Combatintman

Apart from pretty much every set of orders in a 34 year military career I've received or read having them ... you're probably right.

But @Erwin is editor averse.

Apart from pretty much every set of orders in a 34 year military career I've received or read having them ... you're probably right.

Apart from pretty much every set of orders in a 34 year military career I've received or read having them ... you're probably right.

The vehicle commander 😏

The vehicle commander 😏

No - Combatintman was on the other side .... surprised they hung on for so long really ...
 

No - Combatintman was on the other side .... surprised they hung on for so long really ...
 

No - Combatintman was on the other side .... surprised they hung on for so long really ...
 

No - Combatintman was on the other side .... surprised they hung on for so long really ...
 

Every infantryman had a ride and, as others have pointed out, this would have been an extremely lethal battlespace with NBC and masses of artillery.  The BMP series was designed to reflect this reality.  Strain all you like, but it would have been a suicide tactic.   From an implementation point of view, it was discussed and discarded.  The coding is done and from similar discussion held on the CMBN forums over the years, it is a PITA to implement and I doubt Battlefront will revisit this original design decision so unfortunately it is one of those things you're going to have to live with.

Ok a couple of people (yes you @Borg ) have been screaming out for a ‘Special Ops Mission’.  So I thought – hell why not?  But there is a twist to this … it is sort of a scenario design tutorial to encourage new mission design within CMSF.  As I hope to show, this isn’t difficult ... although this will be a long journey for sure.
 
First up it is worth quoting the great JonS in his scenario design manual …
 
‘Scenario design is an intensely personal and creative activity, and these posts are not in any way intended to be prescriptive, or a set of rules that must be adhered to. Instead it's an outline of how I go about this, and some guidelines that you might choose to follow. To misquote German doctrine; scenario design is an art, a free and creative activity, and each designer needs to find their own way of skinning these cats’.
 
So first up is the scenario concept or the narrative.  You’ve already got the concept … I thought ‘hell why not?’ to doing a Special Ops Mission.  Well if you’re going to do one, you might as well do a famous one so we’re going to do the kill/capture operation against Osama Bin Laden by US Navy SEALs on 01-02 May 2011.  The advantage here is that unlike most SOF operations, this one is pretty well documented which makes the research easier.
 
Whatever the concept or narrative it needs to be a fairly strong one but open to adjusting as you go through because as we will no doubt see, there is only so much you can do with the mission editor so compromises ultimately have to be made.
 
Basically then my narrative is that I want to create an approximate representation of the events of that night and throw in some plausible challenges along the way.
 
At this point it is probably worth stating roughly what happened and this is a Segway into the next step which is research (although there is an argument that the research quite often drives the original scenario concept – neither is right or wrong and the process isn’t entirely linear). Here is the summary view from Wikipedia
 
‘Osama bin Laden, the founder and head of the Islamist group Al-Qaeda, was killed in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, shortly after 1:00 am PKT (20:00 UTC, May 1) by United States Navy SEALs of the U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group (also known as DEVGRU or SEAL Team Six). The operation, code-named Operation Neptune Spear, was carried out in a Central Intelligence Agency-led operation. In addition to DEVGRU, participating units included the United States Army Special Operations Command's 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) and CIA operatives. The raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, was launched from Afghanistan. U.S. military officials said that after the raid, U.S. forces took bin Laden's body to Afghanistan for identification, then buried him at sea within 24 hours of his death in accordance with Islamic tradition. According to a Pakistani official, the United States had direct evidence that Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, knew of bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad’.
 
So from the above I can draw out a couple of pointers which will become useful when I’m constructing the scenario.
 
Time 0100
Date 02 May 11
Location Abbottabad
Blue Force SEAL Team 6
Rather than quote the whole Wikipedia article (you can read it here … https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Osama_bin_Laden)
 
I’ll just extract some other snippets that may be of use.
 
Overall Force Strength was 79 operators and CIA personnel 6 helicopters and a dog. The raid was carried out by two dozen operators with another two dozen operators waiting at a deserted LZ to act as a reaction force if the Pakistani Army intervened.
 
