Searching for thoughts on USMC Cherry Point

[ThePhantom]

I tried to make the scenario with a coalition type feeling to it. Syrian blue force develops first and then the US Marine force becomes the main focus. My next one will be British with the famous SLA Syrians. Just need some comments on how you think the Cherry Point scenario is and I will go from there.

[Wiggum]

Downloaded a few days ago and will play it soon.

The briefing and the map look great so far !

[jkobmadrid]

hi phantom. i played that twice.

some comments.

overall it's a nice scenario. a bit on the hard\very hard one.

coalition force are a bit out of firepower to handle the well dug in

syrians. i took casualties when trying to deploy a fire base in front

of the hill, and was missing firepower and ground control.

but when the syrians reinforcement arrived, with tanks and additional apc's

it thought i'm really out of measures to assault and clean the hill.

i think that you should consider some heavy armor for the USMC force. if i had tanks i would have take over the building in the left side, creating

a fire base that can be useful to handle the syrian reinforcement.

on the right side, the SLA group is too weak to take control of their side of the hill, especially when it's reinforced with additional infantry, apc's and tanks.

maybe some people will find that scenario challenging, but my opinion is

that if you need to play a game several time to achieve the goal then the

"live action" feeling of the game suffers.

i hope i was helpful.

[ThePhantom]

Your comments are very helpful, jkobmadrid. Constructive criticism is what helps create the best scenarios. As far as Main Battle Tanks go, I like putting the blue side in some type of critical situation. In this scenario the blue player must confront enemy armor with TOW and javelin teams. Remember you are only facing a light armored reconnaissance company in the beginning (Slightly over strength with company and battalion assets (BMP/BRDM/T-62s). M1’s show one hour into the battle and perhaps that is too long for the Marines in the field. The thing is the blue side has four T-62s that first fifteen minutes while the red side has two (Three more just before 1 hour). So the armor balance sways to blue that first half of the game. Can the tanks be used to assist the Marines to gain that fire base?

The challenging aspect of the game is up in the air. The red player does have more vehicles but the numbers are basically balanced. There is 14 T-72 (5 are T-62s) on the red side versus 3 M1s and 4 T-62s on blue. The infantry balance is almost equal with red at about 500 while blue is 460. Infantry fighting vehicles are a lot of BMPs for both sides. Red has a slight advantage with BMP 2s while blue has BMP 1cs. However, the blue player has the platoons of LAVs, AMTRAKS, TOW vehicles of variety, Javelin teams and close air support. Artillery is also equal with 60mm/80mm for blue and 120mm/80mm for red. Realistically, the red side initial force is not that strong. They have a heavy weapons platoon with a company of supporting infantry and light machine gun positions (and mines). The red’s reinforcement zone is protected by a blocking platoon that is not used in their defense of the hill (Back of the hill is in their kill zone).

With that being said the blue force should be able to make some progress against this defensive force in the initial contact stage. Red reinforcements do come earlier than blues main force. I tried to design it so that the coalition force realizes that the SLA cannot get the job done on their own. Something you found out first hand jkobmadrid. However, on the one hour high tide mark the Marine assets should be there to create some mayhem. Red’s main counter attack force comes about the same time blue has reached its full potential. Both reinforcements are almost equal distance to the hill objective with red having a slight distance advantage. This is the climax stage of the scenario. In real time the blue force is challenged to destroy the opposing force quickly enough (Yet, it can be done). Turn based is another story. I found two hours to be too much time.

I think the main point is that it is a game. There must be some difficulty in gaining the objective. A “real” situation would be the US air power knocking out every armor asset the Syrians have. The hill would be pummeled with 155mm until it resembled the moon (not one house would have a scratch) and then the infantry would clean up the unfortunate dumb enemy that was found. The next day the smarter enemy would come out of the houses, re-occupy the hill, and the US would have to do it again.

[souldierz]

Played the mission and I really liked the coalition idea and thought it fit well in the game.Played out well and made a good simulation of combining the 2 different forces on the same side.I think it would also be interesting to play this Coalition set up with the Brits, Marines and Army teamed up with Syrian Army(Airborn units;)) against a Militia force on a fair size map.

SPOILER

I had a very hard time finding good spots for the TOW's.The enemy would be to close and the risk to high to use it most of the time.Also judged by the shots I managed to get them to fire,it took a risky amount of time and they all missed their targets.I don't think they could hit the side of a barn on that day.Since every shot missed and they themselves narrowly avoided a few rpgs and missile hits they were left to hold behind cover until things really simmered down,which they never did.

Picture below is a LAV AT TOW missile that never hits its target.

I was really enjoying this mission.I liked how the BMPs came racing in and dropping off reinforcements near the beginning.That rush was well done under the cover of heavy MG's and Rpg's.It made it hard for me to get at the enemy and hit them while they were moving to their positions.I kept all of the Marine vehicles North spread out on the highway area facing South behind cover.The Marines positioned themselves on Hill 193.They were just 1 tile shy from being on a ridge line on Hill 193, so whenever a individual Marine would kneel on one knee,he would get a view on enemy positions and take some shots from time to time while avoiding heavy enemy fire especially enemy vehicle fire.From there Cobras were constantly called in and the Marines waited along the Hill 193 trees.

