Well, that was a slog. Always more to talk about when things go badly! This one comes out to about 5800 words, which translates to about 30 minutes of video.

I've just finished the voice over audio side, so just the footage left to get... it's not going to be ready tommorrow though.

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Platoon Patrol 04 Syrian Mechanised (BMP)

Welcome back to Combat Mission Shock Force 2 for the 4th instalment of the Platoon Patrol series. This time we’re taking some Syrian Mechanised infantry out in BMP-1Ps. As platoons go, this is definitely on the more limited side. Whether or not Soviet-style Motor Rifle platoons like this are supposed to even operate independently is a serious question compounded by some highly vulnerable vehicles and relatively limited firepower.

Starting Position

In our Platoon Patrol scenario they’re up against a reinforced squad of US Marines who are defending one of five locations. I rolled up Entry Point 1 this time, so we’re starting off where the highway leaves the map on the north edge.

This takes us into an area we haven’t visited before. Up here in this corner, we’ve got some rolling high ground broken up by woods and separated from the more agricultural areas on the right by a deep stream valley. As long as we stick to the left, we’ll have plenty of room to manoeuvre and some long fields of fire.

Most conspicuously though, Entry Point 1 is overlooked by Objective Bravo. This is the only potentially defended location that isn’t a farm of some description, it’s a wooded hilltop, and because it’s only 500m away any of the Marine SMAW teams on this side of the slope could easily start popping off rockets in my direction.

So the first order of business is to push the entire platoon left into some dead ground, kick out a squad and send them forward to try and get eyes on Bravo.

Bravo to Charlie

After a few turns eyeballing Bravo from afar, there are no visible targets on the facing slope. Remounting and closing the distance with the entire platoon via some patches of dead ground draws no fire, a scout team from 2nd Squad moves into the woods and touches the objective to confirm that Bravo is in fact clear of the enemy.

The rest of 2nd joins the scouts on the summit to give the squad leader a few turns worth of observation with his binos, but again they get no spots.

From here, I have access to Alpha, Charlie and Echo. Alpha is a fair way away on the other side of the stream with plenty of dense terrain directly in the way of the platoon, so I’m not inclined to go in that direction right now. Charlie is also on the other bank, but it’s much more accessible being right alongside the north-south highway. That same highway leads straight to Echo.

I don’t particularly want to use the highway to advance though. It’s not only pretty obvious, but takes me right into the middle of some woods near Charlie that may be occupied, and the approach to Echo is pretty open and exposed.

There is a track that runs around the base of Bravo towards Echo though. This would conveniently take me very close to Charlie so I decide to use that to move up. There’s some rough terrain on the direct approaches to both objectives, including a small stream- the track bypasses that via a bridge in an area which is pretty well masked from either objective.

The immediate plan then is to cross the bridge, probe Charlie via the woods next to the highway and if that objective is clear move on towards Echo.

Contact!

The platoon moves forward without any problems and spreads out on the far side of the bridge. There’s been no fire from the Charlie woods, which is a good sign, so I leave 1st and 2nd in position in the little bridgehead and send 3rd forward via more dead ground to investigate. The squad dismounts and heads around the left side of the woods to get a better view on the Charlie compound.

This is pretty risky- it’s not impossible that I might stumble on the enemy at close range here and have a bad day. There isn’t really a good way around that problem when approaching from this angle due to the terrain, but I’ve split a two man scout team off from 3rd to lead the way and hopefully trigger any ambushes before the main body of the squad is at risk.

To my surprise, 3rd’s scouts crest a small rise and find themselves staring into the backs of the enemy platoon HQ among some trees next to the highway. They immediately open fire and start chucking grenades at them.

So we’ve made contact: the enemy is at Charlie and, in a double first for the platoon patrol series, we’ve not only initiated that contact, but at very close range, only 30 metres or so.

It’s not clear how fast the Marines will recover from getting bumped in the back like this. They’re higher quality troops than the Blue platoons in this scenario, but they’re also at a disadvantage here. The rest of 3rd Squad is only just behind the scouts, so I think the first thing I need to do is push them up and overwhelm this single enemy team before they can react.

