Paper Tiger

Okay, that's it uploaded. The picture failed to load but I don't care about that too much at this point.
https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/tsd3/cm-shock-force-2-2/cm-shock-force-2-campaigns/cmsf2-usmc-gung-ho/
This is a six mission campaign featuring Bravo Company of 1st Battalion 8th Marines. I should mention that it's a rework of my much earlier CMSF1 campaign of the same name but it's so reworked that it's really an all-new campaign that takes advantage of all the CMSF2 features. You'll need the NATO module to play this as the Syrian Airborne features in one of the missions. Sorry about that but I guess most folks reading here already have the full Monty.
It's designed primarily to have fun with one of the most unique factions in the game, the USMC, a light infantry formation that punches far above its weight even without the air support that you'll have in these missions. It should also be quite challenging but not too challenging. Mission 3 - CAAT among the Pigeons is intended to be very easy, to allow you to let rip with a rather unique formation within the MEU. 
I look forward to hearing how you get on. Perhaps you can tell me how many kills HITMAN got in your campaign? You're not beta testing this - I've already played this myself but that's a potential issue, it's been tested by one player with a particular play style and skill set. I try to break these missions but I'm not as creative about that as some of you will be  If you find any typos, let me know. I've been scanning the texts these last couple of days and can't see any but that's likely fatigue. Unless something egregious is found, you should be safe to complete a campaign before a revision comes up. I'm hoping that won't necessary but I've done this before and it can always be improved.
With the exception of CAAT among the Pigeons, each mission has several AI plans to give the campaign replayablity. So, if there's enough interest in it, I will return to this to make a new version featuring the German Gebirgsjagers which look like they'd be a blast to play with as well and not need much work to be done beyond making a core unit file and importing the units into each mission. And finally, I want to make a Brit forces Light Infantry version but that will need more work to do.

I'll post my progress on this campaign in this thread from now on. For those who don't know anything about this campaign, it was my second Red v Red campaign made for CMSF way, way back in the days of the release of the USMC module and its setting is a Syrian civil war scenario where some Syrian generals attempt a coup. The premise is that the coup is launched with thunderclap surprise and so rebel forces are put into action as soon as they mobilise. While a good number of divisions will 'wait and see', the regime has a number of divisions that are 100% loyal so the rebels are on the clock as the more time they take to accomplish missions, the more time the regime has to assemble its own forces to oppose them.
This means that time limits will be reasonably strict to reflect that pressure and so casualties are to be expected to accomplish your goals. However, the campaign gives you quite a large core force of which one company and support (usually tanks) is drawn to perform the mission.
One point is that some of these maps are very large and so it would seem like it's a bit of a stretch just to have a single company when a battalion would be better. For example,

A single company? To take THAT?! Are you HIGH?" And this...


In both these situations, the friendly forces arrive in small packages and so the action unfolds over time. My plan is not to change the nature of the campaign too much and keep the player's forces small and have lots of artillery support as well as as many 'cool' toys as I can find in the Syrian OB to play around with.

I've often wondered why I've never done anything with the Germans in CMBN because they're my favourite WW2 wargaming side (Japan being a close second in a strategic wargame). I really enjoy playing as the German in Panzer Corps and Unit of Command 2 up until 1943 and then I lose interest and would prefer to play as the Allies from 44 onwards. So perhaps it's just that I want to play as the side with the strategic initiative as there are so many interesting options to explore there.
I guess it's really old to say this by now but I really wish BFC had gone back to 1941 to do the Russian Front and work forward instead of 1944 (of course I understand why this was done - the ability to recycle unit models and formations for one side so that they only had to make everything for the Russians who fortunately sported some lend-lease kit which was also already done.) Had that been done, I'd probably have done nothing but German WW2 campaigns as 1941-43 is where the excitement is at for me, especially 41.
Unfortunately, I've never managed to find the enthusiasm to make a German CMBN campaign as there are severe limitations to what can be done with them and to find a situation and craft a core force which could feasibly survive several missions. Some what-ifs could be interesting - what if Rommel had had his way and the Panzer divisions were positioned closer to the beaches? But I just can't see any real chance of driving the Allies out of Normandy as their completely mastery of the air would make that nearly impossible to achieve. I'd imagine that the Allies would have responded devastatingly had an existential threat emerged to the invasion so I don't see how it could have changed much except to make the victory more costly for all parties.

Let's have a little chat about where everything is at the moment with me and my work. As you've noticed, Hasrabit has not been completed yet and no progress has been made. I've been working on Road to Dinas instead and am beginning to encounter some of the issues that delayed Hasrabit. Namely that these two campaigns are OLD, and I mean really old. They were made when I was still in love with the European theatre in WW2 and many of my map designs were influenced very strongly by ASL scenarios. The inexperience really shines through with these two. Don't get me wrong, they both were innovative in some respect (Hasrabit used core artillery and Dinas had Red core units too.)
Like pretty much everybody else who wasn't on the Beta team, I didn't really know how to make a good AI plan back then and I spent a lot of time making Quick battle maps which I used for Hasrabit. Almost ALL the Hasrabit missions have QB AI plans, namely that I painted large set-up zones for a group and let the AI deploy the units in the group according to the desired parameters. AI attacks used these large blocks as well. I was still using this in Dinas as well so you can imagine that this is completely unworkable now. This all started to change when I joined the Beta team to work on the CMSF Brit module and I was no longer working alone on projects. I got a LOT of very useful criticism from an Australian captain which really shaped what I was to produce in the future. By the time I was developing the NATO campaigns, I had evolved an entirely new system of making AI plans which I still use today. And I started using more sensible force ratios.
The second thing these two campaigns have in common is that you're often attacking at ridiculous odds - attacker v defender ratio is 1:3. While I don't like making them like this anymore, I'm going to stick with it for these reworks because the REDFor is defending the entire map which means you'll always have a local superiority unless you are really far too aggressive. While AI triggers may alleviate some of these issues, overall, the AI is unable to react properly to the player's moves. In addition, your firepower is almost always greater so these numbers are not so much of a problem for me.
As a player, I've slowed down quite a bit and am no longer able to manage much more than a company and some support assets comfortably in Real Time. I also don't particularly want to play a 3+ hour mission either. And Dinas in particular had missons with 2+ mech inf companies with armour in support. This is affecting testing as I just can't motivate myself to manage such monsters in RT. Which brings me to my next point.
A fourth issue is the presence of MOUT elements in most missions which is not always enjoyable and can be a bit repetitive. Dinas has quite a few missions with small MOUT elements - for example, Sagger Point which features a very large hill with emplaced tanks and ATGM teams dug in with great LoS. But there's also a small village at the foot of the hill. Now, with two mech inf companies and tanks in support, this is doable. But I don't want to manage two companies + support anymore so am thinking about having the infantry clear the village and the tanks and support with artillery clear the hill. That's a rather long-winded way of saying that I want to tone down the difficulty of each mission and am concerned about the overall same-ness of many of the missions. A bit of MOUT is a good thing but not everywhere, all the time.
A last point, but an important one, is that these are essentially fantasy campaigns. While a few of the maps are based on real world locations (Strong Stand and Hasrabit in Hasrabit), almost all of them are just made-up. In Dinas, I seemed to be obsessed with river crossings, for example and many of the missions are fights for control of such objectives. This was me still under the influence of some ASL scenarios I played with friends in the 90s. Dinas and Hasrabit are both completely fictional locations and the maps are just a product of my imagination and not on any geographical reality. For example, Lakes in Dinas might work in a northern Syria setting but anyone with Google earth can see that no such feature exists between the Golan and Damascus. There's absolutely nothing I can do about that so I'm just going to remake them and hope that folks just enjoy them for what they are.
My plan is not to change very much with Dinas - I had already reworked some of these maps for Gung Ho! and I have expanded and redeveloped two of these maps for the opening two missions (Petani - Flintstones and High Chaparral - Orchard Road) so that they're not the same. But have resorted to the old Dinas maps for Sabatini (not Detectives) and Where Farmers Dare - (not Bridges) to preserve the feel of the original campaign. Besides, Red v Red is a bit better on smaller maps, especially with Infantry which doesn't spot nearly so well as Blue forces do.
I have redesigned the villages and compounds on the maps to get away from the ASL blocks I used back then. I've found some real world villages in Syria as templates and you'll really see this when you play Petani, Orchard Road, Where Farmers Dare and The Tumah Crossing missions.
For the time being, there will be no core artillery in the campaign and will instead give the player what he needs to get the job done. I might reverse this decision at some point.
I've also replaced the T-72Ms with T-55MVs which, in spite of being older, are just better tanks to work with. Plus I like the look and sound of them.
And that's where I'm at just now. Dinas will get finished first, then I want to rework the Scottish Corridor and then finally finish Hasrabit.

