OP Market Garden - A Helluva Take Over

[snake_eye]

A Helluva Take Over - Op Market Garden -

I am doing the last testing, adjusting and tweaking as needed the battle, taking in account Blackmoria's AAR.

The only thing that annoys me is the fact that I have not so many A.I Groups as found in CMBN and CMFI-GL. It will be better in CMSF2.

So here are some shots and I shall post sone or two videos as well soon.

[Combatintman]

Looks interesting - I hope I have time to play this at some point.

[snake_eye]

Please find the link for a short video of the British armored spear head moving toward the airfield as well as a Marines squad taking over Hill 54 Op.

Best viewed 1080p HD full screen

[Buzz]

"Clear and Hot! Nice job snake eye.

"The only thing that annoys me is the fact that I have not so many A.I Groups as found in CMBN and CMFI-GL. It will be better in CMSF2."

Yes I am sure CMSF2 in CMx2 will be a treat.

[snake_eye]

Thanks Buzz.

I am mounting another video showing a Red attack going on Hassan Village, LZ 1 and LZ 2 areas. That could be a spoiler if there was to be only one A.I Plan. That won't be the case and Blackmoria will have to find a new tactical scheme. The only thing I am sure, with him, is that the casualty collecting point will be as usual nearly empty

[snake_eye]

The tactical map and its principle objectives

The TOW being dismounted makes a smaller target. However it is difficult to move it once in a fight.

Don't get your tracks close together, choppers and or fighter bombers are around

The final prize, the airfiield

[Buzz]

You are hard at work snake eye. Looking top-notch.

RE: Blackmoria's CMSF skill. Yep he plays very well but here is a designer strategy that might work. Below from Blackmoria's Fallujah Hospital tips. (Thanks Blackmoria kept my behind intact to see the doctor)

"My success is part system mastery of CMSF, a obsessive amount of micro managing of my forces while playing real time (the only way I play) with frequent pauses and a whole lot of good luck. Having had nearly 20 years in as a combat arms officer does help for tactical savvy and planning."

The man is very good at CMSF and must have good luck... so to trip him up .... you could introduce a "Real Time NO PAUSES" mode and see how he makes out

[BlackMoria]

You are hard at work snake eye. Looking top-notch.

RE: Blackmoria's CMSF skill. Yep he plays very well but here is a designer strategy that might work. Below from Blackmoria's Fallujah Hospital tips. (Thanks Blackmoria kept my behind intact to see the doctor)

"My success is part system mastery of CMSF, a obsessive amount of micro managing of my forces while playing real time (the only way I play) with frequent pauses and a whole lot of good luck. Having had nearly 20 years in as a combat arms officer does help for tactical savvy and planning."

The man is very good at CMSF and must have good luck... so to trip him up .... you could introduce a "Real Time NO PAUSES" mode and see how he makes out

GRRRRRR :mad:

How about not as well. My success is co-current, mutually supported activity. Without the pauses, co-current activity kind of goes out the door with the usual predictable results.

At least with WEGO you can do concurrent activity but I have discovered that a lot of 'unexpected' things can happen in the one minute turn what you are powerless to control - the AI can do wonky things at times during moves, the seemly suicidal tendency for troops exposed to effective fire to sometime withdraw to a place that is far worst (the number of times that troops withdraw out of building and drop prone in the middle of a street instead of moving another 5 meters into another building), etc. are the reasons I don't like WEGO. With real time, I can intervene and stop such stupidity.

[sburke]

GRRRRRR :mad:

How about not as well. My success is co-current, mutually supported activity. Without the pauses, co-current activity kind of goes out the door with the usual predictable results.

At least with WEGO you can do concurrent activity but I have discovered that a lot of 'unexpected' things can happen in the one minute turn what you are powerless to control - the AI can do wonky things at times during moves, the seemly suicidal tendency for troops exposed to effective fire to sometime withdraw to a place that is far worst (the number of times that troops withdraw out of building and drop prone in the middle of a street instead of moving another 5 meters into another building), etc. are the reasons I don't like WEGO. With real time, I can intervene and stop such stupidity.

