JulianJ

And finally, a tender has gone out for 864 virgins, by my count

I found some screenshots of this battle The beginning, note my strategic lack of plan. At the end of the battle, a BMP pulls survivors from Strongpoint 1 out, covered by the sappers and a tank. The last unit from Strongpoint 2 to pull out - there's a tank shield and behind them, their transport.

Here's the static tank, direct 155 mm penetrating hit, which must have done damage but it was still functioning. It was also hit by a 66mm to the back of the turret. Finally a Challenger got a keyhole position and did it in. As you can see it was subject to an intense artillery barrage which did not appear to do anything.

My Biggest gripe is artillery being unable to take out armoured vehicles even direct hits, and near misses seem to do no damage, even though we had a long thread based on the Swedish tests in the 1960s which showed that near-misses did do serious damage to tanks and other armoured vehicles. FYI most recently I had a T55 static tank which was directly hit by 2 x 155mm rounds and was not destroyed. In a previous game a Bradley had a 122mm offmap round explode underneath it...I can only imagine it penetrated the entire vehicle. Did no damage I could perceive - it was still fighting. I've also dropped massive barrages on vehicles and the crews don't abandon them - I would have thought that nobody would stick around in a tank, particularly an immobile one under those circumstances. I agree about the lack of MG rounds for Syrians, but it seems that will be addressed. It is wrong on realism grounds, and wrong on gaming ones, that is, if your force has inferior armour, you should be able to use artillery to rebalance the game by taking out enemy vehicles, but you can't. Blast command: I've found that you can rehighlight the command that has gone wrong, and press Blast again and it works properly. It's a niggle, but not much more than that.

Never gets properly dark when you have a burning wicker man to light up those northern nights. Happy Solstice!

You ought to. There ought to be a house rule that you can't pontificate about a game at inordinate length unless you've actually played it. If you look in the licence agreement you get full pontificating, moaning, rabbiting on inconsequentially and arguing rights from Battlefront right away.

Having seen the first video, I am moved to write to the British MOD: Dear Sirs, Please find enclosed my design for uparmouring Challengers and Warriors with copier paper. This would be a cost-effective measure in times of budgetary cutbacks. You're welcome! Please put my OBE in the post, yours faithfully, JulianJ.

Have you seen the film "Indigenes" referenced in the pic above? It was called something like Men of Glory in the UK. It's about French African troops fighting in WW2. IIRC they start in Sicily and Italy and then end up in the Battle of the Bulge - some winter campaign in France anyway. It's quite good and gives a different perspective. Good on MJ for doing a reskin....er that doesn't sound quite PC but you know what I mean.

I'd had this down on my (mental) list so thanks Erwin for reminding me. It was called Kajaki in the UK (after the dam). I found it curiously unsatisfactory. The dialogue seemed muffled. It was unusual to see a war film where there are no enemies, just a desperate struggle to save comrades' lives. I felt this ought to sum up the futility of war but it somehow didn't bring me in, and it sort-of fizzled out at the end.

@George MC Re spoiler - that's clever! However I think the enemy forces were unable to carry out the plan, owing to being rather dead. I imagine the ISIS commander chopped a subordinate's head off for that. On the time factor, I think it's good that there is plenty of time to approach it in a way that is satisfactory for the player. I often find scenarios** are too short and at the end I make mistakes by rushing, which is annoying for me, and not great design. I don't understand why quicker players don't just win and declare victory with time on the clock? Surely that shows superior skill? **QBs default is 45 mins I think, I normally extend that to 1 hr 15, it's just too short - I know they are not 'designed' in a way scenarios are, but it takes my enjoyment away slightly if I realise I am unlikely to complete the mission and I wonder whether it is worth continuing to play. Because I had plenty of time in this scenario, I was able to decide on a retreat plan, and carry it out effectively. For example I assembled the remnants of S1 behind the tall building in the centre (water tower?), and hid them there until I had them covered and had retrieved a router and got him there too. Then I could send 1 BMP to get them all, with overwatch. The escape from S2 was more haphazard and took some fire, but it was in two phases, with the two squads with a few rounds of ammo left covering the rest. That was a very satisfactory end to the game, because I was doing something that you don't generally get in CM, but you do in real military situations - a retreat - and doing it well. Didn't lose a man or a vehicle once the troops reached their exfil positions.

