No massive surprises here. The big question is whether or not they did better than the Syrian Mechanised in BMP-1Ps.

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Platoon Patrol 13: Syrian Reserve Infantry in BTRs

Welcome back to Combat Mission Shock Force 2, where the penultimate Syrian unit is taking on the Platoon Patrol. This is Syrian Reserve Infantry in BTR-60PBs.

The BTRs have got their own unit guide that I’ll link down below: even though the guide is for the Combat Mission Cold War BTRs it’s relevant because the Syrians are still using them. I looked into doing a video for the dismounts, but there’s not really that much difference between them and the other Syrians we’ve already covered. Compared to the Mechanised Infantry in BMP-1Ps, Reserve Infantry downgrade the PKM general purpose machinegun to an RPK squad automatic weapon and gain another two bodies. The Syrians in BMP1s really struggled, so I guess we’ll see if it’s better to have a GPMG or two more AKMs.

As always for the Platoon Patrol, our mission is to find and destroy a reinforced squad of US Marines that is now randomly occupying objectives ABC or E. Our Syrians also start from a random entry point, this time Entry Point 4.

Kick Off

This means that we are, once again, having to cross the river. The BTRs are not only poorly armoured, poorly armed and basically blind, but they only come three to a platoon which means that I really want to be careful moving to contact. That means I don’t want to cross the river along the Highway Bridge and take that totally open approach direct to Echo.

So I decide to go right, swim the river and take advantage of the cover and concealment offered by the orchard beneath the Echo compound. This proves to be clear, so I continue up the Highway to Charlie, which is also Marine-free.

With Delta out of the picture these days that means the enemy are going to be set up at Alpha or Bravo. I don’t have a lot of confidence in the Syrian’s ability to spot anything at range here. We’ve seen the much better equipped NATO platoon struggle to find the Marines ahead of time with 4x weapons optics and thermals galore… our BTR platoon here has one pair of binoculars per squad and the questionable quality optics in the BTR turrets.

It’s not just having a low confidence in their ability to spot the Marines, it’s the fact that the Marines are probably going to spot them first at a range where they can put down much more effective fire. I don’t want to get into a long-range firefight when the enemy has the advantage, I want to be a little smarter than that.

So to nail down the Marine’s location, I decide to bumrush up the Highway between Alpha and Bravo. The BTRs are pretty fast on road so they should be relatively difficult targets and they should be pretty safe in the woods at the far end of the straight running north from Charlie.

Contact

This might not sound like being a little smarter, but it works. The BTRs attract some small arms fire and a rocket from the direction of Alpha- none of which hit- and end up in cover on that objective’s flank.

I only got a single actual contact- one of the SMAW teams is on the roof of building A7, the Alpha Tower, but this makes my mind up about how to attack. I’m already past Alpha on the right: this is exactly where the Canadians went in in the last run. I don’t want to do that again and it clearly doesn’t make a lot of sense to go back around and attack across all the open ground.

But if I keep going north, cross the highway ditch and swing around the back of Alpha, I can close the distance under cover of the crest and mount a short, sharp attack over it. This is pretty much the total opposite of the way I’ve attacked Alpha before: it means I’ll be tackling the Marines on the reverse slope instead of the forward slope, which bears a little explanation.

Whether or not a position is forward or reverse slope depends on where the crest of the slope is in relation to the attackers and defenders. With the CV90s and the LAVs, I attacked from the south and the Marines were on the slope with the crest behind them. That makes it a forward slope position, which offers the advantage to the side with the most effective firepower at range. And we saw that in those two runs: the CV90s and the LAVs really got to go to town on the Marines with their cannons and there wasn’t much the Marines could do about it.

But here, the firepower dynamic is reversed. I think the Syrian Reserve Infantry and their BTRs are going to really struggle in a longer-ranged firefight against the Marines.

By going round the back of Alpha, I’ll be putting the crest of the slope between me and the enemy, meaning they’re in a reverse slope position. The Marines can’t shoot through the crest, so I’ll be able to get much closer before getting into a firefight and initiate at much shorter range where the Marine advantage is less pronounced.

