How does an army protect a city/town?

[Michael Lewis]

How does a modern army in Tw. 2000 protect/defend a town? I assume they have people watching the road with radios and maybe roadblocks. Patrols with radios. Other than that, not having been in the military, I have no idea.

[Cdnwolf]

Watch the series Jericho. Have roving patrols of "Rangers". Set up choke points.

[Legbreaker]

It's a complex question really, but the short answer is by force projection - sending units out into the surrounding countryside and dominating that so that an enemy can't get close, or at least can't get close without being detected at which time a suitable response can be sent by the unit commander.

If an enemy gets to within firing distance of the town, the defenders have failed to "protect" it and from then on can only use it as a defensive position (and hopefully drive the attackers away). Damage to the town and it's inhabitants is at that point virtually unavoidable.

[rcaf_777]

There are few good example that I recall

The Defense of Moscow from the Germans
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Siege of Bastogne
Burning of Washington in 1814 - what not to do
Modern Day FOB's in Afghanstian and Iraq

You basicly will have a few options

1. Physical barriers, Road Blocks, Anti Tank Ditches, Bunkers, Watch Towers, walls, trenches and sharp sticks.

2. Mines and Weapon System, Mines are great to proctect a city and cheap and easy to make, also having weapon systems (AT weapons, MG) in place around possible attack points too - think about medieval castles, also modern armies will have artillery too which also be placed a key to provide support to any defence

3. Patrols, patrols are conduct in two area one, close to the city around the walls defensive line ect, and way from the city to provide advance warning of an attack.

5. Obervation - Military units will typically have a obervation posts placed out, they are away from the defensive line to provide warning of an attack

6. Mobile Reserve - This a group of soliders of platoon up too a battlion size which would located right in the city, thier job would be to quickly reinforce a section of the city which comes under attack.

Hope this helps

[Sanjuro]

Sometimes the only way an army can defend a town is to leave it alone; pull all the defenders away and declare it an open city. Very risky, but there have been examples where this has been the safest option for the citizens.

[DocSavage45B10]

Patrols, and more patrols. Static defenses will help you hold the town, protecting it and preserving it as a productive asset requires a commander to make an active defense in depth. You set up firebases and LP/OPs on key commanding terrain that covers the available avenues of approach, and patrol those same routes.

This works to deter or destroy opposing forces that have parity or less. If the attackers have superior numbers or the motivation to take losses, you are forced to either give battle in the open hoping to drive off his forces, or fall back on your prepared defenses which yields him the initiative and risks exposing the town to damage in the fighting to come.

[Matt Wiser]

Wasn't there a post on an older board where town/village defenses were rated? IIRC on a scale of 0-8, with 0 being the weakest possible, and 8 being the toughest nuts to try and crack, with the advice given "Don't even try."

[Webstral]

Strategy and tactics depend on the terrain, the manpower and other assets available for defense, the enemy, and several other factors. The ideal defense is force projection, in which the fight is taken to the enemy. Provided the force projection involved is more of a raid than a conquest, we might call this active defense. When active defense isn’t practical, aggressive patrolling (as mentioned frequently above) is the next thing. Aggressive patrolling helps defenders identify enemy units away from the municipality being defended and ideally provides the information necessary to formulate an effective counteraction/reaction based on the available resources. We might call this a reactive defense, in which the enemy makes the first move but the defenders respond aggressively. Finally, a passive defense is one in which the defenders pretty much hunker down behind obstacles and other defensive works and wait for the enemy to enter their fields of fire.

In the real world, these methods overlap each other in space and time. For instance, a municipality with a very strong defense force might send a strong detachment outside the zone of control claimed by the defense force to raid a marauder stronghold (which might have been discovered purely by patrolling or by following up on a lead provided by intelligence gathering). The remaining elements of the defense force might assume a passive defensive posture until the return of the strike force.

Passive defense is the easiest way to defend a municipality in that it requires the fewest troops and lowest level of skill compared to reactive defense and active defense. By constructing fortifications, obstacles, and clear fields of fire the defense force of a municipality can turn labor into combat power. The defenders need to know how to shoot, but they don’t necessarily need to know how to patrol or mount and attack. The extent of passive defenses depends on how much labor the municipality is willing to commit to constructive defensive works over how much time, modified by the manpower under arms and what kind of weapons the troops have. Leadership is an important combat multiplier, but I’m going to leave that one out for the moment.

