RAMADI (Iraq): Mother of All MOUT Maps

[LongLeftFlank]

Nah, I'm set thanks. Parlayed all those hours spent staring at thousands of cardboard counters and hexes (large pattern recognition) into a pretty fun career in project finance. But CM makes a nice break.

[snake_eye]

I won’t speak in details about JOKER THREE, having not played it, but just read about it, seen the beautiful, very detailed LLF map and some spectacular screenshots.

From my belief it can perfectly represent a MOUT fight as the one that happen in RL. Ok, there are some obligations due to the CMSF Editor and game possibility. However, they don’t prevent you to use all the MOUT tactical skills you have learned and or read about.

The challenging thing about it if I have well read the post, is to rescue squads without flattening with artillery, helicopters and tanks the area around which, they are pinned down. That is not an unusual thing in RL. Some people have a tendency to think that when soldiers are attacking now days they have all the goodies that armament factories can built. If in a scenario they do have such stuff, it will be more a shoot them up game and in no way, it will be close to the reality of the ROE that you have to follow in RL.

In all wars, when the technical support armament advantage that soldiers might have, can not be deployed in a particular surrounding because of the ROE and that is often the case in a MOUT fight, they are the one going in with what they have best : Their rifle and their training for such eventuality.

As a matter of fact, when you are going into a small village and or a specific area in a town, the tracks are most of the time surrounding the area preventing by their fire capacity, fighters to get out of it and escape. Meanwhile, the soldiers are penetrating into the area to gather intelligence and take prisoners. If they are fired upon, they will engage, eliminate and or push the fighters toward the awaiting tracks.

That you can do in a CMSF scenario and it is very challenging to do it using sound tactical drill within a time limit that can afford such movement.

I think that this will be more than often seen in the coming B-N due to the weapons used, the distances of engagement and the areas chosen, like the restricted “bocages”, causeway with swamps around and small towns. The ROE are not the same, but the tactics are not so different.

You still have two or three squads, a street, a sunken lane, the enemy in front and or on the flanks. We are far away from Stalingrad, do you think, but many fights over there and around involved only few squads fighting for survival among rubbles and they did applied, on either side, sound tactics. You can find some of them in MOUT recommendation written by or for the US ARMY.

For all of these reasons I am sure that LLF did what was right and that he came with the help of the testers close to reality, as far as CMSF can afford it and that we can not denied.

[LongLeftFlank]

Merci bien for your kind words. This is quite correct and I hope to allow you to judge for yourself very shortly before you all relocate to Normandy '44.

I would add two points, both noted by others elsewhere:

(1) the map is key to Ramadi since it offers very few locations other than (exposed) rooftops that can be seen and fired upon from a large part of the map. In most CMSF environments this is not true; BLUE almost invariably can plaster RED almost no matter where he sets up from numerous overwatch points very quickly which makes infantry combat a little dull IMHO unless you massively stack the odds. Or impose the "twitch" constraint of no pausing.

(2) Modern Western infantry very rarely faces situations where time is not on their side. That is what gives historical "rescue" missions like BHD and JOKER THREE as well as some of the Fallujah incidents their drama -- the time pressure. Most actions follow the standard formula: Contact. Dominate. Suppress. Flank. Cordon. Eliminate. And if it takes until sundown, or later, so be it. Spend time and bullets, not blood.

[Erwin]

Re the question re WEGO, I tested in WEGO as that's how I play anything larger than a platoon engagement, and I thought this was eminently suitable for WEGO. One just needs to predict what may happen during 60 secs and plan waypoints and pauses accordingly.

My only comment to LLF was that the set-up positions needed tweaking as one could lose a lot in turn one, and immediately reinforcements arrived, since they were stuck for a minute in WEGO. I think he has tweaked that so am looking forward to trying this scenario again.

[LongLeftFlank]

I think I've addressed this issue fully with the leg infantry. The PORKY 2 Humvees are still sitting on Easy but there shouldn't be an RPG in LOS by the time they appear. I also swapped one of the MMG teams into a M707s so the gunner can fight out the hatch. Silly that you can't do the same with the M114s but there it is.

Erwin, let me know if you want to playtest again and I'll send you the rev2. No obligation though. And if any of the other testers haven't quite gotten around to starting yet, or are otherwise interested, let me know and I'll send you the rev2.

[LongLeftFlank]

btw, I've started work on my second scenario, WICKED WEDNESDAY, based on the historical action of July 14, 2004. Some of the same cast of characters as JOKER THREE are involved, including Army 1/1 BCT commander COL Connor (DEVIL SIX) and 2/4 Marine commander LTC Kennedy (BASTARD SIX). It will be a somewhat smaller scale (1 Army and 1 Marine platoon) and centered on Route Michigan.

[Erwin]

I will always be happy to playtest for you LLF. You have my address.

Thank you.

[LongLeftFlank]

Many thanks to the playtesters who have responded so far. I need to wrap it up though and publish this thing this weekend. Work (the paying kind) is ramping up and I don't want this to go back on the shelf.

