Re: RE: [GZG] [brushfire] Final Summary [long] [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

On 10/9/06, laserlight@verizon.net <laserlight@verizon.net> wrote:
> >Laserlight surprised me a bit by deploying so many forces away from
> >his base of operations.  As soon as John got through them, there was
little left to stop his armoured forces.
>
> I still had a line platoon plus HQ in my Kimpo. But I figured if my
job was to hold Kimpo, then it would be prudent to arrange for the
fighting to happen somewhere else. (If you're going to shoot up a town,
would you rather it be the one you're keeping, or the one the enemy is
keeping?)

If I had enough of a force mixture to actually have maneuver options,
you'd have been screwed badly.

A second scout platoon would have been enough to permit me to screen
Quetz and drive straight for Kimpo.  GIven that I didn't have enough
forces, you won as soon as I got into a fight.	My second armor
platoon would have allowed me to lead off two up (and they'd be mixed
platoons, with two tanks and two IFVs) and an armor-pure platoon in
reserve.

Here's my reasoning:

I figured (based on the intel I got) that Quetz was pretty much
unoccupied and neutral to friendly.  So I could quickly secure it, and
keep back a reserve.

Wrong on four counts in those two sentences.  On the other hand,
knowing what I know now, I don't see any other way to play it.	I did
not have a platoon I could detach to screen Quetz, so I would have
basically have had to ignore it completely, which would put my
headquarters, mortars, and service elements at risk from your troops
any time they felt like fighting.  I'd have been surrounded and
fighting blind.

Another option would have been to move out and avoid the town
entirely, moving north and taking Kimpo from the West or Northwest.
Oh, wait.  There's a ravine 70+ km long which is impassable to
vehicles and cannot be bypassed due to unit boundaries.

Given that I was required to move through one particular chokepoint,
in order to do that with a modicum of safety I couldn't leave behind
any substantial force in Quetz.  Once it turned out that force was not
only substantial, but capable of wiping out one of my two maneuver
platoons (compared to your six--I can't afford to lose any of them and
still stay in the fight) I had to commit my reserve in order to simply
stabilize the immediate situation.

Once I committed my reserve and continued to take heavy casualties,
the game was over.  It's not a game if you have no viable options, and
I didn't.

> >1.  Active Satellite recon showing exactly where Hudak troops were
moving;
>
> Can't ask for anything better than that...

Of course, that wasn't what I was told the sat would provide, which
was only the location of moving vehicles.  I was tracking your
vehicles were pretty much gone except for your two AFVs, and if you
didn't have them dug in and camoflaged you were a lot stupider than
you had been up to that point.

> >There was always the random factor; including Hudak was laying ambush
sections of 30-40 round metal plates on chokepoint road sections and
other sneaky infantry tricks.
>
> And encouraging the locals to take pot shots at the Arrows.

That would have been DUMB.  No one shoots at tanks with hunting
weapons and has a nice day.

John
-- 
"Thousands of Sarmatians, Thousands of Franks, we've slain them again
and again.  We're looking for thousands of Persians."
--Vita Aureliani
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