There are pros and cons to this, obviously, it could all go dramatically wrong either way, but as usual the SMAW teams are my primary targets. I know there is one up in the A7 Tower, the other one is going to be on the roof of one of the other buildings.

Coming over the crest is a bit like pieing off a room, just vertically. The further forward I go, the more of the reverse slope I’ll see, starting with the highest parts. That will hopefully allow me to concentrate on each SMAW team in turn, destroying them in detail and reducing the antitank threat so the BTRs can operate with less risk, which should make it easier to tackle the Marine rifle teams.

The Crest and the SMAWs

That’s the theory. It takes a couple of minutes to swing left and dismount behind Alpha. The hillside is one big orchard, so line of sight is patchy, but that’s just something else I can exploit to close the distance.

2nd Squad on the left regain contact with the A7 SMAW and fire off a few RPGs that all miss. The Marines return the favour with considerably more accuracy, though they fail to cause any casualties with the rockets and it’s some M16 fire that scores first blood.

That is keeping the enemy busy though, so 1st Squad’s B team moves up to engage at closer range while 3rd Squad supports and 3rd’s BTR rolls down the track outside the orchard to the right under cover of a couple of RPG hits. Between the BTR getting stuck in and all the other outgoing, the A7 SMAW quickly goes to ground and the next turn an RPG from 1B takes one of them out.

This is using a lot of ammunition though and it’s not amazingly effective. 3rd Squad has broken off a scout team and I send them forward to the edge of the orchard to get closer.

They’re surprisingly safe there. The contours of the slope mean they’re not exposed to other potential Marine positions to the left and there’s a walled lane between them and the compound that offers some cover.

That doesn’t stop the remaining Marine in the tower chucking a SMAW their way, but by now I’ve edged 2nd’s BTR up and it finishes him with 14.5mm HMG fire.

3rd’s scouts have also attracted some fire from the roof of Building A4: that’s where the other SMAW team is set up. 2A has already moved up to the lane on the left and started to engage, but the A7 tower breaks up line of sight from the rest of the platoon and makes it hard to concentrate fire.

Base of the Tower

The masking effect of the tower does allow me to close with the rest of 3rd Squad though- if I’m lucky I can get them into the compound itself and close in on the A4 SMAW. Instead, when they move up to the lane they spot one of the Marine rifle teams at the base of the A7 tower.

They open up and start lobbing hand grenades- something else that works better when attacking downhill. 2nd on the left is still engaging the A4 SMAW, but 3rd has a chance for some classic fire and manoeuvre. While the bulk of the Squad suppress the Marines beneath the tower, I send their two scouts across the lane to get on their flank.

In theory, they can enfilade the wall of the buildings from their new position, but there are some bushes blocking line of sight. So I send them forward to the corner of A6. One of them corner posts and is immediately shot by the Marines, only a couple of metres away.

They’re giving as good as they’re getting from the rest of 3rd. There are a lot of rounds going both way but nothing is connecting and neither side is really getting all that suppressed. That’s bad news for the remaining scout, who I optimistically send around the corner to get cut in half by a SAW gunner.

Meanwhile, I’m also not really getting anywhere with the A4 SMAW to the left. 2nd is engaging and the Marines are keeping their heads down for the most part, but they’re still alive. 3rd’s BTR out on the right can’t get enough line of sight to engage, so I order 2nd’s BTR forward.

After a few turns of heavy machinegun fire, the contact disappears. I’m not sure if they’re out of the picture, but I am sure I’m running out of ammunition. The Marines under the tower have gone quiet as well, so I take the opportunity to rotate teams back to the BTRs to restock on 762 and RPGs.

At least the reverse slope is working for me. Despite being only about 40m away from 3rd, the Marines by A7 have a very limited field of fire and I’m easily able to bring the Platoon leader and 1st Squad’s A team up and cross the lane to follow up the unlucky scouts.

I’ve no intention of diving straight in this time though. They find some line of sight through the bushes and start shooting up the Marines with area fire. This brings instant retaliation- not from their target, but from a new Marine contact further up the slope in the centre. 1A loses a man and takes cover.

I’m starting to get a little frustrated now and decide to peek the A7 Marines with 1st’s BTR. This has been laying into the tower over the enemy’s heads to try and suppress them with little effect. But rolling it forward to try and get line of sight ends in disaster as one of the Marines put an M72 LAW into it.

