Combatintman

Hoe you enjoy it - I wouldn't quite call it a beer and pretzels scenario but definitely designed to be something you can just fire up and play in one sitting.

Sigh ... RN School Image ... Other image showing pace stick both open and closed ... It is a pace stick as carried by drill instructors and RSMs (or their equivalent) in the armed forces of the Commonwealth and I should know having served in one (British) for 25 years and another (Australian) for 6 years ... and still serving.

Oh there's plenty of reporting and commentary on the subject from the British Army Rumour Service on this board: http://www.arrse.co.uk/community/forums/afghanistan.144/

BBC Series Our War ... you probably won't be able to access it from the BBC. A lot of links to the series die or get removed but this one seems to work - just work your way through the episodes: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xjy76i_our-war-1-3-ambushed_shortfilms I can recommend heaps of books but I guess you probably want to kick off with the free stuff.

Yes they were - speaking solely about Afghanistan the US had them pretty much from the get go. The RAF deployed Reaper to Kandahar in 2007. From May 06 until Apr 07, the Desert Hawk was the only UK owned UAS operating in Afghanistan. From that date, Hermes 450 came on line and both that and Desert Hawk were employed until Hermes 450 was replaced by Watchkeeper in Sep 14. This document provides a brief overview ... http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06493/SN06493.pdf

You're too kind @MOS:96B2P I've not actually done that many for the releases - from memory I did Missions 1,2 and 7 for the CMSF British Campaign and I needed a lot of help from Paper Tiger to get Mission 1 right. I did a map for the Canadian Campaign in the NATO module and two standalone scenarios for the CMFB title - Victory at Verdenne and Probing around Poteau. The latter I very much regard as a beer and pretzels scenario even if it did take a lot of work to make it a historical as I could. I still regard myself as a vaguely competent amateur in scenario design when I look at the work that some of the other Beta testing crew members turn out. I see myself more of a scenario tester/advisor than anything else. @borgagain thanks for your comments. Current events in the Middle East don't actually light my fire too much scenario creation-wise mainly because I'm more interested in what happened in Iraq during and after the invasion in '03 when the Coalition had a strong presence and the long coalition campaign in Afghanistan. Having served in both countries gives me the motivation and knowledge to tackle historical or representative missions set in those places. Don't get me wrong - CMSF for me IS the title to best depict what is going on in those places right now - but Iraq ideally requires some Modding effort if you are going to reasonably portray the Iraqi security forces. As I say in many threads where I offer scenario design advice - Rule 1 is you've got to want to make the mission in the first place followed closely by Rule 2 which is to establish the narrative. Although I've slightly downplayed Rule 2 for my proposed Mullah Fayyad Highway scenario because I haven't fully nailed down the mission concepts, I do have a broad idea of what the thing will look like. However Rule 1 is being strictly adhered to. Anyway this is getting slightly OT - I'm sure we'll get to discuss this further when I get around to kicking off a thread for my planned scenario. In the mean time ... anybody who wants to create new missions but don't know how to do it and want advice - I am always willing to offer help.

What do you mean by different directions? Is it different parts of the Company entering from different points of the map eg 1 Platoon enters from the North, 2 Platoon enters from the East and 3 Platoon enters from the South. In this instance you could do it a couple of ways ... Assign 1 Platoon as AI Group 1, 2 Platoon as AI Group 2 and 3 Platoon a AI Group 3. Place them at their entry points when you 'Deploy Units' and then write paint their moves to get them from where they are to where you want them to go. Or have the Company as a single group (eg Group 1) - deploy them as above and then paint moves to their end point. Method one will produce more consistent results and is the recommended way to achieve this because Method 2 will provide highly erratic results and plotting intermediate orders will be painful. If however you mean that you want the Company to arrive from different directions to increase variety/replayability then you need to generate separate plans as follows ... Say you want it to arrive from the North in Plan 1 ... all you do is paint a setup order on the North end of the map for the assigned group (we'll call it Group 1 for the sake of simplicity). You then paint zones for the various orders you want to give the Company to get it from there to where you want it to go. If you want it to arrive from the East in Plan 2 ... all you do is paint a setup order on the East end of the map for the assigned group (we'll call it Group 1 for the sake of simplicity). You then paint zones for the various orders you want to give the Company to get it from there to where you want it to go. If you want it to arrive from the South in Plan 3 ... all you do is paint a setup order on the South end of the map for the assigned group (we'll call it Group 1 for the sake of simplicity). You then paint zones for the various orders you want to give the Company to get it from there to where you want it to go. Simples and remember: a. The manual explains some of the simpler editor concepts reasonably well. b. The Sherriff of Oosterbeek tutorial by JonS thread is a goldmine of information on scenario design. It can be found here ... http://community.battlefront.com/topic/109190-the-sheriff-of-oosterbeek-–-a-scenario-design-daraar/ c. You can always open up other scenarios in the editor to see how other designers solve problems. d. Trial and error through tinkering in the editor is a very useful activity.

