The Scottish corridor - A amazing Job

[LeeW]

Hister

The men in the bunker can be dead, usually by the first minute. The bunker itself will not show as knocked out yet. What little testing I've done shows the 75mm knocks out the bunkers faster than the 95mm. The reason being they use AP rounds to do this. The 75mm has more AP rounds and will shoot them, where as the 95mm has very few Heat rounds and will shoot HE more often than not, thus taking longer to KO the bunker on average. The HE rounds will kill the men inside the bunker, but not the bunker itself usually.

[slysniper]

I see nothing out of normal with bunkers in the game I am playing at the moment. Actually, I am glad I bailed my crew from a concrete one just before a enemy tank destroyed it. I think it shot twice at close range , that is all it needed to destroy it.

So, either you have a bug (reload the game) or maybe you are trying to kill it from the side instead of through the vision slits. Now that makes them almost indestructable, I remember doing that once just after the game came out. learned quick to not try that again.

[James Crowley]

James, are you talking about the bunkers themselves or the troops inside? I haven't had too much trouble with eventually nailing the occupants, and IIRC, once the troops are destroyed, the bunker cannot be entered by anyone (but I could be mis-remembering...I May have seen the destroyed icon on those bunkers I couldn't re-enter. it's been a while.)

Yes, the actual bunkers. The crew were killed, it seemed, one at a time as shots 'penetrated'.

But I seriously doubt that a wooden bunker could hold up against, what must have been, around a dozen solid hits with 95mm HE. That is enough to knock down a decent sized building.

[Hister]

Hmmm, one was shoot at from the side while the other from the front and no projectile went through the slit. In both cases crew inside was alive and kicking.

[Blackcat]

Hister

The men in the bunker can be dead, usually by the first minute. The bunker itself will not show as knocked out yet. What little testing I've done shows the 75mm knocks out the bunkers faster than the 95mm. The reason being they use AP rounds to do this. The 75mm has more AP rounds and will shoot them, where as the 95mm has very few Heat rounds and will shoot HE more often than not, thus taking longer to KO the bunker on average. The HE rounds will kill the men inside the bunker, but not the bunker itself usually.

I dunno about that. I have just played the first mission of the Scottish Campaign and my 75mm armed Churchill fired for two and a half minutes at a bunker without destroying it, though two penetrations did kill everyone inside. The tank fired HE. By contrast the 95mm armed tank destroyed a bunker with just one HE round.

As an aside, I have just come back to the game after a long, enforced, absence and have upgraded to version 2.01. Is it my imagination or is the game a lot harder now? I know MG fire has been ramped up (at long last) but buildings seem a lot tougher than they used to be (I put 12 95mm HE rounds into one building not only was it still standing but its occupants were still alive and kicking) and enemy troops seem harder to spot.

[LeeW]

I've seen the wood bunkers get knocked out in less than a minute, and also seen them take over 10 minutes and almost all the HE and AP 75mm rounds to take them out. So peoples experience will vary widely. "Usually" you can kill the troops inside fairly quickly, always the exception though with all the variables present.

[Hister]

@Blackcat: 2.1 patch brought improvements regarding tougness of buildings and reseliance/better cover and concealment of troops inside them. Before this patch it was too easy to kill soldiers inside. Some building types do seem to be slightly too tough as is sometimes the case with the bunkers.

[slysniper]

As an aside, I have just come back to the game after a long, enforced, absence and have upgraded to version 2.01. Is it my imagination or is the game a lot harder now? I know MG fire has been ramped up (at long last) but buildings seem a lot tougher than they used to be (I put 12 95mm HE rounds into one building not only was it still standing but its occupants were still alive and kicking) and enemy troops seem harder to spot.

Yes, in general, the game is harder, in that adjustments have been made and things play differently. I am not sure any of us know what all has adjusted in the different releases.

One thing I notice lately, is troops stay hidden much better in grassy type terrain than it semed they once did. As I just found out walking on top of a enemy ambush in nothing more than grass. Wow, even being on the wrong end of that it still was cool.

[A Canadian Cat]

I see nothing out of normal with bunkers in the game I am playing at the moment. Actually, I am glad I bailed my crew from a concrete one just before a enemy tank destroyed it. I think it shot twice at close range , that is all it needed to destroy it.

So, either you have a bug (reload the game) or maybe you are trying to kill it from the side instead of through the vision slits. Now that makes them almost indestructable, I remember doing that once just after the game came out. learned quick to not try that again.

