Tactics 101

[kcdusk]

Anyone got another tactics scenario to run past the group?, similar to chicos from a month or so ago.

[chico20854]

I'll try to whip another one together in the next few days.

[pmulcahy11b]

Don't forget the first rule of tactics: No plan survives first contact.

Always have multiple backup plans!

[kcdusk]

Looking forward to the new plan and discussion.

Anyone should feel free to put a situation up at any time, not just chico.

[chico20854]

Ok, a continuation of the previous situation.

You have now eliminated the marauder band that was subjugating the town of Jaslo, Poland. The town elders have requested that you spend the next month organizing and training the town's militia to prevent further marauder incursions. They realize that they will not be able to resist an organized military unit over a platoon or so in size, so the militia does not need to be capable of sustained, high-intensity operations, but should be able to hold off a force of 100 or less hostiles with up to five tanks/AFVs. Lately there have been a fair number of Soviet deserters heading east through the area.

Images related to this thread are located at http://s135.photobucket.com/albums/q158/chico20854/tactical2/ . That location includes a topo map of the area, which will be helpful to refer to. If you want to try another mapping program, the town is at about 49.74 ° N, 21.45 ° E. http://mapa.szukacz.pl/ has good details of the town.

The town's population is now down to 2500, of which 450 are of age and health to bear arms. 30 are local boys who have deserted from the Polish military - half were combat arms troops (veteran skill level) and half were support, air defense or air force troops (experienced). Those 30 are available for full-time service. The remaining 420 men are usually available for one day a week - 60 a day, with the full force available within 15 minutes of receipt of an alarm. Many have served in the Polish military in decades past, but age and time have dimmed their skills but not their motivation. They, however, are now at novice skill level. There are no men who served in any rank above lieutenant, and the highest ranking deserter was a squad leader.

Equipment is sparse. The town was on the front line at the beginning of the tactical nuclear exchange, never occupied by NATO troops. The counterattacking Pact forces stripped the town clean of any damaged vehicles or supply stockpiles that were built up during the conventional phase of the war - in fact the only remnant of the front-line status is a minefield (a 1:1 mix of AP & AT mines), which runs between the two rivers/streams that enter the NW and West sides of the topo map, 500m east of the map edge. (Each grid square is 1km on a side). There was a battery of ZU-23-2s stationed north of town (on a promontory marked with a red cross on the map) that was cluster-bombed; locals who went to investigate the conditions of the guns reported numerous unexploded bomblets in the area and turned back. (It is likely that one of the guns could be brought into service if the others were cannibalized and the area made safe).

The deserters arrived with a single MT-LB APC and there are approximately 25 still operable civilian cars in town. The most common form of transport is either bicycle or farm wagon/cart (see picture). All horses capable of serving as mounts for cavalry were requisitioned long ago.

The deserters brought with them two PKMs, a MAG and a DSHK. They also have two RPGs and all have AKMs, 3 with BG-15 GLs. About half of the remaining militia members have acquired small arms, mostly Mausers, Mosin-Nagants or civilian hunting weapons. There are also ten AK-74s, two more PKMs and a few pistols and grenades available if your plan for assaulting the school did not involve destroying/burning the building.

The town itself consists mostly of 2 story houses and commercial-type buildings. There are also three medium-large churches, a large town square, 6-8 communist large concrete apartment blocks (pretty much the same from Magdeburg to Vladivostok) and two industrial sites of importance - a bombed out munitions factory east of town (the complex north of the word Hankowka on the map) and a small oil refinery (!) that is inoperable due to lack of power, spare parts and crude oil, located Southwest of town (marked Rafineria on the map). The town council meets in the town hall on the north side of the town square; the town's food reserves are located in the basement of the church on the east side of the town square. The main road leading north out of town links up with the main highway east from Krakow near the ruins of Tarnow (where NATO nuked the 128th MRD in 1997).

Ammo reserves and communications gear beyond salvaged telephone equipment are nonexistent. Fuel reserves are also pretty low - the town decided that stockpiling food was a better approach than distilling it.

What ideas do you have for how to defend the town? What questions do you have for the town elders? (I've been there a few times, dated a girl from there a few years back).

Also, a quick request... for you infantry veterans out there could you wait a few days to allow people to post their ideas before putting in the textbook answer?

[chico20854]

Some additional information in response to a query:

The remainder of the town's population consists (roughly) of:

600 women between 15-55.
1000 children under 15
450 people over 55 years of age.

