Fleeting Moment - my thoughts (spoilers)

[pord]

I bought FI a couple weeks ago and finally completed my first campaign, not counting the advanced training campaign (which was a lot of fun). Of course I wanted to play as the Italians first! I prefer to play smaller scale battles more, but the amount of troops in this campaign was never too overwhelming. I played on veteran skill level since I don't consider myself great at the game or at military tactics in general.

The first nighttime probe mission is much more my preferred engagement size. Just a handful of units to maneuver gives much greater control over each one. This mission gave me a first look at the very different types of maps to come. Open terrain with lots of elevation change and of course no bocage! Going from stone wall to stone wall trying to surprise the enemy was a lot of fun. I was able to take both OP buildings with few casualties. I also found the extreme difficulty of maintaining command and control links with no radios. Doable, but hard when your troops are constantly relocating. Major axis victory, and very fun.

The second mission was my favorite. Tons of units to control, but since you must manage your troops so you don't run out before the end of the campaign, I kept about half in deep reserves and played with the rest. I put my light tanks and an FO up on the great hill overlooking the entire battlefield. They provided great firepower the entire match and had little AT resistance. The 4 "real" German tanks took the left flank and had little to fear in terms of AT.

A platoon of infantry and their light hitting carcano's took the middle forest stone wall. The infantry provided little firepower as they had difficulty spotting enemies across the vast map without binoculars, a recurring problem. I had another platoon of infantry come down the overlook hill with the light tanks to take the first building objectives. They got slaughtered in a tactical error on my part. I learned from this to call artillery on all objectives before sending in the infantry. I used few brixia mortars since I did not know how close to the spotters they had to be for use in indirect fire roles. The enemy was quickly on the run and I rolled my tanks to take the other objectives. Major axis victory.

The third mission was by far my least favorite. The briefing said primary objective was to bypass the enemy. That is just what I did. My plan was to use tanks to enter on the right field avoiding the road altogether. Unfortunately the tanks could not spot the AT guns and could not area fire any enemy positions even though they clearing had LOS on the very flat map. My plan was a blunder and my FO could not call artillery because he couldn't register the land targets for the same reason. I moved another HQ unit up to call smoke on the whole road to block the view of the field and I rushed all trucks and Italian tanks to the exit through the field in a very long process. I lost all but three trucks but a lot of infantry was able to make it, even though they were in poor shape. I killed few Americans. Minor Axis defeat.

The final mission was very fun. I put some mortars and artillery in the hill behind the house overlooking the American entry. Because of targeting issues my artillery could not spot the enemy tanks but I bombed the enemies and kept the infantry from entering the woods on my left flank. My artillery was soon taken out as the tanks rolled up and without any reliable AT I began a slow retreat, leaving an assault team behind to slow the advancing tanks. Some of my infantry was left on the hill to give me information and keep the hill from enemy FOs. I soon realized my italian mobile artillery guns were no match for the Sherman's and retreated them to the exit, taking one loss and damaging one Sherman. My assault team destroyed a Sherman and fled to the exit. Ceasefire after sixty minutes to get a draw. Very fun mission. Trying to withdraw up their hills was intense as the troops got very tired trying to climb them.

Overall I got a tactical victory in a greatly designed campaign Other than the difficult C2 problems, the Italians are fun with good mortars and machine guns and "interesting" tanks. I wonder though, do the missions change based n the outcome of the third battle while trying to exit your troops across the map?

I do wish we could track our soldier kills like in the close combat series. Exiting the map gives no chance to view who got kills in a given match.

[JonS]

I wonder though, do the missions change based n the outcome of the third battle while trying to exit your troops across the map?

Yes, they do indeed

I do wish we could track our soldier kills like in the close combat series. Exiting the map gives no chance to view who got kills in a given match.

I *think* you can? Use the +/- keys (or what ever the next-unit/previous-unit keys are) to scroll through your units after the battle has ended, and I believe it will scroll though all units, including any that have either exited or been buddy-aided out of existence.

