Red Flag Scenario: The Battle for Fulda (WIP)

toonces · Post by **toonces** » 2009-04-11 02:24:47

Hi all.

Now that I'm settled down after my move and computer crash, I've resumed work on this idea I had for a Nevada scenario.

The idea of this is to put together a semi-historical scenario from the cold war, set in the training environment of Nevada. The scenario I'm working on borrows heavily from several boardgames and books I have that discuss the Warsaw Pact invasion of Germany in the late 70's to early 80's. The Order of Battle for the scenario will be relatively accurate, within the constraints of Falcon and fun gameplay. However, since this is a war that never occurred, and it is set in Nevada rather than Europe, I'm taking liberties where I feel they are appropriate. As always, I welcome comments or criticisms.

This is totally a work in progress. I have a semi-working ground war, but it still needs alot of work.

The end product will have a full manual with a discussion of the scenarios, OOB, design notes, storyline, etc. If Derstef is reading, this is what I want to do for the Taiwan theater at some point.

Ok, here's what I have so far. I'm still working on the air OOB- I have some sources enroute.

*************************************************************************************************************

First, an overview of the scenario and training areas.

This is the area of Germany that the Red Flag scenario is based upon. The references I have place the 11th ACR split among Fulda, Bad Kissengen, and Bad Hersfeld. The Soviet army starts in the vicinity of Erfurt. From what I have been able to find so far, the battle should start with the opposing forces about 30 miles apart.

The Nevada area centered around Las Vegas shows many similarities to the Fulda Gap region. In Germany, the E40 travels west to Bad Hersfeld before hooking south to Fulda. In Las Vegas, the WP units must travel south down SR 127 before hooking east on I-15. Additionally, in Germany the Hof Gap region provides a secondary route along the E-48, while in Nevada I-40 through Searchlight provides a secondary route to Las Vegas.

The hypothetical Germany invasion would have units of the Soviet 8th Guards Army flowing along E-40, and the Soviet 1st Guards Tank Army along the Hof Gap region.

In Nevada, the 8th Guards Army attacks along the I-15 corridor and the 1st Guards Tank Army attacks along I-40.

I don't have the OOB completely fleshed out yet. The 1st Guards Tank Army is still a skeleton. Additionally, I need to add alot of the artillery.
I want to simulate special forces capturing most of the nodes and bridges between Barstow and Las Vegas. This is currently accomplished with Spetznaz forces that begin on certain objectives.
The Polish 6th Guards Army (currently depicted incorrectly as the 1st Guards Tank Army) is in the western region securing certain objectives around Ft. Irwin and Barstow.

The 1st Guards Tank Army (not shown) is attacking towards Twenty-nine Palms (Shweinfurt to Bad Kissengen region in Germany) along I-15.

A fictional garrison force is currently occupying areas around Los Angeles until I can figure out correct forces to place, and can figure out how garrison forces impact ground movement with my attacking forces.

Here is a portion of the manual- it is just a skeleton of the OOB and a quick background. The next version will be alot fluffier.

Red Flag
The Battle for Fulda Scenario

Background

During the 70’s and 80’s, the armies of NATO and the Warsaw Pact faced off across the East and West German border. One area certain to be in the middle of a war between the two alliances was the Fulda Gap region of West Germany. In this small frontage, the forces of the Soviet 8th Army, 1st Guards Tank Army, and East German 3rd Army were opposed by the U.S. Fifth Corps. The U.S. 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment was the Fifth Corps’ blocking unit, destined to play a crucial role delaying the Soviet onslaught while NATO forces ramped up.

This Red Flag scenario provides a training environment in which this scenario is recreated. Two versions are provided: a U.S. vs. Aggressor version that pits current U.S. aircraft against U.S. aircraft simulating Soviet forces in the Aggressor role; and a version that pits U.S. aircraft against historical Soviet aircraft.

The goal of the Soviet player is to capture Fulda, represented by Las Vegas.

The goal of the U.S./NATO player is to prevent the capture of Fulda/Las Vegas.

Ground Order of Battle (**updated 4-28-09)

The following forces are represented in the two scenarios:

NATO

V Corps
11th ACR (11 Div)
1st Squadron (1 Bde)
A-D Troops (1-4 Bn)
2nd Squadron (2 Bde)
E-H Troops (1-4 Bn)
3rd Squadron (3 Bde)
I-L Troops (1-4 Bn)
** 41st Artillery Group

3rd Armored Division (3 Div) (Reserves D+12 hours)
1st Armored Brigade (1 Bde)
2-36 Mechanized Infantry Battalion (1 Bn)
3-36 Mechanized Infantry Battalion (2 Bn)
2-32 Armored Battalion (3 Bn)
2-33 Armored Battalion (4 Bn)
3-33 Armored Battalion (5 Bn)

West German 3rd Army
Territorial Forces
16th HSK Brigade (16 Bde)
161 Jager Battalion (161 Bn)
162 Jager Battalion (162 Bn)
163 Jager Battalion (163 Bn)
164 Jager Battalion (164 Bn)

