Maps

[Janush Rambowski]

Originally Posted by [R-DEV]Nosferatu

Whole idea is bullet in the head of balance. Insurgents with AKs, RKGs and short respawn time will overrun even Mech batallion armed with laser cannons.

That's kind of the idea. I think the Mech battalion could win but it would be a very hard fight. There would be no break. They would need lots of ammo. And it would be close if they won just like the real story.

In the Thunder Run, the tanks would have to be constantly aquiring new targets and shooting - and even shooting where there might be targets without certainty and double-tapping. But they'd also be taking a beating from all sorts of fire. Likewise, the Insurgents would keep coming and dying in droves. It would be a pretty wild non-stop battle on the move from one end of the map to the other. Nobody would go unscathed. There would be all kinds of flying ammo & tracers criss-crossing the highway; missing, hitting, and bouncing off of chobham armor and everything else.

Even with a fast respawn, it would still take time to obtain RPG's from a cache. And then it would be really difficult to get a clean shot off of a moving target from a distance when you have 12 armored vehicles with optics & HE rounds and coax guns + additional .50 cals & MK-19s on Humvees (if US) looking & shooting everywhere at the same time across open fields of fire. AND those moving targets, aka tanks, would also have to get hit many times in the right places to get destroyed.

Dust poofs, smoke, sparks & fireflies, ricochets, fireballs, shrapnel, debris, chunks of the road, etc... would fill the air. Tracers would be snapping, whizzing, & pinging. Mortars would be whooshing & crashing. The whole battlefield would be lit up! It was like that for real. Watch the video and read the LA Times story included in the post.

[[R-DEV]Nosferatu]

Janush, the whole idea looks like "Starship Troopers" where millions of bugs attacking Rasczak's Roughnecks. It's not reality, nobody in modern world will run in crowds to meet their deaths in front of mechanized units. Insurgents won't fight in open field when they've got excellent place for ambushes - cities. In urban environment whole 12 armored vehicles left without infantry support will be wasted in short time by ambushers - it's a lesson of history, not just my imagination.

[Janush Rambowski]

Yes, you're right. I realize it, too. But how do you explain the video? It shows both open fields of fire alongside the highway and a city that was between 200 & 300 meters away from the highway where the insurgents were hiding. You'd have to consider the layout of the map. According to the story, the insurgents were waiting for infantry, not tanks, in the city. They were not ready for a long line of tanks to come down Highway 8 in a blitzkrieg maneuver which was a distance from the city.

Video of the battle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGQxR1FXta8

Detailed story of the battle:
http://articles.latimes.com/2003/dec...e/tm-marines49

In a map, just as in the video, the rally points would have to be in the city but at least between 200 & 300 meters from the highway with an open field of fire in between. The insurgents/ opfor would have to shoot the rpg's across this distance at moving targets that are varying their speed. In the video, I counted at least 5 rpg's that missed the tank. You can hear four fly by. One hits the ground between the camera & the tank ahead. Since the video was edited, there must have been more. It takes 5 rpg's hitting the front or the side to blow up a tank in the game. You can't hit the top because of the angle between the rooftops & the highway. And you can't hit the rear because the tanks are in a line. Also, in that actual real-life battle, suicide cars & trucks did, in fact, throw themselves at the tanks but with little or no effect. They would be very easy to spot since there would be no obstructions except for overpasses.

However, in the game, ambushers do, indeed, pose a problem. I'm not sure if there were any IED's in the video. And I don't remember how many it takes to obliterate 1 tank in the game. To patch this, for the purposes of the game, you'd have to manipulate the spawn points again. And have pick-up trucks, cars, & motorcycles by the highway placed far from the spawn points in the city or near the spawn points in the city that are farthest from the highway - remember, everyone's in the city not by the highway which is a distance away. This would make the timing close so that the insurgents/ opfor would be in visual range of the forward-advancing tanks' optics when they got to the highway. And anyone trying to make it to the road on foot without a vehicle would be caught out in the open in the time that it took to run/ walk. Also, since vehicles are bigger, you'd see them in the distance more easily.

The key for the armor would be to keep moving, so as not to allow the opposing infantry enough time to get set up ahead of them. The convoy would capture the CP's on the move as the convoy rolled through it. The gunner would have to shoot at targets on the move. The tank could slow down but couldn't fully stop or at least not for very long. The road would be smooth and so there wouldn't be any bouncing for the main gun cross-hairs. Any missed targets would have to catch up from behind as the convoy continued to drive through & capture CP's on the highway. The insurgents/ opfor could try to come up from behind but the turrets would be constantly swiveling. The rear tanks would be looking sideways & backwards. Gunners in separate tanks would have to learn how to cooperate in scanning the battlefield when driving in a convoy along the road.

And, while on the topic of ambushers & IED's, we have to consider the game's IED damage for a tank. Each ambusher gets 1 IED. If you concentrated several IED's (from several ambushers) you could destroy 1 tank at a time but that wouldn't stop the rest of the constantly moving convoy. The tank would respawn and there would also be plenty more tanks at the base. If you daisy-chained the IED's, then you could hit multipe tanks but not enough to destroy any idividual tank. So that wouldn't stop the convoy either. Ambushers would also have to set up the IED's on the side of the road & guard rails where the tanks would drive- which would be in a direct line of sight for the MG's on a straight path. Another anti-ambusher solution would be to have fast moving attack helicopters blasting away at possible hiding places like in Basrah v0.5... Technicals could shoot at flare-popping choppers but tanks would be shooting shells at technicals that are giving away their position with green tracers.

Balance between asymmetric forces in this instance would depend primarily on the layout of the map, e.g., spawn points, and the placement of asymmetric assets for a battle that is constantly on the move. It would be very difficult for both sides in this sort of arrangement. Such a map would present a unique set of challenges for each side.