LOL what's that one sig? "Fight with conscript tanks"? Mine should be "fight with stupid troops!"

Correction - that is "Play with conscript tanks" and belongs to Vanir.

[Buzz]

GRRRRRR :mad:

How about not as well. My success is co-current, mutually supported activity. Without the pauses, co-current activity kind of goes out the door with the usual predictable results.

At least with WEGO you can do concurrent activity but I have discovered that a lot of 'unexpected' things can happen in the one minute turn what you are powerless to control - the AI can do wonky things at times during moves, the seemly suicidal tendency for troops exposed to effective fire to sometime withdraw to a place that is far worst (the number of times that troops withdraw out of building and drop prone in the middle of a street instead of moving another 5 meters into another building), etc. are the reasons I don't like WEGO. With real time, I can intervene and stop such stupidity.

Hey BlackMoria,

I am not as skilled a player as you are and hope you took no offense to my joking suggestion to snake eye. Of course I agree with you. RT with pauses will allow much greater micromangeing and fewer wonky things.

I would think the ideal of all me vs AI worlds would be RT with the ability to "rewind" say 30" of RT play to re issue different orders. One can kind of do this with RT turn based but takes more steps.

My approach is often to dive in Elite RT-TB play till too many wonky things occur and then restart the game hoping to have learned from my experience. It works for me as my "uninterrupted" play time is very limited. Doing RT with lots of pauses ... I often forget where I was in the move by the time I get back to the game. With RT-TB I just fire up the saved move and see where I was = easier.

I am sure you will bullseye A Helluva Take Over - Op Market Garden when it comes out.

[snake_eye]

Well RT and WEGO has been discussed many times in the past; Both have their value respective to what the player wants to find .

To my feeling, I agree with Blackmoria in the sense that playing RT, since the beginning and not stopping the game till the end, most of the time. I was not micro managing, hence I did not need to pause the game. Then came the time when I played and or made scenario with actions happening not necessarily at the same place. I then found extremely difficult to control these separate actions. Having read how Blackmoria was doing, I progressively came to play the way he did. However, even with pausing many times as he recalls it you can still miss an action partly or totally.

I would like to say and Blackmoria having been in the Army will agree with me, that playing RT and missing some parts and or totally an action not being in the area I am fighting is somehow what you discover in combat. The FOG of war unless, you are in an HQ and having all the C2 working finally, is more often present than absent even now days.

BTW Blackmoria, do you have some time to test the second AI ?

I changed some setting as well on the first one following your AAR.

[Buzz]

snake eye... "I would like to say and Blackmoria having been in the Army will agree with me, that playing RT and missing some parts and or totally an action not being in the area I am fighting is somehow what you discover in combat."

Good description of probably the most realistic CM experience. For smaller unit actions I really enjoy Elite RT NO pauses. It is exciting and fun. It is my .... what happened here! moments when I tab back to what was a healthy unit and is now decimated by .. something somewhere that make me use RT-TB when the numbers of units across a large area become extremely difficult to control in separate actions.

[BlackMoria]

Hmmm. I check my email and junk folder and got no new file from you. The last email I received was talking about the value of doing new scenarios. Please sent the file (again if you did send it previously) to my email address you have.

[snake_eye]

@Blackmoria

Hi,

I have not sent you the new file , since the Email you are referring, You have not miss it. I am since yesterday applying the new A.I plan to some units, following the brain storming I had time to think of while traveling without any mean to use my laptop. I have also decided to add a second A.I plan. That is the one I would like you to test. I am putting on it the last touch and I shall send it to you. If you can look at the first one, you will see some changes.

Cheer

@Buzz,

You will have plenty clashes in that scenario to see what is best to play. However WEGO is pleasant to look back at numerous time in order to understand what worked or failed. But as known, once the turn starts it is for the best or the worst with no mean to alter it for 60 long seconds :cool:.

