures are exceedingly tentative, and it should be realised that even if correct, they may have little value in the Infantry battle, where the weight of fire needed is in general decided more by what is available, and then corrected empirically."

Targets are considered to be in slit trenches, exposing an area of ½ sq ft to fire, or pillboxes, exposing an area of ¼ sq ft to fire from an embrasure.

Two levels of neutralisation are recognised.
"Light neutralisation" is defined as the minimum weight of fire to appreciably effect the accuracy of enemy fire. The enemy will suffer casualties at a rate of 2½% per minute, or one man per platoon per minute, if they stay in a firing position for more than a third of the time they are fired on.

"Heavy neutralisation" is defined as the weight of fire needed effectively to stop any retaliatory measures on the part of the enemy, with a casualty rate of 10% per minute, or one man per section per minute.

It is estimated that a bullet passing within 3 yards sounded near enough to be dangerous. Sections are assumed to be at full strength, 1+9, with Bren, Sten and 8 rifles, although it is acknowledged that rarely in battle will section strength exceed 1+6. Brens are assumed to fire 120 rds/min, rifles 18 rds/min. The range of engagement is assumed to be 100 to 200 yards. The effect of 2-in mortars is neglected.

Rounds per minute required to achieve neutralisation on target frontages in yards are:
Cover Slit trenches Pillboxes
Frontage 100 20 4 100 20 4
Light neut 250 50 10 500 100 20
Heavy neut 1000 200 40 2000 400 80

You can see how the frontage effects the concentration of fire. Don't forget smoke and grenades as part of your suppression plan. A grenade should give a few seconds of free movement to get close enough to deliver a flame thrower or satchel charge. WP is even better.

We were taught "Blind, Burn & Blast" back in the Old Corps when we still had flamethrowers. In WWII on a signal from the squad leader everyone would pop up and fire BAR's and M1's into the loopholes. Blind with smoke/WP, flame thrower up to get the bad guys away from the bunker firing ports and then the demo guy does his work. Still using the same stuff in the early 1970's. The "assault" was normally 1-3 guys, not the whole squad.

Weasel, I'd call a flamethrower in your face being fully suppressed.

Hey Jack. I met Sgt Major Brad Kasal last month. Awesome guy. He signed his book for me.

Wolfhag

Was out and about all day so got some reading to catch up on with you guys :)

Rod – I'm late coming back, but I'll throw in. "Fully suppressed" is easy, as I mentioned above: face in the dirt, not moving, not shooting, not treating casualties, probably screaming into the radio for help and popping red star clusters. You seem to think folks here are saying this is a permanent status; I don't think anyone is saying that. We've talked about the need to keep a target suppressed, and how small unit leaders are/should be working to 'rally' (in game terms) the troops back into the fight. You mention targets popping out of suppression if confronted by the enemy moving in to close assault them. I would submit that, generally speaking, it's too late at that point. You might suddenly decide it's time to do something other than see how far you can dig your pelvis into the earth, but it's going to be over really quick as the weight of fire you're under becomes incredible, bullets start hitting bodies, and hand and rifle grenades begin showing up in droves.

"In the case of Just Jack's 15 Marines fighting 30 Fedayeen in Iraq, the Fedayeen hearing the approaching Marines but lacking proper night-vision equipment were forced to fire area fire at the Marines because they could not see them clearly enough to fire aimed fire."

You're mixing up stories, man ;) There was one fight where fifteen of us were walking up the street and a single guy (an Iranian, by the way, according to his ID card) opened fire on us and got gunned down when he tried to flee as there was no pinning or suppression, there was simply a squad of Marines (plus me and an RTO) performing immediate action drills for a near ambush.

In the nighttime case, one of my squads was on a rooftop and a van pulled up across the street. They called me up and I joined them on the roof, where we watched ~50 guys pile out of a nearby building (this was in Fallujah, right on Route Michigan, a four-lane highway running east-west through the city), and start milling around the van. We watched for a couple minutes through thermal sights (I believe AN/PVS-17s?) before we opened up.

Regarding your scenario of the close assault going in, only to run into new contacts, I addressed that in my first post:
"…the worst Bleeped text sandwiches I was in was when you built the firing line and the free unit maneuvered to envelop, then ran into its own contact, and now the firing line and the maneuvering unit were not in position to support each other."

In any case, you can add as many different weapons systems and locations you like, weight of fire received is weight of fire received, regardless (recognizing a Dshk increases the weight of fire more than an AK).

Foxweasel – I sent you a PM.

Wolfhag – Ready for another story? I never met 1st Sgt Kassal. I was with B/1/5, but they did a short tour, getting there in February and leaving in June. In June 3/1 replaced 1/5 and I cross-decked. I ended up leaving them at the end of Sept 2004, then I got out of the Marines in Dec 04. I was in 1st Fallujah with B/1/5, but missed 2nd Fallujah by a little over a month. I'm not ashamed to say I could have stayed, but there were two issues:

1. There was a lot of talk about going back into Fallujah, but no one knew when it would happen, or even if it would happen for sure. The BC asked me if I was going to stay, and I said I would stay if he could promise me we were going into the city, and that I could go home right after it was finished. Negative on both accounts…

2. I'm not ashamed to say I started getting a bit of short-timer's disease, the yips. I'd been pretty fearless up to that point (SAPI plates!), but by the last month some things had happened and I was really feeling like I'd pushed my luck a bit too far, and that if I didn't get out now I probably wouldn't. Cliche, sure, but it happened.

In any case, I didn't meet Kassal, he didn't become our 1st Sgt until after I left. I don't recall the name of Kilo's 1st Sgt; he was a good Marine, but got hit in the ass by shrapnel from an 82mm mortar round in August and got MEDEVAC'ed back to the States. I left in September, Kassal got there sometime after I left.

And regarding the tactic, I'd always heard the term 'corkscrew and burn.' I was on Iwo Jima for one of the anniversaries, we'd set up tables with weapons and gear on them to show the old timers (I was showing the M-9 service pistol, of all things!). They'd walk up take a look, ask how I was doing, then move on, until one old bastard says "hey, where the hell's the flamethrowers!?"

I said "Sir, the Marine Corps no longer employs flamethrowers." His reply: "well, you guys are really ing up, nothing beats cookin' the ers!"

His buddy asked me if I'd ever seen combat; I told him I had not. He was incredulous; "you've never been shot at?" (this was 1998 or 1999). I told him I was in Indonesia in '97, and there we took fire a few times, but weren't allowed to shoot back. He said, "well, there you go." I told him there's no way what I went through was anything close to what they went through. He said "hey, getting shot at is getting shot at." I've always marveled at how gracious and humble that was.

When I was a Sergeant I spent some time as an instructor for the the base's Corporals Course. We would take every class to Iwo Jima for a battle study, and we'd take the to the surfline on the invasion beaches and have them come up to the shelf (there's the beach, then a steep incline, then a plateau, then another steep incline, then you reach the main part of the island. We'd have the Corporals do that wearing only cammies and web gear; no weapons, no ammo, no chow, and certainly no one shooting at you, and it's incredibly difficult.

How those Marines did that under fire and fighting back, I will never understand.

On a side note, I made a blogpost with some pics of me in Iraq and Afghanistan, with some commentary, but I never posted it to any of the forums. If you'd like to see it, it's here:
link

You need to scroll down, there's some wargaming stuff and some Australia stuff at the top.

V/R,
Jack

Interesting discussion.

Also interesting link Jack.

Must say the Australia pics were of interest – the photos of the training exercise particularly so.

Just Jack:

Apologies for mixing up,your stories. I guess I was tired and zoned-out when I responded in the thread and just mixed things up a la brain-fart SOP.

The point I was trying ro make, clumsily, was that I am always more satisfied by rules which have mechanics by which players see and react to results in a way which leads them to make correct best-guess decisions in an uncertain probability environment, rather than forcing such decisions by dictat. To me the "why" matters and the mechanics of the game should demonstrate "why" taking a certain course of action in a situation was either correct or tragically mistaken. Others might prefer a more narrative system where retro-explanation of combat outcomes is the norm but I prefer crunchy mechanistic rules and limited information which usually produce outcomes which one would expect to see in reality, despite the game being a simulation.

As to suppression duration, no I don't think it's a permanent thing even within the short time frame of a skirmish game. My problem with "fully suppressed" is that there is often no way to know if you've fully suppressed an enemy because you could be directing whithering area fire to the wrong place to shut down all of the enemy capable of shooting at your closing assault teams. If the game mechanics allows you to correctly assume (know) that a taget area has been fully suppressed that is a flaw as one can never be sure.

