It hasn't been real fun.

[White_Brow231 TTV]

Not really sure how you all are finding success playing this game. I've given it a solid 5 hours. Played the training. Read through the manuals. The enemy AI are just OP for no reason. I took a quick battle and had US snipers vs Syrian Snipers. My squad couldnt hit the broad side of a house if they tried. This game just really seems unfair in terms of gameplay. I'm open to tips but i'm just not sure about this anymore.....

[Saavedra]

Messaggio originale di rometotalfake:

Yes I know that. Nobody was moving and getting shot. But what if I need to bring the hell just right away. As I mentioned earlier enemy inf just ran away from the trench at the first stage of arty strike. Whay you should do in that situation?

Any attack will normally be composed of four stages: scouting (this doesn´t mean finding the enemy necessarily, but identifying key defensive terrain, trenches and foxholes), artillery strike (to soften up that terrain even when you don´t see enemies, because if there are trenches there you can be sure there are enemies nearby), setting up a base of fire to replace artillery fire, and advancing with infantry supported by vehicles. If you find yourself in a situation where you depend on artillery hitting quickly, you have put yourself in a bad situation.

I am seven to eight missions into Semper Fi, and every mission has given me plenty of firepower support. Almost all the casualties I have taken in this campaign have been caused by me not making enough use of those support assets.

Combat Mission just doesn´t work by relying on your troops reacting quickly and efficiently to threats. You have to go by the book, using tactics that have been proven true again and again regardless of troop quality, and applying firepower liberally. Smash the enemy with arty to keep their heads down as you approach, replace with fire from your base of fire once your troops are close enough, and assault with infantry. Time this right, and you should suffer very few casualties.

[rometotalfake]

Messaggio originale di Saavedra:

If you find yourself in a situation where you depend on artillery hitting quickly, you have put yourself in a bad situation.

In normal occasions yes. But first mission of Semper Fi campaign is kind of stealth mission with a small specops recon team. Briefing tells you do not engage in decisive firefights and use support mainly. So i tried heavy-short and it performed MUCH better and crushed enemy trench.
I am good with theory, played a number of wargames, and couple of CM previous titles, but still consider myself as beginner though. Mostly I have practical questions in implementing theory in CM.

[TamaDasha]

Messaggio originale di Jimbob:

Curious to know what other folk's experience of this mission has been.

I pushed 2 squads split into 4 fireteams through the trees, 2 to the FO building, 2 to the BOF position. The two at the building saw no contact. The two at the BOF position found the BTR-60 in the field, engaged with AT4 ineffectively, so I had another team hump a javelin from a Stryker to get rid of the BTR. Pushed the other teams past the building, they ran into a marksman in the woods across the dirt road, couldn't pin point him so I put mortars on him.

Put mortars in a point fire on the central building in the town, then engaged with infantry area fire all across the line from the BOF position with 1 rifle squad and 2x machine gun teams. Pushed two Strykers to the BOF (including the mk19 one) after I was reasonably confident nobody in town was going to be poking their heads up. FO and sniper team were comfortably sitting in the building with a 50m target arc so they don't shoot at anything that isn't crawling up their asses.

The rest of the platoon in two strykers onto the left flank, dismount and clear through the trees up to the town. Advanced infantry into town, with everybody else pouring fire into every conceivable enemy position.

Later found the ATGM team huddled up on the first floor of the central building - either the mortars or my direct fire spooked them into running away from the top floors. They never fired a shot.

Total casualties - 3.

You can also use javelins as remote demolition in this, wasteful as it sounds.

[Jimbob]

Realising (duh) that the FOO could use the drone to call in artillery without exposing anyone was a mission changer for me. Also, finding out via youtube tutorial that setting a fire-arc 50m out would prevent my spotters from firing on the enemy and getting themselves killed.

Also, an uncomfortable reminder that the PMI concept is more about justifying the continued existence of COINops vehicles in the ORBAT, than it is about actual battlefield utility. The .50s and MGLs on the Strykers were too tempting for me not to want to use them in my fire-base, but there were more ATGMs than I'd planned for... :(

[TamaDasha]

Messaggio originale di rometotalfake:

Thx for answering. I was playing Semper Fi campaign first mission and blue team has ship arty support. So how much of bombardment from it is guaranteed kill of inf squad sitting in building? And another one. Is there a way to improve accuracy of art strike? I had fully rested FO team with laser guidance and visuals on the enemy trench, setted perfect line covering it, and arty missed quite bad. And delay between shots was too long (I used medium-medium, guessing heavy-quick is better for this situation?) so enemy inf just ran away.

Bringing the building down completely will give you a ~90% chance that everyone inside is dead. Otherwise, there are almost certainly dudes still crawling around on the first floor.

Artillery is great at suppressing entrenched infantry, not killing it. If you want to make sure they're dead, bring the biggest guns. Otherwise - put some quick 60mm around the building and push in to clear while they're keeping their heads down.

[Actionjackson]

The atgm in the mission is a AT14 kornet, it is the the best one they got, if you let it fire at you it will kill things easy real quick.

But the enemy in this tutorial has extremely low motivation, with a little bit of supression they curl up in a ball and they surrender real quick when you come close.
If you get a few guys killed on your side, does not matter at all, you can still win just fine.

[Jimbob]

True, but losing two Strykers because you tried to deploy them in a role they're not intended for is bad juju.

[Actionjackson]

Who would have thought that, strykers vs AT14 -> strkyers in flames
But so what, it is part of the process, fog of war is just that, you do not know what the enemy has and if he has good equipments some things go up in flames and you find out the hard way that he has the top of the line atgm.

In other scenarios they come at you with rpg-7 and you can hose them down with strykers right form the start if you keep your distance, but with a At14 that has like 8000 meter range lol, keeping your distance kinda does not work, it blows you up from 4000m away all the same and you have no idea what hit you from that distance.

[Jimbob]

Yeah, but in fairness, the Stryker has that tempting fire-power. I knew I'd accounted for one of the ATGMs and I thought I'd dealt with a second. Turns out there was a third- or someone had picked up the dead guy's weapon. Like I said- it's just another reminder that the PMI concept is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

[TamaDasha]

I will say, the Strykers served me exceptionally well as BOF all across the TF Thunder missions. If you keep them hull down, the RWS is an exceptionally small target, and a hit on the RWS is unlikely to destroy the whole vehicle. Combined with generous fire support assets, if you suppress all likely AT positions beforehand, you can have Strykers engaging at 1km with impunity.