Map and Scenario Preview (Haswah)

[Clavicula_Nox]

Al-Haswah is a town near Al-Iskandariyah (Alexandria to you English-speaking types) in Babil Province, Iraq. It sits astride Highway 8, aka MSR Tampa, and of it's roughly 6,000 inhabitants, the vast majority are Shiite.

I am currently building a map of the town that will be used by a few scenarios in this campaign I've been working on for some time. "Working on" though, is a relative concept and has generally resulted in the initial stages of map creation, getting bored, and moving on to painting some models. Since the release of my first scenario, I've been pretty motivated to get started on this project again and have decided to jump right in and start working on a large map. In the campaign's timeframe,the 155th Brigade Combat Team out of FOB Kalsu was the primary authority over the town, with BCT elements from FOB Iskan providing support. Haswah was a big hotbed of organized crime, Mahdi Army and Iranian types, and I'm surprised that very few of our fights in this town were publicized, though, at the time, Fallujah was a fairly recent thing, Baghdad was heating up, and 3rd ACR was preparing for Tal Afar, so little old Babil and it's problems were largely ignored.

My intention is to represent the map fairly accurately. I say "fairly" because I know that I've already made several mistakes in scale, and that my road networks aren't completely lining up. But, it will get the point across, and that's enough for me. Also, I will probably have to limit the maps to quarter sections rather than trying to do the entire town + immediate outlaying areas. The preview pictures only show a very small section of what I have done, and the neighborhood represented is a very small section of the overall town.

First, the town in Google Earth:

And a couple of preview pictures:

[Apocalypse 31]

Looking good, man.

I'm trying to make a map of my old stomping grounds on Haifa Street.

[Clavicula_Nox]

A family member was IED'ed there 7 Nov 07 just as they were crossing the bridge (I'm sure you know which one I mean). I never had the pleasure myself, but I bet "exciting" is a word that one could use to describe it.

Say, what is it that drives us to re-create these things? I mean, wasn't once enough?

[Clavicula_Nox]

Another preview shot:

[Delta228]

Looking very good! Keep it up!

[Clavicula_Nox]

This is on hold until I get a new motherboard for my desktop, but besides the 4-6 Haswah maps that I've planned, I intend to map much of Iskandariyah, and several other rural locations and villages in Babil province.

[LongLeftFlank]

Great to see someone working on an Iraq scenario, and I look forward to playing it.

One suggestion though: zoom down to 1200 feet in GoogleEarth and I'll guarantee you that you'll see that a lot of those houses have (high) walls around them, for security (you couldn't rely on police for most of history) and privacy (Muslims....). Those buildings that do face directly onto streets are either shopfronts (shuttered and gated) or have minimal (shuttered) windows on the ground floors. Adding those to your map will change the complexion of the battle a lot, since you're now not just fighting house to house but compound to compound.

This has been an ongoing gripe of mine with CMSF urban scenario design, and one that I've commented on numerous times before (and been supported by players who have spent time in Iraq). The single biggest missing terrain feature IMHO (even more important than car/truck flavour objects) is the lack of a gate (door) in the high wall (either you have to leave a huge gap an AFV can fit through) or no gate at all.