DaveDash

So far, 30 minutes in, I would describe this mission as 'Stressful'. I imagine, if I finish, it will be 'Rewarding'. I've almost cleared the starting town. The CMSF clock has gone down 30 minutes, but the real life clock has gone down about an hour and a half. EVERY move I make I have to examine the map carefully for ALL possible enemy fields of fire, doors, and so forth. It's almost like having to solve a puzzle. There are so many overlapping enemy fields of fire to consider. Also, I've got more Air and Arty in this mission that the entire Marines campaign, but I cannot use any of it because of the ROE. Ive done a few infantry passes over the various towns, but my choppers spot nothing.

8 KIA 11 WIA Mission 03. Found it difficult to gain fire superiority, and the AK is lethal in close quarters. Due to the civilian density, my troops couldn't spot the enemy until they were right on top of them, and one burst from the AK meant I was having a man incapacitated every firefight. An IED took out half of my engineer section, and enemy fires finished the rest off. Onto Mission 04 now.

I use a program called Fraps. You have to purchase it if you want to record videos longer than 30 seconds, but I think it's like $8 or something. The free version can take screenshots etc. The only thing is it slows your game down a bit. You know, a lot of missions in CMSF you just can't do them in the time allowed. It's better to just try and force a surrender in most missions, I reckon.

I suspected the trigger men may have been in those two small buildings to the right of the bridge, so I levelled them. I then fired a bunch of HE at the bridge and detonated one IED. Then for good measure I popped smoke and FAST moved my guys across the bridge. No dramas. No game tactics required. Mission 03 looks like more trouble however. IEDs a scary, and it really sucks to lose an IFV full of men to them, but 90% of the time they never go off because you end up waxing the trigger man.

Haven't got to that one yet. Will let you know shortly.

Link to video

Yeah well this mission *is* challenging, probably the timelimit being the most challenging factor. I just gave it a quick run, and I have secured the bridge and established supporting bases of fire on either side. Ive suffered about 3-4 infantry casualties and have about an hour left on the clock. I did, however, take somewhat unrealistic risks. I attacked ABEL straight away with my initial forces instead of waiting for my armour, but I did plan my approach carefully. I almost struck disaster as my smoke screen blew away in a matter of seconds. I recorded my effort. Not trying to steal jnt62006's thunder, in fact, it will probably be a good comparison on what to do vs what not to do (me) However it is possible within the time frame, but you are right, you have to take risks. If all your elements arrived just after your recon elements (especially armour), it would probably be a lot more achievable. For the record, my biggest and only gripe with CMSF are the timelimits imposed on you. Will put a link up with the vid soon.

Loving your missions so far in the Canadian campaign. A lot of the urban areas have that 'slum' feeling about them, and feel like real rabbit warrens. Extremely deadly to try and get around, almost like a maze. Mission 3 has a bit of a Blackhawk Down feel to it.

I had a chuckle at the comment of the S2 needing to be shot. This mission can be done in 2 hours with a fair bit to spare, if you don't fluff around with the west yard. 1 Hour and 20 to get the bridge to ABEL seems a hell of a long time. Did you go around the long way or something, trying to avoid the obvious bottleneck?

Debauch to Disaster: I recorded the first 10 or so minutes of this mission, then quit. I'm going to just reload and cease-fire straight away. Reasons: 1. Out of the two tanks that I was given, one had no main gun ammunition left and was left with machine guns. 2. My one javelin team had no CLU 3. The vast majority of my mortars were empty, or close to empty. Lima battery was empty. 4. I couldn't do any recon, due to the enemy fire missions coming down in front of and on top of my lines. 5. And this is the reason this mission is completely BULL****, and the reason I quit. You start the game with enemy ATGMs and T-72s that have eyes on your assembly area. I lost two AAV's to T-72 fire right away, filled with Marines. I did not move them or even touch them. My other AAV's then panicked, by themselves, and drove into enemy fire. I'm not exactly sure what the designer of this mission was thinking, especially after you have to fight your way through the Battle for Objective Pooh, Milk Run, and then this mission with zero resupply. I probably could have handled it, if it wasn't for the fact that the enemy AGAIN has eyes on your assembly area. Totally ruins the suspension of disbelief and any fun the mission may bring. In my opinion, from a realistic point of view, it's just better to preserve your already beat up forces and let the main body of the MEU deal with this objective. I have actually done this mission in the past, but it involved cheesy bum rushing my CAAT team to draw fire, and then rushing all my AAVs up the very right edge of the map. A mission like this requires gamey tactics, but I'm not going to waste my time with it for my AAR. I'll upload the short clip anyway so you can see for yourself what this mission is all about. "Debouch to Disaster" indeed.

