Sgt Joch

Strong Stand and Adan Airfield are both done now, AI plans made and tested and victories scored in both missions. With extensive use of triggers in both missions, they make the Adan mission feel alive with units reacting to your moves. They're scripted not to be 'John Wick' efficient but to behave realistically. But they'll still fight.  
This is Adan Airfield. I've reworked the Minakh Airfield map and made a whole new mission from it. There will be two versions, the Attack version, which will be the new opener (because the result will have consequences for the rest of Phase I) and the Defend version in Phase II which is intended to be a real tough one and will similarly have consequences for all the Phase II missions.

I suspect some folks are going to rage at me for giving you 40 minutes to capture the airfield. I just forced a surrender with just over 9 minutes on the clock so it's more than doable.
Here's the Strong Stand map:

It's been extended a fair bit and the compounds have all been reworked to make them more realistic.

That's not a small amount of work but it's all done and the mission appears to be doable too. The original version was a real dog to play, 2+hours fighting in the dark against a numerically superior mechanised force that was well trained and equipped. It's a Light Infantry action and Special forces are just not that good against mechanised forces and, to be honest, i was finding the prospect of testing it a bit daunting so I decided to rip it all apart and start again with a whole new Red OB with new AI plans. Now it's a lot of fun to play.
So that's all the Special Forces phase I missions finished. So it's on to Phase II now which will take a bit longer as the maps have been changed so substantially that they'll need a lot of testing to get right. The Phase II missions are
Adan Airfield (Defend)
Buying the Farm
Breakout, and
Hasrabit.
After that, I'll get to the Republican Guards missions.

Here's the new opening map: Overkill. Once again, it's a night mission but I've set the timer to 7am so that you can actually see something:

It's a small map with very small forces on both sides. While it's intended to be easy, you can't just rush in, you'll need a reasonable plan.
It's a real world place too. I was tempted to expand the map to include all of the terrain around that strange round hill to the east of the village but I'm beginning to get tired of doing map work for this campaign and want to get stuck into doing the AI and actual play-testing.
That's the all-new Heavy Metal map. It's another real-world place, and yes, there are large open areas with orchards scattered around within these berms. I expect it will change a bit as I test it but that should do the job.
 

Now I'm reworking the Saudara map and expanding the Hasrabit map considerably. The former is a completely fictional map so I can do what I want with that but Hasrabit is real and so it's getting expanded considerably to include the open, farming terrain to the east of the city as well as the compounds. I guess I'll have most of that map work done before the holiday begins.

