Guinnessman Posted January 26, 2009 Share Posted January 26, 2009 You'll find a big surprise! Or, as I found out to my (considerable) cost, not. Spoilers ahead for the USMC mission 'Taking the Orchards'. Ok, so, putting my marines into position on the ridgelines overlooking the orchard on the left flank, and lo and behold, the MG team spots 2 T72's. Making a mental note to up their efficiency reports, I have my trusty Javelin team disle up to the MG team with the intention of taking them out. Sure enough, the Javelin team duly deploys and opens up a hi-tech can of fire and forget whup-ass on the leftmost T72. Peachy. Then I wait with baited breath for the Javelin to re-engage the second T72. Nada. Examining the rest of my units on overwatch on the ridge, there's a squad about 20 metres away who have good eyes on. I redeploy my Javelin, and still nothing. Time to break out the big boys. I summon up an M1, put it hull-down in a good position - still nothing! The second T72 sits there, blissfully unaware of the demise of it's brother, it's right side presented straight towards my lads, spotted by the inferior optics of the grunts, and completely invisible to the hi-tech doodas on the Javeline CLU and the M1. Fair 'nuff, thinks I, time to get a little Eastern Front on his ass. Forward go my marines - duly accompanied by SMAW teams - whilst the MG's, Javelin, and M1 cover them in. They get to the wall about 30-40 metres away from the T72, when it turns and opens up on them. Bit disconcerting, but aha, I think, after moving a bit and opening up with it's MG's, surely my overwatching elements will give it the good news. Nope! Time for the marines to get busy with their assorted shoulder-launched AT weapons. Big zilch there either. So I start moving the marines to the sides of the T72. Thus begins the start of a 5 minute battle extraordinare whereby the T72 - buttoned up the whole team - pivots, spots marines moving up on it's flanks with uncanny skill, machine guns them, uses it's main gun repeatedly, whilst the poor marines not 20 metres away from it keep losing and regaining LOS just long enough to confuse the hell out of me. After losing about 8 guys, one of the squads gets in a flank shot with an M136 and KO's the T72. The whole situation seemed a bit odd to me. I did think it was a bit odd that the T72 could be spotted by MG teams and infantry whilst the Javelin team and the M1 couldn't see it. I found it a tad annoying that it was moving in place and shooting it's main gun, and the M1 and the Jav team still couldn't see it. And I was highly disconcerted when it began picking off my outflanking infantry (this from the same T72 that sat dumb and happy looking in completely the wrong direction whilst it's platton-mate blew up from a Javelin team), whilst the same outflanking infantry apparently couldn't see the same weapon-firing main battle tank whilst it was within a stone's throw! Was playing on veteran setting as well. Anyone had any similar experiences, or was it just incredibly bad luck on my part? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gpig Posted January 26, 2009 Share Posted January 26, 2009 Just played that one (and re-played it) last week. You may very well have tried all of the following, but this was MY experience. I found that the LOS is very tricky on those low ridgelines approaching the orchards (on both sides). The Jav teams need to be Un-hidden so they can then take a kneeling position. I found that this helped gain them a tad of visual elevation. (As they were hiding, and lying low to the ground, they couldn't see over the ridge top even though they appeared to be at the top of said ridge.) I could confirm this by using the Target command to verify weather or not there was a BLUE line to the target. Often, I thought my teams would have LOS/LOF, but the targetting line was grey, or there was no LOS/LOF to the other side. They same thing may have been happening with your M1. It happened for me. I had a devil of a time getting the hull-down position on that map. Good luck! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guinnessman Posted January 26, 2009 Author Share Posted January 26, 2009 Just played that one (and re-played it) last week. You may very well have tried all of the following, but this was MY experience. I found that the LOS is very tricky on those low ridgelines approaching the orchards (on both sides). The Jav teams need to be Un-hidden so they can then take a kneeling position. I found that this helped gain them a tad of visual elevation. (As they were hiding, and lying low to the ground, they couldn't see over the ridge top even though they appeared to be at the top of said ridge.) I could confirm this by using the Target command to verify weather or not there was a BLUE line to the target. Often, I thought my teams would have LOS/LOF, but the targetting line was grey, or there was no LOS/LOF to the other side. They same thing may have been happening with your M1. It happened for me. I had a devil of a time getting