Some interesting perspectives: Frontage (Attack/Defence) WW2 Division Soviet: 4KM/50-120KM German: 400-1000m/800-2000m In the company level, where we mostly play: Soviet: 350-1000m/700m-2000m German: 500-800m/400m-1000m British: 275m/925m

After waiting for what seemed an eternity for fricken paypal funds to clear, I finally managed to pick this up. Interestingly enough, there is a good opportunity for some sort of "What If" modern WW2 missions/campaigns to come out of this. I have just opened up the Canadian campaign to have a look, and it appears Paper Tiger has designed almost all the missions. MikeyD, who has handed my butt to me on several occasions, is in there also. I feel somewhat afraid....

After doing my Milk Run video AAR, where all my forces turned up in the wrong place and the wrong time (according to how I would have liked them), I thought of an idea for future releases of CMSF. Scenario designers could flag groups of units so the player can designate where his reinforcements will turn up during the setup phase, IE he gets to place designated reinforcements. Scenario designers can still have control by designating certain groups as 'deployable' or "Not deployable". So for example in Milk Run (and many other scenarios) it would alleviate these problems: 1. Tanks turning up on soft ground and getting bogged. 2. Units turning up on the wrong place in the map that do not match your plan. 3. Units turning up within LOF of the enemy. 4. Ability to execute a plan without running into time limit constraints, IE I don't have to waste 10 minutes repositioning my forces. 5. Realism. If reinforcements are under my command, and it is my operation, I would there-for choose where they would be deployed. Obviously some scenarios your reinforcements are QRFs, or assets out of your control, or the scenario designer has a purpose for putting them there, which is why this should be a group toggle. Also, from a programming standpoint, I don't see how this would be outrageous since a lot of the code is already there (placing units in the scenario editor, setup boundaries, setup phase, etc) Thoughts?

Ok, Milk Run is uploaded.

USMC Campaign - Mission 06 - "Milk Run" Link to playlist First seven parts are up. I recorded these videos at a higher bitrate, and they take way longer to encode.

Sounds very interesting gibsonm. I enjoyed GeorgeMC's 'Forging Steel' campaign, which was along similar lines, but I like the idea of throwing in 'option missions' in there. And I do enjoy campaigns designed from perspective of correct military knowledge.

Not my tax dollars, carry on.

You want 1.31 for radios and C2. The MILAN missiles are in the ammo compartment of the Marder, so your teams cannot acquire them. Also, AFAIK you don't need to unbutton them for fire the MILAN, they'll do it themselves. With ATGM weapon systems (infantry or vehicle) if you want them to use their ATGM rounds do an area target on the building. With your infantry, you have to have constant suppression on the buildings you are approaching. Again, use the target command to area fire the building as you're moving your infantry up. If you're using HE rounds, be careful to shift your fires away as your infantry approach. When you are assaulting the building from close range with your infantry, and you suspect enemy forces are there, use an AREA TARGET on the ground floor as you run inside. Your squads will chuck grenades through the windows and suppress the enemy inside. Don't race your IFVs up, you're just asking to be taken out with an RPG. Establish a supporting base of fire, suppress enemy positions, and then move your infantry up under the cover of fire and/or smoke. Remember Marders can suppress just as well from 600m as they can from 100m. Snipers are best left to their own devices. They are not great spotters, but put them in an overwatch position. When they do identify enemy targets they will suppress them. Don't give them target orders, they do better left on their own. The main use for snipers really is to fix enemy and suppress them, allowing your infantry to manoeuvre in for the kill. Snipers CAN also harass light armoured vehicles like BTRs, etc.

The effective range of an RPG-7 is about 300m, RPG-29 is about 500m (and when I say effective, I mean, 'Likely to hit). Scimitars can suppress enemy positions from well beyond those ranges. Use them like a LAV. Sit way the hell back and fire at suspected enemy positions. One example, in the mission 'Cain and Able', is to use your scimitars to pop up over the ridge line, fire off a few rounds, then reverse back down. Keep doing this until you identify enemy HMG or ATGMs, then destroy them with mortars.

