[scenario] White Flag and Greenhorns

[Zveroboy1]

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         White Flag and Greenhorns
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Description :
This is a fictional scenario loosely based on real events, pitting inexperienced units of the Afghan National Army against Taliban combatants taking place somewhere in Helmand Province around the year 2012, shortly before the ISAF pulled out of Afghanistan. The ANA can't rely on ISAF forces any more and has to conduct its own operations with US advisors just tagging along but not taking an active part in the fighting. Hopefully the might of the US Air Force is still here to lend a hand when heavy resistance is encountered.

The map is based on my Afghan Roulette scenario, it is a cropped portion of it, much smaller with a few tweaks.

There are 4 different randomized setups for the Taliban.

Play as Blue attacker against Red AI. I think it could also work versus another human player but I haven't written a briefing for the Taliban side (yet).

Install :

Make sure your game is patched to version 2.03 and then
extract in : documents/battlefront/Shock Force 2/game files/scenarios

Download :

https://www.dropbox.com/s/18kaekh88l8q93g/CMSF2 - AFG - White Flag and Greenhorns.rar?dl=0

 

Zveroboy

Edited August 14, 2020 by Zveroboy1

[Zveroboy1]

Recommended mods :

Afghanistan Mod Pack
http://community.battlefront.com/topic/134575-afghanistan-mod-pack/

Afghan National Army Mod
http://community.battlefront.com/topic/135004-afghan-national-army-mod/

Taliban Mod Pack
http://community.battlefront.com/topic/134754-scenario-afghan-roulette-taliban-mod/

Afghan National Police Pickup Mod
http://community.battlefront.com/topic/137395-afghan-national-police-pickup-mod/

[Zveroboy1]

This hasn't been tested too much so feedback is welcome. If you want to help, please don't simply post a screenshot of the end game screen, this isn't super helpful. No need to write a long AAR, instead please let me know if the scenario was too hard, too easy, if you think the score reflects your performance and lastly on how many landmines your pixeltruppen stepped on.

 

I forgot something.

How do I add more ammo for the PKMs?  I need 7.62 X 54R because Airborne troops are glitched and only have 100 PKM ammo at the moment but neither Ural or Zil trucks have this type of ammo and I don't want to have to add a BMP-3. It is winnable this way but a bit annoying.

Edited August 14, 2020 by Zveroboy1

[Zveroboy1]

Okay temporary fix until I find a better solution so you guys can play this weekend. I'll update the briefing later.

[37mm]

1 hour ago, Zveroboy1 said:

How do I add more ammo for the PKMs?  I need 7.62 X 54R because Airborne troops are glitched and only have 100 PKM ammo at the moment but neither Ural or Zil trucks have this type of ammo and I don't want to have to add a BMP-3. It is winnable this way but a bit annoying.

A constant source of irritation for the Heaven & Earth team... having a few uaz's around (each jeep comes with 500 PKM rounds) is the most popular solution.

[Lethaface]

Looks interesting! Having a bit of a full plate with PBEMs and recently started the Dutch CMSF2 campaign, but if I want to play something different I'll load this one up! 

[Zveroboy1]

Ah yes I didn't think of looking in a uaz, thanks.

[37mm]

This is going to be fun...

[Zveroboy1]

Nice high res pics.

[BarendJanNL]

@37mm Looking forward to a video of that scenario..

[Zveroboy1]

By the way the whole thing is sort of inspired by this Vice docu, especially part 2, but the whole thing is very good, definitely worth a watch if you're interested in the situation in Afghanistan. The documentary is both really candid and a bit disheartening too at the same time and not all like your average Vice docu which tends to be rather clickbaity to put it mildly. This is good journalism and serves to explain why I chose to rate the ANA and ANP troops in the scenario green or conscripts.

