[Released] Airman Down - Tiny battle

[Philipp]

I finished my first scenario and would like to share it with you.

 

A small US combat patrol tries to recover a downed Air Force pilot that came down near a Russian OP. Best played Blue vs. AI.

 

Tiny battle in a wooded area. 30 min. +< 10min. 4 AI plans for Red and 1 for Blue. Playing Red vs. AI might be fun, depending on how good a day the AI has, it might also completely mess it up since the job that the Blue player has to do is not something the AI is good at and also hits some limitations (e.g. AI can't remount vehicles). Playing H2H might work, but I did not test it. The forces and victory conditions are quite fair I think.

 

I wanted something similar to the outstanding "An August Morning" in the sense that the map and the forces are tiny but Blue has to cross the map to touch an objective and then retreat. To spice things up I throw in vehicles!

 

Since the repository does not seem to get updated (I submitted sometime early this week), here a dropbox link for now:

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9849673/Airman%20Down.zip

 

Please criticize, I want to improve my scenario making skills.

[kendar]

hey !

 

first : thanks for sharing your work

Second : very happy to have a new "little" skirmish to play with

[MOS:96B2P]

Thanks!  These small rescue type scenarios are fun.  I will give this one a try in the next few weeks.

[Wiggum15]

Philipp, that is a really great scenario !
One of the best i have ever played in CM, i hope to see more Tiny or Small scenarios from you !

Cool firefights and sharp action, just perfect.

 

I managed to get a Major Victory, with 3 casualties on my side and 7 + one APC knocked out on the Russian side.

I took my HQ and snipers to a overwatch position on the wooded hill on the right.
I dismounted my Squad, split a Scout section and put that into the Humvee.
The LMTV with his .50 cal was in a "hull down" position to provide covering fire with the rest of the squad.

A enemy ATGM shot at my LMVT but missed, my snipers suppressed them...
After spotting the first enemys i called the 60mm mortar strike.
While the enemy was suppressed from the mortars i rushed my Humvee forward, bypassing the russian APC.
While my Scout team searched for the pilot my LMTV hammered the approaching russian APC with his .50 cal and knocked it out.
Suddenly a enemy combat patrol appeared behind my HQ team on the wooded hill but they were able to drop two of them quickly, the rest of them ran away.
I called the CAS but i was able to exit all troops including the scout team and the Humvee before it could drop any bombs.

 

I noticed one typo in the victory screen it said "distroy vehicles" or something.

Maybe avoide it to make US troops "Green", that can produce unrealistic behavior or behavior you would not expect from a US infantry unit.

Also:

I would have liked if the pilot would have been alive.

It would feel much better to be able to rescue him.

Maybe put in the designers notes a hint that the player should just imagine the pilot.

Edited February 28, 2015 by Wiggum15

[TAKODA]

Thanks for sharing Phillip.

[Philipp]

Glad you liked it Wiggum15! Oh, that typo annoys me... 

 

You might think that all US troops should be rated regular or better, but I disagree. Your average infantry might be well trained and thus should be considered at least regular, if not veteran. But that does not hold true for second and third line troops such as National Guard or logistics personnel let alone replacements after 3 months of intense fighting.

 

The only green US unit is the truck. I envisioned this to be a supply truck and his crew who were in the FOB when the call came in and just grabbed to come along since they were well armed with that 50cal. Poor guys got thrown into quite a fight, seems like in your case the gunner even took out an APC, that's quite a feat for a National Guard reserve corporal from Witchita!

[TAKODA]

I just had a quick peek at the map, it's beautiful!

[Jargotn]

A nice, quick scenario!
 

I played it through in nine (ingame) minutes by moving the convoy "fast" to the downed airman. The map is great! I really liked the dynamic of the mission. I'd personally like to see something avoiding my behaviour. Maybe I was lucky, but following the road blindly should not result in a major US victory.

 
I think I'll replay it more seriously later, but please keep up the good work!

[John Kettler]

Philipp,

 

It's great you did a scenario and that people love it. I think, though, I disagree with your characterization of the skill level of the NG. After all, when the US goes to war these days, true in a bunch, NG goes as part of the main force. All of the Air Force's A-10s, for example, are ANG birds. It's my understanding, too, that quite a few NG members have multiple combat tours, too. I could be wrong, but would encourage a more nuanced view of US soldier skill levels for the NG.

 

Regards,

 

John Kettler

[Philipp]

Thanks for giving it a try. Making the map was surprisingly easy, I first wanted to use a QB map but could not find one that suited my needs.

