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With the new patch.. one more thing for Uncons


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8 hours ago, Bozowans said:

I thought the game was about the post-war counterinsurgency just as much as it is about the initial invasion. There are a number of scenarios in the game already that take place long after the invasion and deal with routine occupation forces running into trouble from insurgents.

 It's about the 2008 time frame, and nothing more. Some designers have created their own scenarios and campaigns, but those are not BFC's designs. BFC provides the "base" with reality based TO&E and that's it. If, as a result of BFC's research they determine that something didn't exist in the game in 2008, it isn't represented. That's really the bottom line.

Edited by Vet 0369
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9 hours ago, Bozowans said:

I thought the game was about the post-war counterinsurgency just as much as it is about the initial invasion. There are a number of scenarios in the game already that take place long after the invasion and deal with routine occupation forces running into trouble from insurgents.

Read the backstory and ignore any of the actual scenario content.  Hell I am working on Sadr city, the backstory is nothing to me, but everything to BF in terms of what they intended to put into the game. It is in the base game manual along with a developers note from 2008 that goes into a little more detail about the decision making process for basing the game in Syria.  The section below is particularly enlightening on the value BF puts in a plausible realistic situation.  The rest of the section explains the backstory in detail.  It is the invasion itself.  BF never considered the game to be about the occupation.  If this game has been based on the invasion of Iraq it likely would only have covered the drive on Baghdad.

 

By mid 2006 we found ourselves in a conundrum. Due to the strain on resources from the continuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the ability of the West to wage another large ground war in the Middle East (or anywhere for that matter) became less and less possible with each passing month. Still, we wanted to simulate such an environment and, in fact, were too far along in the development process to back out even if we wanted to. This conflict between needs and reality presented us with quite a design dilemma. On one hand we had to pick a viable place to “wage war” or we wouldn’t have a game at all. On the other hand we could see no country that clearly deserved a “virtual invasion”.
To solve this problem we considered setting CM:SF in a completely fictional country against a completely fictional Red Force. After lengthy discussions internally and on our Forum we decided that a generic, fictional setting would not be as compelling to play as a real-world setting. Therefore, we chose Syria as the “Red Force” even though there is no indication that war with Syria would be justifiable - or even feasible - any time in the near future

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On January 5, 2019 at 11:18 AM, Bozowans said:

The insurgents did have a lot of time to prepare for that battle, but it's interesting reading about what they were capable of. Despite being massively outnumbered and outgunned in every conceivable way by a global superpower, they were still able to cause like 700 casualties to the Coalition forces over the course of that battle.

Many people have a very inaccurate idea about who the "insurgents" were. Most were NOT poorly trained "citizen fighters." Most were highly-experienced Warriors from the surrounding Arab countries (Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and such), and Hezbolla, Chechnia, and Afganistan. They were there strictly to kill Americans, and to die as martyrs. In fact most were former well-trained Iraqis soldiers from the Army and the Republican Guard. One of the biggest reasons for the high U.S. casualty rate, was because of the U.S. "Rules of Engagement (ROE)" such as avoiding collateral damage to the non-combatant populations, and unnecessary destruction of property. The U.S. Soldiers and Marines actually value human life. The "Insurgents" did not. The "Insurgents" didn't care who they killed or what they destroyed to get at the U.S. Soldiers and Marines. If the U.S. Lost 700, how many did the "Insurgents" lose, and did it change the outcome of that operation? Look at it as exactly the same situation as fighting the Japanese during WWII; no regard for human life, and willing to die to for their cause.

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Exactly.  The insurgency was largely the result of a failed political decision by Cheyney.  Shinseki had been right asking for a much larger force that got vetoed by Cheyney to show off the shock and awe power of the US military and to deflect some political criticism by keeping US force commitments low.  The later policy of "the surge" was nothing less than an admission that Shinseki had been right.  If the initial invasion had had more boots on the ground the US would not only have defeated Saddam but also prevented the collapse of authority that happened and the resulting destruction of infrastructure.  The inability of the coalition to keep the lights on, keep water flowing, keep people employed etc is what fed the insurgency.  Would there still have been an insurgency - probably.  The coalition was changing a power relationship between Shia, Sunni and Kurd in a country that was barely held together by a brutal dictator.  However your average person's commitment is much more basic.  Can I eat, can my children go to school, can I work. etc.  The serious combatant core was dependent on a disaffected population to hide in or at least be able to intimidate into not turning on them.