Let's have a little chat about where everything is at the moment with me and my work. As you've noticed, Hasrabit has not been completed yet and no progress has been made. I've been working on Road to Dinas instead and am beginning to encounter some of the issues that delayed Hasrabit. Namely that these two campaigns are OLD, and I mean really old. They were made when I was still in love with the European theatre in WW2 and many of my map designs were influenced very strongly by ASL scenarios. The inexperience really shines through with these two. Don't get me wrong, they both were innovative in some respect (Hasrabit used core artillery and Dinas had Red core units too.)
Like pretty much everybody else who wasn't on the Beta team, I didn't really know how to make a good AI plan back then and I spent a lot of time making Quick battle maps which I used for Hasrabit. Almost ALL the Hasrabit missions have QB AI plans, namely that I painted large set-up zones for a group and let the AI deploy the units in the group according to the desired parameters. AI attacks used these large blocks as well. I was still using this in Dinas as well so you can imagine that this is completely unworkable now. This all started to change when I joined the Beta team to work on the CMSF Brit module and I was no longer working alone on projects. I got a LOT of very useful criticism from an Australian captain which really shaped what I was to produce in the future. By the time I was developing the NATO campaigns, I had evolved an entirely new system of making AI plans which I still use today. And I started using more sensible force ratios.
The second thing these two campaigns have in common is that you're often attacking at ridiculous odds - attacker v defender ratio is 1:3. While I don't like making them like this anymore, I'm going to stick with it for these reworks because the REDFor is defending the entire map which means you'll always have a local superiority unless you are really far too aggressive. While AI triggers may alleviate some of these issues, overall, the AI is unable to react properly to the player's moves. In addition, your firepower is almost always greater so these numbers are not so much of a problem for me.
As a player, I've slowed down quite a bit and am no longer able to manage much more than a company and some support assets comfortably in Real Time. I also don't particularly want to play a 3+ hour mission either. And Dinas in particular had missons with 2+ mech inf companies with armour in support. This is affecting testing as I just can't motivate myself to manage such monsters in RT. Which brings me to my next point.
A fourth issue is the presence of MOUT elements in most missions which is not always enjoyable and can be a bit repetitive. Dinas has quite a few missions with small MOUT elements - for example, Sagger Point which features a very large hill with emplaced tanks and ATGM teams dug in with great LoS. But there's also a small village at the foot of the hill. Now, with two mech inf companies and tanks in support, this is doable. But I don't want to manage two companies + support anymore so am thinking about having the infantry clear the village and the tanks and support with artillery clear the hill. That's a rather long-winded way of saying that I want to tone down the difficulty of each mission and am concerned about the overall same-ness of many of the missions. A bit of MOUT is a good thing but not everywhere, all the time.
A last point, but an important one, is that these are essentially fantasy campaigns. While a few of the maps are based on real world locations (Strong Stand and Hasrabit in Hasrabit), almost all of them are just made-up. In Dinas, I seemed to be obsessed with river crossings, for example and many of the missions are fights for control of such objectives. This was me still under the influence of some ASL scenarios I played with friends in the 90s. Dinas and Hasrabit are both completely fictional locations and the maps are just a product of my imagination and not on any geographical reality. For example, Lakes in Dinas might work in a northern Syria setting but anyone with Google earth can see that no such feature exists between the Golan and Damascus. There's absolutely nothing I can do about that so I'm just going to remake them and hope that folks just enjoy them for what they are.
My plan is not to change very much with Dinas - I had already reworked some of these maps for Gung Ho! and I have expanded and redeveloped two of these maps for the opening two missions (Petani - Flintstones and High Chaparral - Orchard Road) so that they're not the same. But have resorted to the old Dinas maps for Sabatini (not Detectives) and Where Farmers Dare - (not Bridges) to preserve the feel of the original campaign. Besides, Red v Red is a bit better on smaller maps, especially with Infantry which doesn't spot nearly so well as Blue forces do.
I have redesigned the villages and compounds on the maps to get away from the ASL blocks I used back then. I've found some real world villages in Syria as templates and you'll really see this when you play Petani, Orchard Road, Where Farmers Dare and The Tumah Crossing missions.
For the time being, there will be no core artillery in the campaign and will instead give the player what he needs to get the job done. I might reverse this decision at some point.
I've also replaced the T-72Ms with T-55MVs which, in spite of being older, are just better tanks to work with. Plus I like the look and sound of them.
And that's where I'm at just now. Dinas will get finished first, then I want to rework the Scottish Corridor and then finally finish Hasrabit.

Let's have a little chat about where everything is at the moment with me and my work. As you've noticed, Hasrabit has not been completed yet and no progress has been made. I've been working on Road to Dinas instead and am beginning to encounter some of the issues that delayed Hasrabit. Namely that these two campaigns are OLD, and I mean really old. They were made when I was still in love with the European theatre in WW2 and many of my map designs were influenced very strongly by ASL scenarios. The inexperience really shines through with these two. Don't get me wrong, they both were innovative in some respect (Hasrabit used core artillery and Dinas had Red core units too.)
Like pretty much everybody else who wasn't on the Beta team, I didn't really know how to make a good AI plan back then and I spent a lot of time making Quick battle maps which I used for Hasrabit. Almost ALL the Hasrabit missions have QB AI plans, namely that I painted large set-up zones for a group and let the AI deploy the units in the group according to the desired parameters. AI attacks used these large blocks as well. I was still using this in Dinas as well so you can imagine that this is completely unworkable now. This all started to change when I joined the Beta team to work on the CMSF Brit module and I was no longer working alone on projects. I got a LOT of very useful criticism from an Australian captain which really shaped what I was to produce in the future. By the time I was developing the NATO campaigns, I had evolved an entirely new system of making AI plans which I still use today. And I started using more sensible force ratios.
The second thing these two campaigns have in common is that you're often attacking at ridiculous odds - attacker v defender ratio is 1:3. While I don't like making them like this anymore, I'm going to stick with it for these reworks because the REDFor is defending the entire map which means you'll always have a local superiority unless you are really far too aggressive. While AI triggers may alleviate some of these issues, overall, the AI is unable to react properly to the player's moves. In addition, your firepower is almost always greater so these numbers are not so much of a problem for me.
As a player, I've slowed down quite a bit and am no longer able to manage much more than a company and some support assets comfortably in Real Time. I also don't particularly want to play a 3+ hour mission either. And Dinas in particular had missons with 2+ mech inf companies with armour in support. This is affecting testing as I just can't motivate myself to manage such monsters in RT. Which brings me to my next point.
A fourth issue is the presence of MOUT elements in most missions which is not always enjoyable and can be a bit repetitive. Dinas has quite a few missions with small MOUT elements - for example, Sagger Point which features a very large hill with emplaced tanks and ATGM teams dug in with great LoS. But there's also a small village at the foot of the hill. Now, with two mech inf companies and tanks in support, this is doable. But I don't want to manage two companies + support anymore so am thinking about having the infantry clear the village and the tanks and support with artillery clear the hill. That's a rather long-winded way of saying that I want to tone down the difficulty of each mission and am concerned about the overall same-ness of many of the missions. A bit of MOUT is a good thing but not everywhere, all the time.
A last point, but an important one, is that these are essentially fantasy campaigns. While a few of the maps are based on real world locations (Strong Stand and Hasrabit in Hasrabit), almost all of them are just made-up. In Dinas, I seemed to be obsessed with river crossings, for example and many of the missions are fights for control of such objectives. This was me still under the influence of some ASL scenarios I played with friends in the 90s. Dinas and Hasrabit are both completely fictional locations and the maps are just a product of my imagination and not on any geographical reality. For example, Lakes in Dinas might work in a northern Syria setting but anyone with Google earth can see that no such feature exists between the Golan and Damascus. There's absolutely nothing I can do about that so I'm just going to remake them and hope that folks just enjoy them for what they are.
My plan is not to change very much with Dinas - I had already reworked some of these maps for Gung Ho! and I have expanded and redeveloped two of these maps for the opening two missions (Petani - Flintstones and High Chaparral - Orchard Road) so that they're not the same. But have resorted to the old Dinas maps for Sabatini (not Detectives) and Where Farmers Dare - (not Bridges) to preserve the feel of the original campaign. Besides, Red v Red is a bit better on smaller maps, especially with Infantry which doesn't spot nearly so well as Blue forces do.
I have redesigned the villages and compounds on the maps to get away from the ASL blocks I used back then. I've found some real world villages in Syria as templates and you'll really see this when you play Petani, Orchard Road, Where Farmers Dare and The Tumah Crossing missions.
For the time being, there will be no core artillery in the campaign and will instead give the player what he needs to get the job done. I might reverse this decision at some point.
I've also replaced the T-72Ms with T-55MVs which, in spite of being older, are just better tanks to work with. Plus I like the look and sound of them.
And that's where I'm at just now. Dinas will get finished first, then I want to rework the Scottish Corridor and then finally finish Hasrabit.

I'm not planning to make it easier overall but there were one or two missions (Fair and Square [veteran] comes to mind) where the AI forces need to be toned down a tad. I would like to add a flamethrower tank to the mix in the opener only but otherwise, the plan is simply to update the AI where it is needed. Some of the missions have very small AI forces so 8 groups is already fine but I'm sure some triggers would make the missions a bit more challenging. Where the real work lies is in improving the AI attacks, of which there are quite a few when the SS counterattacks come in. 

I'm not planning to make it easier overall but there were one or two missions (Fair and Square [veteran] comes to mind) where the AI forces need to be toned down a tad. I would like to add a flamethrower tank to the mix in the opener only but otherwise, the plan is simply to update the AI where it is needed. Some of the missions have very small AI forces so 8 groups is already fine but I'm sure some triggers would make the missions a bit more challenging. Where the real work lies is in improving the AI attacks, of which there are quite a few when the SS counterattacks come in. 

I'm not planning to make it easier overall but there were one or two missions (Fair and Square [veteran] comes to mind) where the AI forces need to be toned down a tad. I would like to add a flamethrower tank to the mix in the opener only but otherwise, the plan is simply to update the AI where it is needed. Some of the missions have very small AI forces so 8 groups is already fine but I'm sure some triggers would make the missions a bit more challenging. Where the real work lies is in improving the AI attacks, of which there are quite a few when the SS counterattacks come in. 

I've been considering splitting this one up into two, shorter campaigns- one for the 9th Cameronians and the other for the 2nd ASH. There's no real overlap for these two stories. No promises but I would like to drop the difficulty down a notch. I watched Hapless' video series on this campaign and it did make me reconsider the difficulty. After all, not many of us are lucky enough to get out work played like this and I would like to encourage it rather than 'embarrass' the good folks who do. It was meant to be a HARD campaign, after all, it was a very hard operation but I think the last two Grainville missions need to be toned down and that JgPzIV in mission 2 subbed for something a little less intimidating.

https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/tsd3/combat-mission-battle-for-normandy/cm-battle-for-normandy-campaigns/the-road-to-montebourg-revised-for-v4-0/
Don't worry, this won't overwrite or otherwise delete the original campaign that came on the disk. IIt's a completely different file. This is substantially different from the vanilla campaign and the number of changes made is huge but the most important one to note is that you will need both the Market Garden module and the Vehicle Pack to play this.
 
