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RAMADI (Iraq): Mother of All MOUT Maps


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Hey LLF

I'm curious as to how many hours you think you have put into this project? It's incredible! Excellent work. I've made a few maps here and there and can understand how tiresome they can be to make but in all honesty I feel that the map is one of the key ingredients in a scenario. Some scenarios have the ability to suck the player into almost complete emersion because of the detail.

I'm in awe and humbled by what you have accomplished here.

Good luck, can't wait for the map to be released!

Steve-o

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I'd estimate at least a thousand hours over 3 years, much longer than I've ever spent actually playing the game. (On the other hand, I know plenty of people who have spent a thousand hours playing WoW or Farmville or Bejeweled Blitz with no map to show for it at the end). I have a demanding professional day job, but also had a long bus commute and a young baby, both of which created time for mapmaking and research.

Absolutely agree about the map being critical to immersion -- it's virtually the third player in the game. And this is what led me into this project not long after the game came out... I was dissatisfied with the maps, especially the urban ones.

The terrain and farmland generally looked pretty good, but the buildings for the most part were all wrong: too many windows, not enough compound walls.

And as I've pointed out ad nauseam, this fundamental omission radically changes gameplay, since a unit in a building can see and be seen by a large part of the map. So if a RED unit opens fire it can be quickly suppressed by a bunch of overwatch units and killed without BLUE ever really needing to close in or maneuver.

In contrast, a Ramadi streetfight runs like this: Marine teams leapfrog along narrow walled streets in a series of quick dashes, with overwatch forces in defilade. Gets ambushed or worse, grenaded, by RED forces on rooftops or upper floors. Shoots back aggressively or else pulls back a few feet to cover. Overwatch forces maneuver to gain LOS -- this takes time to do. Going on rooftops and balconies is tempting but risky.

As fire comes to bear, RED shooters start to get hit or rout down to first floor, where they rally. To clean them out, BLUE either needs to go into their compound and shoot it out point blank or get on a roof across the street, pump in HE then rush the building. Or just bypass the a**holes and move on.

Fantastic gameplay for the infantry aficionado, very tricky to win when your victory conditions are heavy on casualty avoidance, and play much more like the veteran accounts out of Fallujah. Or Ramadi. Now if I can just finish a bleedin' scenario and get it out to you folks!

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  • 2 months later...

Thanks for asking. I've now got 2 fairly sophisticated and versatile (I think) AI plans for nearly all the major counterattacks, and may yet add a third "don't move as much" set

At present I'm pondering whether:

(1) to deploy the Marine forces at opposite ends of the map so the player can make the key tactical choice of whether to (a) link the main forces up first and then punch into the lethal maze along a single axis with overwhelming force in the preferred US manner, or (B) send several smaller groups in from separate directions, saving precious time for the trapped men; or

(2) Have the QRFs take the "long way round" and enter the map near the on-map forces, which basically predetermines option (a) above. This is what LTC Kennedy elected to do in the historical engagement, partly owing to an initial misunderstanding of where the trapped Marines actually were.

As I've noted, historical authenticity is important to me since this action is amongst the best-documented of the Iraq War. In part, I want to test/refute the notion that the CMSF cannot reliably replicate a real world combat outcome. But while option is more historically accurate it makes for a far less challenging game than option 1 (which is also quite plausible, just not what happened).

What to do, what to do....

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IMO, It is good to give the option. The ability to recreate a historical outcome, by using the historical choices, IS a good part of CMSF. However, there are many small variables that all added up to the historic outcome, which are not easily modeled. Therefore, it is good to not constrain the players to follow historic paths. One of the best, most interesting parts, of wargaming, is the ability to see "what if..." scenarios. If not for this ability, no one would ever want to play them, as we already know the historic outcomes of wars.

From the looks of your map, a tremendous amount of work went into this. I look forward to playing it. On this question, I would definitely give a couple of possibilities to both Human and AI sides, and let the players enjoy the "what if I did..." idea.

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I have no plans to do Fallujah. I can probably do about a dozen different company- sized Ramadi scenarios without players playing much of the same section twice. It took me 3 years to build this map as it is.

Remember too, unlike Fallujah downtown Ramadi was occupied by US forces solidly from 2003-2009, and it wasn't -- with major exceptions -- high intensity combat. So plenty of time for photography and video which is all on YouTube and elsewhere.

Also, in the future US/NATO forces are far more likely to find themselves in Ramadis -- garrisoning a large city with a hostile population engaging in hit and run, sniping and mine warfare -- than in a Fallujah where insurgents have turned the place into a fortress. The tactical problems are different at the CMSF (company-level) scale.

Bottom line: I am more interested in Ramadi and that's where I am focused.

However, if you or anyone else wants to create a Fallujah-sized (or Syria) action using any or all of my maps once I release them, you are heartily welcome to do so. Arab cities are broadly pretty similar in layout, architecture and tactical feel.

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You may not be so keen on these particular streets when I've finished with you, me boyos.

I just got my freekin arse handed to me by the AI in this evening's playtest -- even though I knew where the enemy was coming from (I had it on Elite not ScenTest). So it looks like this baby is challenging enough to be good for a few replays, but hopefully because the player makes poor choices (and learns from them), not because I stacked the deck ridiculously and put you in no-win situations.

My takeaway (not the first time): "aggressive" Marine squad fighting doctrine works.