Well, it's been a really busy week this last week and because it's the last week of Ramadan, it's quite noisy at night, fireworks, drums etc, (silent through the day though) and so sleep suffers a bit. And that means I can't really focus to do a good job of AI planning. So instead, I've been reworking the existing maps to improve each of them and make the compounds and villages much more realistic. They're all real world places in Syria although from wildly different parts but the difference it makes in night and day. While they look like NATO maps now, they still strongly resemble the original maps which is a considerable improvement. And it hasn't required an enormous amount of work either. The best change made so far is The Guards Counterattack which looks pretty realistic in the moonlight. Screenshots will follow later but boy, is that a brutal mission!
That map has been expanded quite a bit too as has the Barrier mission which has been reworked as a Prevent enemy forces from exiting the map edge mission. I'm happy with how the changes look too. They make the map look more interesting.
Another mission that has been substantially reworked is the Buying the Farm mission. I was looking for a large warehouse feature in Google Earth and had the idea to make it a railway yard instead and so the entire thing has been redrawn, trees removed and elevation changes substantially reduced and rail lines added with bridges over them. It looks really good and I'm looking forward to trying it out.
I've added a couple of new missions to the campaign to create a story line with consequences that matter including a new opener, which is tiny, but a lot of fun (for me anyway) and should allow the player to indulge himself letting rip with the heavy weapons in a civilian area, a welcome change from the usual Blue v red restriction. Called 'Overkill', winning this mission deters the civilian population from rising up and joining in the revolution at least for a few hours anyway. This allows me to create a variant of the opener which is much easier if you win Overkill. This required a new map but it's very small and I finished it this morning. Funnily enough, it started out as an experiment to see how the Special forces AA, Grenade and HMG vehicles work and I was so happy with the result that i decided to make this the new opener instead. So you have a single platoon and some new vehicles to play around with.
Immediately after that, I decided to do a whole new map for Heavy Metal because I just felt I couldn't use the old one. It was too small and too artificial for what I need but I found a location to the SE of Damascus which fits the bill perfectly for a large mech/tank clash and have got it 50% done. It's an arid map so it's pretty open and flat but there are lots of berms which break LoS up.
I have created the core unit file and done the admin for the campaign so that I know who goes where and when and have imported the new units into all the existing missions except heavy Metal so I've done a LOT this week, just no new AI plans which is the real work. With regards to the core units, I've decided to try out a couple of platoons of T-90s to accompany the Republican Guard. Now you have just two mech companies with attachments instead of three but I figure the T-90s will more than compensate for them. if they're too OP, I'll swap them with the T-72 TURMS again. There are three SF companies but one is designated for a special series of two missions on the same map (the second new mission) which it's unlikely to survive so there will be one company with attachments in each mission, usually Reserve Infantry and some tanks from the very bottom of the barrel, just like original Hasrabit.
So, Ramadan ends mid-week next week and I have a week's holiday so the sleep deficit should get paid back quite quickly. Then I'll be able to focus on doing AI plans and testing done on some of these missions. I guess I'll have a better idea of how long this is going to take after we get back to work after the May Day holiday. I'm hoping it won't be too long as I'd like to have this wrapped up by mid-June. That's probably a tad optimistic but we'll see.

That all sounds very familiar as I've been working on the opening two missions over the last couple of days. That reassures me that the decision to keep it as much like the original Hasrabit as possible is the best way to do things.
Anyway, I had originally planned to redo Ambush entirely and made up a whole new map which you can see at the top of this thread. I'm glad I decided to stick with the old map as I've been able to redesign it using the new ideas I had that inspired the  map above. Bear in mind that this is a NIGHT mission and so I've switched to daylight for screenshots.
Here's the old map:

Not a bad map at all but I wanted to make the opener a bit more realistic so here's the new Ambush map

And here it is from a different viewpoint

The two sides of the river are both real world locations but not close with each other. Gone are most of the trees and the elevations have been reduced substantially. It's mostly finished now. I expect I'll rework one or two areas as playtesting goes on. The large empty areas are necessary though so the one you see in the first picture won't change. They also look quite good at night anyway. As you can see, the large workshop area has been replaced with more realistic looking compounds and there is now a small hamlet on the other side of the river. The map has been extended somewhat but it's still quite small. Since it's a hazy night mission, it feels big enough though. And I've erased about half a million flavour objects from the original map. I'm definitely of the opinion that less is more in that respect.
And that brings me to the OBs. Both have been stripped down slightly with the Special Forces only having two platoons and some support and the REDFor has been similarly stripped down. Otherwise they'd just be far too OP for the player to fight against. The v4.0 engine allows me to do things with the AI on attack that I was never able to do before and it's a game changer. So OBs have been reduced by about 33% for both sides and the mission has been extended as well to allow for more time for the situation to develop.
I usually return to the opening mission of a campaign several times as I get deeper into it so there will be more than one AI attack plan by the time this is finished. Now it's time to get playtesting mission 2, Strong Stand.

As some of you will already be aware, I've decided to fast track revising my ancient 'Hasrabit' campaign and I've been busy with it since last weekend. I tried out the very first mission, Ambush, and didn't like it and my initial reaction was to abandon the original opening map and create an all-new Ambush map. I started work on it on Wednesday and I finished it earlier this afternoon. It's really big and very detailed but, well, I suspect you can already see why this map isn't going to work in this campaign...

