Boche

Let's have a little chat about where everything is at the moment with me and my work. As you've noticed, Hasrabit has not been completed yet and no progress has been made. I've been working on Road to Dinas instead and am beginning to encounter some of the issues that delayed Hasrabit. Namely that these two campaigns are OLD, and I mean really old. They were made when I was still in love with the European theatre in WW2 and many of my map designs were influenced very strongly by ASL scenarios. The inexperience really shines through with these two. Don't get me wrong, they both were innovative in some respect (Hasrabit used core artillery and Dinas had Red core units too.)
Like pretty much everybody else who wasn't on the Beta team, I didn't really know how to make a good AI plan back then and I spent a lot of time making Quick battle maps which I used for Hasrabit. Almost ALL the Hasrabit missions have QB AI plans, namely that I painted large set-up zones for a group and let the AI deploy the units in the group according to the desired parameters. AI attacks used these large blocks as well. I was still using this in Dinas as well so you can imagine that this is completely unworkable now. This all started to change when I joined the Beta team to work on the CMSF Brit module and I was no longer working alone on projects. I got a LOT of very useful criticism from an Australian captain which really shaped what I was to produce in the future. By the time I was developing the NATO campaigns, I had evolved an entirely new system of making AI plans which I still use today. And I started using more sensible force ratios.
The second thing these two campaigns have in common is that you're often attacking at ridiculous odds - attacker v defender ratio is 1:3. While I don't like making them like this anymore, I'm going to stick with it for these reworks because the REDFor is defending the entire map which means you'll always have a local superiority unless you are really far too aggressive. While AI triggers may alleviate some of these issues, overall, the AI is unable to react properly to the player's moves. In addition, your firepower is almost always greater so these numbers are not so much of a problem for me.
As a player, I've slowed down quite a bit and am no longer able to manage much more than a company and some support assets comfortably in Real Time. I also don't particularly want to play a 3+ hour mission either. And Dinas in particular had missons with 2+ mech inf companies with armour in support. This is affecting testing as I just can't motivate myself to manage such monsters in RT. Which brings me to my next point.
A fourth issue is the presence of MOUT elements in most missions which is not always enjoyable and can be a bit repetitive. Dinas has quite a few missions with small MOUT elements - for example, Sagger Point which features a very large hill with emplaced tanks and ATGM teams dug in with great LoS. But there's also a small village at the foot of the hill. Now, with two mech inf companies and tanks in support, this is doable. But I don't want to manage two companies + support anymore so am thinking about having the infantry clear the village and the tanks and support with artillery clear the hill. That's a rather long-winded way of saying that I want to tone down the difficulty of each mission and am concerned about the overall same-ness of many of the missions. A bit of MOUT is a good thing but not everywhere, all the time.
A last point, but an important one, is that these are essentially fantasy campaigns. While a few of the maps are based on real world locations (Strong Stand and Hasrabit in Hasrabit), almost all of them are just made-up. In Dinas, I seemed to be obsessed with river crossings, for example and many of the missions are fights for control of such objectives. This was me still under the influence of some ASL scenarios I played with friends in the 90s. Dinas and Hasrabit are both completely fictional locations and the maps are just a product of my imagination and not on any geographical reality. For example, Lakes in Dinas might work in a northern Syria setting but anyone with Google earth can see that no such feature exists between the Golan and Damascus. There's absolutely nothing I can do about that so I'm just going to remake them and hope that folks just enjoy them for what they are.
My plan is not to change very much with Dinas - I had already reworked some of these maps for Gung Ho! and I have expanded and redeveloped two of these maps for the opening two missions (Petani - Flintstones and High Chaparral - Orchard Road) so that they're not the same. But have resorted to the old Dinas maps for Sabatini (not Detectives) and Where Farmers Dare - (not Bridges) to preserve the feel of the original campaign. Besides, Red v Red is a bit better on smaller maps, especially with Infantry which doesn't spot nearly so well as Blue forces do.
I have redesigned the villages and compounds on the maps to get away from the ASL blocks I used back then. I've found some real world villages in Syria as templates and you'll really see this when you play Petani, Orchard Road, Where Farmers Dare and The Tumah Crossing missions.
For the time being, there will be no core artillery in the campaign and will instead give the player what he needs to get the job done. I might reverse this decision at some point.
I've also replaced the T-72Ms with T-55MVs which, in spite of being older, are just better tanks to work with. Plus I like the look and sound of them.
And that's where I'm at just now. Dinas will get finished first, then I want to rework the Scottish Corridor and then finally finish Hasrabit.

