Did a little test yesterday.....

[greywulf58]

Yesterday I conducted a couple tests to see how powerful US weapon systems are against those used by the Syrians. All of the tests were conducted on the largest map size available with no hills or terrain.

Test #1: One platoon of M1 Abrams against a complete Syrian Republican Guard armored company. Result. After three minutes (turns), all Syrian tanks were destroyed and only one Abrams was taken out.

Test #2: One US forward observer located on the third story of a building. Two A-10s CAS available. Again, a complete Syrian Republican Guard armored company. At the end of ten minutes (turns), only three Syrian T-72s remained. I was kind of disappointed when the A-10s finally used their 30mm guns because the unique sound of that gun firing was not evident. Definitely something to include in a future version of this game.

Test #3: Okay, I lied. I did three tests. This test was the same as #2 but CAS was two AH-64 Apache Longbows. Almost the same results as in test #2, but five Syrian tanks survived.

My conclusion is that if you play the Syrian forces you had better not try to take on US or NATO units toe-to-toe. You will lose and lose big. Now I want to see how effective Syrian air assets would do against US or NATO ground targets. I'll let you know those results shortly.

Chris.

[Sublime]

definitely old news. you have no chance going toe to toe red on blue. much better chances going toe to toe with soveits as the muj. in CM:A.

In CMSF the best balanced battles are either blue on blue or red on red.

as far as the syrian air support - since in game air to air, surface to air etc isnt modelled I'd expect it work just as good as the US air support. Ive only used it once in CMSF - in the bier und bretzel and it did a helluva job on the germans. However I extensively used hinds and other soviet air support in CM:A and the hind is a kick ass ground support weapon. definitely.

[LongLeftFlank]

With infantry, if RED can't get within about 40 meters of BLUE via ambush or infiltration in close terrain, fuggedaboudit. With armour, RED will pretty much never win unless the odds are artificially stacked or the map is tiny; the best that can be hoped for is to inflict some BLUE casualties.

[Sublime]

yeah. victory conditions that force blue to be casualty concious can help. Thats the one thing with this game - it models short term. In the long term a war fought like this - say Afghanistan with the Soviets or Vietnam with U.S. even though you'd get kill ratios of like 13 Vietnamese to every American (no thats not exact, its just a figure I tossed out, though it's been calculated to something like that) it adds up over time. And of course, we're fighting what we consider a police action while the Vietnamese are fighting a war of independence. So 60,000 dead is considered unacceptable and a loss to us, while over a million dead are considered a victory and the price to pay for independence. It's all point of view.

Back to the game though - Ambush tactics are where its at. IEDs are super effective, just like real life- Also the ambushes are best conducted with something blocking the long range LOS. Setup say a block into a town, and so when you ambush those nato troops they get hit and their tanks cant help much. Thats the only way you'll be able to pull back for a second ambush or to retreat - otherwise even if you kill the half squad or squad you'll get pounded by any overwatch weapons they have. Its a dicey situation - you want to hug the blue forces so if they call in their arty or air support they risk friendly fire, but at the same time you dont want to become so entangled that you'll die in place. All too often thats the best you can hope for though.

[greywulf58]

I am sure this post is old news, but I was just wanting to see how much damage the US could do vs any country using Russian equipment. Nasty to say the least. I will have to try a similar test using the Hinds. Next version of the game (crossing-fingers that it will be done) should include some of the newer Russian air-assets. Maybe model in AA assets as well that could shoot down or scare off a strike. Of course, then we get into the anti-radar aircraft and ECM units. Maybe too much for this level of warfare but it would be interesting to see in a simulation.

As for the Viet-Nam kill ratio, 13-15 to 1 is about right. Also correct, that the US did win most of the battles but definitely lost the war. It would be interesting to see a new version of CMSF with a Viet-Nam module, including the tunnels. That would add a new dimension to a game. Of course, air-mobile forces would have to be modeled to make it a true simulation of that terrible conflict. Maybe include the Brown Water Navy riverene units too. I know, wishful thinking but its fun to dream.