Bahger

Oh dear. Won the first battle in the US campaign but cleaned out all my saves, thinking that the game will save my campaign progress between battles but I appear to be mistaken. I'll need to re-fight the first battle, huh?

Well I do not save before every turn, or even close to it, as that would encourage a trial-and-error form of gameplay that is completely antithetical to any kind of realistic tactical command simulation. That is the way to do it, though; quit the game and restart from a previous save. I do not allow myself to save more than about every fifth turn, and rarely reload from saves. The game has crashed mid-battle once, though, so saving is prudent.

I know what you are sayinmg but I think it is reasonably clear from my post that I am referring to "rewinding" the turn in order to replay it rather than to re-watch it but, given the game's "rewind" and "fast forward" style icons, "rewind" might have been an ambiguous choice of word.

I do it as little as possible and not when I think it will change the outcome of the battle decisively; for example, if I did not anticipate that artillery barrage which took out one of my two MBTs, I will not rewind the turn in order to move the tank and escape my fate. However, rewinding every now and then can be a good teaching tool for the relatively inexperienced player…or so I tell myself.

Just curious. I try to avoid it because I feel that, unlike CMSF at this point in its development cycle, the game "plays fair", with minimal LOS and AI glitches that create implausible or unjust outcomes and that, like real-life commanders, we should have to live with the often fatal consequences of our own decisions. Having said that... I will occasionally replay a turn if I really think that a unit has got hung up on a pathfinding glitch or if I'm convinced that superior LOS should have allowed it the first shot. Is this heresy? What do you all think?

See our discussion here about the "Objective Delta" mission. The Russian Su-25s are free to wreak havoc on US ground forces equipped with nothing more than a Stinger team. This level of Red air superiority (possibly even air supremacy) with so little in the way of Blue AD seems profoundly unrealistic to me. I am glad it's the exception rather than the rule when it comes to the balance of air power and AD in missions.

Yes, I have noticed the Bradleys' reluctance to use ATGMs as well.

Well, give yourself some credit for skill, BlackMoria and if there was an element of luck, Napoleon would have appreciated it. Frogfoots for the Russians but no Hogs for the U.S.…well let's not revisit that debate. I just hope our real-life infantry/cavalry have better defenses against fast air. And in this scenario, Russia clearly has air superiority.

Yes, I am going to wait a while before signing up again for this one. Better AD for the US side would really balance out the mission while still retaining a high level of challenge. Are the Stinger MANPAD teams the only US AD fielded in the game? It seems unrealistic that an American force of this size would not have a stronger air defence, especially when Russian strike aircraft, rather than just helicopters, are briefed. This scenario puts a fresh US assault force up against a supposedly depleted Russian defence but Russian air superiority interferes with this balance and kind of makes the US a bit of an underdog.

An August Morning is a terrific, tactical mission that will become a "classic", I suspect, all the more impressive because it has so few of the modern toys. (Advice to CM mission makers: start your mission titles with an A, that way they'll be at the top of the listing, and if they are very small, they'll still be at the top even after you filter for length. Brilliant.)

Is Objective Delta yours, Pete? If so, I will send you the bill for the rug I acquire when the bloody thing has caused me to tear out what's left of my hair.

I would imagine the AI does not need a spotted target for air strikes, as the human player does not. My hunch is that the AI will call the strike on an area on the map from which its own units are taking fire.

You are absolutely right, BlackMoria. I realise that I had things pretty well in hand before the Russian fast air arrived, my single Stinger team missed with two shots and it all went to hell in a handbasket. A couple of questions/comments: - Are vehicles in woods seen by fast air? - I think I will go down the right next time as the streets in the center have AT-armed infantry inside the houses and vehicles advancing this way are running a gauntlet. If I had tanks I could just blast those houses but the Strykers have precious little offensive capability on this scale, the MGS vehicles are so vulnerable and UAVs do not see infantry in houses. Better to touch the objective in the right hand corner then advance to the left hand ones without running that gauntlet. - I had an idea... What if I used my artillery/helos to blast the crap out of the two or three places where Russian HQ units are likely to be at the far end of the map, preemptively? If this attrits HQ units and spotters, will it reduce, or even eliminate, the air?