There will be more teams of Marines about though, whether or not they’ll be able to counter and the firefight will develop will depend entirely on how they’ve been distributed throughout the immediate area.

Regardless, the dismounts of 3rd squad are basically fixed and committed right now. Their BMP is in dead ground a little behind them. 1st and 2nd are still mounted back near the bridge. None of the BMPs currently have line of sight onto the enemy.

Obviously I need to get the rest of the platoon into the fight, the question is how? I think we can safely say the edge of the wood on my right is clear seen as though 3rd’s BMP has parked up next to it without exploding, but it’s a very lumpy wood. There could easily be more Marine teams deeper within.

Bringing 1st and 2nd online with 3rd on the right would basically involve rolling into an unprobed area of dense terrain and hoping for the best. The BMPs can’t support from a distance due to the ground, so just sending the dismounts in means cutting the IFVs out of the fight.

Trying to go left, we have a big chunk of open ground. Again, it’s quite lumpy, so there’s some cover for the rest of the platoon, but heading that way means entering the field of fire of any Marines actually in the Charlie compound itself. The rooftops in particular are likely locations for the SMAW teams, according to the AI plan.

There would be more range to play with- though if the dismounts get involved they’re likely to be at a severe disadvantage facing down all those Marine ACOGs with their ironsighted AKMs.

But if we’re talking about engaging from range, I’m not 100% committed here. I could disengage right now, pull back to the summit of Bravo and fire all of the BMP’s ATGMs off at Charlie from there before coming back down and picking whatever angle of attack I might like.

Alternatively… part of me doesn’t fancy the Syrian’s chances in an extended engagement. Maybe I need to throw caution to the wind and embrace the Uncon approach of getting stuck in with as much speed and aggression as possible.

There are loads of options here, I feel like the Syrian Mechanised Platoon TOE here is throwing me a lot of negative options- things I really don’t want to do- without providing a clear positive choice.

But I don’t need to make a decision about what to do right now, we’ve literally had about 20 seconds of contact, it’d be premature to go all in straight away.

The downhill spiral

As it pans out, things have already gone sideways, the last turn just ended seconds before the effects manifested.

The main body of 3rd was coming up on the left of the scouts to a position where they could throw their firepower at the revealed marines. The scouts had been engaging without any problems, but they were masked from the Charlie compound by some trees.

The rest of 3rd, only a few metres away, is in full view. As they run up, they come under fire from a SMAW team on one of the roofs. The squad leader, machinegunner and one of the riflemen are taken out in short order. The rest of the squad, including the scouts, go to ground, break and then run back towards their BMP.

It looks like the scouts managed to hit someone in the enemy platoon HQ, but that hardly compensates for 3rd squad getting rinsed. That’s on me: I should have clocked the potential firing angles and I didn’t but the worst part is that I’m in the same position of being unsure how to proceed I was in a minute ago… minus 13% of my dismounts.

I can at least supplement my prevarication with some violence. So I pull the entire platoon back to Bravo, where the BMPs line up on the summit overlooking Charlie and start to shoot up the buildings.

The intent here is to inflict casualties and degrade the enemy. Having lost all the spots I had there’s no way of knowing if any of the ATGM or 73mm hits are effective. The rooftop with the confirmed SMAW team on eventually collapses, which at least denies that particular position to the enemy, but I have other problems.

Despite being a good 600m away from the Charlie compound, the BMPs start to take small arms fire. This is probably from at least one Marine rifle team in the woods: they’re trying to plink the gunners out as they operate the ATGMs. So I pull the BMPs back a little bit and dismount the infantry to join in with some speculative RPGs and maybe, if I’m very lucky, actually spot something.

I am not lucky. I am, in fact, unlucky. Not only is the infantry fire comically inaccurate and ineffective, the gunner of 3rd’s BMP gets domed. I can’t replace him in CM, so that’s that vehicle reduced to a box on tracks.

This is clearly not going very well. I do at least have a possible location for the offending Marines. It looks like the fire was coming from the right corner of the Charlie woods, just opposite the turnoff over the river that leads to the compound.

