Practical Exercise - Combat Mission: Black Sea - 01

[@KilroyJTF2]

Hey man, long time CM player here. Loved the AAR. You did great in the game and from what I can see you have understood and applied the rules of small unit infantry assaults. Your use of smoke and cutting off lines of retreat are some nice things that I even forget to consider when playing. All your casualties were caused at the point of contact but fire superiority was always quickly established. It’s just how operations in dense terrain go so I’d say you did a superb job. I very much look forward to seeing your future CM videos.

[@HelixWek]

Thank you! Really really great to get this kind of feedback. CM has a really great community, it seems.

[@AR-GuidesAndMore]

In regards to tutorials Usually Hapless has a great series alllready on basics. On more specific aspects that i didnt find covered there, you can find a growing list of guides on my channel as well. 😇 Edit: Really well done. You certainly nailed it for a first go, extremely well orchestrated.

[@HelixWek]

Thank you!! You and Hapless have both been my go-to tutorials. You guys are the reason I'm even playing this game.

[@AR-GuidesAndMore]

@@HelixWek Your answer just made my day. That is really nice to hear 😇, i hope you will enjoy this game as much as the rest of us.

[@itsMatt_ZA]

Top tier content, hope your channel continues to grow! I've been playing a ton of CMSF2 and am thinking about getting Black Sea or Fortress Italy next.

[@HelixWek]

Thanks! They're both great and it's hard to decide which I'm enjoying more. I can't WAIT to get Normandy, Cold War, and the others. But there's so much content to enjoy!

[@MrJH101]

“No plan survives first contact with the enemy,” but yours went relatively well, all things considered. The way you briefed your plan and discussed shifting fires with each of your phase lines of the operation would have made me believe you had some amount of military training. Your editing and exploration of each moment of the battle was very fun to watch too. MOUT can be very treacherous and losing people are some of the risks you’ll have to accept when committing troops to an urban assault, especially when fighting against peer/near-peer enemies. This is why it’s usually recommended that buildings occupied by enemies be leveled if one neither has to go in them nor preserve the infrastructure. However, you coordinated your troops quite well and did a good job at mitigating most of the risks just to get them over there for the assault. I really hope you continue to make more of these.

[@CODRD]

I recommend splitting the squads more often than not - I'm not an expert by a long shot but I've done away with using the Assault command. Splitting squads into fire teams appears to reduce the moral and surpression of casualties sustained. As well as allowing a greater control of the map, and in turn of the spotting. I noticed during your Fortress Italy AAR, the first platoons casualties probably could have been reduced by spreading out your teams, or at least have 2 squads firing with one in the rear as a reserve, or being used in the assault.

[@HelixWek]

Huge advice. Thank you!!

[@HelixWek]

Just tested this. It adds to the micro but it makes a huuuge difference. I'm going to have to do this all the time now. The downside seems to be that you have more C3 lag between spotting, but it's small. Just takes a little more attention to detail when one fire team spots something and they still have to pass it along to their neighbors quick enough to get volume of fire out. Very easy to lose fire superiority at first engagement when in fire teams, by this game's mechanics.

[@CODRD]

@@HelixWek You can fire the general area until the unit is actually spotted by the other teams, also it will highlight if they can actually see said area. In FI and RT, the Italians (if they allow their squads to be split) and Russians I think suffer a moral penalty if they're split up from their squad and outside the coms of their platoon leader.

[@PitterPatter20]

I have CM: Shock Force 2. The tutorial has the same map as this one. Didn’t realize Black Sea had this level, too. Cool!

[@MattGreenNL]

Awesome video

[@mikevargas809]

great work

[@MERKVA48]

Please upload more please, and consider the WW2 games such as BN or FI :D

[@HelixWek]

I will! And I own FI so I will definitely be uploading that. In the future I'll probably pick up BN, FB, and maybe RT!

[@MERKVA48]

@@HelixWek Cool! For FI, I have completed the Invasion of Gela campaign and GL Foiling Fustian, but there’s many others I’d like to try!

[@brightwizard12]

This was really good, could you post links to a few of the bits and pieces you read about tactics and planning, ect?

[@HelixWek]

I went through this list: armypubs.army.mil/ProductMaps/PubForm/FM.aspx

[@brightwizard12]

@@HelixWek wow thanks!

[@AlgorithmicHearts]

Hi. I really like your videos: Short, audio describing what you are doing... Anyway Hope you try the other Combat missions in the future such as Shock force 2 and Red Thunder

[@HelixWek]

I own them all! I've been super super busy with work, but I look forward to making more videos like this with all the games in the franchise!

