USMC Gung Ho! campaign

[Paper Tiger]

'Gung Ho!' is a fully dynamic six-mission campaign which follows the fortunes of an MEU as they fight their way from the Syrian coast into the western mouth of the Hims Gap (missions 1 and 2), aggressively push through the Hims Gap (missions 3 and 4), fight for control of bridges across the Orontes (mission 5), and finally, assault the Syrian airbase at Al Qusayr (mission 6).

The primary core Unit for this campaign is BRAVO Company of the 1st Battalion 8th Marines, the 'Beirut Battalion'. Depending on your success in the campaign, various other units from the MEU will be attached to BRAVO Company to create a new, and hopefully, interesting OB for each mission. At some point during the campaign, you should see all of the equipment an MEU fields in action, from LAVs to M1A1s, and from AAVs to MTVRs. Each mission has at least 2 AI plans, some have four, to confer some replayability on this campaign.

You will have plenty of artillery and air support on call in each mission. But don't get too carried away as these artillery assets are part of your core forces and will only be resupplied once during the campaign. Therefore you will have to manage these assets carefully from mission to mission.

To provide the BLUE player with an interesting and realistic challenge, I have employed the following scoring conventions in this campaign:

To progress along the optimal path, you must WIN each mission. A DRAW is considered a loss. You are allowed to lose one mission but a second loss will eject you from the campaign

You must take great care of your men in each mission as you will lose the mission if you take 15% or more friendly casualties.

While there are quite large PRESERVE bonuses for missions fought where civilians are present, the mission can be won without them as they do not award points to the RED side. Rather, they reduce the total number of VPs YOU can win in the mission. Losing these awards will mean that tolerance for friendly casualties in that mission will be severely reduced. Important exceptions are Mosques and Hospital buildings. Damaging or destroying these buildings will award points to the RED side. You will be alerted in the briefing when these buildings are present.

While there is a good chance that vehicles that get immobilised or damaged in the course of a mission will get unstuck or repaired before their next mission, the chance of this happening is not 100% so be take good care of your vehicles.

You should be able to find the download by following this link.

http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=314&func=fileinfo&id=739

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Some quick personal notes

Because of my Beta testing commitments, I haven't had the time to create an all-new set of maps for this campaign. To save time, I adapted maps used in my 'Road to Dinas' campaign. However, this is not just a simple 'swap Marines units for existing BLUE core units'. Each map has been 'improved' to some extent. RED OBs and AI plans have been substantially reworked and tested as well so this campaign should still be able to provide a fresh challenge for those of you who have already played the Dinas campaign.

However, unlike 'Hasrabit', 'Perdition' or 'Dinas', I have not had the time to play through the entire campaign before releasing it. I've played each individual mission, or parts of one particular mission, several times to make sure that the AI is working properly. Although I'm confident that the campaign is winnable, I am not sure if the campaign is too difficult or too easy. It will need to be played through a few times to determine this so I will welcome your feedback.

I am also sure that there will be typos, logical inconsistencies, and even a few grammatical errors in the mission briefings as I had to do them very quickly so if you find any, report them and I'll change them for an inevitable 'Gung Ho - Final' version later.

Hope you guys enjoy this as much as I did playtesting it. The Marines are a blast to play.

[stikkypixie]

Thanks, I'll give it a try.

[Sequoia]

I'll give it a try strating tonight, but I have to warn you I reload if I screw up badly so my results will be skewed towards Blue.

[Pvt. Ryan]

Based on other scenarios he has designed, you will be reloading a lot.

[Jonny(FGM)]

I think i had 150 odd save files for the full monty, i believe that was a PT production lol

[Sheppy]

could you consider putting this on a normal file host site?

[Paper Tiger]

Yes, 'UK The Full Monty' was one of mine. I liked that one a LOT.

I suspect you guys will be (pleasantly) surprised by how easy some of the missions in this campaign are. However, taken together, with no replacements for casualties and not a lot of resupply either, you'll probably find the later missions more challenging. Your infantry platoons fight in 5 battles. Even if you earn the Friendly Force Preservation bonus is each mission, the best of you will be playing the last two missions with a force at 80% strength. The rest of us mere mortals will be down to about 75% or worse and maybe be down a tank or two as well.

[Dietrich]

First of all: Thank you, PT, for making this campaign! I'm sure I will enjoy it thoroughly and will play it multiple times.

