Steel Beasts ProPE V2.64 -Tank-borne Smoke Grenades, Soviet Style

There is this interesting thread at SteelBeasts.com about the T-72M1. The part about the relatively high distance that the smoke grenades are thrown from the tank caught my attention.

In that thread, a couple of fellow virtual tankers pointed out that in Soviet tanks the smoke grenades are thrown so forward (compared to their Western counterparts) in order to assist in the offensive. Just after the preparatory artillery barrage, the T-72s emerge from cover and dash towards the enemy, throwing smoke forward to gain a couple of hundred meters of closing ...

I had the opportunity to command a company of T-72M1s in a hasty attack against a town defended by a company of Bradley M2s IFVs. Smoke served us well  ...

DCS Black Shark 2 - Canon Shooting with Translational Drift

I haven't abandoned the virtual skies ... But most of the flying these last days has been practice.

The Ka-50 is a fantastic weapons platform once you get past a point where you fly without thinking of it. The demands of situational awareness, target acquisition and weapons delivery are high and I have become too dependent on doing everything from a hover. It is not rare for me to get sucked into my own downwash when I am engaging from a hover and instinctively floor the collective to duck into cover.

Close Air Support Video - The Real Deal

This video brought to my attention by blog reader BO. Thanks!



Those of you who fly DCS A-10C will be able to figure out the tactical situation from seeing the targeting pod video. Note the background shooting in the radio chat from the tactical air controller. Scary stuff.

Cheers,

ArmA 2 BAF - Are Grenades the Modern Bayonets?

I'm in a strange tactical land, folks. I'm reading Paddy Griffith's Forward into Battle and it's quite a journey of critical reading. Griffith gets very controversial in this book. His main point is about how virtually every major decisive victory in military history can be attributed to shock action. Napoleonic massed volley fire? Just to wear down the enemy and then deliver the (only thing decisive) bayonet charge.

I'm not of the intellectual stature to challenge anything that I'm reading, but it looks to me that close combat is the last option in modern combat. Killing the enemy from the distance with superior firepower looks like an SOP nowadays.

Enough digression. Griffith mentions in several parts of the book that the cold steel of the bayonet has been replaced by the hand grenade. I confess that when I am in virtual combat, grenades are the least thing in my mind. So here is this entry, to reinforce the habit of safe close combat.

Tigers Unleashed (HPS Simulations) - Gameplay Notes - Opening Moves

The opening moves of this battle left me completely humbled by the friction and subtleties of command.

This is a continuation of the previous entry where I edited a battle from scratch. Quick refresh: a company-sized team of German PzIVs and PzGr. against a computer controlled Soviet infantry battalion reinforced with a company of AT guns.

The battle is unfolding and the simulation is showing  more data that I can shake a mouse at, but that window that displays my tactical shortcomings is painfully missing.

Red Orchestra 2 - Mexican Standoff with the Involuntary TeamKiller

No matter how big the claim of being realistic, tactical or [put your favorite euphemism here], for the most part the multiplayer experience in mainstream first person shooters (FPS) is just a bar brawl with guns. Which is a pity in the case of Red Orchestra 2, because there is very solid stuff in it.

Prompted by a very positive review by Michael Peck at the Training and Simulation Journal, I installed my copy of Red Orchestra 2 and went right into the hell of urban combat.

Stalingrad, 1942 ... Here I come.

Tigers Unleashed (HPS Simulations) - Gameplay Notes - Starting a Battle from Scratch

Tigers Unleashed ships with some 34 tactical scenarios covering the invasion of Poland and the first two years of the invasion of the Soviet Union. There is also a battle making utility that allows you to pick a map, opposing forces and play that scenario.



I'm simplifying things, because the level of detail and available options in Tigers Unleashed is just incredible. Here is an scenario I built from scratch. Nothing too thrilling, just to get my hands dirty with this great simulation.

Combat Mission Battle for Normandy - Tactics Video Series from Armchair General

The second episode is up at the Armchair General website, gents. This time a frontal attack over a bridge!



This video series is by Lt. Col. (ret) Jeffrey Paulding, game editor at Armchair General.

Cheers,

It's the Man, Not the Machine

Sorting out pics we took with my brother during his visit from Spain I found these of the Supermarine Spitfire HF at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.

Unity of Command - Review

Let me paraphrase the opening paragraph of a professional game reviewer elsewhere. Before I got Unity of Command, I made the mistake of glancing at a few screen shots. They worried me. Those unit's busts instead of NATO icons, the barren interface lacking recognizable buttons for all things sacred in hardcore war gaming, the list of unit's stats shorter than my bank savings account deposit records. Oh no, it's going to be one of those games isn't it? One of those "spiritual successors" trying to bank on the genius of designers of great things we grew up and moved on from? One of those generic turns and hexes "war game light" clones that keep sprouting like mushrooms on a rainy day?

Unity of Command (UoC from here), turned out to be neither. A lean, fast and fulfilling operational level war game with a computer opponent that will hurt your martial ego and keep you in the edge of your seat to the very last turn is the best way to describe it.

