October War (Yom Kippur Mod for ME67) by Indragnir

[Mr Grumpy]

October War

Version 1.1 By César Librán Moreno “Indragnir”

Changes from 1.0
PILLBOXES from Bar lev line moved 1 hex back to avoid being all destroyed within first turn.

SA-2/3 SAMs AA values toned down.

Limited air recon rule enforced.

IAF availability lowered (from 60% to 30%).

Eitan and Mandler divisions fixed during first turns.

Lowered speed for almost all Israeli forces.

Pushed back 4 IAF squadrons (1 to 3 turns).

Egyptian start with some bridges built.

Raised visibility to 4 hexes to help SAM fire.

Should be played with this Optional Rules:
-Artillery Setup
-Recon Spotting
-Virtual Supply Trucks
-Night Fatigue
-Counterbattery fire
-Limited Air Recon

On the Scenario:
I set this campaign as 2 hours-turn, with a dawn and dusk turn and 2 night turns.

Regarding Victory conditions if Egyptians achieve their historical aims and Syrians are retreating off Golan, this game should be a draw. So if thing are getting ugly for Syrians, Egyptians should attack forward (as they did historically) to achieve victory.
If Israel crossed the Canal but Syrians are not repulsed this game should be a draw.
Israel need to win: conquer Syrians and Egyptians VP locations.
Arabs need to win: hold the east Canal without Israeli penetration and Syrians hold Golan areas.
Set VP related to that idea.

The biggest change I did to standard MC structure is changing company sized units into Bn sized units and Bn sized units into Brigade sized units. (Only for Israel)

The good: very numerical inferior Israeli forces could hold and attack as historically with company sized units without fatigue make them useless in 2-3 turns.
They take fatigue as Bns.

You can attach “former Bns” and some “former Companies” to “former Brigades”, that way you could attach them between Brigades-flagged-as-Division-on-OOB file.
Like Israel did. Also you can create Ad-hoc units (like KG), called Koah.

For example you could attach Divisional Recon Bn from Sharon’s Ugda (division), plus 1 Tank Bn from any brigade plus 1 Mortar Bn from any brigade, plus 2 artillery regiments from Reserve to any Brigade (for example 14th Armored Brigade) reinforcing it or attach them to a Koah to make a “new Brigade” unit.
Israel have a unique flexibility.
So don’t look at NATO symbol on the unit, look at text on the unit.

The bad: since they’re not company units they cannot combine ever (but for some special units, mainly in Golani bde and 188th Armored bde).
Besides you cannot attach Brigades to Divisions but you can transfer all elements from a Brigade to others Brigades, in other words, you cannot transfer HQ units.

Set stacking to 1000 per hex to avoid uber-stacks-of-death.

Set infantry defense to 20 (plus better defensive terrain values) to avoid large infantry massacre. This battle cost Israel less than 12000 casualties (dead, wounded, missing, captured)

Set Recovery rates at 1% to enforce strategic usage of combat power.
Note that Israeli tanks have 3% replacements (1% rest ofIsraeli forces but IAF).
7th and 188th Armored brigades together have less than 15 tanks by 8th October, a couple of days later they had almost 200 tanks for Golan offensive.

Israel used a tank-charge tactic (without infantry and artillery support) in the first days, it costed them half their tanks, that’s why Israel infantry “companies” are small and armored brigades have 12 mortars as their only artillery support.

Note that Arab breakdown is high, this to simulate Egyptian refusal of leaving SAM umbrella.

Tanks:
Although T-62 tanks had night combat systems and a 115mm smoothbore cannon they couldn’t fire on the move, have a 1:4 fire ratio against Israeli tanks, their cannons couldn’t be lowered to -10º as Israeli Centurions (key factor against hull down tanks!), have almost half ammunition than Centurions and there were slow tanks.
T-54/55 were even inferior tanks.
That’s why they don’t have HA range 2 like Israeli tanks
Israel upgunned their tanks with L7 105mm (british) it was capable of penetrate T-62 armor at long distances.

Syrians fought a brave battle at Golan, they keep going despite murderous casualties... when half Syrian tanks were knocked down, they retreat from Golan to their defensive positions to hold Israel counterattack. They were quite stubborn holding Israel offensive on Syrian soil.

