Daraya Tank Raid SF2

[George MC]

About The Scenario
This is one for the modern ‘Tread heads’ amongst you! 

This is a revised version updating the orginal to CMSF2, so you will need the base game CMSF2 to play this. Revised AI Plan using triggers; tweaked map using new CMSF terrain features and updated OOB for both Syrian Army and Rebels. This is SF2 version 2 which has a slightly reduced mission time based on player feedback.

The actual scenario is very loosely based on events in Daraya, a suburb of Damascus where rebels from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) have attempted to create a stronghold near Damascus centre. In August 2012, the Syrian Army defeated the rebel forces and took control of the town. After the failed rebel offensive in late July 2012 ,the Syrian army started a campaign against rebels in the Damascus suburb. 

This, the 2nd Battle of Darayya, is the ongoing battle between the Syrian Army and the rebels in the Damascus suburbs of Darayya. In mid-December when the Army intensified their attacks with heavy shelling and Tanks raids into the city.

This scenario depicts an armoured raid, typical of the tactics used by the Syrian Army to seize control of Daraya. You can view the video which shows these raids using footage (often filmed whilst under fire) shot by the rebels Syria - Men versus Tanks in Daraya - The Powerful T-72 Raids

So your scenario looks like the scenes in the above film I’d suggest modding your game using the following excellent mods links are to CMODS: 

• Longleft Flank’s Shot up Building; 
• Pete Wenman’s ‘Squalor’ mod; 
• Pete Wenman’s BlackSea favour objects for CMSF2

Map and Scenario Size
This is a fairly small map although it’s very built up.
Map Size: 720m x 512m

Forces: Syrian Republican Guard armour Vs Syrian rebels (combatants and fighters)

Best Played As
Can be played RT or WEGO. This is best played Blue Vs Red AI or H2H only. 

There are two RED AI Plans.

If playing H2H it is recommended the more experienced player takes the RED side.

The scenario is NOT playable as Red VS Blue AI. 

You can grab it from TSDIII at the following link:

http://www.thefewgoodmen.com/tsd3/cm-shock-force-2-2/cmsf-2-daraya-tank-raid/ 

Acknowledgments
Many thanks to Buzz, Erwin and Snake Eye at the BFC forum who played through the early Blue Vs Red versions and provided a lot of feedback. Thanks to Lethaface and Sublime who played this H2H and provided excellent feedback in this regard. Thanks also to Slysniper who took the SF2 version for a spin and provided some useful feedback. Cheers Guys! 

Any comments etc you can email me at georgemc@blowtorchscenarios.com

Edited February 1, 2019 by George MC

[mjkerner]

Thanks George! I had started the original about a week ago, but only got a few moves in, so I can easily switch to the new, improved version.

[Rinaldi]

Love it, can't wait to replay it in the new engine. Congrats George.

[Zveroboy1]

Neat. Thanks for updating this.

[Erwin]

I remember that it's an exciting scenario and at times when viewing at level 1 it looked exactly like the UTube videos of the RL Syrian tanks as they traveled thru town, with their turrets constantly scanning like Daleks.  Looking forward to replaying the new version.  Thanks George.

[IICptMillerII]

Awesome George! I played the SF1 version of the mission in SF2 and enjoyed it a lot. Can't wait to see how improved it is now that its been updated to SF2 standard!

[George MC]

Thanks for all the positive comments and feedback. I'm now hoping it lives up to your expectations!

[slysniper]

Been playing this for the last few days. Great battle so far.

Their is a intensity to the battle that I really enjoy. 

The strong holds are a Alamo (A true feel  of "can I hold on situation")

 30 minutes into it and two bmp's have made it to the forces and provided very needed ammo.

But I am still not comfortable as to getting more units to them. There is a deadly zone between my tank forces and them that still needs addressing

[George MC]

@slysniper Good skills on getting two BMPs there - colour me impressed!

Glad you enjoying it and by the sounds of it it's working. I'd be interested to hear the next bit goes - good luck with getting your armour units to link up, I'm hoping that process should be engaging.

Cheery!

[verulam]

Thanks very much for this, your work is much appreciated.

[George MC]

11 hours ago, verulam said:

Thanks very much for this, your work is much appreciated.

Thank you

[slysniper]

12 hours ago, George MC said:

 I'd be interested to hear the next bit goes - good luck with getting your armour units to link up, I'm hoping that process should be engaging.

Cheery!

 

I am taking this to really mean:  (George with a evil laugh then saying") " I cant wait to see the evil little tricks of mine he is about to run into, Just want him to curse my name"

[Heinrich505]

George,

  Your work never disappoints.  It is always a challenge and the enemy are positively beastly!!!

  I couldn't find Long Left Flank's Damaged Building mod.  Where might that be located?

