US campaign - 2nd mission help - AAR?

[Atago]

I've been playing CM for a while now and finally got back to trying (again) the 2nd campaign mission for the US.

 

My forces initially are infantry, several 60 and 80mm mortars for back-up and a couple machine guns.  I also have 3 engineer squads.  I get 5 tanks, a lot of machine guns and two more infantry groups later in the mission.

 

My problem - get across a mined bridge, and clear a hill on the back of the map.  The field is open, with virtually no cover in the middle.   I don't want to spoil anything so I will be vague in my questions - but my problems so far as this

 

Can't suppress enemy entrenchments sufficiently to move forward without tanks (can get some with mortars, but not enough).

Can't locate enemy ATG's without exposing tanks and loosing at least 2.

I run out of HE on my remaining tanks before gaining the enemy side of the bridge, and so have none left for supporting the attack on the objective hill.

When I attempt to gain fire superiority with small arms and MG's the enemy spotter calls down a rain of death (I have not gotten more than a few relatively intact squads over the bridge). 

 

I can cheat - knowing where the enemy ATG's are I can bombard the %&@! out of them.  With them neutralized I can safely bring tanks forward and better reduce the enemy entrenchments.  At least I (finally) realized that the game starts with it dark enough for my engineers to mark the mines.  One problem I had has been figured out.

 

Any advice, aar, walk through link, something?

 

 

[SlowLarry]

I had my trouble with this mission also. Its extremely tough. Just search the board, mission is called "School of hard knocks" i think. Some threads on this mission...There is a video-tutorial on how to employ realistic tactics in cm on youtube that helped me a lot:

 

The second episode, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHm6FDh1738, shows the mission you are asking about. But they are all very good at explaining what is going on. Hope that helps.

[General Jack Ripper]

Atago,

Be good and do your homework!

 

Also:

 

When I attempt to gain fire superiority with small arms and MG's the enemy spotter calls down a rain of death (I have not gotten more than a few relatively intact squads over the bridge).

 

A quick rule of thumb is to never be stationary for more than 5 minutes. Most artillery takes 3-8 minutes to call in, so if you must advance while under enemy observation move constantly. Split your squads into teams and spread them out a bit. Use every piece of defilade or terrain cover you can. While some teams are up and moving, use other teams to provide a base of fire. You must also become familiar with the effective ranges of different weapons. If you are more than 300 meters from enemy positions, small arms are not your concern. Focus your fire on machineguns and mortars instead, and never advance a tank through an area you can't see. Position some mortars in a place where they can see possible enemy positions, then give them a short cover arc and have them hold fire. They should remain undetected long enough to fire on enemy AT guns and MG's that have been spotted.

 

"If at first you don't succeed: regroup, then advance over the smoldering corpses and try again!" - Me

[Atago]

Thanks for the replies. I've gotten reasonably proficient at quick battles and many of the battles.   I've gone through the armchair general series and watched a lot of youtube.  This particular battle still has me stymied.  I thought I was getting fairly good - boy did my confidence drop!  At least I now know that I can clear mines in the early part fairly safely and have gotten some forces over that #&@! bridge.  Getting enough fire superiority is difficult as it takes time to set up my MG's  - enough time for the enemy to set up mortar barrages.  Grrr.  Some day I will beat this thing!

Edited December 18, 2014 by Atago

[womble]

My problem - get across a mined bridge, and clear a hill on the back of the map.  The field is open, with virtually no cover in the middle.

 

 

Can't locate enemy ATG's without exposing tanks and loosing at least 2.

I run out of HE on my remaining tanks before gaining the enemy side of the bridge, and so have none left for supporting the attack on the objective hill.

When I attempt to gain fire superiority with small arms and MG's the enemy spotter calls down a rain of death (I have not gotten more than a few relatively intact squads over the bridge). 

This scenario is certainly a beast and has been the subject of much discussion.

 

First to check a couple of things: you say there's no cover in the middle, but does that mean you're ignoring the swampy land under the bridge? You can hide fairly well there, and progressing in the swamp, you divide the enemy fires while also moving in a degree of concealment. Slows you down no end.

 

You say you're having the engineers "Mark Mines". Are you blowing the wire? That usually sets the mines off by sympathetic detonation. The darkness also allows you to get into the riverbed with your lead infantry elements too, IIRC. Mark Mines is terribly time-consuming, and doesn't actually help with antitank mines.

 

The defenders have the bridge area zeroed (TRPed), but other support fires are on the usual timer and need spotting rounds. If you're setting up a fire base with your HMGs, you just have to be willing to pull up sticks and run the heck away when spotting rounds come in nearby. That's a general tactic you can sometimes use for dealing with enemy arty.

 

Dealing with ATGs requires that you have as many infantry eyes forward as you can manage, sneaking about in concealment and not firing (so they don't attract return fire) to spot the ATGs when they fire. At the initial engagement range, the 75s don't always kill Shermans, though the tanks will probably panic. There might have been some concealment changes since I played the scenario, or maybe I was just freakishly lucky, but the guns were spotted quickly by infantry, their general location suppressed by Sherman HE until the mortars could clear the crew off the guns.

