Task Force Thunder - Ash Shammas

[GreenMonkey]

Hello

 

As the title suggests, I struggle with this Mission. 

My problem is the ridiculously high morale of the Syrian Special Forces and Insurgents.

I don't know how to break them or if it's even possible. 

If I use Airstrikes and flatten the building they are inside and kill 2/3 of them, the unite moral is  "cautious". 

I am not a hardcore military expert, but no matter how "special" and "crack" they are after the hell of fire and airstrikes and a collapsing building on top of them, they should be more than "cautious." Most likely, they should be all dead after doing some research on the weapon effect of an 894 kg bomb, and there is an error in the briefing where they talk about two Apache helicopters, but they are not in the mission.

 

So if there is a die-hard military armchair general out there who did beat this mission, feel free to give me some advice.

 

Thanks in advance, and have a great weekend

Patrick 

 

PS: I will try again drop more bombs, and the full might of the US military on the Syrian "über Menschen" 

 

 

[Chibot Mk IX]

Is Ash Shammas the 2nd mission of the US Army campaign?

[GreenMonkey]

Hello 

 

It’s the third mission of the Task Force Thunder Campaign.

I play it on the version 2.06 (steam).

Edited June 29 by GreenMonkey

[Silentkilarz]

Ok, so what I do on this mission is send one platoon w/ strikers by the tower. Another platoon goes over to the barracks area. The support elements including snipers goes to the AFB HQ. Line your strikers behind the high walls on the perimeter along with your MGS platoon. You're basically putting the entire enemy force into a L shape with your firepower and the key is to maintain that L shape upon them.

Set up overwatch with your vehicles. One breach team per platoon. The .50cals and 40mm MK19 can easily make mince meat out of the buildings so liberally use them on contact positions. Just take your time, leaping and bounding into buildings moving towards the SF HQ. I find it easier to push the SF HQ from the Barracks side while giving the insurgents the good word from John Moses Browning on the Strikers.

[Chibot Mk IX]

Yes, many people agree that the air strike is nerfed in CM games, for obvious reasons.

For 2000 Lbs bomb, it can flatten the building but not be able to kill everyone on the first floor. Guess the game simulate the sheltering in the basement.

This is the 2nd mission in my campaign. Looks like it depends on if you achieved a victory in mission 1 or not. The support asserts will be different. It is 2 x AH-64 in my game.

 

So, treat the airsupport as a bonus, not something decisively decide the outcome of the game. Just like Silentkilarz said, use your infantry and stryker as a firebase to do the kills.

 

------"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" 

Here is my favorite tactics. Don't enter from the front door, make a breach in the backyard.  You have MGS and 40mm Stryker. These assets can quickly destroy the wall and make a breach. 

I usually make two breaches, occupy the buildings behind the wall then slowly advance to expend the bridgehead. The one on the rightwing will deal with the insurgents occupy the airbase HQ, the one on the left has a clear LOS on the SF HQ and the insurgents in several other buildings. Build a strong firebase, use small team to advance cautiously to lure the enemy open fire.

The game end with Syr side surrender after I clear the Airbase HQ and give Special forces a 50% casualty rate.

 

 

 

 

[Anthony P.]

Going with the control tower route was a no go for me: I tried it, and found that A, there's no way in hell you can put dismounts that way without getting them shot up (kind of obvious considering that it's just the one control tower, and then just open ground, with everything exposed to some serious firepower) and B, the Strykers were either taking powerful handheld AT hits knocking them out, or the gunners were getting picked off when they opened their hatches to reload.

These guys are fedayeen and regime loyal special forces, total fanatics. They won't surrender, and they won't be retreating; they'll fight to the death, every last one of them. You'll basically have to approach this mission as though you're Marines fighting the Japanese. There's no fancy trick or hidden backdoor, just one stronghold after another, constested by fanatical enemies who will either win or die trying. I went in through the front, breaching the wall in a couple of places to avoid having to use the road in case of mines or booby traps. After that it was simply a methodical advance from one building to the next, coupled with extreme firepower against any building which still resisted. Bite, hold and blast the next set of buildings; bite, hold and blast; bite, hold and blast.

Load the dismounts up with all the explosives (Javelins, AT4s, 40mm, etc.) and ammunition they can practically carry (trust me, they won't be advancing at a rapid pace anyway) because there won't be any stage at which you can ease off on the firepower, and use all the direct and indirect fires you have to smash enemy occupied buildings. Don't move along the paved road because mines/booby traps, and keep your Strykers firing from behind the walls, keeping a sensible pace with the dismounts to provide mutual support (if you move them up ahead along the walls too quickly, they'll be at risk of being either hit by handheld AT (suppression doesn't affect accuracy as much as you're used to when the guy aiming doesn't care whether or not he dies) or the gunners will be swamped by small arms fire when reloading. If you have any artillery, Hellfires or aircraft bombs left when the mission is over, you did it wrong.

