exsonic01
Posts: 1131
Joined: 7/26/2016 From: Somewhere deep in appalachian valley in PA Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: HobG I find the standard methodical leapfrogging plan with smoke works nicely if your enemy is willing to be completely passive. - scout carefully to locate the center of gravity of enemy defenses - smoke them up - drive lots of stand-off units into good firing positions. Especially TOW missiles work wonders because it's pretty hard to counter massed ATGM with Soviet tanks at ranges over 2,5 kilometers. M901, TOW infantry teams, what have you. - wait for smoke to dissipate a little and fight it out. - once enemy vacates, relocate your ATGM teams but keep them covering the piece of terrain you want (most likely a hill). - drive up with scouts, armor and infantry squads - take up positions to cover the AT teams as they pack up and come closer - rinse and repeat When moving closer to enemy positions, use the 2 to 1 rule: 2 units move up, 1 unit covers. If you leave only ATGM launchers covering the advance, enemy can use their own infantry teams to hit you. When you move ATGM units in the second leap, leave a few of them covering the advance of your main body. It's important to pack enough ranged punch to discourage enemy armor from coming back into firing positions. Use smoke to cover your stand-off units moving into position. You'll inevitably take some casualties in the ensuing fight, but the enemy will suffer more. When you commit to the approach you ideally don't want smoke because that hinders your ability to maintain fire superiority at range. If you're fighting a clever opponent, he will scout you, drop lots of indirect fire on your stand-off forces (including lots of smoke!) and attempt to move into position when you're in approach. You'll have to play this by ear but one plan is to smoke up, drive up at full speed and play the numbers game. At ranges less than one kilometer whoever has more guns will almost certainly win. Forces deployed behind military crest are another problem, but at least you can come at them from several angles pretty easily. Note that stand-off forces are very weak against infantry. Be prepared to switch up your plan if enemy defenses include a lot of infantry, especially missile teams. HE from indirect (especially mortars) and your 105mm guns should do the trick until your infantry closes up to deal with them. You have an advantage in stabilization and electronics, accurate fire control on the move is much less of a problem for you so you don't necessarily need to stop. Suppression is enough, destruction comes later. My method is kinda similar with you, but that also have some limitations. At least in meeting engagement, AI charges to you as well, so you can use this factor to set up "leapfrog" lines based on your comment, some sort of "offensive defense" or "offensive ambush" or "ambush in deep position" Smoke the field => Push the mech infantry (company size) using "Tin can" to the position I want => mix them with 106mm RR jeep and M901 TOW (but I prefer to place TOW far behind the front line), maybe a section of M60 tanks => Ambush Soviet tanks when they approach to the killzone I set => call airstrikes and DPICM and HE => push to next line. As you see, my main damage factor is artillery and air, not the infantry. The role mech infantry is to force Soviets to stop and engage against my forces where I want, so that I can call DPICM and air on top of their head. This is by far the most effective method I used. But sometimes this requires some heavy casualty, especially when they have too many tanks or they bring artillery too. AI in this game also do fire support nicely. If you pack too many boys in small town or narrow woods, then you will see HE bombing or HE shelling. Soviet artillery in this game have some limitation (too long delay time out of TRP), but once in the TRP, it is quick. So in narrow map, you need to be careful against Soviet arty because their TRP covers more ground. I'm surprised that sometimes 106mm RR hit a home run, at least suppress or damage them in really close range. But 106mm RR has clear limitation, it cannot stands that long. But still, blowing T-80B with 106mm RR is an amazing achievement, though it is rare event. Real problem is offensive against dug-in fortified Soviet defense, reinforced with T-64B and T-80B and field AA and SPAAGs. If AI set up good recon, they will bring HE and DPICM on top of my boys, whenever I try to attempt to push via "offensive defense" method. Because it is offense for me and defense for AI, they don't push to my forces, so I need to approach them. It is hard to set up such "offensive ambush" in such situation. Depending on the map, if they have eye on my LoD or AoA or firebase position, then my options are gone. The only answer is smoke, a lot of smoke, but you don't have limitless smoke, and this game's US artillery is expensive in point. So... more and more I think that M60A3 and A1 is not a proper tank to use against T-64Bs and T-80Bs in wide open field, in typical all-out tank war, especially during offense or charge. Rather, I think it would be better to fight against infantry and mech infantry using M60 tanks, with my infantry. This makes everything so difficult for 1980 US army in this game and other games like SB Pro. It is similar with what I felt during SB pro. With M60 tanks around late 70s, game kinda become "fight enemy armor with mech infantry, while fight enemy infantry with tanks", sort of mismatch game. Another point is, this game's TOW infantry or any ATGM infantry team have no vehicles. Devs mentioned that this is due to AI-player balance, saying the current AI cannot use ATGM with vehicles. Because of this, Tow team is only useful during defense, not in offense.
< Message edited by exsonic01 -- 12/3/2018 8:33:28 PM >
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