RAMADI (Iraq): Mother of All MOUT Maps

[Erwin]

I prefer the large scenarios and can't imagine being able to play larger scenarios using any mode than WEGO.  Looking forward to your new effort.

BTW:  I would have thought that many designers would jump on the current Mosul op for a scenario or campaign.  Is there some issue?

[Blazing 88's]

1 hour ago, Erwin said:

I prefer the large scenarios and can't imagine being able to play larger scenarios using any mode than WEGO....

+1 and strictly WEGO for this cat.  There are FPS's, CMANO or the Total War series for real time gaming if I want that itch satisfied.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

I play on a case by case basis, some scenarios work better in one mode than another.....This is really noticeable in the CM:A campaign Salang Blues, on WEGO it's a total nightmare after a while, but in real time it's much more playable.  It's one of the things I'm testing in my own efforts, do strategies that work in real time also work in WEGO?  If they don't I'll try to adjust the timing of events to make them at least reasonably possible as I know this is a very popular format for players of the game.

Edited February 17, 2017 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Combatintman]

3 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

I play on a case by case basis, some scenarios work better in one mode than another.....This is really noticeable in the CM:A campaign Salang Blues, on WEGO it's a total nightmare after a while, but in real time it's much more playable.  It's one of the things I'm testing in my own efforts, do strategies that work in real time also work in WEGO?  If they don't I'll try to adjust the timing of events to make them at least reasonably possible as I know this is a very popular format for players of the game.

Absolutely - this is something I have also learned in my long journey as a scenario designer.  Whatever you design should be playable in both WEGO and RT.  I generally check AI plans in WEGO because you can quickly click through the turns.  Once I'm happy they work, I then do most of my testing in RT followed by a final test in WEGO.  I think this is more important in CMSF than the newer titles because the player has less control over units (eg no 'Target Briefly' command).  This was particularly important in the NEPTUNE SPEAR mission, because while the compound assault is easy for the player to manage in RT, it is more tricky in WEGO.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

I still didn't play it.....Was testing my own scripts until the wee small hours. 

I will do so though.....I promise!  Even though I think it's a total fairytale! 

[Combatintman]

11 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

I still didn't play it.....Was testing my own scripts until the wee small hours. 

I will do so though.....I promise!  Even though I think it's a total fairytale! 

The preferred term is 'design decision' .

[Sgt.Squarehead]

I know.....The whole 'getting him out of the freezer' scenario is really difficult to implement in CM:SF. 

Edited February 17, 2017 by Sgt.Squarehead

[MOS:96B2P]

1 hour ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

<sNIP> The whole 'getting him out of the freezer' scenario <Snip> 

So as to put him on ice .........................    Sorry, couldn't help it.  

[Sgt.Squarehead]

But, but.....He's gone green! 

Apparently after burial he was renamed Bob. 

[LongLeftFlank]

On Sunday, August 25, 2013 at 7:09 PM, LongLeftFlank said:

WICKED WEDNESDAY. Ramadi, Anbar Province, IRAQ, July 14, 2004.

The first two weeks of April 2004 had been a watershed moment in the fortunes of the American-led occupation of Iraq. To the ill-disguised glee of opponents of the invasion, the ferocious Sunni insurgent attacks across Anbar Province, and the simultaneous eruptions by Shia followers of cleric Muktada al-Sadr, seemed to have at last laid bare the Bush-Blair lies of "Mission Accomplished", as well as the fiction that transition from occupation to a civilian Iraqi authority was either imminent or popularly supported. In short, Iraq policy had become a plaything of election year politics.

With the siege of rebel-held Fallujah now called off under intense political pressure, the Marine First Division hastily rethought its strategy in Anbar. The Marine-led "community policing" approach (No Better Friend: No Worse Enemy) of deploying light infantry patrols into restive urban areas had ended in near-disaster. Allied forces now reverted to the Army's post-Mogadishu approach of (fortified) camps, checkpoints and cordons, with carefully planned forays into insurgent areas conducted only by company-scale-plus forces, supported by armor and air power.

