TheVulture
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Posts posted by TheVulture
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Turn 33
I order my men to get the hell out of the house , not only because of the tank, but because of the incoming harrier. The prospect of a 1000 lb bomb landing 30 meters away is not a happy one. The rest of the platoon are also repositioned to put significant cover between them and the tank in case of incoming bombs. The frontmost squad will shift back to the field side of the house away from the tank.
The tank appears to lose sight of my men for a few moments. My men start to move out of the house. Third time lucky... but for the Syrians:
The blast kills five men. The survivors, 4 injured men from the squad and the lone (also injured) survivor of the MMG team make it out the back door and away from the tank.
Oh crap, as they say in France.
At the same time, the enemy are rushing forwards back towards the village. The front squad shift back over to the field side of the house, and realise that the distraction of the tank has left them in a dangerous position.
Two MG teams are coming in close, while several other units are still positioned in the trenches. The closest team is cut down, and several more enemy casualties are caused, but at least some men got in to the buildings at the end of the village. More are seen heading south-east past the tank into the mosque area.
My ATGM humvee has got as far as the other side of the river, and I figure there is a semi-keyhole position on a ridge there that might just give line of sight to the southern tank for a free shot, so I send them hunting forwards to see what they can see. In a fit of bad timing, this is just as the tank starts to move forwards as well. The enemy vehicle does indeed come into the view of the humvee
Missile away. But the path of the tank has now made it a frontal shot, and with the threat of being spotted, the humvee hits reverse to break contact. This doesn't do the accuracy of the TOW missile any favours.
The tank then continues forwards past its burning friend, into the sights of the javelin team. Sure enough, they step up to the mark and launch.
Another beautiful hit.
Then the damn thing continues to move, clearly still very much alive. It looks like the javelin hit was too far forward, and the combination of Kontakt-5 ERA and the heavy frontal armour was enough to defeat the missile.
I take back everything I ever said about javelins being overpowered.
Events in the narrow valley don't even go my way. I leave my squad where they are, but one man crawls forwards to help the injured marine. The Syrians in the valley spot him, and in the hail of fire he is also hit. An HQ squad is also seen down there. The position is now such that my men aren't using the ridge very well, so only one or two can engage, and are outgunned, while the Syrians are stuck far enough back in the valley that the overwatch can't hit them.
So I've managed to mess up my blocking position, seen my last javelin fail, wasted a TOW missile and had 6 men killed, whilst the Syrians flood the south of the village. I'd say it's all gone a bit tits up.
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Please allow me to write that I disagree.
I do not believe that it is not possible to take off, at least, the rough edges, such as shooting almost straight up in the air or MGing soldiers crouching next to a tank.
Best regards,
Thomm
It is easy to take off - it also is cripples the AI by creating huge holes in the capability of its IFVs that it is unaware of. It is making the AI cope with the limits that takes time, and something like this really does take a lot of time. (You have to make the tacAI for the players vehicles aware of it to0, and respond appropriately, so it affects multiplayer too).
And as mentioned last time this came around, you also need to design and implement decent feedback for the player. You can guarantee that if they just whacked in gun limits, you'd have hundreds of bug reports of people complaining that their tank couldn't target something, and it turns out it is 2 or 3 degrees beyond the elevation limit. Throw in sloping ground as well, and you can end up in the situation where it really isn't obvious where you can put a tank so that it can fire on a given spot. So there needs to be some feedback to give the user an idea of what they can hit from any given point.
All of this is doable mind you - I'm not saying its impossible (or even necessarily all that hard). But it is a lot of work to do it right, and if you don't do all of it, you are probably making things worse overall, not better. A half-assed implementation will lead to an awful lot more frustration that the occasional surprise whacking of guys above a tank.
Sure it would be nice. But personally it's a very long way down the list of improvements I'd like to see, even before the large time investment is considered.
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Turn 32
The squad relieveing the beleagured MMG do a fine job once their target arc is removed, immediately gaining fire superiority and killing numerous men from both enemy units. Only one survivor from the HQ squad manages to get away, crawling around the corner. Why does he get away?
There is the minor distraction of the incoming tank. Juding from the movement from the enemy platoons in the north trenches, the tank is spearheading a charge in to town through the buildings.
You can see the SMAW team with a perfect flank shot that don't fire because I gave them a tiny covered arc, so they wouldn't take unwanted shots and draw the attention of the other tank. The foremost squad also have a perfect flank shot at 20m range, and a few LAWs and AT3s left, but don't fire because they too have a covered arc that was set in haste to get them away from the other end of the building, to avoid being shot by this very tank.
Sometimes WeGo is very frustrating
So naturally, the only people who do fire at the tank are the squad who just dealt with the HQ and MMG - and they insist on using small arms fire at the front of the vehicle, thus alerting it the fact they are they. It hoses the building with MG fire (one more man down), and rotates its gun and chassis to face them, For the third time, I end the turn with a tank a few seconds away from potentially blasting my men with its main gun.
