[Proposal] New Middle Eastern Armies

[Nighthawk]

Note: I am not proposing a complete replacement of the MEC faction. New Middle-Eastern factions could go only on new maps, or only replace the MEC on a few maps where it would be appropriate.

In Battlefield 2, the Middle Eastern Coalition provided a convenient way to include a modern Middle Eastern military, ignoring the fact that much of the equipment was not in widespread use in the Middle East and without politicising the game. However, Project Reality is a realism mod with no such issues about including real factions, and the MEC is an unrealistic faction which should not ideally be included in a modification which aims to achieve realism.

I understand that the PR developers are very busy as it is, and replacing the MEC may not be a high priority. I propose we start a community effort to replace or complement the MEC with more realistic factions. I know people like to concentrate on getting their own country’s military done, but I think more OPFOR variation will ultimately benefit everyone.

We need to look at the politics of the Middle East and decide which factions are most likely to be fighting the western armies in the near future.
One of the logical replacements for the MEC would be Iran, which has one of the most powerful militaries in the Middle East and a growing indigenous arms industry. Iran uses western arms sold before the Islamic Revolution in 1979, alongside Iranian and Soviet/Russian weapons, making for interesting game play. Iran would require the most effort of all the MEC replacement factions to implement, needing Persian voices and 3D models for Iranian weapons.

Syria would also make a good replacement for the MEC. Syria was involved in the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War against Israel. More recently, Israel bombed an alleged Syrian nuclear facility. I think having a Syrian faction in-game would be particularly useful to the IDF community mod, and possibly for the Turkish community mod if it ever gets off the ground. Putting the Syrians in-game would be easy as we already have Arabic voices and most of the equipment they would use is already done.

I have no delusions of creating a super-leet community mod in no time at all and I know how much work would be involved. I'm posting here to throw this idea around and see what people think, and hopefully find people who are interested in seeing this happening.
I intend to edit this thread as people suggest other militaries we can add to replace the MEC, equipment we can use, and armies geographically appropriate to the locations that the existing maps are in. The list below is by no means a complete plan, I hope we can draft that up as a community.

Thanks for reading my proposal thread. All feedback and comments are welcome. Can you think of any other factions that could realistically replace the MEC on some maps? Are you willing to help? Do you think we should forget about this idea and keep the MEC to avoid politicisation and give the developers more creative freedom? Should we have both the MEC and new factions? Discuss.

Syria

To do:

• Re-skin MEC soldiers
• Re-skin MEC vehicles
• Replace weapons from kits with more realistic ones

Infantry Equipment:

Assault Rifle: AK-47 (done) is probably standard issue, AK-74 (done) may be in limited service.
Light Machine Gun: PKM (done)
Marksman Rifle: SVD (done)
MANPADS: SA-7 (done) would be suitable, or a Strela-3 or Igla.
Light AT: RPG-29/RPG-7 (done)

Armour:

MBT: T-72 (re-skin)
APC: BTR-60 (re-skin)/BRDM-2 (re-skin)

Aircraft:

Fighter: MiG-29 (re-skin)
Attack Helicopter: Mil Mi-24 (SF/Russian Forces?)
Transport Helicopter: Mil Mi-17 (re-skin)

Iran

To do:

• Re-skin MEC soldiers
• Re-skin MEC vehicles
• Create 3D models of some Iranian weapons and vehicles
• Record Persian voices

Infantry Equipment:

Assault Rifle: G3A6 (Iranian-made G3A3, done)
Iran produces its own 5.56mm bullpup Khaybar assault rifle, but I don’t think it’s in service yet. Even so, it would be nice if someone could model it and add it in-game to add an element of uniqueness to an Iranian faction if it’s ever created.

Light Machine Gun: PKM (done)
Does Iran use the MG3?

Marksman Rifle: SVD (done)
MANPADS: SA-7 (done)/Igla
Light AT: RPG-7/Saegheh (done)
Heavy AT: RPG-29

Armour:

I put some names of indigenous Iranian designs on this list even though they may be hard to find information about, and to model. Of course, it would be nice to have them to add some variety to equipment.

