The_Red_Rage

No, never seen that video. "Trust your equipment" kind of session to give troops more confidence under fire?

A very good article John, thanks for the link. A cool-headed realistic assessment of the situation - must read for everyone in my opinion.

Some of my recommendations (use search to find the quick on CM mods): US Rag Tag uniform mod + Camelback addon (MUST HAVE) Syrian Spy pack mod Darker Grass mod VIED Baghdad Taxi NATO pics Highway art fix Mord's US chatter base (MUST HAVE) Russian vihicles camo mod (by gordon molek as i recall with camo/plain versions...IMHO plain looks better in game but try both out - MUST HAVE) Red tracer mod (looks much better than stock tracers) Scipio's explosion/flame/smoke/muzzle flash mods Chechen rebels uncon replacement Muddywaterscombo mod El_terrifico's Euro Syrian uniforms - mix and match to your liking, instructions are provided with readme. I personally used 5 different patterns for regulars and 2 patterns for reserves - gives soldiers a really personalized feel and looks great (MUST HAVE) Gordon Molek's UAZ stripe KLMK Spetsnaz for Syrian SF (there is another SF uniforms mod i cant recall the name of - i used the vest and helmet from it, looks great when mashed together with KLM mod) Faces of Syria mod Mord's death knells mod + no music mod Eurobuildings + European foilage + Syrope_terrain mods, if you want temperate climate terrain Paper Tiger's Hasrabit and Perdition campaigns (MUST HAVE) Probably missed some, but that should keep you tied for a while.

http://www.cmmods.com/ Register and then you are on your way to discovering all the modding goodness.

MickeyD, That's the mod I'm using right now (although i crossed 2 mods - KLMK Spetsnaz for uniform + vest from some other mod i can't recall ("spetsnaz" written in Russian on the back)).

As the Russians say "Caucasus is a delicate business...." That saying is based on 300 years of actually being in the region and interacting with all the cultures. The way things work there is that one day you are killing each other and the next you are best friends.

Did some searching on the net and couldn't find anything. Is there any evidence of Syrians utilizing body armour during combat operations? I would imagine practically everyone is utilizing at least 'Nam era flak vests nowdays. In game terms, it could be interesting to see Syrian Airborne and SF units slightly more protected. Could be even more interesting if number of "armored" troops within any particular unit varied with "Quality" setting.

Reuters, AFP and numerous Russian agencies already reported complete destruction of Tskhinvali. Russia is preparing a war crimes case for Hague, so we'll see the true humanetarian impact later. Saaskashvili is now claiming that he "witnessed how Russian bombers artillery destroying Tskhinvali..." (!!!) - man is a liar and a coward (reference the video where he noticed a plane overhead and ran faster than Forrest Gump). Russian peacekeeper battalion positions were clearly separate from S.Ossetian positions. I had a map of battlelines lying around somewhere, I'll look around. Russian force build-up in the area argument doesn't fly: 1) 58th army was already a reiforced combat ready formation since it is responsible for Chechnya; 2) Georgia is a potentially hostile neighbour with unstable leader in power, so increased military presense is basic national security measure. Georgians fired first, and they didn't just fire but initiated a barrage of a civilian city from surrounding hills (Sarajevo anyone?); Russian peacekeepers did not return fire for first 12 hours (that is from S.Ossetian sources, who were initially angered by Russian troops not engaging). It is pretty obvious that Georgia wanted a blitzkreig, which did not quite work out... Georgian presense in Iraq was more of a PR campaign to sell Saaskashvili as "friend of the West" than any real help - 2000 troops of questinable reliablity, which had been pulled out with even more PR fanfare ("The last stand for democracy at Tbilisi!"). It is pretty obvious by now that Russia is not going to Tbilisi, so why all the noise? Interesting facts: 1) Saaskashvili is a U.S. citizen (!!!!!!) - imagine a member of Castro family running for power in Mexico with a clear anti-U.S. sentiment and Russian financial and military suport 2) Ramzan Kadyrov (El Presidente in Chechnya) stated that "Georgia should not mess with Russia" and that "Chechnya was ready to provide 10,000 volounteers to fight on Russian side" as well as that "he was concerned that Moscow was not utilizing Chechen troops more" - politics is a *****, ain't it?