In the field, an HMG team is seen moving forward, and dealt with severely. After two men fall, they others turn tail and head back the way they came, but none of them get as far as the wall around the edge of the field. That flank is pretty solid now, and 2nd platoon have moved their units up into good positions to control the field. Now that the tank has moved, they can make ground here.
Another welcome bonus is the harrier checking in and performing its first fly past looking for targets.
One of the other problems with WeGo is that since I can only give orders every 60 seconds, when I do get the chance I have a tendency to tinker with things that ought to be left alone. The firefight earlier was very unusual for me - I left the guys in place for several minutes and resisted the temptation to advance since I figured on waiting for support.
But in the valley, I give in to my inclinations, and hunt the blocking squad forwards, since I'm sure there are men cowering in the valley. It turns out there are.
More to the point, it turns out that we are in their grenade range. The lead marine is hit, and the rest of the Syrians push back out of the line of fire. I promise next time I will just wait for them to come to me...
Just for the curious, here is the killzone now:
There are probably a few bodies I can't see, and I know at least 2 men have routed. Most of this has been done by the overwatch back on the ridge.
One further item of note: just as the turn ends the southern tank also begins to turn. I'm pretty sure it can't have seen anyone to target, so I wonder if it is going to make a move too.
My first platoon is not in a happy situation right now.
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Turn 31
The enemy counterattack is rather nicely planned, with some armour steadying the south flank, while a tank provides overwatch in the north to support the infantry attempting to use the field to flank my position - very much what I did to them. The downside (for them) is that I've cut off two platoons from getting involved by closing off the end of the narrow valley, and have my second platoon moving up in to the field, so even if I do take some losses, I'll certainly push them back again.
Forgot to mention that my 1st platoon HQ called in an air strike back in turn 29 or 30. 6 minutes until delivery. I gave it an area target that covered all the tank positions; ideally I'd like it to drop a very large bomb on the northern t-90 which would more or less take out 2+ platoons of nearby infantry in trenches too. But I won't hold my breath.
Now I'm trying to solidify a few very shaky areas in my position.
Firstly I pull one squad back to the second floor of the house behind it. This gives a nice view over most of the field, whilst being hidden from the t-90. This should give my exposed SMAW team enough cover to keep them alive. Secondly, I bring the final squad of the 1st platoon into the house with the MMG; it too is not in sight of any tanks, so they can hit the two enemy units with relative impunity.
From 2nd platoon, I also get the tired boys running - one squad and one MMG will make all haste to the cross trench in front of the SMAW team, who will hold position and try not to die. The rest of the platoon (minus the squad blocking the valley) are following behind more slowly.
Something else I forgot to mention: I've sent the .50 cal humvee to recon the alternative route across the river - there is a ford a way east of the dam that I decided intially wasn't worth the trouble. But now I'm thinking it might provide a way of getting the ATGM humvee in position for a sneaky rear shot at a tank - I believe there is a large open slope that the enemy aren't covering which allows me in to their flank. But it's a fair way around. The .50 cal humvee is leading the way on the grounds that it is more expendable than the ATGM humvee, given my very limited AT assets.
Events in the field unfold as I hoped. The SMAW team survive, and slow lead enemy squad down enough for the building squad to reposition and kill them all. Then the SMAW's own colleagues show up and secure the flank.
In the valley, six men try to break out. The LAV does a fine job of stopping them, with the blocking squad instantly cutting down anyone who gets too far.
In the village the news is less good. The squad move up to help the MMG and do indeed cause havoc in the platoon HQ. But... I left them with a target arc from an earlier point which just happens to include the HQ, but not the enemy MMG, which proceeds to ventilate the building. Two more men down.
My first platoon hasn't had any disasters, but the loss of a man or two here and there, plus their slight depletion from the first misson, is leaving them increasingly worn down. Throw in minor injuries as well, and possibly only half the platoon are actually at full health, and their ammo situation isn't great either. They are definietly looking like being a reserve unit for the rest of the fight, once the village is clear.
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Turn 30
Not liking the position of that HMG, I bring my reserve MMG from this platoon (currently loitering in the trenches west of the village) in to the house looking down the high street. They have a bit of an exposed run, but I gamble that the HMG is sufficiently suppressed that it won't be suicide. And indeed, they get away with it; there is incoming fire, but only one minor injury is suffered. They then set up and just hammer the HMG building, and by the end of the turn the reservists have had enough and head back towards their comrades.
The troublesome tank meanwhile scoots out of its hiding place around the back of the mosque, out to the south of the village. The SMAW team holding the mosque (now feeling rather exposed and lonely) miss a chance at a lovely shot at the rear (damned cover arc was set on the assumption that their only chance of a shot was the other tank coming around the mosque).
I try to get my MMG team that is in trouble to hide and get away from the front wall, but one more man is hit as they scramble for cover. Only one man left now.