Heinrich505

[Erwin]

53 minutes ago, Heinrich505 said:

Long Left Flank's Damaged Building mod

If you can't find it elsewhere, we're trying to put up all the old CM2 mods from 2007 onwards someplace for general d/l.  But, won't happen until end of February at earliest.

[Heinrich505]

That's cool Erwin.  No hurry.  I can wait. 

I did a quick look-see at the scenario and it looks crazy.  I watched the video that George mentioned a while back, and this map looks about as close to that as can be gotten.  I don't have time right now to start plunging in, but I'm really looking forward to it.  All of George's scenarios are classics.

[slysniper]

Well, finished it tonight. It was at 1:08 mark time left when I went back in. With the two bmp's on the objectives and the units there pretty well resupplied with ammo. 

The two bmp's had both lost a crew man, so they had no ability to fire.

My avenue to get to them was safe so I moved in two additional bmp's and two tanks to the strong points.

That was more than enough to fortify the strong points and give them brave souls there a little breather.

 

You were correct with the battle having a few good surprises left for me. But nothing my units were not prepared for.

basically every road that went through the city was covered and made into a fire lane. So any enemy units trying to move had a difficult time of it.

 

My two errors in the game were I lost a few too many men. One reason was I dropped my arty danger close to me next to the objective the enemy wanted.

Needless to say, I lost too many men to my own arty.

Second was, I placed my infantry in over watch units on roof tops to protect my armor and try to support the fire lanes on the roadways. This exposed them too often to new enemy threats and I lost some to initial attacks from new enemy positions.

But I will try and post my score. It shows a nice victory and I felt good about my overall play on this one and as mentioned before, enjoyed the challenge.

What I did not enjoy was the battle was over somewhere around 55-50 minutes left in the game. I know you want to give plenty of time for players that need more time to finish the battle. (that just seems way to generous to me -If it was my scenario, I would cut 30 minutes off what I would give for total time - but hey, that's me.

 

[slysniper]

http://

 

There we go, success as for posting the screen shot.

 

Edited January 29, 2019 by slysniper

[slysniper]

http://

 

And in review, my hero's of the battle were the 2nd platoon leaders. (no losses on top of it)

And all my units were moved around often, it was a situation of replacing some so they could resupply, or covering a area another unit had retreated from or withdrew to take cover so units had many different firing positions in the battle.

[A Canadian Cat]

10 hours ago, slysniper said:

What I did not enjoy was the battle was over somewhere around 55-50 minutes left in the game. I know you want to give plenty of time for players that need more time to finish the battle. (that just seems way to generous to me -If it was my scenario, I would cut 30 minutes off what I would give for total time - but hey, that's me

3....2....1 waiting for someone to come along and say: "that time limit was too short need to add more time so I don't feel rushed" LOL

[Combatintman]

5 hours ago, IanL said:

3....2....1 waiting for someone to come along and say: "that time limit was too short need to add more time so I don't feel rushed" LOL

Wait a little bit longer … 

 

16 hours ago, slysniper said:

What I did not enjoy was the battle was over somewhere around 55-50 minutes left in the game. I know you want to give plenty of time for players that need more time to finish the battle. (that just seems way to generous to me -If it was my scenario, I would cut 30 minutes off what I would give for total time - but hey, that's me.

 

Good AAR and some good points but I'm going to disagree about the time thing.

Speaking from a very interested and biased perspective, because I prefer to allow players to have the option to take their time in a scenario and am very aware of threads ad nauseum about scenario designers not giving sufficient time or titled 'why can't I play the scenario until I've killed everybody', I disagree.

If the scenario length is such that both experienced/aggressive or novice/cautious players can complete it without having to crack the editor open or kick off about how cr@p the scenario/game is then I think this is a good point. Why didn't you cease fire when you thought it was all over?

Players come in all shapes and sizes and based on feedback - a scenario that finishes early or does not have enough time for some players to complete creates more frustration than one that gives you the option to click cease fire whenever you choose to do so if you are a competent, experienced player, which based on your posts here, you quite clearly are.

[slysniper]

2 hours ago, Combatintman said:

Why didn't you cease fire when you thought it was all over?

Good question.

I recall the last new reinforcement's came on for the AI likely in that 60-55 minute mark.

Of course I don't know that as a player, that it is the last that is going to show up. So with how rapid  they had been coming up til that point, it did not take long to figure out it appeared no more was arriving So maybe at the 45 minute mark I figured it was over as to the reds doing anything. (but you never know for sure. Now if I was playing RT, I would cease fire - but in Wego, I can click through a turn in maybe 10 seconds or so. So it only takes a few minutes to run the clock down to just make sure nothing happens. So that is what I did.

 

As I said, I have been on here long enough to understand  how giving plenty of time for players with lesser skills or different approaches is needed. 

