Tactical Decision Game #97-3 Solution C
Duke NROTC A B Main TDG Game
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Tactical Decision Game Solution #97-3 C March 1997

Meeting at 'The Mounds'

by Bill Tallen

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Squad Leader's Orders

"1st Fire Team: Fall back to the mound behind you.

"Machinegun Squad; Place your guns on the wooded mound to your rear. Cover the road and the mounds in front.

"2d Fire Team: Fall back with the machineguns.

"3d Fire Team: Go to ground right there. Watch our right flank."

Message to Platoon:

"Contact front, estimate one platoon enemy infantry. I am falling back to draw them up the road. Recommend you flank left through the woods to your left front."

Supporting fires:

Call for smoke across the squad's front, and ask guns to stand by to fire for effect.

Explanation

The enemy's supporting fires are landing on my platoon leader's last position. This may delay the platoon's response. Those same fires may quickly shift onto my teams' present exposed positions, if they stay there long.

My squad is split by the road, and I cannot effectively counter an enemy flanking move by his right.

I intend to encourage the enemy's aggressiveness. I hope to draw him into a direct pursuit, by appearing to undertake a quick and complete disengagement, before he can organize to flank and by pass. When he reaches the mounds my teams presently occupy, I can pin him with the squad's concentrated close-range fire and hammer him with supporting arms, while the platoon maneuvers against his right flank.

Even if he does not react as I intend, I will have my squad placed on ground of my choosing in mutually supporting positions from which I can engage or maneuver as necessary to support whatever the platoon leader ultimately decides to do.

For more detailed information on the structure of Marine Corps units, Marine Corps equipment, and symbols used in Tactical Decision Game sketches, see Marine Corps Gazette, October 1994, pp. 53-56 and the modification reported in the January, 1995, edition on page 5.