Defending against OPFOR in Task Force DeGoey

[Jingo]

While waiting for v4 to come out I downloaded the freeware of v1 and started playing the "Task Force DeGoey" mission. This is the one where you command a MEB taking out OPFOR forces guarding an underground nuclear weapons facility. You are supposed to hold it for 120 minutes to win the mission.

I took the fortified enemy base in about 45 minutes with, in my mind, significant casualties (hey I'm a newbie and a civie) and began to happily destroy stragglers to the south of the base. This is when I misread the mission briefing. It said that in three hours a division of enemy troops would come, but that this wasn't gamed by the scenerio. So I thought I was done and had to hold off against infantry elements for two hours, but they were a good 6 Kilometers off to the East and didn't have transportation.

It was then that I noticed some smoke being layed down by OPFOR artillery on the north road. Curious that. And then the sound of enemy tanks moving in a *large* convoy down the road. I luckily had about 10 Cobras in perfect position behind some hills with Hellfire missles and Rocketpods--- unfortunately, there just wasn't enough ammunition and supply was already critically low after restocking the big guns for my Abrahms. I took out a LOT of enemy vehicles before I ran out of ammo and was chased away by surface to air squads.

After that it was just a matter of time before I was overrun. I had over 300 men in the base and they virtually all got pinned down and cut to ribbons.

So my question. What is an effective way to defend against the regiment of vehicles. Keep in mind at this point I had only three functioning tanks and one was immobile and they were out of ammo. How does one defend against something like this with limited ammo reserves? Trying to move my infantry units into ambush positions didn't really work because the enemy had so many stingers that they'd shoot down any chopper taking off-- granted, had I read the briefing more carefully (my bad) I would have been more prepared earlier on for a massive armour assault, but I still don't see how my force could have lasted against such numerical superiority. Any ideas?

[Carter]

I think I remember playing this scenario about a year ago. My memory is a little rusty, but as I recall I spread out my infantry and deployed them in a two-ring perimeter around the objective. Plus I had some skirmishers up front covering likely avenues-of-approach.

You might want to do "pop-up" attacks from your choppers if you're not doing that already. There are some old posts on how to do that.

I don't remember if OPFOR has thermals or not on this scenario. If they don't have thermals you can lay smoke on your units with thermals. He can't see you but you see him. Very deadly.

Putting some observers way out front to provide observation for your artillery is always a good idea.

When I played, I think that OPFOR penetrated all my defenses and got in and tangled with the inner perimeter of my infantry. It was a little messy and nerve-racking, but I pulled of the mission.

Even plain infantry are great against AFV's if you set their attack range to 100-150 meters. The AFV's won't see you till they get in close. Then your grunts can hammer them.

[clownfish]

This ends up being fun, but very easy to win.

The key is knowing what is REQUIRED to win, and sticking with it.

1. You must be in the facility for the two hours, but you DO NOT need to kill enemy troops stationed in the town. Instead once you get in the nuk facility, begin setting up your ambush and defences on the advancing enemy. Set up artillary at key areas, and hide some spotters.

2. The key to winning this scenario is getting in the nuk facility fast...45 minutes is way too long. Get in there undersmoke within 15 minutes.

3. Keep your anti armor pieces hidden from attack until you are well secured. Do not bring them all along in the attack, take them out of the helos and leave them back, where they will not get into a firefight. They are VITAL to winning this.

4. Keep most of your tanks hidden too, do not let them get killed early on. Same with your cobras. They are needed in the second hour! Do not expose your transport helos to any kind of fire, not even small arms. They can be brought down easily, and you will need them to shufle troops around in the second hour as you prepare your defences.

5. And last, have a plan to get the hell out when the 2nd hour is up. You do not need to wipe out the enemy, and indeed your mission is to get your men home alive. Have transports ready to haul them back to the west.

I hope this helps.

[Jingo]

Ahhh. Finally sweet victory. For a beginner, I thought I did fairly well on my retry. I reloaded my saved game from where I took Obj F. This time I was more prepared for the onslaught. The enemy had thermal sights too, so it was even more difficult! It was a long and brutal fight, but I stand victorious having occupied objective F for 120 minutes under constant fire from all directions. US Marines were able to destroy the nuclear threat from the rogue OPFOR nation. Unfortunately, I lost all my transport choppers and most of my APCs, I had three or four APCs shuffling troops around for the second hour. That got knocked down to two APCs that could only carry 12 troops, so I didn't bother exiting my troops.

