CMBS Russian Campaign: The Mountains of Allah:Operation Scepter

[grunt_GI]

2 hours ago, dragonwynn said:

Thanks for the AAR so far. I made the hill tops touch objectives so you would not need to occupy and you can continue to move all available forces to the next objectives But the points are important. 

Ha,excellent, good to know.  I have encountered some weird VP situations playing the Stalingrad Mod (which is also AWESOME) where I occupied, most but not ALL the parts of an objective and got no points.  So, touch VP works very well for this scenario I think.

Really enjoying this...

[dragonwynn]

Yea I got a plan for the Stalingrad mod when I get done with the CMBN campaign.

[grunt_GI]

Ok, finally finished the first mission with a TACTICAL VICTORY...oyyy, took too many casualties (as usual) but secured all the hill top objectives.  Did not secure village or go on any further search and destroy missions.  Figured would cause more casualties than I inflicted.

POST AAR.

Overall Mission:  Very doable.  Of course, it would be awesome to be the Americans and just pound the crap out of everything with artillery and air, but that's just not realistic.  I think overall the mission objectives were manageable and realistic.  

Force balance:  Clearly the furthest hills had the most firepower.  However, I couldn't tell how well the OPFOR used their mortars and ATGMs.  Clearly they used their damn machine guns pretty well.  I was endless frustrated at how freakin' long it too to call down my awesome mortars and air support, and actually felt the ATK HELOs didn't do a whole lot.  But overall, with enough fire, maneuver, and more fire, I was able to sweep the hills.

Overall playability:  A very fun scenario.  Like I said I never play the Russians, but this is pretty darn good.  I almost felt like I needed vodka to celebrate my victory.

I am now heading into the Valley of the Wolves....hmmm tanks and APCs...fun...

[dragonwynn]

Thanks for the  AAR. Glad you were successful. The next missions get a bit more combined arms style as well as a spetsnaz scenario. Thanks for the thoughts on the campaign so far. 

Michael

[Erwin]

Dragon: I hope that you have many others who are playing your campaign.  I enjoyed the first scenario v1 and v2 seems much better.  Am just wrapping up a long trip so o time to play - looking forward to this when I get home.

[dragonwynn]

Thanks Erwin. I hope the rest of the campaign will prove to be just as fun. I haven't heard much from the later missions so hope there will be no issues there. 

Edited July 17, 2016 by dragonwynn

[Andy_101]

Hello,

 

Could someone point me in the right direction to the winter mod "Winter Modification Mod designed by the WMT for CMRT".  I've looked through CMMODSIII and although I see lots of winter mods I can't find one by WMT?

 

Thanks in advance.  

[Blazing 88's]

@ Andy_101 There is this thread with links:

Not sure if that is what you are looking for, but it is what I have.

Edited July 30, 2016 by Blazing 88's

[Andy_101]

On 30 July 2016 at 5:05 PM, Blazing 88's said:

@ Andy_101 There is this thread with links:

Not sure if that is what you are looking for, but it is what I have.

Thank you very much!

 

A.

[grunt_GI]

Mike

Okay, just started playing Valley of the Wolves (Mission 2)...really, really outstanding...the map and weather makes FULL use of the CMBS Winter Mods  and are very well done.  Another HUGE battle to manage..and lots of toys to play with...

Great chance to exercise Russian combined arms...I have a new appreciation for the BMP...what an awesome weapon to wipe out terrorists!  I haven't had to dismount my infantry...yet, and am enjoying the relaxed ROE to just blast hell out of everything in my path with those T-90s.  

Seriously though, the OOB for this is really great to showoff what a well managed Russian force can do...I am smart enough to know that nasty surprises await in the towns, but now that I have my mortars in place, should have enough indirect fire support to win this one.  

I am ALWAYS leary of taking MBTs into urban terrain...now will have to figure out when to dismount my infantry and how best to support them.  Definitely will need EVERY minute of this scenario.

REALLY, really well done fun scenario....

[dragonwynn]

17 minutes ago, grunt_GI said:

Mike

Okay, just started playing Valley of the Wolves (Mission 2)...really, really outstanding...the map and weather makes FULL use of the CMBS Winter Mods  and are very well done.  Another HUGE battle to manage..and lots of toys to play with...

Great chance to exercise Russian combined arms...I have a new appreciation for the BMP...what an awesome weapon to wipe out terrorists!  I haven't had to dismount my infantry...yet, and am enjoying the relaxed ROE to just blast hell out of everything in my path with those T-90s.  

