Obstacles

[Compass Rose]

OBSTACLES
By Marc “Bayonet” Bellizzi


One of the most confusing & complex combat multipliers available to the wargamer is the use of obstacles. In this chapter we are going to cover obstacles and their employment; a later chapter will cover Engineers and the use of Engineers to breach, reduce and destroy those obstacles.



8-0 BACKGROUND

Obstacles are considered to have a “countermobility” function. They adapt and transform terrain to multiply the battle effects of fire and maneuver against an attacking enemy. When employed properly, Obstacles can be worth their weight in gold, breaking up an attack, channeling attackers into kill sacks, and, in countless historical instances, could be considered to have ‘helped save the day’. Employed haphazardly or poorly, they at best are a nuisance - and sometimes if used incorrectly, they can even prevent the user from being able to escape his own defenses, in effect trapping his own forces at the enemy’s feet.



8-1 FUNDAMENTALS

Without getting into too much military jargon, we will define obstacles by two types; existing and reinforcing. Existing obstacles are just what they sound like; natural features, like ditches, gullies, cliffs & water, as well as man made ‘civilian’ obstacles (houses, berms, walls, etc.). Basically, anything that was already there before the troops rolled in.
Reinforcing obstacles are what the soldiers & engineers build, and they are of two kinds; denial and barrier. Denial types are mines and booby traps; those items that really don’t ‘take sides’ in a fight, prevent either side from being able to enter an area, and kill anyone who enters without discrimination. Barriers are as they sound; some type of impediment that in effect becomes a wall between friendly and enemy forces. Examples are wire, abatis, craters, anti tank ditches and other items that ‘slow’ or ‘interrupt’ movement for a short period of time.
In wargames as in real life, there are rarely enough reinforcing wire and mines to go around, and so a player should always try and ‘tie in’ existing obstacles into his barrier plan, enhancing those natural features further. For example, if there is a cliff along one edge of your hilltop defense, do not run your precious wire along its face; the existing cliff is a great barrier itself, so tie your wire in on each hex edge of the cliff, thereby making your wire extend even further. As another example, a dense hex of woods is just as effective at breaking up mechanized movement as an anti-tank ditch; tie the woods into your anti-tank ditch-line.

Obstacles are not meant to be a complete blockade of their own; any obstacle, no matter how elaborate, can eventually be breached by an enemy with enough time, equipment and know how. Failing that, other times the enemy just ‘goes around’ big obstacles, rendering all that work pointless - witness how the Maginot Line, MacNamara Line, Atlantic Wall (in the Pas de Calais) and other obstacles were simply avoided.
Instead, obstacles are best used to force the enemy to react to them, so you can better engage and destroy him. Obstacles should be emplaced to canalize, turn, fix and disrupt an enemy attack so that your ground fire can destroy the enemy wholesale. Properly used, obstacles will increase engagement time, create stationary or slow moving targets and cause the enemy to expose vulnerable areas to fire (like the flank, rear or belly). Obstacles also allow you time to disengage from a hopeless situation, and can help prevent the enemy from rapidly pursuing your retreating forces.



8-2 TYPES OF OBSTACLES



In most tactical level wargames, we find a good variety of obstacles to choose from.

Minefields, represented by the anti-personnel mine, anti-tank mine or booby trap, are the most deadly of obstacles an attacker will encounter. Mines delay and canalize an attack, cause fear of casualties and weaken the attacker’s will to fight. As you increase the density of your minefield, you increase the time, effort and casualties the enemy will take to negotiate the minefield. For example, individual mines (or one point density minefields) are good to harass and disrupt an enemy’s movement plan, while 3 or 4+ point minefields will usually be avoided all together.



Command detonated weapons, like Claymore’s or Fougass, are best employed as part of the immediate defensive perimeter to cut swathes in the ranks of the enemy as they close on your position.



Wire is a good anti-personnel obstacle. When employed in individual strands, or strung along in one hex depth, it will turn or disrupt the enemy’s movement. In deep belts, the wire will really break up and inhibit movement. Another good use of wire is to channel an enemy force into a heavy weapon fire zone. For example, lay a belt of wire at a 45 degree angle across the front of your position that has a machine gun at the wire start point. As the wire slows up and disrupts the enemy assault, the MG will cut the men down as they try to breach the wire obstacle. Coupled with mines, wire makes a very formidable obstacle.