 

 

[Combatintman]

6 hours ago, Zveroboy1 said:

By the way the whole thing is sort of inspired by this Vice docu, especially part 2, but the whole thing is very good, definitely worth a watch if you're interested in the situation in Afghanistan. The documentary is both really candid and a bit disheartening too at the same time and not all like your average Vice docu which tends to be rather clickbaity to put it mildly. This is good journalism and serves to explain why I chose to rate the ANA and ANP troops in the scenario green or conscripts.

 

Absolutely right - when the Taliban knocked over Green Village in Kabul last year, the responding unit (about 3 hours later) was a Special Forces Unit mentored by the Norwegians (who are good).  They (Afghan SF) seemed to think that our Ops Manager, an ex-British Army Cavalryman in his mid 50s, armed with a pistol was better suited to going in and sorting out a building with suspected enemy in it.  These are supposedly the best and have had over 10 years of mentoring so you can guess what the run-of-the-mill ANA are like.

[Boche]

Well that was a good little scenario! Going to put in a litte AAR:

 

Here are my end results.

 Not bad. I dont recall having that many dead, some of the wounded must have died later on. 2 of the dead casualties where on the way to the actual objective, one from a sniper shot to the head, another from an RPG shot to the face. The rest of the wounded and dead where suffered on the last assault on the objective due to the entrenched enemy. Our first dead man caused on the of the most interesting revenge stories i have seen in CMSF. 

This was my main scheme of maneuver. I decided to do a right hook since i wanted to capture both of the 2 story+roof buildings in A and C to serve as OPs for my fire support teams and observers, to provide me with good overwatch as I moved in:

A squad took over overwatch positions in A as the other platoon moved accross the field towards B. They came under sniper fire, which was quickly located as coming from C. The said squad returned fire. The sniper changed targets and managed to head shot the RPG operator from said squad. 

His neihgbour, the PKM gunner became angry and shocked at the sudden death of his friend, decided to do somthing about it. He took the RPG from his friend cold dead hands and loaded in a rocket. Fired....damn a miss, but close. He aimed again and fired, hitting the enemy snipers position spot on. a 300m shot...not bad for a green squad. He was to carry his friend RPG for the rest of the mission but sadly did not score any more kills.

The rest of the platoon hopping from B to E saw small contacts but easily dealth with with long range fire power and suppresion (all enemy contacts marked with a red X). On the way i took sniper fire from the middle of the map and decided on a quick and short mortar attack using personnel rounds to clear the roofs (marked with a purple X). it was all a bit too far off to attack directly. I refrained from using the air support unless i really needed it or found a very difficult point to attack.

As i attacked F i received fire from both F and G and it became clear it was going to be harder. a lone but very stubborn RPG gunner was dealth with in F after very heavy suppresion fire. After F was occupied the squad there recieved RPG fire from close to G,  killing another soldier. 

I decided to lay low, concentrate an assault platoon at F, air strike the buiding in G (gold X) where i was taking fire from, the attack marking the start of the assault. 

Breaching my way in soldiers on overwatch on F took casualties aswell as the assaul force attacking the last compound in G, where i found several enemies entrenched in the last house. After trading fire for more than 2 minutes without success, one of my guys threw a grenade right into the enemy building through the door, managing some kills and allowing the squad to obtain fire superiority. The building was assalted the next turn and secured, with 0 seconds to go on the clock! 

In all i enjoyed it! I liked the troop composition and the enemy placing. Could have done with maybe another 20 mins added onto the clock, but in all thumbs up ! Thanks for the scenario 

PS: I cant seem to find the spoiler system for the forum, has it changed?

Edited August 15, 2020 by Boche

[Zveroboy1]

Very nice Boche. I like the annotated graphic in the second picture with the path you took etc, makes it easy to see what you did. That's very interesting and useful for me. And also cool little story about the rpg gunner. By the way how did you use the F16? Point target right? And you encountered no IED or landmine?