The BTR brews up immediately. I clearly need to find a different approach.

Flanking through the Compound

The obvious solution is a wider right flank. The main issue with this had been the SMAW on top of A4, which could cover the interior of the Alpha compound, but 2nd and their BTR haven’t seen any sign of them after shooting up their rooftop.

What’s left of 3rd is clearly in an indecisive engagement and needs more ammunition, so I decide to pull them out, send them out wide to rendezvous with their BTR and grab more rounds before hooking in through the objective and coming up behind the A7 Marines through the tower.

1A mimics their movement on a shorter, inner arc though their marksman catches some 556 as they dash across to Building A6. 3rd also take some fire from the slope as they get out of their BTR again but they manage to reach the compound without any problems by exploiting a ditch.

The A4 SMAW is indeed out of action- 1A and 3rd have spotted their bodies on the roof- and it’s easy enough to get the two teams into position to jump the Marines on the other side of A7.

They’ll be exposed to the other Marines up the slope when they do that though, so I decide to send 1B and 2nd across the lane to catch the enemy in an L-shape, supported by MG fire from 3rd’s BTR shooting up the undergrowth.

With a bit of luck, the Marines will be overwhelmed at short range from multiple angles.

3rd’s leading man gets wasted immediately, but his buddies quickly finish off the two surviving A7 Marines.

The Marines on the slope are too suppressed by the BTR to react and find themselves smothered by fire and grenades from 1st and 3rd, which was exactly what I was aiming for.

Further to the left though, 2nd stumble onto the third Marine rifle team as they cross the lane. They lose two men immediately, two more try to flee with one of them getting shot for the trouble and of the remaining three, two cower behind the wall, one tries to surrender and they get blown up by hand grenades.

Losing 5 of their 7 men in about 30 seconds emphatically puts 2nd squad out of the fight. On the plus side, I’ve taken out 2 of the three Marine rifle teams and know where the third one is… so we’re making progress.

1A, 3rd and 3rd’s BTR suppress the new enemy position while 1B flank them up the lane and shower them with hand grenades until they’re not a problem anymore.

Things go quiet and the compound is secure, but the 2-man Marine HQ team is still out there.

They’re further along the slope in the woods and they don’t go down without a fight- they take out another man- but they’re outnumbered, outgunned and I’m able to move in and mop them up without issue.

ENDEX

That means it’s time to ceasefire. The Syrian Reserves Platoon in BTRs took out all the Marines and secured the objective, but they lost 14 men and a BTR in the process.

They only had 27 dismounts, so that’s a casualty rate of about 50%, but they got the job done. In points terms, they end up on 656. That’s not too surprising: I wasn’t expecting them to do well and they’re firmly at the Syrian end of the scoreboard.

Vs BMP-1Ps

They did notably outcompete the Syrian Mechanised in BMP-1Ps though. On paper, the BMP-1 outclasses the BTR. So what’s going on there?

I feel like the BTR platoon had a better setup. Attacking over the back of Alpha and using the crest to minimise exposure was probably a better option than flailing around at Charlie. It wasn’t exactly easy, but I think I had a better time concentrating combat power against one or two Marine units at a time.

The terrain is obviously the dominant factor there, but I also think the firepower potential is an issue too. Here, I didn’t have a lot of faith in the BTRs. They’re only armed a HMG and a coax. So sacrificing their longer ranged firepower by coming over the reverse slope didn’t feel like a big loss. The BMP-1Ps have that 73mm gun and an ATGM, neither of which proved that effective in the end, but had the potential to shift the balance in my favour if they got some good hits in at long range.

And that had follow-on effects in the way I approached the objective. The lacklustre firepower on the BTRs combined with an extra six dismounts pushed me towards an infantry-centric approach that exploited the terrain in a different way. The BMP-1Ps didn’t have the bodies to make an infantry dominant attack palatable, so I relied more heavily on their vehicles… which fell short.

It’ll be really interesting to see how the Republican Guard do with their BMP-2s because I suspect the 30mm cannon will fix the BMP-1P’s firepower problem.