Craters are used to inhibit vehicular movement. They cause the attacker to halt, thus increasing engagement time for your anti-tank/anti-vehicle weapons. Like wise, Dragon’s Teeth and Tetrahedrons are used to inhibit vehicles.






8-3 SETTING THE CONDITIONS

To site individual obstacles, certain preconditions are necessary:
First the player/commander decides where he plans to mass his fires (his ‘kill-zone’). This kill-zone must be clearly defined (we will get into greater detail on kill-zones in the ‘Defense’ article, but some basics are all we need here). In wargame terms, pick a kill-zone, like an open field or valley that you want to try and drive your enemy in to, so your direct fires can plaster him. When picking this kill-zone, remember to consider artillery and air-strikes; is the kill-zone big enough and far enough out that your own forces won’t be hit by friendly fire? Can your radio man see all of the hexes in the kill-zone so that he can accurately drop artillery fire on the enemy? Is the kill-zone close enough that your most important weapons can reach all the way into or across the kill-zone? (Nothing is worse than opening fire on an enemy in a kill-zone and NOT being able to hit him with all you’ve got).

Site your direct fire weapons in areas that have good fields of fire into your kill-zone. In a wargames like the Squad Battles or Campaign series, turn on the ‘visible hexes only’ option and click around the perimeter of your kill-zone, checking to see where the best spots are for your weapons. Keep in mind that your Anti-Tank weapons can be further back than your infantry because of their range; you might consider your Machine Guns on the flanks so you get a cross fire into the kill zone (this really messes up an attack). Building a good kill-zone takes skill, experience and practice.

Once you have started to find the best spots to site your direct fire weapons, turn those hexes into Bunkers, Pillboxes, Trenches and Foxholes if you have them. It is critical that you remember the enemy is not just going to be sitting still in your kill-zone; he will be literally fighting for his survival, so you must protect your own forces so they can continue to destroy the enemy while he is foundering in your obstacles.
Finally, start placing your obstacles. Build your obstacle system like a spider builds a web, to first draw in the prey, and then trap him so you can destroy him.

So you see, obstacles go in LAST, to help a player’s guns kill the enemy. They are truly a combat multiplier, and rarely an end to themselves.



8-4 EMPLOYMENT

Obstacle placement itself is somewhat of an art. When all one had to worry about were mass waves of troops in WWI, belts of wire obstacles were perfect to slow the enemy charge long enough that the new fangled machine gun could chop mass formations to pieces.

Since the end of WWI, tanks, helicopters, APCs, dozers and engineering vehicles have all radically change the obstacle placement thought process. To a Mechanized Company, a belt of wire is like a speed bump is to a car – simply a nuisance.

To compensate for the old ‘belt’ style of placement, today there are several different styles of obstacle use. In US military parlance, they are called ‘turn’, ‘fix’, ‘disrupt’ and ‘block’. No matter what the name, however, each of these methods is used to force an enemy into a kill-zone so direct fire can destroy his forces.



8-4.1 TURN

A turning obstacle is just as it sounds; a string of wire, dragon’s teeth, tetrahedrons or some type of obstacle that turns the enemy toward your kill-zone. This type of obstacle should be placed so that it doesn’t seem obvious to the enemy what it is doing; in other words, a few hexes of wire along the wall of a valley or along a tree-line that simply ‘nudges’ an enemy force toward a different route. It should be clear where you are trying to force the enemy – that way he sees where you want him to go, and instead of breaching your obstacle, he heads for the obvious, open route. See graphic below.

A secondary effect of the turning obstacle is that it causes the enemy to expose his flank to you while he tries to move along the obstacle. If you have units hidden over-watching the turning obstacle, these units have good flank shots into the enemy force. What you do NOT want as part of your turning obstacle, however, is a real blatant, big blockade that seems to state ‘Hey! You are going to be stopped right here once you travel down that wire! This is where you are going to die!” or the enemy will catch on, and he will find another route.



8-4.2 DISRUPT

All armies use timetables and formations for their advances. A disruption obstacle is used to ‘throw a kink’ into the enemy plan, which the player/commander can then exploit. By inference, therefore, a disruption obstacle should to be covered by fire.

