New scenario Christmas near Khost

[ZPB II]

I just uploaded Christmas near Khost 1.0 to the Repository. It is a medium sized Red combined arms assault against pretty well dug-in Mujs with plenty of support. I would provide screenshots but I only end up with pretty pictures of my desktop, strange. I recommend you play as Red first, even though it is playable as defender. It is playtested rather extensively, I hope no last minute bugs or errors slipped in. I spent a lot of time fine tuning the difficulty, so I am hoping to hear from you guys how it is.

Enjoy.

"24.12.1987, Gardez-Khost road, Afghanistan.

Commander, last night an airborne spetznatz unit was airlifted to occupy the village of Shamal, a strategic location on our advance towards Khost. The raid was halted by a sizeable Mujahideen force and with their Hinds driven off by AA missiles, the troopers dug in. Throughout the day we have been attempting to reach them, but the bad weather forbids future air support and all advances have been futile. Your unit, fresh from the rear and fully supplied, is moved forward in the last attempt to make a breakthrough before the darkness settles again.

Capture the village and the surrounding heights.

Beware, the Mujahideen fighters in this area have had years of time to gather artillery and prepare fortifications. They are highly motivated and well armed."

[LongLeftFlank]

By the way, for extra authenticity, you can call the enemy "Basmachi", "Basmach gangs", "reactionary elements", "bandits / brigands" or "marauders". Soviet-era orders would use "politically correct" jargon.

[ZPB II]

Lovely. I take it the Soviet grunts called their opponents dushman, the West and the opfor themselves Mujahideen and the Soviet political echelon dubbed them"reactionary elements."

I'll make sure to include that in an updated briefing.

I'll release a 1.01 at some point to fix an unfortunate last minute mishap that I'll explain at the bottom below a spoiler line. Might make some balance changes according to feedback, whether the time limit is OK (I found the current time limit to give way to a nice and steady pace of advance without too many luls in the action with some time to spare.) Some voiced an opinion for more Soviet artillery.

SPOILER: A couple of Muj squads that are supposed to appear as reinforcements hadn't been tagged as such and appear in the woods next to the road in the flank of the airborne at the start of the battle. It's only a handful of infantry but it does somewhat affect the already slim life expectancy of the surrounded men.

[Alex]

I think "DUH" = GHOST or "DUHI" (it's mean - "GHOSTS") - the most widespread 'name'

[ZPB II]

So, any comments?

[stikkypixie]

I'll check it out soon (when I have time

[Erik Springelkamp]

Is it suitable for a PBEM game?

[ZPB II]

Is it suitable for a PBEM game?

Yes, haven't played it to the end H2H but can't see why it wouldn't work.

[Erwin]

I tried a few turns of this scenario Zeb, and it is an interesting situation.

What bothered me right at the start was the arty attack on the A/B as set-ups are fixed. Given that this isn't a sudden ambush but something that happened some time ago, you should allow the A/B at least to have a zone of set-up.

I hope you'll do a fix and then I will try it again.

[Erik Springelkamp]

Can you mention a SPOILER when you post things like that, Erwin?

[Erwin]

Sorry about that. (I kinda assumed this was a work in progress.)

[ZPB II]

SPOILERS:

It is intended. This went through numerous revisions and is currently in a state where the airborne troops are obliterated in 15-30 minutes. It is the way it is meant to be, reflecting the brutality of the fighting. The blame is on the commander who authorized the drop on the village without proper support in terrible weather, not the commander trying to relieve them. You do not get penalized for their deaths.

[Erwin]

I see you mean it to be like a historical event, but I suggest that you at least start the game with the A/B in cover.

Otherwise, I felt a bit cheated when I couldn't move them to cover fast enough. Presumably, since they had already been ambushed, they would be in the best defensive positions already.

BTW: Any reason you don't have set-up zones and all units are fixed at the start?

I only played 3 turns, but I liked the situation. I just hope you can at least put the A/B in cover at the start or allow us to set-up as desired.

[ZPB II]

Well, the main force has no set up zone because I felt it would be frustrating for players if they ignored the briefing, deployed at the sides and had 50% of their AFVs get stuck in the snowy woods. The AB not having a deployment I don't really have a specific reason for, I'll give it a look as I release an updated version with some minor bug fixes...It might have something to do with having watched 9th Company recently...

Kind of wrestling for spare time, I have another scenario in the making and I'm brainstorming ideas for a mini-campaign, I got absolutely hooked on How I Met Your Mother and Gossip Girl (lame, I know ), I made a promise to run a half marathon this summer + I happened to run across a very nice girl on NYE that will also take some time away from my CMA duties.