If you want to do this with US forces, I have edited the mission so it is -exactly- the same (including scoring, reinforcements etc), but you just have the equivalent US Forces (Recon Platoon (Mech), Mech Company, Armour Platoon). Im looking forward to this!

Hehe, right you are Sir! Check out my edited post, I posted a crappy map to illustrate a little better what I did.

It'll be uploaded tomorrow. It's a slow process doing all the audio, rendering, uploading ,etc But in short, this is what I did: 1. AAVs stay back and don't take part in the battle. With all the RPGs and ATGM's they're a big easy target. 2. I spotted a lot of ATGMs with my sniper teams in the beginning, and took a few out. The rest I spotted with my tanks, by moving them into the open in pairs (frontal armour forward) and luring the ATGMs to shoot at me. 3. When Echo company arrives, I kept them there, until.. 4. Fox (Golf?) Company arrives, send up both platoons to create supporting bases of fire, one up the middle the end of the trees near the bridge, that looks across into the valley. 5. Second Platoon from Fox Company goes all the way left, then up to the OP (Those buildings) way up the left flank on the hill. They suppress the hell out of everything on the back slope. 6. With smoke, advance the three platoons of Echo company across the open ground using the berms as cover. I -also- moved two M1A1s over there to advance on line with them. Each M1A1 moves in bounding over watch to support the other (I had by this point taken out most of the ATGMs). Keep watch on the valley to the left flank. 7. My SBF platoon from Fox company that went up the middle got absolutely shredded by artillery, so they were not much help. However, the ones that gained the hill on the left flank pretty much took care of most of the enemy on the back ridge. I also moved my other pair of M1A1's up through the trees on the right hand side of the road, to my shredded platoons position. They could see directly into the valley there (well one got immobilized) and drew a HELL of a lot of ATGM fire. 8. Using platoon bounding overwatch, with tanks in support, moved Echo company into the valley slowly and surely. Even though the terrain is EXTREMELY disadvantageous, you have enough firepower, with tanks, to suppress the hell out of everything, 9. Syrians surrendered after I cleared most of the ground area (and destroyed all their armour). The Syrian artillery in this mission is a nightmare. First platoon from Fox company bore the majority of the attack, it really ripped them up. That meant however my main effort (Echo Company, attacking on the right flank) didn't gain much attention from the Syrian spotters. This mission is designed so that EVERYTHING is against you. It's designed for you to take casualties. But anyway, I will have the AAR uploaded for you tomorrow (1:39am here, bed time soon). Here is a crappy map to help illustrate the above. Red is movement of armour, Blue is infantry.

You're not secretly working for Battlefront are you? Or has Steve hacked into your account? But no, I agree (He already has the USMC module). I'm waiting on fricken paypal to clear funds in order to get NATO. Its taking god damn forever!

That's great! Welcome aboard! Make sure you patch the game up to the latest version (You will be 1.10. So get the 1.21 patch, then the 1.30 patch, then the 1.31 patch, I believe) Also, when your internet speed is better, check out tyrspawns excellent video walkthroughs. See the sticky on the main forum here (Complete Walkthrough of the German NATO campaign). I try to use proper tactics and terminology, but tyrspawn has an excellent grasp of military science and doctrine, and explains it in his walkthroughs much better than I.

I haven't got NATO yet (T-3 hours, actually) so I can't comment on the Aufklarungs, although I assume they're some sort of armed Jeep. However with light vehicles in general, if there are ANY form of ATGM threats they sit firmly in a defilade position and stay there. For example, in the USMC campaign they love to give you CAAT teams, which are a bunch of HUMVEEs with various weapon systems. 99% of the time they're useless, given the ATGM threat and engagement range that CMSF is played in. The -only- way to scout in this game is with infantry. So your light vehicles either sit tight and act as a mobile reserve, or use them to pop up, fire off a couple of rounds, and reverse back in order to entice ATGM shots. Another use is to transport sniper teams, FO teams, etc through dead ground or area that has been cleared. As for FO teams, LOS is all they need. Also, it helps if they are not under fire. It is best to keep them way back, in an area with good observation fields of the enemy positions. If you're playing a human, don't be too obvious about where you put them. Also, you may not know this, but at the beginning of a mission (the Setup Phase) you can call down immediate fire missions without having LOS to enemy targets. As soon as you start the mission your fire missions will come down on target, regardless of whether or not you have LOS.