 

I specifically tested for a rush on the objective. It should not be possible to be off the map in less than 5 minutes which is when the reinforcements with the APC arrive and normally you should have to at least fight your way back, so there should have been some near misses from RPGs and ATGMs. So you probably just were lucky. But one never knows how it plays out. I think it is perfectly fine if some players get through it really quick with a bit of luck. Note that the briefing states that you should reduce the enemy force, in fact in order to get a total victory I think you have to destroy quite a few enemy troops.

[Philipp]

John,

 

I did not want to imply that the National Guard does not have great skills and there certainly are individuals or whole units whose skills surpass those of regular units. But the NG is a reserve military force which by definition means it is not comprised of full time soldiers. Relative to professional soldiers, in the CM skill rating which only applies to skills used in CM, meaning shooting and coolness under fire, it is reasonable to assume that most NG units rate below regular units. Otherwise, why have regular units in the first place?

 

I understand that in the last decade the NG was used extensively in foreign deployments, so if a scenario designer decides to make a NG unit elite because it has served 1 year every 5 years (which is what the theory says, I think it is actually quite different in reality) he is absolute free to do so.

 

Apart from all that, it sometimes makes for a much better game to command a few units that are not uber-soldiers but have to be used carefully, no matter what the story explanation for that is.

[Wiggum15]

The manual says:
 

Green: draftees with little training and some combat experience or reservists with
some training and no combat experience. Green can also represent professional
soldiers whose training is substandard in comparison to another force.

 
The does not sound like todays US military, no matter if NG or Logistic units as these will go through extensive combat training too before being deployed.

 

Regular: professional soldiers who went through extensive, quality training
programs, but lack combat experience.

 

 

That sounds like normal US troops with no real combat experience. If you assume the units already went through days of combat in Ukraine you should rate them VETERAN in my opinion.

[Philipp]

But you quoted the menual there yourself confiming what I said earlier! Green is the right rating for reserve troops without combat experience. Thats what I want for the green unit in this battle. The other units are regular or veteran were you can think of regulars as replacements for previous combat losses.

Anyway, if you dont like to play with green and regular units, change them to veteran in the editor. In my testing the ratings worked well as they are.

[Wiggum15]

But there is a difference between "some training" and "extensive, quality training programs" (which is the one US soldiers go through).

Anyway, quality scenario hope to see more.

[Philipp]

Now also available on the repository:

 

http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=314&func=fileinfo&id=3514

[Capt. Toleran]

Sure would like to see a youtube of someone winning this.  Rage quit 4 times in about 40 minutes.  The first two games, I lost my jeep mg gunner in the first 2 turns, despite being in heavy cover.

 

Also, I think this scenario needs a map with the general area of the outpost mapped.  First time, I didn't understand that the outpost was right there and the "rush vehicles forwards" advice seems to end up with a jeep that is quickly routing in panic.  Unit position ended up with either my units in too much cover, with no sight of the enemy, or not enough, and getting picked off.  Snipers were surprisingly passive, and many observation areas proved selectively useless for covering advancing troops,  I quickly started running out of time and losing too many troops to attrition -- to rescue one guy, this sure wasn't worth the sacrifice.

 

But I seem to be the only one with this experience.  Once again, would love to see this in action so that I can know what I am doing wrong.

[Philipp]

Sorry you had such a bad time with this scenario. Unfortunately I am not set up to record a video of me playing this mission but what you can try is playing this from the Russian side and watch th Blue AI plan. Following the same plan the AI uses with better timing should be reasonably good.

I really should have included a Tac Map, I'll see if I will make one and update the scenario.

Regarding high losses in search and rescues, read up on what happened when they tried recover Bat21 in Vietnam... It is possible to win this battle pretty well even taking some casulties. The scoring is all about keeping the vehicles alive. If you had finished one of your playthroughs instead of quiting you might have won!

Edited March 11, 2015 by Philipp

[grungar]

hmmm how do i reply to this debate or freindly discussion about our national guard. my educated guess is that its a mixed bunch. i have known personaly a guard soldier. he was certainly well trained and i would say half active army if that makes sense. i know another one that was my church pastor for a while. both of  these soliders how do i say it without causing trouble. used means to numb themselves(please understand that these soldiers do not represent the majority by any means) from the certain knowladge that a horrible death or injury could be a few days away.  afganistan happend shortly after i last talked to my friend and iraq shortly after as we all know and i would say if he was activated and sent to the war he would have been green despite his training and love for the army. i am sure that he would not have been assighned a rescue mission if more experieanced troops were available.In fact rescues are carried out by crack or better speacial units and not the job for regular grunts.   i will have to give the scenario a try. as i am very green my self.