Plenty of good stuff to read on Ramadi to understand who was the core of the actual fighting insurgency and how the general population interacted at different points in the conflict.  Also a lot of interesting stuff on how the US handled the insurgents early on.  The RoE was completely screwed when it came to dealing with the foreign element even when it was pretty clear that there was a flow of combatants into the country.  US forces were repeatedly warned about some of these guys but if they didn't openly display weapons (and some times even when they did)…...

There is also a difference in the Sunni and Shia insurgency.  The Sunni was more a combination of Saddam forces, local Tribal groups, Foreign Jihadists and criminal elements.  The Shia insurgency was the Mahdi militia, criminal elements and Iranian agents and notably got better IEDS from Iran as the insurgency continued.

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From the CMSF Manual

"Fighters are regular soldiers, mercenaries and other types of irregular military personnel who operate in small groups and use guerrilla tactics instead of conventional military method. They can be well trained and motivated and occasionally have access to fairly sophisticated and advanced equipment. Some heavy weapons are mounted on civilian vehicles, otherwise known as Technicals. Since they are armed and wear distinctive clothing, the Stealth rules do not apply to Fighters."

I'd say that for any war in Syria would mean the inclusion of Hezbollah troops which have shown, before 2008, to be able to effectively employ long range indirect fires.

PS Is it true that the BMP-3 is no longer available in QB by intent? Another thing I noticed is that the SF RPG-29 teams are not available anymore, even in the editor. The SF does have RPG-7 specialist teams. 

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53 minutes ago, Vet 0369 said:

The "Insurgents" didn't care who they killed or what they destroyed to get at the U.S. Soldiers and Marines. If the U.S. Lost 700, how many did the "Insurgents" lose, and did it change the outcome of that operation? 

Not to mention (and I realize you didn't mention them because they are not part of the context you were discussing) the countless civilian dead the "insurgents" caused with their bombings of markets, mosques and murder in the night.

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3 hours ago, Vet 0369 said:

Many people have a very inaccurate idea about who the "insurgents" were. Most were NOT poorly trained "citizen fighters." Most were highly-experienced Warriors from the surrounding Arab countries (Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and such), and Hezbolla, Chechnia, and Afganistan. They were there strictly to kill Americans, and to die as martyrs. In fact most were former well-trained Iraqis soldiers from the Army and the Republican Guard. One of the biggest reasons for the high U.S. casualty rate, was because of the U.S. "Rules of Engagement (ROE)" such as avoiding collateral damage to the non-combatant populations, and unnecessary destruction of property. The U.S. Soldiers and Marines actually value human life. The "Insurgents" did not. The "Insurgents" didn't care who they killed or what they destroyed to get at the U.S. Soldiers and Marines. If the U.S. Lost 700, how many did the "Insurgents" lose, and did it change the outcome of that operation? Look at it as exactly the same situation as fighting the Japanese during WWII; no regard for human life, and willing to die to for their cause.

Speaking as an Iraq vet. That about hits the nail on the head.

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3 hours ago, sburke said:

The insurgency was largely the result of a failed political decision by Cheyney.  Shinseki had been right asking for a much larger force that got vetoed by Cheyney to show off the shock and awe power of the US military and to deflect some political criticism by keeping US force commitments low.  The later policy of "the surge" was nothing less than an admission that Shinseki had been right.  If the initial invasion had had more boots on the ground the US would not only have defeated Saddam but also prevented the collapse of authority that happened and the resulting destruction of infrastructure.

Apologies in advance for being nit-picky but I can't help myself sometimes 😁

Most US commanders at the time, both in the field and back at the Pentagon all wanted more forces, significantly more forces for the invasion. By every military metric the Pentagon had at the time, the minimum recommended number of troops for the invasion of Iraq (a largely urbanized country with a population at the time of around 25 million) was 350,000. The optimal number was likely closer to 450,000.

It was Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld who was pushing so hard for a small invasion force. His initial requirements was something absurd like 30,000 as his high estimate. Rumsfeld was pushing for a new lean form of warfare. The idea was that the military had become bloated from so many years of guarding against the Soviets, and that modern warfare could be fought with drastically fewer men with gaps being filled by technology. This is why so few troops were sent to Afghanistan in 2001. To cut a long story short, Rumsfeld refused to consider any military plan for any conflict that did not fit his definition of 'lean.' He strong armed his way through everyone who opposed him, to include most senior leadership in the Army at the time and the state department to name a few. 

Cheney ended up backing Rumsfelds plan as it appeared to be the politically correct move at the time, but the push for small forces for both Iraq and Afghanistan was led entirely by Rumsfeld. 

