Artillery in Bumps in the Dark '79 (second US campaign mission)

[evilman222]

Is it just me, or does the Soviet artillery need to be seriously reduced in this scenario? I've tried playing through it a couple times, and it seems like their arty always leads to one of two possible outcomes. Either I deploy somewhat close to where troops are automatically deployed prior to the battle, and the directly hits US forces completely wiping out the player's force, or I move them back a bit, which preserves my forces (and makes the scenario playable) but Soviet troops end up advancing too rapidly towards the farmhouse/barn and are destroyed by their own barrage. Even if this amount of arty is historically accurate, it feels like it makes this scenario almost unplayable.

[domfluff]

If you're consistently getting wiped out by the soviet artillery, I'd suspect you're not using the foxholes efficiently (managing which units are hiding is really important). Foxholes do a really good job of keeping the force combat effective. You'll suffer losses, but you generally will keep the squad/platoon together, with any relevant weapon systems.

Cold War is unique for CM in having an aggressive, capable Red force on the attack. This kind of dilemma is pretty much what the artillery exists for - do you try to tank the hits and hold a forward position, or decamp, which is all the artillery is really trying to get you to do - neither option is palatable, so it's a question of minimisation and least-worst choices.

[Halmbarte]

If the position selected would make a fantastic place to defend from it’s an obvious place to put down some serious artillery deep hurting. 
 

Assume the arty planners on the other side are reasonably competent and avoid obvious defensive strong points. It’s one of the ways the Germans fought in WWII along with pulling back before the initial barrage and then moving quickly up into better positions. 
 

Advancing too fast and getting some of your own is a valid thing to do to. If you’re taking casualties because you’re advancing too fast you can be sure any enemies in the position are still suppressed. 
 

H  

[HowMuchForYou?]

Just break up your men into smaller teams and put them in foxholes. Keep the M113s hidden till you’re ready to open fire; but then again in this mission you don’t have to wait that long to ambush. Ya you’ll lose men but you can still manage a victory.

Another thing, use the arty you have on hand as a preplanned fire mission to the max. Hint, roads are good avenues for artillery.

[Chudacabra]

I played this scenario twice. The first time I largely stayed in the default positions and got hammered. I won, but casualties were extremely high. I thought about it and realized that defending on the reverse slope made a great deal more sense. I then replayed it with most of my force except for a small screen on the reverse slope. I put mines and TRP's in killzones and cleaned up.