[snake_eye]

Late news. The scenario is done at 95%. I am just finalizing the briefing and making sure that I am not omitting anything that might be the cause of problems for the understanding of the player.

Then I shall send the file to Blackmoria to test the second A.I plan, if he has time to do so. The testing of the battle on my part is done, so I could release it. But Blackmoria might think differently and I trust its judgment . There are two A.I plans to enable a player to play it another time and find things totally different. Sorry for the video I told you about. It is nearly done, but I have had some commitments that took all my time. I shall do the best this Weekend.

Here after are two shots of the LZ1 area and a view taken from the airfield toward it.

[snake_eye]

I shall do the best to send the file to Blackmoria tomorrow. Just finishing a briefing window with the time of arrival of the Mortars and Air Assets.

Here after just the beginning of the briefing:

In the course of the invasion of Syria, our 2nd Regiment / 1st Marines Division has been slotted by NATO HQ for blasting the NIRA dam door open, thus freeing the way to the British forces tasked with the assault of the much needed Nira's airfield.

The code name of our mission chosen by a NATO bright mind is "Market Garden". Don't get me wrong, we are not going to go in history with a "bridge too far" tag on our back. We are the US Marines and assaulting either by air, sea or ground is our fare. We rather do it rightly and there is no one among our enemies to complain, because there is no one anymore around.

You got it right ? Ok let's go through the mission.

The last weather report confirms a thick haze in the AO with a blowing medium South wind. The temp is rather cool and the ground is damp.

About the enemy. We have had a new assessment done three days ago. It looks like all aircrafts and helicopters seen earlier have been moved to a farther field. The bad news are that the runway has been partially damaged to prevent any landing by our forces and the good one is that their Air Assets loitering time will only be of short duration, if they use them as expected.

About their Ground forces:

They have a Static Infantry Company reported as being from the 2 Infantry Battalion stretched from Hassan Village to Nira's Dam and Nira's SP. Some of its Elements seem to occupy the Darya Pass. They could built their defence fire plan around the four bunkers securing the Nira's bridge area. Our S2 points out that another Motorized Infantry Company from the 67 Battalion, without any truck, located near Al Farouk could manned some entrenched positions in a forward defence line.

The Main Defence Line before the Airfield is running along these positions, Hill 54 OP and then along the Sidi Barani ridge. It has two or three bunkers and as much entrenched positions with a hull down immobilized tank

We have been most concerned till yesterday about the Anti Tank ditches running in front of that Defence Line. As a matter of fact we had been told some weeks ago, that some Pipe Lines had been deployed in order to fill them with petrol, to set them afire. A Special Force team has successfully blown the pumps of the station, just a few hours ago and been ex filtrated with no casualty. If that had not been the case we would have been obliged to fight in an oily and low visibility environment, preventing all Air Supports demand.

S2 also thinks from radio intercept, that one or two, maybe three Motorized platoons from another Company of the 67 Battalion have just arrived. They with a few tanks seen, being moved on their trailers toward that AO could be part of a Force deployed to counter at short notice any attack on the airfield.

Mortar and some Artillery fire is expected as usual, but we have no report of Artillery batteries being deployed in the AO. However a lone ZSU-23-4-Shilka has been spotted during a last Recon near Al Farouk yesterday

Our mission, will start at 05:35:00 Zulu, with the following US Forces opening the way to the British Forces. From the moment our first air assault begins, we will have at the most 2 hours

and 30 minutes before Elements of 3 (BIRMINGHAM) Battalion and 4 Regiment Armour could relieve us. They will then proceed toward the Airfield, destroying any enemy forces along the way and seize it....................................................................

Cheer

[snake_eye]

Good news. I have sent the file for a last testing at Blackmoria. If he has time to check it, I expect to upload the file on Saturday.