That’s a position I think I can tackle without exposing my platoon to possible SMAW fire from the buildings. In fact, approaching from the north there’s a 300m stretch of open ground along the highway the BMPs can use as a fire lane to suppress the edge of the woods while the dismounts flank on the left via the cover of a streambed. That would lead them back into the woods where 3rd got hit, but I’m relatively confident the closer side of that is clear.

With a bit of luck, there’s just one isolated Marine fire team on that corner and I’ll be able to overwhelm it.

Attacking the Corner

Getting into position is straightforward- there’s plenty of room to manoeuvre. What’s left of 3rd Squad head down the streambed in their BMP, given that it can’t contribute to the fire support anymore. The other BMPs drop their dismounts to follow and then head right into a wood next to the highway.

Everyone is in position after a few turns and both the infantry and BMPs move forward into firing positions to engage. They don’t spot anything and there’s no obvious return fire. Someone is shooting back: I can just about hear some M16 shots, but I can’t place them with any certainty.

3rd heads off to the left and crosses into the wood without any problems. From there I should be able to probe along the edge, clear it and work the rest of the dismounts in there.

While they’re doing that, 1st finally makes the spot on the shooting Marines. The other SMAW team is on the roof of C2- the one next to the building with the now collapsed roof. They trade fire, both small arms and rockets. None of the rockets hit and several of them pre-detonate on the intervening trees, causing 3rd to go to ground.

This is really an isolated firefight: all the fire is going back and forth through a relatively narrow keyhole. It’s clear that 1st’s base of fire team isn’t going to be able to get much done, so I bring 2nd’s BMP up to support. That puts an ATGM in there, then the gunner spends an agonised 40 seconds reloading it instead of engaging with the coax.

This TacAI behaviour is a CM-ism that is not done with us yet, but eventually the gunner drops back down and the SMAW team falls in a hail of machinegun fire.

That clears up that particular angle- and one of the SMAW teams. It’s obvious by now that there is no Marine team on the corner, but attacking here has at least gotten me into the wood. This seems clear as well, at least so far. It’ll make a good jumping off point for the dismounts to clear the rest of it and get into better positions to deal with the Charlie compound. The BMPs can offer some support from longer range via angles down the highway, or be relocating further afield if necessary.

The Woods

First off though, I know there’s the Marine platoon HQ at the other end of the wood, so I send 2nd off to try and deal with them, keeping a wary eye on the compound. 3rd has occupied the corner and I send them dashing across the road into the ditch to both open another avenue of attack and make room for 1st as they approach.

3rd takes a casualty on the way over- with the incoming shots ricocheting off a bridge nearby it’s difficult to tell exactly where the fire came from.

Meanwhile, 2nd bumps into the enemy platoon HQ. They lose two men in the initial contact, then manage to manoeuvre and finish the lone Marine off.

By now I’m definitely getting a contact icon over in building C3. Presumably the SMAW team on the roof has gone downstairs. I want to get rid of them, so 2nd starts to crawl up to the edge of the highway where they can get eyes on and engage, covered by 1st who are off to their right in the wood.

1st’s BMP meanwhile, has come round the edge of the wood to support them. I’d initially intended to slot it in where 3rd had first made contact with the enemy and hose down the enemy platoon HQ, but it’s now also in a good position to pop up and give C3 a quick blast.

As it turns out, nobody can actually draw good line of sight to C3 and engage it properly: there’s not only a wall in front of it, but it’s a little higher than my positions. Neither 1st nor 2nd not shoot up the building, and to make matters worse 2nd gets engaged obliquely from the ditch to the compound’s right.

They’re quickly pinned: there’s a Marine fire team in there, presumably the ones that shot up 3rd when they crossed the road. BMP Number 1 is position to help out though. With only a little shuffling, it can keep some trees between itself and C3 while it keyholes onto the new target.

Coax fire from the BMP tilts this new firefight in my direction and, with the Marines ducking, 2nd gets stuck in and takes a few out before a 73mm direct hit seals the deal.

