LongLeftFlank

Indeed, although I have never been quite so smug about that since an American friend pointed out that our extra "u"s merely advertise that 1000 years ago, our mother country lost a war. To the French.

Indeed, although I have never been quite so smug about that since an American friend pointed out that our extra "u"s merely advertise that 1000 years ago, our mother country lost a war. To the French.

Wow, lighten up mate. Maybe take a walk and get some fresh air. Or just use the Ignore thingy if I really bother you that much.
But anybody who reads my handle or has any idea of my work knows I am part of the OCD Mr Picky vanguard. To each his own.
Peace. 

Wow. An IDF officer I got to know was very insistent on the principle: "Anti-infantry armour and anti-armour infantry." You have provided his school solution here, Bil!
Also, your riveting AAR has turned me into a refreshing monkey for a bit. 🙈🙉🙊

Wow. An IDF officer I got to know was very insistent on the principle: "Anti-infantry armour and anti-armour infantry." You have provided his school solution here, Bil!
Also, your riveting AAR has turned me into a refreshing monkey for a bit. 🙈🙉🙊

Hope you don't mind, I quoted you on my Blog page for this AAR.   

I think this is a good place to stop for a bit and discuss my tactics and approach to this fight.  From the beginning I had a two phase plan (not including recon), and it hinged on my Javelin teams.
The Reconnaissance Phase was just supposed to tie the enemy down, and entice him into moving as much combat power as possible into Engagement Area 1 (EA1).  During this phase of the action I intended to gather as much information as possible and recover the enemy order of battle, identify his intent, etc. I only really engaged the enemy with my two LAV-ATs (which I subsequently lost), the Syrian ATGM team (a failure so far), and a couple LAVs I was hoping they would attrit the enemy recon elements but at this they failed, only being able to destroy one Fennek The enemy did feel comfortable enough to move a lot of his combat power into EA1, and did not seem to hold back a reserve.  PHASE I - the first phase of the actual battle proper started when I received my Main Body reinforcements.  The intent was to move two platoons of Bradleys into KT2, dismount Javelin teams and kill as many enemy vehicles as possible, mainly with dismounted Javelin teams. Note, once inside EA1, it is going to be very tough for Baneman to extricate his armor and IFVs, especially as more and more Javelin teams come on line I actually have four Javelin teams in overwatch positions at this stage in the battle with a few more still to deploy. Baneman continues to move vehicles into EA1 and especially toward the Ruined Farm Battle Position 1 (BP1)  has been an unexpected boon for me, and really is turning out to be the most important terrain in the AO so far.  A good majority of the enemy vehicles killed came from this position The Bradleys that are on the reverse slope of KT2 (two platoons) are a local reserve, and will join in any attack I make with my main reserve, but on a different axis to spread the enemy and keep him from shifting elements The intent is to engage the enemy with as few units as possible and still cause serious harm, most of my combat power will be husbanded for PHASE II.  I want him rocking back on his heels when I hit him with my main combat power. PHASE II - this is the Main Attack phase of the action.  I have identified a few key avenues of attack but have yet to decide how I am going to attack The elements in EA1 are the main target Isolating and eliminating the enemy units at OBJ DIAMOND, FARM 002, and the FARM 011-012 complex are lower priorities All elements not in the KT2 and BP1 positions will join in this effort, including: USMC Recon dismounts and LAVs x2 BMP-3 Mech Infantry platoons x1 Syrian dismounted infantry platoon  x1 Bradley platoon and Bradley Company HQ element (five vehicles with dismounts, the BFIST will be kept in the rear area) T-90 Platoon Ultimate goal is to eliminate or mitigate the enemy armor threat to such an extent that I can start to clear DUMAYR and all of the red colored objectives (see image above) of all enemy irregular elements I am currently still in PHASE I, but am starting to plan for PHASE II.  More to come as I complete my analysis and decide on a course of action.
 

Wow. An IDF officer I got to know was very insistent on the principle: "Anti-infantry armour and anti-armour infantry." You have provided his school solution here, Bil!
Also, your riveting AAR has turned me into a refreshing monkey for a bit. 🙈🙉🙊

Direct answer: no OIF campaigns exist. 
1. I did 2 historical OIF-2 Marines vs uncon ambush-and-relieve scenarios set in central Ramadi in 2003. 
2. @Combatintman did a number of OP TELIC British scenarios set 2003-2004, plus others set in A-stan. 
 3. @Sgt.Squarehead did 2 bloodbaths set in the Mosul siege 2016.  
Apologies to anyone else I left out here. I faintly recall someone once trying 73 EASTING but hazy on details.

Nice map! Loving the CMFI Mediterranean landscape and vegetation!
A few minor nits: except in winter (we can assume it here) or in well irrigated fields it won't be nearly so green. Lots more browns and yellows, even in the north highlands. And most of the year the watercourses will contain far less water relative to the cuts than in temperate areas. I might also sprinkle a few more cars and power poles to show this isn't a Volturno line time warp. Also, palms are still quite abundant until you get high in the mountains. Especially around houses.