Warsaw Pact

Soviet Forces

8th Guards Army
20th Guards Motor Rifle Division (20 Div)
55th Guards Motor Rifle Regiment [GMRR] (55 Bde)
1-5 Bn
57 GMRR (57 Bde)
1-5 Bn
60 GMRR (60 Bde)
1-5 Bn
20 Guards Tank Regiment [GTR] (20 Bde)
1-5 Bn

57th Guards Motor Rifle Division (57 Div)
170th GMRR (170 Bde)
1-5 Bn
172nd GMRR (172 Bde)
1-5 Bn
174th GMRR (174 Bde)
1-5 Bn
57th GTR (57 Bde)
1-5 Bn
128th Artillery Regiment
1-5 Bn
57th Individual Tank Batallion (57 Bn)
57th Recon Batallion (58 Bn)
128th Artillery Batallion (128 Bn)

79th Guards Tank Division (79 Div)
216th GTR (216 Bde)
1-5 Bn
220th GTR (220 Bde)
1-5 Bn
227th GTR (227 Bde)
1-5 Bn
79th GMRR (79 Bde)
1-5 Bn
172nd Artillery Regiment (172 Bde)
1-5 Bn
79th Recon Batallion (79 Bn)
172nd Artillery Batallion (172 Bn)

1st Guards Tank Army
7th Guards Tank Division (7 Div)
54th GTR (54 Bde)
1-5 Bn
55th GTR (55 Bde)
1-5 Bn
56th GTR (56 Bde)
1-5 Bn
23rd GMRR (23 Bde)
1-5 Bn

Fictional Spetznaz Forces
1st Spetznaz Division (1 Div)
1-5 Bn

Soviet Fictional Garrison Forces
99th Division (99 Div)
1-5 Bn
98th Division (98 Div)
1-5 Bn
97th Division (97 Div)
1st Brigade (1 Bde)
1-5 Bn

Polish Forces

6th Guards Motor Rifle Division (6 Div)
16th Guards Motorized Regiment [GMR] (16 Bde)
1-5 Bn
82nd GMR (82 Bde)
1-5 Bn
252nd GMRR (252 Bde)
1-5 Bn
80th Tank Regiment (80 Bde)
1-5 Bn

Air Order of Battle
***

That's all I have so far. I welcome your comments, criticisms, and ideas.
See ya,
Toonces

(I'll post more as I make more progress)

ccc · Post by **ccc** » 2009-04-11 02:37:59

looks great.

just to remind you - before you adding units/squadrons, use TE to check the road network. make sure roads are open and connected properly, so ground units can move freely in the "combat zone".

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2009-04-11 06:54:35

Excellent stuff as always toonces. This is exactly what I dreamed about that after my initial theater work someone would pick up the ball and keep fine tuning the stuff.

Just great, keep it up man.

I still have the experimental new nevada tiles in my dir, I'll have to look how would I get some other magic done to them so they would look better. Hopefully we could do a quick face lift for the overall terrain, also airbases. With the new nevada campaign work, we have to look good when we hit the track

toonces · Post by **toonces** » 2009-04-12 01:14:28

@ ccc,
I already know of several areas where the road network is broken and ground movement does not work. If you look on the Nevada map I provided, there's a road that branches eastward off of SR 127 right where the sign is, the road going through Pahrump eastward to Las Vegas. That road is broken- units will not use that road but will go south to the fork between 127 and I-15, and then take I-15 to LV.
There is a broken road network between Yucca Valley and Twentynine Palms. Right now it is impossible to capture Twentynine Palms.
The road immediately north of Baker is broken-units are continually getting stuck at this junction.
And so on.

I was hoping someone could fix the errors, but the easiest thing might be to just teach me how to do it, so that I can make fixes in the future on my own.

@ Snakeman, thanks for the kind words. I actually drove through this area on I-40 when I moved across country last month. The terrain doesn't look that bad compared to the real thing. I actually drove right by Barstow Dagget airfield. I also saw a mountain that looked EXACTLY like one of your new terrain screenshots. I literally thought, "that looks just like Snakeman's screenshot!" while I drove by at 85mph. I wish I had a camera to take a picture.

Right now, the ground war half works. My brigades coming south towards I-15 split in half at the I-15/SR127 junction. It's the same thing I saw before- I think the campaign engine is setting up reserves and securing its flanks. I edited the border attributes along some of the cities/junctions and that made a difference in how/where the units split. So, I think it's how the engine is looking at the objective attributes. I haven't figured out how unit density behind the FLOT affects things yet. For example, the brigades will split with the armor units proceeding east along I-15. When they capture Searchlight, some of the units that went into Reserve and drove west on I-15 will change to capture and head east on I-15.

I have more- I just need more time. I flew the air war a while back and it was pretty fun.

I'll post AAR/screenshots when I make some more progress.

derStef · Post by **derStef** » 2009-04-12 11:42:13

1st: Great that you are back in dev'ing!

toonces wrote: The end product will have a full manual with a discussion of the scenarios, OOB, design notes, storyline, etc. If Derstef is reading, this is what I want to do for the Taiwan theater at some point.

Ok, i got it, great idea!

if there's something i could help, let me know!

btw for the Aircraft, will it be red vs blue or blue vs blue?

cheers
Stef

toonces · Post by **toonces** » 2009-04-23 01:44:31

I'm sorry Snakeman, I'm just not sure which thread to post this in at this point. Please feel free to move it if you think there is a more appropriate place.