[lordhedgwich]

i was thinking of buying this frieday when i get payed.. Are there only 4 missions for italians campaign?

[pord]

JonS - I never thought of using +/- after the game. Thanks for the tip. I wanted to know my mortar's total kills.

lordhedgwich- Based on what JonS said and the campaign map, I'm guessing there are more missions depend on how you perform. I'm sure somebody else would be able to tell you more though.

[Charles Foulkes]

I believe there are up to six missions in the Italian campaign, five if you win them all or fail the fourth, four if you fail the third, and six if you fail the fifth.

The third mission was very challenging, took me three tries to win, and I did that by using tons of artillery and basically sacrificing my four German tanks at the end so my Italians could rush down the road and field with very few losses.

Unfortunately, I stopped playing when I got to Gela - my laptop gets bogged down with all those buildings. It's playable, just frustratingly slow, so someday I'll give it a try, although it looks daunting - that naval artillery is a scary sight.

[cool breeze]

I'm playing this campaign again as I got a bit bogged down with the next mission and wanted to try again with more emphasis on saving my ptruppens lives vs saving ammo. I just played the third mission again, the bypass mission, and I gotta say this play through made me think the victory point conditions should be adjusted a bit. This time through I noticed that a patch changed it so the Italian arty has smoke, so I decided to try to do really just like it says, try to bypass rather than fight. So I cautiously engage in long range scouting and bombarding and shooting with my tanks at long range, and I just try to atrite them very slowly and carefully to get em ready to drive past really fast with a big smoke mission at the end. I managed to get all my trucks and infantry off the map except the 4 or 5 support,scout trucks and men, so about 400, and I only took 8 KIA and 10 WIA or so and I killed 100ish and wounded 80 ish and I only lost one truck cause the driver got shot, and it wasn't even in the convoy. my tanks hadn't exited yet but I felt like I had achieved total victory in exactly the kind of fashion envisioned by the designer but instead I got a draw/ boot from the campaign. I feel gyped I executed almost exactly what I wanted and it all worked great except the points. I could hardly believe I had gotten all the freaken trucks there without getting shot up and no burning wrecks on the road at all. The tanks shouldn't be counted for evacuations points cause they can just come right after the battle easy peasy

I still love that campaign and when I squeek out this win with those kind of losses Imma be stoked.

[agusto]

I found the bypass mission really cool and exciting. I tried to avoid fighting too, only when the smokescreen lifted 2-3 minutes too early the german panzers i had in overwatch exchanged a few rounds with the enemy AT guns. I used the wespe battery to deploy a loooong smokescreen ~10 meters left to the highway and the italian arty i had left for surpressive fires on the enemy position (light/maximum/air burst fire mission). Instead of moving along the highway in a very long colum, i moved my trucks through the fields right to the highway, splitting up my convoys into several paralel moving short colums. The tanks were moving on the highway, having their barrels turned towards the enemy, so they could screen the trucks from possible enemy fires in case the smokescreen doesnt last long enough. I lost ~2 trucks and 1 panzer in the mission and scored a tactical victory, if i remember correctly.

The italian campaign was one of my favorites of the CMBN/CMFI campaigns, although i really did enjoy the american campaign in CMFI too. The german campaign, well...i dont know, i didnt like it that much. The german missions all play pretty similar. 1) reconesaince, 2) destroy enemy AT assets with artillery/mortars, 3) use your armor to kill the defenseless enemy infantry. I didnt finish the german campaign.

[Albe Pavo]

I'm bogged down in Gela street fighting with US forces. Having so few automatic weapons it's a big trouble for italians..

Anyway in mission 3 i also tried to by-pass the strong point using a long smoke screen, but AT fire was too deadly.

So i choose a front assault: US forces were badly destroyed, but i had some infantry losses, especially by mortar fire, which is deadly against italians..