Tactics

[LJFHutch]

I've tried playing the Demo a few times now and couldn't manage to get anywhere, the Mujahideen appear much better trained and equipped than the Soviets. Is it possible to win the first demo scenario (the outpost one)? I've had a ton of problems with my soldiers not being able to spot the enemy (even when they have a clear LOS), especially noticeable with those who have optics (such as the vehicles or sniper teams who are unable to spot anything beyond about 300m). Within ten minutes my guys were down to half strength and almost out of ammo while the enemy were actually beginning to get inside the town. It's much more difficult than CMSF, even though the enemy don't posses anything beyond infantry.

What do the different difficulty levels do? I'm currently playing on Iron, is this the reason I'm losing so badly or do I just suck.

So yeah, any advice on how to keep my guys alive, they seem to be hopelessly outgunned and just not really good at killing the enemy.

[Boche]

iron i believe givs an unrealistic advantage to the enemy, and gives you less. so its bascally making it unfair for you, you should try playing on veteran or elite btw what each difficulty setting does is in the manual

[LJFHutch]

iron i believe givs an unrealistic advantage to the enemy, and gives you less. so its bascally making it unfair for you, you should try playing on veteran or elite btw what each difficulty setting does is in the manual

Ah okay, thanks a lot man

Just got the full game, finished the first mission with a minor victory - 22 killed 13 wounded, including the loss of 4 vehicles :|

[Thomm]

I've tried playing the Demo a few times now and couldn't manage to get anywhere, the Mujahideen appear much better trained and equipped than the Soviets. Is it possible to win the first demo scenario (the outpost one)? I've had a ton of problems with my soldiers not being able to spot the enemy (even when they have a clear LOS), especially noticeable with those who have optics (such as the vehicles or sniper teams who are unable to spot anything beyond about 300m). Within ten minutes my guys were down to half strength and almost out of ammo while the enemy were actually beginning to get inside the town. It's much more difficult than CMSF, even though the enemy don't posses anything beyond infantry.

I had the same experience. After the second attempt I stopped trying.

Best regards,

Thomm

[Lethaface]

I was able to finish this mission with relative ease in both the Demo as the full game (playing Elite).

In the demo the Shilka retaliated upon anyone that dared to shoot at my troops, while other vehicles provided extra overwatch. Then my battery of howitzers came available and I targeted the sides of the villages from where I was attacked. After the barrage I could get into the village easily and after some time the Mujahideen surrendered and I had a total victory with only 1 wounded man. However many of the Mujahideen leaders had evacuated the village so I felt I had let them get away.

In the full game there is no shilka unfortunately and there is only 1 mortar (no howitzers coming into play). So I followed the briefing more close. I started with a barrage by my mortar followed by the encirclement of the village. Something like this:

---^ ^

|^ (0000) ^

--^|^|^|

(0000) = village

^ = BMP

| = infantry

- = supposed to be whitespace

Keep your infantry at distance from the village, preferably covering behind low walls. Some Mujahideen started firing at my troops but my troops returned fire with obviously heavier firepower from BMP's and PKM's. The fleeing Mujahideens were interecepted by my advanced BMP's and were quickly gunned down.

End result was 2 killed (unlucky BMP crew) and 1 wounded IIRC, while I utterly slaughtered the Mujahideens.

So, for me this mission wasn't to hard. However, after this mission it only gets more difficult!

[Thomm]

I was able to finish this mission with relative ease in both the Demo as the full game (playing Elite).

I think we are talking about the other one.

Best regards,

Thomm

[LJFHutch]

I was able to finish this mission with relative ease in both the Demo as the full game (playing Elite).

In the demo the Shilka retaliated upon anyone that dared to shoot at my troops, while other vehicles provided extra overwatch. Then my battery of howitzers came available and I targeted the sides of the villages from where I was attacked. After the barrage I could get into the village easily and after some time the Mujahideen surrendered and I had a total victory with only 1 wounded man. However many of the Mujahideen leaders had evacuated the village so I felt I had let them get away.