The insurgents too, had paid a terrible price for their propaganda victories. Hundreds of eager but poorly trained jihadis now lay in mosques awaiting burial, stacked like cordwood in bloodstained sheets. Even when surprised and outnumbered, the despised Americans had quickly regained initiative and massive fire superiority. The key to final victory, insurgent leaders knew, was in killing white men; few other metrics mattered. But it was now clear that this would not be accomplished through sustained infantry attacks, but rather by hit-and-run ambush, sniping, mortar attacks and above all, mine warfare.

Yet with transition back to Iraqi rule inevitable, ready or not, Coalition troops were not to be allowed to abandon the seething cities altogether -- Fallujah aside, where a farcical "truce" was in place. 1st Marine Division CO, MJG Mattis tersely laid out the political imperatives during a visit to the weary 2/4 Marines at Combat Outpost at the eastern edge of Ramadi. “If we don’t hold the Government Center and the provincial capital, the rest of the province goes to hell in a handbasket.” Victory could be achieved “if we can get the Iraqis to work with us. They don’t have to love us."

Thus, Allied forces -- Iraqi police and hastily trained National Guardsmen "supported" by Marines -- had no choice but to fortify largely symbolic government "offices" in the center of hostile cities like Ramadi. These isolated garrisons needed supply of course, and it was the supply routes that were most vulnerable to attack, a fact not lost on the enemy.

The remainder of April was fairly quiet as both sides regrouped, but in May a spate of IED attacks struck at the "Boxcar" and "Dagger" convoys and the mobile Marine patrols protecting them, killing a number of personnel. The uparmoring of the Humvees and trucks that were the Marines' primary transport, long overdue, was ongoing, in spite of a press and Congressional outcry, plus heroic improvization by maintenance crews.

In June, with the transition imminent, 2/4 Marines discontinued most of its patrols inside Ramadi and instead set up static OPs to prevent IEDs being planted along main highway Route Michigan. Now it was the insurgents who took the initiative; on June 21 four Marine snipers were killed in their OP by Iraqi "allies". Three days later, two Iraqi police stations were overrun and blown up, possibly with the connivance of the policemen. An assault on the Anbar Governor's mansion was foiled by Marines.

Nonetheless, the transition went ahead as scheduled and by the end of June, a new "normal" had settled into place again in the battered center of Ramadi. The fortified OPs were keeping the supply routes under nonstop surveillance. Also, Marine / SEAL sniper units moving unpredictably from spot to spot, taking a heavy toll of trained insurgent snipers and IED minelayers. Potent Marine quick response forces (QRFs) in uparmored vehicles, backed by Army Bradleys and M1A1 tanks, were becoming well versed in responding to any attack on the OPs.

Therefore, in July the Saddam loyalist officers who directed the dominant insurgent factions in Ramadi changed tactics yet again.

At 1230 hours on July 14, 2004, COL Connor (DEVIL SIX), CO of US Army 1st Brigade Combat Team responsible for the entire sector from Ramadi to Fallujah, was driving west along Route Michigan when his security column was struck by an IED near the Saddam Mosque. This was followed by a fusilade of RPG shots and small arms fire. At the same instant, the nearby Marine squad (Engineers of JOKER 4/1, 2/4 Golf) at the "Ag Center" OP (really an Islamic law library) also came under fire. Within minutes, the day's QRF -- the battered Marine veterans of JOKER TWO, 2/4 Golf -- was rolling out of Combat Outpost in platoon strength, followed by Army Bradleys of 1/16 Mech ("Iron Rangers") from Camp Corregidor, farther east.

Meanwhile, a kilometer north, 2/4 CO LTC Kennedy (BASTARD SIX) was visiting Ramadi Hospital. Upon hearing the firefight, he and his escort, the 27 Marines of Mobile Assault Platoon 1 (MOBILE ONE, 2/4 Weapons Co.) under SSGT Drake, instantly mounted up and rode to the sound of the guns. As the gigantic Saddam Mosque loomed into sight ahead, the streets of Ramadi's normally bustling industrial area, the Marines noted tensely, were utterly deserted.

