Marc St.Gil:
I will admit I was surprised the HE was not more effective at affecting the dismouts I was shooting at. I thought they would catch some fragments and was hopping to break them without smashing up the vehicles.
Looking at the die roller, it appears HE wasn't effective simply because the concussion and fragmentation effects weren't being applied by the GM. As I've previously posted here in OOC, if they had, there'd be fragments zipping about, albeit in a small radius, slicing through flesh and machinery.
Varis Babicevs:
The only thing I think that really could have cost us is splitting the unit up into so many different groups.
It didn't really matter than much due to the subunit commanders all being in radio touch with each other. Also, it's quite common for vehicles to operate hundreds, even thousands of metres apart to take advantage of the terrain and their mobility - eg one sits in place fixing the enemy with sustained fire, while the remainder move around to assault the position for another direction. This tactics is commonly used with infantry also - to subunit in intial contact with the enemy fixes them in place and often provides fire support during the assault by the remainder of the unit.
If we didn't have communications on such a low level, then splitting up like that could well have resulted in disaster. Back when I was in the infantry, we were
very lucky to have a single radio issued to the section (9-10 men). Here we had at
least three times that ratio - only four people did not have immdiate access to radio communications. These were (as far as I can work out), Creswick, Boswell, Kelly and Babicevs (not counting Handley) who were all within speaking range of either Meyer or JJ.
Varis Babicevs:
Varis really didn't want to fire his 40mm blind. He only has 12, wait, 11 rounds for his BG-15. And firing at maximum range with friendly elements between him and the unseen enemy was probably an unecessary risk....
Think of it this way. You have 11 rounds of HE which is 11 more than none.
It's like the supply officer saying "No, you can't have that vital peice of equipment because we've only got 11 - somebody might need it."
40mm grenades are also far more accurate than you might think. Although a very different weapon to a rifle as it's a much slower projectile with a much higher arc, in my experience with the M79 and M203, even at maximum range of 400m, it's still possible to hit a man sized target 9 out of 10 times (provided they don't see it coming and step aside!)
The application of firepower in initial stages of a battle can greatly reduce the number of casualties recieves as well as reduce the overall ammunition consumed. A long drawn out fight can chew through far more ammo, even at a low rate of fire, than a short, sharp engagement. Personally, I like the short and sharp as it's all over before you've even time to realise that you're in danger! Draw it out and people start to think too much.
Also, 40mmS HE isn't exactly uncommon, even for the year 2000. It's bound to be even more common due to our current location deep in the heart of several Pact divisions area of opperations. Don't forget that you can change weapons down the track if ammo becomes and issue.
Varis Babicevs:
As for the rifle ammo, they had a direct LOS to a target at the edge of max effective range. I think they made the right choice by trying to be "the firstest with the mostest". At the very least, they helped reduce the accuracy of the enemy fire.
I believe that the light level was at the lowest possible. Dark conditions (night), with no moon, and steady rain reduce vision to a pathetic base of just 50 metres. As both of the two dismount teams never got within about 300m, it was really only when the ZU and missile fired that they'd have had any chance at all of even locating the enemy force. If it wasn't for the tracer and impacts of 25mm incendiaries, even a general direction might have been difficult to ascertain.
With that in mind, firing of any weapon, especially small arms, is next to useless. Fortunately the 25mm and .50 cal were being fired by people with vision aids (not to mention several individuals on the ground).
Firing blind off into the darkness is unlikely to do anything beyond let the enemy know approximately where you are and what you're armed with. At night when in defence, a machinegunner for example
MAY NOT fire their weapon unless specifically ordered to by the unit commander. When in a section standing patrol for example (10 men dug in by themselves), this is the section commander, for a plattoon defensive postion, it's the Lieutenant (or Sgt if the LT is missing/wounded, etc), for a company (100+ men), it's up to the Company commander. In almost no circumstances may a commander lower down the chain make the decison to fire UNLESS the position is in immediate danger of being overrun.
This is to prevent valuable intel being given away about the location of suporting weapons. If a machinegun, or other squad/section suport weapon (antiarmour, mortars, automatic grenade launchers, etc) is fired, it's almost inevitable that a) the
entire unit will relocate, or at least reorientate and resight weapons, and b) the offending person will recieve a large number of boots in their rear (nobody likes to pack up, move and then dig in again in the dark).
The same general principle applies in normal combat. You fire your weapon without a target and you're giving away your position. Chances are, especially in a siutation like just passed, the enemy don't even know you're there and so you can either move around in relative safety (without drawing unwanted fire), or lay in wait and ambush the enemy when they come close.
All that said, there are exceptions to firing blind. For example, machineguns, and even rifles can be set to fire on "fixed lines". Stakes, or other guides of some type are set into the ground. These represent the limits in which a weapon may fire. Naturally this is primarily used in the defence, prepared fire support for an assault, or in a prepared ambush.
These stakes may allow a wide arc or, especially for machineguns, restrict the weapon to a very narrow, even linear area of fire. These limits allow the weapon to be fired into an area the firer cannot themselves see into due to foliage, smoke, darkness, etc, without risking the safety of friendly forces who presumabley had been told to keep clear of these fire lanes). But, once again, fire is strictly controlled from above.
This is were forward observers come into their own also. Although the range, direction and so on were not previously fixed, firing the grenade launchers was still a very useful tactic as firstly there was someody (Weiss) who actually had eyes on the target and the ability to adjust, and secondly, they're area effect weapons - near enough is generally good enough.
I think the greatest contributor to restricting enemy fire volume and accuracy was simply the darkness. Firing of our weapons allowed the enemy to locate our positions and return fire. Engine noise was another huge contributor to this, but something that, unlike outgoing fire, was a necessary evil.
The way I see it, the enemy were unaware, or just hadn't taken into account our night vision advantage. If they had, they would not have approached so close with the unarmoured vehicles and instead set up an ambush down the road for us. With the Missile launcher and ZU, they could have taken out both vehicles in short order with most of the passengers with them.
But that assumes they even knew where we were heading, and even our position to begin with. If it had been me in command of the Poles, I would have had the cavalry do almost exactly what they did - locate the vehicles and radio it in to the reaction force. They would then do as I've suggested above and set up an ambush.
And so I repeat my earlier statement that we were damn lucky and qualify it somewhat by stating the enemy commander didn't appear to be all that good.
The above was written in several stages while trying to concentrate on end of financial year work (nightmare) and dodge the boss. Hope it's not too rambling.
