Friday of Helicopters

Flying helicopters is fun as Fridays. In this short entry, what's going on in the rotary wing of my computer.

Tanks vs Guns - A Short Combat Mission Red Thunder Narrative

Dirt.

You dig it for protection. It gets over you and invades every crevice of your body. It spoils the lubrication of every round of ammo you previously cleaned.

If you are lucky enough, you will see it as a telltale of a tank round falling short and lifting in front of you in prodigious quantities. It will stay put as if defying gravity. One wishes that defiance would last long enough, like ours against the enemy.

There is a macabre calculus that applies to the combat between tanks and guns. If one gun takes two to three tanks, they say, its job is done. We rarely keep tabs of our battle deeds. We are just too busy shoveling in rounds, looking through the sights and staying alive.

Somewhere in the Eastern Front - A Combat Mission Red Thunder Quick Battle AAR

Battlefront has made a significant investment in the quick battles department. The quality and variety of the quick battle maps are great and the ebb and flow of battle is much better than before. In this blog entry, a quick battle AAR. The map is 005 (open, farmland, medium size) and the battle is a meeting engagement with both German and Soviet forces chosen by the computer.

Is that Bil Hardenberger, from Battle Drill? A Pz IVJ (background) and a Mobelwagen (front) getting ready for the battle.

ArmA 3 - Those Support Guys

I am prepping a new ArmA 3 scenario showcasing an attack on an enemy strong point. I ended up needing a lot of fire support for this mission and I thought that it would be a great idea to have the player lead a HMG team.

A HMG team in ArmA 3. 

ArmA has always been and likely will continue to be clunky. But one can't complain about its versatility. In this blog entry, a brief showcase on how to deploy the HMG.

Eastern Front, Riga 1944 - Command Ops Scenarios by The Sharp End Gaming's Chris M

Chris M. continues to trail blaze with his content for the Command Ops game. I am currently playing his two "Riga 1944" scenarios and enjoying an overdose of Eastern Front with this fantastic game engine.

Look at the size of this map! Each square is 1 km wide.

With this two scenarios Chris delivers a trifecta of quality, scope and gameplay at the grand/tactical level.

Bad Tactics Make Widows. And Great Pictures - DCS SU-25T

It is a shame that the most remarkable screenshot of my entire simulation flight career came from such a poorly executed mission.

A Georgian infantry man aiming his SAM at my SU-25T. From this range, I can count how many cigarettes he has tucked in the odd open pouch of his chest rig. This is hands down the best screenshot I ever took. And the most stupid thing I ever done. 

Too Forward, Too Detached - Steel Beasts ProPE 3

I'm trying to catch a glimpse of what Cold War era Soviet forward detachments were supposed to do. I threw together a tiny Steel Beasts ProPE scenario in which I am part of a forward detachment from a tank regiment. I am in command of the forward security element of the detachment and my mission is to clear a small patch of the plain that will be used by the big guys as an assembly area.

Going against a troop (-) of US Cavalry, with a full platoon of M1 Abrams tanks didn't fill me with confidence. But I was surprised at our performance.

Attacking the Barn With The Red Roof - DCS A-10C

In his fantastic book, "The Warthog and Close Air Support Debate", Douglas Campbell comments about how different the battlefield looks to the soldier and to the airman. In page two, a clear example is provided in which the soldier asks the pilot to attack the barn with the red roof. The pilot, from his point of view, can see many of those. Which one is the target?

Without any doubt, close air support has come a long way since the times where the problem mentioned above was all too common. The advances in global positioning, optics and data transmission packed in a modern close air support platform like the A-10C would look like magic to a forward air controller from the WWII era.

In this blog entry, a short reflection/tribute to how efficient close air support can be in the modern battlefield. The emphasis is on how the gadgets included in the A-10C help the pilot to accomplish his mission. These are screenshots from a custom-made mission in the highly detailed DCS A-10C flight simulator (Eagle Dynamics).

One Last Trench - New Combat Mission Red Thunder Scenario

By yours truly. I should be blogging more, but I could not help but to edit, test and release this scenario. I wanted to create something simple and quick to play. It turned out to be a tough fight for both sides. Nothing is easy in the Eastern Front!

Soviet armor supporting by fire.

One Last Trench is a single player scenario (Soviet human vs German AI) in which the Soviet attackers attempt to breach the last line of the defense of the German 78th Assault Division. Some screenshots from the gameplay follow.

Trigger-Happy! - The New Trigger System in Combat Mission Red Thunder

Triggered actions for the computer-controlled forces are one of the most awaited and exciting features in Combat Mission since the release of Shock Force. As many of you know, up until now the scenario creator of a single player mission had to guess if and when a certain player action would occur and set the computer-controlled faction orders based on SWAG. Not anymore! The new trigger system in Combat Mission now allows the scenario creator to trigger the computer controlled orders based on either the position of enemy or friendly forces. In this blog entry, a look at how this new trigger system works.

This is a setup that I did put together from scratch in 20 minutes or so. Even the map is from scratch. How many games out there can do this?