Advancing Through Hilly Terrain (Tank Tactics)

This entry is a continuation from a previous one that dealt with some of the problems of cresting hills while moving to contact or conducting reconnaissance. In that previous blog entry, an M3 Bradley CFV/M1 Abrams MBT hunter/killer team was moving north and had a hill between them and enemy-held terrain. I'm using Steel Beasts ProPE for this write up.

If cresting hills is not a good idea, what is one to do then?

As one of the faithful readers of this blog (thank you Alan for visiting!) commented in the previous entry, the key is moving like the flow of water. Move around hills, not through them. There are many variations of how to do this and I'm going to write only about the one I'm most familiar with.

Please see a graphical representation in the next figure.

• Of all the members of the hunter/killer team, I've chosen the main battle tank to move and watch ahead. It's always better to make contact with the enemy with the most survivable platform. You may be wondering where all the buzz about the M3 CFVs acting as hunters went, but remember that this situation the hunter/killer team has a moderately small area to cover and is moving ahead as a team instead of separating themselves into different roles
  
• Below the hill, the tank moves following a contour line of the hill, preferably the lowest one. In the figure below the movement path of the tank is represented by the big blue arrow. The small blue arrows fanning out the big blue arrow represent the orientation of the turret.
• The two M3 CFVs provide over watch while the tank moves. They cover the terrain in front of the tank's axis of movement and the right flank. At this stage of the drill, the two M3 CFVs are represented in the figure by big blue arrowheads. The small blue arrows fanning out from the blue arrowheads represent turrets orientations
• As the tank moves across the countour line, successive sections of enemy-held terrain can be scanned with the tank's TIS. The first terrain sections to be visible will be the ones around the "C" label in the figure, then the ones the "B" label
• If enemy units were located at "A", "B" and "C", the tank would make contact with each, one at a time. Compare this to cresting the hill and making contact with all enemy units simultaneously
  
• Once the contour line around the hill changes direction, so does the the direction of movement of the tank. The tank re-orients along new direction of the contour line, stops at the tip of the big blue arrow and waits for the M3 CFVs to occupy new overwatch positions (red arrowheads in the figure)
• The tank now moves again along the contour line (big red arrow in the figure), scanning the western side of the terrain labelled "B" and eventually the terrain labelled "A"

"Tank Rush", the US Cavalry version. Click the image for an expanded view.

There is catch to this. If contact with the enemy is made the tank will be showing not its front but its left hull side to the enemy. Always keep in mind that the tank's best armor is located in its front. So be ready to quickly pull back into cover when contact is made (see figure below). This will allow you to re-orient behind the cover of the hill and then engage the enemy from a hull-down position.

It's better to be nagged about a damaged gearbox than to be awarded a posthumous Purple Heart. Click the image for an expanded view.

Cheers,

DCS Black Shark Controls Lockup? Try this.

The latest patch for DCS Black Shark has implemented a new and default trimmer implementation. It works like this: once you hit the trimmer button, any input from your joystick and rudder pedals will be ignored until you center them. Most of the times this new trimmer implementation works like a charm, but if you fail to center your joystick and rudder any further input from them will be ignored (controls lockup, yikes!).

If your joystick and rudder pedals are not properly calibrated/centered, these lockups will happen when you least want them. Joysticks and pedals generating a moderate amount of "noise" will also produce these lockups.

To avoid these lockups, I suggest you go into the game's option suite, controls tab, axis commands and click on the "tune axis" option. Once in the axis tune panel, provide a small amount of "dead zone" to the axis of your controllers. The amount of "dead zone" depends on how noisy your controls are.



Cheers,

Where's All That Nagging Coming From: the Black Shark's ADF

I'm compulsively trying to figure out instrument landings in DCS Black Shark.

This entry, though, is about one capability of the Black Shark that I bumped into while experimenting with the instruments. After some manual reading, I found out that this feature is actually documented there (warning, this is not a discovery of any sort!). Flipping switches and then go to read the manual to understand what the hell just happened is not the optimal way to learn, but alas the manual's style will never engage me in a cover-to-cover reading madness.