Things I did differently.

* Developed greater depth in defense and overlapping fields of fire with my Javelin and SMAW and other AT teams.

* Figured out how to do artillery. Gee, FFE actual means, drop the darn thing? (newbie error--- ). I was always 'adjusting' on my first try and was wondering why my smoke screens or my HE would never drop.

* Much more careful with my units keeping the mobile anti tank units (Cobras, and AT jeeps and APCs) exposed to enemy fire for brief moments. I also rotated fresh units into areas where ammo was running low. All in all a good fight, all things considered.

Here's a small web page with my screenshot and mission results: Mission Results.

Thanks for the replies.

[ April 15, 2002, 02:15 PM: Message edited by: Jingo ]

[Carter]

Originally posted by Jingo:

Here's a small web page with my screenshot and mission results

All those flaming wrecks make it look like Dante's Inferno!

[Carter]

After discussing this scenario, I got interested in the mission and decided to play it this weekend. Setting up the mission I realized that I hadn't actually played it before. The mission I was thinking of earlier was a defense of an airfield.

I took my time assaulting the objective. First I attacked the small town to the West with my ground forces and some Cobras. That took a little longer than expected, but I felt that I had to kill those guys rather than exposing myself to a possible counter-attack.

What sucked was that my Cobras were attacked by MIGs. All my air defense was on the transport helos, and 4 Cobras were destroyed. Did I mention I like Apache's better than Cobras? At least Apache's have self defense missiles. This is gonna cost me later.

After my artillery got zeroed in on the objective, I dropped smoke and moved in my infantry. I like softening up OPFOR with accurate artillery, then using a combo of artillery and infantry to take down defensive positions. A secondary attack to the south of the objective by my armored forces cleared out resistance there.

That took me about 35-40 minutes of game time.

I haven't finished the mission yet, I'm 50 minutes in, setting up my defense now.

[Jingo]

Let me know how it goes. I'm interested to see how well I did comparatively to some of you TacOps old timers. I must say this mission has kept me up to 3 AM two nights in a row (what's with it? there's no eye candy, it takes forever for infantry to move... but it's highly addicting!). Good thing my wife is a heavy sleeper so I can sneak out of bed and kill some OPFOR scum!

A fantastic game! I can't wait for v4. My compliments to the developer(s)!

[MajorH TacOps Developer]

Sounds like you got your money's worth .

[Coyote]

Originally posted by Jingo:

[QB]I must say this mission has kept me up to 3 AM two nights in a row (what's with it? there's no eye candy, it takes forever for infantry to move... but it's highly addicting!). Good thing my wife is a heavy sleeper so I can sneak out of bed and kill some OPFOR scum! QB]

After five years of TacOps, my wife just shakes her head at my bloodshot eyes the following day and smirks.

DeGoey is one of my favorites and also one of the most "customizable" scenarios. I've played it with the entire force changed to Army units, as an all mech operation, as an airborne assault and as an attack to penetrate the east map edge. Tons of fun in 'easy' modes and devilishly challenging with the preferences set 'against' you. And when v4 comes out I'll probably play it again with new weapons.

Welcome to the game and Enjoy!

Coyote

[tar]

Yes, this is a great mission. The key is to get in to the objective quickly. 15 minutes is a good deadline to set. (I think my best time was around 10 minutes).

For a real challenge, try it with the Canadians. The substitution of Oryx missiles for Javelins makes it really tough.

(Spoiler): I like to bring my helos in north of the objective, unload an artillery observer and then barrage the facility. When good accuracy is achieved, I smoke things and drop a helicopter assault force inside the wire to take the objective early. It helps to keep some smoke on the objective so that the assault force has local superiority to clear things out by defeating the enemy forces in detail.

With an early start, you don't need to be quite as effective in the defense side of things. It has been a while, but I think I once managed to get out essentially all of my surviving forces (which were roughly 60-70% of the original force).

It is an exhausting battle, though. The counterattack regiment is quite powerful, so it is important to try to break up their order of march and force them to deploy as early as possible. Delay is the key.

[Carter]

Originally posted by Jingo:

Let me know how it goes.

Unfortunately for me my wife is a light sleeper and I haven't had much chance to play TACOPS in the last week. I did get some time in yesterday. Here's what happened:

I finished setting up my defense of the objective with only a few minutes to spare. I attacked OPFOR first with artillery and gunships. OPFOR did a fake to the south, then deployed on a line attacking in the north and center. My forward skirmishers did great. I had also created a 4 to 5 ring perimeter of infantry around the objective.

