It ain't half hot mum

[birdstrike]

Actually it's hotter than advertised, I burned my fingers repeatedly.

What did I do to bring your wrath upon me Paper Tiger?

--- POSSIBLE SPOILERS---

It's not just that each and everyone of my units seems to have its own HMG shooting at it, or that behind each wall or berm, inside every building a platoon worth of enemy troops is waiting - no, in addition all you get yourself is a single company with handful of SUV's and less fire support than your average family has at its disposal on 4th of July.

My biggest problem is to take buildings without losing half a squad or more for every block I take. I tried it that way, but I continually run out of squads before I run out of buildings.

What's worse is those high walls everywhere which keep you from utilizing the Jacks and WMIKs for supressive fire.

On any other mission I would use a single squad for assaulting a room with others in overwatch, but in this case a single squad (even engineers using breaching charges) gets shot to pieces within seconds.

The only way that seems to work for me is to charge a single building with as many squads as possible at once, hoping that some get to fire a shot themselves.

At times it feels like Somme 1916.:eek:

There ought to be a better way to clear these buildings, right?

[Mad Mike]

Hi birdstrike,

I can understand your frustration. I just tried it myself, with the following results:

*** POSSIBLE SPOILERS ***

I "managed" to get a Tactical Defeat - too many casulaties with too little gain, I only made it halfway into the village/town. I lost 26 KIA and 41 WIA along with three vehicles. With these "expenses", I reduced the Syrians by 240 men (KIA, WIA, MIA) combined. Not enough, unfortunately , leaving approx. 100 still ready to fight.

For the HMGs, I used the AH64s - as long as they have Hellfires, this works reasonably well.

I attacked both bridges with one rifle platoon each, the pioneers were supporting the right hand assault, the third platoon I used to cross the river in the middle, continuing up the irrigation canal.

The assaults on the left and middle went quite well, I even managed to reach the hill, clearing it of the bataillon HQ. When I tried to turn into the village, it was still too well defended .. Squads sitting in every compound, waiting for the attack, with joined buildings as fallback positions .. tough nut to crack.

In the end, I lost too many men and used up too much time crossing the river. I think the infantry performed very well .. a 4 : 1 ratio for the attacker speaks volumes. But after the battle, I find it quite suicidal to attack with the parameters being as they are in this battle .. There is no advantage to the attacker except experience, and this is easily compensated by the defensive setup .. even green troops can shoot you from about 5 meters distance;).

Maybe I will give it a go again sometimes, just to see if I can beat this scenario.

[flamingknives]

Well that makes me feel better about my performance. The HMGs are annoying, but once you are rid of them it's time to break out the TUMs with the GMGs. Use them to blitz any suspected buildings, trenches, trees, bushes, walls, leaves etc. (esp any that aren't preserve objectives). Area fire is your friend.

[birdstrike]

Finally, someone!!!

Thanks for the reply. I used a similar tactics in one of my attempts - with similar results.

---SPOLIERS---

I think my most "successful" tactic was to use 2 PLs to push over the left bridge north along the left flank towards the south yard buildings then set up a base of fire and attack the south block buildings (engineers were split up among the units as needed).

Meanwhile 3rd PL is slowly advancing across the bridge in the center (using the harriers to blast through the buildings there) towards the school. I then use a combined attack of whatever is left of the 2PLs in South Block and 3rd PL at the school yard and fight my way through the "James" buildings towards the bank. I was able to take the mosque but was repelled trying to get to the central and west blocks. And with only 6 mins left and quite frustrated I called a ceasefire prematurely.

I checked the save I took before, and I had 26 killed and 30 wounded, 94 still ok which seems quite good, but of course about 95% of casualties were from the rifle and engineer platoons and vehicle crews and FOs making up the bulk of the 94 remaining troops.

I had probably only about one rifle platoon (+ 1 engineer squad) operational at this point, with the others reduced to 3 or less men each. OPFOR had 278 taken out or missing and 67 men left who were all holed up in buildings around the mosque.

I had almost 400 points casualties, so there's no way I could have turned this into a victory, even if I could take the objectives in the remaining 6 minutes - and I doubt I'd have received all the "Preserve Objective" points...

I think it's really about more effectively attacking those buildings - I don't have enough reserves to cope with the casualties I suffer while clearing buildings, and of course lose too many victory points to the enemy for losing men.

[birdstrike]

flamingknives - that's what I try to do, but by the time I assault the buildings, those sobs have taken position in the first floor, hidden behind walls. And every time risk I moving a TUM across the river for close support, I need a new crew.

[flamingknives]

The GMGs are just as effective at 1000m as 100m, so keep them back out of small arms range and pound the carp out of any target that presents itself. Dismounting the GMG team works sometimes as the HMG teams can see vehicles very well but not infantry at extreme range. ISTR that the enemy is pretty brittle so lots of area fire is quite effective.

Trying to get into buildings that the bad guys are in doesn't work. Shoot them out first.