Anyway, here is the thing. The Black Shark has an electronic system to find the direction of radio transmissions. It's called the "ARK-22 ADF" (ADF stands for automatic direction finder). The ARK-22 ADF controls the Radio Magnetic Indicator (RMI) needle on the Horizontal Situation Indicator (HSI), pointing it in the direction of the transmitting signal. The ARK-22 ADF is vital to point the pilot towards airport radio beacons that transmit a radio signal with all the information needed for instrument landings.

It turns out that the ARK-22 ADF can be used to find the direction of incoming regular radio transmissions. Who ever talks to you by radio, you can see in the HSI where the transmission came from.

Talking with the guys at the FARP. The red caret (actually named RMI-2) at the HSI (horizontal situation indicator) wheel (right panel, ABRIS screen) shows where the transmission came from. Click the image for a better view.

Another example. This time my wingman is answering my request to change formation. Note how the red caret in the HSI wheel (right panel) shows the direction from which the wingman is transmitting. Click the image for a better view.

Not bad for an helicopter that doesn't have a radar warning receiver! ;)

Cheers,

Thou Shalt Not Crest ... (Tank Tactics)

Yes, the title of this entry was a bit overboard. There are no ten commandments for tank tactics. There are not even fixed rules in tactics. The tactical level of war is full of paradoxes and contradictions. You are told to advance and attack without pause but if you do it you expose your flanks. You protect your flanks but you divert forces from your main attack force, weakening your advance. C’est la guerre! As Robert Leonhard once wrote in “Fighting by Minutes”, waging war will require you to “sit and walk at the same time”.

One of the oldest adages in war is “always hold the high ground”. The high ground gives you a vantage point from which to see and shoot the enemy. This blog entry is a friendly reminder that carelessly stepping into the high ground also gives the enemy an opportunity to see and shoot you.

The simulation I’m using for this entry is Steel Beasts ProPE.

A US Cavalry M1 Abrams MBT/M3 Bradley CFV “hunter/killer” team is on the base of a hill. Enemy is likely to be on the other side.

Map showing the hunter/killer team (pink icon in the center) and the line of sight (red/white areas) from their position. At this point the team is in the base of the hill and the line of sight is good to the flanks and to the rear. Since no enemy forces are at the team’s flanks or rear, there is no danger so far.

The hunter/killer cresting the hill. Given the small size of the team and the unknown strength of enemy forces ahead, this wonderful view of the valley is quite dangerous. The reason for this is explained in the caption of the next figure.

Map showing the hunter/killer team (pink icon in the center) and the line of sight (red/white areas) from the crest of the hill. Note how the team can see more terrain than before (good), yet it can also be seen from more enemy-held territory (bad). If weak enemy forces are encountered, the team may survive by firing back. But if equal or superior enemy forces are encountered ... You get the idea.

The crest of hills sometimes make great battle positions. But moving through them while on the march/attack/etc, or stepping on them while on reconnaissance is most of the times not advisable.

In the next installment: what to do instead of cresting.

Cheers,

Steel Beasts ProPE to be updated today!

The release of a new patch for Steel Beasts ProPE is imminent according to this post by Ssnake at the official Steel Beasts forum.

This patch will take the simulation to version v2.483.

Enjoy!

UPDATE: The patch has been released! Info and link courtesy of Alan Giasson (see comments below). Thanks again, Alan.

Irregular Warfare Simulations: More Like SimCity than War Games?

This is the last time I will bore you with an article on Training and Simulation Journal TSJ, I promise. At least for this month. :)

The TSJ article in question is "Future imperfect: U.S. Army struggles to model irregular warfare scenarios."

In a nutshell, the article says that fighting irregular wars in extremely difficult and that simulating them is a nightmare. A tremendous effort is in place and the results are mixed. The article features one simulation in development, UrbanSim, that looks very promising.

The buzzword du jour in the article was "human terrain", a conceptual space where the interactions between troops, the civilian population and the insurgents take place. Navigating through this "human terrain" is quite challenging and the commander of a regular force has to deal with the approval ratings, informants, information operations, infrastructure, etc. The strenght of the expression "human terrain" in irregular warfare makes it equivalent to the geographical terrain that is so important to use tactically in regular warfare.