It just doesn't look like any of the other maps in the campaign. It actually looks like the maps I made for the NATO campaigns. So I'm going to use this in Retribution which will come a bit later. I'm not teasing you by showing that in a thread purporting to be about Hasrabit, it's just that it's the end result of 3 days of work and I'm very happy with the end result. I'd LIKE to use it but the other maps would all look utterly incongruous beside it and I certainly don't want to redo them all.
Hasrabit is an old campaign and so I'm not going to change very much with it because otherwise, what you'd get wouldn't be 'Hasrabit' - it would be a whole new campaign using similar forces. So it's going to be an update instead. I'm going to improve the old maps for sure and make them look more Syrian, adding water and bridges for example and redesign the compounds and villages so that they look much more realistic. And bye bye to the vast glowing fields of wheat, the lush, green grass and the dense forests that made the maps look more like NW Europe. I'll expand a few of them, particularly the ones with armour clashes but otherwise, they will all stay pretty much the same. I'm also going to stick with the totally made-up background story as again, this is Hasrabit and there's no such place or governorate and so I'm just going to let it be. 
I've also decided to keep the original Ambush mission but take out the artillery strike on your starting positions and also remove all the trees and the mud which was everywhere and replace them with orchards. That huge yard will also get removed and redone with something that looks more Syrian. I suspect that the river will also have to go but we'll see how I feel once real play-testing starts because the bridges are a pretty bad bottleneck which the AI can't handle very well..
Which brings me to what will definitely change - the AI. I was rather surprised to find that the AI attacks in almost every mission and that's going to be fun to do. The old AI plans are atrocious though as are the set-up and positioning of the AI's units. The player set-ups look really terrible too with very narrow set-up are areas with units all crammed together so all that will change. I now have 16 groups to work with and can give them far more orders with some special ones which were not in the game the last time I played. And, of course, some triggers.
So, that's the plan as it stands. I've made up the new core units file and I've already started improving the existing maps. So, I'm going to import the new units and get down to some serious play in against the old AI plans and OBs before I rip them out so that I know the original intention behind the mission and try to stay faithful to it. I'll probably add shots of the 'finished' maps here as I go. I suspect that by the time I've finished this revision, I'll have relearned all the skills I formerly had and will be able to do a better job of the new campaign I plan to follow it with.

Wow, just read this. As a Brit who voted for Brexit, I think maybe Steve should stick to military matters as this is pretty insulting and frankly bat **** crazy. My reason for voting Brexit, for the record, is that I believe in democracy and the EU is profoundly undemocratic. We got rid of a king in the 1600s because he was overruling our parliament. The EU over the passed decades has imposed thousands of laws on the UK we had to accept by treaty obligation. It was always about democracy and sovereignty for me and many others, not stupidity, irrationality, or Russian manipulation.

I'm winding up work on my 'USMC Gung Ho!' campaign and when that's done, I'd like to start a new version of the same campaign but this time with German Gebirgsjager units instead. But I'd like to give it a German name instead of 'Gung Ho!', a title which demonstrated my pedigree as an old ASLer.
So the daft question is, what would be an appropriate German expression to use instead of Gung Ho!? I've googled it and got 'ubereifrig' or 'wild entschlossen' among others and of course, I'm clueless. What would you German speakers prefer I use or would something else be appropriate. I don't have to be able to pronounce it, just spell it and that's what copy and paste are for.
BTW, I was planning to use the title 'Tally Ho!' for the Brit version.

Can we all just take a moment to enjoy the irony of an American calling for more action by the ICC 🤣

Kind of sad that being even slightly skeptical of the mainstream narrative brands me as pro Russian. I won't bother the "discussion" any further.

I won't get involved in this discussion further as it is leaning towards whataboutism. But to be fair: The US did wage quite a few wars that violated international law. By your own admission, this would make all US soldiers who fought in one of those war criminals. I have zero problem with criticizing the US for their wars but calling each and every soldier a war criminal just for fighting in it is indeed absurd, I think. You are right, blindly following orders and getting away with it is a thing of the past, as it should be. But a judge will always weigh the severity of the what a soldier did under orders against possible consequences of refusing said order, meaning there is no automatism here.

