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Perdition - a Red v Red mini campaign


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This sounds interesting.

Elmar, I'd love to hear/read your report on this.

PT, your latest post makes me wonder about going back and starting again with 1.1. Having said that, I'm really enjoying mission 2 so far, and don't want to abandon it. (replayed mission 1 from a save and, with the benefit of prior intelligence, was able to march successfully to the end with little trouble. Not the way it should be done, I know, but I was keen to get into mission 2).

So does the new version have significant enough changes to warrant starting again?

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Hey, it's not dynamic ... (yet!) so just win the missions any way you can and try to enjoy it. I have made a couple of significant changes, the first is to change the AI's artillery and Air Support zones to, hopefully, allow the AI to use it's artillery more effectively when the Marines come out. Of course, none of us ordinary plebs will see this happen for a few weeks yet.

The second change is to reduce the amount of artillery given to the Blue force. After reading Red Rage's report about mission 3, I decided that 3 batteries of 130mm artillery on top of a full compliment of mortars was just a bit too much. I figure that he was using his tanks as mobile artillery (very cool!) and since Task Group A get resupplied, the Blue force already has enough fire power to do the job. But don't worry, there's still plenty.

And of course, I absolutely HAD to change mission 1 to prevent other people from having Elmar's experience. So, carry on with what you're doing for the time being and tell me how you got on. I LOVE that second mission.

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Newroad2.jpg

Well, it's back up again and hopefully ready for v1.1. Here's what's been done to it.

First, I have removed all the AI artillery support zones for the AI and substantially reduced the amount of artillery they receive. Since there was no AI artillery in 'The Road to Amarah' and the artillery in the other two missions did absolutey nothing, you shouldn't really notice any difference except for it being a bit quieter for the first 5 minutes. However, once you have patched the game to v1.1, I suspect that the missions will play VERY differently.

Secondly, I have also reduced the artillery available to the Blue player. Not by a lot but it means that you to be a bit more economical with it, especially in the first mission.

Finally, after Elmar exposed a drastic flaw in the first mission's design I have changed the AI plans and slightly altered the Red OB to prevent anyone else from repeating his experience. Red has lost some good things and gained some not so good things. Sorry about the changes but I guess I'm a perfectionist and I shouldn't be ashamed of it.

NewRoad1.jpg

("Hey, that was OUR ride... someone's gonna pay")

I am really hoping that some of you Beta testers will have a look and tell me if I have done/overdone the AI artillery correctly.

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****SPOILERS!!!******

I've just completed the Tumah Crossing. One of your best maps and a great battle. I loved the fact that it was essentially two separate battles in one: clearing the Estate, and taking the village and hotel whilst dealing with the counterattack. Lots to think about, careful tactics required, and very tense.

However, in the end I got a surrender and won a Total Victory with only 12 men killed and 1 T55 and 1 BMP1 destroyed - and this was without reverting to earlier saves. I'd like to brag that it was my brilliant tactics and expert use of the terrain that won the day - but a lot of it was actually down to patience.

I'll tell you briefly what I did.

First couple of waves of BMPs and inf were responsible for a methodical and systematic scouring of the Estate, with the first squadron of T55s on overwatch on the edge of the forest near the road. A heavy 135mm bombardment on the store houses (unnecessary, as it turned out) and 120mm on the stables (good call!), then the inf go in with four BMPs in support.

There was plenty of time to let that happen at a fairly leisurely pace, hence minimal casualties.

Spotters were at either end of Hill 205, which gave them an unrestricted view of the entire battlefield.

I slammed the village and hotel with artillery, and when the next two waves of T55s arrived I positioned two on the near shoulder of Hill 205. This gave them cover from the enemy vehicles coming in from beyond Phase Line Alpha but allowed them to very effectively pick off anything coming into the village along or near the main road.

Four more T55s sat hidden in The Pass until the enemy T72s had entered the village and advanced close to the bridge. I then pushed out of The Pass, putting two tanks on the hillside and two rushing down into the woods overlooking the river. From these positions I was able to put flanking shots into the T72s, who were now simultaneously coming under fire from my first squadron of T55s advancing through the woods beside the West Yard. Finally I brought 5 BMPs onto Hill 163, but in fact they weren't needed.

When the surrender came I still had more than 30 minutes left.

So I think I anticipated the enemy's (your!) tactics well, and had the strength of forces to punish them convincingly. My feeling is that, had there been,say, another 3 or 4 enemy tanks, who had sat back somewhere in the region of The Garage and Phase Line Alpha, effectively providing overwatch to those that advanced into the village, I would have had a lot more problems.

