CMSF Round#1 AAR
- Thread starter SlySniper
- Start date
Can anyone spare some 25mm AP? We are running low!
He still got some left.
My plan was to use the TOWs and Javelins from the ridges in the US back, while pushing forward on a double flank with the infantry and LAV-25s. The mortars provided smoke screens but some of that somehow turned into HE missions. I didn't mind.
The flank units gained enough intel for me to decide to push a big chunk of the LAV-25s available into flank and enemy rear duties, making use of all the wadis/undulations in the terrain. Getting spots first and first rounds on target usually meant degraded Syrian tanks (Mission-KILL) and side/rear penetrations sometimes causing K-KILLs. The TOW LAVs did less spectacular, especially with regards to spotting. However the LAV-25s allowed my forces to basically undo the Syrian defense so in the end my infantry was able to occupy and control all objectives on the central hill and even the TOWs got some action, ultimately all observed enemy forces had been rendered combat ineffective.
These units were crucial in the battle, positioning between the enemy main position and it's rear tank battle position, which didn't have LOS/LOF unless they came forward into view of my TOWs/Javelins. At the same time my LAV-25s were most of the time hull down towards the rear of the enemies forward position. This forced the enemy to turn their tanks towards their rear, allowing my LAV-25s in the front to push forward and complete the envelope.
my plan was to put the TOW LAV into overwatch and RUN into hull down positions near the touch objectives. CAT wiped a platoon of TOW almost immediately while my LAV25 ran into his tanks and mech infantry at bad breath distances in the dunes near the touch objectives. Along the way, a large chunk of my force was bogged without a shot, including some precious TOW vehicles. The mortars were just not on target and actually more of a danger to friendly forces which was a huge disappointment for me. But, much to my surprise, the LAV were really pounding his tanks. So, we did what devil dogs do and went full aggro, eventually driving up the left flank to his high ground. The entire formation dumped its entire load of 25mm on his vehicles. cat has a great score because in the red mist, waaay too many marine vehicles were hit. it was stat night for these devil dogs. 
I regret some of my exuberant aggression here. I also lost focus on the objectives and we fought till the bitter end over those. I ended up having a unit reverse out of mine and another unit not make it to his. I was too busy trying to finish tanks that would not die!! I left 7 alive and that cost me. Overall, It was a scrappy fubar rage fest for me and I enjoyed every minute of it. Thank you to canadien cat for a great game.
I regret some of my exuberant aggression here. I also lost focus on the objectives and we fought till the bitter end over those. I ended up having a unit reverse out of mine and another unit not make it to his. I was too busy trying to finish tanks that would not die!! I left 7 alive and that cost me. Overall, It was a scrappy fubar rage fest for me and I enjoyed every minute of it. Thank you to canadien cat for a great game.
I had the Marines vs @Esoteric ... It was a really fun fast paced lil battle then ended on 1 of the most violent turns I have ever been a part of.. I had to turn the hit text off to be able to follow the action during a portion of it. This game also had 2 things happen that are very rare for me. 1 the assumptions I made based on the briefing were more or less right and 2. the plan I came up with worked out like I intended for it work. At least during the first half of the game or so.
The briefing told us that 2 companies of enemy tanks with some mech infantry were roaming around behind our lines and were heading straight for our C2 and supply units and we were the only troops available to stop them......... ..... Ok so there is a large enemy tank formation heading for our tender parts and the only guys around to save the day are light recce troops........ Seems to me some general at Cent-Com is going to have some splaining to do after we fix this lil situation up for him...... My force was made up of LAVs with a few LAV/TOWs with 2 Javelin teams with a total of 4 missiles... Not my first choice to fight enemy tanks with but they were older tanks so my LAVs would have a big edge in optics and fire control and I knew that our 25mil chain guns could KO the older tanks but it would usally take a fairly long burst to do it. But I also knew the most of the time a short burst would be enough to disable their main gun. A quick look at the map and a plan quickly formed.. The TOW/LAVs would be good stand off weapons against his advancing tanks. I had a big hill on my right and a smaller one on my left So I divided out my TOWs on each side but sent both javelin teams to the higher ground on my right.. The TOWs on my left struggled the whole game and I dont think got a single kill during the game and were picked off 1by1 during the game. The TOWs on my right took out quite a few enemy vehicles and all 4 jav missiles found targets. There was a ridge running along the center of the map that looked like some really good reverse slope positions I could set up my LAVs on and wait on the tanks to crest the ridge and hopefully take advantage of better optics and fire control to get the first hits in on his armor hopefully from 2 LAVs. The highway ran through a road cut that had occupy objectives on the top of and 2 touch objectives on the map edges all of which worked well with set up I wanted to go for. So I set up LAVs on the map edges facing in.. and on each side of the highway facing out with a couple in the center.... Some staged just below my occupy objectives with some reserves behind a slight hill along the high way. Given the force match up I felt that setting up for a defensive battle hoping he would push his tanks to the crest of the ridge where they would get lit up on both flanks by those deadly rapid firing chain guns. Which is what happened during the first half of the game. My TOWs would get some long range kills and he would probe forward with his tanks and they would get bushwhacked by one or more of my LAVs. Occasionally he would send some dismounts along the top of the highway cut to probe my occupy objectives but my LAVs on the flanks would usually cut them down...... This was not all one sided at the end of the day I have good optics and a good gun attached to a tin can for for protection and the bad guys mostly showed up in main battle tanks and they got some licks in during the last few turns of the game my oponent made a couple of adjustments and was doing me more and more damage leading up to the grand finale. I had enough spotting info to know he was stacking up for a last minute push on my objectives. I decided to counter attack this move from his flanks and made some pretty good guesses on the angles to move at to catch his flanks has he was moving up and got some really good hits in on him. Including a mortar supply truck still packing all it's 120mm shells which made one of the biggest bangs I have ever seen in SF2. I run Herr Toms enhanced explosion mod which really looked impressive.... Good game esotric .....