In the full game there is no shilka unfortunately and there is only 1 mortar (no howitzers coming into play). So I followed the briefing more close. I started with a barrage by my mortar followed by the encirclement of the village. Something like this:

---^ ^

|^ (0000) ^

--^|^|^|

(0000) = village

^ = BMP

| = infantry

- = supposed to be whitespace

Keep your infantry at distance from the village, preferably covering behind low walls. Some Mujahideen started firing at my troops but my troops returned fire with obviously heavier firepower from BMP's and PKM's. The fleeing Mujahideens were interecepted by my advanced BMP's and were quickly gunned down.

End result was 2 killed (unlucky BMP crew) and 1 wounded IIRC, while I utterly slaughtered the Mujahideens.

So, for me this mission wasn't to hard. However, after this mission it only gets more difficult!

I haven't been able to get anywhere near the results that you just described, usually I lose at least a soldier per action, whether that's advancing etc etc, even when on the second try I just used everything to pummel any building with windows I still ended up losing a heap of soldiers. Is there anywhere with detailed tactics for the CMx2 games? Because I'm apparently hopeless lol.

[shauny1987]

I haven't been able to get anywhere near the results that you just described, usually I lose at least a soldier per action, whether that's advancing etc etc, even when on the second try I just used everything to pummel any building with windows I still ended up losing a heap of soldiers. Is there anywhere with detailed tactics for the CMx2 games? Because I'm apparently hopeless lol.

Practice helps, try different tactics, example:

Send apcs at front, open top, not open top

Send infantry in, fast? hunt? slow?

see what works best I dont think there are any decisive strategies for this game yet.

[Lethaface]

Try the tactics posted in the CMSF tactics forum. There is a lot of advice there. It should be usable if you consider the differences between US(MC)/UK and Soviets.

@Thomm,

IIRC there were two demo missions of which one is almost the same as the first misison in the 1980 campaign. That is the one I mentioned. Was some time ago that I played the demo though, so if I mixed up my apoligies.

[stikkypixie]

iron i believe givs an unrealistic advantage to the enemy, and gives you less. so its bascally making it unfair for you, you should try playing on veteran or elite btw what each difficulty setting does is in the manual

Iron doesn't give the anyone an advantage. It just changes how you interact with your forces. Unless I'm sorely mistaken of course.

[Clavicula_Nox]

Snipers with Dragunovs should not have any better spotting ability at night, it's not like their scopes are going to suddenly remove darkness or something. I don't know if the vehicles have a rudimentary NOD, but on these types of missions, my prime spotter/killers have been BMPs.

[Boche]

Snipers with Dragunovs should not have any better spotting ability at night, it's not like their scopes are going to suddenly remove darkness or something. I don't know if the vehicles have a rudimentary NOD, but on these types of missions, my prime spotter/killers have been BMPs.

yeah, lol, in that mission 99.9% of the kills where BMP related

and well here the manual extract, not exactly as i described it either:

"Introduces Interface limitations, such as : friendly units need to be spotted aswell as enemis so you can control them, if not you just have to scroll down the chain of command to find them"

actually does this mean if one of my units loses radio or LOS with a command unit it get "cut off" and you need to establish radio contact or LOS again to see them?

[MikeyD]

I have to chuckle. I'm reminded of how often I see AARs of scenarios where the player claims three dead and the enemy surrendering with 15 minutes left on the clock, while I play the same scenario to find half my force wiped out and the enemy still putting up a stiff fight as the clock goes into overtime! This definitely is a game where generalship counts.

[Sequoia]

I've tried playing the Demo a few times now and couldn't manage to get anywhere, the Mujahideen appear much better trained and equipped than the Soviets. Is it possible to win the first demo scenario (the outpost one)? I've had a ton of problems with my soldiers not being able to spot the enemy (even when they have a clear LOS), especially noticeable with those who have optics (such as the vehicles or sniper teams who are unable to spot anything beyond about 300m). Within ten minutes my guys were down to half strength and almost out of ammo while the enemy were actually beginning to get inside the town. It's much more difficult than CMSF, even though the enemy don't posses anything beyond infantry.

What do the different difficulty levels do? I'm currently playing on Iron, is this the reason I'm losing so badly or do I just suck.

So yeah, any advice on how to keep my guys alive, they seem to be hopelessly outgunned and just not really good at killing the enemy.

Reposition your guys at setup so they have good fields of fire on where you now know the enemy will be coming from.