The battle is set to 4 hours, but you can play faster at your own risk if that suits you. As I told you about earlier, there are now 2 A.I Red plans. I must remind you that it is designed to be played US Blue agains the Red. If someone wishes to play it H2H it is possible with minor changes done in the editor, but there are no briefing done.

Cheer

[zmoney]

Looking forward to this one, thanks for all the effort that went into making it.

[snake_eye]

The Marines are holding the line on LZ 1. Will the British Cavalry comes on time to prevent a Red breakthrough ?

Beware : That battle movie does not reflect exactly the A.I plans found in the scenario.

http://youtu.be/6mqwmAm4f3I

best viewed 720p and or 1080p HD

[Erwin]

Looks great!

[snake_eye]

It looks like some armor is moving toward the front line. Are they reinforcing their defence line or are they moving to a DA (Dispersal Area) before counter attacking ?

That video will be last one before the uploading of the scenario.

Blackmoria has made a n excellent AAR of his battles with each AI Plan. His precise and expert comments made me work on that second A.I plan. I thought as a matter of fact that, one plan only, did not deserve the scenario, since many tactical options could be chosen.

Two A.I plans will allow the player a renewed pleasure and or frustration (depending on its tactical situation !) in Wego and or RT.

Cheer

vieo link:

http://youtu.be/yyEpk-hOYGQ

Best viewed 720p and or 1080p HD

[snake_eye]

As you already know the file has been released and some of you have already requested Blackmoria’s AAR ‘s made during the testing. They really were very helpful for finalizing the A.I plans, changing few set-up’s and A.I pathways.

IF Blackmoria agrees he may post them in their original writing or revised forms as soon as he wants. That way they will be most useful for players looking for some advices.

Doing so, as a matter of fact is as helpful to the players that it is to the designer.

Cheer

[BlackMoria]

Sure, I would be most happy to post the AARs.

For the original AI plan, copied and pasted from my emails with snake_eye. **Be aware that what follows has some spoilers**:

AAR as follows.

First off, a very enjoyable scenario. I like in particular the defense of the first LZ. Very intense, particularly when I noted a number of squads were getting down to 2 to 3 bars of ammunition. I actually thought I might run out of ammunition before I stopped the counter attack on the first LZ.

Surprises - the fact you mined some of the trench works in front of some of the Bunkers. Took some of my assaulters by surprise but I only took one or two casualties. Second nasty surprise - the Syrian helo attack on the forest beside the first LZ. Took three rocket strafe attacks but thankfully, only a few casualties. Third nasty surprise - Syrian jets. Very surprised that I didn’t lose any vehicles to them - their bombs were off target every time.

Outline of Events during my Play Through

On game start , sent half my troops into the LZ proper, the other half to the high ground to get a good look at the area. Troops in LZ discovered the two bunkers near LZ 1 without taking casualties. Troops on high ground saw a ZSU and several tanks and bunkers towards the airfield, and two bunkers near LZ 2. Decided to wait for reinforcements before pushing on with the operation. Once the rest of the force arrived in LZ 1 and LZ 2, I started securing the LZs. A Javelin team from LZ 1 went to the high ground and killed the ZSU and one tank. LZ 1 forces pushed into the trees beside and prepared for the counterattack as well as started to sweep through the trenches there.

The counter attack came in and was stopped with very little casualties by my forces, though ammunition was very low for about half the LZ 1 forces. LZ 2 was quickly cleared but it took a while for my forces to knock out the bunker complexes and the one strong point to secure that entire area.

The two TOW vehicles took to the high ground and came under fire from the Nira Strongpoint. The FO eventually spotted infantry in the several building and adjoining trenches and hit each location with mortars. In the meantime, Syrian helos appeared and strafed and rocket attacked the woods holding my forces at LZ 1 but inflicted very little casualties due to my forces taking cover in the trenches. In the meantime some minor Syrian forces (probably stragglers from the counterattack) tried to push into the woods and my small arms fire stopped them just inside the edge.

