Keeping Drones Alive

[rogue189]

I posted on this once before, but it was a long time ago.  What is the best way to keep drones alive?  I know the easy answer is to kill the AA fire, but what can you do to minimize their exposure to AA?  I loaded up Cry Havoc! and each time I launched the Raven during setup, it was generally shot down less than five minutes into the game.  I usually put it over objective Honeybadger in hopes that it wasn't directly over an AA gun.  Sadly, sometimes, it didn't even spot anything before it was shot down.  When I got a Shadow drone, I waited the 6 minutes for to arrive over objective Honeybadger.  It promptly spotted a T-90 and I called in precision fire on the tank.  When I hit play, the drone was again shot down before the fire mission request was even broadcast. 

Am I doing something wrong? Is there something more I can do?  Is this just bad luck on my part?  I have played this mission several times, but I have never been able to keep a drone alive longer than a few minutes.  Hitting cease fire to find the locations of the AA guns feels like a cheat and I don't want to be in the habit of doing it.  Does anyone have a suggestion?

[Erwin]

Maybe bad luck or poor scenario design/testing.   If the mission has enuff time, one could recon/scout to locate AAA and kill em with arty before sending drones to spot AFV's etc.  

[IMHO]

4 hours ago, rogue189 said:

I have played this mission several times, but I have never been able to keep a drone alive longer than a few minutes.

Simply sending the bird and then turkey shooting with "Precision strikes" would be dull and uninteresting, don't you find? For me the average lifetime for a Raven with Tunguska(s) present is something between 2 and 4 minutes. You can try to harness the maximum from this period by pre-positioning your forces near the suspected SPAAG sites and then listening carefully for Tunguska fire. Normally it takes more than one burst to take down Raven so you can quickly relocate Raven's mission to the suspected site and with some luck get a bean on Tunguska before it kills Raven. But I wouldn't expect Raven to live long enough to actually direct the strike itself.

Edited April 19, 2020 by IMHO

[rogue189]

Hmmm.  Does that make the drones useless?  If I spend the time AA hunting with the drones and they get shot down before my strike arrives, what is the point of having them?  There are two Tunguskas in this battle and both are far enough back that the game will be over by the time they are found and eliminated by my ground troops.  To be clear, I'm not trying to argue.  But if the drones are to help the commander understand whats ahead, do they serve any purpose if they can so easily be killed?

Edited April 19, 2020 by rogue189
Grammar and clarification

[IMHO]

35 minutes ago, rogue189 said:

If I spend the time AA hunting with the drones and they get shot down before my strike arrives, what is the point of having them? 

You get information about enemy positions. But IMO in "Cry Havoc" you don't really need a Raven. All the bad moves you can potentially make that an UAV can prevent are bad per se - Raven or no Raven. And for the good moves having a Raven does not help much in this scenario.

[rogue189]

Good to know.  I have been having trouble with this scenario.  I have been watching Usually Hapless's videos anything to use his advice to improve my gameplay.  But I'm stuck on the small town in the top right, hand order of the map.  I haven't found a good way to use overwatch and fire support to get my guys in town without taking a lot a casualties.  To make it worse, the Russian artillery keeps moving with my group, making it difficult to have a rally point.  I need help!

[Chibot Mk IX]

Be aware of Tunguska.

I haven't played scenario "Cry Havoc", but I can understand your frustration. I had a PBEM on Rolling Thunder (?) . The redfor's Tunguska shot down my two UAVs in the first min, while It takes my 8 rounds of stinger to shot down the redfor's UAV .          

 

I realized that I got to knock out that Tunguska before I sent my two Apache. And next 50 min became a "hide and seek" game between me and my opponent. I  made several Jav teams and FO teams infiltrate the front line, try to get a lock on that Tunguska. My opponent is cunning, he constantly move Tunguska every couple min. So my artillery PGM, barrage missed his Tunguska. And he was moving like a ghost, Jav team cannot get a lock.  Finally my M1 put a 120mm on Tunguska, but it was almost at the end of the game. 

                                     

[Freyberg]

5 minutes ago, Chibot Mk IX said:

Be aware of Tunguska.

I haven't played scenario "Cry Havoc", but I can understand your frustration. I had a PBEM on Rolling Thunder (?) . The redfor's Tunguska shot down my two UAVs in the first min, while It takes my 8 rounds of stinger to shot down the redfor's UAV .         

I realized that I got to knock out that Tunguska before I sent my two Apache. And next 50 min became a "hide and seek" game between me and my opponent. I  made several Jav teams and FO teams infiltrate the front line, try to get a lock on that Tunguska. My opponent is cunning, he constantly move Tunguska every couple min. So my artillery PGM, barrage missed his Tunguska. And he was moving like a ghost, Jav team cannot get a lock.  Finally my M1 put a 120mm on Tunguska, but it was almost at the end of the game.                               

That sounds like a fun game - you should do an AAR some time

[IMHO]

5 hours ago, rogue189 said:

I need help!