I am also sure that there will be typos, logical inconsistencies, and even a few grammatical errors in the mission briefings as I had to do them very quickly so if you find any, report them and I'll change them for an inevitable 'Gung Ho - Final' version later.

*** FILMED IN SPOILER-VISION! ***

So far I've only played the first mission, but I can report a few things:

1. The OOB in the main campaign briefing lists the MTVR platoons as having the same callsigns as two of the rifle platoons. (Or is that how they're supposed to be?)

2. In the first mission, the CAAT team Huey starts on-map, but when the AAVs arrive later, the reinforcement message mentions Red Wolf and Huey.

3. The second mission's OOB list mentions two Cobras fitted for AT operations, but the air asset tab shows AH-64s. (It would be uncommon for USMC infantry to get support from Army rotary-wing units, right?)

[Paper Tiger]

Cheers for that. I'll take a peek later and correct those errors for a later version.

#1 - ah, I see. That's me being vague. That's not their call sign but the platoon they will be carrying throughout the campaign - I should have said 'assigned to carry' or something like that.

#2 is due to me deleting Huey from the OB the day before I posted the campaign. I wanted to see if I could win the mission with only one CAAT team (I could. It didn't make any difference either as I rarely used the second in RT). This will actually help you later as ... ach, that would fall under the category of spoiler.

#3 was an error. I wanted Cobras but must have been using the US Army default menu when I added the air support. I hope it doesn't bother you too much. I'll check the other missions and see if this happens again. Actually, for a wee while, I was playing with the US Light Trucks that came with the Brit module by mistake for the same reason - I saw Truck platoon in the US Army menu and bought it only to realise later that they were not the Marines trucks.

edit to add:

I have corrected these errors and checked the remaining missions to see if I'd made the same mistake with the helicopters. Don't worry, it doesn't happen again. Once again, thanks for taking the time to bring these to my attention.

[Dietrich]

thanks for taking the time to bring these to my attention.

Gladly. It's the least I (as someone who has yet to contribute to the CMx2 community in the form of scenarios or mods) can do for someone who gives of his time and mental energy to create such well-designed and enjoyable scenarios and campaigns.

As I progress through the campaign, I'll make note of any other typos or oddities and get back to you.

[Paper Tiger]

Thanks, I appreciate it. I hope you have fun playing it as well though. I have to confess that I feel a bit nervous the first week or so after I post a new campaign waiting for someone to find something that I missed/screwed up. Just before posting 'Hasrabit', I went through all the missions to check that the AI plans were all swiched on and in doing so I accidentally clicked on the map and painted an extra single square AI set up zone for group 1 which resulted in a T-72 being placed on the side of a hill. Funnily enough, no-one remarked on it though. They must have thought it was my intention to have it sitting there.

[AkumaSD]

The first map is great. I liked it in Dinas and it works well in this campaign. I forced a tactical victory with only a few minutes left on the clock. 2 KIA, 3 WIA and all other equipment in working order. I feel I could do better and am thinking about starting over. I'll see how the next map goes before I throw in the towel. It might be my slower play style to blame but I felt like another 30 mins on the clock would have relieved some of the pressure I was feeling.

It never gets old watching a burst of small arms fire bring the wrath of a USMC squad. Watching them return fire makes me smile each time I see it.

I'm looking forward to the rest of the campaign.

[Paper Tiger]

It's never easy to set the length of a mission so that everyone's happy When playtesting, I regularly finished that mission with more than 20 minutes on the clock, often a LOT more but with a few more casualties than you took. That sounds like an excellent result so I wouldn't start over just yet...

However, I've made a note that at least one person thinks it's a bit tight... I am not averse to adding another 10 minutes but it might affect mission 2 as they take place almost simultaneously and RED WOLF goes on from mission 1 to arrive as a reinforcement in mission 2. Tricky... I've played missions 1-3 compiled once and it all seemed to work just fine when I tested it.

[stikkypixie]

Just finished playing through the first mission, a major victory. I inflicted enough casualties on the hapless Syrians to force a surrender with 2 minutes on the clock. I took 3 KIAs and 9 WIAs, which I felt wasn't bad considering the tempo that had to kept up and the restrictive ROE. Too bad the game didn't see it that way. Oh well

[AkumaSD]

Mission 2: The High Chaparral

Played RT on veteran.

