Syrian TO&E thread

[rudel.dietrich]

I have seen references too that the Syrians have convereted trucks, GAZ utility vehicles and Shorlands to accept the HOT II missle.

Not sure which branch would use those or who if they even exsist.

Yet something else to look into.

[John Kettler]

rudel.dietrich,

ATGM armed technicals? That'll make some swoon and others cringe. Am presuming you'll also be covering the Dushka, ZU-23, ZPU-2 and RR models as well. The 2S1 and 2S3 are on entirely different chassis, with the 2S3's being both taller and much wider than the 2S1. The former is from the same design ancestry as the PT-76, while the latter is adapted from the SA-4 GANEF TEL.

Regards,

John Kettler

[ September 08, 2006, 12:45 AM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[Battlefront.com]

Guys, I've been tied up as of late on other CM stuff. However, I've downloaded this whole thread and will be working on the TO&E this weekend. Rudel, I'll send you a copy when I'm done. It's the least I can do

Steve

[Salkin]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Guys, I've been tied up as of late on other CM stuff. However, I've downloaded this whole thread and will be working on the TO&E this weekend. Rudel, I'll send you a copy when I'm done. It's the least I can do

Steve

Somewhere Rudel is dancing around giggling like a little girl.

He's probably ending up in the credits too .

Congratts !

//Salkin

[WineCape]

It's cheaper sending wine, given the subscription fees Janes Defence charges. Helllloooooo.

[rudel.dietrich]

Originally posted by rudel.dietrich:

Not going to get to Hezbollah tonight.

But I am tonight!

Took me a while, but I think I can post a rough outline of what Hezbollah forces would look like.

I had to enlist outside help with this one!

[rudel.dietrich]

Hezbollah

This took a while, but im confident I have a clear and accurate picture as to the force structure of these fighters as well as what equipment they would use.

Instead of posting a pure TO&E im going to post some reccomended forces as well as confirmed small arms and hardware in their possession.

First let me state that I am of the opinion that these would be high quality forces.

Somewhere between Guards and SF/airborne quality.

Very high morale.

Training would be limited but experience would be high. These men have been fighting someone all their lives.

A basic Hezbollah team I believe is 6 men.

It can be more, it can be less but from the documents I have a 5 man team seems to be the norm.

These can be armed in thousands of different combinations.

But the six main rifle types are thus, in order of likelyhood they will have them.

AK-47

H&K G3

AK-74

FN FAL

M16A1

Some teams are simply armed with rifles and nothing else.

Others with rifles and heaps of gernades.

But most will be armed much like a regular army squad.

The 7.62mm PKM is the most common LMG

7.62mm RPD comes in second

5.45mm PKMs

FN FAL LMG

M16 SAW

M249

M-60

All those seem to be in use as well.

Most teams will carry a LMG.

Ammo load is very light and ammo for the rifles is very light as well.

These teams are made to be mobile and displacing after light contact.

Snipers and marksmens within squads seem to be common as well.

Bolt action rifles, SVDs and scoped assualt rifles all being weapons that are used.

RPGs seem to be in some squads but mainly relegated to dedicated teams.

Special weapons are varied and numerous and depends on what the squad can get ahold off and its purpose.

AT mines

Pole mines

Petrol bombs

Pipe bombs

Grenade budles

Grenade launches (40mm H&K seems to be the model of choice)

60mm mortars

A second LMG

Man portable SAMs

ATGMs

You name it, and they carry it withing a regular infantry team.

Have fun BF

A platoon is three such teams and what seems to be a 'Engineer' squad

These teams also seem to be six men.

Basic rifles and LMGs apply

Many times carry SMGs

MP-5s are common, as are old WW2 vintage British and German modles as well as Uzi knock offs and some Chinese stuff.

Carry large satchel charges either for planting or close assualt

Frag bombs which are modified artillery shells or very large pipe bombs

Petrol bombs

Quanities of AT and AP mines

RPGs

Mortars

These would have large quanities of such special weapons.

Comapanies don't really exsist formally but they do form from time to time for easier corrdination and to mass firepower.