I just finished this. Great scenario. Recommended. I liked playing the Syrians v the headchoppers, most satisfying to blow them to crap. It's the first time I think I have wished for fewer AFVs and more infantry! I took a decision to add a "House Rule" that as I was the Syrian Army I wouldn't indiscriminately blast houses without enemy indicators as they were possibly sheltering civvies, not to mention wrecking my own city is doing ISIS' work for them. I did shoot down some walls, which I felt was OK. I have to recommend my burnt and shot up buildings: Scorched Buildings 4a and 5a They look good and just replace some other buildings in the scenario without you having to do anything. As I started quite late one evening, I didn't bother to decide a plan, or change the deployment. That wasn't a particularly good idea. Rumsfeld would have said: "You fight with the plan you are given, not the plan you would like to have." I advanced down basically 4 axes, trying to find a weakness. Couldn't work out whether leading with tanks, BMPs, or infantry was the right thing to do - tried all three and each method makes you wince. When the poor holdouts in S1 and S2 were down to harsh language, my nearest troops were about 60M away. It was a very difficult decision but I decided to bug out and abandon the strongpoints. I couldn't see any other option - it was more important to rescue the survivors than get embroiled in more trouble. Although I lost a couple more men, I managed to get them away, back to the wagons, then folded back through my forces, under covering fire and overwatch. Was quite pleased with my tactical handling of the retreat. I was surprised to see that I had got a Major Victory, despite losing the Strongpoints - killed lots of the enemy, though I would say my side suffered significant losses inc 1 tank and 3 BMPs. (spoiler) I think in retrospect I should have concentrated on two axes of advance. There is an indirect route through to S1 if you look carefully.

Yeah, the problem is I am a bit of an obsessive perfectionist. I can see some of the bullet holes that I deem inferior quality. I got better at them as I went along. I had to make a decision to stop tinkering. I spent ages on the blistering just under the eaves and it just looks like mush. I'll get on with some more, Sir!!

Great. Thx for testing it. Looks good. It's always sensible to see how it works on different machines before committing.

The big black lettering roughly translates as: "We are ISIS. We are ISIS. Nobody Likes Us. We Don't Care." British football joke - for non brits, that's the motto of a notorious lot of hooligans. But it is a real ISIS logo.

Actually there must be a syrian slang word for squaddies or grunts , I wonder what it is?

LOL!

No, thank you, for a great scenario. Just had to stop for a breather now. My poor Syrian grunts are down to harsh language and am having to exfiltrate them.

Here's the zip files - should be easier to download: 4a: https://www.mediafire.com/file/os3yajdga15gvyv/4a.zip/file4a zip file 5a 5a zip file Aircon 3: Aircon 3 zip

I knew there was a catch. I'll zip them. Thanks MJ.

Before I load them up to Bootie's site, please could someone test them?

These are two of Kieme's outstanding buildings in HD. I hate Kieme so much I burnt and shot them up. :-) What you get with these buildings in HD: Scorched sides from internal fires Windows above the ground floor have no glass (still function in game terms) Lightly-smoked roofs x 2 – a Syrian delicacy – don't knock it if you haven't tried it Pockmarking from bullet and shell hits Other damage and battle crap Pro government and jihadist slogans/iconography A little easter egg (Yes, I think that sh*t is authentic. They're madder than a barrel of frogs.) Designer's Notes You need Kieme's buildings 4 and 5 to make this work. I recommend all his buildings. Because of the limitations of the way the modular buildings work I suggest you only use it as 1, 2, or 3 storeys as the scorching will look a bit odd otherwise. However it still works with taller buildings, particularly if you add balconies. The pair of buildings aren't too heavily bullet-scarred so they fit in with other structures around. Because of the way the modular buildings work there had to be compromises with the placing of the slogans and decals, but I feel they add a lot of character to the buildings. PUT IN THE Z FOLDER AS USUAL. You can add wrecked Aircon3 to your flavour objects for that extra bit of damage. Links to download files: Bldg 4a http://www.mediafire.com/folder/jq5xx756povzz/4a Bldg 5a http://www.mediafire.com/folder/a63o9rlf3h78s/5a Aircon3 http://www.mediafire.com/folder/2b89t2rv51e30/aircon3 Installation: put in the Z folder as usual. I've put them with the relevant Kieme building folders and that works just fine. Note, I forgot I was using my vanilla modding SF2, so I loaded up Darya Tank Raid which I was halfway through, the semi-finished buildings came up and they looked so good that I had to complete them to play the rest of the scenario.

Reading all this I am already excited to try this one.

OK, Mikey. I put a bit of graffiti on the windowsill - I didn't want to do something non-useful, but I didn't see it. However that was what I suspected so thanks for the confirmation.

I am modding Kieme's modular buildings. There are constraints, from the game engine. I can't work out what the "detail" e.g. facade5-detail.bmp actually does. It looks like a windowsill but perhaps not. It's no biggie but I prefer to have as good an understanding as possible.

I just wanted to add my congratulations to Mord. I just downloaded this Leviathan of modding, and am very happy with the improved visuals. When I saw the guy in the coca-cola tee shirt it brought a smile to my face. We have seen some pretty strange stuff on irregulars in battlezones! Personally, if I suddenly found myself in the Peckham Peoples' Militia, I wouldn't be wearing anything red, pink, orange or white just to look stylish in urban combat....ouch! Or is the theory like dazzle camouflage for ships - the brightness puts off aiming?