There is no earth moving equipment in town other than 6 working agricultural tractors.

The area around the town is mainly mixed agricultural. Before the war many families in the outlying areas of town (such as Kowalowy, north of the center of town) were self-sufficient for food except for flour/grain. With the war people are hungrier but not starving.

[pmulcahy11b]

Also, a quick request... for you infantry veterans out there could you wait a few days to allow people to post their ideas before putting in the textbook answer?

Oh! Oh! I know, I know!...never mind. :D

[jester]

First:

Organize the townspeople and forces available.

As the saying goes, everyone who can carry a rifle is to carry one.

Break the people available into the following groups:

Combatives: Every man and woman who is between 16 and 65 and phsyicaly able. Break them into units. The regulars will remain the core of the defense force for the moment.

Those who had prior military training will have to spend more than 1 day a week. Incorporate some form of training EVERYDAY!!! I would suggest class room training to relearn skills and tactics lost, and some form of active training, fireteam rushes, bayonet assaults an obstacle course or something similiar. And of course a debreif at the end.

And then we form squads, teams and sections and areas of responsibility or zones within the defensive perimeter of the town. With the more recent and able personel forming either a reaction force to reinforce areas and a manuver force to attack any attackers from their flanks and rear. We also form a scouting or patrol platoon, sending out teams of scouts to see who is going and comming so the town has some advance warning. You could also make an ambush platoon, teams of men whose missing is to harass and delay the enemy by ambushing them as they advance on the town thus they preform economy of forces operations. And also this manuver or ambush platoon can persue the enemy as they withdraw and idealing attacking key vehicles, weapons and personel as the enemy advances and withdraws from the town. I am talking basic guerilla tactics a team of four men or so openign up an ambush, mechanical, automatic weapons, explosive or even a pile of rocks or logs set to roll down on the enemy. The purpose is to delay the enemy, block the aproach, force them to stop and deploy and persue the ambushers who will fire or attack and then they will withdraw, manuvering to hit them further down the road or from another flank or rear.

The way to the ZSUs will be cleared, but only a path, not completely. The system will be repaired. A battery, are we talking 1 system or a "BATTERY" meaning multiple systems? Those will be brought online. And if parts can be fabricated in town they will be to repair and bring as many on line as possible. They will then be placed in preplanned hardened positions covering the likely aproach, along with at least two alternate positons. And fabricated carriages will be made so that they can be wheeled into position and brought into battery as fast as possible. <I am thinking taking one or two of the multi gunned systems apart and doing that with the guns> 1 system can be mounted on a flatbed truck and given armored sides. This will be the mobile system going with the flying unit to beef up the perimeter that is under attack or needing reinforcement.

Adding several dummy mine fields. It may work. At least it will delay the enemy or give them pause. Troops don't like to go into mined areas and they often are a bit more cautious. Toss in some burried metal boxes or simething similiar so if the enemy gets engineers up they will find something.

Snipers,

The best hunters and shots with the better rifles and better skills will have freedom to sudy their areas of operation, the same will go for the members of the defense forces of that sector, thus they get a lay of the land, dead zones, cover, concealment and fields of fire and ranges. And also to clear lanes of fire. Snipers will also get freedom to set up hides and even high perches from the hill where the ZSU was and the roofs of buildings and church steeples and such.

Further, EVERYONE in the town will be put to work. The following improvments will be done:

Open fields will be prepared
Punji sticks will be places and hidden, a poor man mine field.
Fences will be prepared. A low fence of knee high will force someone to break stride as well as vault over them, exposing themselves and again slowing them down, it will also break them up so they are not online, and it will force some to hunker down, again breaking up the line of the advance and making comand and control and consolidation harder.

Anti Tank Ditches
Tank Traps, hiddden
A ditch will be dug across the road and a wooden bridge built. One strong enough for the towns vehicles, wagons etc, but not strong enough to support tanks or other armored vehicles.
Logs and Boulders places to be rolled down from high places on the road
Telephone poles and trees rigged to fall or be blown blocking the road


The munitions factory will be salvaged and brought online even on a small scale it will be a benefit.

Camoflauge will be made of all key positions, tactical and infrastructure.

A ruble wall built around the town and a second ruble wall as well to protect the town from observation and from direct fire. And the key buildings of the town as well to protect them as best as possible.

Also,

Feilds will be cleared for farming, parks will be planted and each house will have the following:
gardens front and backyard
Window sill planters
Rooftop gardens for buildings with flat roofs

Also, all other roofs and buildings in the community will have gardens in the front and back and roofs.