3 KIA, 1 WIA, lost 1 LAV and have 75% of my support left. I initiated a ceasefire with 3 minutes left on the clock and won a tactical victory. 357 points vs their 96.

Had a great time playing this map. Letting loose with arty and air power is always great fun. I really liked how Red Wolf made an appearance while not having to be at the front of the fight at the start of the map. I didn't use them at all during the map but it was nice to see the same guys I had worried so much about on the previous map make it through the next fight.

[Eagle2]

Man, that first map is a kiler. I've never been the best at MOUT in CMSF, and the limited ROE and narrow streets means alot of dead jarheads for me. Any pointers?

[AkumaSD]

Any pointers?

Used starting troops to take over the hill just beyond the one that troops start on. Setup spotters, mgs and javs in the now cleared out trenches that overlook the town. I then used the remaining squads to hit the buildings on the other side of the hill but not the town itself yet. All troops at this point are setup in over watch. Reinforcements arrive in their AAVs on the road that goes into the town. These are the troops I used to attack the town. I moved them into the buildings in the town that are closest to their starting point. Donl't go in the front door. Use enginiers to blow open one of the compound walls so you can slip in from the back. There are some 3 story buildings that provide great over watch. I split my squads so they could cover more area. Don't rush to the roofs right away. Have guys hang out in the buildings first to take out some enemy. When they don't have anyone left to shoot at then move them to the roofs. It quickly turned into me chasing the enemy out of one building and into another across the whole town. They would fire a burst, I'd return with tons of firepower, they would run out the back door and I would chase. This repeated until they finally gave up. Once I got my squads into the town itself things became real easy. Just don't rush it and you'll have them running for their lives in no time. If I remember right the ROE said there were civs in the town only. You're free to drop arty on the other buildings around it. I didn't use much arty at all on this map. Really only on the small complex at the top NW of the map. The javs were the best way to take out most of the tanks except for the one that's closest to you. I used a TOW on him. I had a fun time playing this map and it's one that stuck out. I'll be going back to it again for sure.

[noxnoctum]

Sounds a lot like Generation Kill . Definitely will be playing this tonight, love all your campaigns.

[jkobmadrid]

sorry for being a party killer, but...this camp isn't winnable at first strike.

usually when i approach Paper tiger's scneario, i know

i'll get into a mine in a middle of the only crossable terrain,

meet 2 companies behind every door , ATGM's under every tree and etc',

oh and "prevent damage" stuff.

i played the camp' til mission 4, and gave it up.

first, i've never liked CMSF door to door simulation.

but that's for a different post.

maps are great, but the camp' is frustrating.

3 of the 4 missions i played are "let's clean this city" type in

a mailman method. that's nice, but you don't really spot much

until you take fire, and there's a company behind every wall.

now since you gotta clear every ****ing house to get those point,

you end up like a magic vacuum cleaner salesman, get slapped

by every mad house owner with an MG.

oh...the third mission is fun though

and paper, don't get me wrong, i appreciate you work,

i just think that one is too much.

[snake_eye]

Hi Paper Tiger,

I just finished playing RT Elite, USMC GUNG HO. To tell you the truth, I am a bit disappointed , not because I have been removed of my command after the second mission, but because the way the Red have been set doesn’t look to my point of view realistic.

I have played the “Road to Dinas” and encountered the same problem. BTW you mentioned using the same maps, that was not bad idea. However the Red setting looks more or less the same as before.

Going back to the campaign. I have had a Minor defeat on the first and on the second mission. My losses in the second mission due to the ATGM, well sited, were heavy, from my point of view. 1 tank and 7 tracks. At the end of the campaign the total losses were 1 tank, 7 tracks, 2 OVL, 23 KIA and 21 WIA.

The enemy lost 13 tanks, 113 KIA, 51 WIA and 86 MIA to no avail.

That second mission, was fought mainly on the left of the map. That way, I split in two the opposing forces and was able to concentrate all of my forces on the left, but a very small force on the far right. I took the houses before the bridge, the farm a little bit farther uphill, then the compound (Coyote)on the right and the one on the left (Wily E) and the warehouses on the right of the road were cleared with casualties. From there I got to Manolito and took it but got casualties from the farthest houses on the right. Then the TLR was reached.

