Some questions and issues with CW

[SGTJAW]

I would like to preface by saying I have loved the US campaign so far and assuming I ever finish planning for mission 5 I will be sure that nothing but good things are to follow! 

Having waited a few days for questions about capabilities to be answered my torture regarding opening up with the M60's has been answered (You should, I think?)

I have noticed that the Soviet units seem remarkably able to spot, aim and execute units that in some cases are hidden in treelines and have yet to fire, speaking from a position rather close to ignorance I cannot tell if this is just experience on the soviet units or actual capabilities but the ability to shoot an M60 from 1500 meters that is hidden in a shaded hulldown is impressive, if not a little annoying.

I was going to throw this in the bug thread but seeing it not brought up means it either is just me or a known issue but the overpass on the first mission, for me Units that have orders to move under it are just teleporting on top of the overpass about 80% of the time and in the end I had to restart mission 1 because ~6 units clipped into each other and couldn’t move until a Soviet added ventilation to them. This is now a worry for the planning of mission 5 as there are multiple overpasses on the left flank that might mean I lose an Abrams with a pathing error. 

Another issue for me was the 3rd mission, with the potash pile (forgive me for forgetting names, I'm bad enough with English let alone German...) In this scenario I lost the lion's share of my armored assets and most of 1st platoon in a heroic final stance yet no units had reached the second town and from my position not a single Soviet was able to advance with 20 minutes left, nothing had moved in 5 minutes and from the cease-fire there was 2 badly degraded BMP's limping towards me and the expected sprinkling of imobbed and bogged units yet it was a major defeat? Moreover, and I understand this is from the victory condition, but the briefing for the next mission described how I was unable to stop the horde taking the secondary town and I inflicted light casualties upon them. I understand that there are differing outcomes leading to different briefings but was I expected to mount up and clear the first town again to deny them points?

As a final thing I noticed, are Soviet troops carrying the LAW too?

I don't want it to seem like from this I dislike the game and would like to again say that the doctrinal change from WW2 and CMBS/SF2 has been a very interesting dynamic that I love, moreover the goal of staged retreats lights some giddy smile when it is pulled off well and nothing can beat the US small arms of this era. Hope this is somewhat constructive...

James

[The_Capt]

2 minutes ago, SGTJAW said:

I would like to preface by saying I have loved the US campaign so far and assuming I ever finish planning for mission 5 I will be sure that nothing but good things are to follow! 

Having waited a few days for questions about capabilities to be answered my torture regarding opening up with the M60's has been answered (You should, I think?)

I have noticed that the Soviet units seem remarkably able to spot, aim and execute units that in some cases are hidden in treelines and have yet to fire, speaking from a position rather close to ignorance I cannot tell if this is just experience on the soviet units or actual capabilities but the ability to shoot an M60 from 1500 meters that is hidden in a shaded hulldown is impressive, if not a little annoying.

I was going to throw this in the bug thread but seeing it not brought up means it either is just me or a known issue but the overpass on the first mission, for me Units that have orders to move under it are just teleporting on top of the overpass about 80% of the time and in the end I had to restart mission 1 because ~6 units clipped into each other and couldn’t move until a Soviet added ventilation to them. This is now a worry for the planning of mission 5 as there are multiple overpasses on the left flank that might mean I lose an Abrams with a pathing error. 

Another issue for me was the 3rd mission, with the potash pile (forgive me for forgetting names, I'm bad enough with English let alone German...) In this scenario I lost the lion's share of my armored assets and most of 1st platoon in a heroic final stance yet no units had reached the second town and from my position not a single Soviet was able to advance with 20 minutes left, nothing had moved in 5 minutes and from the cease-fire there was 2 badly degraded BMP's limping towards me and the expected sprinkling of imobbed and bogged units yet it was a major defeat? Moreover, and I understand this is from the victory condition, but the briefing for the next mission described how I was unable to stop the horde taking the secondary town and I inflicted light casualties upon them. I understand that there are differing outcomes leading to different briefings but was I expected to mount up and clear the first town again to deny them points?

As a final thing I noticed, are Soviet troops carrying the LAW too?