This post builds upon our conversation in the Kurile thread re: ccc's tweak, and the working and winnable campaign thread.

This is a screenshot of the problem I'm trying to solve right now:

When the campaign starts, all of the units in this pic (the lines, not the random ones to the south) are formed well north of this shot. As they hit the Y-intersection, half or so go to the east on offensive tasking, the other half go to the west on defensive tasking. The tasking seems to be based upon Brigade, but I can't say this for certain yet. Division doesn't seem to matter.

ccc, said something in another thread about making sure the priorities of obj along the route encouraged the units to follow a route. I tried that by setting Las Vegas to 99, and the obj's on the offensive route to numbers between 76-89, in increments to encourage the units to work towards LV. It made NO DIFFERENCE in how the units behaved from their previous performance. I'm wondering if it is a:

1. HQ issue

2. Priority issue

3. .tri file issue- ccc has been working on .tri tasking alot lately. Will setting LV to a victory condition make a difference?

Your thoughts are welcome. Nothing I have tried besides changing the "border" attribute has had any impact on this so far- number of air units, success on missions, etc. They always take this route everytime I start the campaign.

toonces · Post by **toonces** » 2009-04-24 23:46:23

I'm continuing to work on tweaking the OOB, trying to find the sweet spot. I design philosophy is to create a more or less realistic OOB, but even moreso I want to make it fun; and I want to put in as many flyable jets as possible (by flyable, I mean a freeware/payware cockpit is available for it). So, I added in some French aircraft, since they are likely to participate in the defense of the Fulda area.

So, here's just a bunch of random pictures from my playtesting...

Ground attack on a Warsaw Pact armor column:

Ground attack on a US column (target of opportunity!):

Testing your recce skills:

Guns kill on an A-10:

toonces · Post by **toonces** » 2009-04-25 01:38:51

Working ground war!

I ran the campaign at 64x, and didn't fly a single sortie. The offensive stalled and ebbed and flowed for 3 days, with different OPFOR units going into reserve and then going on offense. It was very interesting seeing how the campaign engine would go forward, and then capture flank objectives.

Anyway, here are two shots from the end game, just as Las Vegas was captured.

From here I need to tweak the air OOB, and look at the ground some more. The US forces can stall the OPFOR forces so easily without many units...a single US mech battalion can handle 4 or 5 OPFOR armor battalions. But then, this might be correct to real life.

Anyway, this is definately on the right track. I need to tweak, but I think the heavy lifting might be done. My idea was for a 3 day campaign, where both sides can win depending on how the player handles his air forces.

I'll start playtesting it now that I know it works, and see where it goes. As always the results will be posted here.

See ya,
Toonces

Overview of the battlefield. Notice how much stuff the OPFOR captured down south. Unfortunately, the road link to Twentynine Palms doesn't work, which stalls much of the action to the south.

ccc · Post by **ccc** » 2009-04-25 02:30:11

Congrats!

if the basic tweak works, time to make the war hotter

Anyway, here are two shots from the end game, just as Las Vegas was captured.

does it play the vicotry ending vid?
and, you can have Red side to capture more obj in LV city, like airbase, factory and depot obj, to win the war.
many tricks can be used to extend the campaign days- or delay the time to win, increasing [objective to win] is one of them.

the road link to Twentynine Palms doesn't work, which stalls much of the action to the south.

please mark the route and show the choking site.

toonces · Post by **toonces** » 2009-04-25 23:09:39

ccc,
I'll do that, show you where the broken links are, next week when I have some days off again.

I read Snakeman's link in the campaign forum re: reinforcements. If/when I figure out how to do that, the possibilities are really endless. The ability to add reinf's will enable me to do some amazing things I have in mind.

What's interesting is how the campaign progressed south of Las Vegas. I had to shrink the picture alot to keep it small enough that SM wouldn't hit me with a Mk-82. But if you look closely, you can see alot of ground units that have worked eastward in line with Las Vegas but to the south. You can see all of the bridges they've captured enroute. I wish I knew what was going through the campaign engine's algorithms to figure out how the engine determines axes of advance. I wonder how much of this is due to broken road linkages (there are alot of them).

At any rate, I think we've made alot of progress in figuring out how the ground war works. I don't have a .tri file worked up yet; so the only thing that is forcing the offensive to go towards LV is the priority number (99) that I assigned to LV. I don't know how a .tri file will influence things- I have to try that still. There was no end movie because I don't have the .tri written yet.

I guess that's it for now. I need to playtest the campaign, and that will be time consuming.

toonces · Post by **toonces** » 2009-04-27 01:52:15

Just a quick status update.

I'm not happy with the air OOB, so I'm working that over again.

I wrote about 4 more pages of the companion manual with a draft road to war, scenario notes, design philosophy, etc. All that powerpoint stuff I posted above will be integrated in, as well as a detailed ground OOB, details on the trigger file, etc.

I imported some of my aggressor skins.

I'm still troubleshooting why some planes don't show up, and why others don't fly. I've asked about that before and will reference that post.

