melm

Putin doesn't want world war 3. If he wanted that, he could just have pushed the button, or at least attacked the Baltics or Poland. He wants Ukraine because he thinks it's historically part of Russia, because he wants to leave a legacy, and because he's an intelligent sociopath who realises that Ukraine is an unguarded chess piece since they are not in NATO. I think that's all. Not digging a bunker just yet.

Without proper organzation, lone wolf attack will just be sporadical. My two cents.
I won't think highly of Ukranians' patriotism, then get disappointed by the result. People need to be properly trained and fed to fight against invasion.

Russia is already a pariah state, isn't it? She has nothing to lose.

Without proper organzation, lone wolf attack will just be sporadical. My two cents.
I won't think highly of Ukranians' patriotism, then get disappointed by the result. People need to be properly trained and fed to fight against invasion.

Can you two take this outside of the thread? Please....

TB2 is just a tactical UAV and the load is small. I doubt that they've been used to bomb the airbase. If they were used, the destruction it could inflict is minimal.

When starts, I sent my forces mainly to two directions, left valley and right hill. Also I sent one or two scout teams to the middle to enhance my spotting. Positioning my T-90 in the woods.  Trees sometimes can help you to absorb some javelins hitting.  When Bradleys are spotted, I ask my tank to concentrate their focus on where the Bradleys supposed to be.  If I remembered correctly, some Bradleys have APS(however you cant tell since ERA and APS versions are the same), so I try to use tank to kill them.  
BTW, I suspect US army has UAV hovering on the battlefield. I lost quite a few inf due to precision artillery strike.  So move infantry from time to time if you don't want too much casualty.

Excellent, thanks very much Steve  Now we can write a review.

Why is the Matrix/Slitherine logo shown, but not BFC's?  I know the dstl have worked with the Command devs at Matrix for a while now.  Just seems weird they show all CM clips, but no mention of BFC.

This scenario I have played three times as the Ukrainians, doing three different defense plans.  Two of scenarios ended in brutal street fighting and close quarter battles. 
 
One plan was the fall back to the victory zones in the city, repeatedly ambushing the Russian forces in street to street fighting. That one turned out fairly well in the end with solid victory but the casualties were high (but acceptable in regards to victory conditions) for the Ukrainians.
 
Next, I tried a 'Hold the Line' type of defence.  It went well until the second wave showed up and then I got slammed as the mass firepower of the second way decimate the defenders and the Russians pulled off a win.
 
The third try turned out super sweet.  Basic premise of that defense was mobile anti armor teams pushed out from the city and in essence, continually ambushed the Russian armor in the hedgerows and trees..  That resulted in a Total Victory and surprisingly minimal casualties for me.  It worked very well, keeping the Russians out of the town (though Russian infantry did make it up to the edge of town)
 
This is an outstanding scenario for learning and perfecting defensive tactics and force placement.  The map is generous enough in size to allow pretty much any defensive plan to be attempted.  
 
The terrain will be a curse to you for long fields of fire, making this for the most part, a close to medium range fight,  Try as I might with different layouts, it is nearly impossible for long range ATGMs shots due to the wooded windbreak lines of trees and the rolling nature of the ground.  The older ATGMs of the Ukrainians are adequate when vehicles are in the open but very nearly miss every time when shot through even a thin row of trees, making most ATGM shot 500 metres of less the norm for this scenario.
 
That said, with small anti-armor teams (RPG-7s) using the terrain to max advantage, one can make the terrain a nightmare for the Russians to push through.
 
I will avoid spoilers but will offer up one very significant piece of advice - Target arcs are your very best friend for this scenario to control your fire and set the engagement ranges when it benefits you.  The Russians are not a overwhelming force but the sheer firepower they have will result in them tearing your forces to pieces at range if your forces engage haphazardly.
 
Finally, a big shout out to Pete Wenman (the designer) for this wonderful scenario.   It is everything a great defensive scenario has to rivet someone like me to play again and again.  It is such a nail biter that 55 minutes seems like an eternity when the Russians bring their firepower to bear on you.  But it is possible to win and win big if your defensive chops are up to the job.

According to my experience, the best way for TF Thunder Mission one is driving these strykers one after one through the very edge of the entrance, I mean very. Remember to use plenty of waypoints to give your vehicle no chance to deviate from the desired route. I make most of my strykers through but one which made a weird left turn to the minefield. 
Or perhaps mines can be cleared by the given 155 arty. I didn't try that though.

I´d like to clear up a thing about spotting mines.
I did some testing in CMBN a couple of weeks ago. I'm not sure if there are any differences regarding  the game mechanics of mine behaviour between SF and BN. But what I learned was this:
Some people in the forums have said that engineers will detect mines if sitting long enough in the action spot next to the mines. This is not so: My test engineers did not spot a single mine in an adjacent action square - no matter how long I let them stay there and no matter how experienced they where. They only spotted the mines once they moved into the actual action squares containing the mines.   

That particular scenario emphasizes the difference between mg effective range vs carbine effective range. Its a help if you can keep your one mg guy healthy and actively suppressing enemy targets from beyond small arms range. Also, its easy to forget those Humvees have big-old hmgs to play with too.

Load restrictions also affects buddy aid. If a soldier is already loaded down he's not going to pick up the 'special weapon' of his fallen comrade.

I never expected the mark mine button to be a magic mine detector.  Rather, I believed that if I moved my engineers to a suspected mine field, I could get them in position then click mark mines. My expectation was that they would spend the next minute or two looking for mines.
I did notice that my group did detect one mine, but there was nothing I could do about it.  It made me assume they only mark mines and not disarm them.  But I also noticed that the engineers don't always detect mines in their location.  I had a squad in one position of the suspected minefield for about 3 or 4 minutes.  No mine detected, so I moved on.  BOOM!  My stryker found a mine right where the engineers had just left.  Is this a game mechanic?  A bug?  or did I do something wrong?

Thanks for all these tips.  They really opened my mind for thinking more about the combined orders.