I've started moving my second platoon up towards the field. The tentative plan is to use the squads to provide security to get the SMAW team up for a side shot on the northern t-90. But in case that wasn't enough bad news already this turn, I see what appear to be several enemy units pouring in to the enemy end of the field. One of them is IDed as the battalion HQ - seems like an odd place to set up a command post, but there you go.
To make things worse, my furthest forward unit in that platoon is a lonely SMAW team in one of the ditches, who might just get overrun before I can cover them.
Just when the situation is starting to look a little desperate, the first good news for some time arrives. The javelin team pick up the t-90 that made the dash through the village. Through high magnification binoculars, this can be seen:
Not the biggest target. Thankfully with the javelin CLU targetting it is a pretty big target, and I hear the comforting whooosh of a javelin launch. Sometimes you are too grateful to complain about the insta-kill javelin.
Needless to say, there is only a burning wreck left with one terrified (and slightly crispy) crewman sprinting for his life.
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Turn 29
So, it seems that we're getting in to the main part of the battle now.
The first surprise is that the tank I'd thought would just cover the high street decides to go cruising up it instead.
That's not good - although it is never a greta idea to get tanks too close to infantry, I still don't fancy my chances if it is sitting 20 feet away facing me.
One of my MMG teams advances into a house to keep the road covered - although with that tank around I might just send them back again. But they uncover an enemy HMG at depressingly short range. Amazingly, no-one is hurt, and one of the enemy crew is killed. But this actions draws a response from over the road:
The green circle is where the HMG is, red circle is where the tank vanished behind the house. My MMG draws fire from a platoon HQ and a Syrian MMG in nearby houses. Well, at least we've now seen all but two units of the 1st company (4th platoon HQ, Co. HQ). You can also see the red discs of the dead from the 1st rifle squad of that HQs platoon in the back of the mosque - 5 dead can be seen inside.
Things go badly for my team though, and one man is shot, while another suffers a minor wound. They are rather outgunned, and none of my other units can support them immediately.
Back in the narrow valley, a fourth enemy squad is seen making its way towards the kill zone. I've decided to bring one of the LAVs up to support the kill zone again, since I'm slightly worried that the sheer numbers of enemy might enable them to get some guys through and mess life up. I chose a position where I am 95% certain that no enemy tank has a prayer of seeing me before being lit up by a javelin.
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Turn 28
For now I can afford to ignore the tank - I'm going to reposition the whole platoon into the north of the village, leaving a SMAW team in the corner of the mosque under strict orders to only fire if the t-90 starts coming past them and they can get a good flank/rear shot. So the mosque squad hed out, back down the hill and across so they can come back up in to the northern houses. Meanwhile the squad that has been holding down the high street will move up to join the front squad, so we hold the blocking position there where the enemy platoon used to be. I get the MMG down from the top floor of the building it is in, since it is in LoS to the tank, and I don't want it drawing the attention of 120mm HE rounds while firing at infantry.
All of that happens without any trouble. The flanking squad reform in the front house, and engage in some exchanges of fire with the enemy in the rear trenches in the north. An HMG, a rifle squad and some '?' markers are in the area, so I'd guess that my earlier estimate of a platoon being spread around those trenches is more or less right. But soon another platoon HQ is seen rushing to the front, with hints of more men nearby. A little analysis shows that this is not from any of the platoons we've contacted so far (not 100% certain, but it seems very likely).
In the narrow valley, my squad creep forwards and engage any enemy that make it too far up the slope, while the overwatch pound those trying to hide lower down. A third rifle squad puts in an appearance, which means that we have at least two platoons coming up this route. Several enemy are hit, and none get close to escaping from the trap.
Then towards the end of the turn, more trouble appears:
Would you believe it never occurred to me to wonder if that lone t-90 was part of a platoon? A few seconds later, another one appears.
Okay - 3 of them. That's a whole platoon, isn't it? Please?
Fortunately none of them has fired at my infantry in that building, although as the turn ends a gun is certainly pointing in that direction. The next few seconds could be ugly. One of the tanks come to a stop in view of my men, while the other continues moving and is lost from sight behind the buildings.So with the sudden influx of new playmates, here is the latest situation map:
The yellow arrow is my overwatch line of fire at the narrow valley. Red arrows are estimates of enemy movements. Blue arrows are roughly my intended movements. As you can see I'm abandoning advancing in the south for now to hold my position in the north. This leaves the southern t-90 completely out of play unless it wanders around into LoS of the javelin / rear shot for the SMAW in the mosque. So I think my southern flank is pretty secure.
Enemy platoons are numbered by which company they are in (my guesses).
It looks like a complete company was defending the village, and of that (1st) company, one platoon has been destroyed (in the location I now hold). One has been badly mauled (bottom right; one squad in the front trench wiped out, HQ down to 1-2 men by the tank, other squad with at least 4 casualties where the platoon marker is). One is largely untouched (northern trenches; 2 or 3 causalties maximum). Ane the one is the mosque is largely guesswork - one squad in the north of the mosque has been driven off, the other two units of the platoon haven't been seen, but I'd have them holding the back of the mosque if I was placing them... One HMG and one MMG have been seen, so there is one more of each yet to be uncovered.