White ribbons on the sleeves are worn by South Ossetian units for ID purposes. Another interesting theory on conflict causes, which seems to be the dominant in CIS world as well: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/11/21726/6846 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/9/82642/19523 Linked from the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/weekinreview/10traub.html?_r=1&ref=weekinreview&oref=slogin http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/world/europe/11scene.html?hp

Casualty figures in the report seem way too high. According to it 58th Army lost more armour than in ill-fated Grozny assault in 1995. Lol, just watching CNN right now... Russia is apparently deploying "Ecological saboteurs", which the brave president of Georgia discovered

Should cause a few laughs as well http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/08/11/georgia.president/index.html#cnnSTCVideo (Saaskashvili ducking for cover video) http://trinixy.ru/2008/08/11/panika_saakashvili_4_shtuk__video.html The face is priceless; even funnier since it turned out that the sounds that scared El Presidente were made by Georgian artillery. CIA wannabe secret service creating traffic with their own vihicles is amusing as well.

Good post John, glad people are still keeping balanced perspectives. Some humor on the subject http://valleywag.com/5034988/

One sidedness of coverage by Western media is apalling. I look through both, Russian and Western periodicals and news reports, and i must admit that Western reports remind me of old Soviet Channel 1 9 o'clock news (with "There is no war in Afghanistan. Troops are planting trees" kind of reports). Many Russian sources seem to provide a more objective coverage from both Gerogia and South Ossetia, will all sides given airtime. As of today, not a single Western reporter was actually inside South Ossetia, they all reported from Georgia). Journalist casualties inside S.Ossetia have been very high so far (1 turk+interpreter wounded, 2 Russian reporters dead, and 2 more wounded), however noone is actually stopping Western film crews from entering the region. I find it disturbing that Saaskashvili, who just carped bombed 2000 people, is getting so much airtime while educating the American public on perils of Georgia in the face of re-emerging Evil Empire. South Ossetia is not given any voice at all, Russia is silenced as well. Saaskashvili is very PR- friendly and easy to digest for Western media companies, with his perfect English, young charismatic appearance and Armani suits... The guy will probably do Larry King if he lives through that. When Russian side is shown, we see images of omnious tank columns crawling through the landscape and looping images of crying and bloodied Georgian grandmother. Less than 30 Georgian civilians died in Russian bombings so far (according to Georgian sources), and 2000 on South Ossetian side. So far Russian air force is doing miles ahead of NATO in similar environment, which managed to take out a whole train full of Serb civilians during Kosovo intervention (as well as purposefully bomb targets of economic significance inside Serbia). Criticizing Russia is fashionable, but before you do that - think of what would be an adequate response to 2000 of your country's citizens murdered in an overnight artillery barrage? Anyways, rambling about politics again.....apologies African-American = CIA? Instructor-observer? I would imagine CIA is VERY active in the region at the moment.

Check out Russia vs. Georgia thread on the Mod board.

Interesting articles on the subject: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4486297.ece http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/09/russia.georgia http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/08/russia.georgia1 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/09/georgia.russia http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/09/world/europe/09georgia.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Question about the mod: are the .wavs shared with Syrian regulars/reserves/guard units? So after installing it and playing a scenario without any insurgents will i still hear "allah ackbars!"?

