A question re: Long long road to victory

[Einar Fridgeirs]

OK, I´m a little stumpen in regards to the third scenario in the campaign. I´m supposed to punch through town to support paratroopers that have landed beyond this little town in Sicily, and I have 800 support points. On the list of possible purchases I now have airborne troops: Am I supposed to buy the troops I´m trying to rescue myself? Or are they provided by the scenario? And on the deployment menu all the victory hexes are very, very close to my "frontline", so I´m just a little bit curious about how to go about this whole thing.

Some clarification on exactly how to proceed would be nice.

[FlashfyreSP]

No, you don't have to buy the 'victims' yourself; support points are for buying 'support' units for your core force, like OBA and extra infantry or tanks. The paratroopers are already on the map as AUX units.

As for how to manage the attack? It's been a while since I played that one, so I don't recall the situation exactly. My guess would be to check the positions of the paras at Turn 1 and determine the best appraoch path to reach them without getting bogged down in a firefight with the defenders.

[Goblin]

If this is the one where the Paras actually drop into combat, replot them. They come down into a murderous fire zone. I replot for the town itself, say around turn 2 or 3, and bombard the town for the turns until they drop. The Italians route fairly easily. Its not the Italians you have to worry about though. Buy a few ATG's or Tank Destroyers, and be prepared for the Germans...


Goblin

[PimpYourAFV]

I'm just starting into this campaign myself after briefly trying the Utah to Rhine one and liking it very much I switched to this longer version. What a fantastic design! I love these battles cause there are a nice medium size and the enemy puts up a nasty fight with lots of variety. Hurrah for Wild Bill! [:D]

[Puukkoo]

*** SPOILER ***

I played this some days ago right from the start and I got DV in the notorious first mission. Lost only one jeep and some two infantrymen to the Do-217's when I knew to expect them.

The campaign indeed skips some missions if you play it well. This makes upgrading of your troops difficult as you can buy only few Shermans and the M10 platoon seems to work fine because of their excellent 3inch cannon. There is a M10 leader in my force that has destoyed three Tigers and several other vehicles. I noticed that even Stuarts can wreak havoc if used well, with a good occasion they can destroy Pz-IV's and StuG-III's.

[Einar Fridgeirs]

Yeah I really should have invested in Wolverines for my core force....

I´m missing them right now.

[FlashfyreSP]

There is a 'revised' version of this campaign available at the Depot, which changes the uber-aircraft to ones somewhat less destructive. Get the 'fixes' here: http://spwaw.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7911

[azraelck]

But then where would the challenge be?[:D]

[Puukkoo]

Yeah, we're not pussies!

[FlashfyreSP]

Oh, the challenge is still there...but the unrealistic bomb load isn't. Besides, the DO-217 was a high-level bomber, not a close-support aircraft, and would likely not be flying an attack mission against a small American assault on a Vichy French airfield. [8|]

[Puukkoo]

I've seen worse!


(I think I deserve the [:-])

[FlashfyreSP]

To each his own...I 'fixed' the first battle in LLRV and PTW because a number of people were dissatisfied with the lethality of these aircraft in the opening scenario. No requirement for anyone to use them, although many have downloaded the patches. If you prefer to play a battle, suffer losses, then restart with a force specifically designed to counter that threat, that's your choice.

Me, I'd prefer a scenario that is balanced to be fair to a wide variety of force compositions, not just an AAA-heavy force that becomes a liability later on.

[Einar Fridgeirs]

Seems like I got off easy. As you can read in my DAR, the aircrafts only took out one unit along with their halftrack. They actually bombed the hex my second-in-command was in(Cpt. Owens), but didn´t manage to kill a single trooper.

After that they made a couple of runs-right at the area my few AA guns were concentrated in. Got driven off after taking out one 37mm AT gun. Overall, acceptable losses.

[PimpYourAFV]

I reckon just grunt and take your losses like a man. So what if people get killed? Its war and that's half the fun... the other half being when the enemy finally gets smacked down.