At long last, I am looking into resuming work on Ramadi, for as long as my elderly Dell laptop can take it.  No promises on timetable. This action is interesting to me because like JOKER 3, it requires the player to unite separated small forces to relieve a pinned down unit, and to fight off insurgent attacks from many directions while keeping friendly casualties minimal.  But it's more vehicle (Humvee) based than the JOKER 3 scenario.  And the enemy is better prepared.

For further background, Oliver North did a series for Fox on 2/4 Marines, and was actually present during the July 14 2004 action.  Starts at minute 9:10 although the entire 42 minute piece is worth watching.

 

[Erwin]

LLF:  Very glad you will do another version using your superb map.  Looking forward to it.

The first half of the video is interesting.  Then it gets into how confident the US forces are that the Iraqi troops can take care of themselves and their country.  This was 2004 b4 ISIS.  So sad...

Edited March 12, 2017 by Erwin

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Will be fascinated to see how you proceed. 

[LongLeftFlank]

Job 1 in doing a historically faithful tactical action is to trawl the internet for AARs. Ollie North's video above is obviously a key source for the Marines of MAP-3; there are others too I'll post in a moment. But the view from Col Connor's trapped unit isn't so easy to find. Until.... 

http://cgsc.cdmhost.com/cdm/ref/collection/p4013coll13/id/16

"Sergeant James Henry... went to Iraq with the 1st Infantry Division. As an E-5, he served on the personal security detachment of Colonel Buck Connor at Camp Junction City in Ar Ramadi. Along with nine others of his security team, Henry received an Army Commendation Medal with "V" Device for Valor for his efforts in a closed ambush and in the attendant two-hour firefight. Improvised explosive devices posed a constant threat during his deployment: "I want to say once every other week, probably. These weren't always close. There were some not-so-big ones, but probably a good 10 to 15 real memorable ones." 

While I was over there, we did mounted and dismounted patrols,  basic security for the commander, the sergeant major and other VIPs...  Colonel Buck Connor. We would mount up. We had six vehicles, two teams. So whichever team's turn it was to go out, we would escort him to where he wanted to go, provide security while rolling obviously, and then when he got out of his truck and wanted to walk around, we would have our dismount crews walk with him to make sure he was secure.  

One in particular I was awarded for. We were returning from a meeting, one of the routine meetings, and we were ambushed by the enemy. It was a closed ambush, meaning it was blocked on both sides. This particular engagement went on for probably a good two hours. We were receiving constant fire. 

They took out one of our front vehicles with an IED. So, immediately we stopped and started engaging the enemy. They started shooting at us from the rooftops. What made this a closed ambush was they set up a VBIED [Vehicle-Borne Improvised Explosive Device], which is a car bomb. I want to say a quarter of mile ahead of us, another a quarter mile [400m] behind us. They had two of them. What this did was, it kept us in our area and it kept people from coming to help us.

I was dismounted at the time. So, I was running through buildings and clearing buildings. We killed, I want to say, 15 to 20 that day when they found the bodies. We didn't lose a single person. Our crew, our dismount team, consisted of about 10 people.  We knew our drills. Better fire power. 

We had our M-16s obviously. We had some AT-4s, which are rocket launchers. We had Mk-19 grenade launchers. Probably our most effective weapon during that firefight was the .50 caliber machineguns, M-250s."

Henry is one squared away sergeant; no wonder DEVIL SIX kept him close. Short of a map, he gave me everything I need to know to model his part of the action. The rest I can deduce from map work.

[LongLeftFlank]

Here's the assembled background on the MAP-3 action on the other side of Saddam mosque from DEVIL SIX, from quality sources:

[Oliver North] SSGT Drake: "We received a call while we were at the hospital with the battalion commander that the brigade commander had been hit by an IED and was taking fire and they were forced to respond. We hurried to their location, became engaged behind the [mosque] and took heavy fire for over four hours."

