Hello everyone, I'm part of an Arma 3 community named United Operations and I picked up Combat Mission: Black Sea and Final Blitzkrieg based on the recommendation of other members of the community who enjoyed the series. I took a liking to this excellent series and decided that I'd like to bring Imperial Grunt's mission "Platoon House Aleksandra" from CMBS to Arma 3. Now, since Arma does not have the amount of depth of specific assets that CMBS does I was limited in a few areas, but overall I think that I really nailed the look and feel of the mission.
For those who don't know, Platoon House Aleksandra is one of the smaller default missions in CMBS. It features a Russian motorized platoon equipped with three BTR-82As and a T-72 versus an isolated Ukrainian Battalian HQ with a MT-LB Artillery Observation Vehicle, one M2 Humvee, one M240 Humvee, and around a platoon of infantry.
I decided when I began making the mission that it would be a PvP mission because Arma 3 AI really suck at doing anything. I decided to use the same number of fighters as in the original mission and made it a 68 player mission with a 1:1 ratio. I also made some changes to the balance of the mission to ensure that the defenders would have a fighting chance as Arma autocannons are a bit more deadly in the hands of real people than Black Sea Autocannons are in the hands of the CMBS AI. Taking that into account, I removed the attacker's T-72 and gave the defenders a Humvee with a Mk19 rather than the M240 Humvee in the original mission. I also shuffled up some of the buildings and made the compound more square in order to compensate for some limitations I ran into building the compound. Otherwise I was as faithful to the original mission as I could be, I even kept in the Apache that shows up late in the original mission!
Here are some pictures of the compound I created compared to some pictures of the original compound. Please forgive the terrible quality. I am forced to play on a potato laptop as my normal desktop is not with me at the moment.
In the end it took about 15-20 hours to complete the mission and fully test it for any issues. It was well worth it, though, as the mission's first playthrough was a huge hit with the community. Here is a video of the mission that one member created. It does a nice job of showcasing the Ukrainian side of the mission. As of now I don't have any videos of the Russian side, but I have talked to another member who said he had some footage that he plans on editing together. I won't spoil the outcome for those who want to watch the video. If you don't have the patience for a video, here is a much quicker replay of it from our AAR tool.
Thanks to Imperial Grunt for designing such a great mission! It transferred over to Arma 3 very well and I had a great time making it. If anyone wants to come and play with us, it's easy to join as we don't have any application process like other communities. Just register and download the mod pack and you're good to go! Here is a guide to help get started.
Thanks for reading everyone!