Campaign: Surovikin's Return

[jheinrichk]

COMMAND: MODERN OPERATIONS · DB3000 v515
SUROVIKIN'S RETURN
THE FORTRESS BELT

Description
Surovikin's Return: The Fortress Belt
A campaign in four chapters for Command: Modern Operations (DB3000 v515). Play Ukraine or Russia. The AI plays the other side and makes its own decisions.

October 2026. Ukraine's Operation Vivaldi has broken the northern jaw of the Russian pincer on Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. Moscow recalls General Sergei Surovikin to command the Donbas front with one order: take the rest of Donetsk Oblast before winter. Between his armies and that goal stands the fortress belt: Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka and Kostiantynivka. What happens next surprises everyone.

1. Winter: 21 October 2026, 6 hours
2. Saturation: 23 October 2026, 8 hours
3. Other Avenues: 25 October 2026, 8 hours
4. The Line: 27 October 2026, 6 hours

How it plays

• At each turning point the scenario asks you what to do. The clock stops while you decide.
  
  As Russia you order a saturation strike of jet drones, propeller drones, decoys and missiles timed back from H-hour.
  The drone war and electronic warfare are modelled on both sides.
  
  Gun and rocket batteries move after they fire and drive to the ammunition depots near the front to reload (Special Actions > ARTILLERY switches this off).
  
  Russian TOS-1A launchers support the assaults. Su-25s and Ka-52s fly loft runs, tossing their rockets from outside the defenders' short-range air defence.
  
  Each chapter passes its state to the next: who holds each town, how much of each army is left, the decisions taken and both scores.
  
  In campaign play your score reaches CMO's score window in the last minute of each chapter. Game > Special Actions > STATUS shows it as it goes.
  
  Every window carries a photograph.

The drone waves
CMO's database has no aircraft version of the Geran-2 or the Gerbera, so the scripted drone waves fly stand-ins. Geran-2 attack drones show as Shahed-121 UAVs and Gerbera decoys as Orlan-10 UAVs. A Geran-2 stand-in that reaches its target destroys one building or vehicle there by script, 7 times in 10 (fewer under GNSS jamming). A Gerbera stand-in carries nothing: it draws air defence fire. The stand-ins fly straight at their targets at the height and speed of the drone they stand for (a Geran-2 at 2,000 to 2,800 m, diving at the end) and each wave arrives together. Ukraine's Liutyi long-range drones fly as UJ-22 stand-ins and hit the same way. As Russia you see each wave's make-up on its map marker, for example wave W0: 12 Geran-2, 6 Gerbera. The four Orlan-10s of the Russian recon mission are real recon drones.

Installing
Download the latest Campaign version (Build 5.7.1): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BDSw5- ... drive_link
Or from Steam:
After you subscribe, Steam places the files in Steam\steamapps\workshop\content\1076160\(this item's ID)\Surovikins Return Fortress Belt. Copy that folder into Steam\steamapps\common\Command - Modern Operations\Campaigns, then start the campaign from the main menu: Campaigns. Each chapter can also be played on its own from that folder.

Fiction set a few weeks after the time of writing. Operation Vivaldi, the armies and the places are real; the events of the scenario and every unit name below army level are invented.



https://images.steamusercontent.com/ugc ... rbox=false

[jheinrichk]

Build 5.7.1 (includes builds 5.7, 5.6.1, 5.6 and 5.5.1).
Attack drones dive: the Geran-2 and Liutyi stand-ins come down from cruise height in their last 8 nm and dive on the target, hitting at the target instead of vanishing up high.
One-way attack drones circling with no target left (Shahed-136, Shahed-238, Lancet) are taken off the map after 4 minutes. They never count as losses.
No TOS-1A drives across the front for the main offensive. With none near the first objective, a Su-25 pair flies a loft run on it instead.
Infantry and anti-tank teams are seen only from a recon drone within 1 km or a land unit within 0.5 km.

Build 5.7:

Fly it yourself (Russia): a Su-25 pair's LOFT ATTACK window offers Fly it yourself. The cockpit opens in CMO's own window (3D, cockpit, HUD, sound, 10 S-13, the wingman's salvo and a drone view of the impacts) while the game waits. One try a run. At the end press ENTER, then Back to the map, then Ctrl+V and OK.
The Su-25 then fires 4 S-13 in CMO for each rocket you fired: hits at the aim and misses where they landed, so you can find them on the map. What they hit counts in the chapter. A crash loses the Su-25 once its rockets are away. If no flight is pasted the run goes on as usual. No other program is needed.
The campaign theme GeneralSurovikinsLegacy.mp3 (or .wav) plays when a chapter is opened or a saved game is loaded. Put it in CMO's Sound\\Effects folder (download link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/16Aviql ... drive_link).


Build 5.6: Su-25 loft runs pull up 7 km short of the aim and ripple every S-13 in CMO, a pod of five at a time, then break away low and head home. A LOFT ATTACK window with the loft photograph (inside the POPUPS switch) and Watch at 1x.
Build 5.5.1: special actions no longer stop with SCRIPT ERROR ... CachedChunk:645. Much less lag from the 1-minute check.

