'Blowfish'... just sent it to the Scenario Depot.

[Clubfoot]

This is pretty much finished up. It's a fictional mission-oriented assault on the Goethe U-boat pen, codenamed 'Blowfish'.

It's briefings, recon and such are similar in style to 'Fertile Fields'. Let me know if you'd like to check it out and I'll send it out to some folks on Friday.

[ 11-02-2001: Message edited by: Clubfoot ]</p>

[SurlyBen]

Cool looking map. I'd love to give it a shot.

benhard@speakeasy.org

Ben

[Clubfoot]

Forgot to mention, this will be packaged with a CMMOS compatible scenario specific mod entitled 'Islands' which will give it that sand to foliage effect you see as well as aquatic mines.

To function properly, this requires you to already have the "Clubfoot's SSM's" download from Manx's CM's, particularly the Pointe du Hoc SSM. This will add a fifth icon to the "Clubfoot's SSM's" tab allowing 'Islands' installation and revert to Magau's Normandy options (which the SSM is built around).

Please note, you'll be able to play without these bells and whistles, it just won't look so durn purty.

[wayne.hatcher@hok.com]

i would like to try it. working on fertile field now rough, rough

[wayne.hatcher@hok.com]

DUMB QUESTION TIME.!!!!

WHERE DO I GET THIS MODS TO MAKE THIS ONE LOOK PRETTY???? DID NOT SEE IT AT MAX'S CM'S.

HELP. WANT IT TO LOOK PRETTY!!!

[MrSpkr]

Of course I will try it.

Oh yes, am developing the combat photography from OPERATION: FERTILE FIELDS. SHould have the photographs as well as the AARs from the subcommander's and myself this weekend.

[KnifeForkSpoon]

Howdy!

Looks VERY interesting.

Please send me the scenario, eh?

Jackiem1@mindspring.com

Thanks,

KFS

[Panther G]

Looks like another winner, clubfoot. I really like your Attention to Detail in the Maps and Briefings. Send it my way please.

Regards,

Ryan

P.S. Make sure you put both on the CM Scenario Depot.

[Clubfoot]

Thanks for the complements fellas.

Wayne,

Not a dumb question at all. The new 'Islands' SSM isn't available yet and with Manx's site going down soon, I'm not sure who'll host it. Working on getting my own little gig goin' for hosting my stuff, though. We'll see what happens.

PantherG,

As soon as I compile the AAR's for Fertile Fields (which I've gotten several of, by the way, and a big THANKS to everyone who's provided feedback. You don't know how much it helps!), I'll make any needed tweaks and then send it off to the depot. But only if you promise to review it!

I'll ship 'Blowfish' to everyone this weekend. I've not yet created the recon images.

And now, the general breifing for 'Blowfish':

Title: Blowfish.

Size: medium/large (On the in-game menu, this scenario is described as "Huge". This is merely due to the sheer number of non-combatant fortifications the Axis forces have.)

Type: waterborne assault.

Date: August 1944.

Location: Goethe U-boat pen, OSS nomenclature "Blowfish".

Weather: chilly with a soupy fog.

Ground condition: damp.

H-Hour: 0500

Length: 68 turns.

(NOTE: This scenario is for single player play only with the AI in the role of the Germans. To enhance the scenario visually, use the CMMOS compatible 'Islands' scenario specific mod contained in the "Clubfoot's SSM's" tab in the CMMOS window.)

The Airborne. Men of uncommon bravery whose duties as soldiers saw them flinging themselves willy-nilly toward the earth from thousands of feet on high into the center of red-hot, raging battles. From their entry into the ETO, these new-fangled "paratroopers" proved their worth and versatility at every turn.

Initially these Jump Wings branded warriors believed, as the Department of the ARMY intended them to, that they were to be utilized solely for combat jump roles. Jump in, fight, link up, get out, repeat. However, their activities soon broadened (to their own chagrin) to include rear area infiltrations, combat recon, waterborne assaults and river crossings, rescue missions, snatch & grabs, and meat & potatoes, ground-pounding infantry operations.