the hull-down position on that map. Good luck! Cheers for the reply - interestingly enough I had my MG team on 'Hide' as soon as they spotted the two T72s. They were able to maintain contact with one and intermittent visual contact with the other. When I moved my Javelin team in to the same action spot, I didn't put it in hide at all and it still wasn't able to get eyes-on. Even when later on the T72 was busy schwacking my poor grunts with it's main gun.... It is a bit of a fiendish map, but there does seem to be a bit of an LOS issue in the orchards themselves which has spoiled it for me - I don't object to running into cunningly concealed ambushes and the like, but the problems I had spotting that T72 really annoyed me. In all fairness I really should have called in a Cobra but I never expected to have such problems getting a bead on it! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoolaman Posted January 27, 2009 Share Posted January 27, 2009 Gpig is right, if even one man is kneeling there will be a higher LOS trace than if they are all prone. So Guinessman, do you have a save or a screenshot of this situation? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Warrior Posted January 28, 2009 Share Posted January 28, 2009 Where can you down load this mission? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gpig Posted January 28, 2009 Share Posted January 28, 2009 This mission comes with the Marines Module. It's quite a good mission. Extremely tough. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RadioactiveMan Posted January 28, 2009 Share Posted January 28, 2009 I haven't tried the mission but in the situation you describe I would have blind-fired a few rounds with the M1 while the Marines were advancing. Maybe you hit it, maybe you just increase suppression while your boys advance... can't hurt, unless you are worried about ammo. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guinnessman Posted January 28, 2009 Author Share Posted January 28, 2009 Gpig is right, if even one man is kneeling there will be a higher LOS trace than if they are all prone. So Guinessman, do you have a save or a screenshot of this situation? I don't, worse luck.....my own fault really, had FRAPS up and running but for some reason I thought the screen capture key was <Print Screen> when it was in fact F10. I was not amused when I checked my image folder afterwards! I did have troops watching the position who weren't prone.....the Javelin team were kneeling/standing. The MG team that spotted the T72 initially were prone throughout - I'd put them to Hide as soon as they spotted it. All very strange. I've since replayed The Orchard Way (as it's correctly known) again but been unable to duplicate what had happened. It is a cracking scenario though, very challenging for the USMC player. I don't think it was available with the USMC Module download IIRC, however I downloaded it from cmmods. Radioactiveman, you're quite right - in fact there were a number of ways I could have taken out the T72 without resorting to using infantry. I did consider having the M1 shoot up the area, but I was worried about the T72 engaging and killing the M1 before the M1 could accurately put rounds on target - the range was pretty short. But it probably would have had a better chance of success than the method I chose! I replayed it last night and only got a very hard-fought draw. The Syrians have a great defence set up. Favourite moments from last night - an LAV25 engaging and KO'ing a BMP3. The BMP's ammo cooks off so violently that the BMP is blown forwards about 10 metres! Coming a close second - my marines hit another BMP3 with an M136, and the secondary explosion takes out another BMP3 which happened to be right next to it....those things are not healthy to be around! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Warrior Posted January 28, 2009 Share Posted January 28, 2009 This mission comes with the Marines Module. It's quite a good mission. Extremely tough. Ok. Would it be Orchard Drive? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gpig Posted January 28, 2009 Share Posted January 28, 2009 Hmmm . . . we *may* be talking about 2 different scenarios. The one I was talking about comes with the Marines Module. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikkey Posted January 28, 2009 Share Posted January 28, 2009 'USMC Orchard Drive' is MarkEzra scenario from 1.11 patch but 'Taking the Orchards' or 'Orchard Way' maybe from campaign? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stoex Posted January 29, 2009 Share Posted January 29, 2009 I don't think there are any Abrams in 'Orchard Drive'....but then I got mauled so bad by the AI on that one that maybe I gave up before I got them 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkEzra Posted January 29, 2009 Share Posted January 29, 2009 You have a full array of USMC equipment, including the Abrams. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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