Even that got me a draw. I think I lost too many vehicles to the HMGs. (all the Jackals)

[Kat Johnston]

(Obligatory SPOILER warning)

I've just had a go at this one and managed a Minor Defeat (4KIA, 4WIA, and 2 land rovers, almost all in the last five minutes); I decided to take things very, very slowly from the start, and so didn't succeed in capturing any objectives. I tried a broad advance, one platoon left right and centre, but was checked on right and centre and only managed to cross the river on the left with one platoon and some misc support. When I tried to use those to take the objective over there one platoon got shot up and some nasty person hit a land rover with a heavy machine gun. I'd had the Apaches and GMGs and whatnot lathering the buildings there but obviously not enough.

What worked for me was moving everyone forward to the big row of sheds once I knew it was clear (took me ages to find that out ^^) and dismounting most of the landrovers, moved one sniper and the mortar observer forward on the left, moved the other sniper and TAC guy onto the shed roofs, set the GMGs up by the sheds and blew the crap out of everything that looked dangerous with air and grenades. However once I tried pushing the two platoons I had over there forwards, I ran into bad guys in some of the smaller buildings and couldn't get them out, even with flanking fire from over by the other bridge. So that was as far as I got on the right and centre.

One thing I noticed - my dismounted GMG guys reached a point where they wouldn't pick up any more grenade ammo when I sent them back to the truck, even though there was plenty (couple of hundred rounds I think) left. Is only some of the ammo portable?

[flamingknives]

I think that there is a limit with the GMG wagons. The platoon HQ wagon carries more though.

[Combatintman]

I wouldn't beat yourself up about Paper Tiger's scenarios - the level of detail he goes into in terms of terrain modelling alone is unbelievable. Having beta tested a few of his scenarios it always seemed to me that I had to be in exactly the right place to get LOS in certain areas and on top of that every enemy position seems to be sited in such a way that the enemy has a clear advantage which is lethal if you are not careful.

[birdstrike]

Combatinman,

yes, the map is awesome. Perhaps that's why I'm playing it again and again.

---- SPOILERS---

John,

those buildings right up that hill, at your strarting positions? yes these are great observations points, I always set up my HQ there (also has enough space to park the TUMs ). And luckily the AI hasn't found out so far I'm using it every time .

And I also couldn't to get more ammo for my GMG teams, even there was still was enough left in the WMIKs. Anyone else noticed that?

Anyway, I will try to follow flamingknives suggestion use more area fire, but I agree, it's difficult to be thoroughly in clearing the area from any possible resistance still have enough time to secure the objectives in the end.

Another thing I was thinking about was to skip the area around the bridge in the center and the school entirely (perhaps drop a couple of Mk84s around the area) and move right to the objectives. Perhaps that's a possibility.

[Paper Tiger]

I have been following this thread and I'd love to chime in and give you some advice. But I'm going to resist the temptation for now and let you guys do it your own way for the time being. Once the posts start featuring wodges of bleeped out words I'll relent and give you a few tips.

[birdstrike]

Hehe .

Either that or in case we're still stuck on this mission by the release of CMSF2.

[cartertools]

I swear I didn't even scratch the paint on the school...

I checked the interior walls as well...

I did make a tiny hole in the mosque.

So I guess I'll start over again...

[birdstrike]

Well, at least you managed to capture all 3 objectives. Never could do that myself.

Preserve can be tricky, basically anything above 7.62 can damage a building and may cost you preserve points. Should have given you at least 50% though.:confused:

[birdstrike]

After all this talking I was in the mood to give this scenario another shot.

I think I did quite good this time, could keep casualties low, made some good progress and reached the objectives, but eventually ran out of time, before I could clear the area from enemies. Seems I found a tactic which could prove succcessful, if I figure out how to speed things up a little.

Of course, finally finding out how to acquire additional GMG ammo from one of the TUMs helped quite a bit, too.

Oh, and thanks all for the suggestions.

[cartertools]

Of course, finally finding out how to acquire additional GMG ammo from one of the TUMs helped quite a bit, too.

I could really use that information! How is it done?

[birdstrike]

Glad to help. But keep in mind I ran out of time (could have used another 15 minutes at least) so try to do things a little quicker than me .

Anyway as a starting point, here's what I did:

---SPOILER WARNING---

The basic idea was that I'd never attempt to move across the center bridge, and kept clear from the whole area around the school.

(you may not want to read the rest of this if you want to figure out the details yourself)

Following flamingknives suggestion I tried to use more area fire and because I wanted my WMIKs not getting shot to pieces while doing so, I dismounted all WMIKs and positioning the GMGs and GPMGs on the roofs of the central store houses.

I split my infantry into 2 forces. 1 platoon moved along the left flank towards the S-bridge, but got stuck there for too long and came under mortar fire (dividing attention in RT = bad results ).