I spent about 2 hours trying to get reinforcements to work. So far, no luck. What I want to do is add in a bunch of BLUEFOR ground forces to show up about 2 days into the campaign, followed by a bunch of OPFOR ground forces to show up about day 3. This could easily represent mobilization of BLUEFOR forces, followed by commitment of the bulk of the Soviet 1st Guards Army, etc. I don't want to put them all in right at the beginning because I want to encourage a sense of desperation on BLUEFOR initially, followed by an ebb and flow of the war. BUT, if I can't figure out how to put in reinforcements properly, I'll just create a separate version and drop all the campaign forces in, and let the campaign engine figure it out.

On a related note, I was investigating the "teams" part of Tacedit. There is a reinforcement number on there for each team, along with supply and max number of planes/vehicles/etc. I'm wondering if that might have some impact on how reinforcements show up in the campaign. I'll experiment with that later.

Finally, I added in some West German Territorial Forces, but I'm having trouble getting them to show up as a distinct color from BLUEFOR; and they show up as "US"- I'd like them to show up as "W German".

Sherlock · Post by **Sherlock** » 2009-04-27 05:20:24

toonces wrote: Just a quick status update....

I spent about 2 hours trying to get reinforcements to work. So far, no luck. What I want to do is add in a bunch of BLUEFOR ground forces to show up about 2 days into the campaign, followed by a bunch of OPFOR ground forces to show up about day 3. ...

Are you talking about ground forces or squadron units?

For squadrons you have to make them a "Parent" (check the box in the Unit flags screen) AND check the "Inactive" box in the same screen. Then set the time in hours (this is approximate). Also I've found that if you move the start of the campaign from the normal 9am start time that his screws up any reinforcement times you might have already set on units

For ground troops just set the "Inactive" flag on the Units Flag screen and put in the time reinformement time. Note that running in 2D at 64X that your times will not be correct. You have to run at 8x or slower to achieve a reasonable idea of when the reinforcements will actually show up. They typically show up about 10 minutes after the hour in Allied Force.

Assuming your campaign start time is 0900 hours on day 1, then if you want a bunch of BLUFOR ground forces to show up 2 days into the campaign then put in a time of about 36 hours for a couple of them and then run the campaign at 8x until it gets to day 2. You will have to "play around" with the timing a few times until you get a good idea of what the real show time is versus the value you are putting in. I know it is time consuming but that is the only way I have found to do it.

Note that my experience is with Allied Force. For Red Viper/FF5 I have no idea if the above is true or not.

toonces wrote:On a related note, I was investigating the "teams" part of Tacedit. There is a reinforcement number on there for each team, along with supply and max number of planes/vehicles/etc. I'm wondering if that might have some impact on how reinforcements show up in the campaign. I'll experiment with that later.

That Reinforce field is not used in the original Korea campaign so I don't know if it is useful or not. Let us know what you find out.

toonces wrote:Finally, I added in some West German Territorial Forces, but I'm having trouble getting them to show up as a distinct color from BLUEFOR; and they show up as "US"- I'd like them to show up as "W German".

You'll have to make them part of the TEAM 2 (ROK-US) and change their team settings in Tacedit to make this happen. As to showing up as W German, have you update your strings file so that text already is available?

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2009-04-27 11:13:16

Sherlock's notes were added on PMC Editing Wiki: campaign reinforcements page. Thanks.

toonces · Post by **toonces** » 2009-04-27 12:12:11

Roger.

Sherlock, let's pick up the reinforcement discussion here: viewtopic.php?f=63&t=21875&p=181326#p181326

(Campaign forum on this website).

toonces · Post by **toonces** » 2009-05-01 00:15:50

Edits based on Playtest #1 results:

After some more experimenting last night, the air OOB isn't as unbalanced as I thought. Adding 2 squadrons of F-15s completely altered the war in the other direction. So, I settled on a new OOB that adds 1xF-4S, 1xRF-4C, 1xF-117 immediately.

D+24: 1xF-15C, 1xF-15E (technically this reached operational status in Sept 1989- I'm taking some liberties since I want to use the Aeyes pit in this theater).

OPFOR: Added 2xF-5E to balance out some more.

Ground OOB:

NATO
D+9: 2nd WG Jager Division (Brigade)
D+18: 14th WG Panzer Brigade
D+36: 14th WG Panzer Brigade

OPFOR

D+0: Fleshed out 7th Division (7 Divisional Arty Bde, 40 Recon), 103rd Airborne Division added to OOB (already in the campaign)

D+18:
1st Guards Tank Army-
11th Guards Tank Division (40 GTR, 44 GTR, 45 GTR, 27 GMRR)
7th Division (181 Guards Missile Bde, 53 Anti-aircraft Missile Bde, 308 Cannon Artillery Bde)

toonces · Post by **toonces** » 2009-05-03 18:57:15

I tweaked the air OOB and ground OOB (again) based on further testing. I may do a full-on playtest AAR again if you guys would like one.

I am very pleased with the results of the latest iteration. The air and ground wars both truly sit on a knife edge balance-wise. There is little room for error for either side. In my opinion, the orders of battle for both sides in my latest version are very fairly matched, and it makes for a tight campaign for either side. The force sliders make a pretty big difference on the difficulty of the campaign.

