Thoughts about missions / Campaigns / Scenarios

[markturner1960]

The map looks awesome, but an awesome map is nothing without credible and interesting activities to carry out on it. I wondered what the community thought would be some ideas for the above/ Also what missions etc are planned to be released with it? 

This is kind of what combined arms is made for, I really hope that it gets some attention as well to maximise the potential

 

 

Cheers

Edited April 16 by markturner1960

[Volator]

Our squadron will use the several realistic airbases, airspaces and ranges on the CWG map to simulate realistic training flights. VFR and IFR navigation day and night, A2A in the TRAs, A2G on the ranges, some tango scrambles. We will also simulate EW training by recreating the Polygone Range in SW Germany. Also, some large-scale exercises like REFORGER and TLP with other squadrons, all in the correct and realistic training manner. We also have another project in the pipeline focussing more on the ground war and Army Aviation, and that will surely include Combined Arms a lot.

There's also plenty of room for some (in this sim) soothing helicopter border-patrol flights on both sides of the fence if one doesn't like the doomsday scenario of WWIII.

In our squadron we will not simulate WWIII. But there'll surely be a lot of all-out WWIII scenarios with a plethora of military cross-border missions carried out.

The biggest advantage of this map is that it offers a lot of information on real-world airspaces, controlling agencies, frequencies and everything; there are tons of charts available (even if we have to dig a little bit in the archives for many bases). It is similar to NTTR in this regard, but offers a lot more airbases and a much more interesting scenery.

Edited April 16 by Volator

[Lace]

My thoughts are rain.  Lots of rain, and lots of hiding behind trees in my Gazelle.

[Omega417]

3 hours ago, Volator said:

Our squadron ........

 

Yes comrade, OUR.

haha, yall need to make an "English speaking" offshoot of your current squadron.

[Volator]

3 hours ago, Omega417 said:

Yes comrade, OUR.

haha, yall need to make an "English speaking" offshoot of your current squadron.

Sorry mate, can't follow you, what's your point?

[Omega417]

haha my bad,

First part was a communism joke.

Second part was me saying I need to find an English speaking squadron that wants to recreate the Luftwaffe Phantom force for future Cold War Germany missions in the immediate future.

[OneEyeRoss]

16 hours ago, markturner1960 said:

The map looks awesome, but an awesome map is nothing without credible and interesting activities to carry out on it. I wondered what the community thought would be some ideas for the above/ Also what missions etc are planned to be released with it? 

This is kind of what combined arms is made for, I really hope that it gets some attention as well to maximise the potential

 

 

Cheers

Ok, for me (and I was a tanker, then medic type in V Corps back in the 70s) this is easy to think about, but DCS has limitations with the number of units you can put on the map at once and have the game run at a decent rate - but here goes:

If you look at the area around Alsfeld, then take the road to Lauterbach, then Fulda.....or Alsfeld to Bad Hersfeld:  Those were the main avenues of approach that we (3rd Bde, 3AD) were tasked with covering.  Anyway, there are spots where the road runs through woods before opening up into farm land.  You place an armored brigade with pre-plotted arty and kill boxes for the air wing in those areas and wait for RedFor come come through the woods.  Of course, RedFor knows where we will be, and will use rocket/arty fire to disrupt the defense.  So, you take two tank battalions, two infantry battalions, one 155 battalion (114 tanks, 18 109s, 15-20 4.2 mortars and a whole bunch of infantry) against a Guards Tank Regiment.  And hope the TOW Cobras that Violent Nomad is making come on line soon.

For Combined Arms, the numbers are just too large to deal with on a realistic basis - the game engine wouldn't be able to keep up.  So, scaled back to a tank platoon (5 tanks) against a GTR company would be about right.

 

[Volator]

2 hours ago, OneEyeRoss said:

Ok, for me (and I was a tanker, then medic type in V Corps back in the 70s) this is easy to think about, but DCS has limitations with the number of units you can put on the map at once and have the game run at a decent rate - but here goes:

If you look at the area around Alsfeld, then take the road to Lauterbach, then Fulda.....or Alsfeld to Bad Hersfeld:  Those were the main avenues of approach that we (3rd Bde, 3AD) were tasked with covering.  Anyway, there are spots where the road runs through woods before opening up into farm land.  You place an armored brigade with pre-plotted arty and kill boxes for the air wing in those areas and wait for RedFor come come through the woods.  Of course, RedFor knows where we will be, and will use rocket/arty fire to disrupt the defense.  So, you take two tank battalions, two infantry battalions, one 155 battalion (114 tanks, 18 109s, 15-20 4.2 mortars and a whole bunch of infantry) against a Guards Tank Regiment.  And hope the TOW Cobras that Violent Nomad is making come on line soon.

For Combined Arms, the numbers are just too large to deal with on a realistic basis - the game engine wouldn't be able to keep up.  So, scaled back to a tank platoon (5 tanks) against a GTR company would be about right.

 

Thank you, that's an excellent description of a realistic ground scenario in the area. Let's hope the map is that good that all the towns and roads are depicted. 

It reminded me of the fact that ED/Wags once investigated on SMEs for tanks to venture into that sim area, and it makes me want to see a significant improvement of Combined Arms in that area.

[WolfCat]

A campaign idea for someone willing to create it:
Starts when Redfor already occupied almost or all of Germany. Bluefor has to take it back step-by-step starting from bases from the west (and north), including a carrier group in the North Sea.

There can be a prequel ofc which focuses on the Redfor invasion.

