Blufor - initial deployment in insurgency

[Farks]

This has always been a bit of a dilemma for me. At the start of a insurgency round, should the blufor team immediately move and start attacking and locating insurgents, at the risk of wasting tickets and resources at irrelevant locations/targets? Or should they be more passive and wait for intel before they move out, at the risk of letting the insurgents organize hard defenses and occupy other key locations?

As I said, I find this a very hard call to make. I've seen way too many rounds of both cases and think this is something that needs to be discussed.

[Mongolian_dude]

For me, I invariably see the greatest result from a BLUFOR team that consolidates and takes its time to plan and execute a strike. By dedicating some few men to a variety of recon roles (2sniper, 2 scout bird, 2 LAR), BLUFOR can make educated assumptions as to the locations of the caches.

This by no means that the Task force should sit idle in the main! (this can be applied to last-tickets situations though to minimise costs) By strong-pointing a moderately-highly defensible position, BLUFOR can maintain a high income of intel points through using superior firepower and range to engage enemy combatants. It must be considered that a disciplined and patient enemy may choose to avoid engaging such a force in a particularly secure area, such as a large, open desert environment.


To entice enemy action, BLUFOR may wish to instead spread its force onto several fronts, by strong-pointing positions with firebases and emplacements. While armoured vehicles serve as a prised target for suicide operatives, too high a concentration would risk deterring the enemy completely.

With sufficient intel points, BLUFOR recon units can be put to greater effect and guide both the main task force and support elements onto the target with accuracy.

In theatres where terrain is highly limiting (eg Opp Archer) to a large, armoured force, a unison or rapid cannon of lightening strikes can be equally devastating in achieving cache destruction; however this introduces and emphasises risks associated with making a strike on a cache, as the reduction in armour and fire-power of a large task force is compromised for smaller and quicker elements such as armoured cars, light vehicles and transport helicopters. Also, faster moving units lose the capability to effectively spot ambushes, mines & IEDs and other threats such as broken bridges, rock falls and sheer drops; making the conciseness of Recon and pre-planning ever more valuable.

Both distracting and/or suppressing the bulk of a hostile force is crucial to maintaining the effectiveness of a lighting strike, as enemy forces make the habit of cloistering discovered strike forces, using their high troop density and short-range effectiveness to impede, surround and infiltrate BLUFOR formations. Deploying feign lightening strikes is a risky but effective way of countering such problems one would face in a dense, urban environment.

The use of recon-guided CAS and fire-support offers lightening strike forces the suppression of enemy troops, the destruction of enemy structures and fortifications, occupying enemy forces with survival and the masking the sound of approaching vehicles and and a depletion of enemy resistance.


Especially in last-tickets situations, the above must be considered just as equally (if not more so) for the extraction of a lightening/strike force from the target area.


...mongol...

[dtacs]

• If you want to win:

Wait at main for intel to come up. Depending on the map, the best way to get the cache is just to rush it in a Humvee, have the squad dismount, and throw as many incendiaries as possible on it. The amount of incendiaries needed varies, I've had 3 work and had 11 not work.

Since BLUFOR pretty much win every Insurgency map other than Kokan/Archer due to the overly substantial amount of tickets, rushing simply makes it go faster. You can turtle and use formations and convoys all you want, the methods are different but the end result is still the same. There are no major or minor victories for BLUFOR at all. You win or you lose.

at the risk of wasting tickets and resources at irrelevant locations/targets?

For a quasi-competent BLUFOR team, tickets mean nothing.

• If you want to turtle and take the realism road on your way to victory:

Ensure there is a decent commander working with the squad leaders who are in turn willing to follow convoy protocol. Move out as a group, stay in the open areas and don't go in unless there is support from a TOW/APC/tank/50's. Even the most downer team using common sense can take down a cache, its even easier on Karbala and Basrah.

[Pronck]

My Tactics;

1: Move out with a few squads to a map dominating area, for example bunker hill at Op. Archer, at the start of the round. The first thing you will have to do is to set up an FOB, of course you will atract fire with this kind of activities but you will also be aware where the (uknown) cache might be. When RPG-Fire is intenser than usual, go out and patrol to the possible cache location. Step 1 is completed.

2:When ariving near the possible cache area, find a position/building that is overlooking (a part) of the area. Your fire team (or supporting squad w/mumble) has to settle here and provide your squad with covering/suppressing fire. You will have to move out and try to locate the cache. The best way to find it is to find their "hardpoint" this is where their amount of resistance is higher than average. When located you have to find a weak spot in their defense, when you find it, use it, sneak up on the cache and destroy it.

3:Now you need to get your *** out of the former cache area. Your fire team has to kill as much enemies as possible to clear a fast way for you to move out. Meet eachother at a rendevouz-point near the former cache area and move out. But make sure that you will take out their remaining hideouts so they can't chase you when moving out.

[Truism]

You want to do a few things. You want to maintain some influence over key defiles so that a complex IED belt can't be established (which can potentially cause problems if two caches spawn in the same location well covered by some layers of obstacles). The best way to do that is to exploit the massive range advantages that you have to harrass and skirmish from outside their effective range in known cleared locations. This will also deny the enemy the ability to preposition bomb cars and garies, as well as giving you a very real chance of interdicting them. Dominate firelanes to restrict freedom of movement, retain decisive terrain.

The second thing you want to do is maintain a posture that makes you basically impervious to assaults. That means maintaining forces with each other. Since you can layer effects better than the Insurgents, any combined arms you use in a conservative way pretty much can't be killed.

The third thing is to maintain a posture that lets you easily mass in an attack, since the insurgents can't even begin to match your combat power in the advance.

Fourth thing is to consolodate and assault the known cache(s). Rapidly and violently with everything at once.

So basically: Limit the other team's freedom of action (don't let him set up complex obstacles in key locations). Kill without being killed (generate int points). Stay in a position where you can act decisively (retain the ability to mass before assaulting). Act decisively with massed combat power (use the whole team to violently attack a single cache so the fight can't be stalled or drawn out). (Addenum: Don't lose heavy assets).

Any even remotely competant coalition team pretty much can't lose insurgency these days without some seriously shitty luck. As long as they orchestrate what they're doing, they're pretty much unstoppable. As long as you co-ordinate and don't do anything silly, you can pretty much deploy however you want within the context of your plan.