So please let me know via email or PM what your ETA is. If you can't finish that's fine - send me whatever comments you can. Thanks!

[Erwin]

Sent you up to 38 mins to go. Will try and finish this week. But, WEGO takes time as I have to see the action from all forces perspective.

[Jingo]

I finished play testing it in real time. I was pausing like every 15 seconds, and it took quite a while to finish up. But it was still a lot of fun and *very* challenging for me (I'm not that good and took a beating even on basic training...15 casualties or so).

I think WEGO is probably the way to go on this map. I want to try WEGO sometime, but need to take a break and blow something up on a wide open map. I feel claustrophobic after fighting my way out of those narrow Ramadi streets.

[Erwin]

I linked up with all JOKER 3 forces between turns 25 and 18 when I guess the game was done and I cease-fired.

But, that didn't improve my Tactical Defeat at turn 25 when one is "advised by the game" to CEASE FIRE. I had 1 KIA, and 16 WIA.

I could have been slower and more careful. A few casualties were from impatience/carelessness and unnecessary. Several of the casualties were from set-up positions so also unnecessary imo. The rest were just luck/bad luck for the guys.

On the whole I thought I did well, but it is a tough and grueling scenario and you can't get impatient or lazy. Ammo discipline was critical.

I learned a whole lot and this will change my style of CMSF MOUT fighting. In particular:

1) You are much safer in the streets than moving through buildings so long as you bound with several teams.

2) Better to move QUICK in short bursts than HUNT.

3) Better to NOT have covered arcs. Use FACE command at waypoints.

I had a great time with this, and appreciate the chance to take it for a test run. Thanks John.

[Jingo]

Great job! I wasn't doing too badly until Joker 3/1 came on board. The entire squad was under heavy fire immediately. By the time I started trying to issue orders to them, they were already breaking and running from the building where they were mowed down to a man. *sniff*

[LongLeftFlank]

Yeah, need to tweak that for the poor WEGO folks. The RT people seem to do much better. I'm probably going to change the location of the lost squads too, so be sure to replay the final edition. Thanks much for your efforts!

[Jingo]

Yeah, need to tweak that for the poor WEGO folks. The RT people seem to do much better. I'm probably going to change the location of the lost squads too, so be sure to replay the final edition. Thanks much for your efforts!

Heh. No, I WAS doing real time. Thanks for letting me playtest. Definitely a wild map! Looking forward to the final.

[meade95]

Been away with work for awhile - Very glad to see this one is finally about to be openly released! Great work LLF!

[LongLeftFlank]

Relief of JOKER 3 is now "final" and available at GreenAsJade's Warehouse. I can't access the Repository.

If there's anything that seems to be broken, please let me know. I hope you all enjoy playing it as much as I enjoyed designing it. Feel free to post AARs, screenies and other comments here (marked SPOILER if appropriate). Playtest results have ranged from total victory (1 casualty) to utter catastrophe (40+ casualties).

Thanks very much to my elite corps of playtesters who were so generous with their time and advice: Abneo3Sierra, AkumaSD, BlackMoria, DanCalifornia, Erwin, Jingo

[CharlieMike24]

Whoopee. Downloading now!

[LongLeftFlank]

Wow, only 13 downloads on the first day. Fewer than I expected.

[Dietrich]

I'll definitely be downloading it later today. So that'll make it 14. =P

Not to put too fine a point on it, but if circumstances had allowed you to release it before CMBN was announced... *shrug*

Whatever the case, thanks very much for your assiduous work, LongLeftFlank; and thanks to the beta testers who helped refine it. *salute*

[Erwin]

Getting it now.

[meade95]

LLF - Just DL, can't wait to try it out tomorrow when I have more time to think through my decisions - Though I have a question when looking via the editor - On your map I don't see any exact "set-up" zones - I was always under the impression that the AI needed / must have a setup zone to start out from. Guess I had this wrong.

[afreu]

Downloading now.

[heer witmann]

I downloaded and put in scenarios and when i go to battle its not there its in the editor and when i open it the map is blank:(

[LongLeftFlank]

I downloaded and put in scenarios and when i go to battle its not there its in the editor and when i open it the map is blank:(

Are you patched to 1.31? ISTR having the same problem when my laptop was still in 1.30.

[LongLeftFlank]

LLF - Just DL, can't wait to try it out tomorrow when I have more time to think through my decisions - Though I have a question when looking via the editor - On your map I don't see any exact "set-up" zones - I was always under the impression that the AI needed / must have a setup zone to start out from. Guess I had this wrong.

Nope, your forces start where they start and you're stuck with that. (EDIT: Oh, you were talking about the RED forces. Hey, no peeking!!!! If you don't identify a setup zone for them they start wherever they've been Deployed)

One lesson I learned the hard way (again and again) -- indecision kills. Whether or not you pause a lot, you must commit to a plan and stick with it. If you enter firefights only half-prepared to win them that's when you lose men. This game brought that lesson home to me that in a way few others have.

Good luck!