Most of my APCs were in the rear area hiding.

My tanks didn't last long. I should have put them in reserve. My 8 gunships ran out of ammo quick. I resupplied them for critical attacks, but that didn't last long either.

His vehicles only made it to my outer perimeter. I tricked his artillery into chasing one of my TOW APCs into the rear area. I had a "reverse slope" ambush waiting for them there. That was sweet.

It's now 2 hours 5 min. into the game. All of OPFOR's vehicles appear to be destroyed. My artillery is just about all used up (I have some smoke and some resupply ammo). He has infantry attacking the objective, but I don't think they will make it far. I need to hold the objective for another 30 minutes.

Pulling my troops out may be difficult.

Also my air support has been just about useless. OPFOR has too many SAMs. I should have used my air in a simultaneous attack against the small western town in the beginning of the game.

[ April 22, 2002, 10:25 AM: Message edited by: Carter ]

[Carter]

I finally finished the mission.

In the end, my infantry slugged it out with OPFOR's infantry. OPFOR never got close to retaking the objective.

My casualties were high. Over 30%

Then I decided to withdrawl my troops. I moved in helos and APCs to pick up my infantry. I came under almost constant air attack.

I lost a lot more troops to those air attacks because my SAM teams were out of missiles.

Final casualties were about 45%. I got everyone else out.

I experienced a lot more air attacks than I expected. The mission said that OPFOR would only have 2 MIGs with slight possibility of additional MIG flights.

I was attacked at least 20 times with MIGs during the game. Not exactly realistic considering the last time that US ground forces came under air attack was the Korean war, but it did make the game more challenging.

I think I'll play the mission again.

[Jingo]

Wow... Congrats. I feel lame, now, since I had 77% casualties and thought I did a good job... But it was my first time. I'm learning more now. I'll have to try it again sometime.

[Carter]

Jingo,

I've been playing for over a year now. I'm sure you could beat my score with experience.

Hell, one of the guys here once told me that he doesn't count a battle a victory if his casualities were over 15-20%. I rarely do that well.

[rich4421972]

I have a great deal of respect for you, Jingo. This can be a very challenging piece of work. I always lay off with my Cobras until I'm sure that I am going against "hard" targets. The OPFOR SAM's and AAA usually make mincemeat out of my beautiful choppers. I like to use a total ground and artillery assault on the main objective and then clear the whole place out with my infantry (those guys are really great! ) after this, I like to just bide my time and destroy as much of the rest of the OPFOR as I can while waiting for 120 minutes to come up. I don't think I give good strategical advice, though, so don't follow my lead or anything. I agree that this is one of the best wargames ever made for the computer. I hope it will always be available.

[MajorH TacOps Developer]

>I hope it will always be available.

After keeping it going for eight years, I don't see any reason to quit now .

Too many things still on the wish list.

[Coyote]

Originally posted by Carter:

Also my air support has been just about useless. OPFOR has too many SAMs. I should have used my air in a simultaneous attack against the small western town in the beginning of the game.[/QB]

In any scenario with an OPFOR Motor Rifle Regiment, I try to use all my Tac Air on the first battalion size target I see. Every OPFOR platoon has an SA-16 team and after a while the field is just littered with them from your previous kills.

I recommend hiding your attack helos behind a hill and using the delayed unit commands to bring them out after 15 - 30 seconds of air attack, that way most of the OPFOR Air Defense weapons will have fired and be reloading. Set the priority target for the helos to air defense systems early in the game.

If you have observers in the area, plan artillery on all known or suspected Air Defense units 1-2 turns before the jets and helicopters attack so you will have good fire for effect to suppress OPFOR's defense.

Darn! Now I feel like starting another game!

Enjoy!

Gary Chilcote

[ May 01, 2002, 10:34 PM: Message edited by: Coyote ]

[Jingo]

Also, one thing I learned when I did this mission on my retry is if you have a good idea where the enemy SAM units are, you can still put your choppers to good use by flying Nap O' Da Earth and staying down in the valleys and behind trees and ridges, and then position them where you can have a view of their armoured units but where their SAMs can't see you. Enemy ground anti-air units can't fire at you if your moving at NOE unless they have direct LOS or unless you pop-up above the tree/ridge lines.