This scenario is an entirely FICTIONAL account of a waterborne assault on a remote German U-boat pen, Goethe U-boatplatz (OSS nomenclature "Blowfish"), by a typically understrength Airborne troop. Operation Blowfish bears some of the hallmarks of many Airborne engagements: Thorough planning, daring delivery and execution, and a relative plethora of support toys (yay!!!) knee-capped by a noticeable lack of infantry man-power (boo!!!). These factors led to the eventual claims by American Paratroopers that an Airborne man could do "just about anything with next to nuthin'".

'Blowfish' is a scenario in the vein of 'Fertile Fields'. If you enjoy one of them, you'll probably appreciate the other as well. The human Allied player is provided with useful recon and a detailed plan of attack from the higher-ups which utilizes many different assault elements, each with their own objectives, operating in well-timed concert to achieve an ultimate goal. Left to the player is the tactical execution of the plan.

The in-game landmarks are handy for the purpose of determining the location of threats, objectives, approaches and landing zones. They get quite 'cluttery' however, and I recommend you only turn them on now and then for reference. Turn the flags off as well. They not only exist at objectives, but in odd areas to make certain parts of the map "sticky" for the AI defender.

Good luck and enjoy!

[ 10-25-2001: Message edited by: Clubfoot ]</p>

[wayne.hatcher@hok.com]

WHEN YOU GET THE SSM'S COMPLETED PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHERE THEY ARE. WHAT IS THE CMMMOS COMPATABLE FILES? WHERE IS THAT LOCATED AT?

IS THIS THE SAME AS DFDR MOD SINGLE FILE V1.2 DOWNLOAD AT DESERT RATS SITE?

[ 10-26-2001: Message edited by: wayne.hatcher@hok.com ]

[ 10-26-2001: Message edited by: wayne.hatcher@hok.com ]

[ 10-26-2001: Message edited by: wayne.hatcher@hok.com ]</p>

[Clubfoot]

Wayne,

The CMMOS compatible files are at Manx's CM's.

Click the 'Pipeline' link and you should find them from there. They are a set of graphical alterations for use with a number of my scenarios and are designed to function with Gordon Molek's CMMOS (Combat Mission Mod Option Selector).

[Clubfoot]

A little recon teaser before I ship it out this weekend.

[Dogface21]

This looks interesting, please, send one my way!

Thanks!

[Clubfoot]

OK OK so it didn't get finished this weekend. These long-winded briefings are just killin' me. I'll get it out to you guys in the next day or two. Scout's honor.

[wayne.hatcher@hok.com]

any word when you will be done? this looks greats. can hardly wait.

[Clubfoot]

Alright, I just sent this off to Admiral Keth at the Scenario Depot. I would have e-mailed it to everybody, but it weighed in at 1.6meg (w/ the custom graphics) and I have a rinky-dink 56k modem.

After you try it out, send any suggestions for changes or other comments to me and I'll act accordingly.

Sorry for the wait!

[Admiral Keth]

Gang,

Just posted 'Blowfish' at The Scenario Depot.

Normally I try to take a neutral stance when it comes to extolling one scenario or another, but this is one kick-ass scenario! Download it now, play it, and review it.

Prosit!

[Clubfoot]

Thanks Admiral!

[ 11-04-2001: Message edited by: Clubfoot ]</p>

[Bigdog]

This Baby was almost to much fun its a must play for sure! Pissed away most of Saturday playing it was well worth the time. Get It, Load It, Play It & then Review It! Thanks for the hard work that went into this one Clubfoot :cool:

[ 11-04-2001: Message edited by: Bigdog ]</p>

[Ligur]

Woo just going through it and was taking a break. Damn, seeing those pics made me want to install CMMOs... Do scen authors want AAR's and stuff from people who play the scenarios, or did I misread above in this thread?!