My question still stands - how is this any different from what NATO did in Kosovo? Strategic goal was separation and weakening of Serbia, means were KLA (with a general image of Albanians as "opressed peoples" created by the media), and the execution was done by NATO planes with a fluffy PR campaign on the background. Witness reports confirm almoast 100% destruction of the city. There is no gas, running water or electricity. It's abit cynical to not listen to the voices of people who got out of there. If you think in military terms - Georgians had been bombarding the place for over 12 hours, they opened fire at night by a relative surprise, bombardment took place grid by grid without any precision (BM-21s are not the tools for surgical strikes). Now 1400 casualties seems conservative for a scenario like this. Pictures will follow I'm sure, it's only day 2 of the conflict. Btw, in regards to the article - wanting a NATO membership and selling out your national identity to U.S. national interests doesn't make the government pro-Western. Saaskaashvili has a VERY spotty human rights record, there is no deomacracy to speak of, and generally Georgian society is based on "teyps" (or clans). "Pro-Western" is a state of society as a whole, not ambitions of a petty dictator to get free guns at the expense of Western taxpayer. I think it's the new trend with entire third world now to want to join NATO...

1500+ dead at the moment. Tskhinvali (capital) is completely levelled by Georgian heavy artillery. South Ossetia and Abkhazia, in legal terms, have as much right to idependance as Kosovo did. Now, Albanians were "freedom fighters", "friends on the U.S.", "victimized people", while the Serbs were "war criminals", "baby eaters" and who can forget "ethnic cleansers". In case with Kosovo, not entire population wanted to separate from Serbia, however those wanting to stay in were quickly silenced and put into Serb ethnic enclaves. In case with Abkhazia - they all 100% support separation from Georgia. In case with S.Ossetia - they all 100% support serparation from Georgia and annexation to Russia. Since i am a product of evil Russian propaganda (while living and having served in Canada...), help me understand here - how are Georgians justified? Shell a civilian city into the ground at the start of the Olympic games, bombard the hell out of peacekeeper positions, and then call on to the world community to "help Georgia to defend against Russian imperialism". So yeah, double standards everywhere...

First battle went very smoothly. With abit of luck i managed to finish it with 2 men dead and 5 men wounded. Not going to spoil anything, but arty is the key in the opening 15 mins. Second battle is the one i enjoyed the most. Positioned my armour just as the briefing stated (BMPs on one hill and T55s on another). Really fun shootout with enemy armour; in the end i had 4 T55s left operational (2 were diasbled early on, and 2 survived the hill battle). I had about 70% of Task Force B intact, so i decided not to proceed to bonus objective and save them for the final engagement. Third battle was challenging up to the point of North Crossing collapse. I had massive amounts of arty left ( i used it only in the first mission against suspected ATGM postions), so needless to say when my infantry entered town....well there was no town left. South Crossing fell quickly as well - i charged it with 3 T55s and 3 T62s in line formation across the wheatfield (VERY WW2 like experience), infantry was following behind on foot. I entered the town in a parade column formationg since, as i mentioned before, nothing was really left standing. Great campaign! Thanks and can't wait for next installment!

South Ossetians are on their home turf too, so are North Ossetian and Abkhaz volonteers. Russian 58th army is a very capable fighting force as well, composed of many Chechen war vets and with experienced officer staff. In any case it won't be pretty, but considering that 60% of Georgia's trade is with Russia, I can't see this warmongering going well for them.

Theoretically it was Red on Blue for a while, if you consider Russian peacekeeping forces Blue (they were there under UN resolution). There is even a UN flag on the background http://lenta.ru/photo/2008/08/08/ossetia/6_Jpg.htm Russian tank columns did not enter South Ossetia until almost 20 hours into the fight, and by that time 12 peacekeepers died and 150 suffered injuries under Georgian shelling. U.S. should pick its allies more carefully. Saaskashvili is a nationalist and a warmonging lunatic. He single handedly distabilized an entire region, started a crazy bid for NATO (why oh why does a third world agrarian country need a NATO membership? will the Alliance make their goats more fertile?), and now is responsible for levelling a city (over 1400 dead reported). But he did contribute 2000 troops to Iraq... Funny picture (apparently it was used in hacker attacks on Georgian web-sites): http://img.lenta.ru/news/2008/08/09/defaced/picture.jpg

BTR-80 (can't believe it's not already in the game) Another Red side. As Yankee Dog mentioned - Red on Red is pretty big now, and it just feels abit weird to fight with identical forces. There is very little difference tactically between NATO forces and even less will be noticable in the game, so another third world dictaroship with exotic mix of Russian/French/American export equipment would be most welcome (Chad, Jordan come to mind).

