LongLeftFlank

It's OK, we have an undersea city of non-Euclidean geometry that breeds enormous swarms of batlike creatures to absorb the blasts of the alien laser cannon if we make the requisite blood sacrifices to Cthulhu. Dick Cheney is his high priest on earth.

This is a guerrilla war; the rebels are most active where the regime's hold is weakest -- at present that is in the hilly country around Hama. The regime has concentrated heavy forces in the area around Homs, so the rebels have obligingly shifted their efforts north. The moment the boot comes off the neck of Homs it will erupt in rebellion again. And time is not on the regime's side; the rebels are rapidly importing IED knowhow and materials from Iraq. Those impressive looking mechanized forces are going to start becoming tracked coffins before long, as will the large numbers of supply vehicles needed to sustain those forces. The US Army had a hard enough time with these tactics; the Syrian army, corrupt, inefficient and poorly motivated, is going to lose its mobility and with it, control of most of the country. The 1982 rebellion was led by a locally based group of clerics and clansmen. The current rebellion is far more broad-based, and its grievances are largely economic, not religious even though religious fanatics are present. There is no useful analog here. The Alawites are about 10% of the population, and are shrinking demographically and aging, as are the Christians and other wealthier non-Sunni minorities. I have no doubt you are right that they face a grim future at the hands of the long repressed Sunni majority, but these people have made their bed over the last 50 years and must now lie in it. Their best bet is to kill the Assads now and hope that they can broker some kind of multisectarian "government of national reconciliation" that will at least protect some minority rights even if it is Sunni dominated. The longer this drags on, the less likely that becomes. Big picture, guys: Like it or not, the ancient Levantine Syria, crossroads of cultures and sects, like much of the rest of the Middle East, is drowning in a demographic sea of undereducated Sunnis flocking into cities and towns from the hinterlands, wanting education and jobs and cars and everything else they see on TV. This tide cannot be reversed except through the most brutal form of genocide; and would the group that enacted such measures be worth "saving"? As for Russian gunships and missiles, I feel like this is a red herring. The world has come a long way since the 1980s-1990s. Chinese dealers will gleefully supply effective SA-18 / Stinger knockoffs to anyone with the cash. Also, there's a lot of mythology floating around about the devastating impact of Hind gunships in A'stan, Chechnya and 1991 Iraq; while they are useful tools, especially in patrolling mountainous terrain, they will not eliminate a popular insurgency on their own. It's not like NATO has been PWNing the Taliban with Apaches.

I say again, the inevitable appearance of Al Qaeda branded Salafists and their mad bomber tactics on the anti-government side does not delegitimize the wider armed rebellion. Nor does it suddenly make the Assad regime "the lesser of two evils" as so many people on this board seem to think. The pre-2010 status quo (a nominally secular Alawite dominated Ba'athist welfare state) could not be sustained; demographics and economics are both against it. Furthermore, due to the regime's violent action against moderate reformers as well as its panicky playing of the secular strife card, it is now impossible to put that toothpaste back in the tube. Do-or-die fighters (not all of them religious fanatics) now dominate the armed opposition and a negotiated settlement is fundamentally unthinkable, for all the delusions of Kofi Annan. The best that can be hoped for now is the prompt overthrow of the Assad family and its closest associates by elements within the regime itself, most reliably via the assassination or incapacitation of both Bashir and Maher Assad (anonymously Hellfire that bastard, please!). That way, SOME semblance of existing institutions can open a internationally-brokered dialogue with the rebels and try to restore some kind of pluralistic government and eventually expel the foreign nutjobs. Otherwise, as the conflict drags on, the economy disintegrates and moderates become casualties, you will get a brutal Iraq style civil war (with no Western army to tamp it down), horrific ethnic cleansing, and the eventual and inevitable displacement of the regime and all existing institutions by a hardened group of Sunni Arab supremacists. A lot of that may happen anyway, sure, but there is NO option that lets anybody turn back the clock.

Any new developments, CoonDog?

Oh yes you can, you just need to design your own content to go with the various PTO mods that have been uploaded / are in process.

Yes, some other things are pressing on my mind at the moment, like earning a living, but hope I can get back to this at some point.

