Going to Town - Difficulties

[Flibby]

I seem to be having some great difficulty with this mission as the Russians. When searching I seem to be the only one, with lots of threads by players who beat the mission with a total victory first time playing through - I must therefore be fundamentally missing the best way to proceed and want to tap into the knowledge of the community!

My initial approach was to take the left flanking route, avoiding what looked like an obvious chokepoint at the bridge. This worked well until getting to the end of the three story apartment block, where UKR troops from the Department Store, along with a Tunguska, prevent me from really making inroads without taking significant losses. You can't go down the road on the left because of the BMP on that side which, when destroyed, stops you from moving your BMPs up. Effectively this is an infantry only approach and when most of your firepower is in the BMPs, doesn't seem to make sense.

The bridge approach was even less fruitful for me. I manned the third story of the buildings on my side of the ravine, only to be immediately destroyed by a combination of grenade launchers sited on buildings. When i try to duke it out with massed troops in these buildings i take heavy losses. When i try to send a few guys up to scout for mortar rounds, they too are destroyed piecemeal. BMPs cannot get good sight lines on the grenade launchers. I guess one approach would be to use their smoke to get my guys in position first, which I have not yet tried - is this something people do?

When approaching the square from the right hand side the Tunguska from the square is able to really quickly aim and destroy my BMPs with all the time in the world. BMPs point blank facing the T=90 and Tunguska don't seem able to see it at all. I get the feeling that I am either trying to be too cautious with my troops, i.e. i would be better just getting as many guns on target as possible at the same time and duking it out, but this doesn't seem too realistic. When i try to approach cautiously however, the enemy in ambush can just pick me off.

Any advice would be much appreicated.

 

 

[Chibot Mk IX]

I won this as Russian in a PBEM.

Talking from my memory, some details could be wrong.

My original plan is to take the left route. I sneak the ATGM teams, RPG teams into a building on the left flank, also put two BTR-82A as a reverse. Everyone hold fire or hiding behind the buildings. Trying to use a Zergling rush to deal with UKR’s BMP-2,  unhide and fire or move into a clear LOF simultaneously. But I accidentally found a different route, next to the left flank main road there is slope leads to the apartment buildings and the tower, infantry can climb it. I send out sappers to breach the wall first, then breach the building, move one room to another. I occupied all three apartment buildings. That cut the distance to the BMP-2 into half. Then a RPG-7 shot from the apartment kills the BMP-2 (or maybe it is the ATGM fired from a two store building in left flank, I can’t remember). Anyway kill the BMP-2 makes a clear breakthrough. I advance from building to building under careful over-watch. Then I occupied all the VP in the center, hit ceasefire , won the battle as Tactical victory.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Chibot Mk IX

[Flibby]

2 hours ago, Chibot Mk IX said:

I won this as Russian in a PBEM.

Talking from my memory, some details could be wrong.

My original plan is to take the left route. I sneak the ATGM teams, RPG teams into a building on the left flank, also put two BTR-82A as a reverse. Everyone hold fire or hiding behind the buildings. Trying to use a Zergling rush to deal with UKR’s BMP-2,  unhide and fire or move into a clear LOF simultaneously. But I accidentally found a different route, next to the left flank main road there is slope leads to the apartment buildings and the tower, infantry can climb it. I send out sappers to breach the wall first, then breach the building, move one room to another. I occupied all three apartment buildings. That cut the distance to the BMP-2 into half. Then a RPG-7 shot from the apartment kills the BMP-2 (or maybe it is the ATGM fired from a two store building in left flank, I can’t remember). Anyway kill the BMP-2 makes a clear breakthrough. I advance from building to building under careful over-watch. Then I occupied all the VP in the center, hit ceasefire , won the battle as Tactical victory.

 

Thanks for that - very interesting.

 

I suppose one wider interesting point - obviously overwatch is vitally important but getting overwatch over a position, most of the time, reveals the over-watching squad to the enemy who get fired on first - is smoke the only way to avoid this situation?

[Phantom Captain]

1 hour ago, Flibby said:

I suppose one wider interesting point - obviously overwatch is vitally important but getting overwatch over a position, most of the time, reveals the over-watching squad to the enemy who get fired on first - is smoke the only way to avoid this situation?

Target arcs!  If you are running a team or squad up into a building to overwatch just make sure to set very small target arcs first!  (Hold shift and I set mine to about 25m.  Set the same target arc on the last waypoint as well.  Doing this usually your teams or squads won't fire prematurely and will not give themselves away.  You can run them up where you want them and they will sit and spot and not fire.