I ran the latest version through about 2000 on Day 2. A HUGE ground battle develops around Searchlight, with both sides throwing in increasing numbers of forces. I have ground forces arriving for BLUEFOR at D+9, 18, 24, and 36 I think. So far, all of them have shown up as expected. I found that adding in BLUEFOR squadrons right on D+0 overbalanced the campaign to BLUEFOR (an extra squadron of F-15Cs and Es just kills the OPFOR airbases), but now they show up at D+24 and it makes for a really tight fight. Just as OPFOR overwhelmes BLUEFOR, BLUEFOR gets a couple of extra squadrons of Eagles and Strike Eagles and the balance shifts a bit.

OPFOR went through a consolidating phase, and then initialized a ton of forces it was holding in reserve for its new offensive. Then, as the second set of BLUEFOR reinforcements joined the fight, OPFOR again mobilized about 4-5 brigades of reinforcements. I'm not sure what the trigger was. I think, maybe, it occured when an OPFOR jet flew over a huge concentration of BLUEFOR armor that was reinforcing Searchlight. It's probably wishful thinking on my part, but it sure seemed like a whole group of brigades suddenly went on offense from their reserve positions right after that...

I'm going to keep running the campaign to see how it plays out. Right now, I truly don't know who will win. It looks like it could go either way. BLUEFOR's air forces are gutted, but OPFOR can't seem to close all the fields. And even though OPFOR has air superiority, BLUEFOR is holding the airspace over Las Vegas and has fresh reserves heading into the fight. Like I said, it's anyone's fight right now.

W00t!

Edit: Here are two screenshots from both sides. The BLUEFOR battalions that were defending Searchlight were destroyed or are buried underneath the OPFOR forces. However, you can see the West German 5th Panzer Division heading down into the fight.

OPFOR side:

BLUEFOR side:

toonces · Post by **toonces** » 2009-05-03 22:48:23

Well, I ran the campaign out about 4 days. The battle over Searchlight was insane- I must have seen it change hands 4 times in 2 hours as both sides kept pushing the other off of it.

Eventually, Bluefor simply wore out Opfor. There are about 4 or 5 Brigades that just sit in reserve and wouldn't go offensive for some reason. It's the same groups that sit there everytime; I don't know why they never come out of reserve. Other units from the same place came out of reserve for the second big offensive, so I just don't know. I'll have to check if it's something obvious like not having the right flags set, like parent or something. Could just be a mystery I'll never figure out.

A very interesting battle developed around the southern portion of the map near Riviera. I had several brigades go on offensive down through there, where you see them securing the flanks in the screenshot. Eventually they too seemed to run out of steam. Slowly, units would stay behind on defense of the newly captured positions and the offensive slowed for lack of units.

Bluefor pushed Opfor off of Searchlight late on Day 3 when fresh reinforcements hit the Opfor units that had been fighting over Searchlight for several days.

Because the offensive took the southern route towards Riviera, it might be interesting what happens once the route through Twentynine Palms is fixed. I wonder if the 1st Guards and Polish armies down there will break through to Twentynine Palms, and then hit the northern areas; freeing up those units that detoured south to Riviera this time.

Anyway, I'm not sure how much further I can push this scenario. It's hard to keep Opfor focused on Las Vegas if their offensive is blunted and enough units are killed. It's a big theater and there are alot of objectives to be secured. Beyond what I've done, and beyond making it a huge Battle Royale, I don't really have any more ideas of what to add.

It seems to play well. I think there is alot of room for the player to influence the outcome. If either side and achieve air superiority over the Searchlight area, they can interdict the other side's forces and really help the ground war. There are a couple of paths to take, from SEAD-OCA-CAS to SWEEP-CAS, or even just freelance CAS with quick in-and-out strikes. Really, though, playing from either side will (probably) require some sort of air war strategy. Trying to simply roll in CAS without achieving some sort of CAP over Searchlight is just too dangerous with Nellis still operative, and especially with the FLOT Opfor fields. Of course, I put SA-10s all over the Opfor fields, so shutting them down will be a bear- and they have the numbers to just keep throwing jets at Bluefor all day and night.

From an air-to-air standpoint, there is just a ton of good dogfighting to be had. Despite AIM-120s on both sides, and AIM-54s on the Opfor side, the fights seem to get within visual range alot. Also, with Opfor flying similar jets, you really have to keep your head on a swivel and VID your targets before taking a shot. It's pretty much what I imagine Red Flag is like.

I guess that's it for now. I'll post more as I finalize things, but I think I'm pretty happy with the scenario at this point.

ccc · Post by **ccc** » 2009-05-04 02:32:59

yeah..your observation is right.

when your tweaking enters the "fine-tuning campaign" stage, the job becomes subtle and tricky. Adding few units and the battle could head toward a totally unexpected direction, or significantly stretch the war. i've experienced it in modding taiwan and kurile.