My analysis is that with one company you can not do it due to the TLR or you might succeed with more delay and an important use of all the supports. Air, Artillery and mortars. However, I don’t think that you will have enough forces left for the next mission and a sufficient ammo level left.

BTW the 1st mission, TLR is very, very short. I got to the houses and into the first part of the town after having occupied Wilma. From there, I had a support by fire of the units attacking Bedrock . I managed to assault the edge of the town and went as far as the place following the axis of the road at the left of the town entrance.

Dino, Fred, Pebbles were preserved (50 points each). Bamm Bamm and Barney partly(only 25 points each).

Very frankly, I have done exactly what I did before for the road to DINAS. If more troops were committed, the town would have been cleared, without using artillery, but some mortars when really necessary.

The losses were 7 KIA, 5 WIA and 1 OVL. For the Red 44 KIA, 17 WIA, 43 MIA and 3 tanks.

To summarize

1st mission:

The TLR is too short, but I can take the town if I have another 30 minutes at the least and 60 minutes at the most.

2nd mission

The TLR is again short but even with 30 to 60 minutes more, I don’t see how I can take High Chaparall if I attack on the right and on the left. I won’t have enough forces.

The only way, I think I could do it, is to attack on the left, like I did. I will not engage the troops in the long warehouses, they fight very aggressively. Wily E and Coyote taken, I will. rush on the road uphill and turn right to assault Point 68 and up toward big John. I would then establish there an OP with the FO’s and concentrate the artillery and Air assets on Manolito,

Blue Boy and High Chaparall. The former two were the only objectives that gave points to the Red’s.

After a strong artillery barrage, I will move into Manolito, then on to Blue Boy and from there do a right turn toward High Chaparral. Taking it sideway, should be easier than in a front attack. Again a strong artillery and air power will be called.

So the main points are the following:

Give more time to achieve the objectives and if you don’t, give more troops. I think, I told you the same for Second Storm.

I don’t think that more troops will help that much, since you would have to attack anyway, very quickly to try to reach the objectives on time. You would endure non needed casualties in doing so. Time is buying less casualties, because using your Artillery and Air assets, it takes time to find a good FOV for an Observer and some delay to get a fire mission.

I told you before of the 3 against 1 for the attack. Actually as Alex talked about it. You can reverse that figure and have a 1 against 3 in the attack or even less against more. But for that you must have very sophisticated Air and Artillery assets. That doesn’t work so well with CMSF. You have to locate the enemy and have a way (CMSF FOV) to plot artillery on him.

As a matter of fact, I did not use the Artillery in the 1st mission and just the 81mm on Wilma. That to follow your warning about the ammo level to maintain for the next mission. The air assets were used in the second mission. They got most of the tanks.

A last thing, I had troops on the left side of the map with Big John Mountain at the right level and I discovered that some of the enemy were still there when I lost a LAV. Not one of the troops had seen anything but a dismounted Tank crew and certainly not the AT team, till it was too late.

I hope that these comments will help you in correcting the campaign, since the 2 first missions look more like a stalemate for me and winning them in an unmilitary way, seems away from reality which is the contrary of what CMSF is made for.

I will try again your Campaign and DINAS for fun, but I shall set the time up when needed.

Besides these time problems, I have always enjoyed your scenarios, but certainly not the time allotted for the mission and I don’t mind if you put a bit too much red troops every possible place we have to go. But to fight them we need time; For business men “time is money” here time permits to attack and not rush from point A to B because it is shortest and takes less time, due to the TLR setting

Cheers

[noxnoctum]

Man, that first map is a kiler. I've never been the best at MOUT in CMSF, and the limited ROE and narrow streets means alot of dead jarheads for me. Any pointers?

Ya I just set up all my jeeps and MGs and half my infantry squads overlooking on the hill and then move up split squads slowly. They draw fire, and whoever shoots at them gets instagibbed by several hundred rounds of MG fire and 40mm grenades. Very satisfying to watch .

Once you get within the city it's a bit tougher. Just go slow and always have multiple squads covering when one is moving up. You'll take a few casualties but they'll take a LOT more. Use the engineers to blow holes so you don't have to go into alleys covered from buildings from both sides (always try to have cover on BOTH SIDES while moving up). I don't take my vehicles in the city because of all the RPGs... it's a deathtrap for them.

