1st Fallugah
 

Date: April 2004
Battle Location: Fallugah, Iraq
Battle Type: USMC assault vs. Mujahideen defend
Design by: Suhiir.

The killing of five American soldiers in Habbaniyah followed days later by the death and mutilation of four Blackwater military contractors in Fallugah led to moral outrage in the United States. Operation Vigilant Resolve is intended to 'pacify' the city of Fallugah.

The USMC strategy of foot patrols, less aggressive raids, humanitarian aid, and close cooperation with local leaders was overridden when US Army general Kimmitt, deputy director of U.S. military operations in Iraq, declared there would be an 'overwhelming' response to the Blackwater deaths.

During the night of 4 April 2004, and morning of 5 April, US forces surrounded the city.

Re: 1st Fallugah
 

This is still something of a "work in progress" so suggestions are appreciated.

Re: 1st Fallugah
 

Two turns in and units seem to be retreating in the wrong direction (Marines forward to the left and Al Qaeda to the right)

Re: 1st Fallugah
 

Fixed!

Re: 1st Fallugah
 

Thanks.

It looks like a tough urban fight.

I will keep you posted.

Re: 1st Fallugah
 

Yeah ... well ... it was a tough urban fight vs fanatics who LOVE IEDs.

Re: 1st Fallugah
 

Problem is still there.

The file says last updated 8/29 so I think it is still the old file without the changes.

Re: 1st Fallugah
 

screen shot of downloaded file:

Re: 1st Fallugah
 

Sorry!
Made the change forgot to upload the new version.

Re: 1st Fallugah
 

I'm on turn 30....




....it's Stalingrad. :)


I edited the scen some before starting, switched Player 1 side to get the "correct" retreat direction for both sides, and extended the map from 40x40 to 40x130, added some random houses and roads on the new terrain.

Made a two scen campaign and switched the USMC to a heavily reinforced Swedish Amphibious Battalion (- been working on a custom OOB, want to try it out some).

The Muj are entrenched and have decent AA and indirect fire capability. My Swedish/Iraqi force is larger then the original scenario's USMC but more fragile, can't afford to take too many point blank salvos in the face. I went for the lower part of the map and intended to work my way to the far side, while taking my time and avoiding losses. Tried to target AA positions so that I could use helicopters as spotters but had to switch to counterbattery tasks because rockets and mortars became problematic...

In reality the (later) USMC advance into Fallujah kept a pace the insurgents could not cope with..., things are going much slower for me I think...

Re: 1st Fallugah
 

I suspect they will Wulfir.
I have no clue what a Swedish Amphibious Battalion consists of but it sounds like an interesting variant. I'd be careful about giving the Muj off-map (or even on-map) artillery/rocket assets. It's not like you could smuggle a howitzer battery into the city in the trunk of a vehicle.

I'd considered make the map larger but I wanted to give the USMC player the option to make a slow advance to try to keep casualties to the minimum. It's not that I expect the Muj to win currently. I'm considering using the editor to dramatically increase the cost of USMC units thus forcing the player to avoid loosing units.

Sound like an idea?

Re: 1st Fallugah
 

I like to try out my custom OOB, find errors all the time. Sigh.

The reason I enlarged the map is because I now have more units and yeah it gets crowded. The Swedish Amphibious Corps is sometimes called “the Swedish marines” but it’s a somewhat erroneous comparison – unlike the USMC the Coastal Ranger companies and later Amphibious Battalions belonged to an organization that primarily was tasked with defending a coastline, not attacking it.

Troops from this organization has been used in Africa and around the time the scenario takes place there was a shift of priority in Sweden from national defence to international efforts, so a mission in Fallujah while unlikely is not entirely out there for a possible what if.

For comparison my OOB is roughly:

Amphibious Bn Group

- AmfBat (HQ and support incl. EOD Platoon and 81mm mortars, Costal Ranger Company (this is basically a recon asset with attack diver and Coastal Ranger platoons) and three Amphibious Rifle Companies)

- Naval Security Company (this is an anti-Special Forces type of unit tasked with protecting naval assets unlikely to be deployed to ferret out terrorists in a mid east town, but I wanted to try them out).

- Transport (a company of Patria APCs, a platoon of RG-32 cars)

- Air-mobile Squadron (Army company, no helicopters)

Iraqi Army Battalion Size force

- SF Company

- Two Rifle Companies

- Sapper Company

- Swedish Army Advisors (Ranger Platoon)

- Swedish Pbv-501 Company (modified BMP-1s, that IIRC ended up sold to Iraq).


Mech Group

- Tank Platoon (Strv122)

- CV90 Company

- Engineer tank section

- Pioneer Company (no transport)

Special Forces/Recon

- Four SOG Teams

- Four Paratrooper Teams

- Two Augusta transport helicopters

- Six UAVs


Air and Artillery support

- One 155mm MRSI battery (off map)

- One 105mm Battery (towed – on map

- Four strike elements (8 JAS 39)

- Several Ammo supply units


Much of my force have 6-8 man strong squads and can’t take much punishment. The Muj holes up in buildings and fight to the death which seems highly realistic but is problematic for me to deal with. I avoid going into those point blank range knife fights if they can be avoided. I have not tried to use my engineer tanks like the D9s yet, i.e. razing buildings with Muj in them. Attack helicopters would have been nice but we have none so...

I led the attack with the Iraqis – not in a reckless fashion or anything – but they have taken the most losses...

The Crotale zapped one of my Gripen jets. That single loss is going to cost me...

I will probably need the full 90 turns, more or less, to gain all the Victory Hexes...

Re: 1st Fallugah
 

Just finished and "Stalingrad in the sand" is a good description.

I got 1 4:1 MV in 61 turns having lost 389 men, 3 AFVs (2 to ATGMs and one to an IED), 2 drones, and a Harrier. I don't think I could have kept my losses low enough to get a DV.

Some minor changes I would make:

1. Move the LAV25s onto the road at the start. They currently start in rough hexes and have to though several more. Two of mine got stuck at the start.

2. Increase the value of the High Value Target.

3. Lower the total number of turns to 65.

Thanks for making such a fun scenario.

Re: 1st Fallugah
 

Hmmm, warning... RetLT is an expert player...

I'm making use of the number of turns trying not to rush things - and I think I'll need them all pretty much if I'm going to keep losses down... :)

Re: 1st Fallugah
 

Flattery will get you everywhere :)

Re: 1st Fallugah
 

#1 - Moved them onto the road BUT they now enter turn #3.
#2 - Done
#3 - Changed to 72
#4 - Increased the cost of all USMC units to a minimum of 5 points per man. You can totally eliminate the insurgents but still lose the scenario if your casualties are to high.