USMC Streets of Hama T-90 Tactics

[JP76er]

This is one of my favorite scenarios, but with the T-90s, I'm finding it very difficult & deadly. Any suggestions? My best effort seems to be an end run with the M1s to the left & try to take out the armor there. Then I can work & maneuver on the right. It is still a deadly battle.

Thanks in advance.

[MarkEzra]

Glad you enjoyed it. I does demonstrate the power available to the Syrians pretty well.

When Lord Nelson said "Never mind tactics, go straight at 'em..." he didn't mean The Streets of Hama. Perhaps you should seek guidance in the Bible...Gabriel made the walls go tumbling down....or was that just lyrics from a 60's rock song?...

[Flanker15]

Which mission's this? The one with the Stadium?

[purpheart23]

This is the one where all of blufor starts outside the city wall. Low and behold there's a nasty suprise

******spoiler?************

There happens to be three or four T-90s and a host of nasty things to punch holes in your Marines if you're not careful. Good scenario.

[MarkEzra]

USMC Streets of Hama: Has 3-4 AI setups so you can't exactly key in on what's up

[Cuirassier]

Don't drive into the kill sack (breach the wall on one of the flanks).

[JP76er]

Glad you enjoyed it. I does demonstrate the power available to the Syrians pretty well.

When Lord Nelson said "Never mind tactics, go straight at 'em..." he didn't mean The Streets of Hama. Perhaps you should seek guidance in the Bible...Gabriel made the walls go tumbling down....or was that just lyrics from a 60's rock song?...

Thanks! I was just contemplating your biblical reference & I read down to Cuirassier's comment. It clicks! Off to try it.

Thanks again!

[JP76er]

Don't drive into the kill sack (breach the wall on one of the flanks).

Thanks for the help. I'm off to give that a go. We'll see how I do.

Thanks again!

[JP76er]

Glad you enjoyed it. I does demonstrate the power available to the Syrians pretty well.

When Lord Nelson said "Never mind tactics, go straight at 'em..." he didn't mean The Streets of Hama. Perhaps you should seek guidance in the Bible...Gabriel made the walls go tumbling down....or was that just lyrics from a 60's rock song?...

Ah, sneaky! I never thought or looked in that direction. Excellent design & a real well thought out scenario. With your different AI set ups, this one is fun to play again & again.

Kudos!

My favorite rock song & one that goes well with CM-SF is Ted Nugent's classic "Stranglehold" from 1975. Sometimes I feel I have the enemy that way, a lot of times they have me.

[MarkEzra]

Thank you!

[DaveDash]

Ok split your squads and scout ahead, that way the T-90s have less chance of noticing you (or wiping out an entire squad if they do).

Once you have identified one, clear the surrounding infantry and then move your AT guys around behind it, I took out most of the T-90s this way.

I also used my M1's to breach the walls and was able to get some shots off at some of the T-90s without having to use my infantry, but there WILL be some hidden in keyholed positions.

Don't move your M1's into the town unless you want to lose them.

[JP76er]

Ok split your squads and scout ahead, that way the T-90s have less chance of noticing you (or wiping out an entire squad if they do).

Once you have identified one, clear the surrounding infantry and then move your AT guys around behind it, I took out most of the T-90s this way.

I also used my M1's to breach the walls and was able to get some shots off at some of the T-90s without having to use my infantry, but there WILL be some hidden in keyholed positions.

Don't move your M1's into the town unless you want to lose them.

Hi DaveDash,

I haven't had much success with my AT crews or fire teams in taking out the T-90s. I do work to get a rear shot but my AT-4s just seem to wake the tank crew up & they light up my infantry fairly quickly. Any thoughts on what I might be doing wrong? Breaching the walls has really helped but the squirreled away T-90s in their hidey holes is a tough nut (No pun intended) to crack.

[G B Scurlock]

Where can this scenario be downloaded? Not in the repositiry.

[MarkEzra]

It Comes with the USMC Module

[DaveDash]

Hi DaveDash,

I haven't had much success with my AT crews or fire teams in taking out the T-90s. I do work to get a rear shot but my AT-4s just seem to wake the tank crew up & they light up my infantry fairly quickly. Any thoughts on what I might be doing wrong? Breaching the walls has really helped but the squirreled away T-90s in their hidey holes is a tough nut (No pun intended) to crack.

I used "slow" commands and moved by guys into ditches etc, where they seemed to have decent cover. It would sometimes take 2 shots, but the T-90's never seemed to notice.

You've gotta creep your guys into position slowly, you could also try top down shots from buildings.

The T-90's situated on the left hand side of the map were much harder to take out from memory, due to lack of cover to get around behind them. I had to completely clear the right hand side of the map before I could get those suckers.

It takes time and patience. I was lucky and the Syrians surrendered (I had about 5 minutes to go) after I took out all their T-90s.

The other option that I havn't tried is blowing up everything in LOS to the T-90's with your M1s. Could waste a bit of ammo tho, so I'm not sure how possible this is.

[Cuirassier]

I don't remember the scenario well enough to give specific pointers, but the basic tactic when dealing with a superior weapon system in a good position is to deny battle. That is, when discovered, back off in that sector and attack elsewhere. Murder his infantry first, and killing the T-90's will become much easier. Typically against a human this forces him to bring his armor forward to hunt you, giving you the advantage of momentarily sitting on the tactical defense. Remember that the weakness of a keyholed unit is its very limited firing lane.

And be aggressive with the Abrams. Drive them into the town. Just make sure they hang back until needed. Keyhole shoot and scoot at single buildings. Shoot with them from behind smoke screens to neutralize RPG threats.