Another point that relates to this topic is using speculative area fire to conduct 'recce by fire' shoots against suspected enemy positions. In our games the side receiving such suppressive area fire must make training roles or have a nearby leader conduct a successful command check to prevent troop returning fire which could give away their position. Thus suppressive area fire could be used to trigger degraded enemy fire rather than shutting it down. This is a useful mechanic for sussing out where the opposition is lurking, especially in mechanised recce games.

Cheers and good gaming.
Rod Robertson.

That's a great point about "self-suppression". Why be on the losing end of a firefight when you know mortars, smart bombs or a tank is on the way.

Indeed !

As I said, call in non-organic support from mortars, FA, Gunships, CAS, Naval gun/missile support as well.

The most powerful piece of equipment the leader/commander on the ground has is his radio(s)…

You too have some great posted there Wolf !

Now from a game play POV, and some have mentioned/alluded to this … You are either pinned and/or suppressed or not. KISS … I mean you can't take everything into a set pf game rules that really could occur.
E.g. SGT Smith gets a Dear John for his wife and now does not care if he lives or dies. PFC Jones got an STD and is too concerned about that then to perform effectively. Etc., etc., etc. Try to make the rules realistic as possible and remember playability and complexity, etc.

So again, you are either suppressed and/or pinned or not … That should be the goal of the rule set … IMO anyway …

Glad you liked them Goragrad.

Rod – "… I am always more satisfied by rules which have mechanics by which players see and react to results in a way which leads them to make correct best-guess decisions in an uncertain probability environment…"
I think we see eye to eye on that.

"To me the "why" matters and the mechanics of the game should demonstrate "why" taking a certain course of action in a situation was either correct or tragically mistaken."
Me too, I'm not sure where we're going off the rails. I.e., "I close assaulted the enemy squad because they were suppressed," or "I moved my platoon leader over to rally 1st Squad because they were pinned down."

"Others might prefer a more narrative system where retro-explanation of combat outcomes is the norm but I prefer crunchy mechanistic rules and limited information which usually produce outcomes which one would expect to see in reality, despite the game being a simulation."
I'm not sure, but it seems here you're talking about activation systems that don't allow you to activate every unit every turn. I won't get into that now as I'm not sure that's what you're talking about.

If you're simply talking about more detail to establish 'why' enemy squad A was suppressed by friendly squad B, for me that's not necessary. As pointed out, you can try to work out that Pvt Smith's rifle is overheated and thus the rounds are dropping 5" at 300 yds from his BZO, and that enemy soldier X didn't get a complete and nutritious meal prior to the gunfight, thus his little belly is rumbling and so he's more concerned with chasing chickens then dodging bullets. This pulls us to the issue of, does his squad leader think he's a head because he's chasing chickens, or does the squad leader not notice the chickens, and thinks enemy soldier X is a hero for standing up to all of Pvt Smith's fire. And what would the enemy squad leader think if he knew Pvt Smith's dope was off from his rifle being overheated, and he can't hit enemy soldier X anyway?

I would submit that it is literally impossible to have a wargame that takes every possible variable into account, that if you could it would unplayable (that's where computer games have us miniatures gamers beat, they can bake all that into the code, no work for the players), and if it all worked you would have more detail than you should. I'm a big believer in perspective-based gaming, meaning the gamer is a platoon-, company-, or battalion commander (for example) and should be making the decisions a platoon-, company-, or battalion commander makes based on the information a platoon-, company-, or battalion commander would have.

Even down to the platoon level, I'm 99% sure the PC is unaware Pvt Smith's dope is off because his rifle is overheated. The PC knows Pvt Smith's fireteam is in the fight or it's not, and provides orders to them (via the chain of command) based on basically an up or down, in or out assessment. Even then, in real life, it's not really the fireteam; the PC knows 1st Squad is in contact, and he's making a decision whether to reinforce (send another squad to their location to help out, usually in the attack this is to treat and evac casualties and facilitate 1st Squad's withdrawal), to support (use 1st Squad as a base of fire while maneuvering another squad to help them out by close assaulting the threat or providing fire to aid their withdrawal), or to leave them to fend for themselves.

"As to suppression duration, no I don't think it's a permanent thing…"
No man, it sounded like you were saying that I (or someone else in the thread) was suggesting suppression is a 'permanent' outcome. You must still be tired and zoned out ;)

"My problem with "fully suppressed" is that there is often no way to know if you've fully suppressed an enemy because you could be directing whithering area fire to the wrong place to shut down all of the enemy capable of shooting at your closing assault teams. If the game mechanics allows you to correctly assume (know) that a taget area has been fully suppressed that is a flaw as one can never be sure."
I'm still confounded by this. If you shoot at me, and my shooting back at you means that you hit the deck, casting all thoughts away from shooting at me or even moving someplace else, that means you are suppressed. In some cases I can see this, and in every case I know that you're no longer shooting at me, and thus I know you are suppressed. It doesn't mean every soldier in your army is suppressed, it means you are suppressed, and there is nothing fake about that, and delayed resolution of combat dice rolling does not make it more realistic.

If you're extrapolating that concept to the squad level, if nine guys are hugging the dirt with their eyes closed, crying for their mommas, but one guy is popping up every ten seconds to fire a rifle in my general direction, that squad is still suppressed as you are not delivering effective fire, fire that would prevent me from doing whatever I want to do (close assault you or break contact).

To turn it on its head, you could have nine guys hugging the dirt, yada yada, and one guy popped up into a stable firing position, manning the squad's light machine gun, and he's putting rounds out at the sustained rate, and accurate too. Despite 9 of 10 men not being in the fight, I would submit that squad is not suppressed, they're pinned, and the machine gunner's weight of fire might even be enough to pin or suppress the enemy squad, which would result in the weight of fire received by the machine gunner's squad to significantly diminish, which should facilitate the machine gunner's squad 'rallying' back into the fight.

Regarding 'speculative fire,' I'm familiar with the concept, and I think it has its place at lower echelons, but that's what I'm alluding to above. We get players desiring, and thus rules writers formulating, mechanisms in battalion-level games for speculative fire, where a single reconnaissance vehicle near the head of the battalion column fires a single HE round into a treeline 300-yards away, then you're rolling to see if a single rifleman, machine gunner, or anti-tank gunner loses his cool and returns fire, thus blowing the ambush and giving away his position.

I am not here to tell folks they shouldn't want that; the beauty of all this is that you can do whatever you want. I'm just saying that I wouldn't have that type of mechanism in battalion level games because I'm pretending to be the Colonel, and the Colonel is not consulted prior to firing a single round into the treeline, and is not aware that a jittery 19-year old rifleman on the enemy side rattled off a burst and gave up the ghost.

The Colonel knows that A Company is in contact and is working to develop the situation, or that A Company is not in contact and is continuing the advance. Thus the rules I use get as close to possible to simulating that perspective, though I'll admit it's not perfect. I do things like come up with various courses of action for sub-unit leaders (most likely, most high risk/high reward, and most risk averse) then roll to see what the Sergeant or Lieutenant actually decides to do with his squad/platoon, rather than the Colonel deciding. But this is subject to my own discipline as a gamer and my own biases.

V/R,
Jack

Legion,
Regarding radios. When my son was about 10 years old he asked me what the most powerful weapon on the battlefield is. I replied a radio in the hands of someone that knows how to use it. He was shocked! I explained how with a radio I could call in air strikes, artillery, mortars and medivac my buddies and probably never get shot at (that's the most important part). Now that he is in SIGINT he totally agrees. Especially when he got to call in his own medivac.

My recruiter was in recon in VN by the DMV and he had a US Navy heavy cruiser with 8" guns offshore on call. That night the NVA were using elephants to bring in supplies (mostly rockets according to intel). He spent the night on a hilltop hunting elephants with 8" guns. My fantasy was to be an FO and have the USS New Jersey on call for me.

Jack, the urban warfare of today that you guys have done is a completely different ball game than anything in the past. On my son's last deployment they were going after some guys in a building. They'd take fire from a room, frag it and then bust in and no one was there and no windows. The guy just seemed to disappear. One of their guys got hit and was critical. They discovered the bad guys had mouse holed every room and covered the holes with rugs or when you open the door to a room the door covered the hole in the wall. He approached one doorway and pie sliced his way into the room and saw the bad guy in the corner. Fortunately, he was putting a fresh mag in his AK and my son put two rounds into him. He walked over to the guy and they stared at each other as the bad guy was reaching across the floor for his mag to reload, he was not giving up. The last thing he was before he died was the US Marine that killed him smiling down at him. If he had gone into the room a few seconds later the bad guy would have been reloaded and nailed him.

This is brutal, up-close and personal combat with no quarter given or asked and the bad guys are good when they have the advantage on their own turf. My son agrees with you about the SAPI plates. He's had to turn in two that were no longer "serviceable".

