Valley of Death tech questions

[lucero1148]

I just finished my first battle of this excellent new game.  Playing it through as the blue team against the AI, I managed a decisive victory although at the time could not believe I would be able to survive the horde of tanks and BMPs running towards me.  What I found interesting was how deadly a M3A3 can be  at close range.  In one instance amy M3A3 was reversing off the main road into a grove of trees, just as 2-T90s come barreling through the burning smoke from the carcasses of 4 Tigrs that were destroyed in an ambush.  Both tanks were sprayed from the left side of the road as they passed by the Bradley.  With the reactive armor exploding on both tanks adding to the smoke and confusion on the road (30M to 40M) the 2nd tank turned it turret and dispatched my M3A3.  The first tank however was disabled and immobilized with the crew jumping out of its hatches.  

 

1st question, how accurate is this?  Can a 25mm chain gun penetrate the armor of a T90?  I recall  a story where a Bradley during the Battle of 73 Easting, went over a rise and came face to face to a T72, shot their chain gun as they went into reverse, but was too close to use their TOW.  A second Bradley came to its rescue and killed the Iraqi tank with a missile shot.   That being the case how could my Bradley do so much damage to a modern MBT?  Also the crew from both tanks were put in panic mode from this action.

 

Tank vs tank throughout the battle I noticed the M1 being quicker to the draw.  In the closing minutes of the battle, a line of 3 T90s were charging down the hill one after the other, through several layers of smoke screens. I had a M1 in the center swing right at the bottom of the hill moving on hunt towards the last smoke screen.  As a T90 rushed out of the smoke my M1 KO'ed it into a burning hulk.  Within seconds the 2 tank bumped into the lead tank and it's reactive armor deflected my first round and began reloading as the 3rd T90 smashed into the 2nd tank.  The 2nd tank slowly began swinging its turret towards  my tank, but was destroyed with the 2nd round from my tank.  The last tank after it untangled itself from the pile up proceeded to move out and was quickly destroyed by the M1.  Distance between the tanks was under 500M.  

 

2nd question, is how the auto loader on the T90 works.  Can it load from any angle or must the gun always point to the front as it does in the T62/64 series of tanks? Also it seems to me in the game that the sensors in the T90 is slower to pick up targets than the US armor and IFVs.   All in all though, despite the T90's being massacred in this battle, they seem to be on a par with the US tanks in regards to defensive strengths and killing power of its main gun.  

 

Missiles and artillery are the kings of the battlefield with the aerial drone the queen, overseeing all.  However when it comes to precision strikes, especially from 120mm mortar systems I wasn't very impressed.  I had expected near 100% accuracy, but out of 8 precision rounds between 2 mortar carriers, only 1 hit home, striking the rear deck of the tank, without immobilizing it.  All hits where near misses on stationary tanks, but a miss is a miss when destruction should be guaranteed?  Anyone know how effective precision artillery is?

 

Thank you and all best

Lucero1148 

[Apocal]

1st question, how accurate is this?  Can a 25mm chain gun penetrate the armor of a T90?  I recall  a story where a Bradley during the Battle of 73 Easting, went over a rise and came face to face to a T72, shot their chain gun as they went into reverse, but was too close to use their TOW.  A second Bradley came to its rescue and killed the Iraqi tank with a missile shot.   That being the case how could my Bradley do so much damage to a modern MBT?  Also the crew from both tanks were put in panic mode from this action.

 

25mm armor-piercing rounds should reliably penetrate the side armor of a T-90A from anything under 1km or so, assuming they don't hit ERA. The rear armor might as well be tissue paper though. Granted, it isn't a lot on a per round basis, but the Brad puts out a lot of rounds, so those little chances to do critical damage add up fast.

 

2nd question, is how the auto loader on the T90 works.  Can it load from any angle or must the gun always point to the front as it does in the T62/64 series of tanks? Also it seems to me in the game that the sensors in the T90 is slower to pick up targets than the US armor and IFVs.   All in all though, despite the T90's being massacred in this battle, they seem to be on a par with the US tanks in regards to defensive strengths and killing power of its main gun.

 

The carousel autoloader works from any angle. And yeah, it does have moderately worse sensors (at least the T-90A, the gap is narrower with the T-90AM) than the top-tier American stuff.