[GSX]

Ok split your squads and scout ahead, that way the T-90s have less chance of noticing you (or wiping out an entire squad if they do).

Once you have identified one, clear the surrounding infantry and then move your AT guys around behind it, I took out most of the T-90s this way.

I also used my M1's to breach the walls and was able to get some shots off at some of the T-90s without having to use my infantry, but there WILL be some hidden in keyholed positions.

Don't move your M1's into the town unless you want to lose them.

Syrian total surrender with 24 mins to go....

1. Two M1's hunt to the first gap. Kill 2 T90.

2. 1 M1 on overwatch as artillery falls. 1 M1 moves back left and blows two walls, then fires into first available building.

3. Whole Platoon moves through the gap and into the buildings.

4. M1 moves right and repeats for 2nd lot of infantry.

5. Both sets of inf fire and move across streets, any major resistance is dealt with by armour.

6. Repeat above until you reach far end of the map, replacing ammo depleted M1s with reinforcements as they arrive.

No tank is forced to cross an un-scouted fire lane and no infantry are safe from your tank guns. T-90 are spotted by inf and then M1s cover arced move in for the kill.

It is a good scenario though and if you were to get frustrated and clock watch I can see where you would be tempted to make mistakes.

[Ribosom]

Heh, I just played that mission a few hours ago. Nice mission indeed.

Though I didn´t have to breach the walls, the artillery barrage took out the walls in the middle and made some good cover for the mgs which supported the troops advancing to the first buildings left and right.

I established a firebase there with the first platoon and the other two platoons spread out the either side of the map and advanced slowly in bonding overwatch.

The T-90s hidden in the streets were pretty tough. MY SMAWs weren´t really effective (I even scored a hit to the back of a BMP-2 and it was only midly annoyed). I killed 2 T-90s with Abrams tanks and one with an AT-4 to the side. The last one took a lot of punishment from SMAWs and LAWs and the crew panicked and backed off right in to the fire lane of one of my tanks.

The Syrians finally surrendered at 10 or 15 minutes left, leaving me with 5 KIA and about a dozen WIA.

[SlapHappy]

Ahhhh....I remember this one....with all the concealed T-90's. Very ugly.

But I also remember this is the one where I fired through a building with sabot and took out a T-90 without actually having LOS.....very cool.

[Sgt Joch]

I played this one as BLUE PBEM against a very good opponent. Its tough since the Syrians have a good force and there is only one way in. All you can do is grit your teeth and keep moving forward.

------SPOILERS BELOW-------------------------------

I used my infantry to move forward and spot enemy strongpoints and BMPs which I would then take out with mortars, AT weapons, SMAWs and tanks.

The RED commander used his AFVs on my flanks, hitting buildings with my troops in it, causing horrendous casualties and pulling back and repositioning before I could move AT assets/tanks in to deal with them.

I lost one M1 at the gate to frontal fire by a BMP2. Another was immobilized during a duel with 2 T-90s (I got one).

Once my troops had secured the first line of buildings, I was able to slip my 2 reinforcement tanks in and hunt down his remaining AFVs, using pincer movements. I KOd 2 T-90s and his last BMP before losing one of my tanks to his last T-90.

Once the Syrians main line of resistance is broken, it is then just a matter of mopping up and occupying the 2 objectives.

As a tip, remember you can use your SMAW teams to BLAST walls. I used this to get in to the objective on the right through the back, since my opponent had positioned his last tank to cover the entrance in the far right corner of the map.

results: USMC: 41 KIA, 31 WIA, 2 tanks lost; SYRIANS: 74 KIA, 33 WIA, 20 missing, all 10 AFVs lost.

[JP76er]

Ahhhh....I remember this one....with all the concealed T-90's. Very ugly.

But I also remember this is the one where I fired through a building with sabot and took out a T-90 without actually having LOS.....very cool.

That would have been cool to see!! If any tankers survived, I'm sure they were now very leery about exploding walls.

Ah, sabots!! The Chicago Bears & sabots remind me that deer hunting is right around the corner!

[JP76er]

I played this one as BLUE PBEM against a very good opponent. Its tough since the Syrians have a good force and there is only one way in. All you can do is grit your teeth and keep moving forward.

------SPOILERS BELOW-------------------------------

I used my infantry to move forward and spot enemy strongpoints and BMPs which I would then take out with mortars, AT weapons, SMAWs and tanks.

The RED commander used his AFVs on my flanks, hitting buildings with my troops in it, causing horrendous casualties and pulling back and repositioning before I could move AT assets/tanks in to deal with them.

I lost one M1 at the gate to frontal fire by a BMP2. Another was immobilized during a duel with 2 T-90s (I got one).

Once my troops had secured the first line of buildings, I was able to slip my 2 reinforcement tanks in and hunt down his remaining AFVs, using pincer movements. I KOd 2 T-90s and his last BMP before losing one of my tanks to his last T-90.

Once the Syrians main line of resistance is broken, it is then just a matter of mopping up and occupying the 2 objectives.

As a tip, remember you can use your SMAW teams to BLAST walls. I used this to get in to the objective on the right through the back, since my opponent had positioned his last tank to cover the entrance in the far right corner of the map.

results: USMC: 41 KIA, 31 WIA, 2 tanks lost; SYRIANS: 74 KIA, 33 WIA, 20 missing, all 10 AFVs lost.

I didn't know that you could do that with a SMAW. I'm going to try that little nugget right now.

Thanks!