The other two platoons were advancing on the right flank, towards the North Yard on the hill right across the river. I used a small team to check for a route along the nothern edge of the map which did not expose me too much to the enemy MGs, then moved each squad along that route to the south of North Orchard.

It took some time to let my Apaches and Grenade Launchers deal with the enemy MGs and to clear the trenches just east of North Yard with mortars, but once it was safe enough, I advanced in force across the river and up the hill, securing Northern Yard.

While doing so I came under fire from enemy units in the buildings in the center (tool sheds, pump houses) but some air strikes and a mortar barrage could deal with this.

Additionally, as soon as possible I moved some GMGs and MGs to North Yard. From the trenches there I had a good LOF to the buildings in the center and on the southern edge of the map (work sheds and garage)

Once North Yard was secured, I moved to James VI and James V then towards the edge of town towards the Bank. Then I pushed into town and took the mosque and made it as far as the hospital, but couldn't finish the job before the time limit ended.

Using the North Yard as a new base of fire, I also managed to clear the way for the stuck platoon on the left flank which then quickly crossed the river and pushed through the west orchards to the buildings just SE of South Yard and on to Duncan I on the South Block Objective. That's when the time ran out.

I ended up with 16 men killed, 23 wounded and 112 left (I could have easily saved a couple more, if it weren't for the mortar attack and the usual 5-minutes-before-end-rush). The enemy still had 83 men left, 119 killed and 69 wounded. Final score: 75 (me) 193 (enemy).

If I were able to occupy the objectives this could well have ended with a victory. Nevertheless, my best result so far.

---END OF SPOILER---

[cartertools]

That's the bit I don't know how to do yet. It would really help. Although usually by the time I run out of ammo it's safe to put them back on the trucks and roam around to find good firing positions...

[birdstrike]

Aw, sorry. My fault. I got carried away a little.

I've not found a way to get new ammo fromt he WMIKs, (perhaps someone could look into this?) but there is a TUM around which carries the 2 types of 40mm ammo (PPHE and HEDP) for the GMGs (plus some 7.62 ammo I think). Just enter the TUM with the dismounted GMG crew and acquire the ammunition.

There also is another TUM with several types of ammo and AT rockets, inlcuding some 40mm HEDP rounds, but these seem to be for a different launcher and don't work with the GMG. Still there should be some 300 usable rounds on the first TUM.

[Pvt. Ryan]

I can't get the Syrian MGs on the roofs to die. I hit one with two helo strikes and two mortar attacks and it is still firing. Do you guys use light, medium, or heavy attacks with the helos?

[Mad Mike]

I can't get the Syrian MGs on the roofs to die. I hit one with two helo strikes and two mortar attacks and it is still firing. Do you guys use light, medium, or heavy attacks with the helos?

I used "Heavy" all the time, the Apaches first used their Hellfires and then switched to rockets, IIRC. Worked quite well for me.

[cartertools]

Thanks, figured it out last night, making progress but this is possibly the most insane scenario ever devised. The 7.62 is good for equipping dismounted MG teams from the WMIKs...helped a lot in supression of "the invincibles" (my pet name for the various forces that won't die in spite of repeated attacks)...

Aw, sorry. My fault. I got carried away a little.

I've not found a way to get new ammo fromt he WMIKs, (perhaps someone could look into this?) but there is a TUM around which carries the 2 types of 40mm ammo (PPHE and HEDP) for the GMGs (plus some 7.62 ammo I think). Just enter the TUM with the dismounted GMG crew and acquire the ammunition.

There also is another TUM with several types of ammo and AT rockets, inlcuding some 40mm HEDP rounds, but these seem to be for a different launcher and don't work with the GMG. Still there should be some 300 usable rounds on the first TUM.

[flamingknives]

The TUM with the PPHE and HEDP is the fire support section HQ.

The other TUM, with the Heinz* ammo, is the supply truck for the rifle company, so the 40mm it carries is for the UGLs in the rifle sections.

*57 varieties

[Pvt. Ryan]

I'll have to try the heavy Apache fire. I've been using medium.

I wish there were a way to lob grenades over the berms. You know the enemy is there, but you can't suppress them without exposing your men to direct fire. The mortars help, bu there isn't enough ammo, plus you have to drop the mortar rounds pretty close to your own men who are waiting to go over the top.

[Paper Tiger]

I can't get the Syrian MGs on the roofs to die.

I have to confess that I've never played a mission before where Green/Normal troops acted so heroically under fire as the MG teams in this mission. I have no idea why they are so consistently tough to put down as I find them to be in this mission. It sometimes feels like you're facing Crack/Extreme motivated troops but you're not.

Best way to put them down is concentration of firepower on their positions. Grenade Launchers can be very effective here. The 'Heavy' helicopter strike is a bit of a gamble in this mission as it spreads its attack along its approach axis and can damage the PRESERVE locations and you don't want to do THAT! 'Medium' is the safest, and most effective attack option for me. 'Light' sometimes works but is much more effective against troops in the trenches. (In fact, it's devastating against trenches)