The gardening can be done by the young, the elderly and those who are not able to remove ruble, dig defensive fortifications or fight directly. And lots of root crops as they last the longest in a root cellar. Other things like peas and beans are high yeild and easily preserved and prepared. Grain can be grown in other areas although I would go with corn as it is primative and again high yeild and it can be grown anywhere, a few stalks is enough to make a meal for a family <in T2K times at least>

Other things to be done by those who are non combatants:
Chickens and Ducks raised
Rabbits
Farming carp or catfish from ponds adjacent to the river

Thus the town can have a supply of meat as well.

The road to town will be changed. Include dips and speed bumps for any vehicles that aproach they will have to slow and will have their top or bottom exposed to fire. A berm of sorts would be good around the town, more of a circular berm but not so steep that it can't be planted with grain thus it will be hidden and a vehicle will hit it without slowing down possibly damaging it, but also again exposing it to fire in its more vulnerable spots. And if you have several smaller rings like that again not high enough to make it impossible to farm. But enough to cause a vehicle to suffer damage or get rattled if they hit it at speed. Also, a few rocks here and there in a cultivated field so troops running or vehicles speeding hit them and do damage. And when the field is harvested, its done by hand so there is no fear of damaging your equipment. And if the townsfolks want to use vehicles to harvest, they know where these obstables are so they can avoid them and not damage their own gear.

Further, change the road. Make it a zig zag and make it sunken with one side dug lower than the other at the turns so any vehicle must go at a slow speed or risk tipping. Sunken denies them manuverability and then the last 200m of road is dip and speed bumps but a straight shot again forcing a slow speed but also making it a kill zone.

Start the manufacture of Blackpowder! And this can be used for comand detonated mines or improvised claymores. these can be placed in key positions, like dead spaces and likely avenues of aproach. And of course heavier charges where armor is likey to come through.

I would also train an anti tank force. Satchel charges on a pole <using the blackpowder mentioned> And ones on cord between two points to adjust the charge so it gets under the tank when you blow it.

Back to the personel:

Have a couple of trench networks with multiple firing points. So, no man fires from the same position twice. This will disguise your numbers and not give the attackers a place to zero in on.

Also, form civil defense tasks should they get bombed by mortars or even WP.

Set up a clinic in a bunker. And have multiple bunkers for non combatants.

Establish a system of comand and control, horns, whistles, sirens, bells are the ones I would go with.

Establish an SOP of action, to go with the above signals.

Establish SOP in equipment. Having people with the same caliber weapon in sector A or B makes it easier for universality. Establish a basic kit, weapon, 60 rounds, knife/bayonet or hatchet, e-tool or pick, canteen, blanket, forage bag or pack and coat, and helmet if you have it. Also a basic uniform, a CAP and jacket or blouse.

Have some basic supplies at each sectors forward area, I am talking, water supply, medical gear, flashlights, stretcher and shovels to repair positions.

Manufacture weapons: Pikes from a pole and a metal tip, simple.
Crossbows from a wooden stock and car leafsprings

Manufacture Tools: For use and trade, axes, picks and shovels, maybe a horse drawn plow.

Those able bodied personel who do not have weapons for defense will be put to work as damage control, putting out fires, repairing damaged fortifications, rescuing persons in burning or damaged buildings, observing via binoculars, telescopes or whatever else is available. And acting as stretcher bearers and delivering ammo. They will be used as reinforcements when casualties mount and firearms become available.

For the town:

Store a supple of wood or other fuel for winter and a siege.
Store Water everywhere! Potable water, as well as water for firefighting should the enemy want to go into a siege, or the water upriver become contaminated.

All of this can be done in addition to regular work, which I am guessing will be related to food and fuel production. But it is doable, they will just put in some long days is all. The townsfolk can be broken into groups and the tasks broken into what is most important.

Fortifications will be constant!
Food will be constant
And thus teams will be doing those as their sole task.

Defenses will be constant again a team doing this, but some projects will take longer than others. Go local first, the dead spaces, and the fortified area where the ZSU's will be are imediate.

Training is constant.

Patrols is also constant these personel will be dedicated to it. As they will be the towns first line of defense and giving them some advance warning.

Blackpowder manufacture again constant but specialized thus a small group will do this.

Weapons manufacture, same as above.