 

I am trying to remember myself how exactly I did that mission myself.

[IMHO]

18 hours ago, Flibby said:

I seem to be having some great difficulty with this mission as the Russians

1. You have a lot of buildings facing the enemy - so put a lot of teams watching the enemy side. The distance between buildings on your side and enemy side is actually not that large. So to reduce the risk of your teams being spotted by the enemy rather than the other way around use two-men teams and crawl command when entering building squares facing the enemy.
2. Choose whatever flank to cross the deep dividing road. Since you have many BTR-80As and enough RPG and PKM rounds preemptively suppress enemy buildings facing your side whether you spotted any enemy infantry there or not. Quickly cross the road - I used mounted infantry to shorten the exposure time. Coordinate the suppression with the crossing so that all potential enemy teams stay suppressed and not shoot at your advancing teams/armour.
3. I did it on both flanks yet I like the right flank better since:
   a) there's no long keyhole fire lane where an enemy armour can hide and be spotted too late; though it can be mitigated is you cross somewhat closer to the center and avoid exposure to this this fire lane
   b) there're buildings on your side closer to the enemy buildings so you can put your spotters closer
   c) there's a depression on the road leading to the enemy side so you can bring BTRs closer to the enemy side to shorten exposure
   d) the road is paved and runs straight to the enemy side - saves exposure time as well; with the left flank you need a fine micromanagement to avoid the firelane yet cross with your armour (if you use the armour)
4. AFAIR I killed almost all - if not all - enemy armour with RPGs except for the tank or BMP - don't remember - that suddenly crosses to your side. Yet as I expected something like this I kept RPG teams and BTR-80s flanking the probable routes of approach so it was easy. Your armour is stone blind and can't spot enemy armour quickly enough so keep infantry nearby and order area fire to the enemy armour spotted by infantry even if your armour can't see it yet.
5. The rest is standard building clearing. Put as many two-man teams as spotters on the enemy buildings. If fire lanes allows preemptive suppression by your armour then do that and move quickly. If there are no fire lanes - then suppress with the infantry teams and risk some low casualties.
6. If you play PvE rather than PvP then you can abuse the engine into opening fire and revealing its positions. Take a 2-3 man team and make it run a short distance from cover to cover in the wide open far enough from the enemy positions. If you do it correctly you won't have any casualties almost 100% of the time. If you use two man teams and the run is too far away from the suspected enemy position then do it 2-3 times - two man teams are hard to spot.

The key is to have as many spotting teams in overwatch as possible and avoid revealing them. If you have enough then Russians are playable even against Americans. Though be wary of American thermals that can laser see your spotting teams across the whole map. So put them to the flanks and not so obvious places. Ukrainians don't have thermals so it's a piece of cake.

Edited February 16, 2022 by IMHO

[IMHO]

15 hours ago, Flibby said:

getting overwatch over a position, most of the time, reveals the over-watching squad to the enemy who get fired on first - is smoke the only way to avoid this situation?

1. Never use more than three-man teams and two men are way way better than three. Four-man one is almost as easy to spot as a whole squad.
2. Always use crawl when crossing the crest or entering the building squares facing the enemy. Even inside the buildings crawl greatly reduces the risk of being spotted.
3. Crawl exhaust the infantry pretty quickly and tired infantry is easier to spot. So don't crawl too far a distance - break it down to several hops with a rest between them. Keep a spotting team in hide position till it recovers before unhiding.

As per tired teams being easier to spot - that's my impression. I haven't done proper testing.

[Flibby]

15 hours ago, Phantom Captain said:

Target arcs!  If you are running a team or squad up into a building to overwatch just make sure to set very small target arcs first!  (Hold shift and I set mine to about 25m.  Set the same target arc on the last waypoint as well.  Doing this usually your teams or squads won't fire prematurely and will not give themselves away.  You can run them up where you want them and they will sit and spot and not fire.

 

I am trying to remember myself how exactly I did that mission myself.

Thank you. I'll give that a go now.