Well I am bummed to hear they got away. My Sherman fired two AP shells and a few bursts of MG fire. I was wondering why it stopped firing but when I looked closer I found the bunker destroyed. Well that was easy.

This was head on from 75 - 100m ish (I did not check).

[slysniper]

Well I am bummed to hear they got away. My Sherman fired two AP shells and a few bursts of MG fire. I was wondering why it stopped firing but when I looked closer I found the bunker destroyed. Well that was easy.

This was head on from 75 - 100m ish (I did not check).

Stop ready my post, Sir.

You are getting information that I dont want you to have.

Not only did you kill a emty bunker, but they had a MG when they left too.

I am just trying to be the enemy unit that you love to hate.

[A Canadian Cat]

You know the saying "loose lips sink ships".

The time line for this battle is tight so I cannot move too slow but at some point you will have to stop falling back. So far there have only been a handful of casualties but I have a feeling that is about to change. Now if I could just get my mortar teams to drop shells on your guys and not mine:(

[tuhhodge]

I was playing the 3rd scenario yesterday. It's the one where you defend against an attack by infantry supported by Tiger tanks.

Well, either I'm absolutely useless (quite possibly), incredibly unlucky, or the game is hopelessly unrealistic. As I've managed to win other scenarios without losing too many men I don't think I'm that poor a tactician. And I only play the game because it seems realistic (albeit hampered by the limits of the AI). So that leaves bad luck?

Examples:

Houses provide no cover whatsoever. Enemy stonks landing 50m away decimate sections of my hardy warriors. One presumes they were all standing at the windows watching. Almost all enemy barrages saturated my positions. On random barrage of three shells all landed on my carefully concealed AT gun!

Conversely, all my mortars missed their target areas by up to 250m, one whole barrage landed off map. I even corrected my targeting and that simply moved the stonks into another vacant area of bocage! I seem to recall that Brit arty was the best of all the WWII participants, regularly saving the infantry by breaking up overwhelming German attacks, especially around Caen.

LOS? I had a bunch of blind gunners. What's the chance of that hey!? Despite pre-checking positions, after carefully moving an AT gun and setting up, they couldn't see a road 50m away. Same road was clearly visible if you viewed it through the camera at ground level. On moving the AT gun, it got shot up by Germans whose eyesight must have been much better! LOL.

Oh, I don't know guys, I'm just a bit dispirited. I love the game and have been playing since the Combat Mission series began. I hate playing in a gamey fashion, so my defensive positioning reflects that. Then, after giving my hidden troops orders to hold fire until the enemy is crossing an open field in front of them, I order them all to open fire. What happens? My guys are all routed within a minute, after panicking when the enemy dares to return fire. The buildings give no protection. The enemy in the open is almost unscathed.

I'll try the scenario again. Maybe I'll try opening fire earlier? Problem I find with that tactic is that the enemy tanks simply drive up to the troops and murder them. The AT guns are next to useless against Tigers unless you catch them at close range from behind...

Sorry for the rant.

[Lethaface]

Such are the rolls of the die

[Alan8325]

Sorry for the rant.

First of all, take heart that this scenario is the last before a full resupply and replacement of casualties before the next mission. Not a spoiler since this is mentioned in the campaign briefing.

***Spoilers Ahead***

The enemy in this scenario is generally veteran with fanatic motivation, so that is part of the reason why you are seeing your regular troops with mid-range motivation break and run during firefights. Also, since 2.01 their mg42s have received a bigger buff than any of your weapons. I only managed to succeed in this scenario after several reloads of saves I had at various points.

Finally succeeding was a matter of taking out the Tigers, which may have been mostly luck for me. The OpFor AI eventually sends both Tigers right up to your setup zone, so as long as you keep Piats or AT guns in reserve while the Tigers get close, you can have a chance of a flank or rear shot. The 57mm AT gun is capable of penetrating the Tiger side armor at close range.

I believe that the only difference between beginner, intermediate and advanced versions of this mission are the order in which you receive the various reinforcements with the tanks coming later in the higher difficulties. In any case, once the Tigers are gone and you still have tanks, you can mop up the infantry, half tracks and armored cars with little difficulty. On higher difficulty settings, if you fail to take out the Tigers before your tanks arrive, you may have to just move your troops around and cede territory to mitigate casualties while you wait for your tanks.

[Paper Tiger]

Heh heh. When I designed this mission, I found that the Tigers didn't stand a chance if both the Brit 6-pdrs were allowed to deploy up front. They didn't get knocked out every time, that's true, but the volume of shots coming from both guns would button them up and degrade their optics, destroy their main gun in very short order almost every time. So I decided to move one of the guns to a different set-up area to give the Tigers a chance.