Close Combat

Refocusing on this battle though, I always seem to talk about taking casualties in close combat when I’m actually clearing the objective: how they’re pretty much inevitable and the cost of doing business, a sign that a platoon hasn’t managed to wipe out the Marines before closing in.

Here, I basically embraced that kind of engagement. I decided that I didn’t fancy the Reserve Infantry’s chances in a long range firefight and consciously chose a short range one. That was theoretically risky and practically costly, but I still think it created a more even playing field. At 300m, an iron-sighted AKM is at a severe disadvantage against an M16A4 with an ACOG. At 80m… things are more equal.

Relying on small arms to get the job done is never great though. We saw that early on with the SMAW up in the tower. That was pretty much as one-sided an engagement as the Syrians were likely to get and though they were able to concentrate fire and suppress the Marines, pouring on more fire from AKMs, RPKs and even the machineguns on the BTRs used up a tremendous amount of ammunition without getting the same kind of quick, decisive result that something like a 25 or 30mm cannon would. The RPGs weren’t too bad when they hit, but they didn’t connect very often.

That said, the plan was working pretty well until I stumbled on that Marine rifle team hanging around underneath the A7 Tower. Engaging them directly was very indecisive thanks to the intervening walls and the shape of the slope, even when 3rd were chucking hand grenades at them.

The first attempt to take them out misfired- 3rd’s scout team never even saw them despite being at very close range- but that feels like some bad luck, really. On paper, a couple of bursts of AK fire or some grenades should have sealed the deal there. It might have been smarter to use a whole fire team instead of just two scouts, and it was definitely smarter to take the wider flank through the buildings which I ultimately did. But at the same time, we’re dealing with the randomness of close combat. A NATO team could have suffered the same fate.

That incident was pretty frustrating, which led to more casualties- not least 1st’s BTR, which should never have gone forward. 3rd’s did some very valuable work from the right flank, but it was much further away and less at risk from the Marine’s hand-held antitank weapons.

Mass?

One final element I want to highlight is the final little push. I used all my remaining dismounts for this: 1A and 3rd moving into the buildings to tackle the A7 contact, supported by 3rd’s BTR firing from the flank and 1B and 2nd Squad crossing lane to get the L-shape going.

The idea was to get as many bodies into fight as I could and give the Marines more targets than they could deal with. That way, even if the enemy responded effectively against one threat, it would be dealt with by one of the others.

This worked really well for two of the Marine teams, but it didn’t work at all for 2nd Squad when they found another. Or rather, when they entered the field of fire of an unsuppressed, unspotted Marine rifle team and got all but wiped out before they realised what was going on.

I think that this is really good example of battlefield compartmentalisation. At one level, throwing the whole platoon into the fight gives me an advantage in mass. I have three squads versus one squad, Lanchester’s Law says I win etc etc. But the reality is that battlefields don’t really work like that. Especially in dense terrain like this, line of sight is patchy and unpredictable and that tends to break actions down into smaller fights.

2nd Squad was only a few metres up the lane from 1B, but 1B got stuck into the firefight against the Marine team lower down the slope along with 1A, 3rd and 3rd’s BTR while 2nd found itself in an entirely separate firefight in which it was at a severe disadvantage.

Of course, I could adapt once it was clear what was going on. But that’s not much consolation for 2nd. This an area where NATO style organisations have a big advantage over the Syrian TOEs because they push loads of firepower right down to fire team level.

Conclusion

So, that is the Syrian Reserve Infantry in BTRs’s run through the Platoon Patrol. They got the job done, could potentially have suffered fewer casualties with a bit of luck, but were generally nowhere near as impressive as some of the platoons further up the scoreboard.

That means we’ve done two platoons each from Groups 5 and 6, so I’m going to mash the remaining 4 into one final Group for you to choose from. Up for the next run then are Syrian Republican Guard in BMP-2s, British Mechanised Infantry in FV432 Bulldogs, Canadians in Nyala MRAPs and more Dutch Mechanised in YPR-765s. All interesting options, I’ll leave a link to the poll to choose which one goes first down below.

For now though, hope you all enjoyed this episode of the Platoon Patrol. 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 see you in the next one.