bigmac1281

The worst part is, both times I've played it certain IED's have always been in the same spots... So one COULD probably beat it easily if one was to avoid those spots, but I don't like to win by being gamey. I think the key to winning this map is to thrust north up the center, with heavy armour giving mucho supressive fire (and avoiding the IED that's always there, of course). Control the center courtyard, and you should be able to take the eastern one. The west approach is no go, the road is mined, so you can't bring in your vehicles. The east approach is doable, but your vehicles can only go half way up the map before they can't go any further. Basically I think a heavy thrust up the center with heavy supressive fire from your armour will do it. Maybe a little pre sighted mortar / artillery support at the beginning of the map on likely RPG team spots. (there's no preserve conditions on this map, I don't think. Level the damn place!) I'll give it a shot once I'm done the campaign again.

Very interesting info on the Bradley. I used to be in charge of our infantry in an ArmA unit, and nothing vexed me more than the fact that I couldn't get all of our squad into 1 bradley. We had to have 1 fireteam ride in the Bradley, and another follow in a Humvee. not ideal. I love the Bradley, but ultimately we started going with Strykers just for the cargo capacity. They really should come out with a new bradley variant with more room for troops. You basically need 3 Strykers to match the potential firepower of 1 bradley (1 IFV for the MG, 1 MGS for the 40mm's, and 1 ATGM for the AT). Either that, or a Stryker with all 3 of those systems in place.

Nox, USA can't slash their military budget... if they did, Canada would be forced to start a military of our own, and we have better things to spend our money on.

I'm always interested in reading this kind of stuff.

Thanks BM. I've given up on that mission for now, accepted the minor defeat, and moved on to the next. But I'll definately be returning for another playthrough of this campaign. I will have my revenge, oh yes I will.

Whoever made this mission is a massochist. The whole design is cruel and twisted. You're advancing from the south, and almost all the doors into the buildings are on the north side, meaning you have to either blast your way into every building (not enough ammunition to do that for the whole level) or you have to expose your troops to fire as they try to get into the building. And I'm finding that all of the good 2 story overwatch positions that you can get are covered by at least 2 different syrian units, so they're not really effective overwatch positions at all. As soon as your guys open fire from them, they're quickly supressed and massacred. *sigh* sorry, i'm just venting. I've been playing CMSF ever since it came out, and honestly consider myself a pretty good player and tactician, and have never had a problem with any mission until this one. It's making me feel quite noobish.

Another minor defeat. I started using my tanks a lot more agressively, and that was helping, but going too slowly. I was moving my squads up slowly, with the tanks right near them. I decided to flank all the way to the east, and go up the far eastern road. The problem is, there's no route for the tanks to go north on the east side once you get to the center point, so they were stuck there as the infantry got massacred trying to keep pushing north. I did use smoke on a couple of the barricades, and when I reviewed the map afterwards, sure enough there were IED's there that didn't go off. And to answer your question about engineers... nope, they don 't spot the mines. Found that out the hard way. Once my tanks were stuck on the east side, unable to move north, I sent one back around to support my engineers advancing on the west road. Areas my engineers had "cleared" (by cleared, I mean walked through on a hunt order) were not clear at all. My leo moving up the street got imobilized quickly. Is this mission just really difficult, or what? I have never had this much trouble with any mission in CMSF. I would really love to see a video walkthrough for this mission on how to do it properly. As it sits, I'm just gonna say screw it, and move on to the next mission. It's sure going to hurt me down the road when that platoon comes in as reinforcements in a later mission, and all they have is like 6 guys.

I'll give that a go, leading with my tanks. I've not done that in the past, because maybe I'm just unlucky, but my leo's always seem to go down from just 1 or 2 rpg strikes, even to frontal armour. I'm also considering braving the mined road, sending the pioneers out in front to mark the mines. Seems like the other two routes to the objectives are sighted in by rifles, RPG's, and IED's. Maybe the mined off section will have less eyes on it. I'll try leading with my tanks first, i'll let you know how it went.

