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Operation BARRAS A Company 1 PARA September 2000


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I'll be curious how you handle dense tropical undergrowth given the very limited terrain set in CMSF. Long grass plus a mix of small and large orchard trees is about as close as I can come, but there's still way too much LOS.

Absence of thickets of young vegetation remains a sore point for me and the Cmx2 game system in general. It adds to the uberness of armor.

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@LongLeftFlank - I just plonked trees down and mixed it up with the grain tiles here and there. Inevitably I was working within constraints so I've had to sacrifice 'real jungle' for what will load in a decent amount of time. Most jungle tiles therefore have only a single tree on them and for this mission the jungle areas are less important than the non-jungle areas.  I guess this is a long way of saying don't get your hopes up as I know from some of your previous projects you have looked far harder at jungle settings than I have.

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Ok as my good  friend @MOS:96B2P has pointed out to me on PM - the date should read 2000 and not 1999.  The error is mine and mine alone but in my defence the date quoted was that given by the Company Commander in the British Army's Army Field Manual Volume 2 Part 2 - Tropical Operations. This being the relevant paragraph (my bold)  ...

'A Company 1 Para was part of a joint operation (Op BARRAS) to secure the release of some members of a UK Training Team held hostage in the jungle beyond Freetown Sierra Leone in September 1999. This article focuses exclusively on A Company's capture of a small village as part of the overall operation and describes some aspects of the estimate, orders and conduct of the battle carried out by the Company Commander'.

I have now fixed it so that it reads 2000.

Edited by Combatintman
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22 hours ago, Combatintman said:

@LongLeftFlank - I just plonked trees down and mixed it up with the grain tiles here and there. Inevitably I was working within constraints so I've had to sacrifice 'real jungle' for what will load in a decent amount of time. Most jungle tiles therefore have only a single tree on them and for this mission the jungle areas are less important than the non-jungle areas.  I guess this is a long way of saying don't get your hopes up as I know from some of your previous projects you have looked far harder at jungle settings than I have.

As you know better than I, even scattered chunks of close terrain presents challenges of fire coordination among separated units, while presenting covered routes to both sides. (The AI pretty much stinks at using the latter though)

My beef with CMx2 terrain sets in general is that they're far too open. Woodlands are like manicured parklands, giving huge advantages to ranged weapons, especially AFVs (higher off ground so can see over grass and under trees). And when infantry has no real need to enter CQB, tactics get slipshod (base of fire borgs) and utterly ahistorical, at which point you may as well play Arma. One man's view.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ok so I've been a bit quiet since announcing this one so here are some more bones ...

First of all an extract from the Company commander's planning considerations:

The initial briefing for the Company Group took place in the departure lounge at the Operational Mounting Centre. Usually a BG brief is held here as part of the mounting process. The Battalion IO came directly from the Permanent Joint Headquarters at Northwood (PJHQ) and explained the ground and enemy to the company. It was clear that the West Side Soldiers (WSS) were a rebel grouping with similar characteristics to the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) that the battalion had already had experienced. Interestingly, during negotiations they had sought to be integrated into the Sierra Leone Army (SLA).

 

The WSS had access to a wide range of direct and indirect weapons including twin ZPU-2 (14.5mm) HMG, 60/81mm mortars, AK series assault rifles, medium

machine guns, RPGs, anti-personnel mines and grenades. They had the ground of their choice and had successfully survived two United Nations operations to deny them their jungle-operating base. Loosely organised into five "Battalions" their centre of gravity and the location of the hostages was known to be Gberi Bana, a small village on the northern side of the Rokel Creek. Access to the village was from the south across the creek and the village of Magbeni.

 

From Magbeni, which was identified as the location of the "Gulf" Battalion, operations were mounted to the main supply route from Freetown to Masiaka.  Here they kept their vehicles including a captured SLA Bedford with twin 14.5mm MG and at least three "technicals", pick-up trucks with heavy machine guns mounted on the back. Critically the distance from Magbeni to Gberi Bana is only 1600 metres, well within the reach of HMG and mortars. The British patrol had been captured by the WSS in Magbeni and taken across the Rokel Creek to Gberi Bana. Their vehicles including a WMIK were known to be in the village. Another battalion of WSS who effectively controlled the Laia Junction held the road south from Magbeni to the supply route. This brought another concern that they could reinforce to counter any friendly action to the north.