(I just think there should be a time set even for them that makes them play the game to some extent as intended.) Just my opinion.

 

First thing I will point out in this battle, no player is likely to do well if they are not actively engaged in doing the mission objective and doing it in a timely manor. that is getting aid to what I call the Alamo.

The first two bmp's I had that made it to those strong point objectives were sent for two reasons. First was my units were about to be overrun because most of the men remaining were running out of ammo, I had a couple of fire teams basically down to a few grenades.

Second, as mentioned, I had already lost the ability to use them as fire platforms since they had only one crew member, so if I lost them in route, it was not a great loss. (So in other wards, I was not sure I had cleared a route that was going to get them there for sure) Just mentioning this to point out how important I felt it was to get to those troops.

 

So maybe I am wrong, but I have a hard time believing anyone will do well if they don't keep a schedule somewhere near what I did.

And in truth, I did not rush or push my armour units in any manor to get there. They were being used very cautiously and my losses suffered were from those opening twenty minutes as to the loss of 2 tanks and 2 bmp's.

 

So I see a battle that was designed and played very well for about 40 minutes and then 50 minutes of add on time for the sake of pleasing everyone.

In this situation, what I think is if the player hasn't achieved what he needs to in that first 40 minutes of play, how much time should he get to do the task. I think 20 - 30 minutes is more than enough  time for anyone , if they still have a force worth doing anything with at that point anyway. ( As I said just my way of looking at it.)

I think designer should leave times at a logical length and let players who want more time add it themselves. Removing time challenges remove the need for players to improve their skills.

 

Overall a great battle and a perfect example of how well CM does portray city fighting. I always shake my head at those that complain it does a terrible job at city fighting.

Yes, there is ways it could be better, but in general, I think it does a good job of giving the feel of the challenges one faces in built up areas.

 

I had a few times , The enemy infiltrated my lines in this battle and we were mixing it up in room to room fighting. That's a perfect way to get a feel for how desperate the situation is.

[sid_burn]

Had a lot of fun with this one on SF1 with another player from this forum, will be looking forward to it.

[George MC]

On 1/29/2019 at 12:06 AM, Heinrich505 said:

George,

  Your work never disappoints.  It is always a challenge and the enemy are positively beastly!!!

  I couldn't find Long Left Flank's Damaged Building mod.  Where might that be located?

Heinrich505

Thank you

Here ya go https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wwyy06b5lsfoqgo/AACOnCYJbSPAwdRzId5uD1R_a?dl=0 It's not on CMMODS right now. If @LongLeftFlank is agreeable I'm happy to upload to CMMODs for him? Could be it's on his own to do list so I'd rather wait for the get-go from his good self.

Cheery!

[George MC]

On 1/29/2019 at 4:15 AM, slysniper said:

Well, finished it tonight. It was at 1:08 mark time left when I went back in. With the two bmp's on the objectives and the units there pretty well resupplied with ammo. 

The two bmp's had both lost a crew man, so they had no ability to fire.

My avenue to get to them was safe so I moved in two additional bmp's and two tanks to the strong points.

That was more than enough to fortify the strong points and give them brave souls there a little breather.

 

You were correct with the battle having a few good surprises left for me. But nothing my units were not prepared for.

basically every road that went through the city was covered and made into a fire lane. So any enemy units trying to move had a difficult time of it.

 

My two errors in the game were I lost a few too many men. One reason was I dropped my arty danger close to me next to the objective the enemy wanted.

Needless to say, I lost too many men to my own arty.

Second was, I placed my infantry in over watch units on roof tops to protect my armor and try to support the fire lanes on the roadways. This exposed them too often to new enemy threats and I lost some to initial attacks from new enemy positions.

But I will try and post my score. It shows a nice victory and I felt good about my overall play on this one and as mentioned before, enjoyed the challenge.

What I did not enjoy was the battle was over somewhere around 55-50 minutes left in the game. I know you want to give plenty of time for players that need more time to finish the battle. (that just seems way to generous to me -If it was my scenario, I would cut 30 minutes off what I would give for total time - but hey, that's me.

 

Excellent - useful feedback thanks. I've seen the discussion re scenario time so I'll read through these discussions then post a separate reply (at work just now so will be later!).

I think you did really well winning this - all credit to your tactical and CM skills. How - if you don't mind me asking - did you manage to get the BMPs there so quick? I've tried that but never managed, as always end up running into an ambush or taking too long as I work my way forward.

Your screenshot shows a good outcome, as I said I'm well impressed. Thanks for playing this through and I appreciate the time you took to post your comments and thoughts.

Cheery!

 

[Heinrich505]

George,

  Thanks so much.  I'm looking forward to having a go at this one during the weekend.  Too much real life during the week.  Ugh!!

Heinrich505