Now it looks like we have a second company coming to reinforce the defence/counterattack. Two platoons coming up the valley aren't going anywhere and will be wiped out well away from the main action. I'd guess the other two platoons are coming in to the north of the village from behind, where the HQ was seen moving.
Which suggests that the third company of the battalion is in the secondary objectives to the rear.
Since we wiped out two enemy platoons in the first mission, then one of those companies is essentially at half strength. I really hope it is the one reinforcing the village, and that actually most of the village reinforcements are just a few patched-up injured stragglers. But I have to assume it is a full company for now.
So, two companies and a platoon of t-90sa tanks. Think it is time to call in that harrier and le it loose on any armour it finds. And the general idea is to hide from the tanks and deal with any infantry incursions at short range until the air power shows up.
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I forgot to mention two things in my previous post:
First off, I play exclusively in RT. To see that TheVulture's battle is moving along very much like mine has some pertinence to the RT vs. WeGo-discussion going on in another thread.
But then, although friendly forces amount to a company, there has really only been one platoon in play so far, and I'd guess that a platoon can be handled in RT about as well as in WeGo. Now that a second platoon is coming in to play, and they operate in different parts of the battlefield, things get to the phase were focussing on one platoon to the same extent can mean you miss stuff happening to the other. Depending, obviously, on the extent to which one platoon can be left to get on with things without extra management.
One benefit of WeGo that would probably cripple me in real time: since I play only a few turns a day (basically, I'm doing this in my lunch break at work
) it means I have plenty of time between turns for ideas to occur to me. So about three hours after that tank turned up, I suddenly remembered I have a harrier hanging around that might be a rather useful anti-tank asset too. If it had taken me three hours to think of that in a real-time game I don't think it would have done me much good... -
At this point I will share my initial reaction to meeting the friendly neighborhood T-90 with you, as I think it fits quite well...:
'The plot, as they say, thickens.'
It certainly is an interesting wrinkle in the fight. If anyone were to have asked a few turns back what the worst thing that could happen right now was, I'd have suggested some Syrian armour turning up.
Damn you, snake-eye!
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Turn 27
First order of business: abandon mosque. LAWs and AT3s aren't going to hurt a t-90 from the front, so the only thing they will achieve by staying there is providing a target for that rather powerful main gun. The MMG and SMAW team hanging around in the area also make sure they aren't exposed, or more importantly, in places where the t-90 is likely to gain LoS to soon. Actually, I'd imagine the tank will hold position for a while now; it has turned up to reinforce the position and doesn't need to go blundering forwards into trouble. But you never know...
In a sudden fit of tank phobia, I get the LAVs back down off the ridge pretty quickly, and make sure any exposed units get on their way into better concealement.
In the village I move the rest of the flank squad and the MMG team up in to the houses. There is a brief firefight with the enemy HQ.
A very brief firefight. Apparently no-one warned them that balconies were deathtraps. So that's the northern defensive platoon crushed; there may be 1 or 2 survivors in each squad, but essentially they've been swept aside. In aniticipation of this, I've started to move the rear squad up to support the front guys. they use smoke to make sure their exit from their building is unmolested (the only door opens right on to the high street); for the last few turns they've taken occasional shots at the enemy in the trenches at the far end of the street, but as far as I can tell haven't done any real harm for a while.
I might bring the mosque squad around to the high street position since it brings their firepower back in to the fight, and is somewhere the t-90 is never going to be able to hit. To help deal with the damn tank, my javelin team, skulking back with the reserves, goes for a quick jog up hill 67. It can't see the tank from there, but if it makes any attempt to come around the corner of the mosque into the west end of the village, it will expose itself rather nicely.
The MMG with the advance squad is in the upstairs of one of the buildings, and can see the t-90 position. I think I'll get a SMAW team up there soon, since it provides a flank shot at about 80 meters range. I don't know what odds I have with a SMAW versus the side of a t-90 though; the success rate on those BDRMs was less than stellar.
The other action is at the head of the narrow valley. Despite the withdrawl of the LAVs, the other units keep the enemy pinned down, although some of them do make some progress. But second platoon finally get in on the action as their blocking squad finally start to get into position to seal the valley entrance.
So far I've seen two squads of the same platoon coming up the hill here, and have an unidentified contact marker which can only be the platoon HQ. With my squad now sitting right on their exit route and the support from the ridge, there is no way they are going anywhere.
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Turn 26
I'll stick with the good news first. I can now see 6 dead in that house I want to wrest from the enemy, and know that I killed 2 men whose bodies I can't see. So there is only one man left of that squad. The team by the wall get the green light for their sprint in to the house. Unfortunately one of them is hit by machine gun fire in that short gap (the smoke from repeated RPG rounds whacking the ground way short of the men evidently isn't enough to give good obscuration; and yes, this is the good news part...). But the other two make it in, and can confirm 8 dead and the last man running for another house. There are a few bursts of fire with the other occupied house, but nothing much dramatic happens. At the end of the turn we have this situation:
Looking in to the circled house I can see 6 bodies, so I'd guess the squad in there is pretty much wiped out as a fighting force too. The last survivor of the northern squad is foolishly out on the balcony of the next house, with the platoon HQ being similarly foolish.
