More Mosul.....

Real news

I'm running behind the curve on the battle as it develops. However, here are some interesting things to note about how the fighting is going.

1. Bait and switch

Immediately prior to the offensive starting the northern and eastern flanks for Mosul were held predominantly by Peshmerga forces. They have been historically under trained and under armed. Much work has been done on both fronts recently but there was a general consensus that they were not going to spearhead the assault on Mosul, not least because leaving the Kurds in control of the city would be politically inconvenient.

Smart money, including mine, was that ISF would drive straight up the corridor from the south along the Tigris valley. This is partly because ISF are on the end of a long supply line from Baghdad but also because it allows them to use the full force of their regular army.

It is now clear that on 17 October ISF switched significant forces including CTS and US SF with tank support (IA) as well as US Apache attack helicopters to the eastern flank across the Tigris. 

ISW reports:

"The CTS’s positioning in Kurdish terrain is one of the results of a U.S.-brokered agreement between the Kurdistan Regional Government and Iraqi Government in August and will set the CTS up to breach Mosul’s city limits from the northeast."

There appear to be around 100 US SF engaged with ISF and Peshmerga both as advisors and JTACs.

2. The Bridge

US engineers have helped the IA to build a floating bridge across the Tigris below Mosul. Here is a brilliant transcript of a press conference which is worth reading simply for fun. It also describes the building of the bridge which provides lateral mobility and allows the redeployment of troops to the eastern bank.

"The coalition provided significant training and logistics support to enable the ISF to accomplish these feats -- from the strategic left to bring in those bridges, to building a man-made lake at Camp Taji, so the ISF could rehearse the bridge installation tasks.

The bridge across the Tigris near Qayyarah was a significantly more difficult bridge to employ than the one in Ramadi, due to the size, speed and condition of the river and the enemy situation in the area.

COL. GARVER: The use of the bridge connecting the west and east sides of the Tigris, and connecting Qayyarah West air base and Makhmur will greatly improve maneuverability and shorten lines of communication for the ISF as they prepare for the eventual assault to liberate Mosul."

Extract from Press Conference

3. Peshmerga

There is more than one sort of Peshmerga. I'll write more fully about this in due course. However, the Peshmerga forces closest to Mosul are those of the KDP. What is surprising is that forces of the PUK, a rival Kurdish political party, have been allowed to move into the southern area of the eastern back to support CTS in their clearance of the eastern bank.

The two key Peshmerga forces are Yakray 80 (KDP) and Yakray 70 (PUK). I estimate these at best as brigade sized units. It is rare to see both this level of offensive activity from the Kurds but also their close collaboration, although I suspect this is carefully choreographed by others.

4. Highway 2

The assault currently making good progress is that straight down Highway 2 from the east. My annotated Google map above shows very steady progress into the outskirts of Mosul. The forces on this axis appear to consist of Yakray 70, a brigade force from IA 16th Division plus CTS and US SF.

Bartella

We can expect that concentric attacks will develop further with Yakray 80 and CTS troops advancing from the NE via Bashiqa and the ISF main force advancing from the south. Note that the main route for escaping civilians is to the South and the need to deal with displaced persons is a big issue for the advancing ISF.

As with the Ramadi and Fallujah battles, ISF appear to be leaving an exit route for ISIS, in this case to the west into an unpopulated area. Also, as in previous battles, the objective may be to reduce resistance in the defended area and then allow air assets to destroy escaping ISIS forces. 

5. Force estimates

AP estimates the forces involved to be:

ISF: 25,000, including Peshmerga, with 100 US SF.
ISIS: 1500 to 2500 in the outer defended balt around Mosul plus 3-5000 in Mosul itself. There is evidence that senior staff and specialists have already fled the area.

By the way, the BBC online news is excellent, as is AP's.

Mosul (2)

getting a shift on!

That's me, not just the offensive.

ISIS have set fire to the Sulphur plant in Mosul (CNN)

I have now made a page for the Mosul work in progress (here). I have updated my draft. Still early days but I'm learning a lot thanks to help from chums.

Another CNN shot of the Sulphur Plant conflagration

I'm aiming to crack on with this over the next few days. Real time is quite hard work.

By the way, I reconsidered my rude comments about the Daily Mail in the first draft, then decided I was quite right and they are awful. Nuff said!

Mosul....

it begins!

As with my game on the Battle for Ramadi, I have been planning to do a similar piece of work on the Mosul operation. It will follow on very similar lines. I intend to develop a real time view of the battle and then develop a simulation that will help us all understand what is going on.  

For various reasons I feel in a very serious frame of mind (the male menopause perhaps!) so don't expect as many jokes as usual. Hopefully this will wear off soon!

