Combatintman

Based on my career ... neither will I

It is you that has taken it to a new level though. It should be evident from my briefing and associated graphics for that scenario that I was trying to get across that concept of intelligence led operations and give out clues from 'recent incidents' as to insurgent TTPs and HAZs. What I was unable to do was to take it to the extra level of providing intelligence feeds which do more than provide threat warnings during execute. Your concept is truly brilliant and rest assured I will be copying it.

Totally agree your point, particularly when Syria 2018 is perfectly doable in CMSF and will be in CMSF2 to anybody who wants to click the 'Scenario Editor' button. I have a lot of plans for CMSF2 ...

Totally agree your point, particularly when Syria 2018 is perfectly doable in CMSF and will be in CMSF2 to anybody who wants to click the 'Scenario Editor' button. I have a lot of plans for CMSF2 ...

Totally agree your point, particularly when Syria 2018 is perfectly doable in CMSF and will be in CMSF2 to anybody who wants to click the 'Scenario Editor' button. I have a lot of plans for CMSF2 ...

Totally agree your point, particularly when Syria 2018 is perfectly doable in CMSF and will be in CMSF2 to anybody who wants to click the 'Scenario Editor' button. I have a lot of plans for CMSF2 ...

Totally agree your point, particularly when Syria 2018 is perfectly doable in CMSF and will be in CMSF2 to anybody who wants to click the 'Scenario Editor' button. I have a lot of plans for CMSF2 ...

Totally agree your point, particularly when Syria 2018 is perfectly doable in CMSF and will be in CMSF2 to anybody who wants to click the 'Scenario Editor' button. I have a lot of plans for CMSF2 ...

I beg to differ.
While there were a lot of failures, there were some pretty swept up French operations/actions in Indochina if you get past the Dien Bien Phu and GM-100 stories which dominate popular imagination of that conflict.
Then of course there is the Algerian conflict which the French military is widely recognised to have fought the FLN to brink of collapse.
Elements of the French Army deployed on Musketeer were recognised by the British participants to be far better equipped and far more experienced than many of their British equivalents for that type of operation.

@FoxZz - an impressive post but in my case I have never needed convincing about including France in CMBS or CMSF. I could certainly think of hundreds of scenarios for CMSF if French forces were available.

I don't disagree there mate - I think all UN missions should be called that because ultimately that is their job

Chapter VI, Chapter VII or Chapter 6.5 operation? What is the mandate for UNFUK (United Nations Force in the Ukraine). Would a pre-emptive UN deployment to head off a Russian invasion be achievable? It is certainly doable under Article 42 but Russia is a member of UNSC so it is unlikely that it will sign up to it.

Chapter VI, Chapter VII or Chapter 6.5 operation? What is the mandate for UNFUK (United Nations Force in the Ukraine). Would a pre-emptive UN deployment to head off a Russian invasion be achievable? It is certainly doable under Article 42 but Russia is a member of UNSC so it is unlikely that it will sign up to it.

Chapter VI, Chapter VII or Chapter 6.5 operation? What is the mandate for UNFUK (United Nations Force in the Ukraine). Would a pre-emptive UN deployment to head off a Russian invasion be achievable? It is certainly doable under Article 42 but Russia is a member of UNSC so it is unlikely that it will sign up to it.

I wouldn't be surprised if the title is mostly just a rebundling of maps published in the campaign series with a couple of extras thrown in. I doubt there'll be much in there that will be much use for scenario design and there are far better map sources for free online - you just have to look.

@DerKommissarregarding your question about whether the Saladin Armoured Car was a viable concept, the truthful answer has to be that it wasn't tested to its extreme. However nobody can deny that it was a versatile vehicle as demonstrated in the following image:

Clockwise from top left, South Arabia (probably the Radfan), Northern Ireland, Indonesian Confrontation, Aden. These are just some examples of where it was used on active service with the British Army. By all accounts it acquitted itself well and was more than capable of dealing with uppity natives in the colonies and any neighbouring countries offering them safe haven and support.
Had it been tested in a high intensity conflict with 3 Shock Army rolling across the Inner German Border, I suspect that if used in its reconnaissance role and handled well, it would have given a very good account of itself. It would certainly ruin any Soviet recce asset's day and was capable of knocking over APCs in service at the time and even the introduction of the BMP-1 doesn't really change that. The Armoured Car Regiment of the time was a pretty swept up organisation with an HQ Squadron, three Sabre Squadrons and an air troop for an all up strength of 30 x Ferrets, 24 x Saladins, 17 x Saracens and 6 x Sioux Helicopters.