Other important highlights are that the 2/8 INF core units are now mostly Green with High morale which means you'll need to manage them more carefully in a firefight.
All-new AI plans using triggers and most of the tricks that came with later versions of the game.
Flamethrowers are included in some missions.
Some maps have been revised, most notably the map for Turnbull's Stand which veterans of the original campaign will probably notice quite quickly.
A 'new' mission has been added although those of you who found and played the earlier revised version that was uploaded to BFC's old Scenario Depot will recognise it. The campaign has a prelude phase consisting of the new mission and then the old campaign opener Beau Guillot. You should notice quite a few changes made to that mission as well - some extra help to make up for the drop in experience.
There is air support in quite a few missions now and less artillery, at least the bigger guns anyway.
 
Anyway, let's post this and then I'll see what needs to be 'fixed' or not in good time. This is an old campaign so i'm not expecting a ton of feedback for it for quite a while but let me know and I'll fix things. Now I'm taking a break from CMBN. I haven't quite decided what comes next - finishing Hasrabit or a new version of Gung Ho! for the German forces. Later, I'll get to work on the two Scottish campaigns I'd mentioned elswhere.
 
Have a Happy New year.

I've never been comfortable with praise and have issues accepting compliments when offered but I'm learning.  Thank you. Feedback on the other hand is very welcome. 
I'm actually semi-retired now and have much more time on my hands than I did ten years ago. I did spend the whole day on Sunday getting the entire campaign story worked out, organising it into four phases rather than two and tracking the consequences of a loss through the script until its resolved. An enormous job but I did that while listening to some classical music and prog rock albums from the 70s so it was pleasant. But that's an outlier. Usually, it's 1-2 hours a day, most days which is a good pace. But I am playing Dominions 6 just now so I'm not going to burn out. I am in no hurry to finish Dinas and I want to enjoy the campaign creation process as much as possible.
This game is a game for all moods: I enjoy making and improving the maps, I enjoy scripting AI plans and testing them and I enjoy just playing the game, seeing it all come to life. I even enjoy creating the artwork necessary and writing the briefings when I'm in the mood. They're all different types of activities so when I don't feel like 'working', I just improve the maps.

I will be reducing the defending force considerably too so the balance of forces will be more in your favour than the 1:3 you faced in the original. (That seemed to be my preferred attack-defence force ratio back in the early days of CMSF1 rather then 3:1 that is the norm.) Now it will be much closer to 1:1. Of course, the numbers are not the whole story as the firepower ratios are in your favour.
Plus there are a lot of new tools provided to the player in the shape of temporarily assigned assets that were not in CMSF. They're brutal when used properly.
And there will be proper AI this time around too.
But if playtesting makes the mission even more implausible, adding a second company to your OB is not an issue. I'll do what needs to be done to make sure the player enjoys a favourable firepower ratio.

I hadn't read that it was a community favourite myself but that's interesting. I thought Red v Red was niche. I'll try to keep it as close to the original as possible without changing too much. But some changes are inevitable because the game engine has changed so much. For example, in the original opener, the rocket artillery pretty much won the game for you causing large numbers of casualties and breaking the Conscripts with POOR morale.  It was devastating and so I placed two companies of infantry in the village so that there was something left for you to fight. Now, the rocket artillery hardly makes an impact on the defenders causing a small number (single digits) of casualties and morale is eroded by one or two levels. So there's only one company in the village now and that's quite a significant change just there.
There are some things that are missing from the old engine that are important in the remake, like friendly fire at night which used to be a real issue in the Hasrabit 'Strong Stand' mission - you needed to shepherd your conscripts onto the battlefield very carefully or they'd start firing on each other and that was spectacular. That's no longer a factor in the new engine. Also buildings seem to provide much better cover for their inhabitants than before. But the positives FAR outweigh the negatives - the point is that CMx1 Dinas will not be quite the same as CMx2 Dinas. Hopefully it will be just as good if not better (otherwise what's the point?). So I can keep the rocket artillery in Petani and preserve some of the shock and awe that I was aiming for in the original. It means I'll be relying on better AI plans to make the defence more effective instead of numbers. 'He who defends everything defends nothing' is trumped by 'just add more and more troops to defend everything.'
 
As for why I prefer the Syrian theatre, well, that's hard to say precisely. I like both chocolate cake and carrot cake and all things being equal, I'd rather eat carrot cake. I just know that when I come back to this theatre after playing WW2, I no longer feel that  something is missing from the experience. What that is is not easy to define. But one thing that stands out is C2 when you're playing BLUE. I also really enjoy the helicopter sounds - it just sounds incredibly immersive when one is active - and really scary if it's not yours.

Some of you may have noticed that I've poked my head up again after a very long absence. I've just been very busy with real life and wanted to spend some time playing games rather than designing content. But this game is a bit like crack for me, it's just so addictive and watching Usually Hapless play this campaign on Youtube got me back into it. (Yes, it's ALL your fault Hapless  )
I've done a bit of work fixing things and now want to turn my attention to my first campaign for CMBN, the Montebourg campaign. It's the oldest and was made using v1.0 of the engine meaning that there are only 8 AI groups and no air support. There have also been a number of changes to the game which mean that I can experiment with some of the new stuff while reworking this one.
It's not going to be a total overhaul but it will no longer work for players with only the CMBN base game so it's a Repository jobbie. I'll let you guys know what you'll need but it will probably require the full Monty as I want flamethrowers in it. It's also worth saying that anything new in it will be historically accurate and not just added in for the laughs. So no SS with JgPZIVs. Pity.
So, I'll keep you up to date with my progress on this. I'm not looking to do a LOT of work. It's mainly to reacquaint myself with the scenario designer and writing AI plans.
 
