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objective Delta no spoiler


antaress73

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Any luck with that scenario playing as US ? Its an evil one for the US player. I got a tactical defeat and a minor defeat (getting better lol) on the two tries losing all my armor (strykers) and 65% of my men (27 killed 16 wounded 1 missing). At the end of the second try, I tried to take the bridge but despite using fire and maneuver with my surviving infantry they were too broken and tired to keep a steady advance , a single bullet over their heads sending them into panic mode and lot's of " fight ! You cowards" Lol Extra time ended before I could reach the bridge.

Edited by antaress73
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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.

Edited by Bahger
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I completed Objective Delta with no casualties and a Total Victory as the US side.

 

This is a scenario in which you can get much mileage out of the UAV and precision rounds.  Send in the attack helos on spotted enemy armor as well.

 

That leaves the infantry to contend with, with their hand held anti - armor weapons.  Bahger has the gist of it - eliminate the enemy vehicles before pushing on the objectives.

 

I don't recommend a left side or a down the middle approach because your forces will be shot at from three sides.  I took the right side approach, hugging the river (an obstacle to you) and followed the river up to the right rear objectives and the police station.  Then I cut in towards the left rear objectives.

 

Caution and patience will get you through with minimal casualties.

Edited by BlackMoria
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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...

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Sometimes, you have to wait for the assets to come on-line to get the job done and done without getting shot up in the process.  That is a lesson some players learn the hard way.

 

I think in many cases, players are too hasty and feel the pressure of the clock and end up 'rushing to disaster'.

 

This scenario is one in which haste will result in dead soldiers. 

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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.

Edited by Bahger
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************SPOILER ALERT**************

 

 

I attacked from the left road... tought the little valley surrounded by tree lines would protect me from the bulk of russian forces in the middle and right side (near the river). I did use the javelin, the Apache and precision rounds along with the UAV and eliminated all the enemy vehicules. I splitted the javelins from the sqauds  and sent them in the house along the middle road to kill the russian armor.  The two MGS strykers were deployed in the tree line in front of the the agricultural field.  Worked fine until they got spotted (after doing a good job) and one MGS was eliminated by long-range RPGs and the Javelins by enemy infantry and snipers. I lost nothing to enemy vehicules. All my vehicule losses were long-range RPG shots from Infantry and air attacks. Then my infantry got caught in a russian mortar barrage while establishing a fire base  around the crossroad objective close to the police station to support an attack on it and took heavy casualties. Also pot shots from snipers and maybe one BMP-2M managed to kill a few of my infantry before being destroyed the next turn by an Apache. There is not many good positions to establish a supporting firebase. A firebase is also dangerous to establish. 4 strikers were lost to air attacks including a strafing run on a striker (setting it on fire)  while a squad was resupplying inside  with 25mm grenade for the M25. It got out of the vehicule all yellow and it ran in panic back and forth for 4-5 turns before I could send the lieutenant to calm them them and rally them. They were very useless afterwards because they were broken.(all my infantry was broken after that last air attack and mortar barrage. The stinger was in a good position and shot his two missiles at the SU-25MS without result.

Edited by antaress73
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I completed Objective Delta with no casualties and a Total Victory as the US side.

 

This is a scenario in which you can get much mileage out of the UAV and precision rounds.  Send in the attack helos on spotted enemy armor as well.

 

That leaves the infantry to contend with, with their hand held anti - armor weapons.  Bahger has the gist of it - eliminate the enemy vehicles before pushing on the objectives.

 

I don't recommend a left side or a down the middle approach because your forces will be shot at from three sides.  I took the right side approach, hugging the river (an obstacle to you) and followed the river up to the right rear objectives and the police station.  Then I cut in towards the left rear objectives.

 

Caution and patience will get you through with minimal casualties

 

 

Thats impressive. All the stars must have been aligned for you ;) Escaping air attacks was a stroke of luck ! But I agree.. rushing too much results in dead soldiers. But I still lost the second time because the clock with extra-time ran out but that's because my men were all whimpering and getting spooked by everything. There was this russian machine gunner who had maybe 4-5 25mm airburst grenades explode over him and he was still shooting while running back and forth.  Ratnik body armor and luck can do miracles. Napoleon once said: " I know he's a good and competent general, but is he lucky ?" That hugging the river side could have been costly because there is a lot of LOS to your forces  and if they had anti-tank missile teams and even a well placed and hidden T-72 it could have a been a bad night.

Edited by antaress73
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I will admit that no small degree of luck allowed me to come through with no casualties.

 

The air attack could have been as bad for me as it was for you but my Stinger team lucked in with a first pass kill.

 

I don't know if the scenario has more than one AI plan but the route along the river was the path of least resistance for my game.  My artillery scouring the tree lines may have had something to do with that being a relatively 'safe' route for me.

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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.

 

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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.

Edited by Bahger
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Ouch!   :o    

 

It appears you have the ground battle in hand, it is just the air war part.  And with just a single Stinger squad, winning that is literally hit or miss on the fortunes of war.

 

You could revert back to an earlier game save prior to the fast air coming in and see what fortune pitches you for the Stinger team results.  Or try again with a new game and assess if it is worth going for every objective or take the minimum objectives for a win and clear off the map before the fast air comes on or gamble on a better outcome with the Stinger team.

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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?

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Woods will give cover from observation for vehicle from the air but it isn't a sure thing.  I have hid from air attack in trees in CMSF with success for the most part but I can't say for sure that the spotting routines haven't changed for CMBS.  

 

Llikewise, I have not done any scenario building so I don't know if airstrikes for the AI are event driven or if they are called by observers conditionally based on triggers.  Therefore, I can't say what the impact on the airstrike will be if all the observers capable of calling an airstrike are out of the picture.

 

Good questions but I don't have ready answers for you.  Perhaps one of the scenario builders members with knowledge of that could weigh in.

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Any AI Air or Arty that is not called in on turn 1 against a support target location is being called on the hoof by the AI. 

 

I believe any AI HQ unit can call in either, which differs a little from how it works for the human player, and so destroying them all will probably work, but I'm not sure how good your chances are of killing every HQ unit in any given scenario.

 

P

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Can I assume, Pete, that the observer needs to observe something to trigger the AI behavior to call in an airstrike?   As in, if you are not seen by the observer/HQ, there will be no AI action to initiate the air support call?  Or can the AI 'go fishing' and put down an area target and hope something stumbles into the net?

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I'm pretty sure it will call in a tight area target if it has LOS, but I know that in some instances it will call in for air an area target that covers the whole map and let the assets go fishing.

 

If you run a mission in scenario author mode you can see when a support mission is called for the AI. (You get the green line from the spotter and the overlay for the target area as with human support missions).

 

In early playing testing air support was destroying the RED attack in my Brutal scenario, the only problem was that it was RED air. That got tweaked, but yes the AI will call in air across the whole map in the absence of a better target and hope it strikes lucky.

 

P

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No Bahger that's not one of mine - mine are even more infuriating  :P

 

For the record mine are

 

An August Morning

Brutal

and missions 2 and 3 of the Russian Campaign

 

enjoy !

 

P

 

edit just to add  - its The Imperial Grunt you need to send your bill to.

Edited by Pete Wenman
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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.)

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