I've seen this "human terrain" expression before in the book "Urban Warfare in Iraq 2003-2006". In a chapter entitled "People: the key terrain", this book presents the tricks of the trade on how the US Army has dealt with the "human terrain" in Iraq.

This book is not written as a conventional book, but rather reads as very detailed notes from a PowerPoint presentation. Nonetheless, the amount of information presented is huge. Recommended for those servicemen being deployed.

A simulation model the "human terrain" in irregular warfare will have to model societies, infrastructures and military forces. Sociology, urban planning and military science mixed all in one simulation.

The TSJ article mentions that the US Army is looking for some sort of predictive value on a future simulation of irregular warfare. Given the incipient state of the field of computational sociology, the goal of a simulation of irregular warfare with predictive value sounds too ambitious. A model of the penetration of armor-piercing ammunition is relatively easy to formulate, but a model of how a neighborhood will react to a new checkpoint in their main street is a totally different story.

A computer model with great predictive value would be great, but why not starting with formulating a framework with cheaper, less precise models of societies.

SimCity maybe? :)

Cheers,

Putting my (Pilot) Act Together: Instruments Landing

As I mentioned in a previous entry, the flight instructors over at the ECV 56 Condor (a virtual squadron headquartered in Argentina) are holding training sessions on instrument landings with the DCS Black Shark.

Is in times like this that it becomes clear how good pilots they are. Is in times like this that I feel like I'm crashing a party. :) So, time to learn those things I never did and to re-learn those things that I gave little attention in my past short virtual pilot career.

How to land by instruments is a thing I never understood completely back in my combat flight simulator days. In perspective, I pretty much got shot down during most missions. So my landings were always few and very happy occassions.

For being such a lousy virtual pilot, I deserve to be punished and learn instrument landings in X-Plane's Cessna. But instead I treated myself to the virtual cockpit of an F-16 in Falcon 4 Allied Force (F4AF). This is a bit like learning to drive a car in a Ferrari.

My excuse is that F4AF's manual is very well written and detailed. Given the age of this simulator, there is also plenty of material online.

I finally could understand what the fuzz is all about instrument landings.

After "tuning in" to an airport TACAN station, the horizontal situation indication (HSI, inside the red square) graphically represents my aircraft's position relative to the runway. Click the image to enlarge.

Once moderatly aligned with the cues in the HSI, is time to use the ILS vertical and horizontal bars (inside the red square) to catch a ride on an optimal glideslope (not the case here, but close enough). Click the image to enlarge.

I landed pretty but with too much forward airspeed. This particular runway (16L, Kunsan, South Korea) is very short and breaking without eating the airbase fence is quite a thrill. Click the image to enlarge.

Cheers,

Squad Battles Games Reviewed in Training and Simulation Journal

Two HPS Games from the Squad Battles Series have been reviewed by Michel Peck in the printed version of the Training and Simulation Journal (TSJ). For some reason, TSJ has not posted the current issue in their website, so I can't link you to the article.

The article is titled "Discovering forgotten battles" and it reviews both Squad Battles Soviet: Afghan War and Squad Battles: Dien Bien Phu. Mr. Peck emphasizes the importance of games like these to get less known/popular conflicts to be appreciated, specially in these times where we are fightin insurgencies. He also laments the game mechanics of the Squad Battles series is starting to show their age.

An scenario of Squad Battles: Soviet Afghan War. Click the image to expand it.

In a journal that is usually chock-full of articles about multi-million dollar simulations, it is always refreshing to see reviews and articles by Michael Peck about off-the-shelf war games . He strucks me as a sort of TSJ's "resident gamer". Indeed, there is also another article in the same issue by Mr. Peck about the use of the console games in the US Army for training and physical rehabilitation.

Cheers,

You Are Not Hardcore Until You Fly the Falcon

Any serious simulation website, blog or community forum should have at least a word about Falcon 4.0 or any of its re-incarnations like Falcon 4.0 Allied Force.