As an additional bit of trivia that has been somewhat lost to the ages, the invasion plan called for the mobilization and deployment of the entire 1st Cavalry Division after the fall of Baghdad, but Rumsfeld canceled the deployment just after US forces took Baghdad. 

3 hours ago, sburke said:

Would there still have been an insurgency - probably.

Absolutely, yes. The insurgency was primarily the result of a massive US intelligence blunter. Leading up to the war, it was largely believed that the primary and only threat was the Iraqi military. The US believed that if the Iraqi military was destroyed, Saddam would lose his main tool for controlling Iraq and maintaining his dictatorship. In reality the opposite was true. As a result of the uprisings in southern Iraq after Desert Storm and some other internal problems, Saddam had become extremely paranoid and did not trust his military. In fact, he was so distrustful that the defensive plan of Baghdad kept his supposedly best units, the Republican Guard, outside the center of the city to prevent them from carrying out a coup against Saddam. 

What the US did not realize was the establishment of the Fedayeen and their role in enforcement, and their ability to fight. It was such a massive oversight that it caused an operational pause early in the invasion, and a commitment of the operational reserve (the 101st and elements of the 82nd) to shore up the rear areas that were being overrun by the Fedayeen. An analogy off the top of my head to explain how unexpected the Fedayeen were would be like training for months to have a boxing match against Mike Tyson, only to get into the ring to find Tyson inebriated while you get blindsided from behind by the entire Green Bay Packers defense. 

All of this essentially established the insurgency in Iraq. None of this even gets  into Paul Bremer and the catastrophe that resulted after the invasion was over, which in itself was another spur of the moment change of plans. 

This is a summary of a very complex situation but I think it should suffice. Another Miller EssayTM in the bag! 🤣

 

Edited by IICptMillerII
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19 hours ago, Lethaface said:

From the CMSF Manual

"Fighters are regular soldiers, mercenaries and other types of irregular military personnel who operate in small groups and use guerrilla tactics instead of conventional military method. They can be well trained and motivated and occasionally have access to fairly sophisticated and advanced equipment. Some heavy weapons are mounted on civilian vehicles, otherwise known as Technicals. Since they are armed and wear distinctive clothing, the Stealth rules do not apply to Fighters."

I'd say that for any war in Syria would mean the inclusion of Hezbollah troops which have shown, before 2008, to be able to effectively employ long range indirect fires.

PS Is it true that the BMP-3 is no longer available in QB by intent? Another thing I noticed is that the SF RPG-29 teams are not available anymore, even in the editor. The SF does have RPG-7 specialist teams. 

Is it possible that the BMP-3 and RPG-29 are buried deep in some obscure formation? The BMP-3 has been in service since 1987, and Hezbolla uses the RPG-29 even if Syria didn't. Perhaps Syria never had any BMP-3s.

I haven't looked at the TO&E since the patch, but it seems really odd if those assets have been removed while retaining the M-320 40mm grenade launcher since the M-320 wasn't in production until November 2008, and wasn't issued to the Marines until 2013. Yet in some of the Marine scenarios, Marines are using weapons that won't be issued to them for five years after the stated time frame. The U.S. Army wasn't even issued M-320s until February 2009.

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3 hours ago, Ultradave said:

BMP-3 are available in Special Forces selections in the Scenario Editor. They don't show in Quick Battles.

That's my observation too.

The RPG-29 team thing isn't exclusively for QB's though: both in the editor and the QB selection screen (left side), when I expand the special forces company it says:

Headquarters
CO
3x UAZ
2x Sniper
3x Anti Tank
[...]

However, on the right side (after buying) there are no AT teams available in the company. IIRC there used to be AT teams in the company?
One thing I'm 100% sure is that there are a lot of SF 2 men RPG-29 teams in scenario's, also the 'SF2' variants. Now those seem not available anymore in the editor.
@Vet 0369, I have did some digging but this is all I could find, but I off course might have missed some thing.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On ‎1‎/‎3‎/‎2019 at 9:59 PM, MikeyD said:

You can build your own scenarios using QB maps as a base (just remember to rename and save them in the Scenarios folder).
These have the advantage of having EVERYTHING available for purchase and there's no points limit to worry about. If you want you can have your uncons backed up by massive 130mm artillery barrages or BM-21 artillery rockets. You can also go into the generic QB AI orders and tinker with the timing and movement to suit your needs. Its a simple starting point for anyone who someday wants to generate his own original scenarios. Playing the game is just the tip of the iceberg.

 

I think MikeyD has a Point.  ;)

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