Nice map! Loving the CMFI Mediterranean landscape and vegetation!
A few minor nits: except in winter (we can assume it here) or in well irrigated fields it won't be nearly so green. Lots more browns and yellows, even in the north highlands. And most of the year the watercourses will contain far less water relative to the cuts than in temperate areas. I might also sprinkle a few more cars and power poles to show this isn't a Volturno line time warp. Also, palms are still quite abundant until you get high in the mountains. Especially around houses.

The problem I have with creating ditches by using ditch lock is that the ditches look nice, but I find them a bit problematical in terms of gameplay. Often soldiers don't align on the action spot as you would hope. Some stay "outside" the ditch (exposing themselves to enemy small arms and especially artillery fire), others are in the ditch so that they can't see/fire anywhere, etc. Maybe I'm just too picky, but I find that the terra-formed ditches are not as protective and effective as they should be.
I've experimented quite a lot with different kinds of combinations of blue (ditch lock) and black elevations and also with placing fences/hedges on ditches in order to "force" soldiers to position themselves on the right spot. There is a combination that makes soldiers align quite neatly along the trench with a good field of fire and okay cover (if prone)*, but troops still remain very vulnerable to artillery fire.
That's the reason why I now place actual "trench" tiles (the ones you buy in the unit selection menu) in the ditches. Even though it doesn't look that nice (see picture), this makes soldiers align nicely and (I hope!) should also give them some better cover against artillery. But this needs some further testing (I think there are already some test-results regarding the protective effect of fortifications against arty to be found in the forum somewhere...). And also, as the trench-tiles need to be bought and deployed, it doesn't work for quickbattles (problem of point budgets, setup-zones, tedious work....).

 
More generally speaking, I find that creating proper defensive positions in Combat Mission is incredibly difficult. For more modern titles, it's even more difficult, as HE projectiles are so abundant. I was pretty pround of my MG position here (crater + log, + only gently sloped terrain around so that the chance of shrapnel striking into the crater from above was low and close misses would land farther away). It withstood quite a few HE shots. But then again a position such as this is too obvious - a human opponent can simply look at the map and search for a log and a crater): 
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* blue 0, black -1, blue 0 //  --> place the unit on a blue (not black) tile and face them in a right angle to the ditch
 
 

 

Addition/correction to previous post:: Test 1 / tank / tall grass:  460 / 650 / full lane (second value was missing)
Conclusions from the tests described in the post above
1. Weather and daylight conditions don't seem to have an effect on LOS per se. For dawn (05:00) and hazy conditions, the LOS is the same as for clear conditions. At night (00:00), there is a hard cap on visibility (400m in this case - I've read that CM titles do consider the moon phases, so the exact value may vary with the date respectively). As there clearly is an effect on LOS in adverse light an weather conditions, but LOS as given by the target command stays the same, it seems as if units might rather receive a "hiding bonus"?
2. I think that my theory from last year (based on observations in CM: Black Sea) is not too far off the mark: There must be at least two values for each terrain: 1) density/LOS blocking value, and 2) height (either as in an acutal hitbox of some sort, or a z-value for the whole action spot). Different densities must be the reason why the range of full lines of sight vary with terrain. For example,  forest terrains (105m full LOS) are not as dense as crop terrains (60m full LOS).
The tricky part is to explain the "reverse slope" line of sight zones and the difference of results between tanks and infantry. It's much easier to explain my theory in pictures so here we go: 

Eyes below terrain height (e.g. prone infantry --> creates limited "reverse slope" LOS)


Eyes above terrain height (e.g. tank --> creates unlimited "reverse slope" LOS)


Explaining hull-down results with different terrain heights


 
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If things work indeed as described in the diagrams and when you consider the test results from above, we end up with these terrain characteristics:
clear: no effect on LOS crops: large height, large density forest: medium height, low density tall grass: small height (but still higher than prone infantry), medium density  