A company would be four such platoons

So 4 platoons with 3 teams each with a single attached engineer squad

Teams seem to be formed and attached at will

These would include

Two or three man RPG teams

Mostly RPG-7 or RPG-7v

Could also be RPG-16s or RPG-29s

LAWs

Carl Gustavs

107mm or 73mm RR rifles could all also be seen

Man portable SAM teams

Three men

SA-7s

A few SA-16s

ATGM teams

Could be a number of weapons

Mostly ex Soviet stuff

Could also be Milans, TOWs or some Chinese stuff

Metis and Kornet are possible

Machine guns

7.62mm PKMS

12.7mm NSV

M-60s

FN-FAL LMG

MG-3s

AGLs

AGS-17

Vehicles

Mostly light stuff used for transport

Modified armoured trucks and cars

Many technicals armed with 7.62mm or 12.7mm machine guns

Can also be armed with

Recoiless rifles

Mortars

ATGMs (Soviet stuff and the HOT system and Milans)

Twin 13.2mm AA guns

14.5mm AA gun

23mm AA gun

37mm AA gun

AGLs

AT guns

So there you have it

Sorry I could not be more helpful, but info was very hard to find.

I know that is alot of weaponary to model, but it seems they purchase and use anything they can gets their hands on.

Here is how I would set up Hezbollah

I would give the player three choices

Light teams

Medium teams

Heavy teams

I would divde the weaponary between those three and make each class cost more.

Once a player selection say a medium company, the game would randomly select what a team was armed with using the 'medium' weapon classification.

Thus you could easily have thousands of combinations and have the motley rag tag realism intact.

I would build specific teams and let the player purchase them speratly as would I do with all the armed and unarmed trucks.

Hopefully some of that was useful.

That is most everything

If you need anything at all, let me know. I hope to tie up a few loose ends and answer some questions.

[MoNuckah]

That seems like a good way to handle Hezbollah forces rudel. For a Medium Company, would every squad be 'medium', or would say two squads be medium, one light and one heavy? Either way I guess. Perhaps scenario editing could have deeper selection options than say a Quick Build purchase breakdowns.

This has been a great thread to read, and its neat that Battlefront encourages such involvement and input by thier customers and fans.

BTW, do you think I could get one of those drop-in Koronet/cannon turrets to fit into a 79 Volkwagen bus?

Maybe then I wouldn't get tailgated so much.

[FAI]

Anyone from Battlefront ever tried asking a Syrian general? I think they can find one that can be bribed with a beta testing account, an entry in the credits and a special edition CMSF signed by all Battlefront's crew

[rudel.dietrich]

Originally posted by FAI:

Anyone from Battlefront ever tried asking a Syrian general? I think they can find one that can be bribed with a beta testing account, an entry in the credits and a special edition CMSF signed by all Battlefront's crew

If someone from the Baath party saw his name then he would get a bullet in the back of the head for his trouble as would his family.

[Battlefront.com]

Or worse... we could not name him and have dozens of generals and their families "purged". Sometimes paranoid, totalitarian regimes overreact

Rudel, great stuff on Hezbollah.

My plan was to create mixed formations with lots of individual units and not much in the way of command and control. Generally the rule of thumb is no more than 3-5 units per command element, but I'm going to guess that for large scale activity it is probably more like 10-20 per command element. At least for the more unconventional type forces. Militias, on the other hand, would attempt to emulate military organization. They just wouldn't do as good of a job at it

Anyway, the formations I was planning on would be a mix of units:

1. Light - contains light small arms and RPGs only. This simulates a more empoverished defense unit or one that was thrown together at the last minute.

2. Medium - has a sprinkling of heavier weapons, such as ATGMs, MGs, light mortars, etc. Still, the primary unit is lightly armed.

3. Heavy - well supported by ATGMs, MGs, mortars, etc. Much more like a mixed military task force than scrap fighters.

In addition to this extra arms and unconventional units (IEDs, Spies, etc.) can be mixed in.

Steve

[rudel.dietrich]

My plan was to create mixed formations with lots of individual units and not much in the way of command and control. Generally the rule of thumb is no more than 3-5 units per command element, but I'm going to guess that for large scale activity it is probably more like 10-20 per command element. At least for the more unconventional type forces. Militias, on the other hand, would attempt to emulate military organization. They just wouldn't do as good of a job at it

Anyway, the formations I was planning on would be a mix of units:

1. Light - contains light small arms and RPGs only. This simulates a more empoverished defense unit or one that was thrown together at the last minute.