Also bear in mind that..
- adding CAS/interdiction ac/helo sq could neutralize a lot of ground units.
- the spearhead of ground offensive is fast-moving mobile unit, armour or other mechanized units. Once you are low in such units, or they are tired/exhausted, whatever infantry you have, the offensive won't go.

ccc · Post by **ccc** » 2009-05-04 03:41:39

Then, as the second set of BLUEFOR reinforcements joined the fight, OPFOR again mobilized about 4-5 brigades of reinforcements. I'm not sure what the trigger was. I think, maybe, it occured when an OPFOR jet flew over a huge concentration of BLUEFOR armor that was reinforcing Searchlight. ...

an idea comes to me.. did you give both sides AWACS and J-star? the two ac can give blue and red AI commanders a clear picture of war and may help mobilzing air/land units. hmm..i truely don't know if the two have any impact on campaign mechanism..BUT AWACS do help managing air war/divert ac for inetercepting ..so, could J-star help GROUND war in sim?

I'm going to keep running the campaign to see how it plays out. Right now, I truly don't know who will win. It looks like it could go either way.

yes.. but the uncertainty brings anxiety..simmers always like to be the hero and win the war in the end. the key is [securing air superiority and help AI attackers/strikers do their best], or [ simmer do CAS/Interdiction himself, wipe out hostile ground units, help friendly advancing with no resistance]. Last time i encountered such fluid campaign status, i jumped in missions of these two types accordingly..sometimes it helps stablizing the front and driving friendly into offensive.

toonces · Post by **toonces** » 2009-05-04 11:22:44

I keep waiting for you or someone to ask...but since you won't, I'll ask you...

Would you, or anyone else who's reading this thread, like to take the current campaign for a test drive? I've only modified the Redflag1/save2.cam file, so it's a small download.

I'd like to get a fresh opinion on the campaign.

Keep in mind it only works in FF4. It's a total mess in FF5, and I don't know why. I think it's a database conflict, but...well...I really don't know. I just know it doesn't work.

ccc · Post by **ccc** » 2009-05-04 12:21:15

sure.

please post a link.. so all FF4 users can test it.

toonces · Post by **toonces** » 2009-05-04 13:15:39

Ok, I'm going to leave it buried in this thread because I know only the hardcore guys are going to come looking for it.

Here's the link: http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=6794 ... fbae189b84

There are three files: the save2.cam, a companion manual, and a pack of aggressor skins.

****I am NOT the original author of any of the aggressor skins****
I got most of them from fafa's website before he took it down- I did a quick repaint of a few of the F-18s and the F-15A. None are my original work. Unfortunately, most don't have readme's associated with them so I can properly credit the original authors.

Installation instructions: Copy the .cam file to your Theaters/Nevada/Campaign/Redflag1 folder (back up the original save2.cam first!)

Follow the enclosed instructions to make a separate objects install.

The campaign only works in FreeFalcon 4. You are welcome to try it in FF5, the air war might work, the ground war will not work.

You're a pro, you know what to look for. I'd like feedback on the fun factor, is it balanced, and so on. If you want to crack it open and look at the guts, I would enjoy your feedback on that as well.

If you want to edit it, feel free to do so.

Well, I guess that's it. I look forward to seeing how it plays out with someone else flying it.

See ya,
Toonces

toonces · Post by **toonces** » 2009-05-04 15:41:22

If the save2.cam file will not download, try the save2.rar file and extract it; the save2.cam is inside.

ccc · Post by **ccc** » 2009-05-04 16:00:31

yes got it. rar works.

btw - no TRI file? if you have no TRI file, please list what obj for red/blue side to win, i can build a simple one for test.

toonces · Post by **toonces** » 2009-05-04 16:07:11

sorry ccc, I just never got around to it.

It would be something to the effect:

if OPFOR captures 1189 (Las Vegas), end game [opfor victory]

If game day >3, end game [bluefor victory]

That's it. Ultimately, if/when you/we get a good .tri file, we can include the details in the manual and tell people how to edit it to their satisfaction.

I thought you might want to experiment with the scenario, so right now it doesn't end.

ccc · Post by **ccc** » 2009-05-05 01:58:43

ok.. i just start running it at 64x, watch the ground war for fun..

- without an oriented TRI file, i noted the red troops still try to catpure LV.

- i confirmed your findings about broken road sites. Sandy-Jean-LV route is no go. it forces massive red troops detouring east to Searchlight, then north to LV. The strong blue units secured Searchlight and defeated red forces.

- broken road site at Yucca to 29 palm noted as well.. troops have to make a long circular detour to bypass the broken site. choking site at Becker-fort Iwrin is not that noticable yet.

impression..
- terrain/road network bugs still affect the fluidity of ground war.. always the first priority.
- PAK and TRI tweak may help the war more oriented.

toonces · Post by **toonces** » 2009-05-05 17:33:10

ccc,
If or when you decide to fly it, make sure you set the ground force slider (at the least, preferably ground, air defense, and aircraft sliders as well) all the way to favor the OPFOR forces. This will make the OPFOR difficulty 'easiest' and BLUEFOR 'hardest' depending on which side you're flying for. The campaign was designed to be flown like this. The BLUEFOR armor is just way too qualitatively better than the Soviet OPFOR equipment, and the NATO armor can handle 3-5 times as many forces. I've seen a single Battalion repulse several OPFOR Brigades...the only way around this is to beef up the numbers using the force sliders- which is historical anyway from my reading.

