CMSF2 Canadian Campaign - Hearts and Minds WIP

[dragonwynn]

Ok I have completed the scenario design and have compiled the campaign. I have done some preliminary testing but due to life have not been able to fully test all the missions. If anyone is interested in giving it a drive through before I release it let me know and I will supply a link to you. Please send any comments or suggestions through personal messenger so not to spoil for future players.

Here is some info about the campaign:

About the Campaign:

All maps are cut from a master map designed by myself of the Arghandab River Valley and included in the download. It is not exact, either in scale or specific locations, but I tried to model it as accurate as I could based on Google Maps and several other areas of information. The battle maps may have some changes from the master made to them to represent previous engagements, additional flavor objects etc.

The master map has some flavor objects included that should not have any issues when you cut the map down as long as the campaign mods are included with it.

I have tried to detail it as to simulate the types of terrain the forces fought in to give as realistic an experience as possible.

The 8 missions in the campaign are all fictional but based or semi-historical engagements. They vary in scale and complexity and hopefully offer a good balance and realism of the types of combat experienced there. They also follow a story line that can be read in the designer notes of each battle.

Many of the maps are larger than what would be normally needed for some of the force compositions of the battles thus creating what some will consider wasted space, but this was intentional to give a sense of scale. Many of the battles require traveling from point A to B so I wanted the player to feel the scale of the landscape. Hopefully I made the map well enough to enjoy the scenery!

There are a number of mods in this campaign to give the look and feel that I wanted. They are mod tagged to this campaign and all included in the download. However, it may conflict with some other Afghan related mods so I suggest maybe moving those mods out of the Z folder until the campaign is complete. All credit goes to the authors of these mods. I apologize for any I could not find the authors name for.

1. Canadian Armed Forces by Atlas

2. Afghan National Police Pickup Mod by Zveroboy

3. LMTV Mod by M1A1TC

4. Dusty Germans Mod

5. Roads and walls Mod

6. Worn and Dusty Canadian Weapons by Atlas

7. Taliban Mod by Zveroboy

8. zTaliban Heart of Darkness Fix by zveroboy

9. zzANA v 2.03. by zveroboy

10. Afghan Police Style Reserves

11. No sunglasses at night

12. CMSF2 Canadian Infantry by Oleksander

13. Wrecked car mod

14. Helicopter mod by JM Stuff

15. Various background, terrain, building mods and flavor object mods pulled from the zzzzCMSF2 - Afghanistan mod compilation.

16. Soft Skin Vehicles Mod

17. Oleksandr-CMSF2 Dutch Infantry

A note on setup zones. Most missions will require mobility, usually along roads so most setups are predetermined. I did allow enough room for the player to change the travel order of the units in most missions.

You will have the following units at your disposal:

Core Units:

TF 1-07

(1 x HQ) R. Walker

(1 x Forward Air Controller)

(1 x Observer Section)

RC Dragoons (Recce)

(1 x HQ) S.Graham

(3 x Platoons)

C Company 2PPCLI

(1 x HQ) C.Henderson

(3 x Platoons)

(1 x Weapons Platoon)

H Company 2/RCR

(1 x HQ) A.Ruff

(3 x Platoons)

I Company 2/RCR

(1 x HQ) D.Quick

(3 x Platoons)

1 Combat Engineer Regiment

(1 x HQ) R.Lee

(3 x Platoons)

C Squadron Lord Strathcona's Horse

(1 x Troop (Leopard C2 Tanks) D.Broomfield

1 -205 Atal Corps (ANA)

(1 x HQ) S.Sha

(1 x Recon Platoon)

A Company

(3 x Platoons)

(1 x Weapons Platoon)

(2 x Mentor Teams (Canadian)

(Special Note: The ANA units will start out green and inexperienced with low moral but will gain experience and become more skilled as the campaign progresses.)

Other units will make an appearance in the campaign, Afghan National Police, German KSK and Dutch armed forces to name a few as well as additional support elements from the Brits and the U.S.

Campaign Tree:

1. The Meeting

2. Royal Flush

3. Ghosts

4. Fallen Angel

5. Operation Reaper

6. Hunting the Butcher

7. Build a Bridge to Babylon

8. The Devils Playground

[Silentkilarz]

Ill give her a go!

[dragonwynn]

10 minutes ago, Silentkilarz said:

Ill give her a go!

Ill send you the dropbox link to your messenger

 

[Shady_Side]

I will give it a try

[Silentkilarz]

Probably something silly I'm doing. The drop box link didn't have anything and when i downloaded it, and it was only like 118bytes.

[dragonwynn]

Let me check

 

Edited July 22 by dragonwynn

[Dr.Hoopenfaust]

I'll give it a go if you still need people testing.

[dragonwynn]

4 hours ago, Dr.Hoopenfaust said:

I'll give it a go if you still need people testing.

Ill send you the links in messenger

[ViperAssassin26]

I'd like to give it a try as well

[dragonwynn]

4 hours ago, ViperAssassin26 said:

I'd like to give it a try as well

I sent you the links to the campaign

[dragonwynn]

Ok I have made a few adjustments based on tester feedback and it should be ready for release. It has not been fully tested all the way through so if you run into any glitches let me know and I will fix/adjust. You can read the campaign details in the above post or the same info is in the campaign briefings. Be sure to read the designer note as well as it gives some background info.

The download includes the cam file, the mod folder and a copy of the entire master map for you to play with and create new content. Just put the mod folder in your z directory and the map in your master map directory. The mods are tagged so they should not create any conflicts.

I hope you enjoy the campaign as I have tried to give a variety of missions. This is a tribute to our Canadian comrades and their contributions in Afghanistan.

Michael (dragonwynn)

 

Here is the link

https://www.mediafire.com/file/lqz8psia9ona8sq/Hearts_and_Minds.zip/file

[JM Stuff]

4 hours ago, dragonwynn said:

Ok I have made a few adjustments based on tester feedback and it should be ready for release. It has not been fully tested all the way through so if you run into any glitches let me know and I will fix/adjust. You can read the campaign details in the above post or the same info is in the campaign briefings. Be sure to read the designer note as well as it gives some background info.

The download includes the cam file, the mod folder and a copy of the entire master map for you to play with and create new content. Just put the mod folder in your z directory and the map in your master map directory. The mods are tagged so they should not create any conflicts.

I hope you enjoy the campaign as I have tried to give a variety of missions. This is a tribute to our Canadian comrades and their contributions in Afghanistan.

Michael (dragonwynn)

 

Here is the link

https://www.mediafire.com/file/lqz8psia9ona8sq/Hearts_and_Minds.zip/file

Just downloaded the last vers give you feedback soon...

[dragonwynn]

So has anyone besides the guys that tested this downloaded it and tried it? Any thoughts or issues? Is it worth even trying to create new content anymore?

[Erwin]

As was mentioned b4, most of us are in the middle of multiple games and as much as we'd like to it's not good to keep dropping everything when something new arrives.  Talented designers like you are much appreciated but plz have patience while we complete other campaigns or H2H matches we are in the middle of.  

[dragonwynn]

No worries Erwin I know there is a lot going on.

[Général_Hiver]

To add to what Erwin, said, I'm currently in the process of trying to write an experimental narrative AAR for what will hopefully be the entirety of @Mr.X's Summer of Destruction Campaign, because frankly it richly deserves it, but alas, these things take time. Rest assured, I will download it, and will play it. Maybe even do an AAR if my experiment is a success.

[dragonwynn]

16 minutes ago, Général_Hiver said:

To add to what Erwin, said, I'm currently in the process of trying to write an experimental narrative AAR for what will hopefully be the entirety of @Mr.X's Summer of Destruction Campaign, because frankly it richly deserves it, but alas, these things take time. Rest assured, I will download it, and will play it. Maybe even do an AAR if my experiment is a success.

That sounds like an amazing project and it would be well deserved as well. Mr X did a great job on that Campaign series

[Vergeltungswaffe]

This is much appreciated, but my PBEM dance card stays full so my game time is limited and it takes me a while to get to something newly released.

Please continue to put out content, we can't thank people like you enough for the blessing that you are!

[Dr.Hoopenfaust]

Here is a new video showing some context: 

 

[dragonwynn]

Very nice video. Thank you for posting this.

[Lmurfe]

Just downloaded and started playing and I'm in no doubt I will have a great time as all the campaigns you have released always have been a joy to play through. To start of with the Mission 1 Map is incredible and if the rest of the campaign/master map  is made with the same kind of quality I will be in for a treat. 

I will try to list all problems I encounter through the campaign.

The campaign briefing contained weird artifacting in the designers notes (...tossed back and forth between å£ceKandek...)

The canadian armor rig is pinkish on some of the pixeltruppen.

 

SPOILERS

1st Mission: Even though I realise that IEDs/Mines arent very fair IRL and one of the facts that they are as deadly as they are is because they are hard to find, especially from a moving vehicle. But I would like to atleast get a hint that something is afoot. I know that you mention them in the briefings but I would also like something that I think I remember Valley of Death-campaign did: marking the IEDs/mines with trash so when you saw a pile of trash by the road it made you investigate that location if you had time to do so with sappers before you sent a convoy speeding down the road. When the time was limited you made sure to investigate the places where and IED combined with infantry hiding nearby would do most damage and skip the lone trashpile in the middle of nowhere. I also think I remember there not being 100% that there was a IED by all trash but atleast it felt "fairer" and more of my fault when my lead in the convoy got blown up.  