BMP no. 2, meanwhile, has come up alongside 1st squad. I’ve brought it in so it can enfilade the ditch, but it’s also in a good position to support some exploitation. It pops smoke, obscuring the compound and setting the stage for 3rd to dash across the road in front of them and pile onto the recently deceased Marines.

This is a little optimistic though: 3rd again attract fire as they move. There are more Marines further up the ditch and they force the Syrians back with loss.

The Compound

The main problem with the ditch is that the BMPs can only effectively engage along its length. I don’t want to send my dwindling dismounts along the same fire corridor as a load of 73mm shells, so that avenue of attack is out of the picture.

I still need to deal with the compound though and taking that will get me onto the left flank of the ditch. So while Charlie is still smoked up, I run 2nd Squad across into the ditch to try and storm the place.

They lose another man to the ditch Marines in the process, then when they try and pop up and over the wall to engage C3 the smoke has cleared enough that the lone Marine in there can shoot one, then drive the rest off by firing a thermobaric rocket at them.

Adding to the distinct sense of uphill struggle, I’ve got 1st’s BMP shooting up the ditch and the gunner makes the highly questionable decision to fire an ATGM. Naturally, this gets him shot in the face, meaning that 2 of my 3 BMPs are now practically firepower killed.

They can still pop smoke though, which allows 1st to punch over the ditch with some obscuration and get onto the flank of the compound. They shoot C3 up from the side, allowing what’s left of 2nd to close in for an assault. The last SMAW gunner gets suppressed, but I have to lift all the fire for 2nd to get inside and that gives him a window to recover. He shoots another Syrian, 2nd goes to pieces and runs back out… though the last man turns and throws a grenade that kills the Marine.

As if this wasn’t strenuous enough, 1st’s base of fire team cops a few rounds from the ditch and loses their machinegunner. Evidently the Marines over there can see around the edge of the Charlie buildings.

But the compound itself is now clear. 1st and 2nd consolidate on the position, standing by to flank the ditch.

The Ditch

The plan for this is very simple. The remaining fully functional BMP will keep the ditch suppressed by firing down it, while 1st and 2nd get up into the second storey of building C1 where they can fire down into it. The two survivors of 3rd, on the right flank, will edge forwards and see if they can take advantage of any opportunities that present themselves.

One key problem with this is that 2nd’s BMP is out of coax ammunition. Evidently 1500 rounds is not enough. I have at least taken a moment to pull it back and fire off its last remaining ATGM so I don’t have to run the risk of the gunner sticking his head up instead of using the main gun.

Unfortunately for 1st Squad, the 73mm alone is not very effective. When they pop up to engage the Marines, they’re met with a hail of 556 and 40mm grenades. The two remaining Marine fire teams are down there and they’re simultaneously not happy and actually pretty well screened from the BMP by a small footbridge.

I don’t have any better ideas right now though, so I keep at it. The second time they pop up they lose another 3 men and break, but they’re keeping enemy attention off the BMP which manages to grind the leftmost Marine team down with repeated near misses.

3rd is sneaking up the other side of the ditch with an eye to exploiting the suppression, but when they close in the Marines nade them.

That’s 3rd completely wiped out. The rest of the dismounts aren’t doing much better. There’s only one man still standing from 2nd and while 1st’s assistant team leader is still going the platoon commander is actually trying to surrender right now.

Having a force that’s reduced to two functioning, but currently uncontrollable dismounts and one combat capable BMP that’s rapidly running out of ammo is not exactly a recipe for success.

There can only be two or three Marines left now though, so I decide I’m going to expend all BMP no.2’s remaining 73mm rounds at them and then call it a day.

So I roll the BMP right into the ditch to get a better angle and start blasting. This actually works, which is much more of a surprise than it should be thanks to how this battle has panned out.

Endex

On hitting ceasefire, the Syrians have indeed neutralised all 19 enemy soldiers, though at the cost of 21 Syrian casualties. All that’s left are 3 dismounts and 4 crewmen- 3 drivers and a gunner.

In terms of points, the attacking platoon got their thousand, but the Marines inflicted 405 points worth of damage, giving the Syrian Mech Infantry a grand total of 595 points. They crawl into last place on the list after the Uncons on a comparatively mighty 829.