Thanks for the feedback!

[Erwin]

Argh, run from her! Women, the scourge of good time CM play every time!

But, if you simply give the A/B a set-up zone, that would be easy (I hope).

Oooops have ta go, wife watching...

[__Yossarian0815[jby]]

Zeb, Ive just started a PBEM game of this. Feedback will be forthcoming (sooner or later ) )

[ZPB II]

Nice! It is my first scenario so be gentle.

[sawomi]

Many thanks for providing new CMA scenarios. I've just got this sended for H2H and battle is still unfolding. I play the soviet side and I too would have liked to have some small setup space for my airborne troops. I was trying to run the troops on the street and the HQ to other position, but they died in the first moments of the battle, because of 'reactionary elements' opening up at them right from the first second. You should give some little setup-space, or at least warn the soviet player in the briefing about this.

But again many thanks for providing new CMA scenarios. That is much appreciated.

[Erwin]

A set-up area for the A/B is all it would take to make this good scenario appreciably better.

It doesn't seen right that they would be sitting around in the open waiting to be bombarded when there was xnt cover available and they knew they were in a trap.

It actually doesn't matter what may have happened historically. This is not a simulation. Make it a better game scenario.

[ZPB II]

I finally got around to uploading 1.01 to the Repository. I consider it an improvement, much less of a ballbreaker now. Made deployment zones, tweaked artillery behaviour and the AI a bit. Some additional toys to both sides.

I'd say it's a lot more fun now.

In hindsight, it was a mistake rushing this out before my vacation.

[dima]

Great, thanks for sharing the updated version! I actually haven't got to play the original so now will be a good time for me to go straight to your v1.01!

Keep em coming guys!

[Erwin]

oh wow... thanks for getting that out so quickly!

[__Yossarian0815[jby]]

I´m 8 minutes from finishing (the first version of this) in PBEM. Will report back.

[__Yossarian0815[jby]]

Spoiler Warning

I finished the original version of this scenario by PBEM playing the Mujahedeen.

I was solidly trounced. Now to dish out the blame )

The thick haze setting meant that i was completely blind down to below 100m. The soviet tanks OTOH , presumeably due to their IR sights, could often see my troops that were hidden in the woods. Unlike the expectation from the briefing the soviet tanks had no problem with maneuvering in the snow.

Taking out the surrounded soviet airborne in the first 10 minutes was easy but after that all i could do was try to stop the invisible soviet tank army. my worst moment was after the soviets took out my forward units: I gave all my units in the trench on "dushman point" a hide command. despite lying in the trench practically all my men were killed by an unspotted Shilka area firing on them. After this and seeing that my trenches were simply attracting systematic artillery and tank fire i moved most of my troops into the woods. That didn´t help much either, but at least occasionally a RPG units was overlooked by the passing armored juggernaught and I was able to get a few BMP kills (one of them a blind area fire shot), 2 tanks and that shilka. I also tried to get arty strikes on where I expected my opponent to have his infantry concentrated. Judging from the end game screen that was at least partially effective. I tried to flank the armored column with my pickups but they were all spotted and destroyed despite trying to weave through the trees.

Historically I guess it makes sense that a dedicated attack by soviet forces would massacre a guerilla force, so i didn´t feel that it was an "unfair" or unlikely game. Still maybe having a slightly more wrinkly map to give the Muj better hiding opportunities would be nice. Also putting more constraints on the movement of the soviet armored column, i.e having some choke points would make this scenario more fun.

I hope that didn´t sound too negative ) Even though I felt that the game wasn´t going to end well for my forces from quite early on, it was still good fun when I did manage to pick off an enemy vehicle.

[sawomi]

Achtung Spoiler!

I have played the Soviet/DRA-side in this pbem. Very nice scenario. I too had problems to spot the enemy. Mostly I saw some '?' in the woods - too scattered and vague to target with area fire of the tanks or granade lunchers. I basically used the DRA-troops as scouting canon fodder and to clear the trenches. Soviets + vehicles following. The story about dushman-point from my side is, that I actually had nothing spottet. Only the last seconds of the flight-path of some SPG-round that killed some of my leading DRA-soldiers. Carefull examination pointet to dushman-point (the important highest hill in this scenario) as most likely source. So I just gave an area-target for the Shilka. If I had not been told, that it was effective - I would not know.

In the end I was almost out of healthy combat troops, but it was enough to secure the village and last ridge in over-time. Without over-time I think I would have lost, because I only controlled dushman-point when the scenario-time was up.

Snow was not a problem for vehicles. Trick is to just drive with 'move' and 'hunt' command.

Enthralling till the end.