The support platoon moving up the hill discover another mine field:
This time it is one of the MMG teams that has blundered into trouble, losing one man. On the plus side, a SMAW team makes it up to the top of the ridge, so I now have a safe route I can follow. But this platoon has now suffered 4 dead another 5 lightly wounded, and has been held up from its role (leaving the 1st platoon doing all the work) without even seeing a single enemy. If I wasn't the in effect the commander of this platoon, I'd probably have him court martialled.
But the fun doesn't end there. In the south of the village, where my squad in the mosque are playing a waiting game, trouble suddenly rolls in to town:
Some halfwit has gone and driven a t-90 in to position to reinforce the badly hammered southern flank of the defence. The squad decide optimistically to fire off one of their LAWs, scoring a hit, although as you might expect against the front armour of a t-90, there is no noticable effect. As the turn ends, the turret of the tank turns ominously towards the men...
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Turn 25
After a little thought and analysis, here's the plan I come up with.
Blue arrows are the moves this turn, yellow the next turn (and arse, I realise now that I messed up - the team cowering by the wall actually put out some smoke this turn, and enter the house the next turn, so that should be a yellow arrow for them).
Red enemy markers indicate the known enemy positions (the three squads of the platoon). Yellow enemy markers are possible/likely positions of the enemy units firing along the direction of the wall.
The dark blue line indicates my best estimate of which areas are safe from those unknown units; when the nearest building is cleared, that opens up a good covered approach for the squad currently holding the high street.
And this turn things play out much as expected. The move around the end of the wall into a house goes without a hitch, the other units in the field reposition (that MMG team is going to follow in to one of the houses too). The only novel action is that a second squad is seen coming up out of the narrow valley. It gets much the same treatment as the first, with men being pinned down and several casualties.
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Thanks, Vulture, for this excellent series. First class stuff and I am enjoying it immensely.
One question, can you tell me where you positioned the LAV's to get a line of sight to the Sounthern trenches? From the screen shot it looks like they are on the South side of the chasm, but when I played this mission I couldn't find anywhere along there that gave me such a firing position.
P.S. I walked into that minefield too, and I fell for the advance on the two story house trap.
The LAVs don't have a line of sight to any of the occupied trenches. The only unit they can see (and have targetted) is the squad coming out of the narrow valley north of the village.
I'm pretty sure the trenches around the village are completely hidden from anywhere on the start ridge.
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Turn 24
With a bit more area fire on the occupied two storey house producing no reaction, and with the overwatch apparently more than capable of securing my flank from incursions out of the narrow valley, I decide the flanking squad can probe towards the enemy defensive line. They shift positions to support the move, and one team moves in using the low wall as cover.
It all goes rather wrong.
It transpires that the squad defending that house haven't abandoned it; just moved downstairs. A surprise burst of fire takes out one of my men. The other 3 in the team return fire, advancing a few steps between each burst. Two enemy are seen to fall. Slowly they close on the house. Then the distinctive sound of the Syrian MMG is heard, and tracers skim past along the line of the wall:
Seems someone is guarding the flank of this house. The men stick with the plan and carry on. All this achieves is apparently bringing them into the line of fire of more defenders.
They've come to the attention of the other squad of that defending platoon in the adjacent house. And there is an explosion further along the wall (see the smoke); best guess is that an RPG round was fired from the same general position as the unseen MMG along the wall.
Okay, that's not going well. Rather than running into an empty house to attack the enemy squad next door, we are taking fire from apparently 3 enemy squads and an MMG, and not in great cover.
Second platoon meanwhile have moved along the wide valley far enough to be able to start to climb the hill. The first order of business is to move a squad up into a blocking position to cover the entrance to the narrow valley and the plateau north of that valley, so the rest of the platoon can move up securely.
Two men are killed instantly in the explosion of a mine.
I go and make a cup of tea to calm down.
Looking for the positive, at least they appear to have only clipped the corner of the minefield (if there is a just the one set of mines), so the rest of the squad should be able to extricate themselves safely.
Elsewhere, various snipers and elements of the reserve platoon that don't have line of sight to anything useful being to move forwards to the base of the hill so they will eventually be ready to take the lead in the advance once the village is clear. At keast none of them die.
A very frustrating turn. I'll have to pull the men back in the field and plan a slightly more careful attack on that northern defending platoon.
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Turn 23
A fairly quiet minute - occasional movement seen in the trenches beyond the village, while second platoon continue their run towards the village.
The only action of note is for that Syrian squad trying to flank me: two more of them are killed and then the final two throw in the towel, drop their weapons and rout off the map.
