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Company Challenge: Forward Security Element is out for Patrons! (Patreon)

Published:
2025-09-26 07:46:33
Imported:
2026-06
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Hot on the heels of the BAOR release! This was... a little disappointing actually. The artillery did most of the work. Obviously that's artillery's job, so mission accomplished, but it wasn't exactly a challenge. So no more artillery I think...

But that's okay because now we can jam the Brits and Canadians into the grinder!

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Ben Kerry

Can’t wait to see the Brits in action! Also the VDV

Ray L

Loved this Company Challenge AAR. In direct contrast to the previous Soviet run, this one illustrated the efficacy of textbook Soviet FSE doctrine. Pre-planned arty and using troops en masse on a single axis of attack proved very, very effective, both annihilating the enemy and minimizing friendly casualties.

Ray L

Insightful, Hap, about the exhausting of the FSE’s arty ammo. Even though the FSE’s armor and troop components are good to go for continued advance, the artillery is indeed neutered until they get resupply. Resupply is NOT the forte of the Soviet army and forward elements are expected to carry the fuel and ammo they need with them. In this scenario, I expect the FSE commander would just push on without arty support, given that his own fuel, ammo, and troop condition is A-OK. The next American blocking position will be a harder nut to crack with no arty support, but no way the FSE commander is going to be able justify asking for his unit to be relieved by pass-through forces (meaning a new FSE formed from the MRB main body following).

Ray L

Albeit it is “off map”, this Company Challenge also illustrates two key parts of 1980’s NATO defensive doctrine: 1) the importance of attacking Soviet follow-on forces with air and artillery. Let’s not let any trucks carrying ammo get through to resupply that FSE artillery. 2) Delay, delay, delay. The American blocking position STOPPED the rapid forward march of the FSE and forced it to deploy to conduct a deliberate attack (even to the extent of waiting for its artillery to deploy from march and plan fire missions). How many hours did that buy? Not only do deliberate attacks delay the attacker, they also quickly consume the forward elements’ limited carried stocks of fuel and ammo. Without resupply, the advancing units wind up stopping on their own accord.

Ray L

LASTLY, A RANT: Ever since taking over CM, Matrix is no longer issuing MacOS versions of CM, and the PC versions are not Parallels compliant. That means I can’t use the BAOR module on my MacBook M4 … my traveling game machine. It is relegated to my desktop PC at home along with DCS. Humbug.

UsuallyHaplessVideos

Yep. Makes sense for the FSE to carry on- the regimental cmdr will bring some fresh batteries up

GLG

Artillery: King of the Battlefield. Soviets were not big on tactical finesse by design, choosing to put their emphasis higher up the chain of command. Instead, they kept things simplistic in a straightforward manner, but with as much intel/recon(razvedka) they could muster prior to the mission. The less they knew the more artillery they used, it would seem. Having said that I have to say seeing 122mm arty was surprising. I'm not saying it was wrong or anything, just surprising. 120mm mortars was standard. I may be influenced from WW2 war experience and practice, when a forward security element or forward detachment very likely would have had any of 82mm mortars, 120mm mortars and/or 82mm rockets. The problem was how centralized Soviet fire direction elements were from 1941 on. Most of it quickly became STAVKA assets. This is why larger barrages were planned, or more 'tactical' applications with smaller calibers of mortars were used. Or rockets. 82mm rockets were more like 'point and launch' from trucks, and ended up the 'heavy' Soviet artillery for most dynamic tactical applications. But there is that spread you get from rockets, so pre-planned barrages at the start are likely the optimal application unless significant friendly casualties are acceptable. But, generally, how this scenario played out is Soviet doctrine. It doesn't look pretty at the small tactics level, but most of the Art of War stuff the Soviets focused on was from the diverse and comprehensive planning by staff in preparation for an operation.

GLG

Incidentally, regarding 82mm rocket spread, here's some numbers I pulled up from Google on that. 82mm rocket spread: @1km: 16m @3km: 48m @6km: 100m It would seem the type of rocket barrages I see from CMRT for 82mm rockets tend to indicate they are being launched from a maximum distance of 6km. It might make more sense to have had it at the midway 3km mark. This is admittedly a conjecture from gaming with battalion-regimental level formations and 1km hexes used. 1km launch distance might be too close for security reasons and only done because no other option was available.

GLG

If the FSE commander decided to conduct a deliberate attack, then yes those artillery assets get used as was the case in the company challenge. Realistically, the decision of how to deal with an 'obstacle' was more nuanced. Speed was of the essence for Soviet exploitation, so depending on alternate routes or assessment of the the enemy force presenting the obstacle, the position could be bypassed or attacked hastily. Soviet armor/infantry would have dealt with the US position adequately, I believe, especially given how it was defeated with organic Soviet infantry in a challenge previously.

GLG

Regarding a deliberate attack, this is very true. If the Soviet forward elements feel a deliberate attack is necessary, it's either because no other route is possible for advancement and/or the enemy position cannot be ignored and passed on. Either situation can cause significant delay for exploitation. And, yes, delay actions are a far better option for an outnumbered NATO force. At least so long as a desant group didn't drop on your line of communication/supply rearward!

GLG

The switch to Slitherine's page for my CM games has been unintuitive. Just this week I reinstalled Battle for Normandy and it took awhile as I matched S/N's to orders to figure out what packs and whatnot I had for the game. I'm glad the orders are still listed at the Battlefront site which allowed me to make sense of the choices for install.