Really, no surprise here: the Bradley is a beast.

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Platoon Patrol 11

Welcome back to Combat Mission Shock Force 2 for the 11th instalment of the Platoon Patrol. This time we’re taking American mechanised, or heavy infantry, out in their Bradleys. I haven’t done an accompanying quick unit guide for this particular platoon because I’ve already got an in-depth guide to the Bradley- which I will link down below- and the dismounts are almost exactly the same as they are for the Stryker platoon. The Mech Infantry just lose the weapons squad with its M240s and pick up a forward observer team.

Functionally speaking, this is another platoon with a significant amount of firepower mounted on its vehicles, so I’m expecting the Bradleys to be doing most of the work in this run. As usual for the Platoon Patrol, they’ve got the best upgrade available, so these are fitted with explosive reactive armour.

As usual, our platoon is here to find and destroy a reinforced squad of US Marines playing Opfor somewhere on our map. I have tweaked things slightly this time: despite the randomisation in Marine deployment, they’ve ended up in the Delta objective 6 out of 10 times so far. That’s getting a little boring, so I’ve edited the scenario to minimise the chances of Delta being chosen.

For our Bradley platoon deployment I rolled up a five, which means they’re starting off right next to Delta on the northern map edge. I guess there’s just no escaping it.

Kick Off

At least I know it’s not occupied. Charlie is the closest potential objective, so I send the Bradleys off the causeway to the left and detach 3rd Squad to get into the water tower where they should have a good view.

I’ve brought their Bradley up across the low orchard, keeping the bulk of the water tower between it and the Charlie buildings in case they’re occupied. They’re not that far away, only about 230 metres: easily within SMAW range.

Leaving 3a in the irrigation ditch, I order 3b into the water tower. They start taking some fire as soon as they come into view of Charlie and within 30 seconds, I’ve got a spread of confirmed contacts.

3b is getting engaged by the two Marine SMAW teams, on top of C1 and C3, and Bradley D has spotted a Marine rifleman in the ditch downstream of the footbridge.

This is a really strong start. I always want to approach this methodically, taking out enemy antitank teams before closing in to mop up. Getting positions for the SMAWs so early is going to streamline things immensely.

Better, Bradleys A,B and C are all in position to engage. I’ve got a firepower advantage and a nice open field of fire over the two most threatening enemy units… the obvious next step is to smother them in fire.

The Firefight

Bradley C has already spotted and engaged the SMAW team on the C3 roof and on the next turn the outgoing burst takes them out. Bradleys A and B fire TOW missiles into C1 and collapse the roof… and just like that the fire from the SMAW teams stops.

On the next turn, I put some more fire into the bottom floor of C1 in case the SMAW team from the roof has gone downstairs, but there’s no sign they’ve survived.

3rd Squad’s B team, meanwhile, has climbed to the top floor of the water tower. This has a few windows and seems less dangerous than hanging around on the roof. It’s an obvious position, but that doesn’t make it any less effective as an observation post.

They soon get eyes on the enemy infantry team in the ditch on the left, start taking potshots and get engaged by new contacts. There are more Marines in the woods across the highway and in the ditch near the road bridge.

They’re not bad shots, getting a couple of 40mm grenades close to the water tower windows, so I order 3B to duck down to the floor below. They’ve given me a good idea of the Marine’s setup, they don’t need to hang around getting shot at.

What immediately strikes me about the enemy here is that all three contacts are in linear terrain features: the Charlie ditch, the Highway ditch and then the woods running along the highway. Not only does that make them susceptible to enfilade fire, but if I approach from the right flank the ditches will prevent them from being able to mutually support. I’ll be able to mop them up one at a time.

So while Bradley D at the water tower puts some fire on the Marines in the Charlie ditch, the rest of the platoon leaves their impromptu support by fire position, ploughs through the orchard and transits across the face of Delta to get on Charlie’s flank.

Flanking Right

I was planning to push the dismounts forward as a screen, drawing fire and then using the Bradleys to shred targets with their 25mm cannons as they revealed themselves.

In practice, the Bradleys don’t need much help. Even as I’m dismounting 2nd Squad and sending them up to man the wall at the base of Charlie, Bradley A spots and engages the Marines near the highway.

Suddenly, I’m a lot less concerned about keeping my dismounts in between the enemy and the Bradleys, and a lot more concerned about keeping them out of the Bradley’s field of fire.

Frankly, from here on out there’s not much to say here. I don’t even have to concentrate on one Marine team at a time, I just manoeuvre the Bradleys around to get line of fire and then blast them. The only things that’s slowing me down is my reluctance to close in too quickly. The Bradleys might be covered in explosive reactive armour, but there’s no sense rushing to test it.