The empty car near the start of the mission made me investigate the surroundings before moving on which is a great marker of a ambush, just to get blown to bits by a IED that in my world was impossible to find without getting someone blown up. I do  realize that the intent of that IED is to make to follow up ambush more effective and it made for a really cool set-piece and firefight but I would like some kind of mark that can atleast give the player some hint that something might happen here. Just a thought.

Might also want to include atleast one engineer squad per mission so the player can "disarm" minefield if they do find one. 

First mission completed with 5 ANA casualties and a UAZ, 1 from abandoned taxi ambush and 4 from IED ambush. 

Will continue to play this weekend.

[Lmurfe]

4 hours ago, Lmurfe said:

Just downloaded and started playing and I'm in no doubt I will have a great time as all the campaigns you have released always have been a joy to play through. To start of with the Mission 1 Map is incredible and if the rest of the campaign/master map  is made with the same kind of quality I will be in for a treat. 

I will try to list all problems I encounter through the campaign.

The campaign briefing contained weird artifacting in the designers notes (...tossed back and forth between å£ceKandek...)

The canadian armor rig is pinkish on some of the pixeltruppen.

 

SPOILERS

1st Mission: Even though I realise that IEDs/Mines arent very fair IRL and one of the facts that they are as deadly as they are is because they are hard to find, especially from a moving vehicle. But I would like to atleast get a hint that something is afoot. I know that you mention them in the briefings but I would also like something that I think I remember Valley of Death-campaign did: marking the IEDs/mines with trash so when you saw a pile of trash by the road it made you investigate that location if you had time to do so with sappers before you sent a convoy speeding down the road. When the time was limited you made sure to investigate the places where and IED combined with infantry hiding nearby would do most damage and skip the lone trashpile in the middle of nowhere. I also think I remember there not being 100% that there was a IED by all trash but atleast it felt "fairer" and more of my fault when my lead in the convoy got blown up.  

The empty car near the start of the mission made me investigate the surroundings before moving on which is a great marker of a ambush, just to get blown to bits by a IED that in my world was impossible to find without getting someone blown up. I do  realize that the intent of that IED is to make to follow up ambush more effective and it made for a really cool set-piece and firefight but I would like some kind of mark that can atleast give the player some hint that something might happen here. Just a thought.

Might also want to include atleast one engineer squad per mission so the player can "disarm" minefield if they do find one. 

First mission completed with 5 ANA casualties and a UAZ, 1 from abandoned taxi ambush and 4 from IED ambush. 

Will continue to play this weekend.

Mission 2 completed:

SPOILERS

Pretty straight foward mission. When I saw it I thought it would be very hard to achieve all objectives without sustaining any casualties with alot of compounds surrounded by forestry which will force me to into close combat with a determined enemy. I quickly noticed a trench network on objective 6 which received one battery of 155s that would pound it for five minutes straight after a delay of ten minutes to allow my sniper team to get some eyes on it. I also allocated one of the FA/18s to it. The other battery of 155s was allocated to the trench network directly north of Orchard 5 which had good lines of fire into my side if I decided to send a couple of ANAs up the hill directly.

When the battle had ended my spotter had achieved  16 kills around Orchard 5 and Objective 6.

Casualties: 5 ANA got killed trying to assault the Objective 3 house which had one lone insurgent guarding it. One Canadian got killed by a RPG that hit his building while defending PB WILSON. Two of his buddies were injured but could continue fighting.

My strategy revolved around heavy usage of my infantry for the assaulting of compounds and woods with unknown occupants and IFVs covering from a distance looking for Taliban fighters moving into the village with one IFV following close in case of a situation which my infantry couldn't manage. If I would come across a compound that I couldn't take by small arms fire I would use the remaining FA/18 for some beautiful CAS. This showed to be a flawed strategy since my IFVs managed to bag only one Taliban and it being the close support one. In the future I should use them alot more in close support (as they are intended?)

I had a lot of luck with the artillery managing to neutralize so many fighters even before they had a chance to see my troops. I also had alot of luck at PB WILSON where at least 4 RPGs were a few meters from killing alot more Canadians. 

Also noted that one pile of trash were hiding an IED that my Coyote unknowingly parked next to so I guess you can ignore my long paragraph in the last post.

[dragonwynn]

Thanks for the AARs Lmurfe. Hope you continue to enjoy the campaign.

9 hours ago, Lmurfe said:

The canadian armor rig is pinkish on some of the pixeltruppen.

Yea I noticed that as well. It was a uniform mod I was using and almost decided against using it for that reason.

[Lmurfe]

2 hours ago, Lmurfe said:

Mission 2 completed:

SPOILERS

Pretty straight foward mission. When I saw it I thought it would be very hard to achieve all objectives without sustaining any casualties with alot of compounds surrounded by forestry which will force me to into close combat with a determined enemy. I quickly noticed a trench network on objective 6 which received one battery of 155s that would pound it for five minutes straight after a delay of ten minutes to allow my sniper team to get some eyes on it. I also allocated one of the FA/18s to it. The other battery of 155s was allocated to the trench network directly north of Orchard 5 which had good lines of fire into my side if I decided to send a couple of ANAs up the hill directly.

