New Scenario - USMC Second Storm

[Paper Tiger]

Late last night a short, but violent, electrical storm prevented US aircraft from flying in support of USMC units operating to the south of Hama. The brief respite it offered provided sufficient cover for units of the 1st Syrian Airborne Mechanized Battalion, based at the airfield to the north, to take up defensive positions to oppose USMC forces advancing from the north west towards the M1 highway in an attempt to cut the city off from reinforcement from the south.

Supported by a couple of platoons of T-72 M1Vs from B Company of the 471 Tank Battalion, at least two platoons of Syrian Airborne Infantry have dug in to defend the Orontes crossings a little over a kilometer west of the north western outskirts of Al Qusayr. Intelligence suggests that the T-72s facing you have probably been upgraded and fitted with NVG gear. The Airborne units are equipped with the BMP-3 which is also fitted with NVGs. While Airborne units are usually equipped with the lethal AT-14, no ATGM assets have been observed in the area. Intelligence believes that whatever ATGM assets they do possess will be deployed further to the south where the terrain is more open.

The outskirts of the town itself are being defended by a company of Infantry from the 181 Reserve Infantry Battalion. They are mostly Green troops with poor equipment and have little motivaton to fight.

Last night's storm may have been a fortuitous occurrence for the Syrians but there's a second storm coming at them from the north west and this time, it's their turn to get their heads down.

This is a 3 HOUR long mission.

You need the USMC Module and the game patched to v1.21.

The map is very large, 2288m x 1248m but the forces for both sides are reasonably small.

There are 5 AI plans for the RED side.

It was designed to be played as BLUE vs RED AI. It may also be playable H2H although it has not been playtested this way. There are seperate briefings and maps for both sides but there are NO BLUE AI plans so it is not playable as RED Human vs BLUE AI. The reason for this being that I have not yet figured out a way to script the AI to overcome the challenges the BLUE player faces in this mission.

USMC Second Storm is my first mission featuring US Marines and the Syrian Airborne Mech Infantry and, if time permits, it won't be my last. I had a LOT of fun designing and playtesting it and I think it's finally good enough to share with you guys. I have given the BLUE side a lot of firepower in the form of artillery, both mortars and heavy artillery, and air support, both helicopters and aircraft. So much so that a victory in this mission seems almost assured. However it won't be that easy as you will be heavily penalised for taking excessive friendly casualties. You cannot afford to take more than 15% casualties while accomplishing your mission. Suffer more and a DRAW will be the best result you can expect.

This means that if you want to win, you will be forced to play at a slower pace than you may be accustomed to and this style of play may not be to your taste. For some of you, the Recon phase may prove to be as about exciting as watching paint dry so if you like to jump straight into the thick of the action when you fire up a mission, this is definitely not one for you. The Recon phase lasts for 15 minutes and it is a very important part of the scenario. Employed carefully and effectively, the limited, but powerful, Recon assets you have available in this phase can smooth the path for the main body later.

I will be very interested to read your impressions of this mission as I am currently creating more missions in this vein for a future campaign. In those missions I want to give BLUE all the firepower he can reasonably expect to have but not to prevent him from employing it effectively by 'painting' all the important defensive terrain with costly PRESERVE terrain objectives. I have tried to use PRESERVE objectives in such a way as to present the player with another level of decision making in the course of carrying out his orders. Hopefully the PRESERVE bonus has been pitched at such a level that it is really worth fighting for but also that the mission can be won without it.

[Frankster65]

Looks very interesting. Loved your campaign "The Road to Dinas."

[Sabot6]

Hello, Paper Tiger--

I've upgraded to 1.21 and have the Marines Module, and I just downloaded "Second Storm" and saved it to my Scenarios file within my Game Files directory. When I try to access the scenario through CMSF, however, it doesn't show up in the game. Additionally, when I checked the "Second Storm" file that had been saved, I noticed that it's an RAR file while all of the other scenarios are BTT files. Is there something I need to do to convert the RAR file to a BTT file? Thanks!

[slug88]

Hello, Paper Tiger--

I've upgraded to 1.21 and have the Marines Module, and I just downloaded "Second Storm" and saved it to my Scenarios file within my Game Files directory. When I try to access the scenario through CMSF, however, it doesn't show up in the game. Additionally, when I checked the "Second Storm" file that had been saved, I noticed that it's an RAR file while all of the other scenarios are BTT files. Is there something I need to do to convert the RAR file to a BTT file? Thanks!

A rar file is a compressed archive, much like a zip file. You need to extract the btt file from within the rar file using winrar. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=winrar

[Sabot6]

Thanks, Slug88--it worked like a charm!

[Wiggum]

--------------------------Possible SPOILER's--------------------------

Wow, great scenario Paper Tiger (like always) !

Those Syrian Airborne guys are stubbornly fighters...

I would say i hate the AGS-17...they are responsible for nearly all of my casualties (4 KIA, 11 WIA).

It was the first time playing CMSF that i came under enemy artillery fire.

Nice idea with the minefields too !

For my taste, the syrians have a bit too much armor standing still the hole time (sure, you can beat them with CAS). Less but more active bmps and tanks would be great.