2. Medium - has a sprinkling of heavier weapons, such as ATGMs, MGs, light mortars, etc. Still, the primary unit is lightly armed.

3. Heavy - well supported by ATGMs, MGs, mortars, etc. Much more like a mixed military task force than scrap fighters.

In addition to this extra arms and unconventional units (IEDs, Spies, etc.) can be mixed in.

Steve [/QB]

I take it this is just for Hezbollah and irregular units, correct?

If so that sounds good.

I was happy to hear you guys adopted coding that would allow equipment to be doled out randomly.

Works well for regular US/Syrian army units and even better for non-regular units.

I hope that there is a big speed different between infantry.

One of my main complaints about CMX1 was infantry was just too damn slow.

I realize that the scale of games are different but they were still terribly slow.

If I have a unit of Hezbollah armed with only rifles and I choose to run with them, they should really haul ass.

How many small arms do you guys plan on modeling?

The ones listed above comprise most of what is used.

I could have named 15-20 more

[rudel.dietrich]

I was really tired last night and completly forgot about C&C

I disagree with you somewhat of the control and formation of these units.

They would be lots of mixes, but they would be cordinated and have a clear leadership.

These men don't just wake up one morning and decide to join the organization.

They train and get to know one another and for many this is a full time job.

I also found very strong evidence that some radios are in use and mobile phones are heavily used.

Cheap pre-paid cell phones are used by the dozens to cordinate attacks and give out orders.

There would be a strong degree of control.

Hezbollah units should be better than regular Syrian army units.

Not as well eqiuiped but much much higher morale and better at what they do.

[Battlefront.com]

Remember, we are not simulating Hezbollah specifically, only using it as a template of sorts. Many of the weapons they have are in their hands because of the Lebanese Army. G3s, L1s, M16s, etc. are probably not found in Syria in any large numbers.

We are necessarily going with a fairly limited number of small arms. There is a lot of work involved in modeling each one, especially with animations. We have a wide variety of Soviet weapons and that is likely to be the only thing we use.

Weapon allotments can be more random than in CMx1 (there was a little of this), but I'm not sure to what extent we can do this in CMx2.

In CMx1 speed and fatigue were generic for all units based on type (Squad, Weapons Team, or Crew IIRC). There was no ability to tweak it for individual types. This is not a problem for CMx2.

Oh, I do think that Command and Control is quite strong, just not as robust as a military formation. There is also more of a flat organization as far as I can tell, which means that many are at the same level of authority and very few are above. In some ways this makes C2 even stronger since the individual units are comfortable working individually where a military unit having more difficulties being on its own. We hope to reflect that in CM:SF in this way...

When you knock out a military HQ it has some sort of negative effect on the ability of that military unit to function. This is because their strength comes from coordinated organization and the ability to do things like fire support. For an irregular force losing a "HQ" might not mean anything for that fight since coordination is decentralized and there isn't much, if anything, the leadership can do that isn't already being done. The loss of leaders can be a problem over time, but that isn't really relevant to CM since it only simulates battles (even CM's Campaign isn't long enough to simulate the impact of cumulative losses).

Steve

[akd]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Remember, we are not simulating Hezbollah specifically, only using it as a template of sorts. Many of the weapons they have are in their hands because of the Lebanese Army. G3s, L1s, M16s, etc. are probably not found in Syria in any large numbers. We are necessarily going with a fairly limited number of small arms. There is a lot of work involved in modeling each one, especially with animations. We have a wide variety of Soviet weapons and that is likely to be the only thing we use.

The porosity of the border goes both ways. Anything that Hezbollah has in Lebanon should be assumed to be available in Syria, even if you don't want to call it "Hezbollah." That being said, I agree that the diversity of small arms is hardly important to simulation of the unit type, aside from the visual aspect, although the complications of ammo redistribution would be an interesting problem for the "Hezbollah" player.

I would, however, make an exception if there truly is prevalent use of 7.62 NATO shoulder arms, as this certainly provides a significant step-up in lethality for your average rifleman as compared to 7.62x39, especially against a foe liberally equipped with body armor.

Oh, I do think that Command and Control is quite strong, just not as robust as a military formation.

...