here is a quick sketch of my set up
A couple pics I got of the big bang during the last turn
The briefing told us that 2 companies of enemy tanks with some mech infantry were roaming around behind our lines and were heading straight for our C2 and supply units and we were the only troops available to stop them......... ..... Ok so there is a large enemy tank formation heading for our tender parts and the only guys around to save the day are light recce troops........ Seems to me some general at Cent-Com is going to have some splaining to do after we fix this lil situation up for him...... My force was made up of LAVs with a few LAV/TOWs with 2 Javelin teams with a total of 4 missiles... Not my first choice to fight enemy tanks with but they were older tanks so my LAVs would have a big edge in optics and fire control and I knew that our 25mil chain guns could KO the older tanks but it would usally take a fairly long burst to do it. But I also knew the most of the time a short burst would be enough to disable their main gun. A quick look at the map and a plan quickly formed.. The TOW/LAVs would be good stand off weapons against his advancing tanks. I had a big hill on my right and a smaller one on my left So I divided out my TOWs on each side but sent both javelin teams to the higher ground on my right.. The TOWs on my left struggled the whole game and I dont think got a single kill during the game and were picked off 1by1 during the game. The TOWs on my right took out quite a few enemy vehicles and all 4 jav missiles found targets. There was a ridge running along the center of the map that looked like some really good reverse slope positions I could set up my LAVs on and wait on the tanks to crest the ridge and hopefully take advantage of better optics and fire control to get the first hits in on his armor hopefully from 2 LAVs. The highway ran through a road cut that had occupy objectives on the top of and 2 touch objectives on the map edges all of which worked well with set up I wanted to go for. So I set up LAVs on the map edges facing in.. and on each side of the highway facing out with a couple in the center.... Some staged just below my occupy objectives with some reserves behind a slight hill along the high way. Given the force match up I felt that setting up for a defensive battle hoping he would push his tanks to the crest of the ridge where they would get lit up on both flanks by those deadly rapid firing chain guns. Which is what happened during the first half of the game. My TOWs would get some long range kills and he would probe forward with his tanks and they would get bushwhacked by one or more of my LAVs. Occasionally he would send some dismounts along the top of the highway cut to probe my occupy objectives but my LAVs on the flanks would usually cut them down...... This was not all one sided at the end of the day I have good optics and a good gun attached to a tin can for for protection and the bad guys mostly showed up in main battle tanks and they got some licks in during the last few turns of the game my oponent made a couple of adjustments and was doing me more and more damage leading up to the grand finale. I had enough spotting info to know he was stacking up for a last minute push on my objectives. I decided to counter attack this move from his flanks and made some pretty good guesses on the angles to move at to catch his flanks has he was moving up and got some really good hits in on him. Including a mortar supply truck still packing all it's 120mm shells which made one of the biggest bangs I have ever seen in SF2. I run Herr Toms enhanced explosion mod which really looked impressive.... Good game esotric .....
here is a quick sketch of my set up
A couple pics I got of the big bang during the last turn
After assessing my force, and concluding that it is, in fact, a bunch of junk (ZSU-23-4 was probably the most lethal part of the force), I decided for a more conservative approach. Rushed the objectives, including the ones you had to touch, lost 7 tanks, destroyed 3 LAVs. I did have one minor offensive moment that ended in @Cargol enveloping me from my right. It did hurt my feelings a bit, and ended any offensive attempts on my part. What saved me was the fact that Cargol was too cautious.
I agree with you Aurelius.
When it is all said and done, the scores will be impacted mostly from what the American side player did.
The Syrians were in a rock and a hard place.
I saw a few syrian tanks manage to get targets and fire and get a few kills, but in general they were better off hiding.
