Opportunity Knocks - Canadian Campaign Grognard Decisive Victory (Blind Run)
Posted: Fri Jun 28, 2024 9:22 am
Phew, this was interesting, certainly a bit asymmetrical. I didn't do an AAR for every mission in the campaign as it really was a pretty quick one and playing the Canadians is not very fun for me. I am happy that I was able to have a near perfect run going in blind and not having to restart a single part of the campaign. It feels like a lot of my previous playing has taught some precious lessons especially about facing off against larger and more powerful opponents.
The few things I noted during this campaign was that the Canadians truly possess nothing (at least in this instance) of significant strength. The Tanks are abysmal and will almost always fold unless they're ambushing the enemy at medium range in great cover, infantry can hold up for about 5 minutes or less then all AT is expended then they're little more than speed bumps and the ATGMs on both the M150 and ADATs are nothing to write home about. Artillery is the one and only thing the Canadians have that makes any impact on the battlefield. That is the only way I can end up with butchers bills like this:
I also feel like the only reason the Campaign even works at all is because of the doctrinal hesitancy of the Soviet Formations this time around. They will reposition and regroup after taking hits rather than push on and I dont think I have seen that before for WP units. The Canadian forces are so few and lines so thin that if this doctrine element was changed I feel like almost all the missions would be next to impossible. But I suppose this doctrine choice was meant to reflect the lower morale and training of these second echelon units the Canadians are fighting? Who knows. This is what the final battlefield looked like. The Russian force was much stronger than I was expecting, top of the line T-80s and yet they crumpled and fell into confusion when they could have easily overran the Canadians if they just kept going rather than constantly stopping any time they took a loss:
The few things I noted during this campaign was that the Canadians truly possess nothing (at least in this instance) of significant strength. The Tanks are abysmal and will almost always fold unless they're ambushing the enemy at medium range in great cover, infantry can hold up for about 5 minutes or less then all AT is expended then they're little more than speed bumps and the ATGMs on both the M150 and ADATs are nothing to write home about. Artillery is the one and only thing the Canadians have that makes any impact on the battlefield. That is the only way I can end up with butchers bills like this:
I also feel like the only reason the Campaign even works at all is because of the doctrinal hesitancy of the Soviet Formations this time around. They will reposition and regroup after taking hits rather than push on and I dont think I have seen that before for WP units. The Canadian forces are so few and lines so thin that if this doctrine element was changed I feel like almost all the missions would be next to impossible. But I suppose this doctrine choice was meant to reflect the lower morale and training of these second echelon units the Canadians are fighting? Who knows. This is what the final battlefield looked like. The Russian force was much stronger than I was expecting, top of the line T-80s and yet they crumpled and fell into confusion when they could have easily overran the Canadians if they just kept going rather than constantly stopping any time they took a loss: