LongLeftFlank

Well other than the basic plotline of "US forces surrounded by insurgents, calling for help", WICKED WEDNESDAY doesn't actually resemble JOKER THREE much. Keep in mind that my Ramadi series is intended to be a kind of military history exercise, tracing the evolution of MOUT tactics on both sides during the "high intensity" moments in what was on average a "medium intensity" counterinsurgency environment drawn out over 3+ years. I will also try to make them fun and challenging CM games, but they aren't necessarily desperate fights to the death (unless you are careless). WICKED WEDNESDAY is an insurgent "complex attack" (multiple IEDs triggering an ambush) on a roadbound Army column of Humvees and trucks, with a further set of ambushes and IEDs positioned to hit the Marine QRFs whose SOPs have been carefully studied.... it's the rescue forces that are the primary insurgent target this time. Basically, after April 6, the insurgent commanders realized that their best chance of hurting lots of Americans at once and creating lurid CNN headlines was to bring them out of their bases -- preferably in a flustered rush to rescue trapped comrades -- and hit them on the move. They missed their chance on April 6 when too many of their ill-disciplined gunmen focused on trying to kill the holed up JOKER THREE squads instead of ambushing the fragmented US relief forces in a coordinated way. Many of the rebel leaders were cashiered Baathist army officers, remember, and very experienced at fighting the Iranians, Shiites and Kurds. They studied and learned. But this approach, while conceptually correct, still didn't work out for them because the Americans had learned from April 6 as well -- the DEVIL SIX column wasn't about to let itself get outgunned. And the Marine response was both prompt and disciplined (I won't say more -- no spoilers). Once the rebels realized that they weren't going to isolate and outgun any small subunits, they cut their losses and melted away.

Good to hear from you, BigDuke! I always learn great stuff from your posts, even if we're not totally aligned politically. Don't be a stranger. Interesting points on the Russian attitude. As I alluded in the snip you quoted, they do seem to feel a certain "big brother" obligation regarding fellow Orthodox communities; plus they do have a longstanding position (physical and psychological) guarding the frontier (okrajina) of Western/Christian civilization that dates back to before the Mongols. Also, I imagine if I was Russian if I looked and saw observant Muslims trying to overthrow a secular goverment all I would see is those murdered schoolkids in Beslan and say "there is just no reasoning with those maniacs. Anything is preferable." Finally, it seems to me that it is the Turks, not Europeans, who are on the front lines of this one (yes, I know they're in NATO). As opposed to Libya, where IMHO a key driver (even more than oil, also IMHO) was Italian (and French) terror of yet another flood of African refugees pouring into Sicily when Muammar and Saif dropped the hammer on Benghazi. That might not change the Russian viewpoint -- they have no love for the Turks. But it's a different kettle of fish.

Well, the Russians could be modded up easily enough using one of the NATO forces... They'd have body armour and their rifles could be texture swapped. But realistically there isn't much spetsnaz, much less larger Russian combat formations, have to offer the Syrian army that would fit into a CM context. Grozny (re)taught them that urban combat's an awful bloodbath and Putin would be in no hurry to be sending hundreds of body bags home doing the regime's dirty work for it. The regime forces have got the sniper thing down pretty well, and it's not like spetsnaz are going to be better (or less conspicuous) than locals at assassinating rebel leaders if that's what Asssad wants to do. So bluntly I just don't see a role for them. This isn't an Iraq/Afghanistan situation, where the existing order has been overthrown and foreign troops have to back and fill against insurgents while they build up a quasi-competent native army. The regime army exists, intact -- it may not be fantastically competent, but it's clearly willing to fight. So any role for foreign advisers is going to be noncombat -- at higher HQs or at most behind artillery pieces. Same goes for the Iranian Revo Guards who have been rumoured to be in shadowy roles advising Assad to take the hard line.

Yes, per the below post. However, between RL and my other CM projects, I haven't in fact started work on it yet; a lot has to go into creating an intelligent and challenging RED AI plan. Still very much on the menu though. I may also make this scenario an all-Army affair, with Army soldiers standing in for Kennedy's Marine security detail (heresy, I know!), in order to make the game playable by those who own only the base game.

Great clarification, thanks. The OP had already been answered, so I thought I'd throw the "tank heavy-infantry poor" thing in to see if anyone would concur/dissent/both.

Wait, doesn't that involve putting on your cork hat, walking out of your clapboard shack into blazing desert heat, climbing into an ancient Austin pickup and then, raising a huge cloud of dust, driving her 300 miles along the "rabbit proof fence" to the nearest town? Or am I (*shudder!*) cesspooling at this point?

Yes, eventually, thanks for asking. Consider this a detour into current events; it's also getting me reengaged with CMSF after a break for WWII...

The description in the Panzerblitz endnotes of the British Army as a "tank heavy, infantry poor" TO&E (relative to the other armies) after nearly 5 years of warfare has always stayed with me, although this doubtless varied from formation to formation. Interestingly, based on the (several hundred) videos I've been watching, the Syrian army that is presently blasting one rebellious city after another appears to have some of those same characteristics -- piles of BMPs and T72s with a very light infantry screen augmented by shabiha militiamen. This is a pretty major disadvantage in MOUT, especially CQB. I suspect in this case though the issue is that the regime has had to leave many of its Sunni conscripts in barracks, leaving the remaining units understrength.

Getting pretty close to done with the Baba Amr map here. It would take me months more to replace all the Mulaab 2 storey housing compounds with 3+ storey flats, so I've just created enough of them to give a tactically authentic feel to the map. This pano is north from the army's target, the Zubair ibn al Awam mosque to the army start zone on the main boulevard marked by the Al Jouri Mosque. The zoom does compress the view a lot -- this is about 600m deep, more than the width shown.

Awesome! I haven't done anything more on this project myself -- no time to figure out the hex coder thingy. My limited CM time is on my CMSF Baba Amr project. But if anyone can figure out any model swapping secrets for CMBNCW, please post it here! That includes the developers -- it's not like these tinkerings steal any bread from your mouths, and who knows? We might surface a new market for this game....

A few additional play tips for those who have played CMBN but not CMSF: * Vehicles can't knock down or cross walls -- this was added in CMA but not back-ported. They can be breached by HE fire, including hand grenades, as well as by .50cal and 12.7mm HMG. * Trenches are terrain features, not fortifications; they have no FOW, can't be moved around during Setup and are completely visible to the enemy. They act like wide ditches and their cover value vs HE is very weak. There are no foxholes or wire, although bunkers and minefields are available. * Rooftops are flat and can be entered by infantry (unless there's a dome), but they provide terrible cover. Keep your stays there as brief as possible. * Balconies are also terrible cover and your troops will automatically go out on them when they enter a building level and are facing toward the balcony. To avoid this, keep your men facing away from the balcony (although they will still go out there on their own if they want to shoot at something) using the "G" (Facing) command. * You can't split Syrian squads, except their Special Forces and Airborne. * NATO infantry have body armour; Syrians generally don't (except their SF). This helps your survivability in firefights a good bit, but a lot less at short ranges. Don't exchange fire at length with an equal number of unsuppressed Syrians at under 30m. * The TacAI got some improvements in CMBN; in CMSF your troops shuffle around a lot more trying to find their places and make themselves more vulnerable to incoming while doing so, especially when a whole squad is together. I advocate splitting your squads, especially Marines, if you don't mind the additional micro.

Uncle Sam has no problem killing Russians; we and the Yanks, assisted by Inuit scouts, killed a number of spetsnaz intruding on our tundra back in the Cold War. No doubt they returned the favour in Siberia (and Korea and Vietnam). And I'm reliably informed quite a few USSF, SEALs and SAS went "left of the Khyber" during the Soviet invasion, and a few didn't come back. That stuff from "Charlie Wilson's War" about so many Russian planes being lost that they had to stand down air operations for 3 months, you don't think that was mujahideen behind the Stingers, do you? (at least not initially). And ever wonder why so few Stingers were left behind (none have been confirmed used against NATO forces)?