Wolfhag

Jack and others:

Weasel wrote in his OP the following:

Assuming WW1 onwards, how do we quantify the amount of incoming small arms fire needed to neutralize a squad so it can be assaulted?

The answer in real life is an endless list of "it depends" factors but when we're on the gaming table, we have to quantify it somewhere, somehow.

So…sound off.

What I am saying is that no reasonable amount of small arms fire can be relied upon to 'fully suppress' an enemy whose strength and locations are not fully known to an attacker. You could have more than enough fire power at your disposal but if the fire is being directed into the wrong places then it's useless. If two hostiles open up on your advancing forces and you go to ground and begin bathing them in suppressive fire that fire will not necessarily suppress other members of their squad or platoon some distance away. The suppressed troops may have a bolt hole through which they can safely withdraw and then reinfltrate into other positions immediately or that same position later. The two shooters could be a remote observation post with the balance of their squad or platoon located somewhere else where you are not yet shooting. The shooters could be a ruse to draw you into to a kill zone which the enemy has prepared for you. As a squad, platoon or company commander you do not know what's going on. You only know that you are receiving small arms fire from a position at grid reference xxxx-xxxx.

Thus terms like 'know' or 'establish' and phrases like 'fully suppressed' introduce a level of certainty into chaotic, foggy combat which is in reality unknowable. Suppression is a probable outcome, but not a certain outcome. The more fire you direct into an area the greater the chance of achieving suppression but this fire suffers from the laws of diminishing returns so probabilities plateau before you can reach a reliable level of 'certainty' about suppressive success. Thus fully suppressed is a pipe dream, an illusion of the game and mechanics which ignores the opaqueness and uncertainty of combat.

All that hyperbole about the minutiae of 'other rank this' or 'lance corporal that' is extraneous distraction from the point that you can never 'know' whether you have 'fully suppressed' an enemy force with a given volume of suppressive fire. All you can do is hope you have and proceed accordingly. If you're lucky you have, but even if you've done everything right, if you're unlucky you haven't and will get a much harder fight than expected ahead of you.

Cheers and good gaming.
Rod Robertson.

Wolfhag wrote:

Jack, the urban warfare of today that you guys have done is a completely different ball game than anything in the past. … This is brutal, up-close and personal combat with no quarter given or asked and the bad guys are good when they have the advantage on their own turf.

Is it really that different from the savage urban combat in Stalingrad, Caen, Aachen, Warsaw or Berlin? Sure the uniforms and weapons have changed, the volume of fire has increased and body armour has improved, but it's really just the same no-quarter, room-by-room fighting we've seen repeated since WWI or perhaps even the Franco-Prussian War. Mouse-holing was a well established tactic in WWII and was used both defensively and offensively in urban warfare as was bombing and busting in with stems. Modern urban warfare is just a ghoulish rhyme of the carnage of the past.

Cheers and thank God your son remains healthy and well.
Rod Robertson.

What rules you use or need depends on what other rules are in play. Whether 1/72 or 1/144 scale our terrain is accurately mapped. Nothing is put on table until it moves or fires. Thus an attacking unit may shoot at one section that shot at them but not realise another is very close. There are options are to add more speclative fire in case or take the risk. For us automatic reveal is 10m. Before they move or shoot first time they cannot be spotted. Not perfect but stops the farce of waiting till you get a "6" for spotting(we use D20 but you get the idea). We have anecdotal evidence this is not unreasonable. This gets round a lot. As to making folk return fire when they may not want to, we don't. We already have God's eye view of the terrain so have lots of advantages not available to a real man, I am not adverse to making it a bit harder than the real world to compensate. The rules could have it without errors creeping in but it's more rules for no gain as we see it.

What rules you use or need depends on what other rules are in play. Whether 1/72 or 1/144 scale our terrain is accurately mapped. Nothing is put on table until it moves or fires. Thus an attacking unit may shoot at one section that shot at them but not realise another is very close. There are options are to add more speclative fire in case or take the risk. For us automatic reveal is 10m. Before they move or shoot first time they cannot be spotted. Not perfect but stops the farce of waiting till you get a "6" for spotting(we use D20 but you get the idea). We have anecdotal evidence this is not unreasonable. This gets round a lot. As to making folk return fire when they may not want to, we don't. We already have God's eye view of the terrain so have lots of advantages not available to a real man, I am not adverse to making it a bit harder than the real world to compensate. The rules could have it without errors creeping in but it's more rules for no gain as we see it.

Wolfhag – Yeah, I always thought ANGLICO was probably the coolest job in the Corps. And I agree with Rod, what we're doing (or did) has got nothing on Stalingrad ;)

Rod – Once again your are killing me…

I am so confused by your fist paragraph (the one after you quote Ivan). It seems like your point is, if two men shoot at me I can return fire and suppress them, but the rest of their squad isn't suppressed. I agree. Having said that, what the hell are you getting at?

Are we assuming the rest of the squad is not co-located with the two that are shooting at me? Are we assuming the rest of the squad is not shooting at me when the other two are?

In real life you deal with contacts one at a time; sometimes you have to split your fire, but in the overall scheme of things you focus your fire to deal with one threat at a time, that's why there are target priority rules, i.e., 'shoot the closest bad guy first, then move to the next closest.'

If you're saying you cannot suppress enemy troops you are not aware of, I reckon your right, but what's your point there? If a tree falls in the forest… I can only talk about/deal with the enemy that I'm aware of, and if he's shooting at me I am working on getting him 'fully suppressed,' so that he's not worried about anything but survival, whether it's hunkering down or leaving the area, either of which mean he is not shooting at me and I am free to maneuver.

"The shooters could be a ruse to draw you into to a kill zone which the enemy has prepared for you. As a squad, platoon or company commander you do not know what's going on. You only know that you are receiving small arms fire from a position at grid reference xxxx-xxxx."
Okay, the shooters could be trying to drawing us into a killzone. As for us not knowing what's going on, you're way out on a limb; it's much more personal than 'drawing fire from grid reference xxxx.' It's "there's a (insert weapon) at 2 o'clock, on top of the hill, at the base of those two trees, 250m," or there's a (insert weapon) across the street, house with the blue door, 2nd story."

As I mentioned, experienced troops can tell exactly what's going on (at that moment in time, can't see the future buddy) by the sounds. So we do know what's going on: we're being shot at by a couple AKs, or a PK, etc… We react to THAT contact, understanding that maneuvering on THAT contact may drag us into ANOTHER contact(s). You seem to think the platoon performs some sort of rush into oblivion, that's not quite the case, and the expectation of further contact is kinda in the job description of an infantryman. That's why you don't overextend yourself, that's why you coordinate with supporting/adjacent units, that's why you have TRPs for on-call fires, and that's why you have reserves.

In any case, I must deal with the people shooting at me RIGHT NOW, and I do that by suppressing them so that I can maneuver (typically other) elements to eliminate the threat, either by physically clearing the enemy position or withdrawing so they no longer pose a threat.

"Thus terms like 'know' or 'establish' and phrases like 'fully suppressed' introduce a level of certainty into chaotic, foggy combat which is in reality unknowable."
Thanks, buddy, very helpful, you telling me how combat is.

"Suppression is a probable outcome, but not a certain outcome."
There are approximately a million reasons this comment makes absolutely no sense. In combat you're not rolling dice to see what might happen and not figuring it out until next turn. He shoots, I shoot back, he stops, I'm able to move again with a reasonable expectation of not being shot by him. It's absolutely certain, no ambiguity at all: he is either shooting back at me (not suppressed) or he's not (suppressed).

"The more fire you direct into an area the greater the chance of achieving suppression but this fire suffers from the laws of diminishing returns so probabilities plateau before you can reach a reliable level of 'certainty' about suppressive success."
Absolutely incorrect. As you can read in others' posts above, there is no diminishing returns with regards to keeping a person/unit suppressed. There is less of a chance of killing him/them with direct fire because they're hugging the dirt, but you can actually back off on your rate of fire (from cyclic to sustained) and keep a suppressed enemy suppressed. What you do in real life (if we're talking squad level) is you have two fireteams engaging the target, alternating fire (not bursts) so that there's never a let up in fire for reloading the SAWs, while the third fireteam envelops.

"Thus fully suppressed is a pipe dream, an illusion of the game and mechanics which ignores the opaqueness and uncertainty of combat."
Rod, you've lost your damned mind. You clearly have great confidence in what you're typing, but you couldn't be more wrong. What's going on with you? If you're intentionally trying to goad me, congratulations. I'm trying to refrain from typing something that will turn off all the other readers on this thread.