When the battle had ended my spotter had achieved  16 kills around Orchard 5 and Objective 6.

Casualties: 5 ANA got killed trying to assault the Objective 3 house which had one lone insurgent guarding it. One Canadian got killed by a RPG that hit his building while defending PB WILSON. Two of his buddies were injured but could continue fighting.

My strategy revolved around heavy usage of my infantry for the assaulting of compounds and woods with unknown occupants and IFVs covering from a distance looking for Taliban fighters moving into the village with one IFV following close in case of a situation which my infantry couldn't manage. If I would come across a compound that I couldn't take by small arms fire I would use the remaining FA/18 for some beautiful CAS. This showed to be a flawed strategy since my IFVs managed to bag only one Taliban and it being the close support one. In the future I should use them alot more in close support (as they are intended?)

I had a lot of luck with the artillery managing to neutralize so many fighters even before they had a chance to see my troops. I also had alot of luck at PB WILSON where at least 4 RPGs were a few meters from killing alot more Canadians. 

Also noted that one pile of trash were hiding an IED that my Coyote unknowingly parked next to so I guess you can ignore my long paragraph in the last post.

Mission 3:

The texture of the afghan police units helmet looks weird, the inner layer seems to be on the outside.

SPOILERS

I finished it with 36 minutes to go so I'm unsure if there is any counter attack later on. Feels like I could take my time clearing every single building on my way with plenty of time left. Would have liked if there was a preserve objective on the ANP unit that was still alive on the checkpoint and waves of increasingly stronger formations attacking them to speed up the players actions making them more reckless. Managed to push to the houses closest to the checkpoint and take a overlook position. Waited for the QRF, and let the Leos take over the overwatch and pushed my infantry down to the checkpoint without any resistance. Most of the enemy fighters had been killed by the 155 battery after B.Plt HQ had found a good overlook position north-west of checkpoint.

Casualties consisted of two Canadian 50.bmg gunners of the Nyala's, one Afghan radioman of 2.Plt and lastly three men of the ANP driving their Pickup truck over a mine during a recon mission to assess the possibility to flank around the checkpoint along the northern road.

 

Mission 4: 

Incredible fun mission and yet again you can scrap what I said in the last mission. Waves of Taliban closing in on the sorry lads of the SAS which made me take some serious risks that made OSHA have a talk with me after the battle was completed. 

The plan was to make a fast dash with the ANA forces to the woods north of the crash site, clear it out and then take up overwatch positions looking down on the crash site.
The weapon platoon of the ANA force would set up at the hills north-west of the objective in a attempt to get flanking fire on any forces that tried to block my movements down the forest. They would also have excellent fields of fire any Taliban reinforcement coming in from the south and west corners of the map.
As soon as the Canadians could link up with the ANA forces in the woods they would push forward as a combined force with some remnants staying behind as overwatch.

Execution of the plan worked flawless for the first 20 minutes. Especially the part with the weapons platoon. Their positions ended up being perfect for gunning down Taliban ambush teams that had set up along the road that led to the crash site. They also managed to gun down a couple of Taliban squads advancing toward the crash site from the woods that I just had set foot into. After this great success I made a terrible decision to push my two Nyala's down "ambush road" to get some boots close to the crash site. There were still at least two RPG teams along the road and they managed to get a shot into the side of one of the Nyala's killing all four Canadians inside. The other Nyala managed to reach a house close to the crash site and unload everyone. This team made short work of the RPG teams and shortly after the IFVs had arrived to their positions and started raining down fire on Taliban reinforcements closing in on the crash site. As this was happening the ANA and infantry squads of the Canadian QRF started to move down the forest hills toward the crash site and only met small elements of Taliban forces, large parts of their squads had been gunned down by the weapon platoon. One of these surviving teams managed to ambush a ANA platoon HQ and gun down the whole squad in just a few seconds. A Coyote IFV managed to see them just a couple seconds too late and made short work of them.

My forces just managed to reach the SAS team before the Taliban called for cease fire and the battle ended.

Amazing campaign so far and love all the flavor objects you used (Black hawk, Hueys etc.) Will try to complete this weekend and probably won't do more AARs but I will try to write down any problems I come across if I do so. Yet again amazing work and hope that you keep doing campaigns, seems like the scenario making community is dying out which would be a real shame. 

Thank you Dragonwynn for all the work you have done!

[dragonwynn]

Thank you very much for the encouragement and the feedback. Notes are being made for a revision once you are done. Another player has been giving feedback as well.

ill look at the helmet glitch to see what can be done.