Edited July 5 by Anthony P.

[GreenMonkey]

Hello 

@ Chibot Mk IX

It's Mission 3 for me.

@ Anthony P.

You are right, it's the only way to go. I beat the mission now twice with all the firepower I can bring down on them. I used the Watchtower to direct all my mortars and F-16`s (point target, light so you have single bomb drops)

If you get unlucky, and you have one of the F16 misses or even don't drop the bomb (I guess it's a bug and known to the community), then it's getting harder with every miss.

I still think there is a lot wrong with the Moral system. You have the "Green" Insurgents and the diehard Special Forces, and both will fight to the bitter end. The weapon effect of the bombs is not close to real if you consider that they are not in some kind of hardened structure. After doing more research on the effects of bombs in Afghanistan and Iraq, there is not much chance that you would still be able to keep on fighting in an effective way, especially on a direct hit with an 894 kg bomb like used in this mission. 

 

In the end, I have the feeling that the CM Series is very slow in patching problems, and the use of the WW2 engine for a modern Conflict lacks a lot of depth.

 

Sometimes I think it's just overpriced and old ^^. Maybe It's like me

 

But the mission is won, the SF and the Insurgents will make my hair grayer with the ongoing campaign. 

Thanks to you all for your response and the willingness to share the experience with me and maybe the gray hair

 

Cheers and happy war gaming!

 

[Anthony P.]

Two points:

I wouldn't use the control tower at all. Perhaps if it'd been a large airfield with a few kilometres distance between it and the closest enemy. It's singleplayer with dumber AI enemies, but it's still a heck of a risk, and you can get perfectly useful vantage points for calling in artillery or airstrikes just by using the upper floors and roofs of buildings you've secured and which aren't in the firing line any longer.

Explosives are toned down in CM because sticking to what the official manuals stipulated apparently meant that everyone died really quickly. I don't think it's unreasonable though: you have to take into accounts that many buildings are quite large and Combat Mission can't really do local damage (either the floor of a house is intact, or all of it is damaged. There's no "the bomb took the corner off the house"), and if it's die hard enemies you're fighting, so just look at jihadis in Fallujah or Japanese on Iwo Jima, reoccupying pillboxes and bunkers that had been cleared with grenades and satchel charges, at times within literal seconds.

[Silentkilarz]

On 7/5/2024 at 7:32 AM, Anthony P. said:

Going with the control tower route was a no go for me: I tried it, and found that A, there's no way in hell you can put dismounts that way without getting them shot up (kind of obvious considering that it's just the one control tower, and then just open ground, with everything exposed to some serious firepower) and B, the Strykers were either taking powerful handheld AT hits knocking them out, or the gunners were getting picked off when they opened their hatches to reload.

 

I sent a breach team with them. Breach the wall and the back side of the tower. Easy to ingress troops that way into the tower on short target arcs to observe. I did have some issues with gunners getting shot occasionally but the entire map is GTG for fire missions so I had no qualms about leveling any possible building with troops in them. I sent the 120mm mortars on that square set of buildings  ahead of the SF HQ on general mission to keep their heads down.

[Lethaface]

Use your strikers .50 suppression/area fire on the buildings for a bit, from multiple sides. Throw in other weapons for good measure. You can use smoke for the approach if there's area's left where you cant effectuate suppression fires.

Assault the building with enough infantry and use engineers to blast their way in. 

 

[Anthony P.]

I would say that's an awfully large force to go storming a building which you could just as well just pound into oblivion and then send a small, inconscpicuous team or two into to make sure it's clear (also, it's on the verge of collapsing).

I blew it to pieces instead. Also, the Mk19s are great for large buildings like that with their larger beaten zone for vertical targets.

[Lethaface]

On 7/11/2024 at 1:31 PM, Anthony P. said:

I would say that's an awfully large force to go storming a building which you could just as well just pound into oblivion and then send a small, inconscpicuous team or two into to make sure it's clear (also, it's on the verge of collapsing).

I blew it to pieces instead. Also, the Mk19s are great for large buildings like that with their larger beaten zone for vertical targets.

IIRC I pounded it quite a bit too and shot it up with .50 and Mk19 for a good while. But given that I remembered it from CMSF1 I decided to use a sledge hammer and perfect the entry :). Might also been saving up some big booms for the last big building.