courage and fortitude - School of Hard Knocks...

[malfuriouspete]

loaded this scenario up again after upgrading to 2.1... not even sure if this is even considered a spoiler anymore.. crossing the bridge is awful, its really hit or miss if the engineers even blow up the barbed wire and my guys want to run across the bridge in order to get to the left side, beside the bridge.

Perhaps I should go into the scenario editor and get rid of the barbed wire because its just so stupid where its placed..

ok, my rant is done..

[womble]

The bridge issue has been widely discussed. You just have to be persistently careful. If you take care, there shouldn't be any issue with getting the engineers to operate on "your" side of the bridge. To get your lazy-arsed dogfaces to slog through the swamp, you have to give them very short movement bounds between waypoints, or they take the easy (and faster) route over the bridge deck.

[malfuriouspete]

I restarted.. got 1 engineer squad to the bridge, managed to blow apart the barbwire at the bridge opening but promptly lost half the squad because of a mine explosion due to the demo charge..

Moving squads across that point is tedious at best!! Constant artillery and machine gun fire... these ww2 generals were psychopaths for ordering troops across such a space

war is hell indeed..

[JorgenCAB]

I have played the scenario and the two first times I was utterly squished. The third time I actually deployed good tactics, I also waited until I got all my artillery before I made a push over the bridge in force.

Laying down harassment artillery bombardment and firing smoke from my tanks and mortars helped to get my infantry across and able to help starting to lay down suppressing small arms fire. That way I can soon suppress or destroy the ATGs and start moving tanks down to help with the infantry advance.

Losses in manpower will be high no matter what you do in this scenario, i think that is unavoidable.

[womble]

If we're into spoilery-advice, the "most effective" approach uses the infantry only as far as it supplies engineers and FOs. The artillery and tanks are adequate to the task of spotting, suppressing, advancing upon and destroying the enemy while the infantry hide in defilade at the back. Worth noting for if you ever have cause to conduct another such advance over similarly open ground.

[malfuriouspete]

Yeah, I got sick of being pelted by artillery.. took a ceasfire and then took the hills in the next mission - University of Hard Knocks

[womble]

Yeah, I got sick of being pelted by artillery.. took a ceasfire and then took the hills in the next mission - University of Hard Knocks

Yeah, that's the other option: don't play the scenario. You'll have a much healthier infantry battalion for future stages.

[JonS]

Yeah, that's the other option: don't play the scenario. You'll have a much healthier infantry battalion for future stages.

"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?"

Joshua

[womble]

"A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?"

Joshua

Strange indeed. And not unique.

[JonS]

Actually, in this case it is definitely NOT the only winning move. But it is definitely a viable one. Accepting defeat and pressing on anyway shows courage, and fortitude.

Coincidence?

[womble]

No, not the only winning move, but possibly the next most optimal one, if you don't realise your tanks can take the ground without leg support once you've realised that the infantry are just targets for the mortars.

[malfuriouspete]

Just need to knock out those two 75mm guns before moving your tanks across the bridge.. I've played the scenario enough that as soon as the mission starts I send mortar barrages in their general direction..

[Chris Ferrous]

** I think we know to expect spoilers in this thread by now! **

Incredibly I am playing this one for the first time - thanks for reminding me that I'd missed out this campaign so far.

Well, a couple of comments.

First mission - way too little time. Hardly any losses on either side, but I didn't reach the objectives so I 'lost'.

Then comes the mined bridge mission:-

First confusion was that I seemed to set-up in daylight, and where on earth does one hide the troops? There's one building to hide behind, hardly any reverse slopes of any significance, and a few overgrown fields. I did my best.

I laid on a few speculative artillery strikes but sparingly, and then hit 'go' only to discover it's night! OK, well my troops are hidden after all!

I sent one squad of engineers to the bridge with the remainder in back-up in echelon. They reached the bridge and blew the wire, trod on the mines, cleared them and then got hit by enemy artillery. That hurt, but the job was done.

Then, next shock, it's suddenly daylight, like a tropical morning. (I did mention this very early on in 2011 that the dawn/ dusk settings didn't seem like NW Europe and it still seems to be the case.) So, my troops are now fully exposed and get stonked - BIG TIME. If there'd been an option to leave the map, I would have done.

Then my tanks arrive ( no chance of repositioning them of course since they're reinforcements ), and start to get hit by ATG. The general location of the guns is spotted (an improvement on CMBN V1 where ATG were spotted and killed by even moving tanks), and all units hunker down while a counterstrike is brought to bear. Both guns survive about 15 rounds of 155mm (or was it 105mm?) all landing within 20m or so of their location, and promptly create havoc again.