***SPOILERS***

To be honest it's been a quite while since I played it so I may miss some specifics by now. As far as I remember the only real thorn in the flesh was T-90AM that overwatches the bridges. Both roads to the bridges are too obvious and possible overwatch positions are too enticing so I didn't take them at the start. But that was the first time I met T-90AM and I was too used to Russian tanks having poor situational awareness. So I lost half a squad to T-90's thermals Sudden onrush of tank reinforcements in the big town was unexpected but since I'm very careful when clearing towns with infantry it was a mere surprise rather than a real threat. The sequence I took was big town in the bottom right corner first, then coming back to you starting position and from that going to the town in the top left corner. I don't remember what route I took to the last town in the top right corner - just recall it was uneventful. Looking at the map again what I'd pay attention is first, I'd have a lot of infantry overwatch in all the woods in the center before moving your armor from your starting location to the top left town. And moving to the last town I'd take fords rather than go through the bridges. Bridges look dangerous to me with plenty of sweet overwatch positions. Other than that it looks like however meticulous but pretty straightforward town clearing with the infantry.

Please don't use spoilers in your reply, Cry Havoc was one of the most enjoyable scenarios I had and now I've forgotten it enough to have another go at it

[danfrodo]

I am just starting Cry Havoc.  I did add a recon element in scenario editor but did not look at enemy dispositions.  IMHO, I was thinking of same approach you took.  Town on right first.  Attacking the other towns first leaves a flank open, which I could cover by smoke but that only works if I clear danger zone before smoke clears.

[IMHO]

1 hour ago, danfrodo said:

which I could cover by smoke  but that only works if I clear danger zone

Without knowing the enemy positions in advance it's kinda difficult IMO. Upper part of the bigger town has good overwatch positions just like the woods between the bigger and smaller towns on your right. You'll need to really put a lot of smoke. Plus the smoke tends to be uneven - your armor rolls out of it still blind yet already being targeted by enemy force. I'm now trying to play to zero casualties so I prefer to be extra cautious. But that's just my personal choice. Battles tend to be very long.

Edited April 20, 2020 by IMHO

[rogue189]

I have considered taking the big town first, but haven't figured out a good way to do it.  The map seems to lend itself to going after the top left town first since it has good overwatch positions.  I once tired to use the ford near the starting position to attack the big town, but it ended badly.  In the end, I have always fought the map the same way, but have never had much success in finishing the fight.  Usually by the time I have taken the first two towns, my force is too depleted to effectively take the big town.

Edited April 21, 2020 by rogue189
Grammar and clarification

[Freyberg]

On 4/20/2020 at 6:14 PM, IMHO said:

***SPOILERS***

To be honest .......

Please don't use spoilers in your reply, Cry Havoc was one of the most enjoyable scenarios I had and now I've forgotten it enough to have another go at it

Excellent

[danfrodo]

Cry Havoc (modified a little by me) is really something so far.  I had started it for only a few minutes & lost my drones & a bradley+squad to russian air.  So restarted before I knew any enemy positions.  I decided to go to first town, the one directly west.  Laid smoke to cover front & right flank, along w arty fire -- was preplanned to arrive at 10 minutes so I had time to get ready.  Lost one bradley and one HMMV (from my 'cheat' scout platoon) but squad unhurt.  Moved to right of town & now fighting there as I get next smoke screen ready so I can cross more troops over.  what a fight!!

I am not using drones yet, not until after I take first town & hopefully get an idea where the AA assets are.

[Chibot Mk IX]

On ‎4‎/‎19‎/‎2020 at 11:56 PM, Freyberg said:

That sounds like a fun game - you should do an AAR some time

Thank you , I hope I can do an AAR. Unfortunately that game happened two years ago, I am afraid I have lost most of the PBEM file  

[danfrodo]

by the way, how on earth do I tell these russian tanks apart?  In WW2 it's so easy to tell.  But w modern russian tanks that are covered in reactive armor they all look the same to me

 

[MikeyD]

I have a recollection that when the Donbas war kicked off Ukraine quickly learned just how difficult it was to keep drones alive over a hot battlefield. Between jamming and groundfire they lost so many so quickly that they put a moratorium on drone use until the battlefield environment was more propitious. Russia had such difficulty using drones that they started using the technique of flying two drones over a target. The first sent in to attract ground fire and the second following along a couple minutes later after the opponents' AA gun barrels had heated up.

[Vergeltungswaffe]

On 5/1/2020 at 4:44 PM, danfrodo said:

by the way, how on earth do I tell these russian tanks apart?  In WW2 it's so easy to tell.  But w modern russian tanks that are covered in reactive armor they all look the same to me

 

There are a lot of these online, but you'll start with road wheels and go from there.

[Nefron]

 

So this just happened in a single minute. I was failing pretty hard at Gagarina Checkpoint mission, and tried one final push when a Ukrainian T-64 destroyed two BMP-3s and a T-90 with a single round!

 

 

 

[Nefron]

Then it reloaded, and one shotted another BMP-3 and a MT-LB. 

 

This was maybe the first scenario I played when I got Combat Mission, and I found it pretty easy, but today it is kicking my ass. 

[gnarly]

@Nefron you had a T-90 in Gagrina Checkpoint?