But you keep going:
"All that hyperbole about the minutiae of 'other rank this' or 'lance corporal that' is extraneous distraction from the point that you can never 'know' whether you have 'fully suppressed' an enemy force with a given volume of suppressive fire."
I think more to the point is that you have a certain outlook on things which is keeping you from listening to people that have actually spent a considerable amount of time under fire and it's frustrating you because you want to play wargames the way you want to play wargames. I told you, I'm not trying to attack your idea of fun or how you play, I'm just telling you that if your goal is realism, that's not it.

V/R,
Jack

All,

I would like to add one thing to my post above, if I may.

I am not the arbiter of what is real or not. I'm not special or unique, there are plenty of folks that have gone through what I have and worse, to include quite a few here on TMP, some of whom have identified themselves publicly and some who have not.

I offer my opinions based solely on my experiences as a Platoon Sergeant in combat. I regret that I said things like "that is wrong/you are wrong." Based on my experience it is incorrect, but certainly my experiences are not universal and they definitely do not reflect every possible scenario.

I offer my opinions only as assistance to my fellow gamers, so that they may better understand a phenomenon I am familiar with, no different than consulting an auto mechanic about car engine problems, or a dentist about a tooth ache. So take my opinions for whatever worth they might be to you. I just hope my getting frustrated with Rod does not end the very interesting conversation we were having.

V/R,
Jack

Jack:

I just want to clear up one thing and then I will recuse myself from this discussion. I am not trying, nor have I ever tried to maliciously goad you. Sure some jibes in jest and humour over the years but nothing with bad intent – I blame the War Panda for those past indiscretions as he's Irish and corrupted my pure Scottish heart!

Now we are having a discussion, no more, no less. If my views, however ill-informed you may see them, annoy you so much, well that's the nature of living in a world of individuals with differing opinions. I don't want to anger folks here, unless they deserve it (you and no one posting on this thread to date deserve it) so I will say no more on this matter in this thread. But shouting down others is not a good way to persuade or educate others and whether that was your intention or not, that is how it appears to me.

I've made my point as best as I can and will follow this thread with keen interest. But I will no longer trouble you or others by posting on it. My goal is to learn and I can do that by reading passively rather than discussing actively. So I wish all well while you tangle with Weasel's fascinating question.

Cheers and good gaming.
Rod Robertson.

Jack,
I think Rod has built up a thick skin from you, Legion and I. He's fine with me as long as he stays away from the gloom and doom politics. Hang in there Rod!

Wolfhag

I'm a little late to this conversation; I have been following along and wanting to join in, but the last couple of days have been so frantically busy that I was struggling just to make time for sleep and meals (and, mainly, not succeeding).

Anyhow, I asked myself this very same question a few years back when I was designing a system to recreate the events depicted in Erwin Rommel's Infanterie Greift An and I came to the conclusion (as several people have mentioned in this thread) that the number of weapons involved was a poor indicator of what the effect on a target would be. I was intrigued and impressed by accounts like those of Laurence Critchell (in Four Stars of Hell, his history of the 501st Parachute Infantry) where he relates that the unit was advancing on a quiet foggy morning and, when the distinct sound of a German machine gun rang out, as he describes it, "to a man, the battalion went flat". So, I decided that what I needed was a behavioral model of units under fire, and not just a tally of how many weapons were being fired.

I approached the problem by combing through hundreds of firsthand accounts of small unit actions, tallying each incident of a unit coming under fire by the nature of the attack, the situation of the target at the time of the attack, and the unit's reaction (expressed in terms of the reduction of the target unit's ability to maneuver or fire). As the matrix filled in, I found some interesting (and in some cases surprising) patterns emerging. The first was that, as I suspected, the volume of incoming fire was not anywhere near the most important factor in determining how the target units reacted. The aspects of an attack that seemed to have the largest impact were the type and effectiveness of the fire, the training and experience of the troops in the target unit, the proximity of cover and (this was the biggest surprise, since no wargame I had played up to that point even took it into account) whether the target unit was moving at the time of the attack.

I also found that some combinations of attack-versus-situation were much more likely to affect a target unit's ability to move, while others were more likely to affect its ability to return fire. It wasn't always both, so a simple suppressed/not suppressed binary result did not suffice to describe the target's behavior.

Rod,

No one, including me, is asking you to stay out of this discussion. I personally want more folks in the discussion, not less. I've got no issues with the friendly banter, but that's not what I see here. I've got no issue with you holding the views you have and, as we've done previously, we'll debate until one or both sides are exhausted.

My frustrations are following:

1. I certainly didn't appreciate you telling me what combat is like. You and I have known each other for awhile here, so you know what aggravates me, you did it several times, and you're too intelligent to not know what you're doing.

2. You often don't fully develop the scenario/concept, so I'm constantly stuck trying to piece together what you're saying in order to reply. I suppose I could ignore it, but I'm trying to help if I can, so I end up trying to guess whether you meant one man or one squad, whether you meant they shot once, continuously, or at all, and then I've got to try to apply that to the wargame mechanisms that I think you're trying to convey.

And so when I go through all of that in an attempt to provide a response, I get accused of bloviating in order to distract from the issue ("…hyerbole about the minutiae…"). That didn't really sit well with me.

I've got no issue with you having your opinions, that had nothing to do with my being aggravated. I welcome you and anyone else with questions or comments on suppression; I would love nothing more than to get back to the topic.

V/R,
Jack

War Artisan, I am interested to know if anything came of your work thatt you mentioned. (I've always been very impressed with Nap Command 2).

Regarding radios. When my son was about 10 years old he asked me what the most powerful weapon on the battlefield is. I replied a radio in the hands of someone that knows how to use it. He was shocked! I explained how with a radio I could call in air strikes, artillery, mortars and medivac my buddies and probably never get shot at (that's the most important part). Now that he is in SIGINT he totally agrees. Especially when he got to call in his own medivac.

We were trained and experienced in the same reality even if we were in different branches … But we were both Grunts … so that is all the counts !

And of course, glad your son is good after having to call in his own MEDEVAC. Well as least he'd know it was done correctly. I fortunately only had to call in "Dust-Off" for others.

elephants with 8" guns. My fantasy was to be an FO and have the USS New Jersey on call for me.

I was taught to call-in Naval Gunfire at Little Creek. When a Rifle Co + from the 101 went thru Basic Amph Training, in '82. But yes, calling in shells the weight of a Buick does hold a certain fascination for guys like us …

I offer my opinions based solely on my experiences as a Platoon Sergeant in combat.

That speaks Volumes …

Once again your are killing me…

That is why if some have noticed. I rarely go into massive amounts of detail on some aspects of tactics, techniques, SOPs, etc. In some cases I try to make short answers with a little humor in there somewhere. I know some who were not in the military have a lot of questions about things they have no real experience in, save for reading about.

I get that and I'm not being demeaning. Please don't misunderstand. There is a lot, I mean a lot of things I don't have any experiences in, knowledge of, etc.

But in many cases we can't quantify specifically certain aspects of military ops as clean and clearly as some maybe would like. It's not a math problem. And the variables are sometime full of unknowns, etc. And we at least have some idea of about that. We know what we don't but we also know there are things we know we don't know. If you all get my meaning. As Jack wisely pointed out

I would submit that it is literally impossible to have a wargame that takes every possible variable into account, that if you could it would unplayable

Amen to that.

My frustrations are following:

Yes, I get your "Pain" … on all those points. I know many times on the UM board certain individuals and Fox & Wolf know those I'm talking about, who have no experience, training, never worn a uniform, etc. Will argue with me about topics that I'm very well versed in, with training and experience, etc., etc., constantly. E.g. Air operations, leading an Infantry Plt or Company, etc. Some just don't get it.

I have made this analogy before. It's like watching a "dirty movie" verses actually being with a real live female. Those two things may have some similarities … but are clearly Not the same …

I think Rod has built up a thick skin from you, Legion and I.

I hope so! I've virtually beat him and his horse with a big stick so very often in the past …

The Colonel knows that A Company is in contact and is working to develop the situation, or that A Company is not in contact and is continuing the advance. Thus the rules I use get as close to possible to simulating that perspective, though I'll admit it's not perfect.

Jack:
I appreciate your willingness to share your combat and design experience in some detail. Very valuable.

From your explanation, the commander of a battalion may not think in terms of 'suppression' at all, or at least not in the same way a platoon sergeant would. The other thing that you seem to be saying is that suppression is an either/or thing.

Either they are firing back [not suppressed] or they are not firing back [suppressed] So not moving AND not firing back are the major outcomes/indicators of suppression?

I remember reading an account from an American officer of a company in North Africa when the US Army was still green. One German machine gun on higher ground basically suppressed the entire company for the day, hiding among the scrub brush until nightfall.