It is funny because I just finished replaying it myself and used a different avenue of approach than in my previous tests and at first everything was going fine. Then 5 minutes later an ANA HQ steps on a mine then a second squad panics and piles on the HQ detonating another mine, a pickup gunner gets shot and it all went pear shaped real fast. I went from thinking it was maybe too easy to too difficult in the span of 5 minutes. Depending on what AI plan you draw it can vary quite a bit the result.

I don't know how you use spoiler tags.

Edited August 15, 2020 by Zveroboy1

[Boche]

21 minutes ago, Zveroboy1 said:

Very nice Boche. I like the annotated graphic in the second picture with the path you took etc, makes it easy to see what you did. That's very interesting and useful for me. And also cool little story about the rpg gunner. By the way how did you use the F16? Point target right? And you encountered no IED or landmine?

It is funny because I just finished replaying it myself and used a different avenue of approach than in my previous tests and at first everything was going fine. Then 5 minutes later an ANA HQ steps on a mine then a second squad panics and piles on the HQ detonating another mine, a pickup gunner gets shot and it all went pear shaped real fast. I went from thinking it was maybe too easy to too difficult in the span of 5 minutes. Depending on what AI plan you draw it can vary quite a bit the result.

I don't know how you use spoiler tags.

Yes the F16 was used on a point mission right on the building. And no i encountered no IED or mines, i made an effort of not going on the roads or paths as the briefing said there where IEDs in the area, I used the right hook both due to the high buildings and due to the fact it wasnt the direct avenue of aproach. Its funny also as I left the FO and JTAC behind i was thinking. "what if the AI designer has put in a trigger, that if i go this route the talibs are gona come at me from the left". I then saw movement coming from the left and thought they where coming my way! Turns out it was just some guys retreating  

 

[Zveroboy1]

Yes smart play.

Actually I did just that in Afghan Roulette. If you go say east, there is a chance some of the Taliban combatant groups on the west side of the map will move to the east and vice versa to engage the player from another direction. Here it was trickier to do with the way I set up the AI groups. I'll try to add more of that in my next scenario. Thanks for the feedback.

[Zveroboy1]

By the way, if anyone has struggled with the scenario I need to hear your input as well. It is hard to balance a scenario properly if only people who win hands down comment. Maybe Boche is some sort of retired ninja navy seal and after his mini aar I will beef up the difficulty level or say add more mines since he didn't step on any. But maybe another person has had a different experience and spent the whole battle playing a twisted version of the Hurt Locker movie without the blast suit on and is going to scream bloody murder at the thought of me adding more mines. You feel me?

[37mm]

Thoroughly enjoyable fight...

... if you forced me to be overly nit-picky I'd say the reinforcements came pretty late... but, as those troops were likely smoking hashish or something, that's not exactly unexpected.

[Zveroboy1]

Nice. Great vid as usual, thanks for posting it.

I like it how you were very liberal with air strikes and didn't hesitate to use them. That's the sop I have developed too myself while testing this and Afghan Roulette which sort of plays the same way : don't assault compounds unless you absolutely have to because they can be death traps and costly in lives and instead use air power whenever possible. I don't think that's too unrealistic at all either for ISAF in Afghanistan to proceed like this. The F-16 for the mission has a light loadout but usually at least 3 out of 4 bombs are going to be on target.

And good job breaking contact when you couldn't achieve fire superiority because of that crossfire. Also you got to love it when they let loose with the RPGs and you have rounds flying from both sides during sustained firefights between compounds. Finally it is funny what you can achieve with green and conscripts when you give them reasonable objectives. Granted the opposition is weak too.

The reinforcements yes they arrive sort of late. Actually there is a 20 minutes span so it is quite random. And yes you guessed the reason why they were late.

Another thing that's random is the placement of mines. Not only are they placed in different spots in each of the four AI plans, but also there is a mix of infantry, mixed and anti-tank mines. So even if you draw the same plan twice, you might not have the same type of mine in one given spot. So a vehicle can drive over one and blow up and the next time get away scot free; same thing for infantry.