The first shot is here, rough and ready but lots more to come!   

Professional grid game...

best game ever?

Ha, that's a loaded question! However, let's start at the beginning......

RAND Baltic game, hex grid overlay

I read with great interest the recent RAND organisation report on their Baltic wargame. Using lots of military types and what, to me, looks like a fairly standard NATO/Next War type game with 10km hexes, they have concluded that the Russians can overrun the Baltic states in 60 hours. Recommendation? Put in 7 brigades of additional troops including 3 armoured brigades as a deterrent. You can find the report here.

I mention the RAND game first because they have used a mix of a standard boardgame with little cardboard units that we are all familiar with in a combination with current military experience. The report is good, the concepts are great and the recommendations are probably very sound. Also, if you are interested in current developments in the east, their report is a great basis for some Cold War Commander battles.

According to Paxsims (one of my favourite sites): 

“full documentation of the gaming platform will be forth-coming in a subsequent report.” 

That will be very cool, can't wait.

The reason for mentioning this first is that RAND have been doing military analytics for at least 50 years, if not more, and they know what they are doing. The Baltic stuff is top notch. However, I have now found something that looks and feels like a major step forward. This is C-WAM!

Turkish M60s on the Iraqi border

The US Army have developed their own wargame, it is a map based game using a grid and counters. I don't have any pictures but General Dynamics IT have used the Freedom of Information Act in the US to get a copy of the rules. I have read them and, in my opinion, they are brilliant.

"Oh, alright, I surrender then!"

You can find the whole story here but, essentially, C-WAM (Centre for Army Analytics- Wargame Analysis Model) is a paper and dice based game. While its outputs are fed into a major IT system (Joint Integrated Contingency Model - big campaign management system), it is a battle simulation system that can be used in a very simple way (although you don't seem to be allowed just to do stuff unsupervised in the US Army!).

TOW: Great BBQ starter!

You can find a link to the rules here. I highly recommend reading them, Any experienced board or figure wargamer will feel very comfortable with the concepts. Just to convey some of these:

• They use a square grid on a map;
• Squares are 1 by 1 inch;
• All units that take up space are represented on the map;
• A grid square represents the area a brigade would occupy when deployed defensively;
• Time scale is one or three day turns;
• Squares may represent different sized areas depending on predominant terrain in the combat area e.g. 5km in rolling terrain;
• Units are brigades;
• Weather effects are very important, this is the first phase in a turn;
• Cyber/Space/EW effects are included, you might be successful in dealing in a turn with information attacks and attacks on your space assets (satellites) but you may suffer degradation of in electronic warfare terms;
• Intel/Surveillance/Recce effects are merged into a targeting value, if you are moving in a J-STARs area you are detected! Otherwise you are detected it there is a targeting value success. Special forces are primarily an information gathering/targeting device!
• Deep strike bombardments (ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, air packages), atmosphere penetrators (oooer missus);
• Integrated air defense system "gates" and air to air combat;
• Forward Area Logistical Supportability: supply to you and me;
• A major naval warfare sub-system (not useful in the desert but...);
• Reception, Staging, Onward Movement and Integration (RSOI) Operations: reinforcements anyone?
• Manoeuvre and stacking (that would be "battlespace limitations"!);
• Force Multiplier Combat Values: artillery support;
• Ground force combat with tables and die rolls!

Syrian forces exposing themselves to ISR detection

It says in the rules that they are not to be used without appropriate support. I agree. They are not a complete set on their own but, rather, a tool kit that needs to be carefully managed.

Are they the best game ever? No, but they are such a major insight into real-world wargaming and current US doctrine that they are extremely important. if you don't wear green pyjamas, reading these rules is the closest you will get to the smell of gunpowder. Oh, by the way, they use a square grid, how interesting is that! 

October War....

Why it is brilliant!

October War (OW) is one of those SPI games that has lurked in my memory for nearly 40 years. It appeared in a 1977 issue of Strategy and Tactics magazine. It currently resides in an SPI flat plastic box with three other significant S&T games from the same era (Cobra, Kharkov and Ney vs. Wellington). All of these games were played in my youth with friends, all of them were real classic player's games. 

40 years seems a lifetime ago. In historical terms, OW was a description of current events. The Yom Kippur War had taken place only in 1973. Data was derived largely from open source reporting. In warfare terms we see Shermans and Centurions vs T55s and Saggers. The first war featuring massive use of anti-tank missiles. In game terms this is the descendent of Panzer Blitz via Panzer 44 and Mech War 77. 

So why do I think this is game is so great?