[Bob I]

You guys got me so worked up that I re-visited this scenario (an old nemesis). Most of the advice proffered has been excellent, so I will add less than 2 cents:

I have found that forcing the cobras to hellfire (is that a verb?) only the tanks works wonders. At that point, the BTRs can be smoked and an easy prey for my ATGMs -- provided, of course, that they do not unload their ATGMs with thermals (the AI, I have found, never does that -- only unloading when BTR is destroyed/disabled). The key, I think, is not letting OPFOR get close to the facility (where they can call in ARTY on the "visitors").

For all of this sage advice, it took me about 45 minutes to enter the facility (which, I agree, is too long) and suffered about 41% casualties. But I did win (and exited about 48%) -- Let us not talk about the 11% left behind.

Great scenario and one of the best in the game!

[Stoffel]

other option to kill the sams is look where they are and make a note of it.

I used M1 to knock them out

load a mortar team on the M1 and move to the area you want to clean in the rear near the big town.

Smoke the guns and kill them,than advance against the sams

Nice and safe way to clear a path for your choppers

its also possible to use artillery for supression

[Carter]

Thanks for all the advice!

The anti-SAM tactics should come in handy.

My prefered method in the past has been to use precise ICM on the SAM teams that I can hit accurately. Their SAM teams don't last long against ICM. One round is often enough. Otherwise I use smoke to degrade the enemy SAM team's accuracy.

Usually I can supress the enemy SAM's enough to use my air, but in this mission there were just too many enemy SAM teams.

[Stoffel]

For the compound I use ICM to and smoke to supreass them,yes.

But I meant the other teams and aaa guns near the town.

there are too many of them to kill with arty.

Thats where I use the M 1 abrams and the mortar crew,fast and deadly way to clean up all those nasty sams

[Bob I]

Against the SAM teams (in the facility):

1. I take special note of where they are (allowed by the rules during setup),

2. I load ALL of the 60 mm on choppers (mortars organized in groups of 3),

3. Proceed quickly to safest point (in range of OPFOR SAM teams),

4. Meanwhile place scout teams in position to view all SAM units (very difficult for the one SAM team in the facility but NOT on elevation two). This requires a scout to move by chopper to the patch of woods at the bottom of the map near that annoying blockhouse/guardhouse.

5. Start zeroing in the mortars and, when at 4 or 5, FFE. I have found that this usually kills the SAM units or keeps their heads down long enough for the choppers (under smoke) to deliver the units needed to occupy the facility.

By the way, the non SAM AA units do not have thermal sights so that they are blanked by the smoke (and do succumb to well placed 60 mm mortar fire).

I know that this is very time consuming, but it works!

[Chas S. Clifton]

<snip>

I took my time assaulting the objective. First I attacked the small town to the West with my ground forces and some Cobras. That took a little longer than expected, but I felt that I had to kill those guys rather than exposing myself to a possible counter-attack.

<snip>

I'm not ex-military, but I suspect that in real life you'd be chewed out for diverting your troops and ordnance onto what was not your stated objective. Those OPFOR guys in the little town can't hurt you, and it's easy to detour around them. Let 'em drink tea and smoke their cheap Eastern Bloc cigarettes in their bunkers, I say. Hanging onto the nuclear facility is tough enough! I'm still learning from others' posts about how to handle that one -- especially getting the helicoptered troops in -- even with smoke -- without losing half of my choppers. Maybe that's because I like to play with the "Firing units are always spotted" box unchecked.

cheers

Chas

[Carter]

Originally posted by Chas S. Clifton:

Those OPFOR guys in the little town can't hurt you, and it's easy to detour around them. [/QB]

If they were just infantry, I might have left them. But there are enough T-80s and trucks there to give me a hard time if OPFOR played it smart. If nothing else, the troops give OPFOR eyeballs to watch my backside and call in air/artillery. They have thermals, so they can still see through regular smoke.

General Question: What does everybody else do? Has anyone had experience with the troops in the small town counterattacking? I'm not sure the AI would counterattack, but a human could.

I'm playing the mission again. I still feel like I'm getting the short end of the stick on airpower.

I did 6 simultaneous airstrikes on the small town. 2 jets were shot down, 2 achieved only suppression of their targets, and 2 killed some infantry.

US airpower in this scenario = worthless

Meanwhile, one OPFOR jet managed to survive 5 stinger attacks and shot down 2 of my Cobra's.

That was the 5th OPFOR jet attack in 45 minutes. They should have had only 2 or 3. My SAM's are already running dry. I'm going to change the OPFOR air settings next time.