As always, the points are arbitrary, they’re only really useful because everyone is on the same scale. We’ve got some other data points to consider as well: this took 63 minutes, so over an hour, the dismounts sustained 86% casualties and although there were technically no vehicle losses, two of the three BMPs were functionally neutralised. That’s by far the worst performance we’ve seen so far in the Platoon Patrol and I can tell you that it definitely felt like the worst performance so far.

Dumbass BMP gunners

Some of that poor performance is directly Combat Mission related. For whatever reason, the TacAI was excessively keen to use ATGMs when area firing. For the BMP-1P in particular, this involves the gunner opening up to operate the launcher leaving him very vulnerable.

Losing 3rd’s BMP gunner was the result of a calculated risk when I was firing at Charlie from the Bravo summit. I specifically wanted to use the ATGMs and although there was some small arms fire coming in, I judged that it was unlikely to score a hit at 600m.

Losing 1st’s BMP gunner was the TacAI deciding to use the ATGM against a patch of ground 200m away instead of using the 73, which it had been doing up to that point. Granted, it is possible to work around this kind of TacAI behaviour by conducting pop-up attacks that would limit the amount of time the gunner would be exposed if he made a bad decision, but it’s an extra layer of game engine induced complexity to deal with.

I think it’s safe to say that the endgame would have gone a lot smoother with twice the BMP firepower.

BMP-Infantry Cooperation

Despite that, I was a little surprised all the BMPs survived. A couple of SMAW’s, AT4s and 40mm grenades did go their way, but nothing connected… probably due to a combination of luck and my ability to keep them at arm’s length.

The downside to that though was the fact that there wasn’t really that much cooperation between the BMPs and the Infantry. In the first contact, I judged the BMPs were too close and vulnerable to the SMAWs in Charlie to engage. Firing from Bravo the infantry basically contributed nothing. Switching onto the right flank was pretty textbook IFVs shooting infantry in, there just wasn’t any enemy in the position I was attacking. It wasn’t until I really got stuck into the Marines holding the ditch that the BMPs got their time to shine and then they were quickly reduced to one combat capable vehicle rapidly running out of ammo while they conspicuously didn’t supporting the infantry attacking the compound buildings.

Even though 2nd’s BMP was the decisive factor in finishing off the Marine rifle teams, it took a long time, used a lot of ammunition and was not supposed to be the decisive element. My intention was for the BMP to suppress the enemy so that the dismounts in Charlie could finish them off. Instead, the BMP ground the Marines down by a kind of shrapnel based death of a thousand cuts, the Marines were never fully suppressed and my infantry got chewed up.

The 73mm is just not a very effective weapon for engaging infantry, the coax had a lot less ammo than I thought it had and it’s hard to tell exactly what the ATGMs did except get two of the gunners killed.

It has to be said that a major component of the problem here was the terrain. Attacking Charlie from the east or north-east means attacking into and through that wood running along the highway. From there, the next set of potential enemy positions was at very short range across the stream in the compound and in the ditch, both of which were awkward areas to target.

This made it both difficult to find good angles for the BMPs and put them in close proximity to the enemy where I was acutely aware of their vulnerability to AT weapons. Coming in from the other side of Charlie, I suspect the BMPs would have been able to do a much better job of acting as a base of fire for the dismounts.

Dismounts

Obviously, the fact that BMPs found it difficult to support the infantry meant that they had a much harder job.

Every time the dismounts got into contact with the Marines, they took losses. 1st Squad melted away on the upper floor of C1 trying to shoot down into the ditch. 2nd lost a couple of men mopping up the Marine HQ team in the woods before taking casualties reaching and clearing the Charlie compound. 3rd was cut down to half strength thirty seconds into the first contact, gradually shrank as I manoeuvred them and finally went out in a shower of hand grenades.

In almost all of those instances, they were engaged at close range by better trained, better motivated and better armed Marines who were either unspotted, unsuppressed or both. On the one hand, I should make it clear that any unit is likely to take casualties fighting against an opponent with those advantages.