 

Once you're past that hurdle, the other thing that Shermans bring is smoke. Lots of it.

 

A quick rule of thumb is to never be stationary for more than 5 minutes.

While that's generally true, in the area of the bridge, infantry simply cannot stop for more than a minute. The swamp slows them down so much and the TRP speeds up the call time to a degree that to get out of the intended beaten zone you have to keep moving.

[Atago]

I did better last night, though learned the hard way that marked mines don't always make the path safe.  I lost one tank and had the tracks blown off a second one in a marked field.  I don't blow that wire on the bridge, several replays now I find that the AT mine there blows too - my engineer team is usually really badly hurt.  I now know it's there so mark the mine and let the tank run over the wire when I bring one through.

This time I tried running my iniital forces over the bridge then spread out along the enemy side river bank.  Got stymied though - seems I can't suppress the enemy trenches quite enough (yet).  I did kill both ATG's though, and not because I know where they are. I am resisting using fore-knowledge and bombarding them before someone spots them.  

 

So at least I got across the bridge this time.  Got the %*$! shot out of my guys once the daylight improved and the enemy spotter(s) could see them.  If I knew how to do you tube videos I'd post my attempts - you guys could both get a good laugh and maybe slap me up side the head for doing things wrong.

Hanging out on that bridge once the light improves is a very bad thing.  I'm learning when that happens now, so get as much movement as I can done under cover of darkness.  Now I just need to figure out how to put that time to good use!

Sherman tanks have smoke shells - didn't think about the smoke dispensers.  That could prove useful!

 

Thanks for the help all.

[womble]

I did better last night, though learned the hard way that marked mines don't always make the path safe.  I lost one tank and had the tracks blown off a second one in a marked field.  I don't blow that wire on the bridge, several replays now I find that the AT mine there blows too - my engineer team is usually really badly hurt.  I now know it's there so mark the mine and let the tank run over the wire when I bring one through.

 

A hurt engineer team is well worth not getting your tanks blowed up by the AT mines. As said before "Mark Mines" does nothing whatsoever to reduce the chances of a tank hitting mines (as well as only really making a difference if you Slow or Move your infantry across the anti-personnel field, which you haven't got time to do and taking up more darkness than you really have), so you're right not to bother with it, but getting rid of the wire and the AT mine in front of the bridge is well worth a couple of casualties in your engineers (do split the squad so only one team is anywhere near when the boom goes up).

[Atago]

A hurt engineer team is well worth not getting your tanks blowed up by the AT mines. As said before "Mark Mines" does nothing whatsoever to reduce the chances of a tank hitting mines (as well as only really making a difference if you Slow or Move your infantry across the anti-personnel field, which you haven't got time to do and taking up more darkness than you really have), so you're right not to bother with it, but getting rid of the wire and the AT mine in front of the bridge is well worth a couple of casualties in your engineers (do split the squad so only one team is anywhere near when the boom goes up).

How do you get rid of the other AT mines?  This was the first time I had a tank hit a mine in a marked field - it was an eye opener.  I can blow the mine and wire on the lead AT mine - there are others that I can't destroy with explosives.  Can someone get into the campaign and add a Sherman flail for me ?

 

I watch the armchair general attack and it's not clear how his tanks avoided the mines - then again maybe it's just luck (good for him, bad for me!).  I assume that a tank using slow movement through mines may have an advantage over a tank using any faster move?  I'm not proficient enough to get that hill without ALL my tanks (yet).

[womble]

Well, f

 

How do you get rid of the other AT mines?  This was the first time I had a tank hit a mine in a marked field - it was an eye opener.  I can blow the mine and wire on the lead AT mine - there are others that I can't destroy with explosives...

I watch the armchair general attack and it's not clear how his tanks avoided the mines - then again maybe it's just luck (good for him, bad for me!).  I assume that a tank using slow movement through mines may have an advantage over a tank using any faster move?  I'm not proficient enough to get that hill without ALL my tanks (yet).

For my part, I assumed that if the near end of the bridge was mined, the far end might be too, and made my Shermans turn hard off the bridge and drive round the first AS that could be mined. None of them hit any more mines, so I figure that must've worked. AFAIK, the movement mode of a vehicle doesn't make any difference; the running gear track is the same whether speeding or crawling, and the fuse won't distinguish between a fast touch and a slow one, so it'll go off regardless. It makes a difference for infantry, because Slow-crawling or Hunting across means they can watch where their feet are going more accurately than if they're running.

[Freyberg]

Yeah, that was a bastard of a mission !!

Artillery and mortars point-firing at one entrenched unit after another were more effective than the 2 surviving tanks I had by the time I made it past the marsh bottleneck. I also found massed HMG fire quite effective - 4 HMGs at a time focusing on each target.