I approached the problem by combing through hundreds of firsthand accounts of small unit actions, tallying each incident of a unit coming under fire by the nature of the attack, the situation of the target at the time of the attack, and the unit's reaction (expressed in terms of the reduction of the target unit's ability to maneuver or fire). As the matrix filled in, I found some interesting (and in some cases surprising) patterns emerging.

War Artisan:
I think that is really the only way one can come to some reasonable conclusions about specific combat events. That is the foundation of most all simulations. Doing a 'statistical' approach with lots of first hand accounts,
one invariably comes up with unexpected patterns… unexpected because the general wargamer or historian expectation was something else.

Interesting take-aways from your approach. I know applying the same method to Napoleonic wars has revealed some unexpected patterns too.

daler240D: The system is complete and made it as far as playtesting, but I stopped short of putting it into blindtesting (got distracted by multiple other projects, as so often happens). Like the vast majority of my designs, it was mainly for my own amusement and so was never published. Recently I have been revisiting it, with the intent of finally doing something shareable with it.

I managed to distill the massive matrix of statistical data down into a half-page results chart that takes into account all the most relevant factors and gives, as a result, not just a number of casualties or just a "suppressed/not suppressed" condition, but the degree to which an engaged unit's ability to maneuver and/or return fire is impaired by the fire environment in which it finds itself.

If you'd like to take a look at it (though it may be a bit obscure without the accompanying text, you'll get the basic idea):

link

Edit: Oops. The columns got scrambled when I saved it in Word format. The file has been fixed, and replaced. For the meaning of the number/letter status of the unit, see the key in the lower right corner.

From one of the studies I've read through situations where a sniper with a single shot or a single MG "suppresses" an entire company is called a "Threat Suppression". The volume or type of fire does not matter. It's fear of the unknown. I look at it as a morale issue.

This is one of the reasons why you take cover and IMMEDIATELY return fire into the area the threat came from even if you cannot detect exactly where it is. Units that are firing their weapons are more effective, feel safer and have a higher morale than a unit not firing.

Wolfhag

Really low morale/badly trained units might be very easy to suppress. The 1963 battle of Ap Bac saw 2 RF/PF (regional forces/popular forces known as ruff puffs) militia battalions go prone when fired at by a couple machine guns and be incapable of further offensive action the whole day, while an ARVN parachute battalion was pinned down in close proximity to a VC main force battalion after helicopters dropped them too close to the enemy.

What I'm getting is that a unit being suppressed and the unit(s) suppressing it are engaged in a continuing situation that will only be resolved by one side close assaulting or the other breaking contact. Also that decently trained/motivated units will recover from pinned or suppressed status when the enemy fire stops. Also that keeping a unit suppressed involves less effort that getting them down in the first place. Last, that unless terrain allows an easy break-off, another unit may have to be committed to allow a unit to break-off. This last is a big surprise to me.

Most of this is not reflected in rules I have read or played.

War Artisan – That sounds pretty cool, and exhaustive. Regarding the matrix showing that units caught moving were generally the worst effected by incoming fire, that sounds right. The idea of being in a formation suited to moving rather than fighting (likely column rather than line or wedge), with your combat power not likely to be oriented to the enemy, no supporting element, not expecting contact*, the first reaction is going to be to seek cover and figure things out. Good leadership should mean that the firing line gets built up quickly (reorienting the unit to the threat and putting out fire), and the units not under fire realizing such and starting the envelopment.

For a company, that means a platoon takes fire and the entire company takes cover to figure things out. Leadership gets the platoon under fire to build the firing line, probably joined by another platoon to gain fire superiority, and the third platoon maneuvers to envelop. Again, a lot of variables missing here, but that's the general plan. I'm sure that's elementary to you guys; my point is the platoons not under fire should quickly realize it and get their butts moving.

*I don't mean an admin move, but if you were expecting contact you would have halted, put elements on overwatch, redeployed into fighting formation, maybe sent scouts forward to recon the danger area.

In game terms I think some rules deal with the issue of being caught moving by giving the shooter(s) a bonus for catching the target in the open, maybe even at close range (if appropriate), and by line of sight/line of fire rules (if a platoon is moving up a road, and takes fire from the front, the rear two squads can't fire through the first squad). Having said that, maybe a bit more of a firing bonus for the shock of initial contact?

"I also found that some combinations of attack-versus-situation were much more likely to affect a target unit's ability to move, while others were more likely to affect its ability to return fire. It wasn't always both, so a simple suppressed/not suppressed binary result did not suffice to describe the target's behavior."

That's very interesting; what are some examples of when a unit took fire and was unable to fire, but were able to move? That just seems to me a choice to avoid the contact and get somewhere else, likely to cover, rather than join the fight. On the one hand, I can see a unit (let's say a squad) moving down a covered and concealed approach, say a sunken lane with stone walls on either side. The enemy catches a glimpse and cuts loose, but the fire is ineffective. The squad can halt, but there's not really a reason as the fire can't get to them. The squad can keep pushing, still good as the fire can't get to them. The most dangerous thing they could do is halt and move up to the wall, exposing themselves to return fire, and if they were moving in a covered and concealed approach and not taking enfilading fire, they were probably there to keep moving anyway.

The other option that springs to mind is the squad is moving in the open and the enemy opens up and the squad is able to quickly dart to cover. Now, they exercised free will to dart to cover, but what do they do once they get there? If they hunker down, refusing to move or fire, they're suppressed, right? One could say 'they're not suppressed, they chose to go there and sit tight.' Well, okay but they are having zero effect on the enemy's ability to do whatever he wants as a result of fire. I suppose the game mechanic of suppression/pinning/what have you doesn't kick in until the squad tries to rise up from cover and do something, at which time the enemy unit would direct more fire their way (assuming they weren't already, I guess?) and see if that causes the squad to gets their heads back down.

In games terms I'd say the squad should have to test for casualties when it exposes itself, and if it takes casualties, factor that and a negative modifier for being in a safe place already (meaning I don't think it takes much to make troops already hunkered down stay hunkered down, a head or two popping up to try something not withstanding).

All this talk has made me consider something else, though I'm not sure of its wargaming application. When we took fire then returned fire, we thought of ourselves in terms of pinned or suppressed, but really only thought of the enemy in terms of suppression. That is, we could have units that didn't want to move because they'd be too exposed, but they could return fire (pinned), and we had units that couldn't move or return fire (suppressed). We weren't really concerned with enemy pins, as we weren't so much worried about the guys shooting at us moving, we were worried about them shooting at us. The only thing I can recall thinking about in terms of enemy movement were preventing other (unseen) enemy units from moving on us, and sometimes having the ability to move friendlies to a location to prevent the enemy firing on us from falling back.

Legion – I think you make a great point somewhere in there, about watching and doing ;) Where it surfaces for me is in conversations like this, where someone makes a comment on how they think you fight your squad/platoon/company, and they're making good points, but it's just not right. And it's very hard to describe why, and I'm not exactly sure why that is. Often times I find myself thinking, or even typing, "I hear what you're saying, but we don't even think in those terms. You're worrying about stuff that we aren't worried about in that situation, we have a set of priorities and actions as a small unit leader that dictate we be focused on other things." Which is not a satisfying answer for me or the reader, I'm sure.

McLaddie – No problem, but I'm not a designer. I just take other folks' rules and mess around with them a bit ;)

Regarding the Battalion Commander and suppression, I think he does think about suppression, just not in those terms, and not exactly. At that echelon, the term is fixing the enemy. It doesn't mean they're not shooting at your folks, but it does mean that particular enemy unit cannot maneuver to escape or wind up somewhere you don't want them. At lower echelons you could call that pinned (I do; shoot but not move), but the term pinned doesn't do justice to the concept at that echelon. Just like you don't really use the term 'fixed' at squad level.

"Either they are firing back [not suppressed] or they are not firing back [suppressed] So not moving AND not firing back are the major outcomes/indicators of suppression?"
So, the short answer is yes, but we can certainly can screw things around rhetorically. I suppose a better definition of suppression is the target cannot deliver effective fire on us and cannot maneuver to harm us. That probably has holes in it too ;)

What I'm getting at is, in the firefight you're worried about threats, AKA people shooting stuff at you, and if there are too many threats for you to levy fire against at once, you have priority targets to deal with the threats in order. But that's not the only option; if you're really getting your ass handed to you, there's the bunker-up option, which is collapsing your position to a defensive 360 (please note that a defensive 360 is different than pulling 360 security), ideally in cover, with each Marine covering his sector of fire. There platoon priority targets go out the window and squads, fireteams, or even individuals (depending on the terrain) control their fire based on sector. The enemy can, of course, flood a sector and force the squad/team/individual to exercise priority of fires, but if that happens in that scenario the PC/Plt Sgt better get help over there.