It is indeed. On 1920 x 1200 res, it's the size of a pixel warrior.

Lost again. It all went tits-up as I approached the leftmost objective and started to dismount my infantry. And then the Russian air arrived; Stinger squad got off two missiles but hit nothing and curled up in a fetal position. Then I lost both my spotter and my C/O so that was the end of my supporting fires. Ehh. Back into the breach...maybe.

Ha, first blood! By this time in my last playthrough I was two vehicles down. This is my first kill in CMBS with that paper-thin MGS Stryker. It's going to be a matter of patience and deciding how long I can wait before committing to the infantry battle and moving on the objectives. I will use the Apaches to recon the wooded areas en route by fire as they do not need eyes on from other systems. I also spotted where the tanks forded the river in the upper right corner of the map, so with good spotting I might be able catch them in the bottleneck. Either way, what I have learned is that you cannot maneuver in this scenario without both good intel and good supporting fires. There's another spotted T-72 two minutes away from death by precision artillery.

Or isn't there one? I figured there would be, as, if a mission starts at 05:00 and a briefing says Paladin will come online at 05:15, is the only way to tell how long until the Paladins arrive is to look at the countdown and subtract 15 from the start time? That's fine, but wouldn't a mission time indicator be a good idea?

The game can bend time in the player's head, especially if you play WEGO. Because you have only one minute at a time, and because it can take ten minutes to plot a one minute turn, the temptation is to move as many units as you can as far as you can in that time or it feels like you are not making progress. The fact is that even in (easier) missions that I have won fairly handily, I usually end up with ten minutes to spare and if I had taken those ten minutes I would definitely have avoided casualties. Here endeth the lesson. Now back to Objective Delta.

Good to know I'm on approximately the right track, BlackMoria. Reinforcing this strategy further is the realisation I had this morning (although it may be wishful thinking, and I cannot verify in-game right now) that the UAV the US side gets is a Gray Eagle, which flies out of range of everything but Tunguskas (and I do not think the Russian force has any of those.) It's a cleverly designed scenario, for all the punishment it doles out to the US player who attempts to duke it out by direct fire with Strykers against heavy armor. For me, it reinforces a key concept of CMBS, which is not to rush and never to move without covering fire and effective recon. The fact that you only get one spotter, virtually no good spotting locations, and all supporting assets do not come online until at least fifteen minutes into the mission, indicates that the scenario designer is teaching the player a lesson...

It's a PITA, no doubt about it. Having licked my wounds after a humiliating defeat the first time around, I have come to the conclusion that the best strategy is to keep my vehicles in cover about a third of the way up the map until all the supporting assets have come on line, as the wafer-thin Strykers are no match for T-72s and BMPs. I do not think the Russians have much AD capacity so I am going to advance only as far as I can without getting into a direct-fire punch-up, then (because there are very few places with good LOS for spotters) use my UAV to spot for the Apaches, the mortars and the Paladin. I am going to take it very slowly. If I can get Javelins in place to support the indirect fire, all the better but I do not see how I can possibly expose either my infantry or my Strykers before I have attrited a very large proportion of the Russian armor through arty and air. Rushing the objectives seems hopeless here; I think the only way to win is to kill as many vehicles and dug-in infantry as possible and only then move on the objectives.

I presume that Stingers, unlike Javelins, cannot be fired from inside buildings but can be deployed from rooftops. What are the limitations (if any) to deploying these units from within woods or treelines, or behind buildings? Thanks!

You need to separate them by a greater distance by moving one of the squads further away within the setup zone. Then they will not reunite when you don't want them to.

I did not know there was a patch incoming until I found out from dan/california. Is there an announcement?

Very useful information indeed, Dutchman, thank you.