Desert Storm 1991 Campaign - Working Copy

[Suhiir]

Many of the battles were at night or in poor weather, many times on purpose, at others by accident, but the ability to see and shoot at ranges the Iraqi's considered impossible REALLY showed that a significant tech advantage makes numbers fairly irrelevant (as long as your ammo holds out).

[shahadi]

Originally Posted by Steves308

...And the number of first round hits at over 2000 yards makes me wonder if I'm fighting the Iraqis or Rommel's Afrika Korps

Originally Posted by Suhiir

Many of the battles were at night or in poor weather, many times on purpose, at others by accident, but the ability to see and shoot at ranges the Iraqi's considered impossible REALLY showed that a significant tech advantage makes numbers fairly irrelevant (as long as your ammo holds out).

I'm not sure, but I have the sense Steves308 is talking about Iraqi armor hits at ranges beyond 2000m. I could not have believed it as well, not that they would fire, but with hits at ranges over 2700m. I had to halt my planned advance lay down suppression to maneuver a platoon of Abrams to the north. The Iraqi crews should not, would not, did not fire at those ranges with this kind of accuracy in this scenario.

Anyway, so I think Steves308 was comparing, in this scenario the accurate fires of the Iraqi crews to those of Rommel's.

I would suggest we look at Searching and Hitting in Preferences. While playing this campaign, at least thus far in the first battle at Khafji, Searching was set at 250% and Hitting at 100%. 250% maybe way too high for the Iraqi and should as Suhiir suggests in her post, although in this scenario vision is set at 70 (not nighttime nor in blowing sand conditions, be set around 90 to 100%. Additionally, Arty Effectiveness is a mere 10%, and generally Iraqi Preference values: Rout/Rally, Troop Quality, Tank Toughness, and Infantry Toughness may need reexamination in light of the ineptness of Iraqi forces in the first Gulf War.

It could very well be the case, that to model the technological advantage enjoyed by the American side, as a multiplier in this scenario, adjusting the Preference numbers maybe the way to go.

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[DRG]

Originally Posted by shahadi

I'm not sure, but I have the sense Steves308 is talking about Iraqi armor hits at ranges beyond 2000m. I could not have believed it as well, not that they would fire, but with hits at ranges over 2700m. I had to halt my planned advance lay down suppression to maneuver a platoon of Abrams to the north. The Iraqi crews should not, would not, did not fire at those ranges with this kind of accuracy in this scenario.

Anyway, so I think Steves308 was comparing, in this scenario the accurate fires of the Iraqi crews to those of Rommel's.

I would suggest we look at Searching and Hitting in Preferences. While playing this campaign, at least thus far in the first battle at Khafji, Searching was set at 250% and Hitting at 100%. 250% maybe way too high for the Iraqi and should as Suhiir suggests in her post, although in this scenario vision is set at 70 (not nighttime nor in blowing sand conditions, be set around 90 to 100%. Additionally, Arty Effectiveness is a mere 10%, and generally Iraqi Preference values: Rout/Rally, Troop Quality, Tank Toughness, and Infantry Toughness may need reexamination in light of the ineptness of Iraqi forces in the first Gulf War.

It could very well be the case, that to model the technological advantage enjoyed by the American side, as a multiplier in this scenario, adjusting the Preference numbers maybe the way to go.

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I checked the copy I have and everything is set to 100%....... that said I have resaved every scenario in an attempt to correct a DAT file issue and I thought perhaps I may have reset them with the save ( I never adjust these so this kind of issue has never come up for me ) so I reloaded the original campaign and extracted it to a new Campaign folder and fired up the game and all the preference values I see are at 100%.......so ......does anyone else see wildly out of adjustment preference values when they load this campaign??


Don

[shahadi]

Originally Posted by DRG

I checked the copy I have and everything is set to 100%....... that said I have resaved every scenario in an attempt to correct a DAT file issue and I thought perhaps I may have reset them with the save ( I never adjust these so this kind of issue has never come up for me ) so I reloaded the original campaign and extracted it to a new Campaign folder and fired up the game and all the preference values I see are at 100%.......so ......does anyone else see wildly out of adjustment preference values when they load this campaign??


Don

Interesting. I normally do not change Preference values either. In this campaign, I took your advice from an earlier post and saved all other campaigns to a campaign hold folder, only this campaign shows in my campaign folder. Now, I'm mystified, "...stupefied, terrified... mortified... petrified..." as how those values turned up in this campaign.

To be clear only the Iraqi Searching was set at 250%. Even after adjusting Searching to 90% three Type 69-II's scored hits at 2400-2700mm. So, maybe we'd have to go lower than 90% to approximate the dismal performance of the Iraqi crews in the First.

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[mkr8683]

Oh my god.. these scenarios are jacked.

I think I'm just going to have to redo them. I have no idea why they're being such a PITA. The only time I recall adjusting the preferences were in SP2, when I dialed up everything on the US side and dialed everything down on the Iraqi side, so I could breeze through the campaign to find the AI unit placement on the maps.

