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[Field Marshal Blücher]

A Stryker recon platoon gets a little surprise courtesy of the Syrians. Get it at CMMODS!

In testing, I found this scenario extremely difficult, but winnable. Hope you guys enjoy it!

[George MC]

Hi!

Just played it out and managed a total victory after the OPFOR surrendered. Had a real blast with it and must admit the surprise was just that

Great job

Cheers fur noo

George

[theFightingSeabee]

Cool thanks! I'll dl it now.

[theFightingSeabee]

Just got my butt kicked. 10 kia, 3 wia. I think I had the right strategy, but poor execution. All at4's missed. About half of my javelins either missed or did not damage the enemy vehicles. All of my heavy and medium airstrikes missed by at least half a km! I'll have to try it again to see if I can do better.

[Chainsaw]

I got 2 strykers KO with 3 men in loss as results, the infantry didnt get any wounded.

however 4 BMP1s managed to get thrue to the end and the apaches are still the drunken shotgun of god so they didnt take out much and i ran out of javelins trying to compensate for that.

the strykers didnt spot a single enemy BMP and both that I lost got lost when trying to force them to engage enemys.

if my apaches had worked as they should I would have gotten a nice victory without any losses exep one FO that got a yellow wound.

/Chain

[dan/california]

Spoiler Alert

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It kicked my rear end twice. It would help immensely if their was a little bit of running room behind the Americans. A stryker recon platoon is not going to keep advancing into the better part of a mechanized company.

[Field Marshal Blücher]

SPOILERS

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The key is proper placement of Javelin teams. If they do their jobs right, the Apaches should only have a little bit of work to do.

dan/california, I think your suggestion may have some merit. I'll look into adding another version with more room on both ends.

[theFightingSeabee]

Played it a second time. Lost only one kia and 3 wia.

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Raced most of inf up the hill on the right, then hid my strykers in a low spot since they have no chance. Left the air controller up on the left hill. Tried to use my javelins with more prudence. All of the reds that made it to the end got hit by apaches. Just make sure NOT to use area fire with the apaches.

The scenario would be a little better if the vehicles didn't make it to the end so fast. Other than that, I had fun with it.

[z1812]

Hi all,

Great scenario. I quite enjoyed it even though I suffered a minor defeat. Again the Apaches were quite useless. I had moved my observor and 1 scout team to an area where they could direct fire but the Apaches were not delivering very well.

I did manage to destroy all the Syrian armour and troops. I also gained the objective but at quite a cost. 2 vehicles destroyed, a Leader, an observor and one scout squad.

The best moment was sneaking a scout squad up to a Syrian tank and having the Syrian crew abandon it as the scout team close assaulted. Lots of fun.

Thanks for your scenario work.

Regards John

[Field Marshal Blücher]

Glad you all are enjoying it! I think a fix to make Apaches a little more useful is going to be in 1.10, which should make them a little less frustrating to use.

[Guinnessman]

Glad you all are enjoying it! I think a fix to make Apaches a little more useful is going to be in 1.10, which should make them a little less frustrating to use.

Good news - I think this is (potentially) another great wee scenario.... the Apache support does spoil it because they are next to useless. My Apaches managed to nail a grand total of two BMP-1s, then expended the majority of their ordnance either off-map or on empty stretches of desert hundreds of meters away from their targets, even on point targets. I never saw a single Hellfire hit on the map, despite point-targetting enemy tanks. I had cautiously advanced with the idea of relying on the Apache's to cover my back and using the Javelin teams to take out any leakers......bad idea!

They did manage to put some 30mm rounds into another 2 BMP-1's, only causing minor damage...I was under the impression an M230 chain gun would chop up a BMP quite nicely....

The only worthwhile weapon the US had was once again the Javelin. All my AT4's were expended for the net result of one BMP.

Good scenario though, although I agree with Dan, some more room for the Strykers to run aw....err, tactically maneuver, would be handy!

[Field Marshal Blücher]

Wow, Guinessman, that's some seriously bad luck. Try it again, that might give you better results. I've had Apaches miss the map, but in my last playtest before release they killed a tank and two BMPs with Hellfires and a third BMP with their chaingun (which it did chop up quite nicely).