Good question mate and you're right about the uncertainty. In this case, the game is a scenario rather than an H2H QB which I always think makes things easier for a number of reasons:
Scenarios are generally designed to be winnable by both sides which gives you a left and right of arc to scope the problem.
Picking units in the scenario editor is largely driven by the TO&E and most scenario designers are going to take that easy option of basing the unit picks on TO&E structures.
The information in the Situation Enemy Forces paragraph and the graphics will also help you scope the left and right of arc of the enemy.
FWIW, and I have no knowledge of the scenario because I don't own the title (I know burn this heretic now ...) but I don't think that there are 5 x Stugs, we've seen 2 x Stugs and I would be surprised if there are more than 3 x Stugs. As for the dismounts I reckon that we're looking at a full FJ company plus some support weapons, a recce platoon and an engineer platoon.
Of course all of this is moot if the scenario designer is a fruit loop
As I said early in the piece, H2H QB games are a totally different matter. The only intelligence you have here is the number of points that your opponent has and the objectives. Whenever points are involved, a human being is going to squeeze every last advantage out of them which means a lot more randomness in the force makeup. However, the core of any force pick will still be TO&E based. The best that you can hope for here is to identify that core eg is it a an armoured/mechanised infantry/infantry based core. From your initial sightings you can then start to crunch the numbers. Taking this as scenario as an example, let's say the Axis player has a point allocation of 1000 and that a Stug costs 10 points each. Well we know now that there are 980 points to find. If an FJ company is worth 500 points then there are 480 points to find.
Of course it is more complex than that because soft factors affect points values so the best approach is just to average it out by assuming that all units are regular. Obviously this is never going to produce a 100% correct solution but intelligence is never a 100% solution, it is about reducing uncertainty.

Every day's a school day - I genuinely didn't know that so thanks for the information. It does illustrate that he was a controversial individual.

In my defence, my book collection is sat in a container on a ship just off Singapore right now.

Yes - there is footage on the interweb of a couple of Kuwaiti Saladins trying to give the Iraqis the good news. Of course the Ferret was still in service in the British Army at this time and I know it deployed on Op GRANBY with 40 Field Regiment RA because one was parked outside my tent for a while and I had a fun cabby in it going down the Tapline and back.

@DerKommissarregarding your question about whether the Saladin Armoured Car was a viable concept, the truthful answer has to be that it wasn't tested to its extreme. However nobody can deny that it was a versatile vehicle as demonstrated in the following image:

Clockwise from top left, South Arabia (probably the Radfan), Northern Ireland, Indonesian Confrontation, Aden. These are just some examples of where it was used on active service with the British Army. By all accounts it acquitted itself well and was more than capable of dealing with uppity natives in the colonies and any neighbouring countries offering them safe haven and support.
Had it been tested in a high intensity conflict with 3 Shock Army rolling across the Inner German Border, I suspect that if used in its reconnaissance role and handled well, it would have given a very good account of itself. It would certainly ruin any Soviet recce asset's day and was capable of knocking over APCs in service at the time and even the introduction of the BMP-1 doesn't really change that. The Armoured Car Regiment of the time was a pretty swept up organisation with an HQ Squadron, three Sabre Squadrons and an air troop for an all up strength of 30 x Ferrets, 24 x Saladins, 17 x Saracens and 6 x Sioux Helicopters.

Me too mate but if you want me to run an eye over briefings or knock up some briefing graphics or help you with a bundled PDF document to explain how it all works then I am here for you. I'd like to think that @George MC can vouch for me in this regard. Shoot me a PM and we'll take it from there.

Cent, Saladin and Ferret

Images taken in Aden in the 1960s when there was a bit of bother there ... oh hang on, that's still going on. Unfortunately this chap is no longer with us - he would have fixed it:

Good question mate and you're right about the uncertainty. In this case, the game is a scenario rather than an H2H QB which I always think makes things easier for a number of reasons:
Scenarios are generally designed to be winnable by both sides which gives you a left and right of arc to scope the problem.
Picking units in the scenario editor is largely driven by the TO&E and most scenario designers are going to take that easy option of basing the unit picks on TO&E structures.
The information in the Situation Enemy Forces paragraph and the graphics will also help you scope the left and right of arc of the enemy.
FWIW, and I have no knowledge of the scenario because I don't own the title (I know burn this heretic now ...) but I don't think that there are 5 x Stugs, we've seen 2 x Stugs and I would be surprised if there are more than 3 x Stugs. As for the dismounts I reckon that we're looking at a full FJ company plus some support weapons, a recce platoon and an engineer platoon.
Of course all of this is moot if the scenario designer is a fruit loop
As I said early in the piece, H2H QB games are a totally different matter. The only intelligence you have here is the number of points that your opponent has and the objectives. Whenever points are involved, a human being is going to squeeze every last advantage out of them which means a lot more randomness in the force makeup. However, the core of any force pick will still be TO&E based. The best that you can hope for here is to identify that core eg is it a an armoured/mechanised infantry/infantry based core. From your initial sightings you can then start to crunch the numbers. Taking this as scenario as an example, let's say the Axis player has a point allocation of 1000 and that a Stug costs 10 points each. Well we know now that there are 980 points to find. If an FJ company is worth 500 points then there are 480 points to find.
Of course it is more complex than that because soft factors affect points values so the best approach is just to average it out by assuming that all units are regular. Obviously this is never going to produce a 100% correct solution but intelligence is never a 100% solution, it is about reducing uncertainty.

I wish I  could test too mate - I have a similar (ish) concept for CMSF but it will be a campaign rather than a single mission. As I said in our PM - I think you have nailed this and that people will say for years to come that this is one of the 'must play' CM missions.
Just remember OPSEC