Egyptian HQ held armored reserved west of Canal to counter an Israeli attack, finally they were committed to attack trying to avoid Israel’s forces shifting to Golan.

Arabs have large quantity advantage, Israel have quality advantage

Artillery and AT guns:
Arabs have large artillery advantage, they used their guns to keep pinned infantry driving alongside the tanks, this way they set up a lot of traps against charging tanks.

Every Arab infantry Bn have a strong AT component, initial 5 crossing divisions have a unit called Tank Killers (Bn Sized, don’t fear).
A infantry brigade had almost 600 AT weapons, so I created that units with really high HA value, low Assault value and good defense, so until Israel bring forward artillery and infantry support, Israelli tanks are in great danger.
That awesome mass of AT weapons did major damage to Israel’s tanks.

Tanks have a great assault value to simulate tank shock once AT weapons are overrun or destroyed.


Air Power:

Interdiction, Air Interception and SAM interception were given low values since I want to simulate air war attrition, making air units to attack ground targets.
In this battle de IAF lost 102 planes, Arabs lost more than 400.

IAF units were splitted into small units with higher attack (and defense values) it would trigger also numerous AA fire from SAM and AA guns.

Despite numbers and such, the IAF only lost 5 planes in dogfights and 7 to SA-7 AA missiles, so AA values from Arab non-AA units are low.
The combo SA-2/SA-3 downed less than a dozen planes, what really damaged IAF was a SA-6 (the 3 fingers of death) high altitude missile with ZSU-23-4 (Shilka) radar guided AA guns, they downed more than 5 dozen planes.

Arab casualties were mixed: dogfights, Israeli SAM and AA guns.

Although Israel have almost 100 Mirage III planes their vulnerability to SAM fire made they were used only as Air Interceptors, however Israeli Neshers were used as ground target attacker.
Arab air power played a minor role in this campaign but they’ve plenty of planes so use them.

Advice: AA units will only fire if air attack’s target is in LOS of AA unit.

Assaults: Israel forces should be disrupting and assaulting Arab infantry units rather than firing upon them, mainly because Arabs infantry units are 4 times their size. So, disrupt them, isolated them with tank charges and assault them.
The inverse for Arabs, keep a reserve, stand at deep defense.

Don’t forget rest your troops, even 1% (plus replacements) on the long run will let units be rebuilt.

All Arabs brigades have a HQ unit, (but for minor Arab Allies) this way Arabs player could mount brigade sized actions without letting the rest uncommanded.

Some curiosities:
BMP-1 make its combat debut at Yom Kippur War.
Egyptian forces used old Soviet SU-100.
I named 3 units in the OOB: Budapest garrison, and two tanks companies Shmulik Askarov and Tzivika Greengold. What those men did cannot be simulated with that engine, so I did raised their values to make them special.
Israel employed 240 and 290mm rockets in the war, Syrian used a 180mm gun brigade.
American operation Nickel Grass (massive air supplying effort) is in the game: almost 70 planes were sent to Israel, plus lot of munitions and almost 2000 AT systems (TOW and LAW), Israel AT guns were rather obsolete before (Carl Gustav and 106mm recoiless)

Final Notes:
I’ve read dozen of books, chat with veterans of Yom Kippur War, I was blessed with the accuratest OOB you can found (more later) ... but in the end no source have the same name for same units... not to mention there’re “ghost” units mentioned in only 1 source...
So I did my best trying to figure what unit really existed, with what name, where they fought and when they fought.
It was a nightmare across two years.
Finally I’ve trusted in a ex-Army Intelligence officer who served in the war, he is a friend of my wife’s family.
He provided me with Brigade Commander names, compositions, deployment, IAF squadron numbers and names, artillery commands, reserves, too much to be detailed.

However I’ve sacrifice a little of historical times, releases, deployments just to assure game balance. I hope you understand.

Art:
My lovely wife did/adapted all art work, despite my almost constant mind changing

Just unzip them and check yes, It won’t overwrite any art but for [106mm Jeep Rcn Co] and [Israeli UnitBox]

Note: She did a Israeli UnitBox with flag at superior left corner, don’t overwrite it if you like more on the right corner.

Large Scenario 184 Turns

You’ll need Volcano Man art pack for ’73 expansion.

Download Scenario Files