Picture below is a Marine MG gunner who positioned himself perfectly behind a fallen tree,From there he was the only one in the squad shooting and remained undetected as he fired on targets of opportunity.

The SLA Syrian friendly forces I kept on the West side of the area of operation behind the highway going South.As they came in as reinforcements I stretched them out along the west end and then had them hook in just South of objective 1.

Everything up to this point was fine.When enemy reinforcements arrived at the South East forest area,I was caught off guard,They appeared suddenly and took a few shots at some SLA forces scouting the area.I managed to get 3 SLA tanks South of objective one and ambush the big reinforcement force that arrived wiping them all out as they exited the South East forest area.What a spectacular show that was as the SLA fired at the side of the appearing enemy vehicles.

Picture below is the SLA Friendly forces tanks ambushing the enemy reinforcements as they came out of the forest.SLA tanks have the high ground and that fire is the cannon blast from an allied T72 who just hit the other t72 in the field on the bottom right.

I thought the ambush played out well for me, but this SLA push to the South ended up being disastrous for me in the end.I must be on a bad streak with missions that spawn enemy on my forces.As I was trying to surround the Cherry point hill and after securing the highway and moving forces near Objective 1, T72s spawned behind the Highway going South and completely wiped out all SLA vehicles with its rear blitz.Some SLA forces were practically killed at point blank range when the enemy tanks appeared.After that it seemed like enemy also spawned on the edge of the Cherry point hill and all enemy armour began to rush to it.From this point, SLA forces got their butt's kicked by that move and suffered heavy casualties.I was also experiencing heavy lag that would not go away.

I could understand the reinforcements appearing in the North West,but I feel mission makers should maybe put enemy at the enemy reinforcement zones to hold the player back so they don't wander in the zone and get enemies spawned on them.Especially if enemy are appearing late in the game and the player almost dominates the map, or tell the player in the briefing where the enemy reinforcement area is so he can avoid putting troops there.

In the end there was about 20mins or so left in the game, but due to the lag not getting any better and seeing t72s all over the Cherry hill and also knowing there's a large amount of enemy in there, I felt I had to end the game,because it became somewhat unplayable and I doubt i would have cleared the hill in 20 minutes with out getting everyone killed in a lag storm.Hopefully I can upgrade some Computer parts so lag doesn't get in the way anymore when I play a few games.I never moved forces on the outside Objectives before hitting the ceasefire and enemy occupied the Cherry hill so this resulted in a Major defeat.

I liked the map and the little details like the trees laying on the ground and sandbags near trenched areas.I also liked how Cherry Point was shaped. I would have liked to put this at 4hrs so I could surround the entire Cherry hill and clear it out while trying to maintain few casualties.Don't know why, but surrounding hills and mountains to later pound it with whatever heavy weapons are available is very fun.I would have loved to have moved the 50 cals,Mks and TOW's around to hit enemy positions on the hill at a steady rate.All in all, besides the tanks spawning on my forces and slicing through them as well as the heavy lag in the end,this is a good tough mission and I really liked the Idea behind it.

[Wiggum]

Hi Phantom,

now i played your mission too. The briefing and the map are very well done. And the beginning action is really fun to play, but in the end it becomes a bit nasty.

And i have to fully agree with souldierz at this point:

In the end there was about 20mins or so left in the game, but due to the lag not getting any better and seeing t72s all over the Cherry hill and also knowing there's a large amount of enemy in there, I felt I had to end the game,because it became somewhat unplayable and I doubt i would have cleared the hill in 20 minutes with out getting everyone killed in a lag storm.Hopefully I can upgrade some Computer parts so lag doesn't get in the way anymore when I play a few games.I never moved forces on the outside Objectives before hitting the ceasefire and enemy occupied the Cherry hill so this resulted in a Major defeat.

I think the lag is because the great number of burning tanks and IFV's + the many flavor objects + many units and the game cant handle it because it uses only 1 cpu core (i have 3). And this is the first scenario that gives me such lag on my new pc.

The cherry point and the area infront of the marines positions (farms) is maybe a bit to heavy defended to take it in this time i would maybe need the full 4 hours to clear the area west of the hill.

My constructive criticism on this scenario:

- Make it clearer who is the enemy of the SLA, i would have expected militia not a full army

- Remove some flavor objects and enemy forces / USMC forces because of the lag

- Give the SLA more troop and the marines less to give to player the feeling that the USMC only assists the SLA

- Remove the last enemy tank spawn at the north

- Decrease the enemy armor at the cherry point.

- Maybe give the player at the beginning more USMC forces so that it is possible to take position on the hill near the LZ at the beginning

Overall it is a great scenario but it needs some more tuning to make it full playable without the bloodbath feeling if you try to storm the cherry point in the last minutes (with the lag).

If you make a v2 i will play it again.

Thanks for your work !