Steel Armor Blaze of War - Soviet Combined Arms in Afghanistan

The game: Steel Armor Blaze of War
The scenario: quick battle, T-62 platoon (player) supporting armored infantry platoon vs mujahideen infantry (computer). The Soviet-Afghan War.

Armor, the decisive maneuver formation to be used in mass against NATO's best. Here used in penny packets against these barely fed fanatics. I am in command of a T-62 tank platoon, supporting Soviet infantry forces in a sweep operation.

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.