This thread, started by you last May and asking for the same information, has all kinds of links that gives not just divisions but regiments. Aren't you a little young to be having "senior moments?"

That's why Allah made the Iraqi peshmerga. Sunnis, 30 years fighting Saddam in the Kurdish hills and then ably assisting US forces in places like Ramadi (mosque raids). They were the Coalition's only loyal allies and I hope Uncle Sam doesn't do to them what he did to the Hmong.... But who am I kidding? Those poor people are screwed by history.

While it's entirely possible that spetsnaz or FSA (KGB) osoby are on the ground advising regime forces (not a combat or assassin role-- they're too conspicuous), I doubt they'd enter via ship or use one as a base. More likely they're providing security, agaimst the possibility the opposition or its overseas sympathizers decide to hijack the vessel to draw attention to Russia's sorid role. Very prudent.

I got ya re H2H; no problem. I just started playing PBEMs myself after 10 years of CMing, and have actually found it a lot more fun than expected. But yes, a 90 minute scenario does take weeks, even against a conscientious opponent. AI is going to be tricky for this scenario. My sense is that it'll actually be easier having the regime forces as the AI side, since they're roadbound and advance very systematically. On the other hand, if the FSA try the same crude "block then flank" tactics that made JOKER THREE challenging for the 3:1 outnumbered and ammo-limited Marine infantry, they're likely to get mowed down en masse by AFVs as they rush through the streets to their next set of buildings. Also, in Baba Amr, they'd likely be at about 1:1 with the regime force, so they can't afford those kinds of mistakes. The only way the rebels "win" is by inflicting casualties and demonstrating that their vaunted armour isn't invulnerable. They can't -- and shouldn't try to -- stop the regime forces from going where they want, but they can sure make it highly hazardous for them to hold whatever they've seized, especially once night falls. The AI just isn't much good at patiently skulking in alleys or balconies seeking close-range RPG flank shots or ambushing small elements that have wandered off on their own. I just don't see any way of modeling those rebel tactics without a reactive AI, short of having a human being play them.

Getting really into detailing the shattered buildings. Post WWII construction, where the building is based on cement pillars and floor slabs, disintegrates differently under shellfire than do traditional structures where the exterior walls are the primary load bearing elements. The walls tend to blow out, leaving the floors and skeleton standing, unless the pillars themselves are collapsed. In contrast, once you blow out a large chunk of wall in a masonry building, especially a corner, a fair amount of the adjacent floors and roof will collapse too. Note also the rubble spewing into the already narrow street. Narrowing the street to half a square doesn't make it impassable to AFVs, but it does slow them down a lot and they will often seek a different route if not carefully micro'd. I've also uploaded the simple damaged building mod I built several years ago to the Repository and GaJ's site.

Erwin, you may not need to wait much longer since I have you in mind to playtest H2H for "Operation Adiyat" (Warhorse - a sura of the Holy Qur'an), with me as the brave, street-savvy but underequipped FSA rebels and you as the villainous Borf. You'll be leading a reinforced mech company of the regime's 4th Armoured Division (Republican Guard) into these mean streets. T72s and BMP mounted infantry, plus a special forces commando platoon (actually all your infantry will be SF troops - regime forces pretty much all wear body armour these days -- just Experience and Motivation will differ). See post #16 for a brief outline of the plan. While this may seem like an overwhelmingly powerful force relative to the opposition (which I'm also modeling realistically -- i.e. they don't have masses of RPGs or IEDs, their C3 is weak, and they aren't all fanatical dervishes, regime propaganda notwithstanding) you have 2 significant vulnerabilities: (a) nearly all your heavy firepower is on your AFVs, which are streetbound in a battlespace that is 3D and LOS-impaired. Your infantry is all SF HQ or Sniper units -- light infantry -- which deprives you of the RPG-29s. I suspect you're going to find your infantry spread awfully thin really fast... far too little to cover every approach you want to cover and clear everything you want to clear. I've been struck in looking at the videos how infantry poor the regime forces are, whether it's because units had to leave a bunch of Sunni troops locked down in barracks or just think that being an "elite force" means piles of formidable-looking vehicles. ( while this unit is of proven loyalty and willing to kill the regime's enemies, your men and officers are notably unwilling to die, tending to lean on their AFVs (send bullets not men). Their training in combat drills, especially CCB, is also very poor by Western standards, on the standard pattern of Arab armies where officers disdain their noncoms and ordinary jundi, although they've certainly had some OJT over the past year. As in JOKER THREE, friendly casualty avoidance will be heavily reflected in your VC, regardless of what the people who ordered this attack might prefer. On the other hand, you will get points for killing the irahibin (terrorists) and rafida (renegades). More later....

Under a leaden winter sky, a 4th Division T72 blocks the street in front of the al Zubair ibn al Awam mosque, a known rallying point for the resistance. I had some T72s take a test drive around the streets (unopposed) as a check on navigability.

Mapmaking update. As I continue the makeover of the Ramadi footprint (building about 30% of the housing compounds to 3-5 stories), I'm also starting to "rough up" the area to reflect the above-documented bombardment.

I'd also guess that extreme white guyness is the rule here, especially on the forums. But I always wondered about the "Tamiya factor" in Japan.... ISTR miniatures wargaming has a long and rich history there. As Steve has noted, CM is as much a digitization of the tabletop miniatures tradition as it is the Squad Leader boardgaming one. And go is as ancient a pastime there as chess is in the West. If we can find a way to get a reasonable looking and behaving IJA infantry force going via model swapping, I think some talented grogs and modders might come out of the woodwork. I'd love to get some well-read IJA grogs contributing, although I also fear they'd be prone to espouse a Steiner14 apologist ideology. The IJA accomplished some remarkable feats of arms, albeit in the service of a brutal, self-deluding regime. And the vaunted bushido code did as much to impair as to help their performance on all fronts. But I'd like to learn more about what worked for them tactically and what didn't, via CM. There's a lot of mythology floating around on both sides.

US satellite pictures capture the brutal bombardment of Baba Amr, Feb 25. This area is densely built up, so I'm adding even more 3-4 story apartments to my map when I have time. The regime will need to assault this area with forces that depend heavily on their BMPs and tanks for firepower. Based on the diagonal road nearby, I think this is the Al Qabaa mosque, at the north end of Baba Amr. Also, at the end of this short clip, the FSA hits a moving T72 with what looks like an IED - result indeterminate: Very good piece on the FSA in Baba Amr by Le Monde (Feb) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLAdRnIIbZU Interesting "zombie formation" used by the FSA to secure an overrun government checkpoint (2 BMPs, 2 BRDM). I'd guess pretty much all the shots fired in this clip are pure celebration, until the end when they actually seem to take some enemy fire. Hardly a professional looking outfit here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCeCoLrO2wY

Work just spiked again, so I'm probably CM-cold turkey for a while, but I encourage you guys to keep exploring this stuff. e.g. have you tried model swapping the palm trees?

Bummer, man. But on the other hand, something can definitely be done with AFVs.... roadiemullet swapped Leopards for Shermans a few days after release. http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1260581&postcount=16 And I could swear I saw CMSF trees show up at some point, although I guess it wasn't in the Italian mod set.

Care for a little while you mod? Kind of a Japanese Horstwessellied. For the sake of peace in the Orient / No sacrifice is too great. Umm yeah, right.... ....Also, for modding purposes, a few selected shots from a blog that collects them China. I like how they wore their helmets over their field caps. Guadalcanal, 1942. It clearly got cold at night up in the hills. Shanghai, 1937. Is that some kind of Sten gun I see?