Hide your guys on the hill until the shelling stops. Keep the grenade launchers hidden until you have a big concentration of the enemy. Then let them fire for a turn then rehide.

After the shelling stops roll your BTR with the 3 guys inside to the other town and have then acquire lots of ammo and have them take up position near the Mosque. It worked well for me.

[theFightingSeabee]

Rule #1

Conserve your forces as if you, the commander, had to write the letters to the dead soldier's families telling about how brave they were. Always revise and improve your tactics, which are meant to keep your guys alive while neutralizing as many enemies as possible. I know in combat losing men is inevitable, but always work for better tactics. Use cover, covering fire, smoke, airpower, artillery, and speed. Try to have your units working together. Use bounding overwatch when advancing through unknown territory. Suppress known units/unit locations while the other unit moves up. I guess just be careful!

[Ryujin]

actually does this mean if one of my units loses radio or LOS with a command unit it get "cut off" and you need to establish radio contact or LOS again to see them?

No, not really, you seem to be able to control units with no communications link just fine even on elite/iron. I imagine this due to the player being the Borg hive mind of every leader in the unit, not just the company/battalion commander. I think they just get a big moral penalty.

[LJFHutch]

Snipers with Dragunovs should not have any better spotting ability at night, it's not like their scopes are going to suddenly remove darkness or something. I don't know if the vehicles have a rudimentary NOD, but on these types of missions, my prime spotter/killers have been BMPs.

I think you were referring to my post, I was talking about the outpost defense mission, which took place in daylight. The thing I was getting at however, was that the Dragunov-armed soldiers seem to have unusually bad spotting abilities, at 300m my guys were unable to spot the enemy despite having a clear LOS and being shot at by those same soldiers.

[Secondbrooks]

Rule #1

Conserve your forces as if you, the commander, had to write the letters to the dead soldier's families telling about how brave they were. Always revise and improve your tactics, which are meant to keep your guys alive while neutralizing as many enemies as possible. I know in combat losing men is inevitable, but always work for better tactics. Use cover, covering fire, smoke, airpower, artillery, and speed. Try to have your units working together. Use bounding overwatch when advancing through unknown territory. Suppress known units/unit locations while the other unit moves up. I guess just be careful!

Or

#2 just look at field manuals and copy & paste it into scenario at hand and afterwards claim that it can't be done any better and that the game is flawed. I do always that.

[LJFHutch]

Anyone got any advice on how to finish the 4th (?) mission? I just tried it then and did pretty terrible, although I managed the primary objective (the trucks), my guys then ran out of ammo and got shot to pieces. On a side note, is it actually possible to win the scenarios? The best I've got is a minor victory, with most of the missions ending in defeat.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but to win you need to not lose any guys, keep a large amount of ammo leftover, kill the vast majority of the enemy and hold onto every bit of terrain while your forces are outnumbered, outgunned and most of the time understrength and wounded with little to no support.

[Amedeo]

Snipers with Dragunovs should not have any better spotting ability at night, it's not like their scopes are going to suddenly remove darkness or something. I

Actually some SVD rifles were equipped with night vision scopes, although, AFAIK, this wasn't the norm, even in Spetsnaz units.

[Kat Johnston]

On a side note, is it actually possible to win the scenarios? The best I've got is a minor victory, with most of the missions ending in defeat.

Yes, I won many of the scenarios on my first playthrough - more on the second campaign than on the first (played on Elite; overall, I managed a draw followed by a minor win). It did seem like the victory conditions were generally more arbitrary and stacked against the player than in base CM:SF.

I found it useful to consider the scenario objectives as almost completely secondary to force preservation, and to treat the deployment zones in most cases as "places from which my pixeltruppen will immediately move away from to find somewhere more useful" - which might help you in that fourth mission if it's the one I think it is.

[LJFHutch]

Thanks John

On a side note, is it at all possible to tell your guys to conserve ammo? (short of moving them behind a building lol). Either directly or indirectly: it's a pain when you suddenly realize your guys just ran out and became target practice for the enemy.

[Aloko Mac]

Thanks John

On a side note, is it at all possible to tell your guys to conserve ammo? (short of moving them behind a building lol). Either directly or indirectly: it's a pain when you suddenly realize your guys just ran out and became target practice for the enemy.

a HIDE command + target arc should be useful.