2nd Squad moves up through the Charlie fields supported by Bradley A, while Bradley B takes up a position looking down the highway ditch and shoots up the Marine position at the other end. 1st Squad has gone further right, crossing the ditch and the highway to come up on the Marines in the woods. Bradley B follows them up, but by the time they get into position Bradley A has already wiped the enemy out.

2nd Squad occupies the Charlie buildings with no problems- though I couldn’t resist putting another TOW into C1, which knocks it down. They confirm the SMAW teams are dead.

3rd doesn’t have much to do at this point, so I remount them in Bradley D, shift them left to the Charlie ditch and start carefully advancing on that axis as well.

It’s all over well before they get close to the Marine team in there. With the highway contact confirmed out of action, I’m able to bring Bradley B up on line with 1st Squad, which reveals the Marine HQ near the ditch junction.

Some 25mm cannon fire and they’re out of action, followed by some more when Bradley B spots the last Marine in the Charlie ditch.

The only thing left to do is check that the highway ditch contact has also been neutralised. That takes a few turns, but 1st Squad traipse onto their position to confirm with no problems.

And just like that, it’s all over.

Endex

The US Mech have taken the objective and neutralised all the Marines in 19 minutes for no loss. That’s a perfect run, the maximum possible score, and they zoom straight to the top of the leaderboard, displacing the Dutch in CV90s who’s only mistake was to forget to button up once they got into contact.

As always, this scoring is pretty arbitrary and questionably useful: the real meat here is in how the platoon got the job done. And, to be honest, it’s hard to not see this as a kind of best-case run.

The Approach

Approaching Charlie from this direction seems like the best case scenario for an IFV-based platoon. I had a great big field of fire across the open ground, the Marine SMAW teams only had four rooftops to set up on and I could cover them all pretty easily.

Sure, the enemy were just about inside 400m and that put all the Bradleys inside SMAW range, but at the same time I was confident duking it out thanks to Bradley’s sensors, firepower and ERA. A burst of 25mm cannon and 3 TOW hits later and… problem solved. From then on it was an exercise in mopping up.

Coming in from the other side, like the poor Syrian Mech in BMP-1Ps did, Charlie is a very different prospect. I still think the Bradleys would have done well, but there’s a lot more dense terrain and awkward fields of fire to work with over there.

The Water Tower

The US Mech was also able to take advantage of the water tower, which is something I haven’t done yet. There are pros and cons to using the most obvious observation position you can find, the usual pro being a great view of the surrounding area and the corresponding con being that the surrounding area has a great view of you.

Of course, that downside works both ways to some extent and 3B were relatively safe on the top floor given the range and single window per side, so they could draw fire and uncover the Marine’s positions without too much risk. As per usual, figuring out where the enemy are is the hardest part. Like we saw here, everything from there onwards is an exercise in applying firepower.

The Bradleys

And the Bradleys were really good at that. The 40mm cannon on the CV90s is much more impressive, especially with those airbursting KETF rounds, but the 25mm Bushmaster gets the job done and has stacks of ammo to boot. It may have gotten a boost to its effectiveness here because the Marines were hanging around in woodland and the 25mm shells could detonate on the trees, but the rate of fire is on point and the sensors are excellent.

If anything, those sensors are the critical element. Having both gunner and commander with independent thermal imagers is an incredible capability. Aside from getting a rough impression of enemy positions from the water tower, I didn’t really have to do much more than get the Bradleys into positions where they could engage.

If they had any issues, they were maybe a little over-eager to use their TOWs, but at the same time they were targeting a building- and they did mess it up, so that’s not an unreasonable decision.

Conclusion

Overall, I’m kind of struggling to find much to say. The US Mechanised in Bradleys just steamrolled the Marines here. Yes, I think they probably got a good setup that gave them an easier approach than some, but at the same time the Bradleys have so much going for them.

I would go so far as saying they are one of the best vehicles modelled in CM, never mind the best IFV. I am not remotely surprised that they ended up at the top of the leaderboard.

With them out of the way though, we’re back round to Group 5 for the next run. That’s a choice between Syrian Republican Guard in BMP-2s, British Mechanised Infantry in FV432 Bulldogs and the continually neglected Canadian mechanised in LAV IIIs. All good choices, I’ll link the poll when that goes live.

But for now, hope you enjoyed watching the Bradleys walk over everything. Hopefully something will go wrong in the next one and there’ll be more to talk about. If you’d like to see these videos early and support the channel, you can do so via Patreon and Youtube memberships. Whether you do or not, thanks for watching and I’ll catch you in the next one.