I Think for the Syrians the best approach was to rush forward, get behind the recesse areas of the berms, have supporting infantry nearby and force the Americans to come and try to dig you out of your locations if they wanted to.
When it is all said and done, the scores will be impacted mostly from what the American side player did.
The Syrians were in a rock and a hard place.
I saw a few syrian tanks manage to get targets and fire and get a few kills, but in general they were better off hiding.
I Think for the Syrians the best approach was to rush forward, get behind the recesse areas of the berms, have supporting infantry nearby and force the Americans to come and try to dig you out of your locations if they wanted to.
I feel like the biggest advantage I had as Americans was our thermal sights. So once my LAVs rushed into positions into decent spots behind cover, I fired off their smoke launchers and moved into a firing position. They could shoot through the smoke, but the older Syrian models couldn't, leading to a shooting gallery for the most part.
this surprises me a lil bit..... the first tip i ever got for playing your scenarios was to pay close attention to the briefing... not to count on it being 100 accurate but to read it closely to get the full context of what the mission is.......
i dont remember the exact wording of the briefing but to me overall tone of it was the syarians should be almost considered the attacking side which led me to set up and play defensively... i am paraphrasing a bit but it said that 2 companies of enenemy tanks with mech infantry have manage to get behind our lines and are heading toward our supply and higher level HQ assets so our mission was to stop that advance to protect our tender bits.......
looking at it from the enemy side it seemed reasonable that they probably had some type of valuabe terrain objectives on our end of the map in .. or at the very least the tone of their briefing would encourage them to try "breakthough" any resitance....
clearly i read way to much into what was written but i dont think i made any unreasonable assumptions
Shady Side, you bring up very good points.
The briefing did protray it like that.
it also gives indications that the Syrians are trying to get to support units, not to run into a major fight.
they were not hoping to run into a marine force of about equal size with lav's that have a tech. advantage.
So the US forces are a suprise to their plans, the US mission was defensive in nature, but with the advantages that should show up in the fighting for the US, the best defense is a good offence for them.
For the Syrians, they should discover or decide very quickly that they are no match to be the aggressor, so what is the best move for them. Reverse slope positions, get into locations where they can have flanking shots, but in general keep exposer to a minimum. Shoot and scoot type tactics.
Aurelius was the perfect example of being able to decide that before the battle even started and planned his battle accordingly.
But I must admit, it was more of a meeting engagement type battle, given in the briefing as a attack / defend type mission. So that is misleading.
I dont try to lead you on wild goose chases in the briefings, but I do set up situations where I expect you to make decisions that dont match the intel the briefing might give.
But even when I make no effort to put in any misleading information, I still find people can mis interprete it.
I found this very true in my real miltary service also, communication is not a perfect art. it si easy to draw different conclusions.
But the most important thing I learned while serving was, brifings are important as to get your mind on what you might be facing. A general layout of what to expect and do.
But once we started the actual event. It never was as I expected, and I had to always take what present information I was receiving, like seeing what the actual terrain looked light, what the enemy forces we had contact with were actually doing and what assumed information I had been given to come up with present plans on how to carry out whatever assignment I was tasked.
So in the end , I expect you to be able to come up with battle plans or adapt battle plans for what is happening, not for what you hope was going to happen.
Its a skill that is needed and one i expect players to develope.
The briefing did protray it like that.
it also gives indications that the Syrians are trying to get to support units, not to run into a major fight.
they were not hoping to run into a marine force of about equal size with lav's that have a tech. advantage.
So the US forces are a suprise to their plans, the US mission was defensive in nature, but with the advantages that should show up in the fighting for the US, the best defense is a good offence for them.
For the Syrians, they should discover or decide very quickly that they are no match to be the aggressor, so what is the best move for them. Reverse slope positions, get into locations where they can have flanking shots, but in general keep exposer to a minimum. Shoot and scoot type tactics.
Aurelius was the perfect example of being able to decide that before the battle even started and planned his battle accordingly.
But I must admit, it was more of a meeting engagement type battle, given in the briefing as a attack / defend type mission. So that is misleading.
I dont try to lead you on wild goose chases in the briefings, but I do set up situations where I expect you to make decisions that dont match the intel the briefing might give.
But even when I make no effort to put in any misleading information, I still find people can mis interprete it.
I found this very true in my real miltary service also, communication is not a perfect art. it si easy to draw different conclusions.
But the most important thing I learned while serving was, brifings are important as to get your mind on what you might be facing. A general layout of what to expect and do.
But once we started the actual event. It never was as I expected, and I had to always take what present information I was receiving, like seeing what the actual terrain looked light, what the enemy forces we had contact with were actually doing and what assumed information I had been given to come up with present plans on how to carry out whatever assignment I was tasked.