I think it's the 2nd, or possibly 3rd mission in the Canadian campaign. I'm having great difficulty with this mission, and it seems that there are 2 things that really cause me to fail. The first thing that always seems to get my guys killed is they seem to be as blind as bats. I try to move cautiously, using either hunt or short assault commands so they have plenty of opportunity to spot the enemy, but inevitably they always end up getting massacred, often times without even ever spotting who was shooting at them. I don't know if this is new behaviour for Nato or not, because I've never had this much trouble spotting the enemy before... any tips would be appreciated. And secondly, and maybe more importantly, is there any way for me to actually detect the IED's? Here's an example... I've fortified a 2 story building. I have 1 squad in the bottom floor, a second squad in the second floor, and my MG/ATG teams on the top floor. After much heavy fighting we've managed to supress and drive off most if not all the enemy units from the buildings surrounding the courtyard we have eyes on. All's been quiet for about a minute, so I decide to move out. I tell my squad on the bottom floor to start assaulting to the next building. They get 1 foot outside the door, and suddenly the entire building erupts in flames, and I lose nearly an entire platoon in a split second. So is there any way at all to spot, and disarm IED's (besides killing the spies who trigger them)? I read in a readme somewhere that nearby explosions can set off IED's, but after a billion dollars worth of high explosive ammunition expended, I'm fairly sure that's not true, as I've never been able to blow one up. So i've played through this mission twice now, and both times gotten a minor tactical failure. I can achieve the objectives, but at an absolutely horrifying cost in men and material. I need advice on the above two topics, as well as any other advice that can help me get through this godforsaken mission in relatively 1 piece. Thanks in advance.

I believe they do. They definately provide fire support anyway, I've seen them firing on the enemy. And if they can fire on the enemy, I assume they lend a hand with spotting as well. Although, this is all moot if you ask me. If you have a striker that's under fire, and he still has his squad in his belly, you're in a bad situation if you ask me. I'm of the school of "dismount early". Stryker is little more than a slightly armoured taxi. Once your squad is on foot it can act as a base of fire. But you definately don't want your squad inside of it when things get hot.

I'm amazed that someone totally new to the game can come in, use solid tactics he's learned from his brother, and excel at the game. Really is a testament to the game, if you ask me. Right on the money. This is where recon comes in. Send out a small force ahead to scout for ATGM's, enemy tanks, RPG teams, etc. When it's clear, you can bring up your armour/strykers. If you send the vehicles in first, they'll likely be taken out within minutes, usually with you not even knowing where it came from. Correct again. High ground is important. Denies the enemy the ability to maneuver undetected. Agree. Light em up when you spot em. Be relentless with your suppressive fire and fire support. Only advance when they're completely suppressed or completely destroyed. Only problem being most often there isn't enough fire support to do this as well as we'd like. But I do try to time my movements with my fire support, so the artillery is falling on the enemy position before I move up. Yep, this all boils down to recon again. If you just run in blindly you'll be massacred. Find out where the enemy is, suppress them, and annihilate them. Welcome to the forum.

Yeah, I don't really like the sound bug of being able to hear the enemy before you spot them. I try not to use it. Not to spot the enemy anyway. When I'm supressing their position and I know they're there but I can't see them anymore I'll watch the replay from their perspective to hear if I'm killing them or not, but I don't scout for them by sound. Kind of gamey.

I too do not recall seeing airbursts in "general". I always thought general was just impact detonated, infantry was airburst, and armour had shells with better penetration (maybe a timed fuse to explode inside the tank). This clarification is useful, but to my eyes general and armour seem to do the same thing. I've never seen an airburst in general mode. Something for 1.05 perhaps?

I didn't know any of that. Thanks for the explaination, had no idea what was going on under the hood.

I don't understand the problem here... Why is it such a bother that the review the action phase needs to play out once before you can replay it? I usually have 2 or 3 points on the battlefield that I try to keep close watch on at any particular time. When I'm done inputing my orders, I go to one of them, and click end turn. Watch the review fully. Rewind to the start, go to position two, and watch it through again. Repeat for position 3. I have no problem at all with the replay feature... What's all the hubbub?