Once the firefight erupted, I hesitated instead of deciding on a plan and executing pronto. I let my Marines sit and trade fire with their particular bad guys for a couple minutes while I tried to get a fix on the enemy positions -- real tricky because there's lots of them. And that was mistake 1, wasting precious ammo and not dominating any of the firefights.

Then when I finally decided to do something, I hung around on some rooftops just a little too long to kill some (distant) snipers and began taking casualties. Since casualties are all that matter for VC, I had no choice but to Medic them in place. Which led to more casualties. And then the enemy got around my flank and I was in real hot water. I got impatient and ran a squad across a bare rooftop to get to an adjacent building -- a single RPG shot took down 6 of them. By the time it died down, I was nearly out of ammo, had already lost 20 guys (making the scenario unwinnable) and barely a block in.

I'm going to be curious what you guys think. I have no firsthand experience, but this really feels like "war" in a way that I've only experienced a few times playing other people's scenarios.

Oh, and with the BLUE forces fragmented there is absolutely no way anyone is going to play this in RT without a fair amount of pausing to issue orders -- you simply can't do it on the fly. It is really too bad that there is no coplay because that would be just completely perfect for this action as the QRFs try to link up.

Finally, Mord's Cuss mods especially rock when the sh*te hits the fan for BLUE! It's absolute madness!

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  • 2 weeks later...

OK, after a few tweaks, I have actually made it through 30 minutes of play, got most of my reinforcements and killed about 30 insurgents without losing a single Marine (there were a lot of tense moments though, and to achieve zero casualties I did have to revert to savedgames twice). Once I get through (tonight, insh'allah), I will make the final adjustments and solicit some playtesters.

Minute 30. Smoke from burning cars and insurgent roadblocks enshrouds the Mulaab district in acrid gloom as 3 separate firefights are underway.

Joker3-30min.jpg

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Thanks. I perform OK on an HP530J Pentium 4 1G RAM (5 years old) so long as I keep the graphics settings low and turn off smoke unless Paused. The "W" key (forward) movement is fairly sludgy except at level 1, but the mouse push works fine.

45 minutes in, and I still haven't hit the enemy's main defensive crust. My guys are in 3 groups, trying to sort out snipers and replenish ammo from the humvees without getting them RPGed.

Joker3-45min.jpg

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I don't want to create spoilers for a scen that isn't out yet, but here's some info that's in the briefing:

You have about 150 US troops, 10 Humvees and 2 Bradleys all told, and since this is a rescue mission, the only way to get VP (and a Victory) is for BLUE to lose less than ~5% casualties or RED to inflict more than ~X% (there's also a BLUE penalty for damaging the big mosque but it's off to the side of the map). The historical result was 3 US dead and about 15 seriously wounded with no vehicle losses -- which is over the DRAW threshold. However, per the discussion a few pages earlier in this thread. I've slightly altered the deployment of forces for "fun game" reasons, and that will make it harder (especially on vehicles).

So let's just say that if an isolated fire team blunders down the wrong block without fire support or overwatch it can find itself outflanked and then overrun. Even the weakest insurgent teams (2 AKs + SVD) can put out lethal firepower at point blank.

My playtests are all confirming the same critical (historical!) fact -- avoid firefights if you aren't able to dominate them. While gaining fire superiority has been so effortless for BLUE in most CMSF scenarios that it barely registers as a challenge (due to the open terrain and superb weapons), it's hard hard hard in downtown Ramadi (though by no means impossible). And the second huge lesson is: haste makes waste. Never ever move toward an unsuppressed enemy, even a solo sniper. AREA FIRE, preferably with MMGs, is your friend.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what people think. I haven't bought NATO or CMA since I haven't had gaming time for anything but Ramadi in the last year, so I gather the scenario design has really improved. Still, I still think Ramadi is going to be a very very different CMSF experience for those who want to try to fight MOUT -- the very worst meat grinder in war -- "as it is".

It's not easy to bring your kids home in one piece in a hornets nest like this, and I truly admire the Western militaries for adapting so quickly. The Rangers in Mogadishu did not die in vain.

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Correct. "No True Glory" by Bing West gives the numbers. These are corroborated by the other sources.

JOKER THREE was pinned down in 3 separated groups -- about 44 Marines all told but by game start they are Weakened or Unfit from exhaustion (90 minutes+ under siege in midday heat) and wounds, and ammo is critical.

The initial QRF (JOKER ONE, less one squad which had to stay back and guard the trucks) was about 35 Marines; they were joined by a scratch third QRF from Combat Outpost which added about 10 more.

The Battalion QRF was about 30 Marines, plus BASTARD SIX (LTC Kennedy) and his security detail -- another 8.

COL Connor's Army relief force made up of 1/1 Brigade HQ personnel was another 25 men

As you can see, on April 6, the 2 US combat battalions in Ramadi were fully tapped out in fierce engagements all over the city and its environs. The majority of US forces in Anbar were focused on Fallujah. The Ramadi insurgents saw their opportunity and took it. The 150 US shooters in this action included 2 Colonels, 2 Sergeant Majors and a company gunny, plus HQ personnel -- anyone who could be scraped together. The camps were held by cooks and medics.

This was probably the fiercest defensive fight the US military has been in since Black Hawk Down. JOKER 3 was in big trouble and was nearly overrun by upwards of 300 insurgents.(although there have probably been some comparably desperate sieges in A-stan).

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