I don't want it to seem like from this I dislike the game and would like to again say that the doctrinal change from WW2 and CMBS/SF2 has been a very interesting dynamic that I love, moreover the goal of staged retreats lights some giddy smile when it is pulled off well and nothing can beat the US small arms of this era. Hope this is somewhat constructive...

James

James,

  Ok, so for the overpass "teleportation" thing, that is a bug, so a screen shot or file would be very helpful and post it on the bug thread.  I can check it out as we might have also made the overpass too low.  As to the Neuhof battle, I would need to see the end game screen shot to real understand what happened.  From your description sounds like you chopped them up well but 1) took too many casualties doing it and 2) the Soviets took too many terrain objectives.  It probably would have been better to try and clear the second objective if you were already in the "too many casualties" range, but then the question is "did you have enough combat power to do it?

So for this battle in priority

- Take out 50% of that MRB, and leave it really in pieces

- Keep your own casualties above 30%

- Try and keep them off at least one town objective.

And you should be golden.  Those are RPG 18s, which look a lot like the US LAW.

Thank you and very constructive.

[SGTJAW]

1 minute ago, The_Capt said:

James,

  Ok, so for the overpass "teleportation" thing, that is a bug, so a screen shot or file would be very helpful and post it on the bug thread.  I can check it out as we might have also made the overpass too low.  As to the Neuhof battle, I would need to see the end game screen shot to real understand what happened.  From your description sounds like you chopped them up well but 1) took too many casualties doing it and 2) the Soviets took too many terrain objectives.  It probably would have been better to try and clear the second objective if you were already in the "too many casualties" range, but then the question is "did you have enough combat power to do it?

So for this battle in priority

- Take out 50% of that MRB, and leave it really in pieces

- Keep your own casualties above 30%

- Try and keep them off at least one town objective.

And you should be golden.  Those are RPG 18s, which look a lot like the US LAW.

Thank you and very constructive.

Thanks for the quick reply, I imagine I could have cleared it but I didn't need any help with the next map anyway, major victory. (thinking about it the Soviets surrendered with the hill defense and it was my understanding that a surrender always leads to a total victory? This is from a half remembered Hapless video so I'm likely wrong.)

Looking it up I was thinking of the RPG 26 that cannot be extended, unlike the LAW and 18, my bad!

Not to hark back but is it just me that finds the Soviets very capable with long distance aiming? A T-64 zeroed itself and hit the TOW pod of a hulled down m113 from 1500m with 2 shots while moving, buttoned up and having its entire section killed in front of it. 

 

[Redwolf]

The victory conditions in CMx2 are very real world military training like, with simple thresholds of casualties (as opposed to doing math on them like CMx1 did). That might be more accurate for actual military, but the math based thing was actually able to be more nuanced.

Apart from your observation it is also hard for scenario designers to set these new victory conditions so that you can have overwhelming victories in a reasonable percentage of games played.

[The_Capt]

4 minutes ago, SGTJAW said:

Not to hark back but is it just me that finds the Soviets very capable with long distance aiming? A T-64 zeroed itself and hit the TOW pod of a hulled down m113 from 1500m with 2 shots while moving, buttoned up and having its entire section killed in front of it

Nice shot.  So the Soviet troops in the US Campaign are notched up in experience, morale and leadership.  This reflects the fact that the break out divisions in this operational scenario would likely be the best as the Soviets are really racing against the clock.  So what you are seeing are Soviet Crack tank crews in action.  If you were to play this H2H I would recommend dialing down the Soviet side to Veteran.

You got a Major Victory on "Hill to Die On"?  Well done there. 

[Redwolf]

1500m is not that long for a first shot hit if you have a working laser rangefinder.

[The_Capt]

54 minutes ago, SGTJAW said:

to move under it are just teleporting on top of the overpass about 80%

So just to follow up.  I just took the same map and pushed an M60 platoon underneath it and all the vehicles passed under it fine.  Just make sure not to try and push a bunch of vehicles in all at once.  If you still see this please submit as a bug and we will get to the bottom of it.  