Edited August 21, 2020 by Zveroboy1

[Combatintman]

4 hours ago, Zveroboy1 said:

Another thing that's random is the placement of mines. Not only are they placed in different spots in each of the four AI plans, but also there is a mix of infantry, mixed and anti-tank mines. So even if you draw the same plan twice, you might not have the same type of mine in one given spot. So a vehicle can drive over one and blow up and the next time get away scot free; same thing for infantry.

How do you do that - assign them an AI Group and then give them different setup orders in a valid setup zone?  I'm sure I tried and failed to make this work.

[37mm]

9 hours ago, Zveroboy1 said:

I like it how you were very liberal with air strikes and didn't hesitate to use them. That's the sop I have developed too myself while testing this and Afghan Roulette which sort of plays the same way

There was actually a lot of umming & arring with bombs 2 & 3 which fell on (what was initially only a suspected) sniper positions at "Doctor"... however editing can make indecision look like confidence.

[Zveroboy1]

8 hours ago, Combatintman said:

How do you do that - assign them an AI Group and then give them different setup orders in a valid setup zone?  I'm sure I tried and failed to make this work.

Yes it needs to be in a valid setup zone with the mines deployed in the editor inside this zone. But the trick is to have the exact same number of yellow action squares in the setup order for the mine group as you have mines. If you have 10 mines, you need to have 10 yellow squares in the setup for this particular group and plan. Otherwise mines have a hidden terrain preference and they will always be placed in what the game deems to be the most favourable terrain tile. For instance if there is a choice, they will always go on a road and never set up in a marsh tile for instance.

It works the same way with units too, if you have 5 squads and assign them a setup order with 10 action squares with say 5 buildings, 3 wooded tiles and 2 open/dirt tiles, they will always pick and deploy in the buildings. If you pick 10 buildings, then the 5 units will set up randomly in a different building each time.

So if you want it to be random you need to either :

A/ have the exact same number of tiles as units, in this case the terrain can be whatever you want

B/ or you can pick as many action squares as you want but it has to be the same type of terrain tile

The terrain  preference more or less goes like this :

buildings > woods > open > marsh

[MOS:96B2P]

3 hours ago, Zveroboy1 said:

Yes it needs to be in a valid setup zone with the mines deployed in the editor inside this zone. But the trick is to have the exact same number of yellow action squares in the setup order for the mine group as you have mines. If you have 10 mines, you need to have 10 yellow squares in the setup for this particular group and plan. Otherwise mines have a hidden terrain preference and they will always be placed in what the game deems to be the most favourable terrain tile. For instance if there is a choice, they will always go on a road and never set up in a marsh tile for instance.

Good information.  I did some experimenting with AI planned barbwire roadblocks.  Wheeled vehicles will not pass over/through barbwire.  So a convoy of wheeled vehicles (supply trucks etc.) can be stopped if blocked by barbwire.  Someday I'll make a redux version of the scenario Consulate Evacuation using this.   I may also try it with mines now.  Below are my notes.   

Barbwire can be randomly placed (in a roadblock location) with AI setup zones so the locations of roadblocks are different for replay value.  The size of the barbwire roadblocks need to be the same size (all are three sections of barbwire long etc.).  All AI setup zones for the barbwire are the same size as the roadblocks (three action spots long).  The direction of the barbwire and the AI setup zone does not matter (north to south or east to west).  Not sure if diagonal could be made to work.  Multiple AI plans will randomize the location of roadblocks depending which plan loads.  It is important that there are the same number of AI setup zone action spots as barbwire in an AI plan so all the setup zone action spots are taken.  If not, some roadblocks will not have enough wire to block the road when the AI randomly moves the wire during scenario loading.  Also a roadblock must be at least two AI setup action spots long to control the direction (north to south etc.) of the roadblock.            

[Combatintman]

Thanks mate - I wonder why I couldn't get it to work before, I only had one mine.  Anyways, at least I know the answer.