One advantage of a passive defense is that the defenders can make good use of raw troops. A new recruit in an earth-and-log bunker with a hunting rifle and a couple of companions can give a decent accounting of himself. If he can shoot straight, that’s even better. The chief drawback is that passive defense leaves the initiative to the enemy. Static defenses can be camouflaged, and frequent changes of location of important pieces of equipment can help confuse the enemy about some of the particulars of the defensive works; however, in the long run an enemy who is free to observe passive defenses and attack on his own terms probably will figure out how to penetrate the defenses.

Static defenses comprise a few types of structures. In combat engineering terms, these structures fall into the categories of counter-mobility and survivability. Counter-mobility structures are meant to constrain the enemy’s movement. There are several types of counter-mobility structures. I won’t go into the specifics other than to mention that when designing defensive works the engineers basically focus on either completely blocking the enemy’s movement (harder than you’d think) or getting him to try going around the obstacle. Ideally, by looking for a gap in your obstacles, the enemy moves into a deliberately prepared killing zone into which the defenders pour their fire. The combat arms call this a kill sack. You want the enemy to go into your kill sacks, not the other way around. Counter-mobility works include wire obstacles, ditches, minefields, walls, abatis (trees felled on the road), and others. Where possible, a shrewd combat engineer ties his counter-mobility works in with natural obstacles, such as water and steep gradients.

Survivability structures are places where troops and equipment can be sheltered from enemy fire. Survivability structures can be oriented towards protection, such as headquarters shelters, or combat, such as trenches and bunkers. Often, survivability structures are at least partially underground. Ideally, they are camouflaged. Fighting structures must combine protection against enemy fire with wide and clear fields of fire for the troops inside the fighting structure. A headquarters structure does not require clear fields of fire, though the commander might want one or more observation posts that might look like a bunker.

Counter-mobility and survivability works are complimentary. All counter-mobility structures should be covered by fire so that the enemy’s engineers don’t cut holes in the wire, clear the mines, fill the ditches, etc. In Twilight: 2000, marauders will develop engineer teams as counter-mobility defenses become more widespread. So if the defenders construct a set of wire obstacles surrounding their municipality, the entire perimeter should be a) under observation at all times and b) covered by fire from a fortified firing position. Depending on the length of the perimeter, this can mean a lot of manpower. The fields of fire from bunkers typically are overlapped so that one bunker can defend a significant length of the perimeter. How much depends on the effective range of the weapons of the defender, how much manpower is available, and so on.

Observation is also very important. You don’t want the enemy getting close to your perimeter before you can take him under fire. The simplest means of conducting observation is to get a guy with binoculars someplace high. You want to eliminate places where the enemy can move unobserved (or worse, under cover) as far out as possible—but out to the maximum effective range of the weapons in bunkers along your perimeter at the very least. This means cutting down all the trees 300-500 meters from the bunkers your troops will occupy to defend the municipality.

At the very least, every municipality should have passive defensive works that combine counter-mobility and survivability works. Defenses should be tied in with water, like a river or a lake, wherever possible. The entire perimeter should be under observation at all times. Fighting positions for two-man teams or larger should be placed so that the entire perimeter can be covered by fire.

Everything I’ve written is couched in general principle. I’ll leave it to one of my compatriots to talk about patrolling and raiding.

[Rainbow Six]

Originally Posted by Matt Wiser

Wasn't there a post on an older board where town/village defenses were rated? IIRC on a scale of 0-8, with 0 being the weakest possible, and 8 being the toughest nuts to try and crack, with the advice given "Don't even try."

There was a discussion on Loonz's site a while ago

http://loonz.freeservers.com/t2k/comvildef.htm

[Michael Lewis]

Thanks,

That info helps. The info about the active defenses was an eye-opener. It makes a lot of sense that if you know what's coming, you can nip it in the bud.

Patrols. How many in one? How far do they usually go out?

What about radio communication? Would all patrols have one?

[Legbreaker]

How long is a piece of string?

How many in a patrol, how many patrols, and distance all depends on the available number of soldiers/militia and what transport they've got available. As a rule of thumb, soldiers on foot can manage about 5 kilometres per hour on average without moving too fast to miss anything.

Exact makeup, frequency, communications methods and just about anything else you can think of will vary from situation to situation, but the more patrols, the stronger they are, and the greater area covered the better the overall defence.

[rcaf_777]

Look the ORMO organization amd make in the Free City of Krakow mod, I don't they go into too much detail about the ops but is a start

[Graebarde]

Originally Posted by Rainbow Six

There was a discussion on Loonz's site a while ago

http://loonz.freeservers.com/t2k/comvildef.htm

A WHILE ago it was too.. 2000, 12 years ago by the OLD Twilighters too.
Still good viable information.