NATO Preserve Buildings

[Euri]

After playing a lot of NATO Campaign missions (where the avoidance of friendly casualties really matters) I have reached the conclusion that the "preserve buildings" objective is misleading in the following sense:

If one wishes to achieve an enemy surrender within the time limit, the way to do it is to completely disregard the "preserve buildings" and be as brutal and aggressive as one can. The enemy will not be able to sustain the casualties.

If one tries to be meticulous and at the same time combine the "preserve buildings" and "avoid casualties" objectives, the time limit will expire.

I like the concept of the "preserve buildings" but in order to make the feature a factor IMO, one would have to assign more negative points to destruction and also give a lot more time on the clock.

[Erik Springelkamp]

Often it at least prevents a total victory when you destroy the buildings.

And you can feel bad about it if you want.

[LongLeftFlank]

This is how it should be. Body bags vastly outweigh shattered buildings on the battleground of public opinion.

[Erik Springelkamp]

This is how it should be. Body bags vastly outweigh shattered buildings on the battleground of public opinion.

But if there are civilians in the buildings, it becomes a two sided sword.

My father had a front going over his house in 1945, with a platoon headquarters in the house for the afternoon. (a printing office, where stacks of paper formed good cover.

That afternoon a 4 barrelled German AA gun dominated the crossing street just around the corner. It meant that the houses nearer to the AA gun were destroyed.

One civilian in the street of my father died, because he looked out of the window while a fire fight was going on, but otherwise the street survived.

After 4 days of fighting around 200 civilians in the city had died, as well as about 200 Canadian soldiers.

[Paper Tiger]

The PRESERVE Victory objective is there to reward the player who strives to keep civilian casualties to a minimum in the course of a mission. Obliterating them all will only reduce the overall number of VPs you can earn in playing a mission which is balanced with the VPs you lose for each friendly casualty you take. So you can win quite handily without them. I rarely bother trying to keep them when I play but sometimes, I decided to play a more 'humane' game and I get rewarded for it. In my experience, it usually requires more time than body bags to keep them though.

There are a few DESTROY objectives sprinkled around in a few missions (not all!) which award points to the RED side if you damage/destroy them. They are always highlighted in RED in the mission's Tac map as well as mentioned in the briefing. They're usually mosques, hospitals and schools.

[Erwin]

Some people make it harder for themselves to play on IRON, I like to attempt to obey orders as issued by CO's/Scenario Designers - regardless of points re Victory Calculations.

It's a matter of personal preference and what is more fun.

Having said that, you CAN hammer buildings with a surprising amount of firepower and NOT have sufficient damage to lose points. So, the idea that one cannot aim a shot at a preserved building with hostiles is not true. It takes trial and error, but for example, I figure I can shoot 20mm and 30mm for about 1 gun minute cumulative (ie, depends on how many guns are firing) at a building without any damage registering.

You can also use arty, (81mm and air) using LIGHT and PERSONNEL settings (NOT Armor or General, Medium or Heavy). These are airbursts and will do little if any damage to buildings.