For an irregular force losing a "HQ" might not mean anything for that fight since coordination is decentralized and there isn't much, if anything, the leadership can do that isn't already being done.

Please do not fall into the trap of treating "Hezbollah" as a militia or irregular force in the traditional sense. Hezbollah is a military formation. Whether you call it Hezbollah or not, it should be consider a military light infantry unit of fairly high quality (probably higher than any other Arab light infantry unit), even if it is somewhat "extra-government."

The Viet Cong, for example, might provide a more useful parallel than the Mahdi Army, Fedayeen or Afghan Mujahideen.

Jane's:

"Islamic Resistance guerrillas are reckoned to be amongst the most dedicated, motivated and highly trained of their kind. Any Hezbollah member receiving military training is likely to do so at the hands of IRGC [the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps], either in southern Lebanon or in camps in Iran. The increasingly sophisticated methods used by IRGC members indicates that they are trained using Israeli and US military manuals; the emphasis of this training is on the tactics of attrition, mobility, intelligence gathering and night-time manoeuvres."[

[Battlefront.com]

AKD,

The porosity of the border goes both ways.

Not in this case. Weapons that Syria and Iran have have found their way into Lebanon when practical, otherwise money is funneled so they can buy their own stuff through other sources. Neither is likely to go back to Syria. Hezbollah is also unlikely to move into Syria in any large quantity because they are, for the most part, a local resistance movement. Leaving Lebanon would mean leaving it undefended against Israeli expansion. And if they were smart they would bring the same weapons that the Syrians have so that they could be assured ammo resupply. I doubt the Syrians have large stockpiles of NATO 7.62 lying around!

Please do not fall into the trap of treating "Hezbollah" as a militia or irregular force in the traditional sense.

As I said, we are not simulating Hezbollah per se. We are using it as a template, heavily influenced by the Iraqi insurgency. Hezbollah is fairly unique and it has taken two decades for it to get to where it is now. It's foolish to think that the Syrians would have their own domestic version up and running in the first week or two of open warfare. The Iraqi insurgency is 3 years old and it still doesn't have the same sort of sophistication that Hezbollah has (though it is getting better, unfortunately).

If someone could comment on Hezbollah's organization I'd be interested to know more. As it is, the hybrid Hezbollah/Insurgent force I'm picturing will be structured but not as structured as a military formation. As I've said already, in some ways this makes them tougher.

Steve

[akd]

Okay, I see where you are coming from. My comments were from the perspective of Hezbollah as it exists conducting operations in Syria, not some militia that springs up post-invasion and wants to call itself "Hezbollah" or "Islamic Resistance" or whatever, but is not really different from the myriad Iraqi militias and resistance groups, which have more in common with Palestinian fighters anyways. The Palestinians have had many more years than the Iraqis to develope into a "Hezbollah"-type force, but they haven't. This is because Hezbollah's organization is not simply the product of time.

Hezbollah has very little to do with the Iraqi insurgents. I think you would be better off either choosing to create an Iraq-style guerilla force (perhaps using the Fedayeen as a template for a non-COIN opponent), or depicting Hezbollah separately much as it is in Lebanon (under the assumption that Hezbollah/Iran would see an occupation of Syria as an imminent threat to its survival and interests and would have the freedom to operate there due to the U.N. buffer against the Israelis in the South), rather than trying to create a mix of the two in order to represent a generic "irregular" force in Syria.

I would say either include Hezbollah much as it is, or just go for a generic Arab "irregular" force based on the Iraqi and Palestinian militias and guerilla fighters, rather than on Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (who have trained and structured Hezbollah). Keep in mind also that Hezbollah and Syria have had decades of interrelations, whereas Hezbollah had nothing to do with Iraq before the invasion (and even now has only tenuous connections).

Syria is not Iraq.

[ September 11, 2006, 03:08 PM: Message edited by: akd ]

[rudel.dietrich]

Actualy I would expect large groups of Hezbollah to cross the border to fight inside Syria.

Defense of Lebanon means little to them.

Syria is the their home base and means of supply.

Without Syria, Lebanon is just a weak shell of a state.

Syria has been pulling the strings inside that country for decades and still does to a certain extenst.

Most of Hezbollahs memebers are also not Lebanese, many are but the organization represents all of the middle east with some members coming as far away as SE Asia and Europe.

