SCENARIOS!

[wulfir]

Nineveh Plains, Iraq
May 2, 2016

A sudden ISIS attack against Kurdish Peshmerga forces holding the town of Tel Askuf provokes the deployment of a US Navy SEAL Quick Reaction Force to protect US Advisors in the area. At the same time US air is also directed towards Tel Askuf. A bad day for ISIS is approaching....

[Suhiir]

This should be interesting.

[wulfir]

Al-Hawl, Syria
November 13, 2011...

The Kurdish YPG with allied Arab Al Sanadid militia moves forward against the ISIS held Syrian town of Al-Hawl - located on the main road running beteen Raqqa and Mosul, the two major cities under ISIS control. The Kurds have momentum and confidence but are lightly armed, the ISIS forces on the other hand have been able to stock up on some equipment from former Syrian army camps nearby yet they suffer from the ever present US air strikes...

[Suhiir]

At first glance (only on turn 12) at scenario #391 I foresee trouble for my defenders vs the apx. 10-15 HMGs on (lightly) armored ISIS vehicles. They just stand off out of range of anything I have that can effect them and pummel my positions.
Guess I need to fall back actually inside the villages and make it a close quarters fight.

[Suhiir]

When the numerous HMG armed vehicles operated by ISIS first appeared the situation looked bleak indeed. But by dropping smoke just in front of my own positions I lured the armored HMG vehicles into range of what AT weapons I had and concentrated the fire of all (6) of the MMGs I had on the unarmored but heavily armed technicals.

The real surprise ... no not surprise ... shocked amazement was when not one but both B-52's managed to drop their loads exactly where they'd do the most good. They easily caused 20%+ of the ISIS casualties between them and broke the main attack up so badly that as the units rallied and trickled into my defensive positions it was a classic turkey shoot. As much as I hate to do so I have to give credit where it's due. Hats off to the US Air Force!

The arrival of a UH-60 Blackhawk allowed a couple SEAL Teams to go mortar hunting. In short order ISIS indirect fire ceased to be an issue.

After the loss (with VERY little gain) of one platoon of locals at a roadblock to the southwest ISIS charged up the road to the town ... and right into a militia/SEAL ambush. I could almost feel sorry for them.

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Having sorta finished scenario #391, I quit on turn 27 because the the last 5 or so turns all I had been doing was chasing down survivors.

I never even got the turn 30 B-52, not that I had any use for it, and in fact I never used the A-10s as there was nothing for them to shoot at (given that the AI prefers blue-on-blue at close engagement ranges).

My incredible stroke of luck with the B-52s not withstanding I think 45 turns for the scenario is much to long, maybe 30.

I don't have an end of scenario report but ISIS losses were close to 100% whereas mine were maybe 50 max, probably closer to 40.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Suhiir

After the loss (with VERY little gain) of one platoon of locals at a roadblock to the southwest ISIS charged up the road to the town ... and right into a militia/SEAL ambush. ..

If you play it again they might not charge up the road.... that is the old AI preference for movement and we've coded the game to do that once in awhile just to keep people on their toes ( unless the road is the only really clear area on the map )....otherwise the AI doesn't "understand" roads are a fast way to destruction as much as before with the CD version... the DL version doesn't use the advanced AI movement code

However, it WAS fun to hear you give credit to the USAF ( and if you play it again the AF might not be so accomodating......it is the randomness we've built in that keeps the game interesting )

Don

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Suhiir

(given that the AI prefers blue-on-blue at close engagement ranges)..

I can assure you there is NOTHING in the code like that it all depends on how they are targeted .... If Andy or I thought the AI was targeting blue-on-blue in air strikes we would have fixed it years ago. This is your issue not the games

[Mobhack]

It has no "preference" for blue troops, in fact they are less likely than reds to be chosen, it is just that when yours and theirs are both mixed into the target zone, which is a 500-199m circle round where the plane decides to attack, then there is a chance that the sky jockey will select a friendly instead of an enemy. The more blues than reds in the pick'n mix selection, the more chance it will target the friendlies.

Air strikes should be de-conflicted from friends, by at least a kilometre, and it also helps if the ingress route does not pass over friends either. Planes start to look along their flight path, and if that drops short into the friendlies, then they may select them instead.

[Suhiir]

I suspect it has to do with unit visibility. You can always see your own units, enemy ones need to be spotted (even if by some other unit). So given that aircraft apparently attack the first unit they see it only makes sense they'd select a friendly unit.

I'm NOT claiming the code in any way prefers friendly units, only that they get selected more frequently, perhaps due to the fact that more of them are usually visible, if they see 15 friendly units and 4 enemy ones in their target area ... well ... what do you expect.

[jivemi]

Originally Posted by Suhiir

The real surprise ... no not surprise ... shocked amazement was when not one but both B-52's managed to drop their loads exactly where they'd do the most good. They easily caused 20%+ of the ISIS casualties between them and broke the main attack up so badly that as the units rallied and trickled into my defensive positions it was a classic turkey shoot. As much as I hate to do so I have to give credit where it's due. Hats off to the US Air Force!

Interesting. In scenario #77 --Marines Return to North Korea, by CB Blackard--a B-1 bomber dropped its load of 84 500-lb gravity bombs along a trenchline which might've caused 10-15 casualties among dug-in infantry. In the same scenario a dozen Harriers, Tomcats and Hornets took out about 30 hard and soft targets, including dug-in tanks, bunkers, flak and a SAM battery, without a single blue-on-blue incident. Really quite astonishing.

Got some saves to commemorate the action. Thought I'd write another AAR but in order to win a DV had to do some gamey stuff with helos (like landing on rough terrain or slopes, sometimes adjacent to neutralized bad guys, and picking up non-formation infantry willy-nilly to insert near ground-inaccessible objectives while flying carelessly over enemy-held sectors). Plus--SPOILER ALERT!!--it's a bit one-sided since the Nokors have no thermal MBTs or ATGMs until near the end. Still pretty hairy though; needed deep penetration by M1A1s firing long-range to beat off armored counterattacks against mostly light infantry out on the proverbial limb.