I'm pretty sure that a blue line means that all weapons (for vehicles: weapon-systems) of a unit can fire at the targeted spot, while a grey line means that only part of the unit can fire. 
This is very obvious when you have an infantry squad and one guy is kneeling, while the rest of the squad is prone. You will notice that the blue LOS will be limited by the prone soldiers' LOS, while there is an additional grey LOS that ends where the kneeling soldiers' LOS ends. If you order the very same squad to hide=go prone, there is no grey LOS anymore. 
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Update concerning my problems with the functionality of ditches in Combat Mission games: I've done more experiments, but ditches that you create by shaping the terrain simply don't work. Soldiers will not stick to the trench, but instead still roam around at the elevated edges, horribly exposing themselves to artillery fire. I really wish that the placement of soldiers on an action spot will be improved so that they stick to the "lower" areas. Fortunately, placing trenches in ditches helps to mitigate the problem. As soldiers now stick to the depression (because they're placed inside of the trench, which is in the middle of the action spot), and because the trench itself might also provide some kind of bonus, they are now protected against artillery fire.  IN my testing barrages, the casualty numbers for ca. 20 men placed in a ditch decreased significantly. With the natural ditch, I lost ca. 12-17 guys, with the ditch + trench, the casualties are down to 1-2., which is still very high for 2 minutes of bombardement but far better than a wipe-out. 
There are still many problems though. While the trench "in" the ditch provides good cover versus artillery, the protection against small arms fire and LOS is a different matter (see my post from 16th June in this thread, where I describe a way to create positions that offer good protection against small arms fire and good LOS, but are very vulnerable vs. arty). Also, moving along a trenchline can still result in soldiers exposing themselves on the elevated borders of the ditch. Also, you still get the problem that units tend to leave the trench (for whatever reason) when they come under artillery fire and prefer to get killed in the flat open.
Pictures to make the problem clearer:
Natural ditch: horrible soldier placement - all but one soldiers are on the high terrain at the border of the ditch. If an artillery shell strikes anywhere close, half of the squad is dead.

 
Trench placed in ditch: good soldier placement. Nobody gets hurt unless a shell lands a direct hit in the trench (for that reason, I wished that trenches were narrower...)

Something similar can be achieved by placing walls/hedges in the ditch. It looks totally stupid, but it leads to slightly better soldier placement.

So, generally speaking, if you want to have a trench/ditch that actually works (i.e. offers protection to infantry), you have to make sure that the infantry will stick to the ditch/the center of the action spot somehow.  
I really think that these issues are a major concern. I'm pretty sure that the game uses a very sophisticated system to determine hits, both from artillery shells and direct fire. For example, when I was creating good MG-positions for CM:BlackSea by using craters and logs, I noticed that in many cases the MG gunners (behind the log) survived while the MG got destroyed by enemy fire! Until then, I didn't even know that MGs could be destroyed in that way! So it's a pity that the game engine is so sophisticated when it comes to determining hits but doesn't really let us "fine tune" the amount of cover and create proper positions.

What vile incantation hath awakened me from my non-Euclidean slumber in the nameless deeps?
Oh, and 
 

What vile incantation hath awakened me from my non-Euclidean slumber in the nameless deeps?
Oh, and 
 

Damn, what a map!

“Look at their trucks,” said Mohammed Ahmed Mohammed, a community elder, as he sat by the main road leading into the city. “They were all given to them by the Americans, and not one of them hasn’t been hit by a rocket. All of their windows have been hit by snipers. They look like they have been fighting for five years. It is closer to two months.”
And this is why.... 
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2016/11/islamic-state-defends-mosul-with-dozens-of-suicide-bombers.php
According to Amaq, the Islamic State carried out 58 “martyrdom operations” during the first week of the battle for Mosul alone. Eighteen “martyrs” purportedly blew themselves up during the second week of the fight (ending on Oct. 31) and an additional 29 martyrdom operations were orchestrated during the third week of the battle (which covers the first week of November). In total, Amaq claims that 108 of its “martyrs” have defended Mosul in the first three weeks of fighting.
https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript-View/Article/1006576/department-of-defense-press-briefing-by-coldorrian-via-teleconference-from-bagh/
Iraqi forces have gotten about a third of the way into eastern Mosul.... There's no question that U.S. advisers are in harm's way.  We do advise the CTS.  They are in the thick of a very tough battle.  So there is a significant amount of danger here, especially on the eastern axis as they moved into the city.  They moved through some very tough resistance as they've approached the city... 
https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript-View/Article/1016840/department-of-defense-press-briefing-by-british-maj-gen-jones-via-teleconferenc/
The CTS has continued clearing in the east of the city, despite tough resistance from Daesh elements.... the coalition has disabled four of the five bridges connecting east and west Mosul, and increased terrain-denial missions.... seems to be reducing the number of VBIEDs the enemy has been able to use.... In the case of Mosul, the decision was taken to advise the population to stay in their homes so long as it was safe to do so....
Counter-Terrorism Service who have broken into the eastern side of the city. They've done so, as you indicate, at great -- great cost.... We continue to do that by adjusting our tactics, by giving them better and better fire support. But also, we can help them by replacing some of their battle-damaged vehicles.... part of that is about cratering the routes so that those suicide vehicle born I.D.s physically can't get down the routes and strike the Counter-Terrorism Service in their flanks.
Driven by cheerful good looking young kids. Heartbreaking, but also a sign that Daesh are tapping out their manpower.... 

Yes, one would think that the primal response is similar to that when crossing a street and the light changes abruptly: get out of the way of speeding metal at once!
Primarily, get low and put something solid between you and it, right **now**,  not after first dashing 30 meters across beaten ground. If the enemy is tossing grenades into your hole, well perhaps that's a different calculation.

"Perhaps he meant the Camargggggggggue region in France?" 

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Art

Repeat post, but "AAAAAAA!"

Repeat post, but "AAAAAAA!"