Same with the attacking troops. The 12SS engineers were used in this counter attack so I thought Veteran with Extreme/High morale would allow them to put in an effective attack. (Better than the Green/Extreme defenders that you'd been fighting earlier.) The supporting troops are very weak by comparison (Luftwaffe troops IIRC). But the v2.01 changes to MG behaviour have probably made this one a tad too challenging now. I'll be reviewing this as soon as Market Garden is done.

BTW, the Green version of this mission has PzIVs instead of Tigers. The delays to your reinforcements are due to a loss in the 'Road to Cheux' mission. Failure to clear the village in that mission delays the tanks from Cheux from arriving in the nick of time.

[tuhhodge]

Thanks for the sympathetic replies gentlemen!

I replayed the scenario last night and made significant progress. First off, I concentrated my troops, kept them hidden. Second, I managed to lay down a thick barrage of mortars right on the attacking troops. Lucky, maybe. I was doing quite well until a Tiger's machinegun killed 5 and wounded 3 in one burst, causing another section and an HQ to run off. Another team was panicked and instead of running away from trouble, hid behind a building before running out across a field!? Overall, things were more realistic, so I clearly was a little unlucky before. I still think the machineguns are too effective against troops hidden in buildings or foxholes. Neither cover offers any protection.

[tuhhodge]

PS: one of my 6 pounders managed to scare off a Tiger with a few well-aimed shots, possibly damaging its main gun. Mind you, with machineguns that kill entire sections in one burst, it's still a lethal proposition.

[Nigel Ewels]

Its a tough campaign and tougher in V2.01. I find I need multiple replays from saved games for most scenarios and its hard not to start being gamey when you know what is in store for your pixel truppen. The German MG's in scenario 4 are a real bitch, especially with a lot of Green Brits in your platoons. The time constraints in most scenarios often make you take more risks with your troops then you want to, but hey wargaming is hell.

[medlinke]

That's some great praise for the campaign. I'll have to check it out.

[Holien]

The campaign is excellent and anyone reading this thread should invest the time to play it. It really does make the game shine as solo play.

I really only used to play Humans as I thought AI pretty easy to beat, this campaign taught me the error of my ways and I really enjoyed the different elements to the linked scenarios.

If you are new to the game and want to learn how to play this campaign will challenge you.

[tuhhodge]

And my tanks arrived to save the day! A 75mm armed Sherman took out a Tiger from the front. Good man. Planning on stalking the other and taking out its supporting infantry, using the enemy's tactics to extract revenge!

[slysniper]

The campaign is excellent and anyone reading this thread should invest the time to play it. It really does make the game shine as solo play.

I really only used to play Humans as I thought AI pretty easy to beat, this campaign taught me the error of my ways and I really enjoyed the different elements to the linked scenarios.

If you are new to the game and want to learn how to play this campaign will challenge you.

VeryTrue, My feelings completely.

I am amazed with how well he is designing the game for AI play. And at some point BF with continue to give more tools to help with making it possible to do even better AI responces. I have no problem with playing against the AI for now or in the future. Still prefer HtoH, but I enjoy any tough fight that I have a chance at winning, Presently, there is plenty of that coming from some of the better designers using the AI.

[Blackcat]

Paper Tiger is an all round git (he has caused me to swear more than my wife and cat put together), and one of the best scenario/campaign designers on the planet. Anything from him is going to be a challenge. I have to say though that the improvements with V2.01 have put success in this campaign beyond my feeble reach.

[Jack Ration]

Relatively new to CM, with BN-Cwlth (V2.01) my first purchase. After working through the tutorial and some of the Single Missions, I read this thread and thought I would give the Scot Cor a go.

Bunkers in Mission 1 - I destroyed both with attacks to the side. Managed to scrape together a Tactical Victory.

Mission 2 - Could only manage a draw.

Mission 3 - In progress. Rather overwhelming at first. Not used to the size of the map, etc. Quite a challenge for the beginner setting up. Although the terrain looks relatively flat, there are enough undulations and bocage to limit LOS. Makes placing the AT guns a challenge.

So an interesting challenge on the learning curve for this game.

[slysniper]

I would not recommend any of the harder campaigns for anyone who is not playing well as to understanding the game engine or has developed some good basic tactics that have proven to work for them in the system in scenarios or QB's.

And this is a harder one, for sure if you are running 2.01

So just beware. I love it, but I would not recommend it to you at this point in your gaming. There is many other campaigns that are better for newer players to the system