At a Y-intersection, his platoon received gunfire from the north. The unit divided into two sections and engaged their attackers. The battle lasted about 4-½ hours, during which 12 members of the insurgent "Coalition of Iraqi National Unity" were killed, four were wounded and 15 were detained.  Remarkably, only two Marines were hurt during the fight, and none were killed. "This was a remarkable effort, and it was led by Staff Sgt. Michael Drake," said North.

Two heavily armed AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters and fixed wing aircraft... provided air support. Backed up by armored Humvees and Bradley fighting vehicles US Marine and Army infantry men slugged it out... house to house and room to room. By the time it was over a dozen enemy combatants were dead, four were wounded and taken prisoner and fifteen others were detained. Nearly one hundred enemy weapons and truckloads of ammunition and explosives were captured. During the fight eleven Marines were wounded. These included Capt. Mark Carlton, the Fox Company commander [BADGER SIX], who suffered scores of shrapnel wounds from an enemy RPG.

Further notes from video narration:

- 120 degree heat.

- Kennedy and North were with officers of 2/5 Marines due to take over in September

- was 5 minutes north at hospital
- Began receiving RPG rounds near Saddam Mosque
- Lt Crawford commands MAP-3 (WHISKEY 3)
- Whiskey SSG Drake maneuvered on the ambush
- Direct fire from rooftops pushing south, engaged north.
- 21 enemy KIA
- Coalition of Iraqi National Unity political party HQ was base for ambush

http://www.1stmardiv.marines.mil/News/News-Article-Display/Article/540728/marines-battle-back-enemy-after-ambush-in-ar-ramadi/

"Ramadi was like a ghost town July 14, and that's never a good sign. Anti-Iraqi fighters detonated an improvised explosive device near Saddam's Mosque in the city, hitting a convoy from Army's 1st Brigade Combat Team. [SGT] Anthony and other Marines from 2nd Battalion's Mobile Assault Company and Company G were called to reinforce the soldiers. "Devil 6," the 1st BCT convoy carrying the brigade's commander, was attacked with the homemade bomb at about 12:30 p.m. Shortly after, anti-Iraqi forces opened up on the soldiers with rifles, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and other small arms.

The attack occurred along main supply route Michigan, which is an important transportation route for Coalition Forces operating in and around Ar Ramadi. "We were escorting our battalion commander to the hospital when we heard on the radio that Devil 6 got hit," said Staff Sgt. Michael P. Drake, platoon sergeant for Mobile Assault Platoon 1. "The commander wanted to go over there and see what was going on." Drake and his 27-man platoon loaded up their vehicles and drove about a half mile toward the firefight, but they didn't make it to Devil 6 right away. "There was no traffic,' said Anthony from Roseburg, Ore. "There were no people. It was just dead." The lack of people in the city's busy industrial area was a telltale sign something was wrong. Drake knew something "very bad" was going to happen as they approached Devil 6's location because the road had been blocked off with concrete blocks and tires. "We knew we were about to get ambushed," the Charleston, Ill., Marine said. "We just didn't know where it was going to come from."

The Marines could hear gunfire coming from a little further up Michigan, but they couldn't see any enemy activity. They continued to push forward and that's when Drake said all hell broke loose. Enemy fighters began firing at the platoon. "We couldn't tell where the firing was coming from because the sound ricocheted off the walls and buildings," Anthony said. "It was like it was coming from all around." Immediately, the Marines set up a 360-degree security perimeter and searched for enemy positions on the rooftops. "I pulled my vehicle off the road into a parking lot and about thirty seconds later, I saw seven or eight explosions where we had just been," Anthony explained. "That's when I saw two guys looking over a wall on a roof across the street." Anthony used the scope on his rifle to make sure the men were armed. The two men were ducking in and out of a bunker fortified by sandbags. The gunner on Anthony's vehicle aimed in with his .50-caliber machine gun and "lit up the building." As he sent a wall of lead to the rooftop fighters, the other Marines also laid down suppressive fire with their M-16A4 service rifles.

