Nektoman

Thanks.
By the way Haiduk, you should go ahead with your project. I doubt too many people who play CMBS know more about this war than you. And you shouldn't worry too much about being 100% accurate. If the tactical situations are interesting and you manage to capture the feel of the conflict, that's good enough even if you don't have the exact model of tank.

Maryanivka
4750 X 3200m
230km from Kyiv and 95 km to the Russian Border, located on the M02 road.
Google Earth :


View in game from the North :

And from the South side :

From South West corner :

Notes :
Included in the download are both a version with setup zones and objectives for a meeting engagement and a raw version with nothing, only landmarks.
While the map is quite large, the setup zones are not that big, so either enlarge them a bit before playing or pick a relatively small force. There should be plenty of time to deploy though given the length of the map so even if it gets a bit crowded at the start it shouldn't be that big of a deal.
How to Install :
Extract in the following folder :
documents/battlefront/combat mission/black sea/game files/scenarios
Download link :
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0zr7pmcjy79pybf/CMBS map maryanivka.rar?dl=0

...And how it was looking in real in 2015. Video of DNR forces
 

Good point.  We have purists who want things are realistic as possible, but as you say, in RL one can climb thru windows.  Until CM2 features window traversing, more doors (even an unrealistic/excessive number of doors) would actually make for more realistic tactics.

Right yes it won't be historical. We don't have the right models of tanks, lots of equipment is missing and it won't be a battalion sized force like in reality.  And even if we had all these things available in the editor, I am not sure it would be possible to portray this type of fighting accurately anyway. Too little is known about the battle. The time frame would be hard to reproduce. Real engagements are much more slow paced. And the way I understand it, these clashes are much more about long range firefights with one side pulling back early before getting within small arms range, without house to house fighting.
But it won't stop me from trying to make something fun and interesting. It will be like what you sometimes see on television "based on real events". The map is as accurate as I could make it though, just think of the scenario as a bonus.
 

All,
A link for my Ukrainian/Pro-Russia Separatist skin is included below.  
Back in early 2016, I did hours of research and created a set of skins for the Ukrainian government and separatist forces based on several preexisting mods (Veins' Russian and Ukrainian Infantry skins, Stagler's Russian skins with gorka and flora camo, Blimey's "Separatist - UKR Digital Slot").  The resulting product is a line-up of government and separatist forces wearing a motley of different camo clothing.  I would like to thank Stagler, Veins, and Blimey for your wonderful contribution to our community!  But if any of the original content creators object to my usage of their mods, pls message me, I will make revisions accordingly.  This is my first post, do let me know if you encounter any problem with the download or the mod itself, I will fix it.  Also please share your thoughts on how we can improve this mod together, I want this project to belong to our whole community.  Hope you guys enjoy!
Description of the mod:
1. Ukrainian government forces:
The government soldiers wear mostly the new digital camo pattern, mixed in with some uncovered green/gray helmets and the old bytan-pattern camouflaged helmets and ballistic vests.
2. Pro-Russia separatist forces:
I chose the digital slot for the separatists because I feel that, notwithstanding reports of Russian arms surfacing in Donbass, the separatists' equipment is still predominantly the same equipment used by the Ukrainian government forces.  What differentiates this mod from Blimey's version is the inclusion of a different mixture of motley camouflage and helmets, rebalanced to reflect (in my opinion) a more authentic look for the government forces and the separatists.  Based on my research, olive gorka suits and Russian flora patterns are fairly common among separatist ranks.  Occasionally, you will also see some separatists wearing equipment in the new Russian digital pattern.  For identification purpose, separatists tie white bands on their arms and legs (Government forces sometimes use yellow tape for identification, but I left this feature out b/c this practice appears to have become less common since the adoption of the new digital pattern).  This mod reflects these observations accordingly.
Furthermore, I reintroduced helmets for the separatists for several reasons. (1) I can't add bare-headed separatists without also having to remove helmet chain-strap from all Ukrainian models. (2) In intense battles (e.g., Second Battle for Donetsk Airport), video footage showed many frontline separatists wearing helmets.  (3) This game reflects the conflict in 2017, it's likely that the separatists have become better equipped.
Dropbox link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/l0ednsclks77bqa/UKR_2017.zip?dl=0
Preview images:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ujke8qkciwsz3c5/Ukrainian Govt.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4zg7i8smz7iq4u2/Separatists.jpg?dl=0

Vehicle 9 Civilian Wrecked Car Flavour Object c/w ground tile
Wrecked car flavour object
[Based on Kieme's SF1 pale blue car]
This is a destroyed car to put in your battlescenes. It is modded on the SF1 VBIED pale blue car.
Put it in the Z folder
It looks best with the ground tile Wreckage supplied with it.
http://www.mediafire.com/view/3p5yyk20xu3dka3/Vehicle-9-Wreck-on-burnt-ground.jpg
You can replace any ordinary ground tile. It has the mod tag [wreckage] applied.
 