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Turn 22
The fighting in the village has died down to a large extent. It looks like the platoon HQ in the southern trench has also been wiped out, and the fighting down the main street is very sporadic. The flanking squad had some more contact with the enemy in the upper floor of that building, but the suppressive fire was enough to prevent any noticable return fire. This turn, although I cancel the area fire and move a team to cover the flank being threatened by the new squad, nothing is seen from that building.
My guess is that that squad, along with the one in the mosque on the high street side have been driven out of their buildings into positions further back. Which leaves one rather exposed squad trying to hold the high street, with very limited support from what is left of the units in the rear trenches.
The flanking squad are deployed to secure the flank and support a move up through the village in the north, which will be the next order of business.
Seeing where on the start ridge has LoS to the valley entrance, I decide to bring up a pair of my recon LAVs. The engagement range is 3-400m, and while my small arms are doing a decent job of pinning the enemy down, I want more firepower brought to bear in case more men come streaming through. So the LAVs are sent up to suitable positions on the ridge, and sure enough, they are soon adding their 30mm autocannons to resolve the situation. Yet another unnecesarily zoomed in shot
(remember the LAVs are around 350m away at this point).
Five enemy are down at the end of the round, with the other four well pinned, and staring down the barrel of rather more firepower than they'd like.
Second platoon meanwhile are still making their way towards the village. Looks like they are going to be rather late for their flank security role... still 2-3 turns before the lead elements get to the area of the fields.
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Turn 21
Not much to change by way of orders. The two squads currently set up in buildings continue to hold position and attack anyone who puts their head above the parapet. The flanking squad set one team to put suppressive fire on the occupied building, while the others bound forwards to closer ditches to bring more guns to bear. One of the MMG teams has followed them in to the ditches, although that is mostly to cover their flank against any surprises coming from the narrow valley to the north.
And what do you know: right on cue, at the end of the turn, an enemy squad is seen coming up out of that very valley.
None of the units in the village fight have seen them yet (and don't have LoS to that area), but my reserve units back on the start ridge are well spread out and some of them have eyes down the end of this valley. One infantry squad, a sniper and a deplyed MMG all put down fire to cover their comrades' flank, while the message is passed through the comm net to the commander at the sharp end.
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Turns 17-20
Lots more action, although none that requires any orders really. Basically, one squad stack the corner room of the mosque, one squad hold position in their house looking down the street at the bulk of the enemy defences, and the last squad pull back to come into the irrigation ditches of the northern fields to flank the northen defending platoon. And aside from that one squad, everyone stays in place and tries to gain fire superiority over the enemy, which is what marines do best. Meanwhile the platoon HQ will go and apply first aid to the fallen.
I do plot an 81mm mortar strike on the company command / rifle squad / MMG position, but cancel it a minute later when it becomes apparent we are going to win that firefight without having to bring in the heavy stuff.
Both squads in the village are involved in intense firefights, but slowly the superior firepower and M32 grenade launchers take their toll.
As the casualties mount up for the southern squad in the trenches, some of the men break and abandon their positions:
A soldier of the platoon HQ watches the collapse of the men in front of him; his unit aren't immune to casualties either (2 men down during the firefight).
The last man of the rifle squad tries to use the trenches to cover his flight:
He didn't get far - all 9 men of that squad are confirmed kills before too long.
The northern village squad have similar success, accounting for 2 men in the MMG crew, 4 in the rifle squad and another 3 from the command squad, plus at least one more in the mosque building.
The reserve squad are succesful in their attempt to infiltrate the field's ditches:
They cautiously advance up the ditch, before eventually spotting enemy soldiers in the upper floor of a building. Turns out this was exactly the building I was expecting to find a squad in, directly north of 1st squad 2nd platoon in the last map.
It is worth bearing in mind that my SMAW teams do carry a demolition charge each, so we do have limited ability to blast through walls, but as with the mortars, I'd rather keep them for when I can't see an alternative solution.
I'm not in a hurry to move my mosque squad anywhere. They've all but cleared out the enemy in the trenches, but there are also likely to be enemy elsewhere in the mosque complex, and it looks to me like any attempt to move to adjacent buildings runs a high risk of an ambush. So they'll sit tight while the flanking platoon suppress the northern defence from the side, allowing me to bring men into the enemy position there with very good odds. Then their firepower will be able to suppress the other front line defence units and free up the mosque squad to move and tidy everything up.
One more edit to add: 19 minutes in the Syrian artillery finally fall quiet, so my 2nd platoon are finally able to start a rush forwards to come and support the fighting in the village.
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Turn 16
I send the final team of the mosque squad along the covered route, along with an MG team and a SMAW team. One of the teams already sheltering at the mosque will broach the door, although I'm certain no-one is in the front rooms, so they should be safe.
The northern squad will hold position and engage the many enemy units in sight. The final squad is going to back up the north squad, along with the other MG and SMAW team. Looking at the doors in the area, I think we can advance safely through the cover of the buildings to close with the enemy.