Seriously though, the OOB for this is really great to showoff what a well managed Russian force can do...I am smart enough to know that nasty surprises await in the towns, but now that I have my mortars in place, should have enough indirect fire support to win this one.  

I am ALWAYS leary of taking MBTs into urban terrain...now will have to figure out when to dismount my infantry and how best to support them.  Definitely will need EVERY minute of this scenario.

REALLY, really well done fun scenario....

Thanks grunt_GI. Glad you like so far.

[Euri]

My feedback is as follows:

Mission 1: nice work on map but ill conceived scenario. More like a WW1 battle

Mission 2: Excellent map, very good scenario design. A great experience overall

Mission 3: Nice concept but I the excecution was just ok. Too many infantry for both sides. Useless bloodbath. Again the WW1 - WW2 syndrom manifests iteself :-)

Mission 4: Geat Map. The mission however is apparently untested  by the author.  No air controllers available for the air assets. As a result I stopped the campaign

 

[dragonwynn]

Thanks for giving it a go. I'll check the mission 4 aircontroller issue. I may have inserted a FO instead. I wasn't able to play test everything the reason I was asking for testers. 

[grunt_GI]

Ok just finished Mission 2:  Valley of the Wolves.

Map:  As usual, a superb map....lots of terrain features, outstanding use of the winter mods...could almost feel the chill in the air.  

OOB/Force Balance:  Per typical SOP, I underestimated the ability of motivated dug-in infantry with ATGM to hammer the crap out of my armor.    Should have used my mortars to rain steel down on  every foxhole I saw in addition to using the awesome 100mm auto cannon.  The Russians had enough firepower to give me a Tactical Victory, but it was sloppy and had FAR too many casualties.  If I was a real Russian commander I think Putin would sack me.  Very fun chance to use Russian forces.  They do pretty well over all.

Playability:  This is a good scenario to practice Combined Arms on a large scale.  Almost three engagements at once.  I had a challenge not only managing the entire battle, but shifting forces around as needed....once you take the village on the left, it is hard to move forces to overrun  the supply depot.  Fortunately I took the hill first and was able to swing forces down to the left to attack the smaller village, which was an unexpectedly tough nut to crack.

OVERALL, nicely done.  The Campaign story is playing out very nicely.  

Now to mission three, the Spetsnaz assault to capture the terrorist leaders.  DAMN, now it's snowing even harder.   Hopefully those NVGs will help.....

[dragonwynn]

Thanks GruntGI. I'm looking at doing a redux so to speak of this campaign by reworking the first battle for a more combined arms style as well as the mission you are on. Will try to get on that when I finish the Stalingrad project. 

[grunt_GI]

Hmmm, I am waiting in great anticipation for what you might do with the Stalingrad/Winter Mod...have been SLOWLY making my way through David Glantz's stupendous 4 volume set on the battle...all of them 1st class door stoppers with a LOT of detail.

In the meantime, working my way through this with my current limited playtime...sadly, have not had time to play your new CMBN campaign...soooo much content...sooooo little CM time.

Cheers.

[grunt_GI]

On August 27, 2016 at 9:17 PM, dragonwynn said:

Thanks GruntGI. I'm looking at doing a redux so to speak of this campaign by reworking the first battle for a more combined arms style as well as the mission you are on. Will try to get on that when I finish the Stalingrad project. 

So Operation Scythe was a TOTAL Russian Victory .

Wow, there are some awful weather and terrain conditions to be sure.  However, the night time aspect really worked in my favor as I was able to sneak my forces almost into the barracks and first group of buildings before the firefight broke out.  CLEARLY drones are of little utility finding infantry hiding in buildings...and not much utility telling trucks from IFVs..which was not unexpected, I just wanted to make sure nothing snuck up on me....and I made sure my guys riddled all the trucks to eliminate them as getaway vehicles.

A basic fire and maneuver sort of scenario...clearly some players would just want artillery and airpower to flatten everything (hey why use a bullet when a JDAM will do right?), but in reality infantry have to go in and make sure the right terrorist is dead, eh?

Took surprisingly few casualties for me...was able to use a lot of flanking and crossfire of enemy troops...I DID however notice there were a lot of enemy forces that I didn't engage before the end of the scenario...just not enough time to inflict more enemy casualties so took the hit on those VP.  But got the enemy leaders, and that, after all was the objective, yes?