Missiles and artillery are the kings of the battlefield with the aerial drone the queen, overseeing all.  However when it comes to precision strikes, especially from 120mm mortar systems I wasn't very impressed.  I had expected near 100% accuracy, but out of 8 precision rounds between 2 mortar carriers, only 1 hit home, striking the rear deck of the tank, without immobilizing it.  All hits where near misses on stationary tanks, but a miss is a miss when destruction should be guaranteed?  Anyone know how effective precision artillery is?

 

Excaliber -- the 155mm-based GPS-guided rounds -- are pretty accurate. The PGMM (120mm mortar round) is something akin to precision-lite. It's basically a fairly cheap guidance kit placed on an HE round. Still incredibly lethal to troops though, even with a low round count.

[Jim1954]

 

 

Missiles and artillery are the kings of the battlefield with the aerial drone the queen, overseeing all.  However when it comes to precision strikes, especially from 120mm mortar systems I wasn't very impressed.  I had expected near 100% accuracy, but out of 8 precision rounds between 2 mortar carriers, only 1 hit home, striking the rear deck of the tank, without immobilizing it.  All hits where near misses on stationary tanks, but a miss is a miss when destruction should be guaranteed?  Anyone know how effective precision artillery is?

 

 

 

You only get 1 precision round/tube per battle, so only the 1st round out of each tube was precision, if that was what you targeted 1st. 50% accuracy isn't too bad for mortars. 

[lucero1148]

Pretty cool!  Thanks for the replies.

[Fade2Gray]

This is one of the missions that clearly and very accurately shows just how clueless the AI is.  Honestly, I'm starting to have doubts about this mission being even remotely balanced for head-to-head, being the USA leaves you very little room for mistakes.

 

The AI, for some bizarre reason, doesn't "zerg" you with everything at once once it is set up in the valley.  Instead, it will just do "wave attacks" and split up its forces very poorly.  Its laughable use of artillery to suppress the obvious Javelin positions also hurts it badly.  Also for good times is how it does a poor job of sweeping the valley in case you managed to sneak in spotters for artillery fire.  Oh well, at least it isn't as one sided as the mission where the Russians have to fight into a town square with nothing but infantry and BTRs, when Ukraine has a tank, Tung, and a good bit of their own infantry.

ANYWAYS...

 

as for the killing power of the T-90AM versus the M1A2, its so insanely lop-sided it isn't even funny.  Do not compare killing power at "dog fighting" range when you are pretty much point blank.  At 2k and beyond the M1 will spot much quicker and reliably kill in 1 hit.  This mission is a classic showcase of how you MUST close the distance when fighting American tanks, and even then bring overwhelming firepower to bear in order to crush them.  The Russians start off with a lot of reinforcements before the God Tanks show up, and the USA really can not hope to deal with T-90s until then.  They will kill the Bradleys first before TOWs reach their marks (assuming a BMP isn't nearby to APS the TOW), and if used right, artillery will keep the Javelins from going wild.  By the time the God Tanks show up, 2 nearly full strength tank companies should be down in the valley and ready to pounce on the American player the moment he makes a mistake.  The 3rd company to show up should be used for overwatch/bait to try to draw the M1s in close, if your opponent is gullible enough.

Also, if you get infantry into the batch of trees on the American right side, don't think they will hold against M1s.  They truly are God Tanks and can flush out a lot.  I had 3 squads of infantry, with their BMPs, and 1 T-90 for support, holding in there.  He later complained that he couldn't get his own infantry over to push me out, so he sent a M1.  I laughed at first, thinking that M1 was going into a horrific ambush that would be its quick and easy doom.  I pretty much ignored it, and then 4 or 5 turns later when he finally made an even bigger mistake and I went full zerg on him?  That M1 had actually annihilated the "ambush" I had set for it.  O_o

 

tl;dr ...

 

Don't get into slugging matches with M1s at ranges more than 2k, especially frontal ones.  If you play the Russian side, it even tells you that in the briefing.  There are reasons for that, such as the M1 will touch your T-90 in all the wrong places, repeatedly, before it even knows whats going on, from long range.