MBT: T-72 (done) or Zulfiqar (information seems to be scarce)
APC: BTR-60 (done) or Cobra BMT-2 (information seems to be scarce)

Aircraft:

Fighter: MiG-29 (re-skin)
We could also create a HESA Azarakhsh or Saeqeh, both F-5 variants, the latter of which has 2 tail fins.

Ground Attack: Su-25 (re-skin)
2-seat Attack: F-14A
There may not be an appropriate map for the F-14A, but I think it would be cool to have, and make the faction more distinguished.

Attack Helicopter: AH-1J SeaCobra/Panha 2091 (re-skin)
Transport Helicopter: Mil Mi-8 (re-skin) or Bell 206/212 (is this similar enough to the Huey for a re-skin to be acceptable?) or CH-47C Chinook (WIP?)

[Zimmer]

I like MEC as it is, but ofc if you want to you can start making the faction

[162eRI]

I'm with you Nighthawk. I always found the MEC unrealistic, but well, still nice to play and PR have other things to do.
But you did a great research and I think it would be easy to make those factions.
Even so, we can't make all the nationalities, so I think like you Syria and Iran are really important, but we still need some sort of ME coalition to represent the other countries from there !

Great work, support this idea.

[Tannhauser]

Find persian voices.

Good luck

[badmojo420]

People will shoot down this idea saying they are all part of a Middle East Coalition. But the problem with that is the USMC, US Army, & GB are all part of the North Atlantic Coalition (NATO) but they still get their own specific factions.

Think about how people would feel if there was a game made similar to PR except instead of adding the specific factions, they just lumped us all together calling us 'Nato Forces Coalition' (NFC) or something along those lines. While all the Middle east countries are represented in every realistic detail. People with national pride would refuse the play the game, calling it racist because all the middle east countries are detailed and specific while ours are lumped together all given m16 rifles and humvees no matter what. I'm sure there are arabs out there who've declined to play BF2 or PR because of these reasons.

I'm all for this change. And willing to help out with any research needed. I'm not a skinner or modeler so i can't really help with anything important.

[SocketMan]

Originally Posted by Tannhauser

Find persian voices.

Good luck

[FONT=Fixedsys]ALLAH AKBAR
[/FONT]

Mec
will never Falter!!!

I can't speak for all the others but myself and at least 50 more people like to play as MEC for many different reasons.Why not just add these 2 fractions and let the people decide what they like more?

[HughJass]

its an interesting idea, but to be honest, in the world of pr a united arab army (mec should be be renamed to something like AMA, arabian military alliance) is not far from reality. The world is in possibly its biggest war yet.

However, I would like to see a irani (persian) army.

[badmojo420]

Originally Posted by Tannhauser

Find persian voices.

Good luck

God forbid, we might actually have to pay for something.

I'm sure you could find someone who would do the voices for money. Hell if that was all that is holding back real Middle Eastern factions, i'd foot the bill.

[HughJass]

Originally Posted by badmojo420

People will shoot down this idea saying they are all part of a Middle East Coalition. But the problem with that is the USMC, US Army, & GB are all part of the North Atlantic Coalition (NATO) but they still get their own specific factions.

Think about how people would feel if there was a game made similar to PR except instead of adding the specific factions, they just lumped us all together calling us 'Nato Forces Coalition' (NFC) or something along those lines. While all the Middle east countries are represented in every realistic detail. People with national pride would refuse the play the game, calling it racist because all the middle east countries are detailed and specific while ours are lumped together all given m16 rifles and humvees no matter what. I'm sure there are arabs out there who've declined to play BF2 or PR because of these reasons.

I'm all for this change. And willing to help out with any research needed. I'm not a skinner or modeler so i can't really help with anything important.

mojo you have a point, but the middle east is primarily ruled by the religion of islam, and fighting against opposing religions is not out of the ordinary for islamic people (no offense). Becoming one as a military force seems like their only choice, as even their neighbors (i.e. israel) have better technology, and quite possibly a better army all together then 2-3 of the arab countries combined (no offense once again). Seeing as how the American and European Forces are after them, the only smart choice is to combine military strength.

Of course this is all just my predictions, there is a very small realism factor I am considering while making these predictions. But comparing it to all the other conflicts going on in the PR world, I don't see my explanation as being all that "crazy".

[gclark03]

Something needs to counterbalance all the Western community factions.