Also, the weight of artillery at my command gave me a major advantage (this, I guess, will change with the new arty AI upcoming).

An interesting point, which I wasn't able to test, was that towards the end dead enemy tanks completely blocked the bridge, and would have prevented any of my vehicles entering the village. In CMx1, vehicles could be pushed aside. I don't think this is the case in SF. I've certainly never seen it. Does anybody know?

So had the battle continued, I may have had to enter the village with infantry only, which would've been quite unrealistic,and possibly deadly.

Overall, then, another excellent battle, but I feel the enemy could be beefed up just a little as the terrain in general does favour the attacker, particularly in approaching the village, and less time would have forced me to make advances at a pace that could have made life more difficult.

Now, on to the final battle!

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handihoc:

Yes, patience really is the key to winning this one. There's a lot to do and it's easy to try to take on everything at once with terrible consequences. Nice result. I occassionally got a total surrender before time ran out too when there were just four tanks. I'd have to say that this was one of the most difficult missions to balance that I've ever made. If you play this mission again, you might find that a lot of your shots on the enemy tanks just ricochet off their armour. I've 'set up' that tank duel many times and I've once had your result i.e. only lost 1 tank. I guess the random numbers play a much larger role in a Red v Red game. Trust me on this but seven tanks would probably slaughter your forces most of the time. It actually was this way for a while, albeit they were mere T-72M1Vs and not the superior (2001) models and a victory was extremely hard won, fine for a stand alone mission but in a campaign, it's a bit of a ball breaker. However, once again, when you get to play the full campaign, you may very well see 7 tanks in this mission. The full jobbie will be dynamic and this will be one of the possible versions.

I've taken onboard the comments about the volume of artillery support. V1.1 has a bit less and when I do the full campaign, there will potentially be even less than that.

I also must make a strange confession here. There are only two AI plans in this mission but there was a third and it took advantage of the terrain in a really fiendish way. Once those tanks reached their final destination, they took up hull-down positions and were almost impossible to kill no matter what I did. I deleted this AI plan because I figured those that got it would hate it. Perhaps I'll re-introduce it in the full campaign.

Regarding the potential wrecks blocking the bridge for vehicles, I NEVER once had this happen in any playtest I had and nobody's reported this happening either so I thought it was a safe bet.

Anyway, thanks for your feedback. Personally, I think the last mission has the best map but, unfortunately, potentially the weakest challenge if you take a large force through to it. If you lose a few tanks and have very little artillery left then it can really hurt you. I hope you get a good battle out of it though. Look forward to hearing how you got on later.

Combatintman:

Thanks again. You're going to see a lot more very soon as I've started playtesting on one of the best maps I've ever created.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Finished! Total victory for both final scenario and Campaign.

******Spoiler******

As you said, the last one was not a huge challenge, given that I had a considerable force, particularly of tanks, at my disposal. Nonetheless, there were some sticky moments, and I certainly enjoyed it.

The village seemed very lightly defended at the end, though. Of course, I have no way of knowing how many units were knocked out by my heavy arty.

Anyway, yet again, a great campaign. Now I've just got time, I think, to try a couple of other scenarios before those old leathernecks arrive. Looking forward to replaying both your campaigns with the updates.

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handihoc:

congratulations on your win. I have to confess that I'm a bit disappointed that it turned out to be an easy finish as that last battle was intended to be the showpiece. However, every time I playtested it, I took a LOT less tanks to the final mission than you. In one case, just five total, 4 T-62s and a single T-55. It was TOUGH and challenging but a lot of fun. (and yes, I lost)

Anyway, the old version is gone for good and I'm not sure how it will all turn out in the full campaign when it's finished. Your core forces will see some action before 'Perdition' starts so they should already have been pruned down a bit. And there won't be anything like the current load of artillery available either.

Until the Marines module arrives, I'm not doing any real playtesting as I figure the new patch will change things substantially and all that work would just have to be done again. So instead, I'm just concentrating 100% on drawing up the maps that are needed. So far, I've done six new ones and need three more.

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I'm pretty damn sure I wouldn't have got such a victory if I'd played the campaign straight. As I said above, I lost mission one and hence had to restart. Rather than start again from scratch I went to an earlier save and, knowing what was waiting, was able to march on to a 'win' pretty much unscathed.

That gave me some major advantages for the following two missions.

I see from the blog that the new patch and module contains a new super-Elite level, 'Iron'. It could be interesting to see what treats and punishments that holds. Having said that, my preference in a game/sim of this type is to play at the level that most faithfully simulates battlefield reality.

Look forward to your next missions.

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