Umm, John, have you actually READ the Miami Herald? They cannot be trusted on any matter relating to Cuba. And why might that be? (Something to do with the reporting and editorial staff not wanting their cars exploding when they start, maybe?) John, you're a bright, curious guy and I for one enjoy your contributions to the forum. But I'd say you're just a touch credulous when it comes to Big Conspiracy Theories. And that goes for your vaunted In The Know Contacts In the National Security Apparatus too.... and come to think of it, why haven't They warned you to keep your mouth shut especially on Internet chat boards? (or else your car might just blow up too) Sure, sure, life eventually teaches us all that the way Winners and Losers are chosen in the world usually doesn't have much to do with the virtues they teach you in church, Civics class or MBA school. But even if Star Chambers of Wise Mandarins / Illuminati / Koch Brothers do get together in remote secure locations and dream up Thousand Year Plans to Rule the Universe (Bwahahahaaha), they really aren't any better than the rest of us at actually sticking to them. At the end of the day, even Bilderbergers need to pull down their pants to take a dump (or jump hotel maids, as the case may be). The banality of evil, all that. One man*'s opinion. * Not sure at this point whether he is one of the Winners or Losers. Stay tuned.

Yes, the LeMay story was true and verified from multiple sources. The big guy had lost his marbles by that time -- too many cigars interfering with the purity of his precious bodily fluids maybe. As for the other stuff you reference, it'll be a cold day in hell before I ever click on a link called "cubanet.org".

Absolutely. An expeditionary corps consisting of 10th Mountain Div, 82nd Airborne and various NatGuard formations has held thinly disguised exercises for swiftly occupying Quebec (both with and without the cooperation of Anglophone Canada). btw 82nd AB is an interesting division, as it's the one regular division trained to conduct military operations within the US should that become necessary and the National Guard prove either insufficient or unreliable (e.g. Little Rock schools). And it is also no coincidence that Fort Bragg is the closest division home base to the US capital.* Although American checks and balances being what they are, please note that MCB Camp Lejeune isn't much farther away. So the next Bonus Army can look forward to being dispersed by 82nd Airborne or 2nd Marines. * Yes, AP Hill, Dix and Quantico are all closer, but there are no combat divisions based there.

John, I know you have a defense research background and family in the military, but anyone with even a passing familiarity with the military infrastructure needed to support 200 deployable tactical nuclear weapons, even if the majority are aerial bombs or battlefield rockets, should realize that the above statement is.... just a tad exaggerated. And is simply not supportable by the physical Soviet infrastructure in place on Cuba, which was largely still under construction in October 1962. Like I said before, a lot of US careers -- civilian and military -- were made based on exaggerating the gravity of the Threat once it had passed. So yes, rumours got around. But that's all they were. The Russians, as it turned out, didn't originally think it was that big a deal given Turkey and the DEW line and all that, and were actually quite surprised at the visceral and highly public US reaction. As I noted before, they thought JFK was going to be the one to press the button, which is why they folded their tents fast and got the hell out.

Thanks for the endorsement. Been searching for a new job lately, so not much time for CM or the miseries of others these days. That should change soon, insh'allah.

It usually happens when you place forces first, then subsequently add a building. This has been true since CMSF days, although it doesn't always happen. The only cure is to delete and then re-add the units. Basically, it's a bad idea to change the map once you've deployed forces on it.

Nice! Have you figured out how to make their webgear appear? Has something to do with using the German wireframe but I couldn't do it.

I need to head out of town for a week, so I'll probably upload these mods in their current form clearly marked as "Rev 1", so any PTO map designers can use them as an indicative. I am also noodling around: 1. retexturing the haystack to resemble some kind of barrel bush or harvested cane grass 2. how to transform Tall Bocage into a bamboo thicket or at least some dangling jungle vines but those will need some more advanced alpha channel work and will likely have to wait for the next iteration. EDIT: OK, v1 is posted at the Repository and GreenAsJade's site. Enjoy! Feedback welcome.

PTO vegetation screenies Bush A Screw pine Bush B - broadleaf "rubber tree" Bush C Codiaeum Tree A Eucalyptus Tree B is the palm from CMSF Tree C is unchanged Tree D. Jacaranda. Notice also I've added banana leaves to the forest floor tile Tree E is unchanged.