Get close before engaging.  The closer the better.  This mission allows you to creep up really close if you do it right.

Have cheap units to draw fire when you move in for the kill.  If an M1 pops a BTR/infantry/whatever and then the next second later a T-90 (or 3) is on it, the M1 is dead meat.

 

Be aggressive when you can.  Race for positions where you can mask your presence from American LOS.  In this mission?  Obviously the valley.  Get into the valley ASAP.

 

Once you have a good position, be cautious, scout a lot, get a feel for where everything is, and form a plan.  Russian infantry and recon is cheap and plentiful, and if used carefully, is pretty damn hard to spot even with M1s.   Get enough out in the field and you can see more than the Americans can with their UAVs, which still manage to get shot down from time to time.

 

Figure out your next move, and form a plan.  Once you have a plan, wait for an opening.  Once you see that opening?  Go go GO!  Don't dick around, don't second guess yourself, just throw everything at them.

 

Keep that arty firing at likely positions for American infantry.  Constant light or harassing fire will pay off big time.  M1s are God Tanks, but Javelins are beyond frustrating to deal with.  Unlike M1s however, American infantry is still extremely squishy.  If you have FOs out in the field, make sure to keep them active and calling in that fire.  They are great for keeping constant shifting fire on enemy positions.  Valley of Death makes it stupid easy to guess where you should have artillery firing.

[Abdolmartin]

Fade2Gray,

Although I agree with your list of most unbalanced missions, there's another mission that qualifies for the title of "absolute troll objectives": Objective Delta.

Russia has 10 BMP-2Ms, 3 T-72Bs, some arty, and Su-25s,

US has a bunch of Strykers, some 7 Javs (missiles, 3 launchers) and arty + 2 Apaches,

and 400 of the 800 points the US player can earn come from sustaining less than 20% casualties, which for a force of almost 70, means that you can at most sustain 14 casualties before losing half of your potential points. Which means that even with you absolutely routing the Russians, you can have fewer points than them at the end!

Its logic is astonishing.

[lucero1148]

Re. the T90 I remember reading somewhere that even an updated T-72 with modern ERA was considered impenetrable by the 120mm L44 gun used in the Leopard and M1A1 as well as TOW missiles?  I'm guessing though multiple hits from any auto canon would do serious damage any T series tank.  Possibly damaging sensors from direct hits and from secondary explosions from ERAs?

 

I thought I was pretty lucky at winning against the AI, but now that I've reviewed how the battle went...I doubt I'd have the same results playing HTH.  Good for the ego though, LOL.  Many thanks for your responses and observations!

[agusto]

SPOILERS BELOW

 

IIRC the russian T-90s have their AI orders connected to a trigger. They will camp in the valley and wait for you to advance so they can shoot at your M1s at point blank range. I found valley of death very difficult for that reason.

 

Re. the T90 I remember reading somewhere that even an updated T-72 with modern ERA was considered impenetrable by the 120mm L44 gun used in the Leopard and M1A1 as well as TOW missiles?

 

I dont know where you read that, but that is certainly not true. Impenetrable? At a certain (probably rather long) range, maybe. But for sure not as a general rule. A DU round from an M1A1 fired at point blank range at any T-series tank will reliably go-and-through without problems.

[Fade2Gray]

SPOILERS BELOW

 

IIRC the russian T-90s have their AI orders connected to a trigger. They will camp in the valley and wait for you to advance so they can shoot at your M1s at point blank range. I found valley of death very difficult for that reason.

 

Could be a lot worse, the T-90s could straight rush you at the start.  Its really hard to stop that first tank company from straight blitzing your lines.  You have little already out in the field and that company of Brads that shows up struggles hard to contain them.  Hell, even when the 2nd group shows up, that first tank company can go berserk pretty well on its own.  That they hang out in the valley for awhile and not just LOLtrain right into US lines from the start gives you time to snipe with artillery.

Honestly I think Russian reinforcement's after the first BMP group need to be bumped back 5 minutes each.  That would at least allow the US player time to get moving a bit before tank guns dominate everything.  Either that or the M1 platoon needs to be split up, and 1 tank comes with the infantry companies before the other 2 then the CMDR show up on their own.