But back to the suppression concept, we have suppressed plenty of positions in urban environments (receiving fire from a house) and closed with the position only to find the enemy has withdrawn. Not the best outcome, we certainly would have hoped to bag him/them, but are we saying he wasn't suppressed? I dunno; from our standpoint, we received fire, returned fire, and close assaulted the position, no enemy casualties. We don't really think in terms of, "well, I guess they weren't suppressed after all," but that doesn't mean you don't need to deal with the issue in game terms.

I was just discussing this, actually. In my mind, when a unit or individual receives fire, maybe here's something to think about:
1. Test for involuntary response. When someone takes fire, invariably there are going to be cases where the fight or flight instinct actually overcomes training, and there's nothing you can do right now (a few minutes later might be a different story) to change it. Some guys will do the most logical thing (drop to the deck or duck back into cover), while some will do crazy/stupid things, like freeze up, turn and run (usually catching a round in the ass), or even rush forward into the fire. Test to see if there is an involuntary response, then test to see what it is.

2. If the guy/team passes that, then he/they get to make a voluntary response. The sensible thing to do might be to drop to the deck or duck back into cover, but he/they could choose to risk enemy fire to fall back, or to stand and return fire, or even to assault through the enemy (which is immediate action/battle drill for a near ambush).

But there are so many damn variables in that, and each turn needs to represent no more than a few seconds to get into that type of granularity (in my opinion).

"One German machine gun on higher ground basically suppressed the entire company for the day, hiding among the scrub brush until nightfall."
I'm actually familiar with that story. I don't mean to be critical, but that's horrible confluence of poor training, poor leadership, and poor motivation. If you return fire/move, yes, you may take casualties, but 1) your job was not to go out there and lay in the scrub all day, you had a mission to accomplish, and 2) your damn lucky the enemy didn't have more than a rear guard out there, as if they had any other capability they'd have bled you white.

And Wolfhag is exactly right about 'threat suppression' and what you're supposed to do to handle that situation. Earlier I called that 'self-suppression,' and I stick by it. If one gun/sniper is holding up an entire company, you are self suppressed. You might think all suppression is a choice you're making to keep from being hit, but there is a difference between having your face in the dirt as rounds are continuously cracking by just over your helmet, and 200 men lying in the dirt because one round is popping out every ten seconds or so.

Real suppression is the idea that if I pop my head up, there's no doubt it's coming off, and if the whole squad pops its heads up, they're probably all coming off. 'Self Suppression' is, if all 200 of us pop up, a couple of us might get whacked. The unit (company) could still operate, it's just choosing not to.

Vtsao – I think you're right on the money. And:

"Last, that unless terrain allows an easy break-off, another unit may have to be committed to allow a unit to break-off. This last is a big surprise to me."
Yeah, in our wargames, my experience is it's all about going forward, except maybe compulsory moves to fall back (morale failure or fire effect, depending on your rules), and then we generally let units fall back 'for free.' If you want to throw some stuff in the game, when a unit is forced to fall back, let every enemy unit with LOS take a free shot at them! That's what happens in real life, and, terrain and other tactical factors permitting, pursuit.

Enough for now I suppose ;)

V/R,
Jack

vtsaogames,
The "professional" studies I've read confirm your post.

It takes about 1/3 of the firepower to keep a unit suppressed.
Units recover pretty quickly on their own once out of enemy fire or LOS. This is why falling back to an alternative defensive position or rally point is important and you need covering terrain to protect you to get there.

I use a "Fall Back" rule that allows a unit with suppression to automatically obey the order. Once out of enemy LOS and danger they recover from the effects of suppression.

The Ap Bac battle example sounds a lot like "Threat Suppression" and/or self-suppression. I wonder if units were ordered to fight and advance/withdraw and refused or if command decided it best to hunker down and wait it out.

Wolfhag

McLaddie – No problem, but I'm not a designer. I just take other folks' rules and mess around with them a bit ;)

Jack:
Ah, patato, patatoe. You are creating/modifying a system. Same difference. You're designing something that impacts the entire wargame.

Real suppression is the idea that if I pop my head up, there's no doubt it's coming off,…

That is exactly what the officer described, including one soldier, ignoring the order to stay hidden, stood up two hours later believing the silence indicated the MG had left. He was immediately cut down.

Thanks for your impressions of suppression and how that relates to small arms tactics.

Jack: Your contributions to this thread and those of other knowledgeable posters, which seem to confirm what is shown by my data, have given me some confidence that I may have been on the right track. This is important to me since I have no personal experience to bring to bear on the problem. I usually rely on extensive playtesting to perform that function for me, and I prefer to test systems "to destruction" before allowing them into the hands of the wargaming public.

the first reaction is going to be to seek cover and figure things out. Good leadership should mean that the firing line gets built up quickly (reorienting the unit to the threat and putting out fire), and the units not under fire realizing such and starting the envelopment.

This is exactly what my data showed. The status changes imposed by the chart show the range of an engaged unit's potential immediate reactions to fire, with the actual result within the range affected by the weighted die roll and a left or right shift governed by the attackers' "advantages" listed below the chart (the effects of which are limited by the target unit's training and experience), but they are only part of the story. What isn't immediately apparent is that the other, possibly more important part is the ability of the target's NCOs to adjust the status of the units back up again for the next round, in the Status Adjustment step at the end of the sequence (which is limited by the factors listed in the list of Status Adjustment modifiers, bottom center of the page). Getting the troops moving and/or firing again after their initial reaction is the key to success in the system, while failing to affect (and to continue to affect) all of the enemy's elements, thus allowing one or more the freedom to maneuver, is the surest way to get overwhelmed.

"I also found that some combinations of attack-versus-situation were much more likely to affect a target unit's ability to move, while others were more likely to affect its ability to return fire. It wasn't always both, so a simple suppressed/not suppressed binary result did not suffice to describe the target's behavior."

That's very interesting; what are some examples of when a unit took fire and was unable to fire, but were able to move? That just seems to me a choice to avoid the contact and get somewhere else, likely to cover

That was a pretty rare occurence, according to my data. It seems to have happened mainly when a squad was taken under fire while moving in the open, and even then was usually a retreat to cover, with the possibility of significant casualties (R* result). Continuing controlled movement with reduced fire capability (1B, 2B) is found on the left of the range of possible reactions, so the shift to the right of the range likely with poorer quality troops would make that result possible (if somewhat unlikely) only with forces rated "good" or "superior".

Sorry, but I don't have any specific examples readily to hand. I also don't recall any specific cases off the top of my head, since I constructed the matrix some years back. Unfortunately, at the time I didn't consider it necessary to collect any bits of the narrative that would expand upon the motivation or intentions of the troops involved – what Brent Nosworthy referred to as "tactical snippets" – just the actual behavior of the units reacting to the fire environment, and perhaps a note of any relevant circumstances like terrain, the condition of the unit, or the quality of the troops and leaders. That would have been important if I had been taking a more academic approach to the problem (I'm not an academic), but at the time I was taking the most direct route to a behavioral model, so it seemed unnecessary.

It's interesting to see the notion independently mentioned of Voluntary suppression. We do allow it as a tactic. It is a response which seems credible but is partly a "fix for gods eye view". A unit in our set can voluntarily go fully suppressed. That is take no casualties from small arms. It's a bit of a cheat as it is a requiremnt if you, for instance hunker down in a trench with enemy tanks but no infantry around. You could do this anyway but use of the mechanism makes rising of multi elements as the tanks pass asynchronous and so more plausible. It also may be acceptable if you are sure somebody is coming to help you, minimises casualties while you wait. Again mechanisms are not perfect mirrors of the world they are always at best an adequate representation that rewards appropriate tactics. On action not mentioned is that trained troops are taught to get off the killing ground. Somtimes hitting the dirt is not a viable response and running is. Still a higher likely hood of a quick casualties but in the end less than hitting the dirt. Like assault from ambush, it may be a bad option but not as bad as hitting the dirt at very close range.

This is definitely a thread to bookmark for later reference. The real world experiences and the study data are really interesting – thank you to everybody for one of the most interesting threads I have read on TMP recently.

It would be interesting to see how small unit drills have evolved from 1914 to the present in this regard in terms of reacting to fire.

