Road to Nijmegen | 3rd Scenario

[ridethe415]

Breakout from the Neerpelt Bridgehead.

Hardest. Freaking. Battle. Ever.

****************SPOILERS*********************

I don't even know where to start.

I've got 37 minutes to go and I am held up at the Belgian-Dutch Border. Don't want to lead with my armor cuz there is something big lurking down the road (88's?)

Infantry gets picked off and suppressed.

Trying to clear out the left hand side of the road near the ALPHA line and making NO progress.

The route of advance is so narrow that it's really hard to maneuver and get fire power advantage.

Can't use arty or air power since I can't SEE anything.

And I'm supposed to get my men off in GOOD order? Ha! Don't see it happening.

Damn that Michael Cain for making it look SO EASY.

</End rant>

[Myles Keogh]

Yeah, it's a tough one. However, just keep pounding away. You can win a total victory in that scenario without exiting a single man by crushing the opposing German forces. They'll surrender if you pound them hard enough and thankfully they're aren't that many of them. One big word of caution: Do not use all your 25lber ammo because you'll need it for the next scenario.

I confess that I lost this scenario my first time around. I got caught-up on exiting my units in "good order" and thus moved way too slowly trying to minimize casualties. The result was that I ran out of time and suffered a minor defeat. That KILLED me going into Scenario 4 because if you lose Scenario 3 then 10 minutes is lopped off your time allotment for the next scenario. Without the full time allotment, I couldn't manage anything better than a draw in Scenario 4 due to running out of time while scrambling to exit my forces. And a draw is treated as a defeat for campaign purposes which resulted in Scenario 5 being the start of those 3 hour "You Suck!" scenarios which I don't want to play.

I simply could not win Scenario 4, which is very tough, with the hour allotted to me and the minimal artillery ammo I had left for the 25lbers. So, I went back and refought Scenario 3. Of course, I had the advantage of knowing the German force composition even though I ran into a different AI plan with my 2nd playing. Still, winning Scenario 3 granted me the full 70 minute time allotment for Scenario 4 plus some intelligence as to enemy deployments. So, it's pretty important to get a victory in Scenario 3.

[YankeeDog]

Be methodical. You have plenty of time so make use of it. Scout forward with small infantry teams and/or your ACs to draw fire. You'll lose a few, but if you're careful, not many. If you analyze the map closely, there are only a limited number of places the enemy could be, so even if you don't actually spot an enemy shooter, you can get a pretty good idea of where he is by process of elimination. Use recon by fire.

You have buckets of HE. The 25 pdr. and Tank HE does not get replenished for the next Irish Guards fight, so you don't want to use *too* much of it, but you can afford to blow some at suspected enemy locations.

Your tank MG ammo is basically unlimited, so spray that everywhere.

The air support does not carry over to the next fight, so make sure to use it. Since LOS is limited, you'll probably need to plot it pre-planned, and/or use the TRPs to plot it. The HE rockets are powerful enough that you can be pretty confident any enemy in the vicinity of their impacts is KO'd -- Remember, sometimes knowing where the enemy is *not* is almost as useful as knowing where he is.

[ridethe415]

Thank guys. Good to know it's not just me. I started to get over cautious, and everyone it bottled up along side the road.

The rocket attacks do sound and look awesome

[Myles Keogh]

Thank guys. Good to know it's not just me. I started to get over cautious, and everyone it bottled up along side the road.

The rocket attacks do sound and look awesome

Try to avoid having your planes bombing too close to the road. Those rockets make some massive craters and your vehicles (especially Shermans) will bog down in them. So, be careful about blowing holes in the road especially since this scenario "encourages" the player to keep his vehicles on the road.

[Holien]

Breakout from the Neerpelt Bridgehead.

Hardest. Freaking. Battle. Ever.

</End rant>

That was easy wait until you see and play the fourth scenario!!!

Sherman's using target light is the way to go.... (well as long as you still have them, just lost my last Firefly!!! Damned!!!)

[Lets_All_Fight]

Breakout from the Neerpelt Bridgehead.

Hardest. Freaking. Battle. Ever.

****************SPOILERS*********************

I don't even know where to start.

I've got 37 minutes to go and I am held up at the Belgian-Dutch Border. Don't want to lead with my armor cuz there is something big lurking down the road (88's?)

Infantry gets picked off and suppressed.

Trying to clear out the left hand side of the road near the ALPHA line and making NO progress.