Remember, the CW armies share a number of wireframes so while I agree in principle with using the Poles or Canucks as a base, you'll be forced to make certain choices (e.g. IJA holding SMLEs).

I was just reading up on the Battle of Makin Atoll -- the Yellow Beach assault (famous photo below) and subsequent taking of the West Tank Barrier appears quite suitable for the CM scale; the island was only about 150 yards wide in spots. Alligators are the key missing item here; flamethrowers apparently weren't available on D-Day. Oh, and it looks like the medium tanks were Grants, not Shermans.

Very nice work on the Angaur map, although it does tax my 2004 vintage HP. I was just reading up on the Battle of Makin Atoll -- the Yellow Beach assault appears quite suitable for the CM scale; the island was only about 150 yards wide in spots. Alligators are the key missing item here... I may also see if I can mod up the haystack objects into some reasonable looking banana trees or bushy screw pines. EDIT: Makin Atoll stuff moved to separate thread

I have no clear memory of that, sir

With infantry, if RED can't get within about 40 meters of BLUE via ambush or infiltration in close terrain, fuggedaboudit. With armour, RED will pretty much never win unless the odds are artificially stacked or the map is tiny; the best that can be hoped for is to inflict some BLUE casualties.

Dude, you theenk we can use the queeck change barrel as a hash pipe?

No problem. Here is my current thinking: Tree A (big deciduous) - dryland eucalyptus tree (bigger leaves) Tree B (tall poplar) - swap in CMSF palm tree, per your request Tree C (big deciduous) - leave as is, maybe darken the bark some (tropical and mossy) Tree D (small deciduous/orchard) - maybe slightly bigger/waxier leaves Tree E (tall pine) - leave as is, maybe make needles yellower and drier (pines tend to be on the low rainfall sides of islands and mountain ranges). Bush A - palm fronds to create spiky leaves Bush B (tall) - big leaves Bush C (short) - leave as is Brush doodads (e.g. heavy forest floor) - try to add some ferns and banana leaves Log doodad - dark and mossy (although this may screw up the look of stuff like bunkers, so I need to test it) Hedge - as is, may enlarge leaves/add flowers to make it look like ivy or bougainvillea Bocage - leave as is, maybe slightly bigger leaves (both in PTO and ETO map design, I sprinkle randomly angled gapped segments in forested areas to truncate LOS into/through what should be fairly inpenetrable jungle and thicket, and improve infantry cover value). These mods may take a while to finish. Anyone who wants is welcome to help. Comments? P.S. So if "Little Angaur" works out, will you tackle a full-sized Angaur, or maybe just the northern part and heights?

Success! 1. I finally figured out how to get CMSF palms to appear (they replace deciduous tree C). 2. By swapping in palm fronds, I also turned the poplar tree B into a "Captain Cook" tropical pine. The unmodded) regular pine (E) is good as is -- it would be seen in hilly areas even on the equator. 3. Bush B now has great big leaves. I might do the same to the remaining deciduous trees A and D to see how it looks, and also play with the hedgerows. I will bundle all this work up into a Jungle Foliage pack once I'm sure it doesn't bugga up the game.

Good stuff. A WIP scenario, or close to publication?

Here's an even better look -- copy-paste the German LW Camo skeleton (.mds) files to the Z folder, then rename them to UK infantry. Also rename CoonDog's IJA uniforms and boots to LW camo. Again here, while CoonDog's IJA uniform textures are distorted, the cut of the German LW camo uniforms looks even better than the Para uniforms -- especially the baggy jodhpur trousers and jackboots, which look like calf-length puttees. A side effect of mixing a UK infantry base with German skeleton files is that the British web gear is no longer showing up, although helmets and weapons are unaffected. That's actually a mixed plus to some extent, since it gives the IJA troops a "combat load" look (as opposed to them fighting in 45C heat with full packs and dunnage). I can probably restore the pouches and webgear with some fiddling in the hex editor. If I can play around with the hex editor some more, it looks like we could use the Polish infantry as a base, repointing to German LW uniforms, gear and faces modded to IJA. The Polish voices can become Japanese. I respectfully disagree with trying to use Germans as Japanese -- their formations and weapons were totally different. Stealing their wireframes is another matter.... That could theoretically free up the British Army to be British again for Burma-Malaya enthusiasts, although the Brits might need to carry K98s or sumfink.