Nope.
If you play to the israeli strengths, and try a heavy armour based force, you will likely die.
So avoid that, take a
leg infantry-based force with arty support, a few shoulder mounted SAM to annoy helos, and a few of those Toophan-2 TOW missiles (multi charge warhead, decent chance vs APC and side shots on heavies). Any SAM intended to covert the arty park in the rear - a few ammo units would be useful for. use ammo bunkers near a few on-map arty units perhaps (but these are a bit expensive). maybe buy some sa-10 favourites (3-4), if he has planes these may take his attention away for a few moves while he deals with them
.
for each elite inf co or regular inf co, probably best to take a coy of militia/conscript stuff. Advance those 10-12 hexes ahead of the good troops to use up ammo (especially his arty ammo) , act as "minesweepers" etc.
Avoid vehicles - his army strength is in vehicle killing. (maybe a few tin cans, or a fast cheap-model APC coy) to charge in the end game, held hidden behind hills in the early game).
Buy first (be player 1). Do not spend too many points, as the Israeli wants to buy loads of
expensive kit, which you then can only match by buying high-ticket MBT etc. Don't play his game!.
you can buy 2 G5 off-map platoons for the price of 1 merkava. (Base mobhack values non adjusted for experience). let each israeli merkava have its own
personal G5 platoon follow it round the battlefield
buy 3 or 4 forward observers, so you have a reasonable chance of observed fires, spread over your front.
As you will be player 1 - make sure the battlefield favours you. Look for one with hills and ridges, as he plays best on a tennis-court type battlefield. You want broken, for closer range engagements and to reduce his TI sight advantage, and you will love cities & towns
. Keep spinning the map till you like it, or edit it a bit, or load a custom map, and look at the v-hex placement too.
all the above, any veteran of the Iran-Iraq war would probably recognise!. (The iraqui T72 of that period is just as nasty as the merkava vs contemporary Iranian tanks).
If you really
must try to play his style of battle, with tanks and stuff, again - make sure you are player 1 and shape the battlefield your way. But use some of your strengths - buy quite a few leg rifle coys and a lot of G5 platoons. use the leg grunts to go forward and trip over things, your arty to annoy him, and the broken terrain to hide behind. Cover the battlefield in shoulder fired SAm and buy some toophan-2 teams as well. Play cautiously with your MBT, try for short range fights from the flanks, and try to let him come to you rather than making offensive moves in the open. That is why you need the broken terrain - you really need to get ambushes. You will lose tank duels. If he hunkers down waiting in ambush for you behind a ridge or village say, range in the arty on his area and send the grunts in
. Buy loads amd loads of RPG teams, and dot over the battlefield to spot any such ambushes, and they may get lucky with a side shot as well.
Cheers
Andy
Israel attacking Iran next October
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