Surplus personel who will be the ones who will prepare the gardens on free spaces in the town. Prepping the rings, ditches and rocks in the outer perimeter of the town will be first. Then, they will go to work cultivating the fields. Corn, potatoes, peas and beans and oh yeah, cabbage.

Some smaller groups will go to work making the tank traps and anti tank ditches, and modifing the road and making a wooden bridge.

I would also include towers around the towns fields for observing the area as well as the fields for vermin. Further, the kids of the town can roam the fields or areas between the fields with slingshots or crossbows to deal with whatever may threaten the crops. And let loose fowl that specificaly eat bugs so you can eat the fowl and reduce insect damage to your crops.

Figure about 1000 people of fighting ability who will do the most work.

then the elderly and children who can still plant, remove ruble and some can use a shovel. So, I am figuring about 2000 people who can do work of one kind or another. That is one heck of a labor force, and I think that would get alot of the things done in short order. All of the home and public gardens could be done in a day easily. A couple days and the trenches and bunkers would be built. A couple days to have the field cleared. And then we break into the munitions factory and the multiple projects of anti tank trenches and ditches, these will take about a week or two. And these can be done over time, same for the road making it zig,zag and sunken, and the circular mount around each field is a longer task but can be done as the field is preper for planting.

Anyhow, that is my idea of defending the town as well as improving the lot of the people. And they all revolve around defense and food.

[kcdusk]

.... what he said!

I like the idea of "fake" minefields.

Keep SOP simple. I wouldnt even tell them "this is a SOP". Instead i would use everyday non-military language. "When we get attacked, you go to the bakery and shoot from the 2nd floor window" for example.

[jester]

.... what he said!

I like the idea of "fake" minefields.

Keep SOP simple. I wouldnt even tell them "this is a SOP". Instead i would use everyday non-military language. "When we get attacked, you go to the bakery and shoot from the 2nd floor window" for example.


Of course you keep it simple. Keep it within the realm of the people you are dealing with, education/intelligence wise as well as culturaly.

And like I said fake minefields. Either just a sign, or a sign with some metal boxes with dummy mines for metal detectors and mine probes to find. You want to move at a snails pace, talk about indavidual troops probing their way through a minefield.

Or, if you scouts have found an enemy observation post, let them see your people burring mines. The scouts report back, they have placed mines at location X. Which means they will either have to clear it, or they will bypass that sector.

Another ruse could be labeling the town as one that is under the plague. Who would want to go there?


As for splitting the type of tasks. All military related tasks will cause the people to wonder and worry. If you mix in tasks that will bring industry back and fill their bellies then it will directly benefit them and they will be more likely to help with less bitching and shirking. It will give them positive motivation. And if you include everyone, then it will also help build the community and its sense of unity.

As for the munitions factory, well it is not hard to salvage machinetools, they are pretty hard to destroy really. So it is not automated but still its equipment could be put into production on a limited scale which would help.

And blackpowder is easily manufactured. And as stated you could use it to make mines, claymores and grenades if you want to be that bold. Further, a factory, blackpowder, you could build a mortar and recoiless rifle or a muzzle loading cannon, imagine a dozen swivel guns like those used on sailing ships. A section of reinforced pipe with turned into a swivel gun atop some buildings, or in some of the strong points and along the sunken road. And have them loaded with shot, it would eliminate most soft targets in their path.

On the plus side, much of the work is unskilled but also, the major tasks are really one time intense labor operations and then it is simple maintenance. The skilled tasks are require much less labor which is another plus so you ultimately will have a large population with little work to do, of course then you can expand to other tasks like rebuilding sewer systems, buildings, other industries and even better defenses, or have more people dedicated to a defense force.

Another task that would be a multibenifial project would be a MOAT/IRRIGATION CANAL/AQUACULTURE project. Dig a trench and fill it with water all the way around the area, you now have a barier and deterent. A system of irrigation for your fields, and a place to grow carp and rice to supliment your food supply.

The trench provides a barrier, plus you would need the bridge which would be build specificaly not to support any armored vehicle and it can be taken up easy enough. So, the attackers would then be forced to not use vehicles and the support weapons and armor they afford, plus they would be reduced to only what they can carry.

And of course add some pit traps and punji stakes in the moat again to reduce the number of attackers and make them nervous about any more they make.

OOOOOH!!!!

Catapults and balista! A bucket full of fist sized rocks can cause some injuries, and a large arrow with pitch or a blackpowder charge could also cause some hate and discontent among an attacker as well. Poor mans artillery but it would work against someone with limited heavy weapons.