Lebanese nationalism means little to them, if Syria came under attack then this would be a threat to their supply base/HQ.

They would rush to its aid in strong numbers.

As to small arms.

I can understand not wanting to model a large number.

But hear this, the G3 MUST be modeled.

It is far and away the second most signicifant firerm in the inventory and many many rifles exsist as well as mountains of ammunition.

As got not modeling Hezbollah directly, I cannot fathom why.

It it sort of like the BMP-3 question. I show that they exist and are used in large numbers yet it seems like a decision has been reached andno matter what I find it has been decided that the question has been solved.

Syria would not have to set up its own Hezbollah overnight. It would have all the figthers it needs pouring into its borders by the thousands.

Syria/Iran are the creators of the force.

Im not really sure what makes you think they are all that tied to Lebanon.

And as for leadership.

I agree with you that there are not alot of leaders, but a leadership DOES exsist.

The organization could not exsist without people telling other people what to do.

In fact I was thinking of sugesting that if SF teams exsist that they have control over any present militia and Hezbollah units.

Israel saw this in action a few weeks ago...but I probably shouldnt say much about that.

I will say that SF units would be the ones cordinating and launching a post-war resistance as well as keeping the crumbling military fighting.

America loves to crush C&C early.

Syrian Special forces as one of their primary jobs is to step in when this breaks down and cordinate local defense efforts.

As akd has said, this is not Iraq.

I understand having mountains of info from that conflict and wanting to use it in place of what is not know.

But it would be a mistake to model Syria after Iraq.

If a Syrian war took place it would be a far bloodier enterprise.

The regular army posesses more backbone and would put up more of a fight and the resistence would be Falujah turned up by several degrees all across the country.

[Battlefront.com]

AKD,

Syria is not Iraq.

Which is what I have been saying since day one of this Forum, so no worries there As I've said, Syria wouldn't have to start from scratch like Iraq didwhy they would not have to start from scratch like the Iraqi Insurgency did. It would also be FAR more unified in command and purpose than the Iraqi Insurgency.

One thing that has to be remembered is that the Syrians are aiding the Iraqi Insurgency as well as the Iranians. Syria and Iran are also both involved with Hezbollah. I'm not sure why it is so strange to think that Syria would try to combine the elements in some way.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Rudel,

Actualy I would expect large groups of Hezbollah to cross the border to fight inside Syria.

Within a week or two? I can see a significant number getting into Damascus and the surrounding mountains, but I don't expect they would get very far beyond that before the CM:SF timeframe was over. Afterwards, which CM:SF does not simulate, I can see more and more Hezbollah moving into Syria if they felt the situation was stable enough in Souther Lebanon. See next thought...

Defense of Lebanon means little to them.

I'm sure that was true for much of its existence, but I am not sure that is true any longer. They have displaced so many Lebanese and established such a base of popular support that I think they would find it hard to leave it behind.

In any case, I think we can agree that Hezbollah's real purpose is to do battle with Israel, correct? Do you really think that Hezbollah would, in an instant, perform a mass exodus out of Southern Lebanon into Syria? Wouldn't they be paranoid that Israel would take advantage of it and move in undo what they have built over the last 20+ years? And since the fall of Syria is pretty much a sure bet, then they would lose both their immediate base of operations as well as their logistical base of operations.

Without Syria, Lebanon is just a weak shell of a state.

Once military action commences against Syria the flow of support to Hezbollah will slow to a trickle no matter what. Much of the weapons coming in from Iran move via air through Syria. That would be stopped within minutes of conflict. Russian, Chinese, Ukranian, etc. resupply of Syria would also be impossible. Financial resources would be frozen and seized, or at least disrupted. Syria's centralized government would be fractured as would its military chain of command. The bases that Hezbollah relies upon would be bombed and eventually occupied. And most importantly, Syria would be concentrating all its efforts on opposing the forces on its soil, not the Israel, Palestine, or Lebanon.

In short, as soon as a shooting war starts with Syria, Hezbollah is cut off. I see no other possibility.

Syria has been pulling the strings inside that country for decades and still does to a certain extenst.