The route of advance is so narrow that it's really hard to maneuver and get fire power advantage.

Can't use arty or air power since I can't SEE anything.

And I'm supposed to get my men off in GOOD order? Ha! Don't see it happening.

Damn that Michael Cain for making it look SO EASY.

</End rant>

Yeah, tell me about it.

SPOILERS

********************************************************************************************************************

Held up at the border with the clock ticking down. That damn 75mm dug in to the trees to the right of the ville has taken 16 rockets and countless rounds (bang on target) from my on board 81mm mortars.

And yet....every time I think the goose-stepping SOB is dead for good and I start moving armour into a position it can support infantry, up he pops and puts another round into a tank or armoured car.

If he survived all that and can still return fire, they ARE the bloody Master Race.

On a slightly separate note, I noticed an oddity - dunno whether it's a bug or not: During the set up phase, the two medium mortars assigned to A Coy are both carrying 60 rounds in total - 54 rounds of HE and 6 rounds of smoke. As soon as either the mortar teams or their transports are moved (either during set up, or by giving orders) This total drops to exactly half. Anyone else noticed this? I thought I had made a mistake so I just went and started the mission again to make sure.

Bug or WAD? Double to amount of HE would certainly make my like a bit easier.

[beatmasta]

On a slightly separate note, I noticed an oddity - dunno whether it's a bug or not: During the set up phase, the two medium mortars assigned to A Coy are both carrying 60 rounds in total - 54 rounds of HE and 6 rounds of smoke. As soon as either the mortar teams or their transports are moved (either during set up, or by giving orders) This total drops to exactly half. Anyone else noticed this? I thought I had made a mistake so I just went and started the mission again to make sure.

Bug or WAD? Double to amount of HE would certainly make my like a bit easier.

That is probably because also the ammo of the neighboring unit is counted there as each mortar are able to use each others ammo. When they go separate ways they are not anymore able to use the other units ammo and therefore screen shows only half of the ammo. If you move them close to each other again then the ammo should "double" again.

[YankeeDog]

At little trick for hard-to-kill guns:

Mortar fire other HE like artillery or aerial rockets usually has a good chance of killing a gun, but sometimes a combination of good positioning and bad luck results in an enemy gun that soaks up seemingly unlimited amounts of HE without getting KO'd.

However, you don't always need to KO the gun to continue your advance -- often, just suppressing a well-placed gun is sufficient to keep the fun from firing and allow you to maneuver until you can close and finish. Once a gun crew has weathered a minute or two of HE fire, you can usually keep the crew "heads down" with fire from 3-4 MGs.

So, don't spend too much precious time and HE trying to kill well emplaced guns at range. Instead, drop a minute or so of mortar fire on a gun position, roll up with a couple of AFVs while the last mortar shells are still falling, and just keep hosing the location of the gun with MGs -- use target light area fire orders so your units don't stop firing if they lose contact with the gun. MG ammo for most AFVs is functionally unlimited, so don't be afraid to have your tanks area firing with their MGs for long periods of time -- they've got the ammo depth to do it. You can also use infantry MG teams to similar effect.

Then, while the gun crew is busy ducking the MGs fire and counting the bugs in the dirt, you can maneuver on the gun with infantry or whatever and finish it off at close range.

This tactic will often will save you time and HE compared to simply sitting back and continuing to toss HE at the gun until you finally get that lucky hit that KOs the gun.

[Lets_All_Fight]

That is probably because also the ammo of the neighboring unit is counted there as each mortar are able to use each others ammo. When they go separate ways they are not anymore able to use the other units ammo and therefore screen shows only half of the ammo. If you move them close to each other again then the ammo should "double" again.

That's probably it. Thanks. I had assumed something similar, only I thought it was possibly one of the other carriers carry extra rounds. Didn't occur to me that it might simply be reading the other team's load.

@Yankeedog.

Good advice there, thanks. I've actually been trying to do that to little effect so far. My timing is probably off. Of course, every time I suppress one of the little darlings, another pops up and suppresses my suppressors.

I'll get there. Col. Frost might be on his own for a while mind you.

[beatmasta]

Another trick is to blind the ATG with smoke. In that particular battle I did that and was able to move my infantry close to the guns and kill the crew.

[Holien]

Added to advice about keeping heads down, then Mob the AT gun with HE Chuckers...

Brens work a treat and then 3 /4 tanks A/C's with rush into LOS and area fire....

That worked for me on that one, After I lost a FF thinking it was dead....

Dohhh!!!