Mission 1
I have no plans to change anything at all about the opening mission at all. It's fine as is.
Mission 2
There is a 'new' short 'Brecourt' mission. It's not really new though as it was in the revised version on the Repository. I'll need to tweak this one as the game seems to have become more lethal since I last played it but otherwise, it's good to go.
Mission 3
The first mission to get a full rework is Turnbull's Stand. I'm reworking the AI attack as there were only two AI plans and they were terrible. I've made a number of revisions to the map itself to reflect the reality of the day so it's a bit more open with less bocage and more hedges.
I've spent pretty much all morning and most of the afternoon learning how to script an AI attack using the new tools and the first AI plan is almost done. I want a second one with an entirely different focus but it should be much faster to do as I'm not 'learning' anymore. Then, I'll mix it up so that there's four attack plans.
 
And that's where I'm up to. There's no timetable on this. I'm not in any hurry but by posting about it here, I've kind of declared my intentions and am far more likely to stick with it.

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.

Yes, there is an alternative. There are 17 missions in the campaign but there are two missions that you can go to after Hell in the Hedgerows - Breakthrough if you win and Stalemate if you lose. Both use the same map and more or less the same OBs but there is quite a difference between them  

Yes, there is an alternative. There are 17 missions in the campaign but there are two missions that you can go to after Hell in the Hedgerows - Breakthrough if you win and Stalemate if you lose. Both use the same map and more or less the same OBs but there is quite a difference between them  

I hadn't read that it was a community favourite myself but that's interesting. I thought Red v Red was niche. I'll try to keep it as close to the original as possible without changing too much. But some changes are inevitable because the game engine has changed so much. For example, in the original opener, the rocket artillery pretty much won the game for you causing large numbers of casualties and breaking the Conscripts with POOR morale.  It was devastating and so I placed two companies of infantry in the village so that there was something left for you to fight. Now, the rocket artillery hardly makes an impact on the defenders causing a small number (single digits) of casualties and morale is eroded by one or two levels. So there's only one company in the village now and that's quite a significant change just there.
There are some things that are missing from the old engine that are important in the remake, like friendly fire at night which used to be a real issue in the Hasrabit 'Strong Stand' mission - you needed to shepherd your conscripts onto the battlefield very carefully or they'd start firing on each other and that was spectacular. That's no longer a factor in the new engine. Also buildings seem to provide much better cover for their inhabitants than before. But the positives FAR outweigh the negatives - the point is that CMx1 Dinas will not be quite the same as CMx2 Dinas. Hopefully it will be just as good if not better (otherwise what's the point?). So I can keep the rocket artillery in Petani and preserve some of the shock and awe that I was aiming for in the original. It means I'll be relying on better AI plans to make the defence more effective instead of numbers. 'He who defends everything defends nothing' is trumped by 'just add more and more troops to defend everything.'
 
As for why I prefer the Syrian theatre, well, that's hard to say precisely. I like both chocolate cake and carrot cake and all things being equal, I'd rather eat carrot cake. I just know that when I come back to this theatre after playing WW2, I no longer feel that  something is missing from the experience. What that is is not easy to define. But one thing that stands out is C2 when you're playing BLUE. I also really enjoy the helicopter sounds - it just sounds incredibly immersive when one is active - and really scary if it's not yours.

Well, this will probably surprise you but I've made up a new core unit file for Dinas and have imported the new units into the first few missions and started play-testing them. I am going to focus on getting THIS finished before I do anything else, or at least that's my intention for the time being Why the change?
Hasrabit is the oldest of all my campaigns and there's an enormous amount of work involved in updating it. For example:
Almost every mission has an AI attack and quite a few of these missions are meeting engagements which, as you would expect, are probably the hardest to pull off. The maps were very outdated and basically were 'Normandy in Syria' because, whether I like it or not, I really wanted WW2 with CMx1 and was trying to make it all feel as 'familiar' as possible*. The maps are green with LOTS of trees. The original OBs were the CMx1 OBs which are different from the CMx2 OBs for the same formations so both side's unitrs need to be repbought, replaced and regrouped. The AI placement is non-existent with units just plonked down in a place where they have good LoS but no protection and are easy to spot and kill. The AI that IS there is abysmal and sometimes doesn't even follow through to capture all the objectives - a small number of AI groups with large numbers of units, sometimes two+ platoons, just have three large order zones painted with some times on them. Sure, the AI does its best with that but I really didn't know much about the system when I made this and it shows. Anyway, Dinas is mainly all player attacks against fixed defensive positions with only one AI attack mission in the 14-mission campaign and that's MUCH easier to manage and rework. Quite a few of the maps need to be reforested (not deforested) as orchards and that's what I've been doing these last few days. Most of the maps are ready and a small number are pretty much done already with new OBs imported and placed for both sides except for new AI plans. I've reworked some compounds because I've grown more familiar with Syrian residential blocks which are small compounds so I've integrated those in Suib and Sabatani.
With the exception of Petani, the opener, I've also elected to keep the maps largely as is unlike Hasrabit. Sure, compounds will be improved and orchards will be pretty ubiquitous in each mission  but otherwise, I'm trying to keep it as close to the original as possible. I extended the east map edges to give the player a larger entry zone for Suib and SAM Hill yesterday and it allowed me to add a new compound to make it more interesting. Dinas's set up zones are probably the weakest thing about the campaign so this work is really needed and largely done. But otherwise, it will be more or less the same.
I updated some of Dina's original maps for USMC Gung Ho! a long time ago, in particular Flintstones (Petani), Detectives (Sabatani) and Bridges (Farmers). While Flintstones is being expanded even further to make it all look and feel new, I've decided to use the original versions of Sabatani and Farmers instead so they might feel similar to some who have played Gung Ho! but are much, MUCH smaller and less built up.
So there we have it. Hasrabit is not abandoned, just delayed while I get Dinas working. Instead, i'm going to try and stick to my 'one company with support' per mission so that battles are manageable on real time without pausing (that's how I play) so no 2-3 companies of mech infantry missions. Yikes!!! There were only 2 - Sagger Point and Dinas itself so maybe Dinas might have 2 but Sagger only 1 with support.
 
