TDG 10 Recon Results Featuring Badlands Rifleman

In last week’s Tactical Decision Game, you were assigned to plan your reconnaissance of your objective based on the Requests for Information (RFIs) that you came up with in TDG 9. Badlands Rifleman (who has a pretty cool blog and training company of his own) submitted a very detailed reconnaissance plan which he posted on his blog. Today I will share the results of his recon.

I have built a 3D mockup of the objective using the ArmA III mission editor. All images you see below are what Badlands Rifleman’s recon teams would have actually seen from their observation posts.

For context, read the orientation and situation for this series in TDG 9.

Recon Results

Teams 1 and 2 depart the patrol base at 0300. As Team 1 prepares to occupy their harbor site, at 0334 they hear the sounds of several vehicles driving East to West along the road in the vicinity of the objective. The convoy sounds like about a dozen or so vehicles, and is gone within 5 minutes.

As team 1 occupies OP1, they quickly discover that the position is unsuitable due to all the trees blocking their view.

Team 1 improvises, displacing NE along the ridgeline until they get a line of sight to the objective. They set up OP1 at grid 058198. The objective turns out to be about 50m East of the civilian gas station, which has several destroyed civilian vehicles littered around it. They observe the following images as the sun comes up.

You count about 5 troops. One appears to be an NCO, who walks back and forth within the position checking on the defenses and trucks. A 2-man security patrol is seen slowly walking counterclockwise around their perimeter, going at most 100m from the trucks. At 0600, the roving patrol returns to the trucks and wakes up their relief, who put their equipment on and resume the patrol. The gunner at the sandbagged position is also relieved at 0600.

There is no civilian traffic observed on the roads. You glimpsed movement in the houses next to the objective, but haven’t seen anyone outside yet.

Meanwhile, team 2 patrols to OP2, arriving around 0500. However, their position is partially obstructed by the hill in front of them, so they displace SE across the saddle. Fortunately, there are enough large rocks and boulders to conceal the new OP. They observe the image below:

The fog is a bit too dense to see much other than the gas station sign. However, it clears up a bit by 0800, resulting in this image below:

Team 2 is unable to get a count of personnel, but they do observe the 2-man patrol walking around the position. They see other shadows in the fog, but not very clearly. Again, there is no civilian vehicle traffic observed. At 0723, Team 2 observes a civilian, probably a farmer, walk up to the shed between them and the objective. The Russian patrol stopped the man, spoke to him for a few minutes, and let him go.

At 0800, as planned, both teams pack up and move to link up at the new patrol base. At 0912, both teams see and hear a flight of two Russian jets overhead flying NW towards Oreokastro. At 0944, one of the aircraft flies back over you towards the airfield. No other enemy activity was observed during this period.

Summary

I would like to thank Badlands Rifleman for all the effort he put into his answer. Any information not specified in this AAR will have to be deduced from the images that your teams see. Tomorrow, you will put this to use when making your final assault plan.