NOTE: flavour objects need consecutive numbers. You will need to put it in the next available vehicle flavour slot in your game and renumber the mdr file accordingly – e.g if you have three vehicles this will now be vehicle4.mdr
Link again:
http://www.mediafire.com/folder/vnvbrljke5n3s/vehicle9_car_wreck

I wonder if this is the same semenovka found in the title east front..."strong point semeovka" supposedly a german strong point was centerd here and attacked in 1942 I believe

Towards Mecca? 😉

And then confirmation bias kicks in which lines up all interventions in one convenient line up without looking into the unique circumstances of each.

We don't even need to go far - there was the discussion about how Russia would remove Lukashenko pre-elections based on his arrests of PMC servicemen in transit. Or how Russia would send combat troops to help him now under the CSTO umbrella, based on the idea that Russia must always act militarily.
But then there were Kyrgyzia and Armenia and their stories get forgotten because they do not fit the pattern.

Anything is of course possible, but the water supply issues in Crimea is IMHO way down the list of priorities for Moscow. The Donbas War has been out of the headlines for 5 years now and the Kremlin wants to keep it that way.
The highest priority for Moscow in Europe seems to be finishing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project which will allow Russia to bypass Ukraine and supply Western Europe with natural gas directly without having to worry about Ukrainian “transit fees” or potential gas slow down or shut down. The U.S., in a rare display of bi-partisan unity, have been putting in place potentially crippling sanctions to try to stop it, but Merkel, German politicians and many EU governments want the pipeline finished so they can get cheap Russian gas. The Kremlin will not do anything, like another war, that could put the project in jeopardy.

Many things have already been announced. See this thread:
CMBS module will come after all the above releases

The author used mainly sources for 2015 -2016 years, which were writen by "hot pursiut" and many information in that time was on the level of rumors, distortet or inaccurate. Also as I see "spoiled radio" effect, alas. I will point errors later. 
There is official Report of General Staff about Debaltsevo in Ukrainian. Enough detailed, useful, but biased according to political position - as I told almost no one word about eastern flank fights, also all guilt for Debaltsevo loss they put on 40th battalion, not on stupid decisions of Sector C HQ like to take away garrison of Lohvynove etc. True picture is possible to see by several articles (the author pointed some of them) of artillery spotter officer of 25th battalion with codename ArtyGreen and very detailed articles about battles (on tactical level) by Dmytro Putiata, but all this in UKR/RUS only. This is huge part of work to translate it, alas.

