Using force multipliers to successfully defeat a numerically superior force: A Steel Beasts AAR

 Steel Beasts AAR: Operation Spearhead

For my dozen or so readers, you will have to forgive me in advance, I'm toeing over the "I have opinions" line more strongly than ever before in this intro.

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, western militaries are seeing their bayonet strength drop, often in tandem with their recruitment and budget figures, while their weapon platform effectiveness continues to increase, often dramatically. 

It's creating a dilemma for doctrine in light of the Ukraine conflict. How to fight effectively with less when all evidence suggests modern conventional conflict can, and will, if belligerents seem ready to accept it, gobble up men and material at a tragic rate? The obvious answer is to expand, create larger pools of military manpower and stores of equipment, even if it means settling for less. That clearly appears to be what circumstance has thrust on both Russia and Ukraine two years into the three-day "SMO." For those in the West that had paid attention, the prolific consumption of ammunition or lives is not new or unexpected. It was lost in the fanfare of a quick and decisive non-stop ground offensive, but Schwarzkopf famously stockpiled an awe-inspiring amount of munitions and medical supplies, meant to sustain a much larger campaign, and a far higher rate of casualties. One only need peruse transcripts of the myriad documentaries made about Desert Storm to read it in their own words. In any event, despite the massing of significant amounts of munitions, consumption rates remained much higher than expected. For coalition forces, consumption of lives were mercifully well below expectations. 

I suspect, however, that "make armies larger" is simply not a palatable solution or realistic goal in the short-term. First, voters like myself must be convinced of its urgency and necessity, and that is an uphill battle in any context. But we live in a post-Afghanistan, post-Iraq war era, and many citizens of Western countries are, not without just cause in my view, immediately suspicious of their governments when it comes to armed conflict and militarization. So we turn to the second, compromise (and make no mistake, it is a compromise) solution: dramatically increase warfighting capability via weapons and sensory platforms. 

A good example of this trend is the still-forming UK Deep Strike Recce brigade (a good overview can be watched here). The idea is to create artificial depth through effective and precise indirect fire and attrit the enemy far forward of the FEBA, an obvious evolution of western air doctrine that expands the "depth" battle beyond traditional artillery range. The precision fire support continues right up to the tactical fight and presumably throughout it. I'm not qualified enough to comment with great confidence on whether this is effective or realistic a solution, but it is the general trend our armies are following, and so must be scrutinized, even if amateurishly. 

Reach out and touch someone.

That precision fires and effective, timely air and artillery support is a force multiplier is not controversial, however, and this AAR perhaps can serve as an example of how increasing effectiveness of munitions, sensory platforms, and time-to-fire is, at its base level, a very hard to beat combo. That it can go out of its way to shape a battle so that even a dangerously outnumbered friendly force can execute aggressive plans may lend some credence to the idea behind formations like the Deep Strike Recce brigade. That it requires an enemy to accept such a battle is perhaps an argument for another day. 

That is, of course, should the British government (and others like it) ever appear capable of putting in the Baltics numbers anywhere approaching what they claim they will be capable of doing. The prognosis is grim.

Mission, Terrain and Scheme

The situation is straightforward: a rebel forces supply base has been located, and our cavalry squadron is slated to destroy it. There is a snag, however: local government forces aligned with the rebels have established a hasty blocking position with a company of T72s. 

Most SB players would happily accept the odds of 4 Leo2Es and Centauros against a company of early T72s in the open; it's a manageable problem with a decent bit of terrain analysis. Far from an ideal situation in any circumstance, but manageable. In this case, the mission designer (Ben, who appears to be prolific in the community) has made it very clear just accepting an extended firefight is not the solution he is looking for: the T72M1s are firing some of the best sabots they can get, and will absolutely be a mortal threat. A direct confrontation is not the way to go. 

Nevertheless, the destruction of the enemy armour is an objective, so we must turn to precision fires and the use of highly portable lite IR LRFs with the dismounted scouts. 

Terrain is a big mix, and I would argue quite conducive to establishing artillery observation posts in a great degree of safety. While the AO is generally speaking, an open valley, it is dominated by steep, rocky ridges and hills, and sight lines are often broken up by bush and micro terrain. It is best described as the sort of place where getting line of sight at 3000m is no problem, but you may not know what is within 100m of you.  