[SGTJAW]

1 minute ago, The_Capt said:

Nice shot.  So the Soviet troops in the US Campaign are notched up in experience, morale and leadership.  This reflects the fact that the break out divisions in this operational scenario would likely be the best as the Soviets are really racing against the clock.  So what you are seeing are Soviet Crack tank crews in action.  If you were to play this H2H I would recommend dialing down the Soviet side to Veteran.

You got a Major Victory on "Hill to Die On"?  Well done there. 

I did keep thinking that it was experience over all else but kept forgetting to check by the time I reached the end screen!

Looking at the other comment from Redwolf, I didn't know rangefinding technology was at that point by the 80's, my apologies. My thoughts was that it was still seat of the pants firing like in WW2, not so!

I really liked "Hill to die on" Somewhat annoyed the tanks in that original push wait until they regroup, and if they have 3-2 tanks, as they did, they sort of just wait there for 40ish minutes, giving me time to call in the F-4's,  purely because the infantry in Able took all that shelling to sit on their own thumbs and see a cluster shell land behind a copse of trees 200m away.

My favorite part was 2 M113's with 50 cals taking out 3 fully loaded BMP's in a pincer, infinitely more satisfying than 95% of the rest of the battle!

What sort of force are we expected to have saved with mission 5? I retained 2 of the original 3 infantry platoons at close to 80%, most ATGM's as well as 50% of tank crews and there is a lot of ground to cover for the force I have, especially with no fixed wings to give hints as to where they are going. I'm sure it will be a fun fight but **** you for making me burn 2-3 hours planning this beast!

[ratdeath]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

- Keep your own casualties above 30%

That one I should be able to do

 

[The_Capt]

4 minutes ago, ratdeath said:

That one I should be able to do

 

Whoops...uh "below 30%".  Please do not start calling arty on yourselves...bad for morale.

[domfluff]

56 minutes ago, SGTJAW said:

Not to hark back but is it just me that finds the Soviets very capable with long distance aiming? A T-64 zeroed itself and hit the TOW pod of a hulled down m113 from 1500m with 2 shots while moving, buttoned up and having its entire section killed in front of it. 

 

One thing that's really surprising about the period is the lack of laser rangefinders on non-Soviet equipment. The T-64 is more accurate, with a faster-travelling round, giving it a flatter, more accurate trajectory. Broadly speaking, in the period before the Abrams, the Soviets had the superior equipment.

That means that in CMSF terms, and particularly in 1979, you're not playing as the US, you're playing as the Syrians. You have WW2-era gunnery, and both main tank rounds and even ATGMs are not laser-focused kills like they are in the other modern titles. The end result is that you're forced to concentrate mass - if one tank has a 20% chance of a kill, then five of those same tanks will have a 68% chance of a kill, assuming you can get them all to bear on the same target at the same time. You're forced into defence in depth, and relying on combined arms, since every individual part of your force is likely to be worse than what you're up against. 

Naturally, that's hard. It's an awful a lot easier to manage a single powerful vehicle than five weaker ones, and the real problem is that whilst you may well take out that BMP with your tank platoon, the end result is that you'll upset his two friends, and possibly the remainder of the company.

The one lesson driven home in all Combat Mission titles is that quality is better than quantity. The US in CM:CW has neither.

Abrams and Javelins teach bad habits. The NTC scenarios in CMSF would be a joke - you could roll your Abrams to the top of a ridge and blatt away the incoming Motor Rifle companies without too much thought. 

[Ultradave]

I never even tried to go there in play testing. Just seemed too much like a place to die.

Dave

[SGTJAW]

5 minutes ago, domfluff said:

 

One thing that's really surprising about the period is the lack of laser rangefinders on non-Soviet equipment. The T-64 is more accurate, with a faster-travelling round, giving it a flatter, more accurate trajectory. Broadly speaking, in the period before the Abrams, the Soviets had the superior equipment.

That means that in CMSF terms, and particularly in 1979, you're not playing as the US, you're playing as the Syrians. You have WW2-era gunnery, and both main tank rounds and even ATGMs are not laser-focused kills like they are in the other modern titles. The end result is that you're forced to concentrate mass - if one tank has a 20% chance of a kill, then five of those same tanks will have a 68% chance of a kill, assuming you can get them all to bear on the same target at the same time. You're forced into defence in depth, and relying on combined arms, since every individual part of your force is likely to be worse than what you're up against. 