No, that was tank battalion "Avgust", which also mostly consisted of Russians. Tank breakthrow had to support cossack company of 6th regiment, but they had low motivation and after several close hits of UKR shells rejected to attack.
Wagner's convoy was badly beaten three days after near neighbor VOP "Serhiy" in 4 km to the north from VOP "Valera" (in the article mistakingly pointed that Wagner was defeated also by "Valera" garrison, but this is mistake of the source). Also 21st of Jan first attack on VOP "Oleksiy" was repelled. These three failed attempts forced the enemy to reject from the plans to cut off UKR group in Myronivske-Svitlodarsk line and shift own main efforts on other flank to Vuhlehirsk (rus. Uglegorsk). By unknown reasons official UKR version of battle recognizes the start of Debaltsevo battle from the moment of assault of Vuhlehirsk, cutting off all successful defensive clashes 21-28 Jan.  Maybe because this version is profitable to our political establishment, which was explaining the loss of the city by total superiority of the enemy. Of course, examples of battles on eastern flank, when platoon-sized strongpoints were successfully repelling much stronger enemy attacks don't fit in this conception.
Good article, but I'm again wonder how some western researchers write about some facts and even give the links on the sources, but if we open that sources, we will not see anything about it. I'm about this
Svitlodarks was never captured. The enemy only shelled it two times 24th and 27th Jan. The source 43 says nothing about this, source 44 says "In fierce fighting on 23-24 January the enemy managed to seize the villages of Troitskoye and Svetlodarsk, posing a threat to the M-103 highway. Obviously, the goal was to completely surround the Debaltsevo group and take the road. However, the Ukrainian command was prepared for such enemy actions. A timely counterattack by Ukrainian armour allowed the Ukrainians to drive the enemy from Troitskoye and establish a reliable foothold there. Simultaneously the enemy was ejected from Svetlodarsk". I suppose the author was confused by unappropriate translation "ejected from Svitlodarsk". It means the threat was driven off the town vicinity (why village?), but not "enemy was expelled from the town itself". This is about enemy attemts to trumple our defense on our eastrn flank since 21th Jan.
Again incorrect. There weren't "violent tank clashes", though yes, the usage oh armored vehicles in this battle was large. Enemy lost most of own armor on AT-mines, and could hit some UKR armor with tank guns and further with ATGMs, during UKR assault attempt, but that all had the "surprise!" characther, not controlled action. The company of 13th mot.inf battalion with tank and AT support, defended the Vuhlehirsk had the bad commander with CM COMMAND/MORAL level maybe -2, they also had not so good training and low than average motivation, more - after the assault started, commander left the battlefield. MT-12 crews of support even didn't stand to the guns. 9P149 Shturm-S reacted too late, when enemy already was in the town, so one was shoot out directly in the center of the town, when it drove to the own position, other either was abandoned by crew and destroyed or captured by the enemy, I can't сall to remind now 

“Cyborgs,” as the Russians came to call the Ukrainian defenders when referring to their perseverance and bravery"
OMG. It's self-claimed nickname, of course. As Russian proverb says, if you don't compliment yourself, nobody compliments you.
 

This is a great account by a vet who had quite a few jobs in the Red Army but ultimately wound up as driver-mechanic in an SU-76 and worked his way up from there. His account gives a superb picture of serving in them, operating them, life in the crew, including combat, killing the foe and being killed by the foe, too. He was wounded, became a Su-76 commander and had quite the unexpected end to his war, too. One of the things which really stands out is how stealthy the critter was in first gear--practically noiseless, whereas he says the clattering T-34s could be heard from 3 kilometers away. Battery frontage in the defense was a kilometer.

http://english.battlefield.ru/memoirs/65-rem-ulanov-su-76m-commander.html

Regards,

John Kettler

Damn dude this scenario was too easy for you it looks like lol ! I have had people give me feedback in private messages (they shall remain unnamed) telling me it was too hard. I'll cook up a special version just for you next time I design another scenario.😁 Seriously that's impressive, only one killed. You are good at this.
 
 
---- SPOILERS BELOW ----
 
 
 
 
The BRDM it is supposed to enfilade anyone that wants to cross the road parallel to the river on the right side of the map and get in the woods. And also to support the defenders in the farm so they don't get flanked. But yes in practice it is blind really and can hardly spot anything. And when it does, its reaction time is too slow. It is more of a psychological threat really. At first I had a BMP 2 instead. It couldn't spot a lot better, but when it did and shot something it was nasty. Maybe I should bring it back. Oh yes send me a private message to tell me how you got right behind it with the PKM please.
 
 
 
 
---- END OF SPOILERS ----
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Here is a screen ive made for Combat Mission Black sea as i couldnt find any i liked.
 
https://www.mediafire.com/file/5ff2rchucq9hh9v/Miles-CMBS-Main_Menu.zip/file

 

Yes, here (in Russian): https://hvylya.net/analytics/politics/kto-i-kak-sdal-debalcevo-svidetelstvuju.html
This is second article of artillery officer with callsign ArtyGreen. Hew was a commander of artillery recon group in 25th mot.inf.battalion. During Debaltsevo operation this skillful officer in cooperation with 128th brigade, established artillery recon and fire adjusting network, which united almost all artillery and mortar units inside the bulge and partially artillery of Sector C. This network operated parallel (and maybe instead) with official, which established Sector C command, because official system was completely obsolete, ineffective and took too much time for maneuver with fire in conditions of such type of warfare. Initial success of Debaltsevo defense completely obliged to effective artillery fire, based on ArtyGreen network. Through his network communication channels passed many information, so he issued own first article in 2015, where sharply criticized official version of General Staff about Debaltsevo operation and blamed highest military and political leadership in the intentional surrender of Debaltsevo bulge. This is second artilcle, which more extended. 