That is when the first ‘mistake’ made by the Syrians. Syrian artillery fire started to come in on the edge of the trees and I withdrew my forces further into the woods and was ineffective due to my timely repositioning of my troops. However the Syrian artillery fell upon their own troops pinned down by me on the edge of the tree line and the Syrian artillery decimated their own troops!

My two TOW Hummers worked their way around to the Nira stronghold with the FO and one squad, one MG team and one AT team, and took the position with no casualties. It appeared my mortars were very effective on the Syrian troops due to the number of dead my forces found in the trenches and roof tops. My forces took fire from the Darya pass area and the FO bought mortar fire on those revealed positions with deadly effect.

Syrian helos attacked the Nira stronghold and very surprisingly to me, failed see the two TOW vehicles to the rear and rocket attacked the trenches but my forces took cover within the several building in the stronghold so I took no casualties. Once the helos departed, my forces (including the two TOW vehicles) left the FO and a few teams behind to secure the Nira stronghold and made their way to Darya pass. In the meantime, the Marines at LZ 1 pushed towards Hassan village and secured the area and the compound without a single shot being fired - either the Syrians pulled back or all rushed in the counter attack to their doom.

One the most surreal moments in the game came from the clearing of Darya pass. My forces cleared the pockets of enemy and the two TOW vehicles took up position on the other side of the pass. They spotted and killed a few static tanks and bunkers. Then the Syrian attack helos showed up and strafed the two TOW vehicles, immobilizing both of them. I suffered one KIA and several light wounded. I bailed out the vehicles and withdrew the crews to the protection of the narrow walls of Darya pass itself. What happened next was surreal. The attack helos continue to strafe the empty vehicles. Then Syrian jets showed up and dropped a total of 4 bombs on the disabled vehicles but all missed. Finally, Syrian artillery hit the empty vehicles and fired a total of 50 rounds of HE and destroyed the vehicles and kept firing at them even when the first few rounds destroyed the already damaged vehicle. Talk about OVERKILL.

Some of my troops spotted what looked like a tank moving in A Farouk village and my FO called an Thunderbolt area strike on the entire area of A Farouk village and the immediate surrounding area. Once the Thunderbolt arrived and attacked, he did repeated passes on the village and each pass resulted in another smoke plume of a burning vehicle. Once the Thunderbolt left the area, I counted 9 smoke plumes, a testament to the deadly and ruthless efficiency of the A10. Seems like there was a company of armor in the village!

The Brits finally arrived and I quickly got them underway and moving towards the airfield, fearfully that the Syrian air force might return and hit me while they were bottlenecked at LZ 2.

The Marines pushed carefully out from the Hassan compound to get eyes on but saw little except for a bunker or two and some infantry, which was dealt with while the Brit proceed down the highway to the airfield.

After taking up some overwatch positions with the tanks and the Scimitar and killing a few bunkers and a ZSU, the artillery killed several positions in which anti tank fire was spotted. Then nothing. I was not getting eyes on, despite rolling my vehicles up onto hull down positions on ridges and high ground and try to goad the enemy to shoot at them. No contacts for 15 minutes.

Could the Syrians be hiding behind the ridge beside the air field? Did they have anything left to oppose me as they took heavy casualties by my estimate.

The indecision weighted heavily on me. My forces had not moved in 15 minutes except to expose vehicles to goad the enemy and there was the danger of Syrian air power showing up if I continued to delay.

I decided to do a dangerous ‘Thunder Run’, gambling that the Syrians were decimated and demoralized. I established overwatch positions with two platoons of Brit IFVs and the Marines and decided to ‘Thunder Run’ with the three tanks and a mounted platoon of Brits, trusting in the firepower of the tanks and the mounted infantry platoon to deal with whatever was on the airfield. My forces launched out from the Sidi Bou Said defensive line that I had secured and ran hell of leather along to the highway, crossed the bridge and into the airfield, taking some small arms fire, and a few missed RPG shots. Once I hit the airfield, my forces spread out and started decimating a whole bunch of trucks when the game ended.