If I may, I wanted to come back to this post cause it triggered me, being a pilot myself.
In the civilian aviation industry we have fought hard and long to establish a pretty damn great safety track record.
‘Just Culture’ (or one of its many synonyms) is one of its pillars and means that when things go wrong, personel should feel they can report on it without having fear of being met with discliplinary actions by the company or risk of being proscecuted by law enforcement *as long as there is no intentional harmful or gross negligence* . By gaining a lot of information on what happened and not asking ourselves *who is responsible*, but rather *what can we learn to not have it happen again* is the driving factor and has proven to be successful.
Yet, the trend I’ve seen (with the rise of social media to name one big factor) is that this foundation is becoming shaky under the constant pressure of the (percieved?) importance of showing the public you (enter corporate/law/governmeny entity here) have things under control and show all those people who scream for heads to roll that its being managed and they shouldnt worry. Let’s be honest; the prime reaction of most of us will be : ‘who dunnit?!’ not ‘why did it happen’ .
Entities like D.A.’s know very well the the importance of public opinion, by there very nature they will always have an adversarial relationship with the ‘just culture’ way of thinking. And in my experience this slippery slope has angled more steeply toward easy wins by crowd control , which is something I look at with worry. 
 
Integrity is a very important thing. I believe that most people come to their job and not have the active thought to sabotage or neglect their duties willfully. On the contrary, they are doing their job to their full capacity and with good intent.
 
Now we look at the military pilot. Do you really feel he singlehandedly should be held responsible for his actions he does under order of his superiors while his country is at war? That looks to me like a cheap PR win to the hungry crowd more than a decision based on integrity. He’s the easiest target.
I fully understand an argument might be that he is a thinking individual and should have opposed to carrying out his orders, but that is from the point of view of the other side of which there always be at least 2 in a war. One side approves, the other does not. Its hardly a good point to make generalisations about for how to treat individual soldiers. Besides, don’t we have the Geneva Convention for this (if he ended up being captured)?
So, all german soldier should have been prosecuted individually after WW2? No, the people with the plans were and officers and officials propagating those plans were and then a country was put under sanctions to ‘punish the collective’.

LETS ROCK! 😎

sorry to hear about Nidan1, I played a few PBEM games with him. He was a fine gentleman.

well I guess I am a bit disappointed. I think it would be important to have clear rules on what is allowed or not allowed in this discussion so that it does not degenerate into a free for all. I thought we were trying to keep this as an objective discussion of the war and strategy by both sides and not trying to drag domestic politics into it.
What col. Macgregor as said in various interviews, basically that the U.S. has no vital security interest in Ukraine is an opinion held by a lot of people, both democrats and republicans. You can agree or disagree, but that does not mean he should be painted as a Putin stooge or as U.S. Democrats have been saying that there is a "Putin wing of the GOP", which basically means anyone who does not think we should back Ukraine 110%.
also copying @BFCElvis, as moderator of the thread.
 

Just catching up on this thread, but I really have to react to this and am copying @BFCElvis.
This kind of accusation is beyond the pale, col. Douglas Macgegor is a very well respected officer, he has written many articles that have influenced U.S. Army doctrine. Launching personal attacks just because you do not like his politics or agree with his politics is not what we do around here.
 

I would love to have the whole world be a paradise with no war, death, poverty, hunger, crime and everyone is kind to his fellow human and dog, but that is not the planet we live on, is it Sunshine? 😉

I am more the cranky old man "get off my lawn" type of guy. 
 

I am more the cranky old man "get off my lawn" type of guy. 
 