Guys, I really apologize for all this. The campaign played just fine for me in testing. In SP2, the Iraqi units are a pushover, but in MBT, they're a little bit harder to deal with. The last time I played it all the way through, I lost four Abrams to Iraqi tank fire. I figured this was part of the balance of the game - I don't want to play a campaign that's just shooting rabbits, although the real ODS was a lot like that

I'm really sorry, fellas. This is the first campaign I've tried to thread together, probably should have recruited some beta testers before posting it on the forums. I'll be cooped up in the house all weekend because of the weather, so I'll get back to work to try to unf**k this thing.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by shahadi

Interesting. I normally do not change Preference values either. In this campaign, I took your advice from an earlier post and saved all other campaigns to a campaign hold folder, only this campaign shows in my campaign folder. Now, I'm mystified, "...stupefied, terrified... mortified... petrified..." as how those values turned up in this campaign.

To be clear only the Iraqi Searching was set at 250%. Even after adjusting Searching to 90% three Type 69-II's scored hits at 2400-2700mm. So, maybe we'd have to go lower than 90% to approximate the dismal performance of the Iraqi crews in the First.

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Which scenario do you see the Iraqi Searching was set at 250% ??

[shahadi]

Originally Posted by DRG

Which scenario do you see the Iraqi Searching was set at 250% ??

The very first one.

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[shahadi]

Originally Posted by mkr8683

Oh my god.. these scenarios are jacked.

I think I'm just going to have to redo them. I have no idea why they're being such a PITA. The only time I recall adjusting the preferences were in SP2, when I dialed up everything on the US side and dialed everything down on the Iraqi side, so I could breeze through the campaign to find the AI unit placement on the maps.

Guys, I really apologize for all this. The campaign played just fine for me in testing. In SP2, the Iraqi units are a pushover, but in MBT, they're a little bit harder to deal with. The last time I played it all the way through, I lost four Abrams to Iraqi tank fire. I figured this was part of the balance of the game - I don't want to play a campaign that's just shooting rabbits, although the real ODS was a lot like that

I'm really sorry, fellas. This is the first campaign I've tried to thread together, probably should have recruited some beta testers before posting it on the forums. I'll be cooped up in the house all weekend because of the weather, so I'll get back to work to try to unf**k this thing.

I'm liking the campaign thus far... I was concerned about the outstanding hit percentage of Iraqi crews but hey we can live with that. What we could do to make the gameplay experience challenging, other than adjusting Preference values, is to filter Iraqi unit fires. That would add a challenging experience to the game too. The Iraqi units would hold fire thereby concealing positions until the US side was within an acceptable hit percentage. An RPG taking aim at an Bradley from 450m is not smart.

Another idea, would be to dramatically increase the cost of the Abrams and Gun APCs.

My observations... I killed everything Iraqi on the map, save a few fleeing crews. I reached every objective. I lost a Bradley to hostile fire and a second because I inadvertently clicked on a hex while a Bradley was selected, the Bradley moved, lost cover and was hit. I only managed a Marginal Victory, two points. So, yeah, I'm thinking a Decisive Victory.

Equipment
I purchased a ride for the Bn CO, a M577A3.

Briefing
I'd urge you to write a proper mission briefing.

Personal preference
Id the CO and Platoon Hq units.

I reasoned I did not have enough time to dismount the Mech Inf and advance...so, I kept everyone in his seat while the whole company rode into the battle. Not what I'd expect in a MOUT op.

I'd give you three thumps up but I only got two.
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[Steves308]

I have not noticed any changes to my usual preferences settings while playing this campaign, and I did look at them after I started getting hits from the Iraqis at very long range. And yes, I was talking about the Iraqi tanks taking such long range shots and actually hitting, some at 2700 yards. I had a couple of Bradleys actually take front hull hits with no penetration from the 100mm Iraqi tank guns, the range was so long the penetration level was down around 10...and we can't have that, those Bradley commanders will start thinking they are driving real tanks

I found renumbering the campaign files from 15 to 19 did not work. I got through the first scenario fine, then I was taken to the second scenario of the campaign in my #15 slot. So I removed that campaign and reinstalled this one in the #15 slot and after the 1st scenario, it proceeded correctly to the 2nd scenario... live and learn The only really odd thing I noticed was after the 1st scenario, I'm ready to continue to the 2nd scenario and then I get the briefing for Khafji battle. But the 2nd scenario is a delay at As-Suayyirah. No big deal, I just went and read the text file in notepad to figure out what I'm supposed to do. I've never built a campaign, so I'm not sure how to correct this...maybe I'll try some file renumbering again

One last thing, thanks to Mkr8683 for putting the effort into recreating this campaign. A few minor bugs to work out, but you're 99% of the way there!

PS I just went and renumbered text file U015i001 to U015i000, started a new version of the campaign, and now I get the proper pre-battle briefing before the 1st scenario. I did the same thing for U015i002, renamed it to U015i001, and I restarted my game save from the end of the 1st scenario and now I get the correct pre-battle briefing before 2nd scenario. So I would suggest renaming the U015i00x files from 1 through 8 to 0 through 7.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Steves308

PS I just went and renumbered text file U015i001 to U015i000, started a new version of the campaign, and now I get the proper pre-battle briefing before the 1st scenario. I did the same thing for U015i002, renamed it to U015i001, and I restarted my game save from the end of the 1st scenario and now I get the correct pre-battle briefing before 2nd scenario. So I would suggest renaming the U015i00x files from 1 through 8 to 0 through 7.

YOU ARE CORRECT...... just did that with my set