"They were firing from booby trap holes in the buildings," said Lance Cpl. Justin C. Hairston, heavy machine gunner. "They could see us, but we couldn't see them." Hairston was manning an M-K19 automatic grenade launcher on top of a humvee. The vehicle's driver positioned the truck so Hairston could get a clear shot of the rooftop.... about 250 yards from where the Marines were positioned. The bunker was destroyed and the ammunition on the roof began to ignite.

As the Marines fought with anti-Iraqi fighters along Michigan, a platoon-sized element from Company G was making its way to the battle. The company was ambushed southeast of where Devil 6 was pinned down. At the same time, a quick reaction force from 1st BCT was also headed to the firefight. "The worst of the fighting only lasted about thirty minutes," Anthony said. "Maybe it was only fifteen minutes. I really can't remember. Time seems to speed up when you're out there."

By the time the Marines from Company G arrived, most of the fighting had died down, but there was still firing coming from the same building across the street. The Marines continued to engage the enemy fighters. The Company G Marines then cleared the building. "Apparently when they went inside, the guys inside put their hands on their heads and gave up pretty fast," Anthony explained. "We put so much firepower into that building they were scared not to give up." The Marines detained 15 men who were holed up inside the building. They also found a large cache of weapons, computer gear, body armor and communications equipment.

Twenty-one enemy fighters were killed and four were wounded during the battle. The Marines and soldiers accomplished all of this without taking any serious casualties. After the fighting ended, Marines and soldiers spent the next four hours clearing some of the surrounding buildings but found nothing. They loaded up the detainees and seized weapons and headed back to the camp here. "

And here's what actually held up the Golf QRF coming from the east:

http://jarheadjournal.blogspot.com/
July 14 2004 Cpl Halladay, 2/4 Golf
" On July 14th, I took my squad out of the lines and conducted a patrol to relieve the squad that was on post at the Ag Center. We took over the Observation Post at around 1100. Around 1230, we received a call over the radio that an Army convoy was to be moving past our location on its way back to Junction City. Just as the convoy moved out of our line of sight an IED went off where the convoy should have been. 

As soon as the bomb went off, all civilian traffic, pedestrian and vehicle, stopped and got out of the area. One of my squad members told me there was a car speeding around the corner and heading for the stopped convoy. I told him to give him a warning shot in the windshield. The driver didn't stop and I shouted, "Light him up!" He and I fired several rounds into the car. It stopped in front of the soccer stadium across the street and the driver got out holding his side and staggered off the street. As soon as he stepped onto the sidewalk, gunfire erupted around us. We were taking fire from all directions and immediately called in the QRF. 

.... We were keeping the enemy from advancing on our position and were able to pin enough of them down for the QRF to flank them. Unfortunately, the QRF had stopped across the street because of the suspected VBIED that was still in the middle of the road. 

I tried to signal them that it was clear, but by this time they had also come under fire from the north. A secondary QRF was rolled out and pushed south to rout the enemy there. The initial QRF pushed the enemy in the north back and moved to the west to link up with the Army convoy. The battle lasted for more than 2 hours and we had killed or wounded more than 30 insurgents and captured 5 others. There were no Marines injured." 

Again, all I need now is map work to pin out the battle space. 

[LongLeftFlank]

ERRATA: Delete the paragraph above about the air support and Bradleys etc. That is from the following week's action on July 21st.  

I really don't like this new Forum format btw; it does weird things to my fonts and I can't save edits to posts (the button literally doesn't work on my android device). Fix or sumfink?

[LongLeftFlank]

On 6/19/2010 at 11:42 AM, LongLeftFlank said:

And if you want to check up on my attention to detail, here's a nice 2008 aerial photo of the same complex taken by a Marine helicopter.

 

Next step: battlespace. Saddam mosque sits smack dab in the middle of the map, keeping the two US groups out of visual contact. MAP-3 is nearest the camera on "Racetrack" while DEVIL SIX hit an IED just before the road (ASR Michigan) branches beyond the water tower (just out of photo top left).

