US Army vs Alien Attackers (Secenario)

[Karagin]

Okay, I am giving one of the new scenarios a run. This one was hard fight.

Situation:

US Army has to face off against an unknown enemy. In Europe, in 1946. Okay, but you see, it's not the Russians or any of the other expected bad guys. No, these attackers are from out of this world.

The battle is a tough fight for the US Army. Hard choices need to be made. Do you hold the line and fight? Or do you pull back, give ground, and catch the attacker in close-quarters fighting in the towns?

I went with holding them at the border of what was East Germany. The former Soviet units did well at slowing the attackers for three turns, well, slowing them in that we got to see some of the firepowers unleashed.

Fast-moving helicopters, rockets, and artillery that was pinpointed. Then came the infantry.

The fighting was brutal, and the AI ran a good push. Hit hard to the map's northern edge, probing in with armor and motorized infantry. Helicopter gunships gave excellent close-air support. The line held, but they did break through after a hard push around turn 9. My forces managed to knock out one of their super tanks (M1) when a lone P47 dodged SAMs and AA fire from almost every direction to take it out with a daring strafing run.

Their wheeled APCs were murdering my infantry and could handle the return fire of pretty well what my tanks and halftracks were throwing out. As I was moving up reinforcements, I noted that the enemy had gotten units in my rear areas, so I diverted to deal with that costly move, I had two companies dealing with what turned out to be a small strike team of FOs, snipers, and scouts. Those buggers were a royal pain for my British troops to deal with. Very costly.

By turn 25, the Aliens launched this massive air assault into my rear and ran into my last batch of reinforcements. Brutal fighting happens with a seesaw battle going near my HQ. This was also followed by what turned out to be the major push of the battle as the Aliens sent in everything they had left from this point forward. Every remaining air asset and ground unit hit my lines, which was bad.

The AA guns I had were struggling the whole battle to take down planes and helicopters. I managed to knock out some, but not enough. All of my air units survived. Yes, somehow only lost one of my aircraft, and that was the spotter plane. And the others, all of the P47s and the sole B26, made it through several stories without a single loss.

Overall this scenario was a good test of keeping ones attention on all levels of the battle and knowing when to shift forces around. I can see that going after the strike teams in the rear might not have been the best move, but they were a threat. It might have been better to go have the one in the immediate rear and leave the one up at the very north alone till a bit later.

Also, not much can counter the higher tech of the Aliens (aka USMC), but ganging up on targets and going for flank and rear shots did work for me. 90mm AT guns did immobilize one M1 super tank and took out several APCs. Many of the Alien LAVs died to bazookas at medium and short range. The only things I could not counter was their counterbattery fire, and that opening salvo savaged my onboard artillery assets.

Fun scenario overall.

The overall outcome was a DRAW.

[Suhiir]

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THE FEEDBACK

When making the scenario I intentionally didn't give the "aliens" any Patriot type AA. And it seems the Stingers weren't very effective. It all comes down to the Random Number Generator. And it seems you got lucky!

Was the air assault (i.e. helos) fairly intact by the time it reached your rear areas or did you manage to down/drive off some helos before they unloaded their infantry?

Were you able to counterattack? Or was it simply "defend in place" with a few redeployment's to bolster the defenses vs hard pushes by the AI?

Any suggestions about how to improve the scenario?

[Karagin]

The helicopters were like Valikyies. I could hurt them, but it took a lot to drive them off, and I only destroyed a couple. The air assault was intact, landed, and tore into my truck-borne infantry that I had spread out to avoid being blown up by the jets. The air assault literally landed right next to them. The Osprey were effective at their job.

It was defend in place for the most part with a limited sorta counter attack along the road by the hill and northern town. But that was just to take back the hill and then lose most of the armor to artillery strikes.

Only thing I can suggest is to move the US on board SP Artillery, so it's not wiped out opening turns. That would help.

The AI ran the Apaches and Huey gunships like Floating Gun Platforms. It kept them at range and would protect the mortars it had, and any attacks by my Russians or scouts were met with swarms of choppers to take them out.

One good misdirection thing you did was rename a unit Alien HQ, I was like, YES! I have their HQ unit! And so I went after it. Only to find out at the end of the game, they never moved their HQ unit.

Not real sure how else to change things, the Aliens are powerful in the book, so its a fun scenario and it you play things by using terrain and knowing that even high tech doesn't mean unkillable you can get kills. The AI played smart, and it wasn't a mad rush across the battlefield. I was able to get good hits and take out stuff and got lucky with some hits on the M1s and that seems to cause a pause for a couple of turns which did allow me to get my armor up and have it in position to begin to push back and hold what I had.

[Karagin]

If you do a second follow-up to this, I would be very willing to give it a run-through.

[Suhiir]

Originally Posted by Karagin

If you do a second follow-up to this, I would be very willing to give it a run-through.

I plan to.
I did some tweaking based on your feedback.

The immediate loss of the US on-board artillery is very intentional.
The aliens saw it emplace via UAVs (or whatever) and ... well ... BOOM !!!

Did you not have the forces left after the alien assault lost steam to counterattack?
Or was it a matter of running out of time?

P.S.
Those were Cobras not Apaches ... not as much armor/hit points

[Karagin]

The loses in armor for the US Army, at least for me, had me fighting from the static hold. I had the secondary lines untouched, and the Aliens were running into those beat up and hurting. The Air Assault was a new wrinkle and if the fight had gone longer, it would have been beaten back.

The AI had only taken 2 OBJ Markers. Both on the Russian side of the map, ones they took with their infiltration teams, I took back with a lot of losses but took them back. AI did run a cautious fight in parts but did press when it had broken through part of the northern line. So it wasn't the normal throw everything at one spot.

Those pesky drones...yeah, those things are annoying. One second I am like, why did the mines move, oh wait those are the small drones again...damn it...

I did like the multiple FOs the US Army had, which made calling in the arty fire a lot easier and more realistic since it gave each sector more of the feel of them getting the chance to be in the loop of calling what they were seeing.

Again overall it was a fun scenario. I am going to try it again here soon and see if I can get a different outcome other than a draw. Want to try some different tactics as the US Army, see if that helps.

[Suhiir]

Give me a day and I'll post a new version based on your feedback.
One being making increasing the time limit to give the player the time to counterattack.
And ...
An idea or two I forgot to implement in the previous version.

[Suhiir]

New Version of Scenario 601 "Footfall"

You should now have enough time (i.e. scenario length) for a counterattack. Probably not enough to retake the entire map so choose what portion(s) of the map you want to reclaim.