The outcome - Marines Total Victory

My losses (very light considering)

3 KIA

15 WIA

2 Other Vehicles (my two TOW vehicles)

Enemy losses

254 KIA

140 MIA

46 Missing

8 Tanks

10 Armor

6 Other

[BlackMoria]

The AAR for the second AI plan that snake_eye developed based on comments from the first AAR. Again, copy and pasted from emails and again, contains **spoilers**

AAR of the second AI plan. ** Spoilers within**

Nice variation of a AI plan as I didn’t know what to expect so my all around defense in the trenches in LZ 1 (which I did first game as well) defeated the flanking attack off the road without any casualties. A bit of a surprise with two BRDMs showing up in the rear area of LZ 1 as my infantry where moving from the drop off point up to the trenches, but I killed both without taking any losses since four of my squads got caught in the open but killed both in the first return fire salvo. The HQ in placed on the high ground near LZ 1 spotted lots of trucks heading into the Hassan village area and compound. Spotted several trucks in the trees and hit them and the surround area with mortar fire. I look forward to the end of game to see if I caused any casualties to the dismounts. At the one hour mark, spotted a large amount of infantry moving out the trees at Hassan compound towards the edge of the gully where they appear to be massing near my insertion point. All in plain view of my higher ground HQ, who is just now ordering the mortars into action, so it will be interesting the next few minutes to see if I can nail the infantry before they move out.

I also spotted some armor moving out the airfield area along the MSR towards Hassan village area but lost sight of them, which is a huge concern to me right now as I don’t know if the anti-armor resources I have at LZ 1 are sufficient to deal with a significant armor attack right now. I am trying to deploy my TOW launcher in the LZ 2 area somewhere I can see into towards Hassan village.

One hour in and no Syrian air assets have appeared yet. I don’t know if that is by design or not but I have been dreading to hear the sound of rotor blades at any time now.

Hope to play another hour or two tomorrow to see what develops as I am expecting perhaps a coordinate armor and infantry attack into LZ 1 area very shortly since I can see infantry massing near Hassan compound and the few armor I spotted disappeared near the airfield side of Hassan village. That would be interesting to say the least since my main long range anti-armor is near LZ 2 and may not be in a position to assist if an armor attack happens very soon.

My estimate was right. The armor my HQ on the ridge spotted looked like it was still on the move, so I pulled my LZ 1 defenders further back into the trees and the trenches. The HQ on the ridge rained death down in the form of mortar fire onto the infantry massing on the edge of Hassan compound area and my initial insertion point and that infantry withdrew back into the shelter of the trees at Hassan compound. My Apache and other TOW unit arrived. I immediately called an area mission for the Apache for the majority of LZ 1, a very risky move considering I had a few squads still within the danger zone but I was trusting on the copter being more interested in tank busting than trying to spot infantry in trenches beneath trees. In the meantime, near LZ 2, I dismounted a TOW unit and with the Javelin unit at LZ 2, I moved them up the hill to look into LZ 1 as much as they could see. They came under small arms fire from the Nira ridge area but my observer got all the mortars working against enemy in the buildings and trenches there.

Sure enough, tanks, BMPs and a BRDM showed up and skirted the edge of the trees on LZ 1. One BMP tried to enter the treed area but was killed in a volley of LAW fire from one of my squads. It seemed the armor was more interested of pausing briefly in LZ 1 and was posed to head off to the DAM bridge and LZ 2 given their positioning. The Javelin and the dismounted TOW crew on the hill shot all their missiles and killed 4 armor but got pinned down by return fire from two tanks. In the meantime, enemy helo attacks started peppering the LZ 2 area with rockets but none of my troops or vehicles took any casualties.