Disruption obstacles are placed throughout your kill-zone with the intent of breaking up the enemy’s formations, interrupting his tempo, and causing early commitment of breaching/Engineering assets. For example, a few belts of wire or Dragon’s Teeth can break an enemy formation up so that when you engage the enemy with direct fire, he cannot make a coordinated response. By placing a ‘hex’ of wire in a dead spot (a location your troops cannot see, like a gully), or placing some Dragon’s Teeth in the middle of your kill-zone, you can upset the enemy attack. Likewise, some hidden mines scattered about will cause the attacker to hesitate – “Did I just hit the defense’s main obstacles? Should I stop and deploy all my troops now?” - This hesitation and breaking of the enemy’s momentum is exactly what a disruption obstacle should do. See graphic below.



8-4.3 FIX

“Fixing” obstacles are placed to temporarily halt enemy movement, but it must be understood that he will not be held for long. The intent is to allow your forces a bit more time to slaughter the enemy while he is busy trying to get out of your fixing obstacle. Contiguous layer hexes of wire or mines are a good example. Unlike Disruption Obstacles that are meant to harass the enemy and break his tempo, a Fixing Obstacle is intended to bring the enemy momentum to a complete halt for a period of time. To fully achieve the fixing effect, direct and or indirect fires must be integrated with the obstacles. Additionally, if things start to go badly for the defender, he can reposition his forces using the additional time gained as a result of fixing the enemy. It is critical that the player/commander understand what he is up against when planning and building a fixing obstacle; if the enemy force is too large, he will ‘spill around’ and bully through a fixing obstacle, negating the obstacle’s benefits (it will basically have simply been a disruption). Likewise, too strong an obstacle could be a waste of precious engineering work (laying the mines and wire, building bunkers, etc), especially when a player considers that he is just a part of an overall defense of a much bigger unit.



8-4.4 BLOCK
Blocking obstacles are those that are meant to completely stop an enemy, or intimidate him so much that he avoids taking a certain route. They are typified by dense, deep masses of wire, mines or a combination of both. To put this in perspective, a Squad Battles or Campaign Series player should picture a 4 by 4 hex row (16 hexes) of nothing but mines and wire. Any player will try at all costs to avoid struggling through all that and pick an easier route. Because they require the most extensive engineer effort of any type of obstacle, blocking obstacles are employed only at critical choke points on the battlefield. Blocking obstacles must be anchored on both sides by existing obstacles (severely restricted terrain). Direct and or indirect fires should cover the obstacles to achieve the full blocking effect.



8-4.5 PROTECTIVE
There is a final style of obstacle employment called ‘protective’. This is typified by a single belt of obstacles or wire that ‘protects’ your battle position on all sides. For example, your protective wire may be a complex obstacle providing all-round protection of a platoon perimeter, or it may be a simple wire obstacle on the likely dismounted avenue of approach toward a squad position. Landmines, Fougasse or command detonated Claymore mines may be integrated into the protective wire to further enhance the defensive position. Protective obstacles are usually located just beyond hand grenade range (40 to 100 meters) from a soldier's fighting position, and may extend out 300 to 500 meters to tie into tactical obstacles and existing restricted/severely restricted terrain. The player/commander should plan protective obstacles in depth and attempt to maximize the effective range of his weapons. The bottom line is that the ‘Protective Obstacle’ is usually your last line of defense.




8-5 PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

A picture is worth a thousand words, so I have tied all our styles of obstacle use together in this graphic.In summary, site some of your obstacles so that they cause the enemy to be drawn into your kill-zone, by closing off other routes his forces might take (turn). Emplace obstacles along the entrance walls of your kill-zone, so he thinks he needs to pass right through the open area to get at you (turn). Randomly place a few obstacles in selected positions within the kill-zone, like dead spots and so on, to cause his formations to break up (disrupt), place obstacles along the walls and friendly edge of your kill-zone to keep him in the kill-zone for the maximum amount of time (fix), and finally, place dense obstacles, like masses of wire and mines, on exit routes out of the kill-zone so he cannot leave (block).




SOURCES:
US ARMY INFANTRY & ENGINEERING MANUALS