On the other, the key problem the Syrian Mech had was that they just didn’t have the numbers. Mechanised infantry of all types are generally plagued by low body counts. Once you start putting bigger and more exciting weaponry on your vehicles, you reduce the number of passengers they can carry and you end up with smaller squads. In theory, the increase in firepower compensates for the decrease in dismounts. In practice, there’s a multitude of battlefield situations where dismounts can find themselves operating without effective support from their vehicles.

A further twist of the knife for our Syrian Mech is that they are comparatively lightly armed as well. Typical NATO-style mechanised infantry have multiple machineguns and grenade launchers down at squad level, along with important enablers like optics and night vision. The Syrians have one PKM, one RPG and iron sights.

It’s not impossible that 1st squad could have overwhelmed the ditch Marines in the final stages of the battle if they had had a similar armament. But with their PKM gunner out of action, they were basically putting 6 AKs against 6 M16s, 2 SAWs and 2 M203s. That’s not a level of firepower they could really compete with.

In some respects, for all its disadvantages, the approach through the woods actually helped here. The dismounts only ever got into a real firefight once, right at the end. In the other contacts- in the woods or at the compound- they were fighting at such close range that AKs and hand-grenades were all they needed.

Tactical Choices

Beyond the nitty gritty of the pointy end, another key element of the Syrian Mech run was how indecisive my perception of the platoon’s vulnerabilities made me. I’ve played so much Shock Force both as and against Syrian BMP units that I know how quickly they can disintegrate on contact.

So when I stumbled into the Marine HQ near Charlie, I looked at the terrain and decided that attacking from there meant I was sending my dismounts into the woods and separating them from their vehicles, splitting their already limited firepower and exposing them to defeat in detail.

But ironically, I was there in the first place precisely because of the way that terrain would let me close in on Charlie and check if it was occupied without exposing the entire platoon.

I had looked at the avenue of approach I actually used- basically going down the highway- and decided not to go that way because it looked too risky. Not only was there a lot of exposed open ground, but thinking about moving on from Charlie towards Echo I would either have to drive through Charlie, between the woods and the compound, or go around the woods at relatively close range. And both of those options scream ambush.

It might have been smarter to probe Charlie via the highway because any incoming fire would be more likely to come from longer range and therefore be less effective, but that’s no consolation for the lucky SMAW that wipes out a third of the platoon in one hit.

So, at least as I approached it, there’s some interesting tension here. It felt like the Syrian Mechanised demanded one style of approach to find the enemy without incurring too much risk, but a radically different one to maximise the platoon’s limited firepower when attacking them.

It’s easy to say in hindsight that the wood was unoccupied and my infantry could have moved in without any problems and taken out the SMAW teams on the compound roofs to create the conditions the BMPs needed to close and support. But with the layout of the defence unclear, I think attacking from another angle was probably the best choice and the right offered a longer range buffer than the left.

Again, a bit like the infantry dynamic in this fight, these are not problems specific to Syrian Mechanised Infantry. This is primarily a terrain problem, so every unit attacking Charlie from this angle is going to face similar issues. Everything is just worse for the Syrians because of the limitations imposed by their TOE.

Conclusion

So, that is the Syrian Mechanised Infantry Platoon in BMPs through the grinder. Getting reduced to 3 dismounts and a single combat capable vehicle is going to be a tough worst performance to displace… though Reserve Mech in BTRs are still in the mix and they’re basically the same TOE but worse.

That said, it’ll be interesting to see if any of the NATO mechanised infantry suffer from similar problems and if their advantage in firepower will help them out. Group 4 is up next, which gives us a choice between Dutch Mechanised in either CV90s or YPRs, US Mechanised in Bradleys or Syrians Airborne Mech in BMP-3s. So some of the higher-end toys in this group. I’ll link the poll down below when this goes public so you can get your votes in.

I hope you enjoyed this one though and found it interesting. Syrian Mechanised platoons really aren’t organised and equipped to operate independently and boy did that show here. If you’d like to see these videos early and support the channel, you can do so via Patreon and Youtube memberships. Whether you do or not, thanks for watching and I’ll catch you in the next one.