Green Clutch

I went back again after your first message and went balls to the wall to try and go straight through the ambush zone and push on the village and it went better than previous attempts. I think something in the briefing that encourages maintaining momentum and forward progress might be useful. Thanks for the feedback.

I did the '79 campaign and scored a minor victory. There were some great games. Very nicely done. I think the Soviet briefing is somewhat misleading. It stresses the need for conserving forces and indicates your forces entering a different part of the map. If force conservation is the mission priority, there's no way I'm bringing the FSE in where they arrive. Why doesn't the tactical map in the briefing show the correct entry point for the FSE? If the briefing instead prioritized momentum and maneuver, then I'd have less of an issue.

After really enjoying the US campaign, I started the Soviet one. In the first game, your first wave of significant forces show up at the 10 minute mark. In a huge open field. Right under the guns and TOWs of a US cavalry screen. I started the scenario several times and I will lose 4-6 vehicles in the next 90 seconds and there's nothing I can do about it. Why do the reinforcements show up there? According to the briefing tactical map, they're supposed to arrive on the other side of that map edge in cover. Am I missing something?

Out of interest, why does the max allowable file size get smaller and smaller on this thread? (for me it's down to 3KB)

I eagerly watched your Stemming the Tide video, having banged my head against that battle multiple times (the best I could pull was a draw.) I noticed the number of times you said "mad scramble" in the narration- it's a good alternate title for the scenario. The cool thing about that scenario is that there are 3 different AI plans and you never know which one is going to happen. You actually lucked out early game in the AI plan you went up against. Some of the other plans would have jammed you up right out of the gate! Very much enjoy your content. Hope you do some more CMCW in the future.

Talk about stepping in some lucky sh*t, this Sagger misses the M150 by flying between the launch tube and the hull!

I used a similar plan except my platoon on the left was in the buildings along the road. I split the TOW units between the two flanks. The ones ones on the left were particularly effective. Like you, I snuck an FO on to the central wooded ridge to rain down cluster munitions on whatever came up the middle with a squad in a reverse-slope ambush position to cover them. It worked in the end, although my right was in danger of buckling at one point.

Welp, I think we know how next turn starts.

Getting some eyes up in to the woods on the central ridge so you can look in to the middle of that big U-shaped forest was also very important.

I had luck in Brauersdorf setting up my M113s in keyhole positions among the buildings that the Soviets revealed at the last minute. The .50 cals could open up on close range targets and the other Russian units couldn't support whatever was getting ripped up. My observation is this game and others is that if an M113 exposes itself at range, it's toast. My run-through of Brauersdorf was challenging, but I managed to pull out the win. I did observe that the map chops up the Soviet approach into 3 lanes that can't really support each other while the Americans can benefit from interior lines of support. That was the key to my success, at least.

Oh, cool! I look forward to it. Hopefully you have more success than I have so far.

Third time through this scenario and a squeezed out a draw. Not impressive, I know, but I find this a very tough nut to crack. No real spoilers, but with the plans I've tried so far, the Russians are on top of me before I can build up a effective position. Perhaps I'm trying to get into a position too far forward. Now that said, it's been a blast. It's a cool little map and the scramble to set up blocking positions on the fly is an exciting tactical challenge. Back to the drawing board!

I had a good time with this one as well (although the game crashed on my final units dashing for the exit.) I somehow didn't encounter the surprise you both referred to. My strategy used a lot of smoke grenades and breaching charges. I do wish that in the deployment phase, the game showed you the units your troops can currently see or are engaged with. I did have a "Oh s*%t! They're THAT close!?" moment at the beginning. This came up in another battle as well where you push start on the first turn and enemy troops in full view suddenly appear on the map.

I'd be up for it, Allan, if you can walk me through how to do it. I haven't played a pbem or h2h before.

I just pulled out a Tactical Victory as the Americans in the Mitteachsenbach scenario by the skin of my teeth. This was one of those games that keeps me coming back to Combat Mission. At first it seemed hopeless. Then reinforcements started tricking in. You threw them in to the line hoping they'd hold. Some did, some didn't. The battle was in doubt right up the the very end. There was one M60 that found a keyhole position in a village the Soviets bypassed and managed to take out 7 T-80s in the flank as they rolled past before getting knocked out! The biggest threat to the Americans early in this battle is despair as the sheer size of the Soviet assault becomes apparent. I really didn't think I had a chance until about the 50 minute mark.