saunders1953 Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 Why did BF decide to go with Syria as the backstory to CM:SF intstead of Iran? Iran has about two times the military potential (regulars and asymmetrical types-- don't they supposedly have a 10,000,000 man "Martyrdom Militia" or some such force?), 3x the population, a heavy dose of mostly conventional military experience from the late '80's, and given the current Realpolitik, much more likely to actually go toe-to-toe with the Western Coalition. Besides, the Russian Federation could get into the act a little more readily (geographically speaking) so we could see a Russian Module with updated equipment uniforms, etc.! :-) So in our make-believe world here, it would be more of a 1st rate military power vs. a 3rd rate (2.5 rate?), rather than 1st rate vs. about 5th rate. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kwazydog Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 We looked at both, but Syria actually had a more varied range of equipment at the time with a larger range of AFVs available to them. More importantly they have access to some of the newer Russian ATGMs such as the AT-10 and AT-14 which Iran did not. Iran would likely be more of a threat strategically, but at the tactical level it would likely provide somewhat of a less interesting challenge. Dan 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Secondbrooks Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 I'm believing that it was said that Syria infact has best middle-eastern military for tactical scale (Iran has quantity but lacks quality). Could be wrong thou. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zmoney Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 Actually Israel has the best military in the Middle East but I believe you are correct on Iran being more quantity than quality. Although they produce their own brand of tanks, I’m not sure how good they are though. But then again the Iran/Iraq war was a long time ago and right after the Iranian revolution which purged the Iranian military. I’m sure their military is a little better off now. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Secondbrooks Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 Actually Israel has the best military in the Middle East Actually i'm idiot I've heard Iranian self-made tanks use lots of parts which are gathered from where they have had opportunity to find them. Parts from carcasses of M1 Abrams and Merkava has been said. Of course another question is: what is quality of those parts, how many actually does work :confused: 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergei Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 Iran was the firstmost candidate for CMSF, but fortunately it was understood that these would have totally and completely thrown the game off balance: 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bassplayer192837 Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 are those nuns? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pvt. Ryan Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 One of them thinks she is J-Lo. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrSpkr Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 One of them thinks she is J-Lo. Thanks, Ryan. I needed a good laugh out loud today. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orwell Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 They don't even bother to take the price tags off those things? Or what is that... piece hanging from the tip? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theFightingSeabee Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 Pull it out and see! I think pulling the pin arms the warhead. Hey, my woman is Persian! But she won't go near weaponry. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyD Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 I heard during the start of the Iraq occupation some insurgents were so ill trained that they'd fire their RPGs without first arming the fuse. A fair proportion of the much-discussed RPG dud rate may have been self-inflicted. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gen. J-sun Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 Safety Pin, keeps the fuse from compressing and setting of the charge. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoolaman Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 I know Kwazydog has already commented, but I'm led to believe that Syria was chosen because it was the most plausible opponent for a near future conflict taking into account events in Iraq. Even so it is only vaguely plausible, but yeah. I think the 2006 conflict in Lebanon was also a deciding factor for how this sort of combat could be interesting. The US would have to be pretty desparate to launch a ground invasion of Iran. Not really an option I reckon. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmfan Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 You guys joke about those female Iranian conscripts but a pixilated RPG ain't nothing to laugh at regardless of who fires it. Seriously though, I've always wondered why Syria was chosen instead of Iran. The U.S. isn't exactly on friendly terms with Syria but Iran seems like the logical choice if your going to set a simulation in the region. I do see the developers reasoning from a unit standpoint though. In choosing Syria BF did manage to make me feel guilty when I play CMSF as one of my good friend's husband is Syrian and served in their military as a conscript. We trade "war" stories once in a while. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergei Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 From a strategic point, war with Syria would be the more likely option. Iran has a population of 71 million, and just Teheran has 9 million people. That's way much more than Iraq's 24 million or Syria's 17 million. Likewise the area is absolutely huge and mountainous. Then there's that Strait of Hormuz thing, if a war started then carjuice would say bye-bye. There's a good reason why all the neocon's talk about bombing Iran but there is never a word about invasion. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Israelistyle Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 Those images made me laugh today after a hard day of school! I think that the Syrian and the Iran army are made both of Russian weapons and tactics. I think that Syria is trieing to adpot there own tactics though. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cabal23 Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 Why did BF decide to go with Syria as the backstory to CM:SF intstead of Iran? Iran has about two times the military potential (regulars and asymmetrical types-- don't they supposedly have a 10,000,000 man "Martyrdom Militia" or some such force?), 3x the population, a heavy dose of mostly conventional military experience from the late '80's, and given the current Realpolitik, much more likely to actually go toe-to-toe with the Western Coalition. Besides, the Russian Federation could get into the act a little more readily (geographically speaking) so we could see a Russian Module with updated equipment uniforms, etc.! :-) So in our make-believe world here, it would be more of a 1st rate military power vs. a 3rd rate (2.5 rate?), rather than 1st rate vs. about 5th rate. That would have been two times the work since they have two times the forces of Syria..so then the game would have taken two times as long to release, with two times as many bugs that takes two times as much time to fix, which pushes out future CM products two times as far out in the production cycle. That's why they didn't choose Iran. Sorry I had to say it. Syria was a ridiculous choice in my opinion. Maybe the temperate climate module will give the coalition forces an actual challenge. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergei Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 That would have been two times the work since they have two times the forces of Syria.. No, not really... the size of an army is no indicator of how complicated it is. As an example, consider how many different types of cannons and howitzers Finnish artillery used during WW2: http://www.jaegerplatoon.net/ARTILLERY1.htm http://www.jaegerplatoon.net/ARTILLERY2.htm http://www.jaegerplatoon.net/ARTILLERY3.htm http://www.jaegerplatoon.net/ARTILLERY4.htm http://www.jaegerplatoon.net/ARTILLERY5.htm http://www.jaegerplatoon.net/ARTILLERY6.htm http://www.jaegerplatoon.net/ARTILLERY7.htm Finland had a small army, yet there's probably more different types of equipment there than many of the big players had. The same goes with aircraft and rifles. There were a dozen or so different variants of Mosin-Nagant rifle alone in use. And THEN there was a score of OTHER rifles... But Syria's military is probably more standardised in their TO&E's than Iran's military. It also can't hurt that there is more information available about it, and what is unknown can be guestimated by comparing to Soviet doctrine. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bigduke6 Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 Eh? If you're talking Tank-type AFVes, Iran has (according to Wiki) * Type 69 * Type 59 * Zulfiqar MBT 1/2/3 * Chieftain; Upgraded to Mobarez. * T-72S; Built under license in Iran * T-72Z/Safir-74/Type T-72Z * T-62 * Tosan; Domestically produced light Tank. * M60A3 * M48 Patton * M47 Patton * Scorpion tank If you're talking PCes, it has: Armored personnel carriers * Type 63 APC * Cobra BMT-2 APC (Iranian Origin) * Boragh APC (Iranian Origin) * M113A1/A2 APC * EE-11 Urutu APC * BTR-80 * BTR-60 * BTR-50 Amphibious APC * EE-9 Cascavel APC * EE-11 Urutu * Type 86 * BMP-1 * BMP-2 And probably most critically for balance issues in a CM-type game against modern US forces, Iran has this fun laundry list of ATGM: Anti-tank missiles * Type 69 RPG * Toophan (reverse engineered TOW missile) * Toophan 2 (reverse engineered American BGM-71 TOW armor piercing) * Toophan 3 (Iranian origin) * Saeghe 1/2 (Dragon) * AT-3 Sagger * AT-4 Spigot * AT-5 Spandrel / Konkurs (built as Towsan-1 or M-113 in Iran) * Saegheh improved version of the RPG-7. * RPG-7 * RPG-29 * MILAN Now, I agree