It would be interesting to see if Syria could pull the strings as much as it would like to. I suspect certain elements of Hezbollah would move quickly into Syria, while others wouldn't budge an inch. Some of Hezbollah's leadership is surely grown fat and attached to its domain. They would send fighters, for sure, but not enough to weaken their own positions. At least that is how I see it playing out. One thing that can be counted on more than anything is the selfishness of people in power to preserve their power. It doesn't matter what the ethnicity, religion, or other factors are... it's something that can be counted on. The question in my mind is what percentage of Hezbollah would go to Syria and what percentage would remain. I have no answer.

But hear this, the G3 MUST be modeled.

It is far and away the second most signicifant firerm in the inventory and many many rifles exsist as well as mountains of ammunition.

In Syria?

As got not modeling Hezbollah directly, I cannot fathom why.

Hopefully I've explained this better.

It it sort of like the BMP-3 question. I show that they exist and are used in large numbers yet it seems like a decision has been reached andno matter what I find it has been decided that the question has been solved.

It is a small number used by, probably, a single unit. We are not trying to simulate everything in one release, so that is the reason we are not planning on simulating the BMP-3 right away. It will likely be introduced later on.

Syria would not have to set up its own Hezbollah overnight. It would have all the figthers it needs pouring into its borders by the thousands.

It would have to set up something overnight in order to be relevant to CM:SF. As you suggest, this would largely come in the form of the Special Forces and local Militias. It would also come with foreign fighters already in Syria being trained for either Hezbollah or the Iraqi Insurgency.

And as for leadership.

I agree with you that there are not alot of leaders, but a leadership DOES exsist.

I never said it didn't. I just said it was far more flat than the traditional Soviet military model. As I said, instead of 1:3 or 1:5 command units to combat units I would expect more like 1:10 to 1:20, depending on the situation.

I will say that SF units would be the ones cordinating and launching a post-war resistance as well as keeping the crumbling military fighting.

This has always been my assumption of what the SF units would do if Israel invaded. It is, after all, what the US Special Forces did with the Iraqi Kurds and Northern Alliance. But as we know battlefields are messy and often poorly coordinated when combat first starts. I think it would take some time before Syria's unconventional resistance would reach its strongest point. And that point is beyond CM:SF's scope.

America loves to crush C&C early.

And while it helps, it doesn't do much when the enemy doesn't rely much on C&C. The Iraqi Army was badly affected by the lack of control, so I would assume the regular Syrian Army would be as well. But not the Special Forces, Airborne, or the more unconventional forces.

If a Syrian war took place it would be a far bloodier enterprise.

Which is what I have been saying since we announced this game and everybody thought it would be just like Iraq

The regular army posesses more backbone and would put up more of a fight and the resistence would be Falujah turned up by several degrees all across the country.

I agree, though I don't think there is much of a chance that the conventional phase of the war will end without a full occupation of Syria. It would be tougher than Iraq, I am sure of it, but conventional resistance would crack and fall apart fairly quickly (in traditional military timelines). What happens after that is what would worry me most if I were the one in charge. That's where I see things going very badly.

Steve

[rudel.dietrich]

Needless to say I disagree. I can easily seem them leaving Lebanon behind and fighting in Syria.

And I think you are forgeting what you own storyline is

As soon as a military coup of civil war started Hezbollah would have men on the ground supporting one side or the other within days.

That would be a number of weeks before the US entered the picture.

But im not the one making the game.

My advice since this is the thread for it to strongly model Hezbollah units since I am of the opinion that they would be active participants in a war.

[ September 11, 2006, 04:25 PM: Message edited by: rudel.dietrich ]

[Battlefront.com]

And I think you are forgeting what you own storyline is

Hehe... no, actually, I think this bolsters my argument

As soon as a military coup of civil war started Hezbollah would have men on the ground supporting one side or the other within days.

That would be a number of weeks before the US entered the picture.

