Campaign Objectives: Winning the War


To win whichever campaign you have chosen it is necessary to capture the objectives. What the objectives are depends on which theater, campaign and even version of Falcon you are playing. In Tiger Spirit for instance, the objectives are different in BMS than in AF. I'll list the objectives as shown for Blue for the KTO campaigns (Korean Theater of Operations) in the BMS 4.33 manual.

Tiger Spirit

RoK/US
wins if Wonsan and P�yongyang, Onch'ang-ni, Hamju, Huich'on, Kaech'on and Taehung are
controlled in less than 5 campaign days.

Or

RoK/US
wins if Wonsan and P�yongyang are controlled in less than 5 campaign days and DPRK
strength is less than 1/10 that of Allies forces

Rolling Fire

RoK/US
wins if Wonsan and P�yongyang are controlled in less than 30 campaign days.

Iron Fortress

RoK/US
wins if Pusan and Seoul are controlled in less than 5 campaign days.


So the bottom line is that everything you do is a means to that end. Destroying aircraft, SAM sites and tank battalions is done to clear the way. Only by getting Blue on the objectives will you gain a victory and get another tick mark in your logbook.

Campaigns can be lost. If gaining promotion is important to you be sure to avoid a loss, because any campaign defeat on your logbook will lock out higher ranks. One loss and you'll never be promoted to Colonel or General for example no matter how well you perform or how many missions and flight hours you accrue.

But honestly, it would be rather difficult to lose a campaign. A stalemate is much more likely.




Promotions and Rank

According to the BMS manual here are the ranks and the requirements for each. Keep in mind that this is also version dependent. The player is commissioned as a Second Lieutenant


1st Lieutenant: 150 points

Captain: 300 points

Major: 800 points and one campaign won

Lt Colonel: 1600 points one campaign won and no campaign losses

Colonel: 3200 points one campaign won and no campaign losses

General: 6400 points

As we talked about earlier in this thread, each mission you fly in the campaign is graded. Factors include but are not limited to: realism percentage, challenge rating, mission difficulty, weapons hit percentage, aircraft destroyed, ground units destroyed, wingman survival and incoming fire evaded. Points are awarded and accrue over time. You'll be promoted when you reach each requirement. No one wants to be a Second Louie forever!



Managing the Ground War

Falcon: Allied Force gave us the ability to control individual ground units and give them destination waypoints. BMS continues this and allows the player to give orders to the ground units. This gives us some control on where they go and what they capture.

To do so, confirm the map display is set to Ground Units>Battalions. Right click on any one and choose Status and uncheck (un-highlight) the Set by HQ box. Now left click on the unit and a waypoint circle should appear. Drag that circle to the desired destination and the unit should head off to capture it. I say 'should' because frankly it's quirky. The unit doesn't always listen and sometimes they decide to go off in a completely different direction than where you ordered.

In my campaigns I like to start moving air defense units north right at the start. The program will not do a good job of having your air defense units keep pace with your advance. Soon your leading elements will have outranged your air defense umbrella. So I like to manually get some Hawks, Patriots and AAA units heading for the front. At the glacial speed that ground units travel in this sim, it's a good idea to get them rolling early. But after a while I will check on them and find they are headed somewhere else entirely. So in practice it isn't entirely reliable. But using this feature can help speed up your advance and allow you to capture more territory more quickly. It's a good idea to return the unit to HQ control when you are done with them. In AF you can choose the setting to have this done automatically, but in BMS you'll need to do so manually.

Another good use of this feature is to get Engineers on a damaged facility or structure such as an airbase or bridge.

Depending on which campaign you have chosen and which difficulty settings, there is a good chance that your ground forces are quite limited. So be careful with using this feature. Don't send them headlong in to a strong enemy position. Use interdictions to clear the road ahead when possible. Failing to open the way could see your advance stall as the leading elements are damaged or destroyed in ground combat.

Online Campaign AARs

Edit 5/20/22

Adding these links for the AAR threads from the SimHQ online campaigns that we flew a few years ago.

These threads are also full of great campaign information. Tactics, strategies, theaters, airbases, weapons, enemy evals, weather, mission types, attack profiles, AARs and lots more is contained therein. So I'm going to add these to this thread. Over time, those threads have fallen far down the pages. But I think they should be included here, expanding the scope of this thread and rescuing them from their fate in obscurity.


SimHQ Rolling Fire Online Campaign

Rolling Fire Take 2

SimHQ Balance of Power Online Campaign (Balkans)

SimHQ KTO Iron Fortress Online Campaign