Naturally, that's hard. It's an awful a lot easier to manage a single powerful vehicle than five weaker ones, and the real problem is that whilst you may well take out that BMP with your tank platoon, the end result is that you'll upset his two friends, and possibly the remainder of the company.

The one lesson driven home in all Combat Mission titles is that quality is better than quantity. The US in CM:CW has neither.

Abrams and Javelins teach bad habits. The NTC scenarios in CMSF would be a joke - you could roll your Abrams to the top of a ridge and blatt away the incoming Motor Rifle companies without too much thought. 

Yeah it is whiplash inducing to move from my last purchase, BS, to this! My naïve overconfidence in American tech cost me more than a few M60's...

Saying that the raised head of a TOW-2 and the dragon are both remarkably capable at laying down enough hate to force a win while remaining alive and that has basically what has carried me! I've found that M60's get 1-2 hits then are turned into a colander. 

[domfluff]

5 minutes ago, Ultradave said:

I never even tried to go there in play testing. Just seemed too much like a place to die.

Dave

NTC campaign might actually be my favourite campaign in all of CM, it's an amazing little thing.

[HerrTom]

I too am enjoying the campaign and encountered the teleporting tank bug on the first mission in the 1982 campaign. As far as I can tell it happened when I plotted a waypoint under the overpass by the mine or landfill near where the engineers arrive.  I was able to eventually get it to reverse off so it wasn't a writeoff thankfully. (The Soviet main element scared the hell out of me by the way, I was expecting it to come from a different direction!)

@The_Capt while I'm talking about the campaign (it's awesome) there are two things that really stand out that kinda brought me out of the "immersion" of them:

1. In Neuhof, I was able to (against my better judgement) station a bunch of M901s up on the Potash mine and was only harassed by Soviet airburst artillery fire. They did eventually start dropping normal rounds (still harassment fire) after some thirty minutes.  Anyway, that mine is what I would term Extremely Conspicuous Terrain and the fact that the Soviets allowed me to use it was incredibly surprising. Was that just a limitation of how we can make AI barrage plans in CM or a conscious effort to ease the difficulty (I admit I'm not sure I could have won without Potash Platoon Plinking Panzers)

2. In Dollbach, the way the battalion just kept rolling past me like a shooting gallery was super surprising. I deployed very conservatively since I was expecting the Soviets to respond at least with a recon-in-force after I annihilated a company but it never came. To be honest, even a rifle platoon may have forced me off the heights.  Anyway, this one in particular felt really weird to me.  Is there something else going on that I perhaps missed?

All in all though, these are epic battles and the way the campaign is connected is super cool.

[MikeyD]

Talk about Patton, during WWII general George Patton became so frustrated with the quality of green replacement tankers that he began distributing basic tactical advice. One piece of advice, I recall, was 'DON'T FIGHT FROM THE TREELINE'. You have less concealment than you think you do and no cover when they start firing back. Find yourself proper terrain features to fight behind..

Edited May 4, 2021 by MikeyD

[The_Capt]

So which version of Neuhof did you play?  Bear in the Mist, or Bear in the Sun?  The Potash Hill is a real place next to Neuhof Germany (they started mining there in the 1910s):

Which as you can see has a road running up the side of it.   So we debated what to do with the hill, in the end we made it players choice.  So if you got away with this in Bear in the Sun, you are very lucky.  This fight happens as 1100 am so no mist/fog cover, which means the Soviet ATGMs can all see that hill very well.  In my experience if the player puts anything up on that hill in this scenario it is going to die very quickly.  For Bear in the Mist, the fog cover gives the TOW on that hill a real advantage, but if you are playing this scenario you have already lost a fight previously, so I really had no problem giving a struggling player a leg up.

Dollbach Heights is not only a fun little break from the Soviet onslaught it is actually pretty accurate.  The Soviet doctrine basically was "stop for nothing" until you get to the objective.  So a BTR Bn caught in the open is going to 1) hope the tanks cover them and 2) run like stink.  The last thing the Soviets are going to do is dismount a company to clear the woodline because it would seriously slow them down.  So the scenario is more of a bit of cat-and-mouse than a stand up fight (but do not forgot those T64s) and a well deserved little side jaunt before what comes next, which are all big tough battles.