NOW onto Assault of Haya Yurt...lots of open ground to get across...in daylight....hmmmmm

[dragonwynn]

Thanks GruntGI. This is one of the missions I may rework a bit. One player said it had to many forces. I may reduce the number or have more of them patrolling. But you played it as I designed it so I guess that much is a success. 

[Erwin]

You are doing a great job!  If you keep improving you campaign like this, I feel almost lucky to have had so many computer issues and delays.  I am looking forward to your "final, final" version.   

[Euri]

On 9/3/2016 at 8:26 PM, grunt_GI said:

NOW onto Assault of Haya Yurt...lots of open ground to get across...in daylight....hmmmmm

Do you have spotters and Air controllers in mission 4?

[dragonwynn]

I have added them in the update which should be released soon. They were originally in the OOB for that mission but when I place units I usually add them in small groups to make it easier to place with out the entire OOB on the map at the same time. Guess I missed them. Sorry about that. 

Michael

[grunt_GI]

On September 5, 2016 at 11:17 AM, dragonwynn said:

I have added them in the update which should be released soon. They were originally in the OOB for that mission but when I place units I usually add them in small groups to make it easier to place with out the entire OOB on the map at the same time. Guess I missed them. Sorry about that. 

Michael

SIGHHHH, yes air controllers are ESSENTIAL for Assault of Haya Yurt...there is a LOT of open terrain to cross.

 

SPOLIERS

 

 

Ok, this mission was TOUGH, in spite of the heavily mechanized Russian OOB.  

Map:  This was another great map, but pretty darn big.  Now that gives the Russian player some leeway in how he does his initial setup, but wowza, there's a lot of killing ground to get across.  Those crazy Chechens have a damn good defensive works  with a lot of interlocking fire and a fair amount of heavy weapons.  This, of course, I woulda pounded the crap out of with my CAS/ARTY, if I coulda.  Without the tanks, I don't realistically see how the Russians punches through.

OOB:  The Russians are very mobile, which I tried to use to my advantage to put a three-sided attack on the defender and stretch out and overlap his lines.  WELL, crap, those bastards were dug in almost 360 degrees so that didn't quite work out as planned.  But I did finally punch through a  weak spot that I pounded with my tanks and make it past the perimeter and started to work my way down the trench line.

Overall:  Another challenging combined arms battle.  Air support will definitely restore some balance...more arty would be nice too, should there be organic mortars perhaps?  I fought my way to a draw.  Took too many casualties crossing that terrain and looking for soft spots in the perimeter.  

NOW onto the Battle of Kosmorov or whatever it is....urban combat....hmmmmm, but LOTS of objectives to take...I wonder if there will be the old issue of HOW much you have to control an objective to get the points...remember that issue?  Wonder if a mix of touch/occupy might be better?

I will let you know....

Cheers

[dragonwynn]

Thanks GruntGI. I'll look at buffing up the arty a bit and I'll look at the obj on the one your starting. Maybe one day this thing will be worth something if I don't just delete it first lol. 

[grunt_GI]

46 minutes ago, dragonwynn said:

Thanks GruntGI. I'll look at buffing up the arty a bit and I'll look at the obj on the one your starting. Maybe one day this thing will be worth something if I don't just delete it first lol. 

Oh, it just needs some tweaking....I am still getting used to the fact that Russians/Ukraine forces need FOs to call in CAS...VERY used to US giving everyone that ability...  And  the whole touch/hold thing was a lingering issue from the Stalingrad Mod and scenarios I remember discussing with those guys...touch versus hold for urban buildings was VERY wonky with the victory settings....it was DAMN near impossible to get credit for occupying a building if there were ANY enemy forces nearby.

Don't stop now man, this is gonna be a great campaign when it's all tweaked...or twerked..whatever....  I am very afraid of what awaits me in the next scenario, but ready to go...

[dragonwynn]

Here is the latest updated .cam file for this campaign. It adds or corrects the following:

1. Mission 1: Added additional support assets such as a heavy arty section and some fixed wing assets for support. Missing mortars, FO's and Air Controllers previously missing have also been added.

2. Added the missing Air Controller Team to mission 4.

3. Added a few more support assets to some of the missions.

Hopefully this will make the campaign more enjoyable.

For new downloaders download the main files here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4vrkcpcr3q5tkei/The Mountains of Allah.zip?dl=0

Place the mod folder into your dataz and delete the .cam file.

Download the updated .cam file here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bwopzmdouzml3cz/The Mountains of Allah.cam?dl=0

Place the new .cam file into your campaign directory.

Michael