* This attitude absolutely all changed after I was asked to do the NATO campaigns for CMSF and by then, I LOVED the Syrian theatre and still do, probably more than I do WW2 now funnily enough.

Well, this will probably surprise you but I've made up a new core unit file for Dinas and have imported the new units into the first few missions and started play-testing them. I am going to focus on getting THIS finished before I do anything else, or at least that's my intention for the time being Why the change?
Hasrabit is the oldest of all my campaigns and there's an enormous amount of work involved in updating it. For example:
Almost every mission has an AI attack and quite a few of these missions are meeting engagements which, as you would expect, are probably the hardest to pull off. The maps were very outdated and basically were 'Normandy in Syria' because, whether I like it or not, I really wanted WW2 with CMx1 and was trying to make it all feel as 'familiar' as possible*. The maps are green with LOTS of trees. The original OBs were the CMx1 OBs which are different from the CMx2 OBs for the same formations so both side's unitrs need to be repbought, replaced and regrouped. The AI placement is non-existent with units just plonked down in a place where they have good LoS but no protection and are easy to spot and kill. The AI that IS there is abysmal and sometimes doesn't even follow through to capture all the objectives - a small number of AI groups with large numbers of units, sometimes two+ platoons, just have three large order zones painted with some times on them. Sure, the AI does its best with that but I really didn't know much about the system when I made this and it shows. Anyway, Dinas is mainly all player attacks against fixed defensive positions with only one AI attack mission in the 14-mission campaign and that's MUCH easier to manage and rework. Quite a few of the maps need to be reforested (not deforested) as orchards and that's what I've been doing these last few days. Most of the maps are ready and a small number are pretty much done already with new OBs imported and placed for both sides except for new AI plans. I've reworked some compounds because I've grown more familiar with Syrian residential blocks which are small compounds so I've integrated those in Suib and Sabatani.
With the exception of Petani, the opener, I've also elected to keep the maps largely as is unlike Hasrabit. Sure, compounds will be improved and orchards will be pretty ubiquitous in each mission  but otherwise, I'm trying to keep it as close to the original as possible. I extended the east map edges to give the player a larger entry zone for Suib and SAM Hill yesterday and it allowed me to add a new compound to make it more interesting. Dinas's set up zones are probably the weakest thing about the campaign so this work is really needed and largely done. But otherwise, it will be more or less the same.
I updated some of Dina's original maps for USMC Gung Ho! a long time ago, in particular Flintstones (Petani), Detectives (Sabatani) and Bridges (Farmers). While Flintstones is being expanded even further to make it all look and feel new, I've decided to use the original versions of Sabatani and Farmers instead so they might feel similar to some who have played Gung Ho! but are much, MUCH smaller and less built up.
So there we have it. Hasrabit is not abandoned, just delayed while I get Dinas working. Instead, i'm going to try and stick to my 'one company with support' per mission so that battles are manageable on real time without pausing (that's how I play) so no 2-3 companies of mech infantry missions. Yikes!!! There were only 2 - Sagger Point and Dinas itself so maybe Dinas might have 2 but Sagger only 1 with support.
 
* This attitude absolutely all changed after I was asked to do the NATO campaigns for CMSF and by then, I LOVED the Syrian theatre and still do, probably more than I do WW2 now funnily enough.

https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/tsd3/combat-mission-battle-for-normandy/cm-battle-for-normandy-campaigns/the-road-to-montebourg-revised-for-v4-0/
Don't worry, this won't overwrite or otherwise delete the original campaign that came on the disk. IIt's a completely different file. This is substantially different from the vanilla campaign and the number of changes made is huge but the most important one to note is that you will need both the Market Garden module and the Vehicle Pack to play this.
 