To correct this blog's glaring omission, this is just a quick note on a simulator that is already 10 years old and still has lots to give.

I picked up my Falcon 4.0 at a ToysRUs (a big toy store chain in the US) sometime during 1999. It was more out of curiosity than anything else because I was not at all into flight simulators (or anything else interesting for that matter).

Many computers have sited on my desk and a variety of interests have come and gone through me since that time. But one thing was constant: a copy of Falcon in the hard drive.

This is the most complete simulation of the F-16 avionics to ever reach the civilian market. I once read that a lucky fan of Falcon 4.0 got to sit in a military grade F-16 simulator thanks to a fighter-pilot friend and that everybody was astonished on how much the civilian enthusiast knew about the avionics.

Falcon 4's uniqueness doesn't end in the detailed avionics. The simulation includes a rich, complex virtual war being waged around the virtual F-16 Falcon. It is almost embarrassing that no flight simulator released in the last ten years has not come even close to match the massive scope of this simulation.

Chances are you already know about this simulator. If don't, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy from any game store. It's the best 20 bucks you will ever spend.

As for myself, I'm back to flight school taking a refresher course.


Cheers,

Getting Ready for Combat in Built Up Areas (ArmA 2)

One small step for man, one giant leap for the enemy

Imagine the following situation: a urban battle is raging and you and your fire team are moving down a very narrow alley. You are enjoying cover and concealment almost 360 degrees around you. You and your team's only worries are covering the front and the rear of the formation. For the hundred steps of the alley crossing, it's always the same: cover the front and the rear. Once you arrive to the exit of the alley, a single step into the street will expose you to thousands of potential enemy fields of fire. One hundred steps of relative safety blown away by just one single step.

The paragraph above is an example of the typical and sudden tactical environment changes that happen during fights in urban areas. Some people call these type of events "compression to expansion" tactical situation changes . Compression meaning both that you are constricted in a small physical space and that very few tactical options are available for the potential enemies around you. Expansion meaning both a bigger physical space around you and increased tactical options for the enemy to shoot you.

Sudden tactical environment changes like the one above can cause sensory overload, a disease for which the only known cure is training.

There are literally thousands of pages about urban warfare available in the net. The scope of this humble blog is just too small to cover even one of those to a decent extent. So please bear with me with this short and disjointed note about the topic.

Balancing your tactical checkbook and herding cats at the same time

Besides the tactical challenges of the realistically simulated urban combat, the ArmA 2 player is up for another one: commanding the AI bots assigned to him. Lines of sight are fragmented in built-up areas and keeping all your virtual subordinates out of danger zones or in a formation that allows mutual overwatch requires skill and quick thinking.

The first thing that I found useful while advancing in built up areas is to rely on the compact column formation. Any formation that puts any of your virtual men at a significant distance from your axis of advance will result in an AI subordinate wandering off into or around a building and straight into an enemy line of fire.

This ain't Fallujah, but still it gives me the creeps. #2 and #3 have been ordered to move to opposite sides of the street and provide cover.

The second thing I like is to issue the "move there" order to individual soldiers or teams. The nice thing about this order is that your subordinate/s go/es exactly where you ordered them and, most importantly, they stay there until you issue a new order.

#2 and #3 in the background are providing overwatch for #4 and me. Note how #2 and #3 stay behind (their icons show "ready" status) and how #4 moves along behind me (column formation) watching my left flank.

A typical "compression to expansion" is when you and your team arrive to a corner. I usually take up the task of peeking around corners myself (can't get the AI to do that without getting killed). When just a peek is not enough and a more prolongued observation around the corner is needed, I'm growing fond of doing it by lying prone. I don't know if this is how it is done in real combat, but peeking around corners lying prone is still being teached by some Marine instructors.
In ArmA 2 at least it helps a bit with not exposing so much of your body to the enemy. But it also has the caveat that it takes a fraction of more time to get back to cover if you are spotted.

If you peek around a corner lying prone, it is advisable to move slowly. Just in case the enemy is a few meters away.

That's it for now. How long until we get into moving like this diagram below?


: )


Cheers,