So in the end , I expect you to be able to come up with battle plans or adapt battle plans for what is happening, not for what you hope was going to happen.
Its a skill that is needed and one i expect players to develope.
I mentioned this in the briefing, but I did find it interesting in I saw US forces struggle spotting through their own smoke, they did it but at times not well.
Where as, I loved it when Russian units fired that old black smoke. Not only does it blind them, but spotting through it was not even a factor.
So I starting looking for those locations I could take advantage of that over dropping my smoke and then shooting through that.
but both worked, thus a reason for the Russians to stay behind cover.
The way my battle played out fit in perfectly with what I had read into the briefing.... i set up to fight defensively.. and my opponent played like an attacker... despite some pretty heavy losses ....... so after i had read my briefing to play defensively despite the meeting engagement lable..... then my opponent playing like an attacker during the game... i was shocked when he told me about how his side of the briefing read......................
oh well I wish i could say that CM was the only thing i had been sure i was right about....and then found out i was totally wrong....... that is actually a fairly long expensive and painful list...........
either way i enjoyed the scenario and am looking forward to the next one....
after i sent that last text... i started asking myself what i would have done if i got into my defensive set up ... and the guy did not attack????? i am not sure i have a good answer for that....... a realistic answer would be my reaction or overreaction would probably depend more on the mood i was in that day more then any kind of well thought out and reasonable adjustment
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That was a fun one. Fairly frustrating at times but that makes it good.
I used terrain to mask my initial moves - which was to move the tank companies up each flank. One platoon closer to he objectives and the other two deep and wide with a small amount of infantry - platoon on the left and recon on the right. I started out with a barrage on the high ground on my left to deny that to any AT assets. I scored some early hits on AT assets on their way to that high ground.
The rest of the infantry flew down the road to get into position on the occupy objectives.
The AA guns I setup in a deep depression just to the left of the road so they could pop up and engage as needed.
It worked pretty good on the left. The better tanks were hurt pretty bad by the LAVs but they also got some licks in. The T55s were a shit show. It was all I could do to keep them from not *all* ding. Sigh. Alby managed to get past them and on to the high ground on my right so I had to redirect a platoon of T72 to come back and deal with them. I kept them busy with my one remaining AA gun for a while but he didn't last since he was now visible from the hill.
On the objectives I was able to take out a few LAVs with RPGs - and then chew up their passengers. My right side did better and there was never any threat to that objective. On the left they did not do as well and there was a few last minute scares with LAVs and infantry getting close. I think in the end I had one guy left on that objective and I had to KO a LAV with a T72 at close range.
I used terrain to mask my initial moves - which was to move the tank companies up each flank. One platoon closer to he objectives and the other two deep and wide with a small amount of infantry - platoon on the left and recon on the right. I started out with a barrage on the high ground on my left to deny that to any AT assets. I scored some early hits on AT assets on their way to that high ground.
The rest of the infantry flew down the road to get into position on the occupy objectives.
The AA guns I setup in a deep depression just to the left of the road so they could pop up and engage as needed.
It worked pretty good on the left. The better tanks were hurt pretty bad by the LAVs but they also got some licks in. The T55s were a shit show. It was all I could do to keep them from not *all* ding. Sigh. Alby managed to get past them and on to the high ground on my right so I had to redirect a platoon of T72 to come back and deal with them. I kept them busy with my one remaining AA gun for a while but he didn't last since he was now visible from the hill.
On the objectives I was able to take out a few LAVs with RPGs - and then chew up their passengers. My right side did better and there was never any threat to that objective. On the left they did not do as well and there was a few last minute scares with LAVs and infantry getting close. I think in the end I had one guy left on that objective and I had to KO a LAV with a T72 at close range.
I was too slow, spent far too much time trying to get Javelin and ATGM kills for very little gain. Of the 4 Javelins I fired only 1 hit its target, one near miss caused an immobilisation but apart from that they were big fat duds. Started pushing far too late to do too much and had to rush so ended up taking more casualties than I probably should have. Also the TacAI freaked out and didn't park my LAV on the objective in the last turn liked I asked it to and backed off instead, so I lost points there.
Still, first time using the Marines and learned a lot.
Still, first time using the Marines and learned a lot.
I rushed the touch objectives with mech infantry dismounted and touched both early.
My armor advanced to reverse slope positions and hid, only occasionally popping up if a target appeared.
My mortars tried to keep fire on the allies objectives as much as possible.
Mostly I just tried to stay out of sight with armor.
My armor advanced to reverse slope positions and hid, only occasionally popping up if a target appeared.
My mortars tried to keep fire on the allies objectives as much as possible.
Mostly I just tried to stay out of sight with armor.
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Adding a pause (press p 10 times) to the end of the last movement order helps a lot with this.
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How did that work? Not sarcasm an actual question. I had mine in hull down positions mostly. I would call that as having mixed results