Anyway, fascinating tactical problem set by the designer - it's fun but frustrating obviously. Thanks for a great job. Also, thanks for giving a sensible amount of time for this second battle.

[malfuriouspete]

*spoiler!

b/c I am so frustrated at that mission, there is also a 50mm ATG hiding in the small forest on the right side across from the river! I don't think it can do much to the shermans but still an annoyance.. at least, I never lost any tanks to them.

For the first mission, I found that by running along the sides of the map - going through the forest on the right and the farm road on the left are the best (and really only) avenues of attack. There is one ATG that is always in the same position.. use mortars. There aren't a lot of german forces in this mission so you can easily overwhelm them.. it also helps having your shermans pepper the far bocage. There are some positions on your side of the map where you are out of sight of the ATG and can still target the far bocage

[Erwin]

****SPOILERS****

One way that works is leave everything including reinforcements safely our of enemy LOS in the rear while you lets small scout units locate the ATG's (destroying or blinding them are key). Also use arty strikes on obvious enemy strong points and observation posts like the objective hill. Using smoke on the hill will blind the enemy FO's so you can move with greater safety (so long as the smoke lasts).

This is a great training campaign and scenario for when you think you've become a good player. Despite its frustrations, I really enjoyed the campaign - and the final battle is one of the best CM2 WW2 scenarios so far. The US gets something like a battalion of infantry and a couple companies of AFV's plus a ton of support weapons and vehicles. That was a wonderful reward for struggling thru the campaign.

Actually, I am curious: How many of you have completed the C&F campaign?

[malfuriouspete]

I'm on the mission after "crossroads" after taking the N803 (main road exit) route.. can't remember what the name of that mission is, basically assaulting a town with two secondary objectives: a chateau and a railroad crossing

[Erwin]

Good luck and I hope you persevere with the campaign as the final battle is an amazingly good and intense large scenario.

From the lack of response to this thread, my guess is that very few people have actually completed the C&F campaign. So, you would be amongst the elite.

[womble]

From the lack of response to this thread, my guess is that very few people have actually completed the C&F campaign. So, you would be amongst the elite.

Absence of evidence != evidence of absence.

[Erwin]

Well if you completed the campaign, simply say so...

[nachinus]

I completed the campaign, although I couldn't win the School of Hard Knocks, and had to take the hill in the second attempt scenario (University of Hard Knocks).

School of Hard Knocks is indeed one of the most frustrating CM2 experiences I've ever had, but I was aware of that on account of having read endless threads about it. In a later second go at the scenario, I managed to make some progress without being utterly destroyed, but still was far from taking the hill.

The rest of the campaign is really good, and the University of Hard Knocks scenario really felt good when finally clearing the bloody hills.

[Erwin]

Did you enjoy the final "monster" scenario in the campaign? I thought that was one of the best CM2 scenarios I have played. But, can't recall anyone else talking about it.

[malfuriouspete]

I may be on the second to last mission right now, I'm on the outskirts of Bolleville... moving towards the "jumping off points" to La Haye du Puits. I have 3 depleted Rifle platoons from L company, a weapons platoon, 5 shermans plus engineers.. not looking forward to this one

[Kat Johnston]

I played right through C&F. Didn't manage 'School of Hard Knocks' and found the follow-up difficult. Erwin, if the final scenario is the one I'm thinking of (big combined arms assault, town on the left side with the cathedral/town square at the far end, open on the right, minefields) I thought it was excellent; but I might be confusing that with one of the other campaigns.

[Erwin]

Sounds about right (altho' several scenarios could be described similarly). What made it memorable is that the US has a battalion of infantry plus a couple companies of armor, plus dozens of support weapons, arty, engineers, and other AFV's and vehicles. Probably the largest CM2 scenario I recall produced (by BF anyhow).

Actually, it should be released as a standalone scenario so one doesn't have to fight thru the whole campaign to play it.

[womble]

Sounds about right (altho' several scenarios could be described similarly). What made it memorable is that the US has a battalion of infantry plus a couple companies of armor, plus dozens of support weapons, arty, engineers, and other AFV's and vehicles. Probably the largest CM2 scenario I recall produced (by BF anyhow).

Companies of armour? I don't recall that many in it. Couple of platoons of Shermans, is what I remember (and I didn't eviscerate any armour formations in earlier scenarios, either... )

Actually, it should be released as a standalone scenario so one doesn't have to fight thru the whole campaign to play it.

I think the scenario organiser that some clever fellow wrote (was it GaJ?) would let you unpack it for that purpose. You'd have "pristine" units, rather than formations that had suffered the attrition of the previous rounds of the campaign, but otherwise, I think it'd serve.