@borg close but no cigar!!! This is a semi historical Iraq mission featuring Bravo Company 4-31 Infantry in the vicinity of Rushdi Mullah in Dec 2006 inspired by an article I saw in Issue #23 of Modern War. I basically chose it because as soon as I saw the image of the ground I thought 'that'd be an easy map to make in CMSF'. Of course it is never easy without the overlay feature but it is easier than most because it is pretty flat and the terrain is very grid like which makes measuring distances easy in the editor. The map (which is approximately 1.5km by 1.5km) took me about the equivalent of a full working week to knock together. The mission concepts still have to be nutted out but in essence it will involve a Company level clearance operation in order to allow a convoy of engineer stores for the construction of further battle positions to move along the Mullah Fayyad highway to the Rushdi Mullah FOB. I'm still in the early stages of mission testing eg no enemy yet, I'm just seeing how the time and distance aspects work to give me an idea of mission length and the sequencing of the Red AI plans.

@MOS:96B2P another impressive result straight out of the box. The thing that most impresses me is the number of buildings that are in one piece. In my testing I had to hose down a lot of the buildings with the GMG and Javelin firing from overwatch at CP Haji Alem followed up by UGLY 51. I think what may have assisted you with your result was your early tempo. As you probably are now well aware .... *********************************SPOILERS***************************************************************** Getting in amongst the southern and central complexes quickly helps you deal with some of the 'moving parts' that start arriving. ******************************SPOILERS END ************************************************************* As you may have seen on other threads I am working on other stuff that I think you will like .... quick preview here Actual Map CMSF Map (slightly cropped due to screen size)

I struggled to get the last mission to work - not helped by a bug I discovered with Red 'Occupy' objectives. Finishing this remains on my 'to do' list but is fairly high up the list of priorities - I just need to find enough time to get a clear run at it because I plan on rehashing the whole thing due to me having acquired more experience as a mission designer.

Overlays were brought in with the CMBN title and were never back ported to CMSF. Those maps were done by laboriously measuring distances in Google Earth so I'm afraid that if you want to do vaguely accurate maps in CMSF it means a lot of measuring and a lot of time map making. I have a scenario on the go right now for which I must have spent the equivalent of the best part of a full working week and probably more putting together ... and it is a fairly simple map. For me if BF did only one thing with CMSF it would be to enable the overlay feature.

You're not a 1940s wallpaper expert are you? I appreciate that this is from the 1920s but I would expect to see this design in Belgian houses during the Ardennes battle ...

The answer is in bold ... particularly the first bit ... if you can't remember playing CMBB or CMAK my guess is that you weren't terribly interested in them. Take a look at CMBN and CMFB and give the demos a spin.

Collateral damage = Preserve objectives for the British player which means that if you destroy stuff that shouldn't be destroyed you will incur a point penalty. SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER Most of the compounds are 'collateral damage' objectives.

Glad you are still enjoying this great title and appreciating the versatility and relevance of if so many years down the track. More content ... I am working on a couple of things so yes something will appear at some point. I really want to finish off a couple of unfinished projects but I suspect that the first one out of the door will be a mission related to an article in Modern War issue 23 entitled Struggle for the Mullah Fayyad Highway. The map is pretty much done and I think I have the concept nailed down so I'll hack away at it. This mission will be my first attempt to pay tribute to the brave men and women of the US Army in Iraq. Smallish missions that you describe are probably not something that I will design for a few reasons: 1. I really struggle with missions below platoon strength. 2. I don't believe CMSF is optimised for the special forces stuff. Civilians are in CMSF albeit abstracted - to my knowledge they are not modelled in other titles but I don't own all of them so I couldn't say for sure.

@MOS:96B2P - you are a machine!!! Great progress you are making there, I'd be seriously interested in more detail on your plan and execution - particularly in relation to your compound clearance drills. WRT to the ANA guys - yep as far as I am aware they don't have body armour. I seem to recall making a deliberate decision to include the ANA because they were present on the day if not necessarily on the patrol in those numbers. I chose recce troops because they come in small squads of four rather than the larger standard infantry squad. The latter cannot be split so by having two four man recce squads the player in effect has a 'split squad' and this was the main driver for choosing them, I certainly never envisaged them being employed in the recce role. Although not relevant to this scenario, I always think it adds an extra and realistic dimension in Afghan scenarios because I tend to use them to stand off (partly due to the lack of body armour) and lay down fire. Much like their real World counterparts, things get a bit cheeky when they start whanging UGLs and RPGs around. I'm pretty sure that in testing both Into the Green and Op MINIMISE, some of my Brits copped casualties from ANA UGLs and RPGs.

Thanks mate ... like I said though - the 'test and adjust' would be key to this. The thoughts above were not totally off the top of my head, I have been kicking an idea around for CMSF to replicate some sort of recce screen/guard type mission. Sadly I probably won't get around to executing it though as I have a few different mission types in the pipeline and a wife who seems to think that me sitting at my computer is a non-verbal means of communicating to her that I want to do housework/the garden.

