[Captain Napalm]

I love these game so much... There are so many anecdotes but of thousands of hours of entertainment still only a few stand out after all years.

Well first one must say that under the category bad luck is the countless numbers of frustrations and aggression against the earlier games when you try to keep your units in cover and your unit take a shortcut through the open. No matter of low hit percentage the drivers fault is almost always rewarded with a burning vehicle.

My maps was always marked by burning vehicles whose drivers thought that shortcuts were good. I mean yes, I try to micro-management through dangerous areas but after hours of gaming it will happen when I least expect it would.

Frustration is when "stupidity deaths" drains my forces. Maybe 70% of losses is due to a mistake.

Bad Luck: USMC vs China late 90's.
I am steam-rolling the enemy and slaughter for points as there is only a few turns left, and all victory locations is under my possession. Enemy squads are running and I pursue them with two Abrams. I go up a slope to a clean, large hill with only one dot of trees and suddenly my M1 stops and pour smoke K.I.A. First major loss. I sneak up with the second to try to find out where and what the fire came from. It too explodes after being hit. WHAT!!!
AS my infantry is tied down with dirty business I loosen up a platoon of 4 Amtracs and two other Abrams to Combat Assault the hill. One Amtrac as soon as it gets close to the others also burns with crew escaping. W*F! Im loosing points fast and I don't know to what.

I scan the area. No trace of incoming enemy fire, no mines, no nothing except the HUMPF! of my vehicle detonating. I spray the open surrounding (500m to nearest tree line)and inch an Abram and Amtrac forward. Suddenly: Surprise!! the Amtrac goes up. My Abrams reacts and shoots back somewhere close by but gets it. The crew bails out and now through the smoke I realize that on this hill with its flat surface, there is a small one level depression. In this depressions there is one piece of heavy wood and inside this is; one routed squad of Chinese infantrymen covered in smoke with RPGs. Problem is that as it is a depression I cant get LOS until I'm at the edge so I cant suppress them (the trees almost covered the hole fooling me thinking ground was level). And as such I cant assault them either as the result is now predictable. I cant call down arty as it takes to long time and lacks precision. But wait, maybe they are getting tired and suppressed? So if I continue to assault them they want have any actions left and break?

Wrong.

Several Amtracs and 4 Abrams later I realize that in my fury and frustration I carried out a standard "AI" attack resulting me re-loading the game bitterly loosing 25 turns of success.

LUCK: Korean Campaign SP2

There is heavy fighting going on at the front. I loose one of my most experienced tanks but crew survives and pulls back. To rescue them I go up with a Jeep and get them, turn around and speed back over some kilometer of open field to safety closely followed by MG fire. Then there is a new turn and all hell breaks loose.

From the air three MiG-15 comes diving down one after the other. Of course they ignore all targets like tanks and infantry at the front and goes after my jeep driving in full speed. For two turns they produce a long 800m trail of smoke and debris as they shoot it up with rockets and gunfire.

I couldn't do any thing accept continue driving at in a strait angle watching the planes roll in and shoot. Amazingly the jeep survived without a scratch. It was pure Holly Wood. I later realized that after the first run the rest of the Migs where following the same race pattern and actually fired blind trough the line of smoke.

Korea II:

It was a quiet drive to the front line as the army advanced towards their objectives and then on turn 4 the N.Korean struck, absolutely pumping in airplanes and Migs, Il's and Yak's descended on my assault line. I had three M16 AA halftracks who criss crossed the map with tracers and burning planes where falling everywhere. I have been playing this game a lot in all periods but I have never downed eight aircrafts in one turn. It was ludicrous, planes spinning to the left and right and the M16s quad 50's just worked over time.

/ Stefan