[Clubfoot]

AAR's and in-game screens are absolutely welcome! In fact, any feedback at all is welcome, even of the negative variety (constructive of course).

[Ligur]

What a horrible, horrible slaughter, from both sides. I blame the tenacity of the Paratroopers, which ended causing terrible casualties to both sides. I am particularly proud of my uphill Charge of the Lighbrigade which ended up carrying half a kilometer.

I think I will go scribble something inane to the scenario depot.

[Ligur]

The site reported a nice error on the main page, and for some reason when I look up battles Blowfish doesn't exist, only your Skorzeny stuff seem to be there. How odd.

I'll share my experience here in a form of a review of a sorts:

Very good scenario. Map was awesome, and is a really good (succesfull) try at forcing the player to play the scenario as intended. The map IMHO sets the "plot" of the battle, so your effort has been quite good indeed.

The briefing was also superb, the game in general could use more of that to make playing the AI interesting. Though in this case the beauty of it is the excellent combination of a very thought out map (it being an island helps I think), a very thought out battle and plot, and a very thought out briefing to make it all make sense and come together nicely. Giving time marking out the map before the mission gets my juices going. I feel more like a part of a military operation, not a random and probaply messy engagement without a solid plan.

Download it, take a sixpack from the freezer, get a pack of cigarettes ready, make some soup and a sandwich and play it, clowboats!!

Well, I hope I don't **SPOIL ANYWONES FUN NOW***

***NASTY SPOILER ACTION HERE***

I decided to keep Alpha at DUGOUT, they had only 7 casualties by H+11, so I wanted to stick it out. They had good positions and plenty MG fire, my only worry was could they stick it out untill Delta came? I can understand why they should be pulled away tho (scenario "plot" wise too), but in the end the poor paratroopers don't have that much infantry at any point. And Bravo artillery blew any try at a counter-attack by the Germans to smithereens. In the end, though, after having a constant firefight of over 60 rounds, Alpha had taken 50% casualties and was spent in every other way too.

Charlie Black didn't quite make it, being only able to dispatch one AA gun and three supporting machine guns, and then being wiped out in a matter of a minute after trying to advance towards the second AAA. This is mostly due to Charlie Black's extremly unfortunate start as the HQ got a millimeter too far while trying to get a good vantage point and then ran to an extremely stupid place for "cover" causing half the ridge to open up on it. I had to use a squad to get my HQ out of the line of fire, and after trying to push the rest of Charlie Black forward (so as to direct the unit with my now half dead lieutenant) an AA piece took out my second 60mm. With it, I would have fared much better. I think I understand how it should be done, but it needs a lot of precision. IMHO the most difficult part of the operation to execute. You end up with no Charlie Black very, very easily when you play for the first time, and that will show on the end result as we will see...

Charlie Red made it well on POPFLY. After the church and its imminent vicinity was clean I took a peek down at the garrison, and they responded by murderous fire. I started getting casualties very fast and had to pull the guys out of the windows... A split squad recon at the north side of SECOND BASE ended poorly as the 5 men failed to notice the enemy untill it was too late. The enemy very certainly was there. So Charlie was pretty much stuck inside the church.

Since Charlie Red was more or less unable to move and Charlie Black was suffering with the loss of its support the most boring part of the scenario was here: I really had nothing else to do then to try super-precision (and super-slow) maneuvers with Charlie Black, keep Red out of any windows, keep shooting up half-hearted counter attacks towards the DUGOUT, and wait for Delta. And then wait for it to land. And then it took me a while to set them up, more so since a few important commanders had a hard time finding parking space for their boats. I guess that was my inexperience with the assault boats, however I would have liked for Delta to arrive on map sooner.

I also used Delta in a stupid manner, not pulling enough of the support in position to fire on the garrison while it was under artillery fire. The artillery didn't fare too well either, I'm not sure if I should have saved a few rounds from Bravo here. Most of the buildings were on the brink of collapsing but only two acually did. The garrison was in a good position, and cut down half of the assault in a jiffy. But since the supporting elements were at least now in a good position, and Charlie Red could open up from above, Delta got over the ford, took a few buildings down with gammon bombs (they actually blew up, haw haw) and after leap frogging the support closer took over the garrison in the whole.

