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CM:SF Helmand


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Hi all,

I'm watching a news report right now (UK TV Channel 3) which is giving excellent coverage of the current situation in Afghanistan, and it's got me thinking how much I'd love to see modders and scenario designers turning their great talents to this combat theatre. Here are just a few reasons:

1. The US is currently sending thousands of additional troops, mostly Marines, to the province in an effort to "decisively engage" the Taleban once and for all before Western political will melts away.

2. The Brits have just begun "Operation Tiger's Claw" to take the fight to the Taleban, with units such as the "Black Watch" (3rd Battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland) heavily involved.

3. With the imminent release of the British Forces module, we could use CM:SF to simulate combined operations in Helmand involving US Marines and the British Army in scenarios right up-to-date with the current situation. This might seem calous to some but I've never felt this to be disrespectful or anything - If anything it's empathising with our soldiers in the field.

I wonder how possible it would be to mod Syrian forces to approximate the Taleban? It might not be easy to do with the Uncons (typical Taleban dress doesn't fit in with what we've got at the moment in CM:SF). Perhaps Uncon Fighers might be moddable. Syrian regulars could definitely be used as ANA (Afghan National Army) forces though with virtually no modding.

It would also be great to mod some building wall textures into the game to represent those dry mud compounds we see so much of in the news reports.

What do you think?

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Not sure about an absolute requirement to Mod units to be honest. I can live with both the 'Fighter' and the 'Combatant' picks, the former are even dressed in black!

Replicating compound walls is more difficult and we could certainly do with a sandy coloured wall texture.

Google Earth coverage of Helmand has improved recently and there are plenty of resources:

Books:

3 Para by Patrick Bishop

Blood Clot by Jake Scott

3 Commando by Ewen Southby-Tailyour

Ground Truth by Patrick Bishop

Joint Force Harrier by Adrian Orchard

Apache by Ed Macy

Apache Dawn by Damien Lewis

DVD

Ross Kemp in Afghanistan

Ross Kemp Return to Afghanistan

Or just stick something along the lines of 'British Army Helmand' into Youtube.

I'm certainly looking to create some Helmand-style missions.

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Apart from the dry mud walls and buildings the terrain already in CM:SF would do fine for Afghanistan. I just watched a few YouTube videos and the place seems quite green compared to the middle-east - lots of compounds bordered by irrigation ditches, fields of green crops, orchards etc. Of course other areas are quite open but the fighting gets very close up when the troops are searching compounds for Taleban.

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Apart from the dry mud walls and buildings the terrain already in CM:SF would do fine for Afghanistan. I just watched a few YouTube videos and the place seems quite green compared to the middle-east - lots of compounds bordered by irrigation ditches, fields of green crops, orchards etc. Of course other areas are quite open but the fighting gets very close up when the troops are searching compounds for Taleban.

Yeah most of the terrain in the editor means you can do Afghan-style terrain fairly easily. In the early days there were a lot of attacks on the District Centres but now the majority of the fighting is in the so-called Green Zone or attacks on troops approaching the Green Zone with bags of compound clearing.

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Wow, great idea. I have been looking for inspiration anyways. I will do some research. I have a new scenario coming soon called Belly of the Whale based on Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan. The problem is to replicate the actual battle would require a more ...errhhmm...robust program. Once you get to a certain size with this editor it become a giant slow monster that no one can run. I scaled it down to just one mountain and two blocking forces. Also a great read when it comes to Afganistan is Not a Good Day to Die the story of Operation Anaconda.

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As Combatintman suggested, I HIGHLY recommend Ross Kemps videos. They can be found on liveleak and maybe on youtube. You get a great sense of how accurate cmsf is in his documentaries. Note: he has two about afghanistan (at least). One where he follows some Brits from training all the way to the end of deployment and another where he goes back to helmand again. His videos even show maps and strategies. Very good, but you'll shed a tear or two for our British brothers.

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If you want to play in the mountains, then map scale might be difficult. If you want to play in the Green zone, then it shouldn't pose any problems at all.

Is the "Green Zone" so named literally because it's green? All I can find on it is that it's the area on either side of the Helmand river.

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I'd love to see more Afghanistan missions like the thread starter suggested. I've been waiting for this since the game was released. Red vs Red Afghanistan missions in 70's/80's style would be cool too.

Apart from "Ross Kemp in Afghanistan" I can recommend a series called "Commandos on the front line" (or something like that). It focuses on the training of Royal Marines and in later episodes you get to see battles like in Ross Kemp's documentary. I've watched all episodes on liveleak so I guess it is still uploaded there. The series is very similar to "The Paras" from the early 80ies, I used to watch this on youtube but the videos have been removed I'm afraid.

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I've seen all the "Ross Kemp" and "Commandos on the Front Line" videos, and a few more besides! Afghanistan has always interested me more than, say, Iraq. I remember on the day the invasion of Afghanistan began thinking how unreal it all seemed. Having seen what happened to the Russians there I never dreamed we'd end up in the same place!

If we can get a few "mud brick" look mods together the battles for compounds in and around the "Green Zone", with Uncon Fighters representing Taleban and Syrian Regulars representing Afghan National Army, definitely seems doable. I'd even consider modding the "strings" file to change the name "Uncon Fighter" to "Taleban" and modding in an Afghan game menu image.

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Thinking about it, if we could visually mod the Syrian helmets to disappear that they would be almost perfect as ANA as they are (mind you the ANA are starting to swap their AKs now for M-16). Similarly if we lost the helmets for the Syrian Militia pick and changed the uniform tone to grey we could use them as ANP.

The term 'Green Zone' is a reference to the highly irrigated and cultivated areas close to the main river features in Helmand Province. So called because they are green rather than desert.

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When? havent heard anything about that, back in the 1800 or around WWI ?

Actually, both. There were the three Anglo-Afghan wars (as per Wiki, 1839 - 1842, 1878 - 1880, and 1919); plus there were numerous expeditions and actions and minor wars and so forth in Pathan territory now part of Pakistan, but then technically under British contrl. A good examples was the 1897 campaign in Swat valley, where Churchill first got shot at; but sporadic fighting went on much until the British left the subcontinent.

From the Pathan (now they're more properly called Pastho or Pushtuns) point of view, the resistance to British was continuous, lasted over a century, and ended in a hands-down Pathan victory as the of course British left.

Still, give the English credit, as a general policy they tried less to conquer the Pathans as the did just try and keep them up in the mountains and not attacking the lowlanders making the Raj all his money. It wasn't a bad policy as most of the time they were paying off Pathan tribes and playing clans against each other, it wasn't a perfect system but it was a good deal more realistic than say the Soviets, who just decided they could impose their form of government in Kabul and the rest of the Afghans would just love it.

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Can we get back to Helmand in the 21st Century? I haven't seen muskets on the equipment list for the British Module.

Sorry mate but I am continually amazed that people think "History" started on 01 SEP 39 (or even worse 07 DEC 41). :)

Re the muskets, didn't you get the memo?

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Sorry mate but I am continually amazed that people think "History" started on 01 SEP 39 (or even worse 07 DEC 41). :)

Re the muskets, didn't you get the memo?

No problem - its a bit like reading the British Army Review these days - whereby lots of holders of the Queen's Commission (had to get it in) are now writing articles about how we bashed natives on the NW Frontier or got bashed by natives in Afghanistan in the last two centuries in an attempt to prove they understand contemporary Helmand.

Clearly many of them still don't based the mission rehearsal exercise I went on - lots of explaining required to make them understand that the enemy is quite difficult to find when he wants to stay hidden.

The musket thing ... is that what's holding up the release of the module?

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