I would love to have the whole world be a paradise with no war, death, poverty, hunger, crime and everyone is kind to his fellow human and dog, but that is not the planet we live on, is it Sunshine? 😉

well actually the calculus is easy.
lets game out victory from a Ukrainian POV. Hoping that the Russian Army will just collapse is wishful thinking at this point IMHO. So question is whether the UKR army able to push Russian forces back to the border, recapture Donbas and Crimea?
if yes, in what time frame and at what cost in money, destruction to infrastructure, civilian and military casualties and is it worth the cost? then proceed.
if not, than the answer is obvious, negotiate the best deal you can get.

That strikes me more as a propaganda move or to put pressure on the Ukrainians, it will be weeks at least before they show up on the front lines and there should be a ceasefire agreement by then.

not sure what you are referring to here exactly. No mainstream conservative paid any attention to any of this until Victoria Nuland, Under Secretary of State, said this under oath to Senator Rubio this week:
which of course raised a lot of questions, such as:
1. exactly what are those labs researching? (seems to have been partially answered here).
2. why is the U.S. "concerned" that Russia may have access to the research material? If, as I understand from the answers here, these are just garden variety research lab, why would there be any "concern"? presumably, this would all be research material that Russian scientists would be aware of.
There are still a lot of unanswered questions here. Nothing wrong with the Press asking questions and trying to get to the bottom of this. Maybe there is nothing to it, but just blowing it off as "Russian propaganda", like Kirby and Psaki did is not going to wash.

China is not Russia, its economy is too masive to de-stabilise without seriously impacting the world economy.
U.S. also tends to turn a blind eye when it comes to China. For example, China has been importing millions of barrels of Oil from Iran even though they are hit by sanctions, but the U.S. is ignoring it.
China has also been smart when it comes to sanction busting, it is playing a double game. Officially, it is against U.S. sanctions since it does not want to be dictated to by the U.S., but un-officially, its major Banks and companies are following US/EU sanctions against Russia.
What China typically does is designate just a few companies to break sanctions, that way if they are hit by U.S. legal proceedings, it does not have a big impact on the Chinese economy.
 

re: China
I personally don't think we can draw that many parallel with the current crisis. Despite the rhetoric, I doubt China has serious plans to invade Taiwan.
1. Taiwan has been independent for 70 years;
2. Taiwan has few natural resources. China is resource poor and a major aim of its foreign policy for the past 20 years has been to develop access to more natural resources;
3. The Chinese leadership is more risk adverse than Russia. Xi Jinping does not rule China, the Communist Party rules China. Xi does not have the same freedom of action that Putin has. One wrong move, like an invasion of Taiwan that does not work and he would be out.
What China wants to do, it is already doing, namely gaining control of the South China Seas and its natural resources.

A couple people have asked me about the potential impact of the loss of power at Chernobyl. The below statement from the IAEA should be reassuring, as far as any danger from spent fuel. Recall that loss of all power was what cause the fuel damage at Fukushima. The difference here, not mentioned in the IAEA article, is that the Chernobyl spent fuel has been out for a LONG time, and therefore its decay heat rate is much, much lower than that at Fukushima. 
The other part of the article mentions loss of signals to safeguards. Reactor safeguards (in the IAEA sense, not the operating the reactor sense) are designed to monitor the fuel cycle to ensure that no nuclear material is diverted from its intended use. I don't see this as a big concern. The fuel is not in a state that is easy to make use of even in a dirty bomb, let alone make use of it for an actual nuclear weapon. For various technical reasons, the Pu in spent fuel from a standard power reactor is unsuitable for the warhead of a weapon. Russia doesn't need it. They have all the nuclear material they need. Ukraine has no interest.
IAEA statements can be considered reliable, for their transparent publication of information and analysis. Note that the IAEA is staffed by scientists, engineers and inspectors from many countries and as such, evaluations do not have political agendas. Their overriding concern is nuclear safety and nuclear non-proliferation.
Dave
https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/update-16-iaea-director-general-statement-on-situation-in-ukraine?fbclid=IwAR1_gMc22fYSiWIfMeM59dXabh5MrKOtZeOXvQnQP2_7o1FqKksC8zfBEsA