As for the tanks inside the city, you'd be surprised at how effective just the regular infantry squads are at dealing with them. They spam a bunch of AT4s (I think? not an expert on military tech here) and grenades, and though it doesn't blow the tank up it apparently scares the **** out of the crew and they bail out soon enough.

I did it with 3 KIA and 10 wounded. They lost like 90 guys and 4 tanks.

[Pvt. Ryan]

I am having trouble with the second mission for several reasons. The TOWs miss every single time. The infantry refuse to fire their Javelins even though they have clear LOS. Artillery seems to be ineffective on the dug in ATGMs.

I have been saving and reloading a lot, which is a pain because I keep getting an out of memory error, and when I do successfully reload, the game reloads from the start of the scenario regardless of which save I load from. I have to exit the program and relaunch to get it to load the proper save.

[daft]

Just started up the first mission of this campaign last night, and my boys had driven the enemy off the trenches near the tank on the hill (can't remember the objective name) when I had to go to sleep. Looking good so far, and I can't wait to get back in it tonight.

[Paper Tiger]

So far, this thread makes for interesting reading for me. Some folks are blowing through the early missions with very few casualties while others are finding them too tough.

snake eye

I am not surprised that you found mission 2 very tough seeing as how you lost mission 1. There is some overlap in time between missions 1 and 2. Failure to clear the town in good time will result in RED WOLF arriving on the battlefield about 40 minutes later. Further, you have substantially less artillery and air assets than you would have in the optimal mission as these assets are assigned to clearing up operations behind your current battlefield. (There is a third, permanent penalty but you won't see it until much later.) This is a dynamic campaign and it has been thought out - well thought out? That's up to you to judge but a lot of thought went into the campaign structure. If you play the optimal version of mission 2, I'm sure you'll find it a LOT easier.

BTW, I didn't change the AI set up plans in mission 1 very much at all as they worked fine. The tanks groups were changed though as USMC BLUE can kill them far more efficiently than the original Syrian BLUE OB could. You may find that the other missions all have different OBs and different AI plans though.

I have to ask this, why are some of you so desperate to PRESERVE everything? Mission 1 is very easy if you don't mind earning less VPs overall.

[snake_eye]

Hi Paper Tiger,

Don’t misread me, I am not complaining about the forces even if you have a certain tendency to beef up the Redfor. I am just pointing out the time limit which is too low.

You can wipe out the enemy forces with the artillery and or mortars in Bedrock and get into town. But you wrote that the buildings should be spared, if I am not mistaken. Plus you emphasize the need to keep a certain ammo level, since there would be only one resupply along the campaign. Not knowing when, it seems a cautious thing to spare the rounds and use them only on really needed targets.

The fact to have a minor defeat in the 1st mission annoys me for the following facts :

I took Wilma at 49: 00 (time remaining)

The other troops were ready go jump into town and started their move into it at 30:00

The AAV’s reached the town edges and the troops carried abroad deployed and went into the attack at 26:00

So that leaves around 25 minutes left to clear the town. Without the artillery and or the mortars, since you are fighting from houses to houses that doesn’t leave too much time.

About the second mission the fact that red Wolf got there 40 minutes later did not prevent me to move, reach and secure Coyote and Wily E.

Red wolf rejoined when they arrived.

The casualties taken were a TOW LAV at the beginning shot by a tank and or ATGM on the crest and later during the attack toward the bridge a tank, from an ATGM firing from the right hill slope.

All the other casualties were taken while rushing to Manolito (and in the warehouses near Coyote - 1 LAV and its infantry)to get there on time and to be able to place the FO’s in order to unleash all the artillery, mortars and Air assets prior to move toward High Chaparall.

Again, I was defeated by time. If you fight, taking in account the tactical rules that are the one that you would be allow to use for your attack in a real Ops, you don’t give us enough time to permit the application of such tactical rules.

I did not follow these rules myself, by not probing the right flank (second mission). If I had done that I would not have left my right flank unprotected while rushing to the crest prior of attacking Manolito. BTW the amount of troops on the right is far greater than what I have found on the left. So, my choice was not so bad after all.

Anyway, some will end the campaign with such a low rate of casualties that I wonder how they managed to do so and others like me will be removed from command. These things are not really what count as long as you do us some good scenarios and that you give us, please Mr Paper Tiger, a little bit more time before being struck, not by the Fog of war, but the TLR.

Cheers