Build 5.5, from a playtest of chapter 1 as Russia. All chapters patched.
GNSS jamming on both sides: within 12 km of a live enemy GNSS jammer, Excalibur shells go astray 80 times in 100, GMLRS rockets and JDAM bombs 35 and Russian glide bombs 25.
Scoring: one-way attack drones (Geran-2, Gerbera, Liutyi) no longer count as losses, whether shot down, on target or lost another way. Only their hits score.
Russia's guns, air defence, command posts and drone posts start hidden from Ukraine until found, as Ukraine's are from Russia. Both sides' assault platoons waiting in their assembly areas start hidden too. Russia and the Russian Strike Forces are now friendly.
When the main offensive is ordered a TOS-1A moves up behind the start line of the group that attacks first.
Aircraft parked at high airfields are no longer read as airborne, so the Su-25 and Ka-52 rocket runs fly again. Su-34 glide runs release when they pass their release point between two checks and are sent on again when CMO turns them home.
Artillery batteries arrive, load at the depots and give up correctly. Rounds fired before a battery's first check are counted.
An assault that gets no fire support and a group that is wiped out are now logged and reported.
STATUS and the strike board show each side only its own drones and counters, list every drone wave and say why an item has not gone.
Drone stand-ins that fall behind their schedule are sped up before they are moved back on their line.

Build 5.4: the Su-34s no longer fly CMO's glide bomb mission. Pairs fly low to a release point 40 to 55 km short of the target, outside the reach of every Ukrainian air defence site, the Patriot included, on a leg that stays outside it too. The Su-25 and Ka-52 rocket runs keep their release point and the leg to it outside the reach of the Buk, NASAMS, IRIS-T and short-range air defence, fly lower (Su-25 200 m, Ka-52 100 m) and go home one minute after a launch order that was not fired. A target with no safe release point waits until the air defence over it is gone. HIMARS and Lancet strikes engage targets whose position is uncertain. The northern reserve only goes to the north and Lyman sectors and the southern reserve to the south and centre, each within 30 km. A group has reached its objective when three in four of its platoons are inside it, or half of them have been for 15 minutes. A platoon the script moves gets one waypoint, with no midway point. The Russian strike log lines no longer show in Ukraine's log.

Build 5.3: the Iskander, Kinzhal, Kalibr, Geran and Lancet strikes now go in. Their targets are found a few minutes before launch and assigned until the mission holds them. Launchers that fire nothing are ordered to fire. A strike CMO still does not fly is flown by the script. A strike group whose targets are already destroyed goes for others of the same kind. Every strike mission has automatic evasion off, maintain standoff no and ignore plotted course no (the Kalibr ships and the HIMARS keep their standoff). Platoons of an assault group that stop short of their objective are sent on again.

Build 5.2: each drone stand-in flies straight at its target on its wave's schedule. One that turns away is put back on its line; one whose target is already destroyed goes for another target ahead of it. The fighter patrols fly as pairs round a racetrack behind their own lines.

Build 5, from the chapter 1 playtest as Russia: guns and rocket batteries move to a new firing position after they fire, drive to the nearest ammunition depot of their side when their rounds run out, load there and come back (Special Actions > ARTILLERY switches this off). The depots near the front hold one reload for every battery. Ukraine's guns, air defence, command posts and drone posts are no longer known to Russia from the first minute; fixed sites still are. TOS-1A launchers with Tor-M2 escorts move up to fire on the towns the Russian assault groups attack, then pull back to reload. Su-25s and Ka-52s fly loft runs, tossing rockets from 6 to 7 km short of the target. The ground attack aircraft fly on surge.

[Nikel]

Thanks for the updated scenarios and for posting them also in this forum.


I tried the first one, Winter.

- Description: "COMMAND: MODERN OPERATIONS · DB3000 v515" and "Built and verified against DB3000 v515", when the scenario is already using db v519

- Scenario features: terrain type advanced is not recommended by devs. Unlimited magazines is ticked, WAD?

- Played as the Ukrainian, there are several Iskander and Geran launchers autodetectable, when they are mobile units. Should they not be detected by Ukrainian recon units?

- There are constant freezes every 30 seconds and in one of those the game may become completely frozen.

[jheinrichk]

Thank you for checking out this campaign and thank your feedback! Noted. I will address the items you've listed in the next patch for build 5.6, forthcoming. Build 5.5 Is now available.

The auto detectable units are intentional because NATO is supplying intelligence, if this makes too much of an imbalance, certain unit's auto detection should be revisited.

[jheinrichk]

Thanks for the updated scenarios and for posting them also in this forum.


I tried the first one, Winter.

- Description: "COMMAND: MODERN OPERATIONS · DB3000 v515" and "Built and verified against DB3000 v515", when the scenario is already using db v519

- Scenario features: terrain type advanced is not recommended by devs. Unlimited magazines is ticked, WAD?

- Played as the Ukrainian, there are several Iskander and Geran launchers autodetectable, when they are mobile units. Should they not be detected by Ukrainian recon units?

- There are constant freezes every 30 seconds and in one of those the game may become completely frozen.

The requested updates have been incorporated. scenario runs much smoother now and many of the land units are not visible by the opposing side until either a drone is right above them or the opposing land units are practically almost upon them

[Nikel]

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