Entering or damaging Saddam Mosque is strictly against ROE, even if moojies are shooting you from there. I will find some fiendish way to smite those players who dare profane it with their infidel Crusader boots (that's a later scenario, btw).

[LongLeftFlank]

By the way, I noticed that while the Wikipedia page(s) on the Ramadi occupation are still pretty fragmentary (maybe I'll take that project up at some point lol), the home page on Ramadi city has added a 2008 beautiful high res aerial panorama of the north Ramadi suburbs, looking east along Route Nova. This area isn't on my map, but if you zoom in you will see some sterling examples of the residential rowhouse compounds I attempted to replicate on large sections of my Ramadi map.  Many of the houses are mansions though -- this was clearly a wealthier section of town, presumably prized real estate due to the greenery and low density population in the palm groves along the Euphrates.

One thing I also notice though is the propensity of even well off folks to accumulate large heaps of trash and rubble in their yards. Some of this is a function of irregular services during the siege, but as a resident of a poor country (Philippines, where families still live in garbage dumps) I can tell you much of it is just traditional people not fully adjusted to the modern luxury of efficient mechanized trash removal.  It also led American troops to view the local people with disdain ("don't these people care about living in a dump?").  So look for a lot more trash and rubble tiles scattered around my submaps....

 

Edited March 16, 2017 by LongLeftFlank

[LongLeftFlank]

So, battlespace. 

Here's the northeast quadrant of my full Ramadi map, but after reading the AARs, I can see already I need to build out some more blocks to represent the area of engagement properly.  You can see the space I have added to my master with a couple of road outlines roughly sketched out.

[LongLeftFlank]

.... As we read in the AAR, both US forces were ambushed, the Army column in a planned hit, the Marines more impromptu.

1.  DEVIL SIX was caught in a "closed ambush", bottled up both by the need to guard the immobilized humvee (and its stranded crew -- plus we don't need still more Al Jazeera footage of Arab crowds joyously torching a US vehicle) and by the (suspected) presence of two VBIEDs a quarter mile ahead and behind.  The IED went off just before ASR MICHIGAN branches at the water tower, and the other 3 humvees are strung out behind -- about a 200m stretch, engaging the ranged pot shots coming down Michigan in defilade and trying not to get keyholed by RPGs from the adjacent alleys and rooftops.  15 shooters probably aren't enough to clear the houses until help arrives, so it's pretty hairy.  But of course that's all your call (and what CMSF is really all about).  Just be advised that if you're wrong, tomorrow's WaPo headline will read that the brigade commander is KIA or worse, a hostage.

So I am pushing the Michigan strip a further 200m to the east, with more of the Mulaab residential blocks you've come to love from JOKER 3 to the south and a mash of shopfronts and workshops / open yards in the industrial estate to the north.  This also allows me to put the hotel that later became OP HOTEL (aka "the Ramadi Inn") further east, nearer to its historical location.

2.  MAP-1 (I misnamed it MAP-3 above) didn't get an IED, but was hit by a shower of RPGs and grenades as it rolled past an enemy building complex at the Y intersection (where Racetrack runs into the mosque).  SGT Drake has 27 shooters in 2 elements, plus various officers who are riding along, so he has a few more tactical options than does SGT Henry; plus, the kill sack isn't as well defined. However, he's under close attack from all sides, and defining the enemy centre of resistance -- what to flank and kill, per Marine SOP -- is going to be tough.  And remember, you need to do all this with no body bags.  Especially not Ollie North and his FOX camera crew.

The column's 2 elements are strung out along several hundred meters of road, but I don't have patience to build yet more blocks of look-alike residential housing to the north. So I will likely depart slightly from history and stick MAP-1 in the east west street running parallel to MICHIGAN.  Same tactical position, just the wrong street.

 

 

 

[Combatintman]

@LongLeftFlank good luck with your endeavours - I particularly admire your efforts to keep developing the map. When I opened the map for the first time I thought 'holy moley he must have lost his mind putting this together'.  I look forward to seeing your efforts. 