[@AlgorithmicHearts]

@@HelixWek Have you played them all? Which one is your favorite?

[@HelixWek]

@@AlgorithmicHearts it's very hard to pick a favorite. It's like Total War: it depends on my mood. Am I in the mood for modern combat? For dense forest battles? For large numbers assaulting? I think Cold War is maybe the only one I'm not super happy with so far because the content is so limited. Very few missions and campaigns, and it FEELS like less unit variety. The rest are so great!

[@PlanofBattle]

Bravo Sir.

[@wojszach4443]

edited aar, commetary? explaination of what happens there? okay im in, waiting for next vid

[@GeneralShiba_]

Game looks pretty interesting man, good stuff 👍

[@jblank4251]

Just purchased, my first combat mission title. I come from rts like wargame or arma. Interested whats in store for me.

[@HelixWek]

That's where I came from too! These games are a great time. Which one did you buy?

[@jblank4251]

@WekBenHelix Black Sea. I asked some vets of the series. An as far as content an era/ grasp, this one seemed like the best decision, at the moment.

[@jblank4251]

Nevermind, current real world politik.

[@jblank4251]

I'm just gonna use this one as my learning of basics, an if i enjoy, I'll purchase the others when on sale.

[@4rnnr_as]

Awesome! More CM:BS please! It's a treat to see a competant and knowledgeable wargamer play this game. What mods are you running? The terrain looks great!

[@HelixWek]

Thanks! I have a Fortress Italy video coming up, but then two Black Sea ones after that. And I'm running the all-in-one mod! I found it on the CM forums.

[@vampyrekat]

One game I want to recommend for your own fun if you're into WW2 (although it contains a few early cold war scenarios) is Graviteam Tactics: Mius Front. it costs quite a bit but you could get it through... other means... It's a great game, extremely realistic though it can take some time to get used to. not to mention it takes a lot of time to play a single battle (can take up to two hours, depends a lot on if you planned your orders since the start and if you fast forward the game).

[@HelixWek]

This is a great recommendation! Once I get more of my fill on the CM series I'll check that out.

[@HelixWek]

How are their other games? I noticed "Tank Warfare: Tunisia 1943" is on sale for $8 right now.

[@vampyrekat]

Same as Graviteam Mius Front but set in africa, other than that you have one older graviteam title of the same style and then 2 tank simulators, the older titles were simply predecessors which lead to the current Graviteam Mius front game.

[@MarvelAzka-t6z]

dayz lore military outbreak

[@kashawashatvop203]

How did you fix the fps problem like I play the game in a modern laptop with a ryzen 5 3300 u and 20 g of ram hyper x

[@HelixWek]

Hey--I play the game with "3D Model Quality" set to "Balanced". On maps with a lot of trees, that jumps my FPS up from 17 fps to 50 fps.

[@kashawashatvop203]

@@HelixWek I will try because went I play just by having a lots of unit in my screen make my fps bad and I love the game is perfect but is the fps thing the problem

[@HelixWek]

@@kashawashatvop203 I hope it works for you!!

[@wojszach4443]

1:28 you mean detailed simulation of aerodynamics of fart of squad leader of 1st squad in 2nd company and how it affects tank commander nearby? on serious note, me thinks that optimalization is due to how detailed it is and how much it simulates 2:24 and whats even more weird is that it did almost 1:1 ambush near brovary from battle of kiev in one of campaigns from black sea, seriously, same place same objective normal games: shoot to kill more "special games": shoot to not get killed

[@Rafael11piraju]

I really want to buy this game, but here in Brazil it's a little expensive.

[@HelixWek]

It's definitely expensive for its age here too. I recommend waiting for a big sale.

[@W0DAN88]

If there is no town you dont need to clear the town.

[@benblogsandgaming8933]

Yo dude how are you doing these days :)

[@HelixWek]

I'm doing well! Stressful new job but not *too* stressful, and it's interesting work. Still got time for gaming though :) How about you??

[@benblogsandgaming8933]

@@HelixWek hey man yeah I’m doing good thanks learning to drive and everything haha, I wish you luck with your new job and everything glad to see you still have time to game have you played helldivers 2 at all ?

[@HelixWek]

@@benblogsandgaming8933 Yes! Helldivers has been awesome. I like to fly with the MG and jetpack with a 500kgb bomb lol. My friends and I have so much fun in co-op. I wasn't recording but a few weeks ago before they patched it we had to fight 5 bile titans at the same time on difficulty 6. Woof.

[@benblogsandgaming8933]

@@HelixWek holy crap 5 bile titans oh my god I would have been like it’s soo over boys 😂😂😂

[@ThereIsNoThem]

Great video