Pat Proctor in National Public Radio

What a surprise yesterday when I heard Michel Martin say in her program Tell Me More that Pat Proctor was her guest. Pat has published Task Force Patriot and the End of Combat Operations in Iraq and is finishing his Ph.D. studies in military history. You may know him from the ProSimCo line of tactical games.

Pat's blog is in our blogroll, down below in the side bar.

Cheers,

ArmA 2 - Asymmetric Warfare Components Mod Needs Testers

Iraq and Afghanistan veteran (and fellow reader of the blog) BO is modding ArmA 2 from his experiences with the real deal.



Now looking for testers of his mod.

Cheers,

Steel Beasts ProPE Version 2.640 Update - Released

Well folks, what a massive update. The backlog of gaming fun just got bigger ... No complains, though. :)

Plenty of new goodies. Main attractions for me: 3D infantry and ... wait for it ... a crewable T-72!
Come on in and grab a chair. I have screenshots.

Unity of Command - Gameplay Notes - 2nd Kharkov Scenario - The March Up North (06Jun42 / 18Jun42)

All things considered, it turns out I have trashed my operational tempo by over-sizing my main effort.

The Soviets are packing and fleeing up north!

My command is battle-weary, understrength and behind schedule to secure the two remaining objectives.

Tigers Unleashed (HPS Simulations) - Screenshots

Some screenshots of Tigers Unleashed, an impressive, highly detailed simulation of WWII tactical combat that will be released any minute now. More impressions and an AAR are coming up, stay tuned.

The USS Dale at Pearl Harbor

This entry was intended for yesterday, but it was delayed by real life issues.
Zenith Press has a great portfolio of military-themed books. Yesterday, the company's blog featured an excerpt from an excellent book about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Pilots aboard Nagumo’s six carriers awoke very early from what surely must have been a nervous sleep. Yet, despite all of the anxiety, Flight Commander Fuchida found Lieutenant Commander Shigeharu Murata, leader of the torpedo bombers who would soon strike Pearl Harbor’s battleship row, hungrily wolfing down a hearty breakfast. Murata called out, “Good morning, Commander Fuchida. Honolulu sleeps!”

“How do you know?” Fuchida asked.
“The Honolulu radio plays soft music,” Murata responded. “Everything is fine!”    
At 0600, Nagumo’s six carriers began launching the first wave of airplanes. At 0630, Commander Fuchida turned south in command of forty Kate torpedo bombers, fifty-one dive-bombers, forty-three fighters, and forty-nine Kate high-level bombers. Months of training were about to culminate in an operation that would commit Japan to a war with the industrial might of the United States.
Though most of Honolulu slept, a few were being made aware that something was up. In the early morning darkness, the destroyer USS Ward (DD-139) spotted the periscope of an unidentified submarine near the entrance to Pearl Harbor. TheWard attacked the submarine, sank it, and then reported the incident up the chain of command. Then, at approximately 0700, an alert army radar operator saw the approaching first wave of Japanese airplanes on his scope and called in a report to his superior. Both reports, however, fell on deaf ears and nothing was done to increase Pearl Harbor’s readiness for what was about to come from the sky.

There is more at the Zenith Press blog. Please take a look.

Cheers,

Unity of Command - Gameplay Notes - 2nd Kharkov Scenario - The Fall of Izium (17May42 / 06Jun42)

Izium fell on the first week of June1942 to a backdrop of ferocious attacks and counterattacks.

The human toll has been horrendous, the enemy too obstinate to give up ground.

ArmA 2 - Combat Outpost Defense

This video brought to you by BO, who appears to be having lots of multiplayer fun ... :)



From the video description:

An ArmA TvT event in which we get our collective asses handed to us. As part of the beta MP TvT campaign "A Fork in the Road" which requires ISAF personnel to conduct KLE's, route clearance, weapons interdiction, raids, clear and hold mandates, humanitarian operations (building wells and schools), etc... we establish a new COP in a contested area overlooking a valley. 

Within two hours of our patrol establishing said COP, AAF conduct a complex attack on our position. Outnumbered nearly 6-1 we hold our own, but only because of the Close Air Support provided by ADFGrunt06. We eventually abandoned the position.

Cheers,

Scenario Design Center, Contributions Needed

The Scenario Design Center is a great site for all things HPS and John Tiller software. It was founded and it is maintained by a very dedicated fellow from Australia who is spending his own money on hosting.

If you are into HPS or John Tiller software, I'm sure you know about this site. A voluntary contribution will be appreciated.

Cheers,

ArmA 2 - Bunkers Need Better Frontal Cover

Have you noticed how fast your men die if they are in one of ArmA's bunkers. Those things expose you and your men to an excessive amount of frontal enemy fire. In this entry, I added an H-barrier to the front of the bunkers.

I know it looks ugly and I am sure that there is a way to pile up some sandbags to the front of the bunker. In addition, no Marine will agree to man such conspicuous, non-camouflaged fighting position. But this is just an experiment: a Marine fire team defends against a Russian squad which is attacking frontally.