My Apache showed up and worked over the enemy armor in LZ 1 but strangely they RTBed after a few passes despite two tanks still sitting in the open in LZ 1. I ordered another attack helo mission into the same area but it going to take time to arrive and two tanks have my Javelin and dismounted TOW pinned down. Every time I try to order the two squads to withdraw to the safety, the tanks suppress them. The TOW crew never manages to withdraw (I had a real problem trying to get them to move and I suspect it was because the AI has them packing up the TOW launcher with takes time) and take casualties from tank fire and is finally finished off by Syria artillery. My Javelin team finally gets moving but a tank round wounds one man and the other man must withdraw to safety due to incoming Syrian artillery.

The two tanks finally are on the move and look like they are going to cross the bridge. In the meantime, the other recently arrived TOW dismounts and places the launcher on top of one of the three story buildings in LZ 2, in anticipation of the armor perhaps making a rush to LZ 2. One of my squads in LZ 1 spots one tank crossing the bridge and the other is sitting beside the bunker in the mined trench works just before crossing the bridge. Is it immobilized? I cancel the area mission for my helo since both tanks have left the area template and re-order the attack helo to take it out possibly immobilized tank. My surviving TOW crew gets a brief peek of the tank coming up the hill towards LZ 2 but it abruptly turns side on and disappears from view before I get a shot. Where did it go?

I got a Total Victory without having to take the airfield. The first wave of Brits arrived and moved off to Hassan village, taking care of the few remaining bunkers and the two enemy tanks along the way. Elements of the LZ 2 force took the observation ridge while being harried by Syrian air attacks, resulting in the loss of the Mk 19 Humvee but without any casualties except the vehicle.

The Brit tanks took overwatch positions forward of Hussan village and compound while the Brit Javelin teams took the high ground and building in Hussan village. The tanks and the Javelins teams killed several more tanks, two ZSUs, two BRDMs and a few trucks, and shot back at revealed enemy AT resources, resulting in enemy casualties. In the meantime, the newly arrived A-10s worked the area between the ridge beside the airfield and Hussan compound, with many bombs dropped and cannon strafe attacks against concealed enemy infantry positions. Syrian jets dropped bombs near my tanks and the tanks were rocket attacked repeatedly by Syrian helos but all my tanks survived the assault from the air, but all were immobilized eventually by the seeming endless attacks from the air. Syrian artillery reduced Hussan village to rubble (literally) but my forces in Hussan village withdrew to the compound once it was apparent what the Syrian ranging rounds were trying adjust fire for.

Before the second wave of Brit reinforcements arrived, I got the Total Victory message.

The Butcher’s Bill

My Losses - 2 KIA, 5 WIA, 2 Humvees destroyed (3 Tanks & 1 Humvee immobilized)

Syrian Losses - 255 KIA, 142 WIA, 38 MIA, 9 Tanks, 10 BMPs/BRDMs, 5 Other Vehicles

Very fun to play and very challenging. Once again, I got lucky with Syrian rocket attacks from the helos not causing casualties on my infantry but this time, most of the air attacks went against my vehicles, which was good since it spared my infantry from being attacked. My tanks alone were bombed 3 times (all near misses) and rocketed 5 times, and strafed twice, but all three survived despite being immobilized.

I like the new AI plan. The early armor attack was unexpected and had the potential to be devastating if it wasn't for the early warning my HQ on the hill provided me by spotting them moving up towards LZ 1. Once the armor hit the edge of the LZ1, my SRAW teams which I kept forward literally saw the first tank at 10 meters away, followed by a BMP at about 25 meters, which allowed them time of only one shot and to haul ass out of there further back into the trenches.

Basically, if one sticks to the trenches, without forewarning by having someone observing from the hill beside the insertion zone, the only warning of the armor attack is literally when the armor is very close range. Devious. I love it. If other players get sloppy and inattentive with this AI plan, they will get their asses handed to them when the armor attacks the LZ 1 area. SRAWs are terrible weapons to fight off armor - my SRAW teams fired off 4 shots, I got 2 hits a piece on a tank and a BMP at short range and DID NOT KILL them. It was only volley fire of LAWs which killed off one BMP and the rest of the armor was killed by my Apache, Javelins and the TOW launchers.