Both campaigns could be made 2-sided, where the task of the player on the losing (defending) side is essentially to minimize losses as much as possible (not necessarily in the briefings, but in the background/story -- i mean, you successfully complete your mission, but things happen, often elsewhere, that are outside your control). Satisfaction for the losing side can be had in preservation of friendly characters (or your beloved Zhiguli / Mercedes), gaining medals for courage, etc.

Edited April 17 by WolfCat

[Rick Mave]

4 hours ago, OneEyeRoss said:

Ok, for me (and I was a tanker, then medic type in V Corps back in the 70s) this is easy to think about, but DCS has limitations with the number of units you can put on the map at once and have the game run at a decent rate - but here goes:

If you look at the area around Alsfeld, then take the road to Lauterbach, then Fulda.....or Alsfeld to Bad Hersfeld:  Those were the main avenues of approach that we (3rd Bde, 3AD) were tasked with covering.  Anyway, there are spots where the road runs through woods before opening up into farm land.  You place an armored brigade with pre-plotted arty and kill boxes for the air wing in those areas and wait for RedFor come come through the woods.  Of course, RedFor knows where we will be, and will use rocket/arty fire to disrupt the defense.  So, you take two tank battalions, two infantry battalions, one 155 battalion (114 tanks, 18 109s, 15-20 4.2 mortars and a whole bunch of infantry) against a Guards Tank Regiment.  And hope the TOW Cobras that Violent Nomad is making come on line soon.

For Combined Arms, the numbers are just too large to deal with on a realistic basis - the game engine wouldn't be able to keep up.  So, scaled back to a tank platoon (5 tanks) against a GTR company would be about right.

I have made a MP campaign before simulating this exact type of encounter on the Caucasus map, coming from the Tbilisi area onto the flatlands south of the Caucasus going west.

Safe to say it was very epic watching my units placed with autistic precision try to assault the outnumbered defensive positions, but boy did the red tank assault insist on falling into single file march formations after unfolding into their wedge and starting the assault...

[OneEyeRoss]

I have also played around with it a bit in the Caucasus.  The AI is a bit "stupid" in the way it attacks, even when I tell it to use a wedge or echelon left/right.  And then their insistence on attacking certain units to the exclusion of others.  But, AI is what it is.  It still is fun, and it beats reading the news.

[Omega417]

To stay on topic,

nullThe moment a "Red Storm Rising" campaign is announced I am in.

[OneEyeRoss]

 

This PDF has a great detailed analysis of a Soviet invasion in the Gap, and lists four different scenarios (starts on page 83 of the PDF.  it describes combat in the covering force as well as the main battle area.

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA129095.pdf

[Omega417]

And looking forward to Iain's continued "Balloon Goes Up" scenario.

 

[Rick Mave]

13 minutes ago, Omega417 said:

And looking forward to Iain's continued "Balloon Goes Up" scenario.

 

Iain was totally my inspiration for getting into the cold war scenario creation in DCS.

15 minutes ago, OneEyeRoss said:

This PDF has a great detailed analysis of a Soviet invasion in the Gap, and lists four different scenarios (starts on page 83 of the PDF.  it describes combat in the covering force as well as the main battle area.

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA129095.pdf

I would love to see some satellite imagery of soviet FARP or command post structures. I have been looking around everywhere but never seen anything that breaks down in a concise manner, let alone illustrated properly.

Edited April 17 by Rick Mave

[OneEyeRoss]

3 hours ago, Rick Mave said:

Iain was totally my inspiration for getting into the cold war scenario creation in DCS.

I would love to see some satellite imagery of soviet FARP or command post structures. I have been looking around everywhere but never seen anything that breaks down in a concise manner, let alone illustrated properly.

Regretfully, the only pictures I ever saw of those (76-77 time frame) were probably burned when the Division was deactivated back in the 90s...and my memory of what I saw 50 years ago isn't all it should be!

[Rick Mave]

3 hours ago, OneEyeRoss said:

Regretfully, the only pictures I ever saw of those (76-77 time frame) were probably burned when the Division was deactivated back in the 90s...and my memory of what I saw 50 years ago isn't all it should be!

Thanks for trying though, gramps! 

[OneEyeRoss]

Elvis and I had the same Barber...true story.  I was in the same unit (1/32 Armor, 3AD) 14 years after he left.  The barber at Ray Barracks had pictures of him cutting Elvis' hair - we used to laugh about having the same barber as Elvis, eating in the same mess hall as Elvis, being tankers like Elvis - but not being rich (or good looking, or able to sing)....

 

Edited April 17 by OneEyeRoss

[Ian Boys UK]

18 hours ago, Rick Mave said:

Safe to say it was very epic watching my units placed with autistic precision try to assault the outnumbered defensive positions, but boy did the red tank assault insist on falling into single file march formations after unfolding into their wedge and starting the assault...

 

You can avoid this by setting them to "Formation: Custom". As long as you don't change it or set them onto roads, they will maintain this formation and you can get some very nice effects, such as tanks in front, followed by BMPs and a Shilka and SA-9 bringing up the rear.

[Rick Mave]

4 hours ago, Ian Boys UK said:

You can avoid this by setting them to "Formation: Custom". As long as you don't change it or set them onto roads, they will maintain this formation and you can get some very nice effects, such as tanks in front, followed by BMPs and a Shilka and SA-9 bringing up the rear.

Yeah but that's just the problem. They were marching in from Tbilisi. We had strike flights hit some bridges and then they divert to get to that field where they were supposed to unfold from their march formation.
Anyway I have found a more elegant solution since then so it's all good. Thanks for the tip though!