[Flibby]

4 hours ago, IMHO said:

1. You have a lot of buildings facing the enemy - so put a lot of teams watching the enemy side. The distance between buildings on your side and enemy side is actually not that large. So to reduce the risk of your teams being spotted by the enemy rather than the other way around use two-men teams and crawl command when entering building squares facing the enemy.
2. Choose whatever flank to cross the deep dividing road. Since you have many BTR-80As and enough RPG and PKM rounds preemptively suppress enemy buildings facing your side whether you spotted any enemy infantry there or not. Quickly cross the road - I used mounted infantry to shorten the exposure time. Coordinate the suppression with the crossing so that all potential enemy teams stay suppressed and not shoot at your advancing teams/armour.
3. I did it on both flanks yet I like the right flank better since:
   a) there's no long keyhole fire lane where an enemy armour can hide and be spotted too late; though it can be mitigated is you cross somewhat closer to the center and avoid exposure to this this fire lane
   b) there're buildings on your side closer to the enemy buildings so you can put your spotters closer
   c) there's a depression on the road leading to the enemy side so you can bring BTRs closer to the enemy side to shorten exposure
   d) the road is paved and runs straight to the enemy side - saves exposure time as well; with the left flank you need a fine micromanagement to avoid the firelane yet cross with your armour (if you use the armour)
4. AFAIR I killed almost all - if not all - enemy armour with RPGs except for the tank or BMP - don't remember - that suddenly crosses to your side. Yet as I expected something like this I kept RPG teams and BTR-80s flanking the probable routes of approach so it was easy. Your armour is stone blind and can't spot enemy armour quickly enough so keep infantry nearby and order area fire to the enemy armour spotted by infantry even if your armour can't see it yet.
5. The rest is standard building clearing. Put as many two-man teams as spotters on the enemy buildings. If fire lanes allows preemptive suppression by your armour then do that and move quickly. If there are no fire lanes - then suppress with the infantry teams and risk some low casualties.
6. If you play PvE rather than PvP then you can abuse the engine into opening fire and revealing its positions. Take a 2-3 man team and make it run a short distance from cover to cover in the wide open far enough from the enemy positions. If you do it correctly you won't have any casualties almost 100% of the time. If you use two man teams and the run is too far away from the suspected enemy position then do it 2-3 times - two man teams are hard to spot.

The key is to have as many spotting teams in overwatch as possible and avoid revealing them. If you have enough then Russians are playable even against Americans. Though be wary of American thermals that can laser see your spotting teams across the whole map. So put them to the flanks and not so obvious places. Ukrainians don't have thermals so it's a piece of cake.

 

Thanks for your advice.

 

I managed to get a total victory by selectively loading up the buildings nearest to the bridge with RPG troops who were able to take out the Tunguska and T90. I could then engage the grenade launchers and once they were out of the way it was plain sailing. Very frustrating mission when it goes wrong.

 

Thanks again for your help.

[Vacillator]

4 hours ago, IMHO said:

Crawl exhaust the infantry pretty quickly and tired infantry is easier to spot. So don't crawl too far a distance - break it down to several hops with a rest between them. Keep a spotting team in hide position till it recovers before unhiding.

Good advice, something I don't forget but which I never seem to get quite right .

[Flibby]

12 minutes ago, Vacillator said:

Good advice, something I don't forget but which I never seem to get quite right .

it does seem to be the key to get over-watching infantry or ambushing troops into position without being spotted first however - or is there another way around this without smoke?

[IMHO]

31 minutes ago, Flibby said:

it does seem to be the key to get over-watching infantry or ambushing troops into position without being spotted first however - or is there another way around this without smoke?

1. I normally do not use smoke for placing spotters. 2-3 man spotter team is not exactly unobservable when not in hidden mode (and it's terrible at spotting when it is). With smoke it's so easy to get too close to the enemy so when smoke disappears your position is revealed and your team is killed instantly. I prefer to stay back yet use as many spotters as possible. When playing Russians I normally take one scouting team out of every infantry squad.
2. If I remember correctly there's one unfortunate place in the center in this mission. Those buildings where one has its top floor demolished. I don't remember what exactly yet I had troubles with my team being fired upon by something heavy. Other than that I don't recall any issues.
3. When deploying spotters start deploying smaller teams first: one-man teams if you have any as they are practically invisible (though not too good at spotting itself). First put your spotters further away from the enemy then come closer. Let spotting team stay on a position for a while to reconnoitre. I normally deploy all my spotters further away from the enemy then start moving them closer one by one so that the rest are observing. In CMBS never put spotters directly in front of enemy armour irrespective of distance - thermals are deadly.

Edited February 16, 2022 by IMHO