• All units are platoons (see above) and linked very much to their real world prototypes. It feels like you are playing with real units. This is reinforced by the use of step reduction rather than an abstract disruption status caused by combat. When a unit has taken casualties you know it is down to one tank!
• It has multiple scenarios based on the Sinai and Golan Front battles. These are historical rather than abstract. There are also two multi-scenario campaign games, one for each front.  
• The sequence of play is integrated: The turn starts with a direct fire phase, each side takes it in turn to fire one unit. Who goes first is a 50:50 die roll. This is followed by a similar movement phase for units that have not already fired. This includes opportunity fire. Each player makes choices all the time.
• Any unit attempting to move or fire has to roll for "panic". An SPI fetish with very random panic results. In this game it makes every decision fraught with uncertainty, despite issues with the concept (its a bit gamey!), it works.
• Overruns can be attempted. Who goes first in an overrun depends on a die roll 1-5 Israeli and 6 Arab. A massive incentive for the Israelis to use overruns and disincentive for the Arabs. Every now and again the Arabs get to shoot first, much to the surprise of the Israelis.  
• Indirect fire is pre-plotted in advance.
• Combat effects include step losses and suppression
• There is no melee, all combat is fire combat.

The fact that this game has remained so firmly fixed in my mind after all these years is due simply to the fact that it is unpredictable and very very realistic. You can feel the heat and smell the smoke.

The Golan 73 game has set me off down this road again. I can't see why this approach was not retrofitted to Panzer Blitz/Leader. Compared to OW, Arab Israeli Wars by AH was a developmental dead end. I wonder if we can use OW in a miniatures game? Hmmmmh!

There are more details about the game, including the rules, on BGG. One very nice thing is some great scenario cards......

   
Fantastic stuff!

An interesting list......

new stuff!

Things have been really busy recently so progress on most fronts has been pretty slow. However, I've been going through one of those periods where there is a lot of interesting stuff arriving on my desk. 

Books first....

• The Men Who Would Be Kings (TMWWBK): The latest Dan Mersey rules from Osprey. From what I have read these are very simple and very entertaining. If I was starting Desert Eagle again, I'd start from here. Very interesting.
• Table Top Wargames: By Risk Priestley and John Lambshead (Pen and Sword). The jury is out. I don't think they are giving any secrets away in this one. Some of the key design issues (movement distance vs. firing distance for example) were covered off nicely by Phil Barker in a short article in The Nugget (if I remember correctly) some years ago. 

• Sandbox Infantry Patrols: This is brilliant (and only $2.99 from Wargames Vault). Basically a solo campaign for small scale patrols in Iraq or Afghanistan. Very, very nice. As some of you may have guessed, I don't do rules as written (RAW) but this one really tempts me to just do it as per the book.

  
Golan '73: This arrived very unexpectedly by post a couple of days ago. I had been watching the GMT P500 news on this for a while and had gone so far as to read the e-rules. My chum Pete, who well remembers our battles on the Golan using October War (SPI) in the 1970s, sent it to me as an early birthday present. A very welcome addition as well as being a great reminder of some happy times. I'll definitely win this time round!

In other news:

• CnC Medieval: Check this out. I'm not sure 6/7th century Byzantium counts as medieval but very interesting nevertheless.
• Heroes of Normandie Card Game: I love the boardgame, will this be even better?

• Firestorm Bastogne: I'm a big fan of Firestorm as a concept, this looks great too. 

I'm sure there is lots of other stuff occurring but this is enough for me to be getting on with for the moment!

OPFOR.....

here come the bad guys!

An ISIS fighter with a competency issue

Having survived the back to school period, things return somewhat to normal. My priority is to finish up the Desert Eagle draft and get in some full game tests. I've been doing a lot of thinking about ISIS and have just completed the first draft of the background to an ISIS army list. This is now on the Desert Eagle page. The detailed ratings will follow shortly.

I have also been tempted by a few different things.....

The Men Who Would Be Kings: Yes, I've now got this and its great. It will not cause me to change my direction on DE but I can see other possibilities with it. It is cleaner and more simple than Dragon Rampant so it doesn't hurt my brain. Also, I've got loads of Hat colonials, so who knows what's next!

Tabletop Wargames: A Designers' and Writers' Guide: By Rick Priestley and John Lambshead. On the one hand its seems to be designer's notes for Bolt Action (and you know what happened when I read those rules!) and, on the other, a combination of Fowler's Modern English Usage and Usage and Abusage by Eric Partridge. The only thing I have found useful about this book so far is that it recommends that original historical research should be left to others since you can waste loads of time on it. Sorry, its a first impression, I'm sure a second reading will improve it. I may have missed a semicolon here!

Sandbox: I love the idea of this, especially for $2.99. Something for the weekend I think.