WRT the broken road links- I'm not sure that "fixing" the roads will "fix" the campaign. The idea for the campaign actually came from the broken roads- the fact that the OPFOR only has one or two good routes to Las Vegas. It looks just like Fulda Gap, where the Soviets would have to attack along the autobahn towards Fulda. I've never been to that area of Germany, but from my reading, the reason Fulda was such a flashpoint in NATO planning is because it has a break in the terrain through which Soviet armor had to pass to get to Frankfurt. So, the broken roads, while technically broken, actually are what the whole campaign is based upon- it focuses the fight on that curving route. What I didn't expect was the way Searchlight becomes so pivotal to the entire campaign. If you can maintain control of Searchlight, and maintain air superiority over Searchlight, you can win the campaign. I like how everything gets focused to a few key points in the campaign. It keeps the player's planning focused, gives him clear objectives for which to plan his air war.

Anyway, if you leave all the sliders centered, the war should always be won by BLUEFOR without player input. I think I replicated that 3 times.

As you've seen, there's some aggressive tasking near Twentynine Palms. I'm curious how fixing that road link will affect the war. I think it would open up the southern offensive and focus some of the 8th Guards Army forces that detour south as the fight over Searchlight develops.

ccc · Post by **ccc** » 2009-05-06 03:48:27

The BLUEFOR armor is just way too qualitatively better than the Soviet OPFOR equipment, and the NATO armor can handle 3-5 times as many forces. I've seen a single Battalion repulse several OPFOR Brigades

yes i noted blue army is quite strong

you add Leopard IA5 units in the mod .. great..do i miss UK Challenger units?

the toys has been in DB for long time.

WRT the broken road links- I'm not sure that "fixing" the roads will "fix" the campaign. The idea for the campaign actually came from the broken roads- the fact that the OPFOR only has one or two good routes to Las Vegas.

i see. the only route left is moving thru Searchlight to north, then LV. i knew your work based on current road network..the problem is, many ground units try to approach LV via other broken routes, stopped at broken sites.. like a dead end, these units is not smart enough to move backward and choose another route.. thus waste many useful units. IF all roads are open, i think red has several routes to LV..IF it is designed for one-route campaign, all road branches better converge at both ends(objs) of this one-route sectoin..so more units can join the fight.
alright i don't want to carry it too far..just terrain work heheh.

As you've seen, there's some aggressive tasking near Twentynine Palms. I'm curious how fixing that road link will affect the war. I think it would open up the southern offensive and focus some of the 8th Guards Army forces that detour south as the fight over Searchlight develops.

surprisingly several red units did pass 29 palms and move east.. yes they did try to move north to LV, but halted due to broken sites.

toonces · Post by **toonces** » 2009-05-07 00:19:31

Playtest 2 results:

I'm sort of bumming because I shot the pictures, took the notes, etc, and I was all fired up to do a full-blown AAR. However, something's broken.

I started the campaign as OPFOR, sliders all favoring OPFOR as per the directions. I set the PAK area for Las Vegas max red, clicked min white for the rest of the PAK areas. Set up all the air tasks sensibly (eg. no strategic strikes or naval strikes, heavy on OCA and DCA, and so on), and set the target type sliders up.

Started the campaign up and flew until about after my 1142 sortie, maybe 1200 or so. I'm not sure what happened. The ground units seemed to be acting a bit weird to me, and suddenly the ATO stopped scheduling sorties for me. I've seen that once before- I'm not sure if it was my campaign or another one a long time ago. The ATO just slowly withers to nothing. So, I changed the PAK back to set by HQ and the ATO filled right back up.

I did two more missions and by the end of the 4th at around 1600, my ground offensive had totally gone the southern route to Riviera and Needles. More of my ground units than usual went reserve on the left side of the road split where they always congregate. No matter what I did, I couldn't seem to inspire my units to head up to the Las Vegas routing.

I reset the PAK settings again, and again it seemed like the ground units felt the PAK priority at Las Vegas, but again my ATO dried up.

I ran the campaign until about midnight and then dumped it.

What's wrong?

Well, I don't really know, but I think I might have been leaving the settings at set by HQ on start on my testings before. I just can't remember.
Also, I changed one brigade of units before this last test (the one that is up for testing). I had set the reinforcement time to "0" for a brigade of units, but they were still set on reinforcement. I deleted the reinf check on all the Battalions and the Brigade. Not sure what in the world that could have broken, but it's the only other thing I changed.

So, playtest 2 is a bust. Damn, it takes so long to work up these AARs for the campaign to be a scrub. Ah man.

I think I'm going to have a drink tonight.

ccc · Post by **ccc** » 2009-05-07 03:15:41

What's wrong?
I think I'm going to have a drink tonight.

haha.. enjoy yourself.

say, i combined the pics you posted above and created a working map.. to show what your war shoud be, and what's going wrong.

The yellow routs is main highway/main combat route. the white is secondary. so.. road broken at Sandy-Jean-LV forces red units detouring to Searchlight-Boulder city-LV. the the clash happens there. Appearantly your original design is one main route, SW to NE along the highway..and ideally, most red units will choose to along it, then develop a hot engagment between Jean-LV.