Edward

I don't know about 1914, but I looked through an old tactics pamphlet from 1944, the section attack section was nearly identical to our modern one. The language was slightly different, but the diagrams were the same. I know this is a big generalization, but fire, manoeuvre and suppression are no different for most armies and era's. Tactics can vary, but no matter wether you have 2 or 3 teams in a section, put the priority on the gun group rather than the rifle team etc etc you still need fire, manoeuvre and suppression.
A good example of this is from last year when I was training the Nigerians in platoon level tactics. Some of their junior commanders had recently been to an ex eastern bloc country to learn from their SF. I asked them about the differences between the way they had been taught section attacks by them and our way, expecting some proper ninja stuff, no they said it was exactly the same.

Some systems have a going to ground state/action and once you do that your section is harder to hit but harder to get moving.
Hence the old advice not to let your men lie down because once they do you'll have a job getting them stood back up.
I think this is probably less of an impact on professional s and probably less again on men wearing effective armour.

Other rules have an under fire state. This is often pretty simplistic. Maybe there's an argument to make that under effective fire and add a quality of shooter Vs quality of target roll off.

I personally like to see all positive polite input, even if confusing.

Although there are a lot of differences between ww2 modern warfare, obviously there are still people and bullets involved.

Another variation of the fire and maneuver using suppressive fire is coordinated team/section rushes coordinated by the Squad Leader. There is no specific suppression fire or maneuver group but you could have a sustained fire LMG to back you up which is always a good idea.

You'd start off with all three teams putting out max ROF to achieve firepower superiority (at least temporarily). Then on the Squad Leaders command, one team performs a team rush advancing/evading for 3-5 seconds (they do not fire while advancing for fear of your buddy getting hit and you'll need a fresh mag when you hit the deck) while the other two continue sustained fire. The advancing team hits the decks, rolls L/R and then lays down suppressive fire. When they start firing the the Squad Leader gives the signal for the next one to advance. Repeat as needed. Hopefully, the enemy pulls back. If not advance into final assault range.

During the team rushes if the enemy return fire becomes too much the Squad Leader can have all three teams fire to regain firepower superiority.

Once the squad is about 20 yards away everyone puts in a fresh mag, the Squad Leader tosses some frags and then on his command, everyone raises up on line and starts advancing at a fast walk putting out grazing fire from the hip and aiming at any targets that expose themselves.

You assault through the defensive position, set up a perimeter against a counter-attack, redistribute ammo, lock in with flanking units and take care of WIA.

I've heard of this working in VN but when it didn't work it could be devastating. An RPK firing enfilade down your squad while they are standing would be pretty bad.

You can't always flank/maneuver on the enemy so this is a good way for a squad to conduct a frontal assault.

If you are questioning this tactic – so did we. The response was you don't want to get involved in a long static firefight. The enemy will flank you or call in a mortar barrage. You need to move. Good suppressive fire will keep the defenders ducking and there will be a delay of a few seconds to retarget the advancing team. Do the defenders fire at the guys firing at them or the ones advancing? Retargeting each advancing team will cost precious seconds and you give up firepower superiority. There is a good chance the terrain the defenders occupy is not worth dying for and will pull back before the final assault begins.

Would the defenders be sufficiently suppressed for this to work and not be suicidal? Ideally, the enemy only has no more than a half-dozen defenders. If you can't achieve firepower superiority pop smoke and pull back to fight another day. The Squad Leader had an M-79 grenade launcher and could engage flank threats with HE or smoke.

The studies show that if you achieve firepower superiority and suppress the defender it only takes about 1/3 of the firepower to keep him sufficiently suppressed. With two teams firing at the sustained rate and one advancing, you should be able to get that 1/3 firepower. The Squad Leader is observing and can order everyone to increase their ROF as needed. On paper, it seems feasible and could be simulated in a game.

We'd train doing this drill and some variations dozens of times. If the Squad Leader got hit a Team Leader would take over. In well-trained units leadership is not a problem.

Of course, there are always surprises and SNAFU's along the way. This is Marine Corps VN era stuff and that's how I remember it, correct me or make additions as needed.

Wolfhag

It would be interesting to see how small unit drills have evolved from 1914 to the present in this regard in terms of reacting to fire.

I've been reading about the tactics used by the Canadians assault on Vimy Ridge in 1917 and they are almost identical. A light machine gun and section to keep the German machine gunner's attention/suppression while other sections maneuver on the flanks.

I have also read that the slow walk that was ordered the Raw British soldiers for the Somme in 1915 in an 'extended line' in two rank skirmish formation right out of the Napoleonic war. However, the generals believed that the Germans were annihilated by the most intense artillery barrage of the war to that point, thousands of guns and millions of tons of ordinance, so the soldiers advancing would meet no resistance. They also believed the barbed wire was eliminated. Neither was remotely true. In fact it is estimated that 1/3 of all shells were duds because of the rushed nature of their production.

Legion – I think you make a great point somewhere in there, about watching and doing ;) Where it surfaces for me is in conversations like this, where someone makes a comment on how they think you fight your squad/platoon/company, and they're making good points, but it's just not right.

Yes, I find that happening myself at times here …

And it's very hard to describe why, and I'm not exactly sure why that is. Often times I find myself thinking, or even typing, "I hear what you're saying, but we don't even think in those terms. You're worrying about stuff that we aren't worried about in that situation, we have a set of priorities and actions as a small unit leader that dictate we be focused on other things." Which is not a satisfying answer for me or the reader, I'm sure.

Yes, at training like Infantry Officer Basic and Advanced Courses, Combine Arms, etc. that I have gone thru. You do a lot of "classroom" .. But it's less about the "academics" per se how you actually do it on the ground. E.g. at Ranger training, you train, practice and rehearse … again and again and repeat, etc. You practice in an open field just going over tactics, technics, etc. so it's second nature, etc.

And as a leader we'd do the same with our troops in say a field next to the barracks. Then we put it all together in actual field ops, etc.

keep the German machine gunner's attention/suppression while other sections maneuver on the flanks.

That is the basis for all modern maneuver warfare from Company on down. You do a little time talking about at Fire Tm, Squad and Plt level and a lot of time practicing, rehearing, etc. … And in many cases it may be easier said than done. Especially when you add states of nature like darkness, etc. And those add another level of challenges, adding SOPs, etc. and in turn additional training, etc.

Note : I use etc. a lot. To go into complete and total detail, it would take a lot more space and time here, etc. …

Errata : " And the variables are sometime full of unknowns, etc. And we at least have some idea of about that. We know what we don't but we also know there are things we know we don't know."

I didn't type that correctly (DOH!) Let me try again – We know we don't know somethings. But there are things we don't even know we don't know …

In my readings, and my conversations with vets (of which I am NOT a peer) it is pretty clear to me that soldiers DO engage in suppressive fire.

From what I've read of WW2, almost all fire was suppressive, i.e., area fire, not aimed at specific individuals (sniping excepted).

I remember one G.I.'s account from late war, where his section was pinned down by an enemy MG. He could see the MG and fired a few shots right at it until it stopped firing. He said it was the only (or at least the first) time in the war that he fired "like we did on the range," by which I assume he meant aiming at a specific target.

I suspect that most soldiers in WW2 just blazed away in the general direction of the enemy, unless the range was unusually short. MG fire, especially, it seems to me, was almost always area fire.

Disclaimer: I am not a combat veteran.

The US had learned from WWII experience. That you should not train soldiers to be "marksmen", i.e. shooting a roundel targets. You train them to shoot at targets in the shape of humans.

They found out in Vietnam that was the best way to do it. That is all I fired at when I was in the Army. After zeroing your M16. You'd engage pop-up human sized and shaped targets on the range. With the targets being 25-300m down range.

It's like a Pavlovian response … that is what you want … Target pops-up … engage … move to next target has it appears … repeat …

Suppressive Fire is directed at the location of enemy incoming fire. With the goal to keep the enemies' heads down. Maybe even KIA or WIA some of them.

Stopping them from effectively firing at you. And allow one of your elements to maneuver on the enemy while "suppressed" …

almost all fire was suppressive, i.e., area fire, not aimed at specific individuals (sniping excepted).

Generally yes … you are firing at a general location where the enemy is firing at you from.

Gain fire superiority, suppress and maneuver on them.

The mission of the Infantry as we were taught at the Infantry School : "The Infantry's mission is utilizing fire & maneuver. Close with, kill, capture or destroy enemy personnel and equipment."

Interesting that here, the UK term skirmish is not used. Talking and reading about this it involves a couple of men at a time (1/2 to 1/3) of a section jumps up and moves forward about a 10m and drops. At longer ranges this is hard for an enemy to get a bead on before the target is out of sight. Paras seem to have used it a lot in the Falklands. Helps if the enemy is not fully suppressed. In the Falklands the Paras got to within 500m of some 20mm cannon but could get no closer.

donlowery,
I agree. At the platoon level, it is the squad leaders job to get the guys shooting back whether a target can be identified or not. Shooting increases their confidence and can psych out the enemy.