Inside the compound were 22 residents.
 
Further quote from Wikipedia …
 
‘When the National Security Council (NSC) met again on April 19, Obama gave provisional approval for the helicopter raid. But as he worried that the plan for dealing with the Pakistanis was too uncertain, Obama asked Admiral McRaven to equip the team to fight its way out if necessary’
 
The raid launched from Jalalabad in Afghanistan with a flight time of 90 minutes to the target and a QRF was positioned 2/3rds of the distance away (ie 30 minutes flight time away).
 
And more from Wikipedia about the execution of the mission
 
‘As they hovered above the target, however, the first helicopter experienced a hazardous airflow condition known as a vortex ring state. This was aggravated by higher than expected air temperature ("a so-called 'hot and high' environment’) and the high compound walls, which stopped the rotor downwash from diffusing. The helicopter's tail grazed one of the compound's walls, damaging its tail rotor, and the helicopter rolled onto its side. The pilot quickly buried the aircraft's nose to keep it from tipping over. None of the SEALs, crew and pilots on the helicopter were seriously injured in the soft crash landing, which ended with it pitched at a 45-degree angle resting against the wall. The other helicopter landed outside the compound and the SEALs scaled the walls to get inside. The SEALs advanced into the house, breaching walls and doors with explosives.’
 
Other useful bits and pieces from the article …
 

 
A rather fancy schematic of the compound
 
So this is all great stuff and I could take the research to deeper levels but before I do it is worth taking a moment to see if this passes the feasibility test as a mission.  Knowledge of the editor helps at this point so if you are unfamiliar you just have to kick things around and setup little tests.  It might be that those tests rule out the mission altogether because it is not achievable in the editor or that the mission is unlikely to be a fun experience for the player.  JonS frequently says that many historical missions do not make fun CM missions.
 
It is also worth thinking about what compromises or adjustments may be required to make your concept a workable mission and I'll discuss these as I go. Next time around I will cover the ground and some other factors in a bit more detail.
 
 

We clearly have some philosophical distance on game design.  When you get one off the ground, let me know and we can compare notes.

These babies ...
The Soviet Army: Operations and Tactics (fas.org)
FM 100-2-2 The Soviet Army Specialized Warfare and rear Area Support (fas.org)
FM 100-2-3 The Soviet Army Troops, Organization and Equipment (fas.org)

Not as much as the cost of a Stug mind ....

The other thing that sometimes causes problems is elevations, particularly when trying to blast building walls.  If the ground in the adjoining tile is slightly higher than the building, your troops will just go around and look for a door.  Best bet with your blast commands is to have show all moves toggled and check that your blast unit is showing a brown/blast rather than yellow/quick move before you hit the red button.  As I said earlier, it is annoying, it is fiddly and it should behave better than it does currently.

Dhobi dust I reckon ...
household, washing, Henkel detergents and washing powder, Imi Stock Photo - Alamy

Not as much as the cost of a Stug mind ....

Dhobi dust I reckon ...
household, washing, Henkel detergents and washing powder, Imi Stock Photo - Alamy

Can't speak for the M-577 but all British Army armoured vehicles have this capability.  Gentlemen, I present the Boiling Vessel (BV):

Well, two actually, but you get the picture.

Correct - also the abundance of sand is not particularly reminiscent of northern Europe.  Nonetheless that is how they set up.  I was in the British Army during the Cold War and we would set up in very much a similar fashion.  The trick was to try and find an empty factory or a big enough farm with plenty of barns to set up in.

Fixed that for you and show 'em some pics of the naval gunfire support smashing the forts 😏

You're all missing the point ... given BFC's record with predicting conflicts in their games, it must mean that Black Sea will get Brits in a module.

Can't speak for the M-577 but all British Army armoured vehicles have this capability.  Gentlemen, I present the Boiling Vessel (BV):

Well, two actually, but you get the picture.

Can't speak for the M-577 but all British Army armoured vehicles have this capability.  Gentlemen, I present the Boiling Vessel (BV):

Well, two actually, but you get the picture.