 

Edited May 4, 2021 by The_Capt

[SGTJAW]

2 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

The Potash Hill is a real place next to Neuhof Germany (they started mining there in the 1910s):

Jesus I thought the ingame version was excessive!

2 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

This fight happens as 1100 am so no mist/fog cover, which means the Soviet ATGMs can all see that hill very well.  In my experience if the player puts anything up on that hill in this scenario it is going to die very quickly.

I believe I had this version and I was under the assumption that the heavens would open on the hill too so I only had 3 TOW's up there, one took a T-64 shell to the TOW pod fairly soon but the other two fired until they ran out of missiles.

 

11 minutes ago, MikeyD said:

DON'T FIGHT FROM THE TREELINE'.

Well he had some misses with Korea but this was definitely true...

I was still under the impression this would be like some M1A2 SEP Abrams against T-64's, this was not the mindset for when I got to 'A hill to die on'...

[The_Capt]

4 minutes ago, SGTJAW said:

Jesus I thought the ingame version was excessive!

We actually toned it down somewhat from RL.  You managed to keep 2 x TOWs alive, impressive.  Normally those BDRM AT just light up that poor hill.

Let me know when/if you make it to the Citadel...I keep feeling like I will have to apologize.  Then when you feel strong go play the Soviet - March or Die Campaign, I have yet to see anyone beat it.

Edited May 4, 2021 by The_Capt

[HerrTom]

36 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

So which version of Neuhof did you play?  Bear in the Mist, or Bear in the Sun?  The Potash Hill is a real place next to Neuhof Germany (they started mining there in the 1910s):

I fought a draw in the last mission since I lost control of the woods so ended up on Bear in the Mist.

In fact, I looked up that very picture, the representation of Neuhof is impeccable.  I was honestly expecting to be plastered by artillery but barely received any fire. Potash Platoon lost one M901 to a lucky shell but otherwise expended all of their TOWs.

40 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

For Bear in the Mist, the fog cover gives the TOW on that hill a real advantage, but if you are playing this scenario you have already lost a fight previously, so I really had no problem giving a struggling player a leg up.

Definitely understandable!  It helped me for sure.

44 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

The last thing the Soviets are going to do is dismount a company to clear the woodline because it would seriously slow them down.  So the scenario is more of a bit of cat-and-mouse than a stand up fight (but do not forgot those T64s) and a well deserved little side jaunt before what comes next, which are all big tough battles.

True. I probably got lucky with the T-64s, I killed them all within two minutes of spotting them and had free reign with the rest of the battalion. Regardless, I think after the war the battalion commander is going to be in a lot of trouble, timetable or not!

Was definitely a major victory for me, destroyed three helicopters most of the battalion and inflicted somewhere over 200 casualties in exchange for two M113 gunners.

[The_Capt]

1 minute ago, HerrTom said:

I fought a draw in the last mission since I lost control of the woods so ended up on Bear in the Mist.

In fact, I looked up that very picture, the representation of Neuhof is impeccable.  I was honestly expecting to be plastered by artillery but barely received any fire. Potash Platoon lost one M901 to a lucky shell but otherwise expended all of their TOWs.

Definitely understandable!  It helped me for sure.

True. I probably got lucky with the T-64s, I killed them all within two minutes of spotting them and had free reign with the rest of the battalion. Regardless, I think after the war the battalion commander is going to be in a lot of trouble, timetable or not!

Was definitely a major victory for me, destroyed three helicopters most of the battalion and inflicted somewhere over 200 casualties in exchange for two M113 gunners.

Yes, so the normal progression seems to be one of two branches:

- A series of wins up to Neuhof "Bear in the Sun", then a loss, then "A Hill to Die On", which is beatable but a challenge.

- An early loss, then Neuhof Bear in the Mist, a win and then Dollbach Heights for a win.

I really want player to make it to Battle 5 without too much pain or high risk being dumped out of the Campaign early.  From 5 onward, well that is another story and the campaign will end if you take a loss (training wheels come off).