Karamagul (SPOILERS)

[stikkypixie]

Does anyone have any tips about the second mission in the 1985 campaign?

In my opinion the Soviets have too little men to attack a town that size. Not enough artillery either and air support seems to be very unreliable. And the mujahadeen seem very resilient. I have lost lots of men (relatively) just to enter the town. Oh and there is not enough MG ammo. How's that for whining

[black_prince]

This is one of my favourite missions from CMA. I used all my smoke shells from the mortars and 2S1s to allow my guys to cross the open fields on the approach to the village without getting chewed up by sharpshooting Muj. Remember to check the wind condition before plotting your missions to make the best use of the smoke.

Prior to laying down smoke, I did hit a few select targets in the village with HE. On the whole, the results were disappointing. However, the arty did tear gaps in alot of the buildings' perimiter walls which was very useful. The 120mm mortars seemed most effective against the buildings, this may just be because they are organised into 3 tube sections whereas the 2S1s are only 2 guns to a section.

I brought one platoon down from a blocking position in the surrounding hills so I ended up attacking the village with four plattoons, two on either side of the road. Initially I had two plattons take up overwatch positions in the irrigation ditches/trenches that cut through the fields. These platoons were able to give quite effective support to the two plattoons assaulting into the village. Once my guys were inside the village they fared quite well against the muj at close quarters although alot of micro-management was required.

Most of the buildings have sides with no windows meaning you can rush your guys right up to them and get them to throw grenades through the walls while the defenders can't fire back. Very gamey but it's up to you.

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Imagine a line drawn west to east, bisecting the village at the northen most wall of the mosque compound. The majority of the muj are south of this line. There are groups of of muj in the village to the north of that line however they try to flee fairly early on in the mission. I cut them all down by placing big area target missions for my Hinds along the escape routes.

The Hinds weren't much use against the buildings. I had all four try to attack the mosque with bombs. Only two of the bombs went anywhere near it. One demolished a section of the perimiter wall, the other landed within a few meters of the mosque and took out one of the walls on the ground floor. Didn't seem to bother the occupants though. The affect of strafing the buildings with guns and rockets was very, very temporary. The PKs didn't seem to have any suppressive affect when engaging the buildings with area fire. It was mostly a case of taking on the Muj at close quarters with RPGs and AKs or flattening buildings with concentrated artillery fire.