PaperTiger, We are looking at YOU:) Russian sources list different force balance from wiki. Georgians: Organizational armed forces of Georgia will consist of a land forces, military-air forces and the Navies. According to official data of the Georgian military department, their total numberis 29 thousand personnel. The trained reserve is totaled more than 100 thousand personnel. In connection with the beginning of an armed confrontation against Southern Ossetia, authorities of Georgia had already begun their partial mobilization. The Georgian land forces consist of five infantry brigades, several separate infantry battalions, the artillery brigade, the separate tank battalion, a separate battalion of the radio-electronic survelliance, a separate engineering battalion and a separate medical battalion. There are 165 tanks T-72 and Т-55, no less than 78 IFVs (BMP-1/2), 11 recon cars BRDM-1 and 91 armored troop-carriers (i assume either Turkish Cobras or BMPs, details are sketchy). Cannon artillery of various calibres totals to more than 200 units. Mortars - 180 units. The quantity of rocket artillery exceeds 40 units. Air Assets: 10 SU-25KM which have been modernized together with Israeli company Elbit System, as well as 2 learners SU-25UB, 6 L-39 and 9 L-29. The helicopter park consists of 28 "Мi" various modifications, including not less than 3 MI-24, as well as 6 transport Bell-212 and 6 UH-1H. South Ossetia: South Ossetian army is significantly less in size than the Georgian adversary. Number of armed forces in an unrecognized republic is 3 thousand regulars and 15 thousand reservists. 1 thousand volounteers are heading down there from Abkhazia. Volounteer units are being formed in North Ossetia and inside Russia. Equipment wise South Ossetia posesses 87 tanks T-72 and Т-55, 95 artillery units and mortars, including 72 howitzers, 23 rocket artillery complexes BM-21 (GRAD), as well as 180 armoured cars, including 80 fighting cars for infantry (BMP1/2 i assume). Air Assets: No strike aircraft; 3 MI-8 transport helos Russian North Caucasus Military District: According to last reports, in the armed opposition between Georgia and South Ossetia Russia has interfered. Armoured units of the North-Caucasian military district moved into South Ossetia to reiforce the Russian peacekeeping contingent already on the ground. NCMD forces include 58-th Army, 20-th motorized rifle division, 7-th VDV, separate helicopter regiments and squadrons, antiaircraft rocket brigades and various other support and logistical units. 58-th army stucture includes two mechanized divisions, separate MTR regiment, five separate MTR brigades, including two mountain, a brigade of strategic and tactical missle batteries, as well as several artillery brigades. Manpower of the North-Caucasian military district exceeds 100 thousand men. Equipment: available about 620 tanks, 200 IFVs and 875 artillery systems, including heavy rocket artillery. Air assets: 4th Air army is tasked with strikes on Geogian positions. 4th has 60 SU-24, 100 Mig-29, 60 SU-27, 100 SU-25, 40 light strikers L-39 and 30, recoinassance SU-24МR, 75 Mi-24s, various supporting aircraft.

Amazing work as usual. Liked it less than Hasrabit, but that is mostly due to armour heavy force balance. For people who prefer armour heavy engagements this is a solid 11 out of 10

With a game like CMSF there is very little danger from mod abuse. With regards to single player - player should be able to modify the game to their liking. With multiplayer, CM has a very dedicated and mature fanbase with little interest in abusing the system by modifying the game to their advantage. Plus the game is already unbalanced and we wouldn't want it any other way;) Ability to add new objects will be huge for scenario designers. As a player, I want the battlefield to look less like it was made out of Lego and more like Beirut circa 1982.