that not having AT-10 and AT-14 is a minus, but somehow I think a US force would treat any opposition armed with TOW II (Toophan 2/3) with some serious respect. Iranian artillery is really cool, a mix of Soviet and US, plus Iranian designs, that mostly MRLS. They have SCUDs galore, among other things. And all of the above is just the regular army. The Revolutionary Guard is its own forces, and best of all they have a special forces that is nice and super secret (Quds Force) so you could assign them anything modern and Chinese/Russian/etc. and make it sound reasonable. The Syrians, in comparison, are a Soviet 1970s-80s export dumping ground force, plus a bit of post-perestroika Russian stuff. Never mind the basic premise of military competence; the Iranians after all fought the Iraqis for a decade, and they're having plenty of fun testing techniques and weapons in insurgencies thoughtfully created by the US all around Iran, that's really convenient for them when you stop and think about it. Water under the bridge of course, Syria got picked and that's that. We looked at both, but Syria actually had a more varied range of equipment at the time with a larger range of AFVs available to them. More importantly they have access to some of the newer Russian ATGMs such as the AT-10 and AT-14 which Iran did not. Iran would likely be more of a threat strategically, but at the tactical level it would likely provide somewhat of a less interesting challenge. Dan 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Splinty Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 I think it's because Iran would have declared a jihad on Steve, Matt, Charles, et al :-) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackMoria Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 It's not the equipment that makes the army, it's what they do with it. While the Iranian weapon inventory might make it look like a good stomping ground for a game, the tactics used by Iran during the Iran - Iraq war was almost WWI vintage. Human wave attacks. Radicalized recruits 'volunteering' to clear minefields by running through them. The question is, what are their tactics now? They didn't evolve them much over the 8 year slugfest they has with Iraq and I suspect they haven't updated them much except to decide to fight an insurgent battle because a straight up fight with western powers wouldn't go well for them. And any lesson learned by Iraq didn't serve them well in the first and second Gulf Wars, where they got their asses handed to them in a decisive fashion. I suspect Iran would fair even worse in a similar matchup. Leadership based on ideology rather than tactical / operational schooling and savvy isn't going to win them many battles. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergei Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 To fully understand Iranian art of war, you need to watch the best film made of modern warfare, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkGiB7zvk40. Granted it was made in Saddam's Iraq, but I'm sure they have given the events just as fair treatment as any Chuck Norris' Vietnam movie. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackMoria Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 Interesting video clip. Did anyone else notice how the 'main characters' all had that Saddam look, complete with cheesy mustache? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kwazydog Posted February 5, 2009 Share Posted February 5, 2009 That would have been two times the work since they have two times the forces of Syria..so then the game would have taken two times as long to release, with two times as many bugs that takes two times as much time to fix, which pushes out future CM products two times as far out in the production cycle. That's why they didn't choose Iran. Err, the physical size of a military has nothing to do with the time it would take to get in gameand the time it would take to debug so sorry, your wrong there. Eh? If you're talking Tank-type AFVes, Iran has (according to Wiki) They do have a odd variety of equipment for sure, but at the time we had to make the descision they didnt have the quantites of those vehicles that would make for a realistic and varied tactical experience. For instance you mentioned a long list of APCs there, but Iran only had a few hundred APCs compared to the thousands that the Syrians have. They also have around half of the the AFVs available, with only a few hundred of those being t-72 or better. As such a large portion of the Iranian infantry you meet would be foot troops with ATGMs and little AFV support. Still interesting in my opinion, but it would provide a smaller variety of tactical situations. I know Kwazydog has already commented, but I'm led to believe that Syria was chosen because it was the most plausible opponent for a near future conflict taking into account events in Iraq. Even so it is only vaguely plausible, but yeah. Yup, this is true too. At the time is seemed like the best option all round... Dan 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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