 

Here are some draft mission/briefing graphics to give you a feel for the battlefield geometry and scheme of manoeuvre - I know that @MOS:96B2Plikes to start his planning early ;)

 

 

Magbeni Draft Graphics.jpg

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On 3/25/2017 at 5:23 PM, Combatintman said:

<Snip> Here are some draft mission/briefing graphics to give you a feel for the battlefield geometry and scheme of manoeuvre - I know that @MOS:96B2Plikes to start his planning early ;)  <Snip>         

Sorry for the delayed response.  Took the family to New Orleans while the kids were on spring break.  I am now back in the TOC.  

Nice.  This looks very interesting.  I'm looking forward to this mission.  Can't go wrong when you have paratroopers!!!!   

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8 hours ago, MOS:96B2P said:

Sorry for the delayed response.  Took the family to New Orleans while the kids were on spring break.  I am now back in the TOC.  

Nice.  This looks very interesting.  I'm looking forward to this mission.  Can't go wrong when you have paratroopers!!!!   

Well for the purposes of immersion .... the blokes are still at South Cerney (the Forward Mounting Centre in the UK) ... I have some RL stuff to deal with over the next fortnight but rest assured I am looking forward to delivering all of my planned CMSF projects this year.

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I know you let players worry about providing their own mods, but there is an Africa mod pack out there from long ago.

On 2/5/2008 at 5:46 AM, MikeyD said:

A double-treat in time for the V1.06 Patch

MikeyD Africa Theatre mod pack, and armor ME scenario The King Copper Mines

 

at our favorite site:

www.cmmods.com

 

Since the game first came out I was excited by the prospect of expanding CMSF into more conflict zones around the world. To that end I've assembled a comprehensive CMSF sub-Saharan Africa Theatre mod pack.

 

The mod pack's conveniently assemble in its own 'Z' folder. Just swap the folder for for your present 'Z' mod folder in the Data folder and the Africa game interface is good to go. The mod pack includes:

 

- Replacement splash screens & backgrounds

- Replacement CMSF game title

- Replacement CMSF module icon

- Replacement 'ethnic African' Red infantry control panel portraits

- Seven new 'ethnic African' Red infantry face textures

 

I suggest you also pick up VladTemplar's excellent 'Mountains' horizon mod from cmmods.com. Its perfect for my Africa Theatre mod pack.

-----

And pick up my newest scenario at cmmods.com too, an Africa theatre armor slugging match ME named "The King Copper mines". The ME's playable either side vs the AI and the forces are reasonably balanced for human vs human play.

 

SplashScreenSample.jpg

 

AfricaFaces.jpg

 

TKCM_Screensht.jpg

 

[ February 04, 2008, 02:56 PM: Message edited by: MikeyD ]

Come back safe!

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I tried searching BF Repository as well. But that is not reliable.  Am hoping that someone here has the Africa mod.  I found that I had a zip of it, but it was corrupted and I couldn't open it.  :( 

 

BTW:  Re naming conventions for graphics options.  Does one start with <name 0.bmp> or <name 1.bmp>?   Or, is it <name.bmp> and then <name 1.bmp> or...

I get confused as sounds have a different convention for options.  I think sound options start with <soundname 1.wav>.  Is that correct??

Also am hoping that the naming convention for multiple option graphics is the same for all CM2 titles(??)

Edited by Erwin
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6 hours ago, Erwin said:

I tried searching BF Repository as well. But that is not reliable.  Am hoping that someone here has the Africa mod.  I found that I had a zip of it, but it was corrupted and I couldn't open it.  :( 

 

http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=314&func=select&id=6

Took 30s using google. You should be able to find what you want now.

Edited by George MC
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Well that was just TOO easy, George.  No wonder I didn't think of it!   B)

Thank you, mate...

PS:  For other interested folks, there are 2 mods available:  "Africa Theatre Pack" and "version 120 African terrain".

 

 

Edited by Erwin
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3 hours ago, Erwin said:

Well that was just TOO easy, George.  No wonder I didn't think of it!   B)

Thank you, mate...

PS:  For other interested folks, there are 2 mods available:  "Africa Theatre Pack" and "version 120 African terrain".

 

 

Nae worries :)

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