But its not a good turn for us. In the congestion of the dead zone route, the MMG team stray a little too far and draw fire from a previously unspotted platoon HQ on a balcony further back in the village. One of our men goes down. The team entering the mosque do so safely, and use their vantage point to engage the enemy in the trenches, and also spot the location of another platoon HQ unit.
The squad in the north continue their firefight with all comers, IDing an MMG team, a company command squad and a rifle squad in the trenches. They cause a few casualties, but lose one man in return.
Known enemy units are now:
2 platoon HQ
5 rifle squads
1 MMG
1 company command unit
So there are at least 3 platoons of infantry with some company HQ / MMG assets. Since a resevre infantry company is 4 platoons plus a few support units, it looks like we have a whole company defending the village in a closed defence.
Latest intelligence:
Dotted lines show platoon command links. On the right of each symbol is its platoon no (or 'MG' for MG, 'Co' for company level), on the left is the squad no. with its platoon (where known/relevant). My rough guess would be that one platoon is holding the back buildings of the mosque (2nd squad south of 1st squad, platoon HQ in the domed building), 1 platoon is holding a line in the northern section of buildings (2nd squad just north of 1st squad), and the 4th platoon is possibly in the trench positions north of the road out of the village. With sundry MMGs.
I think I'll try and resist the temptation to press forward. There is fairly heavy resistance, even if a marine platoon does pack slightly more combat effectiveness than a reserve infantry company. I'll wait to bring the second platoon up in the flanking position. This will allow me to flank the northen most front platoon, and dealing with them will in turn allow me to flank the mosque platoon. Then we can deal with the trenches at leasure (if I haven't dropped some mortars on them by that point, although I'd like to keep as much mortar ammo as possible available for all the trenches in the later objectives).
Unfortunately the second platoon are still held up by the ongoing artillery, which has now been running for 16 minutes. In my lack of paying attention, one squad has picked up another 2 yellow wounded - evidently I need to find a better position for them to wait out the fireworks. Once they're done, hopefully we can push the tempo a little.
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Just realised I marked the enemy units as platoons rather than squads in the previous picture. Oops - they are all single squad positions.
Turn 15
I decide to move the rest of the northern squad into the house occupied by the lead team, who will put area fire on the position of the Syrian squad that has line of fire to the doorway.
The southern lead squad is currently broken into teams, with one team stuck in a crater. They will make a run for the cover of the mosque, while another team will explore that possile dead zone route up to the mosque.
This generates a mixed bag of results. The 'dead zone' team make their move unmolested, but the guys running the gauntlet take a casualty.
The northern squad all reach the house safely, peppering the target building with grenades and rifle rounds. This however draws the attention of more units futher back, in the trenches east of the village. Rather heavy attention as it happens. There appear to be 3 or 4 enemy units in those trenches in addition to the two further forward squads already covering that road.
Other units of my platoon maneouver in behind the ridge to back up the front line men.
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Windows 7 has the same virtualisation feature as Vista. Programs are not allowed to write to certain directories for security reasons. I'm not sure on the details, but in practice it often means that while the program thinks it is accessing files in its working directory, the actual files are stored elsewhere (somewhere in the user's documents directory tree).
Similar problems can occur if you edit e.g. a config text file in the game's folder. Vista/windows 7 will secretly create a 'virtualised' copy so that when you look at the file you see your version, while the program (running under different permissions) sees its own unaltered copy of the file (since you didn't actually change the copy that is really in the folder).
It creates a lot of gratuitous screwyness.
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To be fair, snake_eye and I are about as far apart in preferred game type as possible: he plays no-pausing real time, I play WeGo and often only get 3-4 moves done in an hour (what with watching each replay numerous times to get an overview and enjoy the details, and then thinking about what I'm doing (and getting interrupted by kids and the need to make more tea...)).
Whilst its true that these styles have very different strength and weaknesses, I don't think the overall difficulty of the scenario is vastly different; his end result wasn't all that different from mine. But the feel, detail and pace of the game vary greatly (and at least some of that is due to different approaches rather than mechanics).
But then, I've not really played realtime at all, so I'm not entirely qualified to comment
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Turns 11-14
The artillery rounds continue falling, blocking the northern platoon's progress, and the reserve units do nothing of course. All the action is with the southern platoon probing the village.
The point fireteam in the craters have met no resistance so far, and notice an apparently unoccupied trench to their left. Figuring this would make better cover, they head for it.
Rifle rounds come zipping down the street from an enemy further back in the village. Okay, so that's where they are hiding. The rest of the point squad see they can reach the trench without coming in to the line of fire, using the lip of the ridge as cover, so they do so. One of the nearby buildings has a door visible from the trench. I'm guessing this is unoccupied since it has windows overlooking our trench, and we'd be toast there were defenders there. The troops entering will be exposed for the short sprint between two buildings, so they decide to risk one team to try out the route.
