Bloodied Bowman Strategy?

[snakeculture]

Currently struggling with Bloodied Bowman mission in the Campaign mode. Kept failing the, "Keep US and NATO casualties lower then 5 million," objective. Used nukes to take out Soviet silos and I suspect its fallout reached the cities, then I guess the game recognized captured provinces as US/NATO territory and added casualties towards the objective.

Anyone with a strategy around this? Going to try a no nuke run (not fun in my opinion).

Also would love to see in-depth analysis on population breakdown and GDP analysis as well implemented in the future, just to see the impact of prolonged war and the use of nukes on a country's population and economy (or maybe its been implemented and I didn't see it).

[Pete]

I just hold at the beginning as best as I can by ferrying in Troops from the USA. Also Engineering vehicles with FOB's and SAMs inside are useful.

Send one of the US-Navies towards Turkey, so that you can fight off the soviets there.
I also recommend placing anti ship missiles on Iceland and Britain.

When the General tells you, that supply lines were established, thats the moment were you can push. Keep pumping armies and push the soviets out of the warsaw pact states. Dont attack soviet soil like Königsberg.

Also I do recommend to build some ABM's in order to cover European capitals and US mainland.

Good luck!

[A Bat From Wuhan]

Generally speaking, you want to try and avoid using nukes in the campaign missions, as using them will cause the AI to do the same. You launching nukes at their silos triggers the Soviets to nuke your cities.

The way I did it was to hold the line at West Germany. Use your airbases in the UK/Spain/etc to launch cruise missiles and target the Enemy airfields, and have any EW aircraft pick apart enemy SAMs, AA, Radar, etc. Once the sky is yours, your tactical airbases and CVs have free reign to bomb the enemy Armies with little resistance.

Meanwhile, ferry your troops from America to Europe (From US West Coast to US East Coast to France/Benelux). Be aware that you can't build anything in Europe until "supply lines are established". Don't make my mistake and drop a dozen divisions in Iceland, only to find out you can't build an Army Base there to ferry them the rest of the way to Europe.

Keep knocking out airfields as they pop up, keep your tactical airbases filled up, reclaim any territory you lost (for me, this was Norway, Denmark, and half of Turkey), and push into the Warsaw Pact.

DO NOT TOUCH MAINLAND RUSSIA.

[Rin Palora]

Taking out the soviet silos, even with conventional weapons, will make them go nuclear.
You are trying to remove their counter force capabilities after all and thus put them entirely at the mercy of your nuclear arsenal.

From my experience even just having spec ops in their territory can make them go nuclear.

Stay conventional (until they start using chemical), never go nuclear and stay on your side of the border with land forces. Planes and missiles blowing up every other military target is mostly fine... just as long as you don't touch the silos.

p.s. in the alliance tab you can try and get the NATO allies to accept building in allied territory and if it passes you can deploy newly produced units straight to West Germany.

You can also do it with your starting forces before you ever unpause.

[Boomsah27]

I winged it last night and had a good run that might stand contrary to others' posts.

First point is still the same though: Never go nuclear, frankly I haven't even been researching and WMDs so far.

Before you unpause:

Get every army division and combat engineer in the USA/Canada towards their nearest army base. There's a single army base on the far east side of Canada that can paradrop divisions directly to France. I flew all my divisions just outside that base and slowly ferried troops across that way. Maybe consider building another army base first to speed that up if you want. (I have ahead of time Air tech, hopefully the range is the same for you otherwise you'll have to use Iceland)

Send a medium fleet to the Black Sea (maybe even spawn new ships if you bought some). There's a large Soviet thrust into Turkey that needs almost-immediate backup. Your AI ally can hold the main line pretty well if you focus tac bombing on Germany. Throwing another new Cruiser and Destroyer or 2 into West German waters also helps shore up the North line.

You can also give technology to your AI partner. I gave EVERYTHING to them and would say the only thing you may not want to do is give them WMD tech. They were using gas and nuclear artillery like it was going out of style even though I had those disabled for my divisions.

Final note there are 2 fleets on the pacific side of the US. I didn't really have a use for them so I had them patrol the Western seaboard just in case but nothing happened.

After unpausing:

Focus down the incoming divisions coming into West Germany using air power and focused Army fire. Hold the line for the first 10-15 min or so while reinforcements are flown in from North America. Consider making some Army Bases to shore up the line if needed. CBRN defenses are your friend as gas is likely on the table.

After the first and second main attacks are dealt with in central europe you should be in a position to start pushing in. I was aggressive and met the 2nd wave in eastern Poland. The Turkish push seems to be 1 massive starting wave. Naval power will help deal with that threat.

Soviet naval power wasn't much of a threat for me. The AI used their navy to slug it out with the soviets and helped me a ton while my Carrier fleets were in transit. Submarines were my biggest problem.

Really once you blunt the main attack and have your air force systematically dismantling enemy air bases and army bases you can slowly just push the line as far as you want.

Final Note:

I had a massively successful campaign. I purposely left Hungary untaken and surrounded by army bases and a couple of reserve armies while I pushed into Soviet territory proper. As long as you avoid the ICBM silos like others were saying you won't trigger a MAD response. I took territory well past the Urals only barring Moscow. (Moscow didn't fall PURELY due to spec ops spam spawning directly on Moscow. They were literally bashing whole army divisions down with small arms fire). Didn't really see any other major counter attack forces and was able to just use the remaining time researching and occupying more territory. I captured Hungary with roughly ~5 seconds to spare and got full stars.

[Redacted but not so]

dont capture territory

[Redacted but not so]

also why not touch russian mainland