In my assault on Vichy in the long long campaign, the German bombers dropped their packages perfectly in the middle of my massed troops who were humping towards the airfield and I got the soft/hard arty damage set to 140 each so my units were evaporating in scores. It was cool to see. My only mechanized force was my engineer platoon with 2 AT guns and a HQ squad which were almost completely wiped out in the bombing. For support, I had hired a big herd of US cavalry and another herd of rifle platoons who were put on AI control with waypoints which sent them directly into the teeth of the enemy tank counter in the east and the slaughter was rather sick. When the cavalry finished their eastern ride, they wheeled southwest and ran pellmell around the airport (according to their preplanned waypoints [:o]) and there was never a turn when cavalry weren't running hither and dither while being blended up by machineguns and cannon. The enemy took some good licks too. Great fun! I love mayhem!! [:D][:'(]

[PimpYourAFV]

Oh ya, to add to my story, during the futile battle between the US cavalry and enemy tanks, my ranger platoon infiltrated perfectly into among the VF legionnaires and Panzer IIIs and were massacred in a most brutal manner, but not before taking down one of the panzers. I decided to put my foot down and sent up a couple of 90mm AA guns by truck. After having several trucks shot out from under them, one finally made it to the slaughter zone just in time to for the AA crew to be machinegunned to death before the gun could get a shot off. The second one made it most of the way there before all my trucks were blown up and it managed to take out 3 Soma tanks.

[Puukkoo]

ORIGINAL: TokyoBoyTensai

Oh ya, to add to my story, during the futile battle between the US cavalry and enemy tanks, my ranger platoon infiltrated perfectly into among the VF legionnaires and Panzer IIIs and were massacred in a most brutal manner, but not before taking down one of the panzers. I decided to put my foot down and sent up a couple of 90mm AA guns by truck. After having several trucks shot out from under them, one finally made it to the slaughter zone just in time to for the AA crew to be machinegunned to death before the gun could get a shot off. The second one made it most of the way there before all my trucks were blown up and it managed to take out 3 Soma tanks.

This guy knows how to enjoy the game. [:D]For me each scenario is sheer horror. I take pain for each man lost. If you want to beat me there is perhaps the way how to do it.

[IBTyrone]

ORIGINAL: TokyoBoyTensai

Oh ya, to add to my story, during the futile battle between the US cavalry and enemy tanks, my ranger platoon infiltrated perfectly into among the VF legionnaires and Panzer IIIs and were massacred in a most brutal manner, but not before taking down one of the panzers. I decided to put my foot down and sent up a couple of 90mm AA guns by truck. After having several trucks shot out from under them, one finally made it to the slaughter zone just in time to for the AA crew to be machinegunned to death before the gun could get a shot off. The second one made it most of the way there before all my trucks were blown up and it managed to take out 3 Soma tanks.

Sheesh, TokyoBoy! Did *any* of your core make it through the battle?[&:] It sounds like you got slaughtered!

And you are playing with C&C on? You *are* a glutton for punishment!

[JEB Davis]

I say, old boy... glad I'm not under your command.

[PimpYourAFV]

ORIGINAL: IBTyrone

Sheesh, TokyoBoy! Did *any* of your core make it through the battle?[&:] It sounds like you got slaughtered!

And you are playing with C&C on? You *are* a glutton for punishment!

No C&C. I fight hard just many bad things happen to my troops. That is usually how my battles go with only a few blackened survivors hobbling around the carnage using a rifle as a crutch with many a tournique and bandaid applied upon which. In short, the bombing so crippled my core forces that American hopes for the battle depended upon the cavalry and their accompanying riflemen because they went east at the start of the battle and luckily dodged the bombing. What came next was not so lucky though.

At the end of the slaughter from my core I still had one Stuart tank which I forgot to move since the start of the battle, one immobilized M16 AA truck hit by the bombers, a shot-up HQ squad, one nearly dead infantry squad being worked on by the evil ammo dumps, the 90mm gun mentioned earlier with 4 tank kills total, and a heroic engineer squad still with 8 members left alive who had taken out 2 log bunkers, a gun encasement and 2 VF legionnaire squads while using the only mech truck which survived the bombing as transport (yes the mech was later destroyed in the fighting). That engineer squad also spotted plenty of mines which my cavalry went to work removing by trotting back and forth over them. [;)]

Then came another battle, another glorious cavalry charge into the teeth of the enemy and... you know the rest. [:)]

[sabrejack]

ORIGINAL: JEB Davis

I say, old boy... glad I'm not under your command.

TokyoBoy - I think I'm with JEB...

[:D]