[Janush Rambowski]

A European version of this map would be low-lying farmlands with intersecting side-roads leading to clusters of cottages/ small villages. There would be orchards and crops of varying heights. There could also be small patches of forests some distance away from the road with grasslands, fallen trees, & telephone poles in between the road and forests.

An Afghan version of this map would be a wide, flat, rocky valley (greyish in color) in between distant foothills with a dusty road that gently winds through the middle. You could also have farm fields of poppy, small groves or rows of trees, and whatever else they grow over there. There would be burms and irrigation ditches parallel and perpendicular to the road.

An MEC/ Iraq version would be directly copied from the actual real-life map of the Thunder Run battle that took place in Iraq, April 2003. It could also be copied straight from the game "Steel Beasts" if that game was faithful to the real life environment. It would look as already described both in the previous posts & in the LA Times article, from photos, and as seen in the video. There would be lots of palm trees, of course. The city would have two parallel roads on either side of the highway (for a total of four) not including intersecting alley-ways that open up to open fields of fire & overpasses that lead to the highway. Insurgents would safely use these side-streets to travel parallel to the tanks. The city & side-streets would be out-of-bounds/ off-limits to the tanks which would have to keep moving along the highway (but can off-road it in the open fields of fire) in case of lane blockages. (The guard rails/ center dividers and overpasses should be destructible to affect traffic flow. Tanks should also be able to run over/ flatten the guard rails/ center divider when needed.) Pits should be created in the road when there are explosions.) If you copy the real-life map & circumstances, then it should be safe to say that it is realistic.

The European & Afghan maps could also borrow ideas from the original Iraq model.

"Steel Beasts" Tank-Simulator Thunder Run Map:
YouTube - Thunder run - streets of Baghdad in Steel Beasts

Because of the long distances over which the rpg's would have to be shot, a lot of rpg's would miss, and so a lot of caches with RPG's & machine guns would need to be available parallel to the highway. In the case of the Iraq/ MEC version, it would be every other house and alternating in a saw-tooth configuration when looking at the side-streets overhead from an aerial view. The RPG's & MG's should respawn quickly. It would effectively be an rpg shooting gallery though most would miss - either fall short, overshoot, or fly in between the vehicles. There would be a voluminous exhange of fire, rpgs, tank rounds, apc rounds, & tracers that would follow along with the tanks' procession roughly perpendicular to the road from mostly left & right flanks.

Since the crewmen in the tanks can't hear or normally see the in-game contrails of the flying rpg's, the tanks would benefit from having .50cal gunners riding on the tops of the tanks, listening for & spotting rpg's. The .50cal gunners would shoot tracers in the direction of the sources of rpg's to help the tanks' main gunners more accurately aquire the targets/ threats with optics. To counter this, however, each cache would have PKM machine guns to keep the .50cal gunners' heads down in the ducking/ crouched position as much as possible if not more than half the time. The tank turrets would thus be constantly pelted with light arms fire. But the tanks would, of course, be trying to keep the insurgents' heads down, too.

[Janush Rambowski]

Suggested map making method:

Google-Earth a location anywhere in the world that is of interest. (And maybe obtain other more detailed satellite images.) - It could be even your own home town - And make a PR map that is identical to it. Basically, just superimpose it in the BF2 map making editor. Presto. You have a REAL map. What could be more real than that? You could, if you wanted, create a BF2/ PR Mod map of your own neighborhood and then turn it into an on-line war zone.

I Google-Earthed "highway 8" in Iraq. (Layer settings: Geographic Web, Roads, 3D Building, Borders and Labels, Global Awareness, Places of Interest, Terrain.) I swear it looks just like a PR Mod map. It looks like a combination of PR Mod Ramiel and BF2 Armored Fury: Operation Road Rage.

[[R-DEV]Nosferatu]

Originally Posted by Janush Rambowski

Yes, you're right. I realize it, too. But how do you explain the video? It shows both open fields of fire alongside the highway and a city that was between 200 & 300 meters away from the highway where the insurgents were hiding. You'd have to consider the layout of the map. According to the story, the insurgents were waiting for infantry, not tanks, in the city. They were not ready for a long line of tanks to come down Highway 8 in a blitzkrieg maneuver which was a distance from the city.

Video of the battle:
YouTube - 3rd ID TF 1-64 Baghdad Thunder Run

Detailed story of the battle:
The Thunder Run - Los Angeles Times

OK, if you want to talk about history:

TF 1-64 had task to break through enemy positions and reach airport:

It was to slice through Baghdad’s southwestern corner and link up at the airport with the division’s 1st Brigade, which had seized the facility the day before.

They had not task to neutralize resistance with armored column, just rush onto enemy and move on. Make "resistance pockets" and eliminate them one by one - that was task for upcoming forces, not for TF 1-64. I'm not superior tactician, by placing defensive lines outside the city was a mistake. The only explanation was task to Iraqis to secure vital route to airport, and they failed because:

they seemed to have no training, no discipline, no coordinated tactics. It was all point and shoot

And that what happens when urban resistance is trained, disciplined and have some kind of coordinated tactics:









No AT mines were used to destroy those tanks (not like in 1991).

And what about maps - I already told what I think, maybe mappers or Project Lead will be interested.

P.S.: Pan Rambowski, you have a lot of imagination and energy, use them wisely.

[Janush Rambowski]

Nosferatu -

That was an excellent post - even if you have reservations about the idea.

And thank you for the complimentary/ cautionary advice. I get your drift.

[Boda1]

I was thinking of doing an armor map with British vs. Russia.. How do I get permission to start mapping for the mod???

[[R-MOD]KP]

Just make the map and then see if the DEVs want it in.

[Boda1]

Cool, thanks!