[dan/california]

Field Marshall, just out of curiosity, are you play testing this on veteran or elite? I believe it has a radical effect on Apache performance. It is also quite possible that I'm simply not very good at marshaling Apaches. I have never had any notable success with them.

Likewise my experience with a AT4s is that they are actually useful to at most a hundred yards. This can make things tactically complicated when you have a team that is armed with both javelins and AT4s. For the javelins you want the longest possible engagement distance, or at least several hundred yards, since it seems to both increased javelin accuracy and reduce counter fire. Thus the instant you fire your last javelin with a given team, you need to escape from a position that maximizes their engagement range to one that minimizes it. This map presents a plausible real-world situation where that can be very difficult to do.

The idea of expanding the map to the rear of the US starting position has argued and discussed, and in so far as I can determine more or less agreed on. I do think it would greatly increase the playability of the whole scenario. Killing enemy mechanized companies is not the recon platoon's job unless the situation is already well and truly out to lunch. The recon platoon's job is to find them and let someone else kill them. In that regard I really do feel that more maneuvering room would allow more realistic tactics to be employed.

I do however really like how you have included multiple and varied AI plans. Furthermore, any scenario is always appreciated, they do take a considerable amount of time to write. I have been meaning to do once since the game came out and have just lagged on the subject.

Everyone have a good day

[Mikkey]

In this mission I have first time big trouble with Javeline. From 12 Javeline one miss and 7 hit target without effect (one BMP have 3 top hit and BMP still firing). Nice mission Field Marshal, danger is really close;).

[Field Marshal Blücher]

dan/california, I've been playtesting this on Elite. I'll try to extend the map this evening if I have time.

[Field Marshal Blücher]

v1.1 is up, the map size has been increased by several hundred meters in each direction. AI and objectives have been changed to reflect this. Enjoy!

[theFightingSeabee]

Thanks Field Marshal Blucher!!! Like Dan from California said, I really appreciate any scenario that comes along. And I especially appreciate you updating it for us! I'll be playing it tonight.

Thanks again!

[dan/california]

I played v1.1 tonight and the extra room greatly increases tactical flexibility, so that helped a lot, and thanks for rewriting it.

However, I still can't get the Apaches to do ANYTHING. Does the fact that red is advancing down the road at the very bottom of the valley affect the Apaches ability to target them effectively. There is a lot of evidence that Apaches shred armor trying to move through the desert after all.

[slug88]

Each time I've played I've managed to get the Apaches to destroy a very large fraction of the enemy force by using Area Target (maximum size) and Heavy. Any enemy that enters the designated area gets Hellfired.

[dan/california]

Slug88, how long is it after you designate the target area that the Hellfires start hitting. I assume you are designating with the FO. I just want to understand what I am doing wrong.

[theFightingSeabee]

dan, it takes a few minutes. But I know what you're talking about. I had the same problem. For some reason my apaches were firing almost all of their ordnance 500 meters off screen. Way, way off. Are you overlapping the area target over the edge of the map? Maybe that has something to do with it, I don't know.

[bodkin]

I found this scenario very easy, the syrians surrenderd with about 10 minutes to go, I got a total victory without the loss of a single man on veteren wego.

Apaches used their hellfires accurately against anything the javelins didn't nail, it was a turkey shoot. I'm playing the version dated 19/08 so it may have got harder in 1.1.

*spoilers*

I just spread my squads out onto the flanks and waited and put my FO on the hill crest to the right so he was looking down the valley, he just area targeted the bend and I watched the missiles fly in from off map. The spread out squads just picked off anything they liked and the 40mm stryker hammered anything that got through the missile barrage.

[Field Marshal Blücher]

This scenario will be fairly easy on Veteran, because the Apache delay is not quite as much. That said, you seem to have been much luckier with your Apaches than many of the other posters here. Congratulations on a good win!

SPOILER

In my testing experience on this scenario, it either goes REALLY well or REALLY poorly. I had some playtests where I lost 19 KIA or WIA, and others where I only had 3 casualties. On Elite, I consider 3 casualties total to be a pretty good result.