I definitely see Hezbollah moving into Syria, but at the expense of tempting the IDF to recover from its expensive setback? I just don't see it. One of the most impressive things about Hezbollah, to me anyway, is how carefully they operate at the strategic level down to the tactical level. Prior to the conflict I can't see them suddenly saying "our stand against the Israel aggressors means nothing to us, let's pack up and move to Syria". After combat starts I would expect they would have a measured response instead of a blind rush into the Western force's military meat grinder. Some force into Syria... sure, but I see the majority staying in Lebanon for a variety of reasons, most of which are practical in nature:

1. Hezbollah's prime enemy is Israel. It is already on its border and has an extremely well established base there. Syria is only a training and command camp, it isn't where their real power comes from. Their power comes from their 20+ years of occupation of a small geographic area. They know the terrain very well, they have long term relations with the people, and their movement's strength comes from that base of support. When the IDF attacked Hezbollah knew where to hit them and how to mobilize thousands of fighters in very short order. Relocating would mean abandoning all of this support. They could rebuild it, but that would take a long time. Years for sure.

2. Some of Hezbollah's leadership is corrupt and selfish. All organizations have such leadership elements, though Hezbollah appears to have less than the norm for the area (which isn't saying much!). It would be difficult to get the resources these leaders control to move in any significant way into Syria. It would also be difficult to move the more pragmatic leaders who understand point #1. This would likely create a schism within Hezbollah. It would take a while to resolve itself since it would take a while to be identified. I doubt it would be so big a split that there would be an internal armed conflict, but this a possibility. Instead I just see it as causing hesitation for a major move into Syria. At least right away.

3. Syria has its own people predisposed to war with Israel and the West, so why would Syria need its help in the form of fighters? Lebanon, on the other hand, has only the Hezbollah. So every fighter moved from Lebanon makes Hezbollah weaker, but doesn't make Syria appreciably stronger. This invites the IDF to come in and get revenge for how badly it did in 2006. It is also possible that the West would come in along the coastline or through Turkey if Hezbollah made the wrong moves. Either or both would weigh heavily on Hezbollah.

4. Syria is strategically important to Hezbollah only as long as it is able to supply it with arms and funds. As soon as the coup happens in Syria things would likely change for the worse. Funds available to Assad's government would be unavailable since much of the wealth is either worthless paper or kept in bank accounts in more stable countries. Those countries are more than likely to freeze the acounts. So part of Syria's purpose goes away. It is probable that arms deliveries from Russia would cease, as would certain other trans shipments. This means the other purpose of Syria is compromised. The more likely a military intervention against Syria, the less likely the situation will get better and the more likely it will get worse.

5. Lebanon has access to the sea and has a route between it and Egypt by land. It can also continue to funnel things through the Lebanese government and civilian institutions (in one way or another). Geographically it is small and fairly easy to defend with the forces that Hezbollah has at its disposal. The opposite is true of Syria. If Lebanon were lost Syria would be completely cut of from the rest for the world (Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, and Israel would all be hostile).

6. Any action against Lebanon would pose diplomatic problems for whomever went against it. Not so for Syria. It does not have a strong support lobby in Europe and the US' feelings on Syria are already deeply entrenched and negative. War is possible against Syria to a far greater degree than war against Lebanon.

7. A lot can be accomplished with very little. Sending a few hundred hand picked fighters to Syria could have a major impact on what went on in Syria, yet not have a noticeable impact on retaining Lebanon. It would also be logistically easier to do because if Israel saw a large number of fighters moving into Syria there would be (most certainly) a military strike right away. The strike could expand, as it did recently, on the ground into Lebanon. The worst thing a military force can experience is an attack during redeployment. Hezbollah would be weak in two places instead of strong in one. Therefore, the redeployment itself is risky.

Again, these are practical reasons for Hezbollah to resist large scale action in Syria in favor of staying in Lebanon. For all I know there is a large number of arguments to go into Syria, but I can't think of any that would overcome the ones I just listed. At least nothing rational. I can think of a dozen irrational reasons why they would pick up and move. But as I said, I have been impressed with Hezbollah's shrewd decision making ability. I don't think they would give way to irrational courses of action very easily. But with that area of the world, anything is possible

Steve

[ September 11, 2006, 05:48 PM: Message edited by: Battlefront.com ]

[hellfish]

Will you announce the background storyline to the game before the game is released?

[Battlefront.com]

Yes, because I will want to have you guys help shape it

Also, it is entirely possible that we will go "generic". This is something I REALLY don't want to do, but we would rather do that than a ridiculous "real world" setting. We figure we have a few more months to make this decision, but once we make it we will not be able to retract it. Either way, the forces will look a lot like Syria's We're long past the point of no return on that.

Steve

[hoolaman]

Any references for this info if its going into the game?