Other important highlights are that the 2/8 INF core units are now mostly Green with High morale which means you'll need to manage them more carefully in a firefight.
All-new AI plans using triggers and most of the tricks that came with later versions of the game.
Flamethrowers are included in some missions.
Some maps have been revised, most notably the map for Turnbull's Stand which veterans of the original campaign will probably notice quite quickly.
A 'new' mission has been added although those of you who found and played the earlier revised version that was uploaded to BFC's old Scenario Depot will recognise it. The campaign has a prelude phase consisting of the new mission and then the old campaign opener Beau Guillot. You should notice quite a few changes made to that mission as well - some extra help to make up for the drop in experience.
There is air support in quite a few missions now and less artillery, at least the bigger guns anyway.
 
Anyway, let's post this and then I'll see what needs to be 'fixed' or not in good time. This is an old campaign so i'm not expecting a ton of feedback for it for quite a while but let me know and I'll fix things. Now I'm taking a break from CMBN. I haven't quite decided what comes next - finishing Hasrabit or a new version of Gung Ho! for the German forces. Later, I'll get to work on the two Scottish campaigns I'd mentioned elswhere.
 
Have a Happy New year.

Well, that was a full day's work. Fortunately, the wife has been busy and hasn't minded me spending 6+ hours doing the artwork and the briefings for all the missions while listening to some early-70s Prog Rock albums and Thin Lizzy (Johnny the Fox is a seriously underappreciated album). All of the new work has just been imported into all the missions and their variants and all that's left to do is rewrite the campaign script and compile it.
Now I COULD upload this later this evening and be able to say that I revised it in 2023 (just) but I'd like to spend a bit more time making sure that everything is as it says on the tin (I did a lot of that today but a second pass is always a good idea.) I like to make sure that all the AI plans are active (I switch them off while testing a new plan) and make sure that the variants have the proper changes implemented.
I expect to have this done tomorrow morning which means it will still be up before the New Year if you live in Hawaii. Or failing that, early on Tuesday (for me)
Edit to add:
I just tested compiling the new version and it all works fine. Yay! There were a few errors but I found them all and corrected them. Now I just have to set those parameters in the script correctly and it's a day!

And there we are. I finished devising and testing the AI plans for Eroudeville today and it's all working as I'd like it too. I've played through the first 30 minutes of it too and it was tough so I made a few further adjustments that are non-spoiler in nature. The mission is now 1 hour and 50 minutes long with the possibility of 10 minutes of overtime. This extra time has been added at the start so that you have more daylight time.
I've also added some new toys for the US player to play with. Since the new AI plans alone will make things a bit more challenging for the player, I think some extra help is needed. You get a couple of M8 SPA vehicles at the start to help with the bunkers and at around the 30 minute mark, you'll get an M10 Tank Destroyer, a breach team and a flamethrower unit as well as some more air support. You have a few FOO available to keep your artillery and air support on the go as well.
Now, is it balanced? I doubt it. I suspect it will be a very difficult mission for the player especially if he has had a bad result in Ecausseville. Or it could be a cakewalk. Luck always plays some part in such a game, a single lucky hit or miss can decide the entire game and there's not much I can do about. I lost two Shermans to lucky hits in my first play through and that was basically game over for me. True, I wasn't playing smart but rather ensuring that a rash player who just throws his forces ant the enemy and hopes to win by brute force gets this posterior handed back to him but the second hit was entirely unexpected and so we have the M10. 
So, I will spend the rest of the year polishing things up, writing new briefings and making new artwork where necessary and then compile the thing to upload as soon as possible.

Well, it's funny just how much you can get done if you just focus. I'm just wrapping up work on Farmhouse and will start the final mission later today. I wasn't planning to do very much in the way of revising the chapter 4 missions but the first two are so small that they were begging for an AI rework. There are three AI plans for Ecausseville and you better make sure you win the le Ham chapter as you'll get a much tougher version of this mission if you don't (now ahistorical since the PIR and GIR did the job IRL so I can do what I like with it within reason  )
Le Ham wasn't nearly as much work to get done as I'd anticipated. It was only necessary to make the AI react more to the player's moves as far as the triggers will allow me so it was an afternoon's work only. Ecausseville has three AI plans and I'm just polishing off the attack in Farmhouse this morning and I'll get at least one variant made up.
 
There are some pretty substantial changes made to the campaign structure so I'll give you a heads-up now. As before, losing two consecutive missions ejects you from the campaign, That stays for the most part but the old 'losing two consecutive formation missions and you're out' condition  is now gone. This greatly simplifies the campaign structure with no more than one variant possible for chapter's one and three and two for chapter two.
However, chapter three is where the rules change. This contains one of the most challenging missions of the campaign and I'm sure some of you will find it too hard so instead of being ejected from the campaign for a loss, you will simply skip to chapter 4. But the chapter four opener, Ecausseville, will be much tougher as the failure to capture the le Ham area allows the Germans more time to bolster their positions. So fret not if the new chapter three missions are pigs. Let's just say though that I've given the player added incentive to try and win Hell. The following missions will be much easier if you get the win but the historical missions, especially Stalemate, will be much tougher if you lose. After the initial two missions, any loss results in the player skipping to chapter 4.
So we're nearly finished with this. I'm hoping to have the last of the real work done by tomorrow allowing me some time to revisit Turnbull and make sure the briefings and tac maps explain what the player is expected to do to win. And then I should have this up some time next week.