Meanwhile Alpha had spotted alerting amount of infantry moving around due south and had to pull back at DUGOUT, inside and behind the buildings, after starting to take casualties. Soon after that the decimated Charlie Black, having escaped the field of death too much south, was squashed by infantry coming out of nowhere. Scary.

Delta had to hurry, but also had to wait for the slow deployment of the supporting MG's to take out the final three buildings. Nearly half the guys were dead at this point, I think.

I started to form Delta for an advance, when Charlie Red spotted increasing infantry activity towards the south end of the island. Some MG's and such had been present for a while, but now it started looking more like a company of infantry blocking Charlie Red and Delta from getting to BASE TWO much less farther, where ALPHA was still slowly but steadily losing ammo and men. So I formed Delta extra fast and started an advance uphill. I had saved some 60mm mortar rounds for the two remaining AA guns but I didn't have time anymore and opened fire at the company and its support.

After a short meeting engagement with the Sicherung company Charlie Red and Delta both were running low on ammo, though otherwise were obviously superior troops, so I decided to just plain charge uphill and kick their ass close range. Delta swept the company of the map, throwing gammon bombs and very probaply shouting a lot, while Charlie Red made a downhill assault and took down BASE TWO in a matter of minutes. Charlie Red in particular suffered severe casualties but were not going to quit, and were soon joined by Delta (a certain Seargeant from Charlie Red was credited with 11 kills, 3 guns destroyed and 8 captures, whilst two Squads from Delta collected 22 kills between each other during the rush, the other being reduced to a single man who kept up fighting. Hooray for command chain and crack troops).

Meanwhile Alpha, as time was running out, made an attempt to hold BASE THREE and after a succesfull charge took postions there, leaving HMG's to make sure DUGOUT will not be approached.

Then the time ran out =P

That ended in a draw. Unbeknowns to me two buildings at BASE THREE still had enemy infantry inside, the depleted Alpha was just unable to make a good sweep, since the subpen was still firing once in a while. I heard infantry sounds very near but was unable to locate them in time.

There were small one or two man squad remains of Sicherung here and there, some vehicle and artillery crews, the bunker crews and not much else left for the Germans (91 left in total, dunno where the heck some were tho), and I had still 156 men in fighting condition, tho all low on ammo and not in the best punch. I clearly did not progress fast enough, but its hard to imagine where I could have... Maybe a more efficient arty strike on garrison to speed Delta and the success of Charlie Black will do it, I definetly have to try again when I have the 4-6 hours.

***SPOILER SORT OF ENDS***

So thats how it played for the first time for me, definetly fun and the briefing made a lot of my success, without delving into it an even worse catastrophe would have occurred. I'll write a decently long review/aar for anyone who goes through the trouble of making such fine scenarios. Clubfoot's scenario had it all in it, not just a "good force balance" but everything from map to briefing. Making the AI move with the plot must be a difficult feat.

Regards,

A.K.

[Admiral Keth]

Gang,

My ISP has had another issue with their server. Looks like they restored files prior to the end of last month. Which means I lost quite a bit of work, data (news, scenarios and votes), and patience.

I'm working with them to restore things to their proper state.

Apologies for any inconvenience.

[Clubfoot]

Admiral,

Good luck getting everything hammered out! Hope the work isn't lost forever.

Ligur,

Thanks for the AAR. I've been toying with the idea of two small changes. First, extending the timeframe by two minutes. Second, bringing Delta on-scene two minutes earlier. They're small changes, but enough to give the Allied player a couple of extra minutes lee-way. Also, you may have gotten a tactical victory had you egressed what was left of Alpha (they exit for points). I'm glad you enjoyed it, though, and I'm sure your next run through will be a total victory.