I don't know what a Syrian commander would do in this situation - the campaign covers a very short time span, just over 24 hours in 14 missions, and the situation is emerging rapidly. My best guess if that the depleted battalions would go into action as long as they were combat effective in such a high stakes throw of the die so I'm favouring that option. I guess I could do a deep dive into what happened in the battles for the Golan Heights to see what they did but I'm not taking this rework that seriously. 
As for the point of doing so so late in the campaign - I can't do it earlier because each company only sees action twice before these final four and would be a waste if it were done earlier. I don't think the BMP Mech Inf company B will be combat effective after Jameelah though. Both their missions are potentially tough ones but I have no doubt some will complete these without any effort or substantial casualties - the game is already very old and your skill levels are much higher than when the campaign was first devised.
It's almost certainly going to be 'no disbanding' at this point though.
Tumah is going to take a bit longer to get ready as I'm not happy with that enormous enclosed compound to the north of the entry position - it's artificial and could be improved further to make it more defensible. I'm not planning on anything massively ambitious with the revision though.

I'll probably post some pics of the updated maps some time later but this is just a quick update on progress. I have completed three of the four phase 3 missions now and am currently working on The Tumah Crossing. Road to Amarah, Where Farmers Dare and Jameelah all have functioning AI plans and reworked maps and I've done some proper testing on them. I beat Jameela yesterday afternoon and I feel I'm done with that for now.
After phase 3 is complete, I only have the final three to rework and much of that is already done as I tend to improve maps when I'm not feeling that committed to AI scripting and actual playing so it's not going to take as long to rework these as it did the earlier missions in the campaign.
So while an end is in sight, I will need to revisit all the earlier missions and test them to make sure that the campaign is actually winnable. And of course, there will be the revised briefings and artwork to do but that's not a particularly big or unpleasant task.

Perhaps: "Delboyism"?
Derrick "Del-boy" Trotter, British classic sitcom icon, cockney who sells stolen goods:

EDIT: He even claims to support Chelsea.

Thank you very much United States (and Israel). By arming Morocco with state-of-the-art weapons, you are incubating a war in North Africa. Morocco's enemies can only be Spain and Algeria.

If every fire team has a grenade launcher... maybe it's time 40mm buckshot made a comeback for anti-drone use.

I'm late catching up you've all probably commented on this already...
But that a "Combat Mission Moment" if ive ever seen one.

I'm late catching up you've all probably commented on this already...
But that a "Combat Mission Moment" if ive ever seen one.

I'm late catching up you've all probably commented on this already...
But that a "Combat Mission Moment" if ive ever seen one.

Steve has never felt more justified.

Seems like a place to drop part of my overtime bonus. I'll add it to my trusted list.
It's a promise I gave myself in Feb 22. Whatever I earn outside of my regular pay eaxh month will go to Ukraine. There are many good causes all over the world which deserve attention, but I have chosen this one because it has special significance to me. And I'll continue each month this goes on, doesn't matter how many years it takes. I am in the lucky position that this is financially possible and I know it's not for many others.
The wife is already joking "And how is your true love, Ukraine, today". 

What he said!
Edit: Which brings us to The_Capt's bit about defensive primacy.
 

Well, work on this is going much more slowly than I thought. I haven't given up on it but have to confess that I find that playing Red v Red isn't as much fun as playing Blue v Red - it takes absolutely ages to call in air support and high calibre artillery, nearly 30 minutes which is a long wait. Recon is also not as much fun as a result so I'm doing a bit of a rethink on how to approach certain missions.
The sheer number of AI attacks in this campaign is pretty overwhelming as they're hard to do well and I prefer to have more than one plan. Almost every mission is an AI attack or a meeting engagement (even worse!). I've already turned Strong Stand from a meeting to a player attack and will do the same with Hill 142.Anyway, I opened up a few of the maps and got back to work this morning and have a better idea where to go with this. It's going to get finished later rather than sooner.

LOL! Yeah this is really a plot for the next James Bond 007 or another hollywood flic. You can't beat reality if it comes to strange plots.
 
 

wait a minute....
Really?  The NATC?  Pronounced NATCee....  😎
 
 

🤣🤣🤣
 
 

"The way our officers and soldier fight will be studied in every academy in the world"
Well, he is right but not in the way he thinks.

"The way our officers and soldier fight will be studied in every academy in the world"
Well, he is right but not in the way he thinks.

Playing @George MC's "Forging Steel" campaign with the recently released SF2 'All in One' & its @dpabrams inspired Generic OPFOR option...
 

Playing @Liveload's Syrian Civil War scenario "Qasabiyeh- Blue Defend" with the recently released SF2 'All in One'...
 

"The way our officers and soldier fight will be studied in every academy in the world"
Well, he is right but not in the way he thinks.