Legions comment is correct as the % of guys that effectively fire their weapons from VN on is higher than WWII (according to some studies which some people question). This, of course, is important in determining firepower. The Marines now include in their marksmanship quals a combat course with pop-ups. We didn't have that in the early 1970's except in ITR.

This is just my opinion: In Western Europe, in WWII the Allies were mostly up against a general fighting withdraw (exception would be the Normandy bocage area, Hurtgen Forest, and Seigfreid Line). The Germans goal was to get advancing columns to deploy, fight for awhile and then withdraw if things got too hot. If the Allied infantry got close enough to assault something was wrong. Also, the German had smokeless/flashless powder so it was much harder to target defensive small arms positions meaning more area fire and fewer targets to aim at.

For me, it was hard to accept the idea of firing without a specific target to aim at. That's why winning the firefight with superior firepower is more important than attrition. However, if a good target appears 500 yards away and you nail him that's a real morale killer for the enemy.

The British WO report stated a 1% per minute causality rate (under certain circumstances I'm sure it could be much higher). I doubt if that would work in most games as they are so attrition based.

Wolfhag

Having been an avid reader and contributor to this thread, I'm now of the opinion that realism in this subject is probably impossible.
Let me expand. Without trying to be a know it all "you don't know, you weren't there man!" type. Quite a few combat veterans have contributed to the discussion, unfortunately our experiences don't equate to wargaming rules. I've now given up trying to find any rules approaching realism and just play an enjoyable game without getting excited about how unrealistic it is, it's just a game.
Indulge me. When I'm on patrol and come under effective fire, I go to ground and try to find the enemy, when I have located the enemy I will then say "watch my tracer, enemy, anyone not seen" then "section, 100, enemy in treeline, rapid---Fire" after a minute or so I'll be happy the enemy is suppressed and as I've not been firing myself will have come up with a cunning plan. Next will be something like "Delta fireteam go on (carry on suppressing) Charlie is going left flanking" then I'll take Charlie and assault the position.
Where it goes wrong wargaming wise is that I'm not rolling dice to see if my fire is effective, if it's not effective I'll direct it til it is, and the enemy isn't given chance to fire back if they win the initiative roll, they're suppressed simple as that. When the assault goes in, I don't do a morale roll first, we're going in it's our job. The problem is, it makes for a pretty boring game.
Sorry to appear arrogant, but I'm a JTAC, even fast jet pilots need a hero😁

Legions comment is correct as the % of guys that effectively fire their weapons from VN on

I'd recommend a book entitled "On Killing" by an LTC Dave Grossmen. link

@ And Foxweasel you were there, and you are not arrogant … You know the "real deal" … As they say in Texas, "No Brag … just fact" …

Well sure, on one hand we have real life, on the other we have little toy figures :-)

If most games are 1% real life and 99% made-up and a "realistic" game is 2% real life and 98% made-up, then maybe we can push it to 3% real life.

No harm in having the talk in any event :)

I'm now of the opinion that realism in this subject is probably impossible.

Well, of course!

Two things to keep in mind:

1. No recreational wargame is trying to reproduce the experience of being in combat. Even if that was possible (which it's not), it would be crazy.

2. Remember what George Box said about statistical models:
"All models are wrong, but some are useful". In the case of recreational wargaming, I would modify that to "but some are interesting."

Or as we were taught at business school … "Figures lie and Liars figure …"

Having been an avid reader and contributor to this thread, I'm now of the opinion that realism in this subject is probably impossible….unfortunately our experiences don't equate to wargaming rules.

Where it goes wrong wargaming wise is that I'm not rolling dice to see if my fire is effective, if it's not effective I'll direct it til it is, and the enemy isn't given chance to fire back if they win the initiative roll, they're suppressed simple as that. When the assault goes in, I don't do a morale roll first, we're going in it's our job. The problem is, it makes for a pretty boring game.

Foxweasel:
Your experiences are not supposed to equate to wargame rules… the wargame system is supposed to equate to SOME of your experience…specifically the decision-making challenges. Unfortunately, we have very few wargame designers who:

1. Really listen to veterans experienced in combat [Past or present], making very logical deductions about what is 'supposed to happen', but as noted above can be completely off the map.

2. Who seem to have a very limited understanding of how simulations work…and don't work and

3. Are caught in the past conventions in wargame systems, as well as the wargamers they sell to, that everything is seen as a 'nail', and view history and combat through the prism of wargame rules rather that the other way around.

4. Whatever system is designed, the wargame is rarely if ever vetted or tested against reality, so how successful it is remains basically unproved. So, F&F can have the movement and resolution of Pickett's Charge require twice the scale time it did historically and the designer seems to have ignored or missed that little hiccup.

5. And why does all this occur? As War Artisan points out,
"No recreational wargame is trying to reproduce the experience of being in combat." Designers often admit to knowing little about the subject they are designing for and a fun game is the issue anyway.[e.g. Bolt Action]

Even with all that, it is quite possible to create wargame rules that do equate to combat experiences, but always in part… often a small part… but they DO equate. For example, Phil Sabin created a simple board game with ten counters a side representing a Battalion in WWII, Fire and Movement. From p204 Simulating War

"It is the interdependence of fire and movement that will be the central dynamic of the simulation, as encapuslated in the following description by a Guards officer of the attack at Anzio:

Our company was ordered to attack Carroceto village. My platoon was to give covering fire while the assault was to be made by the platoon commanded by a chap named Needham. We blazed off with all weapons at the village. Needham led the way over an embakment, over a wire fence and across open ground to the nearest buildings. We had to stop firing then, of course, as Needham and his men charged into the first house. TO our amazement, about six terrified Italians ran out, their hands up, shouting 'Amico! Amico!' But then a machine gun opened up from a nearby building. Needham dived for cover and ordered one section to fire while he and the other two sections attacked from one side. Great chap, Needham! A grenade settled the machine gun. They soon captured all the other houses.

The urban combat game Block Busting was a variant
of Fire and Movement, twenty counters on a grid 6 by 9. It was used during a 'study day' exercise by the British Army where teams played it several times. It was organized by a veteran of urban combat in both Afghanstan and Iraq. This is what Phil wrote: [p.256]

There could be no better illustration of the merits of simplicity in game design. Brigadier Andrew Sharpe, who masterminded the study day, was deeply impressed with the tactical realism of Block Busting, despite its relative simplicity, and he emphasized during the closing discussion session how well it captured the key dynamics of fighting in built-up areas.

Now I am sure that the experience of playing Block Busting missed a great deal of the experience of urban fighting. But obviously, it DID capture those specific elements it was designed to faithfully enough that combat veterans recognize that simulation validity.

The whole purpose of simulations [and wargames for that matter] is to experience SOME of the decision-making problems and environment of combat such as the "key dynamics of fighting in built-up areas."

That is the great value of simulations. It captures parts of reality such as war without all the downsides like death, wounds and misery. If there was a 'simulation' of the entire experience, you would have a real war. Like War Artisan says "Even if that was possible (which it's not), it would be crazy."

But it isn't possible or desirable. You identify what parts of reality that can be simulated--and you want to experience--and go from there. You know, such things as 'suppression'. If you get it right, it will illuminate combat reports and be recognized by veterans.

Question for the veterans : if both sides crank up their rate of fire, presumably one side or the other ducks fairly soon. Or can the high rate firefight go on for a while?

And, I hear formation mentioned. Line or wedge (combat ) vs. column (movement ). I've not read that many modern (including WWII ) rules but only Great Battles of WWII had formations. Many accounts I've read do mention it.

The platoon and company level infantry manuals for ww2 do mention various formations.

As a designer of wargames McLaddie has its aims and objectives for some folk. However many rules as he stated are designed to be attrition based and to pack as many figures and models on the board as possible as the player like it as do the manufactures.

Our game is aimed at something like what is described. An element on the map fires at an approaching platoon and puts the lead element down you would say pinned. The number two friendly element opens fire and "hopefully" puts the enemy down pinned. The enemy recovers partially and shoots back, the enemy is not in a trench so two now fire back and the enemy shooting stops. The two keep fireing back stopping the element getting back up whil the third maneouvers for the assult. This sequence is slightly distorted as it sort of element by element activation but the result reflects what has been described. It cannot, would not want to model the fear, terror and pain.

What I can say is its not popular, folk want points systems with equal numbers of troops, this does not work well in the real world. They like gambling it's easier than thinking.

Also as always the professionals don't always agree. In the US analysis of the Bren carrier it notes that it's effectiveness does not increase closer than 400 yds. This implies wargames are often over sensitive to range. Must admit we have gone the other way for technical and faster play reasons.