Personally I wouldn't get wrapped up about the OP touch objective. The way I would structure it would be something like this ... Time limit set at say 2 hours. Structure your VPs so that the light enemy screening force (say a PanzerAufklarungs Platoon) is worth about a quarter of the VPs as a destroy objective. Have a main body enemy unit (for argument's sake a Panzergrenadier Company) that appears about 45 minutes into the mission and has no VP value at all with AI plans to advance to (but not off) the friendly end of the map which in effect is the hunter force of your reconnaissance element. I would have it advance with final waypoints that interdict likely routes back to the friendly reconnaissance element exit zone(s). Have a depth enemy unit (for argument's sake a Tiger Company) that appears about an hour and a quarter into the mission and is worth about half of the VPs as a 'spotted' objective. It needs to appear somewhere where it will be difficult to spot and not advance too far down the map. The alternative is that it is laagered up in a wood/forest at the enemy end of the map or in three separate wood/forests at the enemy end of the map and only moves a short distance up the map after an hour and a quarter. Your reconnaissance element is set as a destroy objective for the enemy and is worth about a quarter of the VPs and must exit the map at the friendly end. Test and adjust VPs/Parameters to ensure that they fit the formula and don't award an easy victory if the player has not gone some way to achieving the three core tasks: 1. Defeat the PanzerAufklarungs Platoon. 2. Identified the Tigers. 3. Withdrawn off the map. Likewise test and adjust timings based on the size of the map and number of forces available. Other factors to consider are that you would need a fairly robust briefing to set the context and be sure that the player understood the intent. This approach has the beauty of not dictating to the player where they have to set up their OP locations and allows them to come up with their own plan and adjust on the fly as events unfold. Such choices then revolve around where to set up the OP and pose the question of how deep does the reconnaissance element have to probe. The trade off is guaranteeing being able to see the Tiger Company by going deep but running the risk of not getting back safely. Conceptually therefore it is pretty simple but it would need a fair amount of testing to get right. I'll hold my hand up and say that I've never attempted to design something like this but I'm pretty confident something along the lines of the above would meet the intent. @George MC would be someone who could probably offer more insights as I know at least one and possibly a couple of missions in his latest CMRT campaign (KG von Schroif) deal with defeating reconnaissance and use spotting objectives as a major part of the overall VP calculation. The KG von Schroif thread is here ... http://community.battlefront.com/topic/121775-cmrt-campaign-kampfgruppe-von-schroif/ I'd certainly play a reconnaissance type mission like this if it was executed well (apart from the fact that I don't have CMBN).

The stick carried by the Royal Navy Petty Officer (not CPO) is most definitely a pace stick. If you type 'pace stick' in Google Images as a search term you will see various images of pace sticks in the closed and open position. When I was a youth they were often used to prod and inflict other acts of violence on dozy recruits.

A summary of 2 Panzer Division in Normandy in Niklas Zetterling's Normandy 1944 German Military Organisation, Combat Power and Organisational Effectiveness (pages 313-315 refer) is as follows: Originally stationed in the Amiens area at the time of the landings before being ordered to Normandy two days after the invasion. It started to move at 1400 hrs on 09 June 44. The first elements of the divisions entered combat on 12 June but it was not until 20 June that all elements of the division had arrived in Normandy. For most of June the division operated mainly in the Caumont area but following the start of the British Operation Epsom on 26 June, I./Panzer Regiment 3 was lent to support the forces resisting the British. On 21 July, 326 Infanterie Division started to relieve 2 Panzer Division however 2./Panzer Regiment 3 remained in support of 326 Infanterie Division until 27 July. It also states that the division did not appear to be involved in costly fighting in July since it was rated as Kampfwert I (meaning that it was considered fit for any offensive or defensive mission) on 30 July. The account goes on to say that the division took part in the ill-fated Mortain attack in August. I appreciate that the above is single source but it may be of use.

That is pretty good progress you're making @MOS:96B2P. I don't think I got as far as you have as quickly as you have in any of my testing (and I did a lot of testing of this mission). It will be interesting to see whether you can keep the tempo up.

So far so good, a quarter of the way there .... what could possibly go wrong

IMHO George's point about building stuff to suit personal tastes is totally the thing. Everything I've done and released is something I've wanted to do - the satisfaction of creating an accurate map, the pleasure in research and the consideration of design decisions (balance, playability, historical accuracy and many more) are all in the mix. Then there is the testing where you fine tune the timings/plans and the victory points. Then the final test where you realise that (despite testing it a dozen times) that you have created a mission that you would want to play and you have given something to the community. It is a really satisfying feeling to reach that point and what I think motivates many designers. I couldn't imagine spending the time and effort to 'design to order' which is why I don't. WRT finding scenario design challenging ... it takes a bit of trial and error but if I can do it then anyone can. Be patient, start small and stick to designing things that you would want to play or you have a real passion for.

That is good news - I hope you can make this work.

Just to let you know that I probably won't be around here for the remainder of the month due to work commitments so please don't think that any comments you may make in that time on this mission are being ignored. The good news is that if I get some free time I will be working on some of my other CMSF projects.