Not aim at anyone, imho to fix the Nevada road network, the first job is [terrain tile check/creation]. Unlike Kurile using old korea tiles( which is almost bug-free), Nevada tiles and the tile definition/texture.bin have lots room to improve. IF we skip this step and just fix broken roads with current tiles, well it may work- but could leave further tile upgrade work a true pain.. other theaters NOT using deafult korea tiles will encounter the same problem.

BTW Toonces your work on campaign file is not a waste. Terrain/road fix is a parallel thing on theater.L2 file. tho re-linking objs and re-calculating unit-move-cost at some combat areas is inevitable, IF a fixed terrain/road network is available.

toonces · Post by **toonces** » 2009-05-07 12:26:15

Ok, I'm browsing the PMC wiki right now. This is why I keep shying away from this step- I just don't understand how to start.

What do I need to do in order to do this:

...the first job is [terrain tile check/creation]...

...Nevada tiles and the tile definition/texture.bin have lots room to improve...

...Terrain/road fix is a parallel thing on theater.L2 file. tho re-linking objs and re-calculating unit-move-cost...

I know I've seen the part about repairing a broken road, opening up and editing the .L2 file (whatever that is), but you're rapidly losing me here.

I don't want to do it, but I will, but you're going to need to talk me through it the first time.

I'm going to keep working on this while I anxiously await your reply

EDIT: Terrain fixing discussion moved here: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=21896&p=181516#p181516

ccc · Post by **ccc** » 2009-05-10 14:15:20

i got SM's nevada feature.tdf files.

in TerrainView, many section shows area covered with RED tiles. like this pic..

http://i640.photobucket.com/albums/uu12 ... 5cf480.jpg

well.. it seems the tile set has some problem? just unable to check road system.

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2009-05-11 06:38:37

What does TDF files has got to do with terrainview being configured properly?

ccc · Post by **ccc** » 2009-05-11 07:21:36

Snake Man wrote:What does TDF files has got to do with terrainview being configured properly?

i just need feature tdf files to help locating which section to look at. i am lost in nevada theater map.

of course TDF has nothing to do with Terrainview config.. it's firt time i see RED tiles in a TV section view..
if you don't mind, could you open a section near Las Vegas/Jean/Sandy? most road tiles are RED tiles, and the rest tiles look odd in section view.

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2009-05-11 07:59:32

Naturally everything looks just fine in my terrainview setup. You have just configured it wrong or are using edited theater.L2 and/or texture.bin / .zip files.

Check your theater.l2, texture.zip/.bin to be original versions, point terrainview to proper tile and .bin dir/files and it should be fine.

toonces · Post by **toonces** » 2009-05-11 09:38:46

I can get the terrain to show up in terrain view, but no features (like I said above). This is the edited .cam.

I know you know this ccc, but I just wrote down the x,y value of, say, the Sandy Bride and used that to find the right tile.

I'll write more later.

Edit- I didn't see any 'red" tiles in terrainview. Can you maybe post a screenshot of what you're talking about?

ccc · Post by **ccc** » 2009-05-11 11:57:42

@SM

I re-install Nevada mod.
i can open TerrainView and check Sections properly. it shows no RED tiles now. my bad

now comes the bug - i load feature.TDF, and locate the sections covering Las Vegas-Jean-Sandy. it's about the SW side of LV. the Section view shows.. LV has road to Jean. no road between Jean and Sandy.

more.. i try to hand-tile the road with default Nevada Texture.zip.. i drag road tiles from [pcx tile palette] and place in Section view.. guess what, the tile is not what i want, it turns out to be other tiles(mostly like cost tiles).

I hope the findings can be confirmed. if it's the case, means the Nevada tile sets/texture.zip is not properly built.. the naming system shows mismatch bugs.

toonces · Post by **toonces** » 2009-07-03 02:59:37

I have a release version of this scenario ready to go. In FF5, the ground war doesn't work at all. However, the air war is fine.

I need to rewrite the scenario notes (fairly significantly) and take out all the ground war stuff, but the OOB is good to go. I'll try very hard to get it ready for tomorrow and I'll post the link when it's ready. Actually, it's already up, but the notes need to be rewritten for FF5 since none of the ground war/triggers/victory conditions work in FF5. Still, it's a blast to try and bag F-18s in an F-5E. I was buzzing around in the mountains, dodging and weaving, trying to get close to a few tonight. It's fun; the F-5 3D pit is exceptional in FF5 in my opinion- certainly in the top 3 pits in the installation.

More to come...

toonces · Post by **toonces** » 2009-07-03 14:01:24

The Red Flag Scenario "Battle for Fulda" version 1 is ready for download.

It 'should' be compatible for both FF4 and FF5.

Included files:
save2.cam
save2.tri
scenario manual
aggressor skin pack

The ground war works in FF4, and the .tri file works (I think).

The ground war does not work in FF5, but the air war seems to work fine, and is fun with all of the FF5 cockpits.

Feedback is appreciated.

Download here: <deleted, will be PMC download>

@ SM, let me know if you want to release this "officially" or if you want to leave it as a Nevada mod, where people download it and drop it into their existing Nevada installation. I haven't advertised this (or Vietnam) anywhere but here yet; awaiting your direction.

PMC Youtube channel · Post by **Snake Man** » 2009-07-03 19:26:31

I'll send you a PM where we can organize the official releasing.