The scheme involves getting the VEC-M1 armoured cars out on the flank to sweep the assembly area between CARLOS-FELIPE and depositing their dismounts at key pieces of terrain along the way. To cover their initial crossing of PL Carlos, a quick attack by fire on the Ridge will be conducted by the Leopard troop. The Centauros, which can pack quite a punch but have little ammo and even less armour, will be jealously husbanded for the final effort. 

Once the scouts are out and precision fires have sufficiently worked over the enemy armour, the squadron moves into attack position and then, on order, moves to destroy the tank company by fire in a left-flanking movement. Artillery covers the movement with a wall of smoke. 

We are on the clock, as the rebel supply base needs to be destroyed no later than H+90 minutes. So I've budgeted 30 minutes to scouting and indirect shaping, and 60 minutes for attack on objectives. 

Execution

As usual, here is a cut of the fight, with as much downtime and me clicking about furiously on map removed. 

Debrief

As usual, things never go quite according to plan. The AOPs aren't established quite as stealthily as I'd have liked and a comical game of whack-a-mole begins with eerily prescient T72s, who do eventually hit a few scout teams, who are beyond the help of the medical team. Training tools like Steel Beasts and games like CM are excellent, but they are never without their quirks and blind spots, and I will chalk it up to a combination of that, and potential sky lining of my men. 

Nevertheless, the indirect fires severely whittle down the enemy T72s holding an obstacle belt. Not as much as I would've liked, and that is again my own fault. Not knowing what rounds my guns were firing at first, I assumed the precision rounds would be HE like PGM or XCALIBUR. Instead, they turned out to be SMArt HEAT rounds, which eventually fire target-seeking HEAT skeets that conduct devastating top-attacks. I have played scenarios subsequently where you get a lot more of these, and they can also be used as grid-square deleting clusters as much as they can be used as proper precise rounds. I digress, in any event, my initial confusion over what the hell I was firing lead to some extreme waste on individual targets, who are overkilled by 6-8 SMArt rounds. I run out of ammo before I run out of targets, and then have to commit to the templated support by fire. 

If you watched the video, what happened next was perhaps unfortunately inevitable. Shot gunned by the remaining T-72s in a terribly selected SBF, a Leo2E is catastrophically destroyed. 

In the end, however, the general course of events after that went well. The flanking movement to a better attack by fire goes as planned, and there is no need to close with and sweep the enemy tank position. The Squadron was therefore able to reform and quickly sweep directly towards the supply area. The VEC-M1s, despite a fatal brush with an ATGM position, are able to keep enemy infantry ambushes and roving technicals away from my soft-skinned Centauros for the most part. 

I am awarded a victory, almost certainly losing points due to excessive casualties. I have no doubt this mission can be done without loss, and so accept the strict scoring thresholds. 

So, what would I have done differently? Two big things stand out in my mind:

First, I think I would've gotten some dismounts on the ridge, and tried to get observation from there after a sweep; which would've probably allowed the VEC-M1s to move without threat from ATGMs that were not particularly well hidden from infantry observation. 

Secondly, and more importantly, I would've forgone the use of the ridge as a support by fire entirely. It was a pretty steep position and I should've realised getting a hull down would not have been possible. The use of obscuring smoke and precision fires would've been all the support needed to conduct the flanking attack. Which, of course, would've been done by the entire tank troop, rather than just a section. 

I gave this scenario top marks, and if you think you'll enjoy it as much as me, pick it up here: Operation Spearhead (4.265) - Company - Steelbeasts.com. 

Final Thoughts

Now, in my review of his scenario I assumed Ben had a point to make here. I think, with some time having passed, that I was simply putting words in his mouth, unfairly. That this tactical problem has a particular solution is a fairer thing to say, and probably the only thing he had in mind as a mission maker. 

I certainly think this scenario has a point to make, as my introduction to this post clearly suggests. I'm not entirely sure it's made it. That precision fires work on high value assets isn't exactly a take that is going to get me a job offer at RAND. There will never not be high value targets in a peer or near-peer conflict, naturally, but our growing reliance on force multipliers like this throughout the battle zone, including in the immediate tactical space, suggests we think two things: firstly, that we will have the munitions in sufficient number to attrit the enemy enough to paralyze them, and second that the enemy will be paralyzed by the loss of high technology fighting platforms. I am simply not convinced on either of these points as of yet. While I'm sure the average Russian tactical leader would love to have T90s and BMP-3s, they have shown a remarkable willingness to grind forward with fighting platforms outdated by two generations (or more!), or with none at all, and the pessimistic view of things is: it's bloody working. 

Thank you, as always, for stopping by to read.