[LongLeftFlank]

Nah, truth be told I actually find mapmaking and scenario design more fun than actually playing.  It's been several years since I last sat down with it though, so a little rusty.  I decided not to build anything north, so contented myself with pushing Route Michigan another 200m east, relocating COP HOTEL (it wasn't occupied as yet at the time of this action), plus a couple of additional Mulaab city blocks, including a block of apartments.  See screenie looking southwest.  Everything this side of those long sheds (that's a cement batch plant btw, with a gravel heap etc.) is new.

Edited March 18, 2017 by LongLeftFlank

[LongLeftFlank]

OK, with map and battlespace squared away (for now), time to pick and deploy forces.

I decided on 5 Humvees for the DEVIL SIX column, of which 1 has a .50 cal HMG and the other a M240 -- that's the ambushed unit's fire support, unless you find a target for a LAWS.  This includes a GAZ jeep which I will reskin as a Humvee (but that's optional). Of course this vehicle is unarmoured -- that was still true of a lot of Humvees in 2004 -- but it carries 8 passengers instead of 4/5.  Clearly, it won't be doing much in the firefight other than staying out of harm's way, like the other 2 unarmed Humvees (one of which is immob).

I also decided to add 2 unarmed civilians (Spies) plus 3 special operators from Triple Canopy who happened to be riding back to base with Colonel Connor when the column got hit. These contractors are training pro-government Iraqi fighters, so they've gone native -- so I'm using Syrian Special Forces for them.  But they're Elite ex-SFers.

Initial deployment: When the scenario opens, the lead humvee has hit an IED and is immob in the open. Rockets are starting to come in, so the crew has bailed and is hunkered down next to the vehicle.  The rest of the column has promptly executed its standard 360 contact drill, which not being a veteran I am just guessing at here -- so actual vets ***please*** chime in.  I will give the player the ability to reposition at setup if he has a better idea.  The primary menace here is RPG rockets.

1.  So the two guntrucks are back to back, facing each direction, with the M2HB engaging the incoming pointing down past Saddam Mosque.  The other 2 vehicles are pulled into the comparative shelter of walls opposite and the crews have dismounted.  After the April 4 2/4 Echo fiasco, everybody fights dismounted except guntrucks.   All vehicles have chosen spots that avoid being keyholed by rocketmen deep in the alleys (red arrows).

2.  The dismounts are covering their alleys but also keeping an eye on the upper building storeys opposite them -- (2),(3) for example.  If enemies show up there, they will light them up while the GIs on the other side assault the building.  But you don't have enough men for too many clearances.  And it might not be a great idea to wander too far away from the vehicles before help arrives.   But that's Army SOP -- the Marines think a little differently of course....

3.  Lastly, Buck Connor has taken cover with the civilians in an unoccupied shop (1).  If the big dog gets KIA, you lose this scenario automatically, so don't take chances with him.....

I hope this is interesting to the few who are reading this, btw.  I was so fascinated with Combatintman's various works that it pulled me back into CMSF after a long absence.   And maybe my resumption of efforts here will help persuade the good folks at BFC to do a CMBS War on Terror module where we can bootstrap all this great content.... 

 

[LongLeftFlank]

And this heeyah is the Marine impromptu relief column, MAP-1, moving in two elements.  The second includes the 2/4 command personnel, BASTARD SIX and the S-5, as well as 2/5 officers doing a left-seat/right seat drive and Oliver North and his film crew. I am still noodling the specifics of the ambush by the 1920 Brigades and will limit spoilers here.

I spent a few hours playtesting the siege of DEVIL SIX.  It's quite tense, and I haven't even programmed maneuver plans for the uncon RPG gunners yet.  Key lesson so far -- don't go anywhere unless it's in squad strength (not so easy, as you have a lot of 2 man sections).  Also, as we know, the armed humvees are NOT guntrucks. Guntrucks (with turrets providing the gunner all-round protection) didn't start showing up until late 2004.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Love what you are doing and really appreciate the detailed descriptions.....The current map looks narrower north-south than the version from the repository? 

Edited March 18, 2017 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Erwin]

Looks v good LLF.