Yes actually this isn't even a proper road, it is just a foot path really. I don't know how much it reduces bogging chances but it is probably minimal. Also it is barely visible normally without snow, which how I first did the map. I usually take great care not to have jagged roads but in this case you should just drive your vehicles in a straight line along the path and not bother about all the little twists and turns.

Maybe some folks like defending - probably can be fun in H2H - but vs AI, defending can be boring - and usually, the design has to use massive waves of suicidal attackers knowing that most will get mowed down.

Thanks for taking the time to give some feedback. This is really useful for me.
Concerning AI plans, yes there is not much in the way of AI plans in this battle. With a map of this size, it gives the attacker a lot of freedom; you can decide to attack toward the centre, left, wide left, right and wide right. But on the flip side, so much freedom makes it impossible to predict the movements of the attacking force. So rather than having the defender launch blind counter-attacks with several plans in the hope that one might connect, I decided to have them stay static. Also personally, I find that in most cases when I play a scenario against the AI, counter-attacks usually make my job easier as the attacker because they often just get slaughtered in the open, in the case of infantry in particular.
You got unlucky to have a vehicle bog down with these ground conditions. I picked frozen ground on purpose because the single tank is kind of crucial to the success of the attack and I didn't want it to get immobilized. I think I must have played this scenario 4-5 times to test it and never had a vehicle bog. But hey that's part of the fun, friction and all.
Good point about the placement of doors. I have thought about this problem before. This might lead me to change my mapping technique a bit in the future.
 
 

I ended this mission up. I like it. 
It seems that the defenders were a little passive. But I have an expirience of creating AI plans and I know that it is really hard to make the defenders as active as if they were ruled by a human.
As I have already said, it is very atmospheric map. I had enough time and not great power. This way, the mission was more infiltration than assault. I think it is very realistic. The feature of CM battles which I don't like is lack of time - many battles end in a slaughter. This mission should be executed otherwise.
I have lost 1 vehicle in first 5 minutes - it bogged right on the road. Another should have been destroyed by AT rocket but it stroke a tree. The appearance of Ukrainian truck was scaringly unexpected.
It would be nice to play this mission h2h, I don't know is it balanced or not.

I have one remark on map designing. We know that CM soldiers can't use windows for entering houses. "Independent buildings" usually have 2 doors on opposite sides, and there is no problem.
But if we model a village house using "modular building", I think we should make at least 2 doors on opposite sides too. The attacking group usually uses windows for entering, but does not walk around a house just to go through the door. Of course we should imagine that the windows are protected with grilles, but they are rare in villages. Only in villages - in towns and cities of former USSR they are used often. 
P.S. I lacked a sapper squad in this mission)

Karapulka's crossing

At first I thought I'd simply add this map to the other thread I created but I had already made a small scenario for it a couple of years ago. So I tried to flesh out a bit and decided to post it here instead.
It is a small platoon sized engagement taking place in february 2015 between DNR separatists and Ukrainian forces defending a ford over a small stream.
It is supposed to take place during the siege of Debaltseve. It is fictional even though the general context and the operational situation are both historical. The direction of the thrust is more or less accurate from what I could gather, even if it maybe didn't take place in this exact location but farther to the north-west.  This particular engagement is purely made up though. The terrain looked interesting so I decided to map it for fun.
I used the Russian names for places like Debaltsevo and Uglegorsk in the briefing and for the landmarks because it is supposed to be from the pro-Russian separatist side but it doesn't reflect my political views. It is purely for immersion and roleplay purposes.
A bunch of pics of the map :


 
It is a blue on blue fight and you should download Sir Lancelot's pro-Russian separatist skins. The first link in that thread is down but scroll down a bit and there is a working one.
 
I tested it 3-4 times versus the AI but the balance is probably a tad off. So any feedback is welcome. And there are no AI plans for the attacker. You the player must pick the attacker and let the AI defend.
 
Installation :
Unrar in my documents/Battlefront/Combat Mission/Black Sea/Game files/Scenarios
Download :
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cdw4k5z5duldyfv/Karapulka's crossing.rar?dl=0