For the second time in a short while, they draw fire:
Again no casualties are suffered, and after a few moments with their heads down in the house to regain breath and decide on a course of action, they return fire. The enemy are IDed as a rifle squad, and as a grenade hits the enemy position the scream of a man being hit is heard.
The next squad up the hillside will probe towards the mosque (seen in the background of the first picture) which provides a nice dead ground area from the two enemy units contacted so far. Again, a single team engage in some recon by body armour, heading for a further forward crater. Fire comes in from an unexpected direction to their right, from trenches on the other side of the mosque. The men hit the ground in the craters, with one of them suffering a minor wound.
So this is the current situation map:
(BTW is it correct to rotate friendly unit markers to indicate orientation or not? Obviously it applies less and less as you get to higher level formations...)
The unit in the rear of the mosque and one in the trenches have been positively IDed as rifle squads. The other two are ? contact markers, but likely also rifle squads. The friendly squad at the rear also includes the SMAW teams, MMG teams and platoon HQ. The yellow line marks the lip of the ridge, behind which my units are safe but also can't shoot the enemy.
So the enemy appear to be using a back defence this time, since none of their positions are visible beyond the yellow line, including to the overwatch back on the start ridge.
It looks like there is a dead area from the ridge crest to the mosque that none of the enemy shown can reach. And, conveniently, there is a door in the wall facing us too. An evil person would of course have mined the front door (and a really evil human player would in fact have some men hiding in the front houses that would hold fire while units further back engaged first...)
I'll try the route to the mosque, but the main thrust is going to follow the north squad who already have equal cover to the enemy. I don't want to get into a ridge line vs trench shooting match, since it is so hard to bring all my firepower to bear effectively. So I'm going to ignore the southern enemy at first, work through the village, and hit them from various buildings later on when I'm ready.
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Turns 1-10
Immediately as the point squads set out on the two approach routes enemy artillery starts falling. This time they are a little more off the target. One is ground bursting artillery just outside the SB village, which does little except obscure the vision of anyone in the first row of houses. The second are right on the Syrian side of the valley, about halfway along, and are airbursts. Neither is anywhere near us.
Point squads cross the open ground safely, and find positions to wait for the artillery to clear (since in both cases it is on planned lines of advance), while the rest of the respective platoons move up.
The tiring effect of crops can be seen. The point squad advanced through the wheat, and were 'tired' by the time they'd crossed the valley. The next squad moving the same distance stuck to the open ground between wheat, and were only at 'ready' when they reached the same place:
The north group stop once they have crossed the valley to wait out the airbursts 150m away. Which, it turns out, is too close, and one man is killed and another lightly injured by shrapnel. I reposition them to slightly better positions with solid ground between them and the arty target area. Ten minutes in and the barrage is still ongoing.
The south platoon regroup at the bottom of the hill, and after the 7th minute the artillery stops, so the point squad start to advance up the hill. The Syrians have nicely created a whole load of craters for cover just outside SB village. By the tenth minute the whole platoon is scattered up the hillside, and the first fireteam has inched forwards to see what can be seen from the shell holes.
That picture is through an extreme zoom lens. To give you a better idea of relative positions:
No contact with any enemy forces yet. The south platoon are going to make a minor probe, but if any resistance is met they are going to hunker down and wait for the flanking platoon.
El Derjine campaign AAR
in Combat Mission Shock Force 1
Posted
Turn 34
Time for a little bit of tactical withdrawl. The javelin team, all ammo expended, are sent down from the hill. The SMAW team in the mosque, in their rather isolated position, are now rather too exposed to the enemy charging in that direction for my tastes, so I get them out of there and back to the edge of the hill. There is a slim chance they'll get a flank shot on the southern t-90, but mostly they are getting the hell out. The rest of the first platoon are just sitting tight this turn, hoping that neither the tank nor the air support get them, and that they don't get overrun.
Second platoon on the other hand have a lot of moving to do. The valley squad will back up to their previous position so that the Syrians can be engaged at the top of the slope, where the overwatch can hit them. The field squad will continue to advance through the trenches to protect the flank of the first platoon. The third squad have been held in reserve so they can go wherever things really start to fall apart, and I've decided that the mosque flank is getting very iffy, so I sent them over towards trenches in that direction; if the SMAW team are right and trouble is coming their way, I need some infantry over there to regain the ground.
And what do you know - I'm right. Just as we leave via the front door, the Syrian's come through the back:
An MMG team charges in and heads up to the roof. This isn't great since I now have 2 FOs, a SMAW and a sniper team rather trapped. In decent cover, but still pinned down. Forunately the cavalry are charging in to the rescue.
In the middle of the village, everyone breathes a sigh of relief as the tank turns and heads back out of the village.
I'd guess that the plan was to roll in, disrupt me and cover the reinforcements getting in to position in the village. Which it has done to some extent, but I am mightily pleased to see the tank rolling out along the road.
Even more so when the harrier pilot announces he is starting his attack run. As the turn ends, the sound of the jet passing overhead is heard, bomb already on the way.