Chechnya - map/DB mod (v0.61 update + missions + Steam Workshop)

[lancer]

Hi CCIP,

Glad you liked it.

Have you got a link to the case study for the 131st Brigade that you mentioned? Sounds interesting.

Cheers,
Lancer

[CCIP-subsim]

There's a few - all but one of the ones I've been referring to are mostly in Russian, however (not sure how Google Translate would handle them!)

There is a pretty decent Fort Leavensworth paper, however, that was done by the Foreign Military Studies Office in 1998, titled "Why the Russian Military Failed in Chechnya". Lots more sources have come out since, not to mention the very different "rematch" that happened in Chechnya with the second war a year after it was written, but it's quite good overall: https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a435005.pdf

Otherwise, if anyone wants to dive deep into the Russian sources - here's the two most detailed online sources (both are, essentially, full online books):
1) https://coollib.com/b/222162/read
2) http://memoriesnorth.narod.ru/rec.html
There is also a similar book focusing on the other half of Group North, the 81st Regiment, here:
http://artofwar.ru/w/wechkanow_i_w/viv.shtml

Another invaluable Russian source is this guy's blog, where he's collated a lot of great sources and reports (and is himself a veteran of the action, iirc): https://botter.livejournal.com/

I'll have to put together a proper bibliography at some point [:)]


----

In the meantime, on the lighter side - had a really enjoyable play of the 2nd scenario on the list (now renamed "Fear's Third Barrier"), which is basically the initial mess downtown from the Chechen perspective. It wasn't too difficult this time - but somehow pretty satisfying. You can see the objectives flipping back and forth, and the enemy AI making some pretty interesting swings this way and that:

[lancer]

Hi CCIP,

Thanks for that. My Russian is about as good as my Chinese but I enjoyed the analysis by the Americans.

Cheers,
Lancer

[CCIP-subsim]

And I am pleased to say that the mission pack is almost done, as is the next update. It will be called the Caliber Ten mission package, and will contain 8 small (but hopefully interesting) missions focusing on actions of 131 Brigade on December 31st 1994 and January 1st 1995 (5 from the Russian perspective, and three from the Chechen separatists), plus the two big Group North scenarios, one for each side.



Just some last bits of testing required.
Until the AB patch corrects the single missions not loading issue, the mission pack will be a separate download (so that I can include a temporary fix to remove the default single missions that would otherwise prevent the Chechnya mod missions from working, with a backup included).

In the meantime, however, you can take a look at the rather extensive mission briefing PDF I wrote up for the small Caliber Ten pack series scenarios here:



https://drive.google.com/open?id=1B-L7q ... J9qEp9nYYi

ETA: couple of days [:)]

[exsonic01]

I think I heard those radio transmissions somewhere in youtube, with English subscript. Or maybe I'm wrong. But anyway, this PDF is really ++++ to immersion. Thank you so much. You are raising the bar for any modders for this game XD

[CCIP-subsim]

Cheers, thank you!

Update: I've got half of the scenarios finalized, other half still in testing! Some interesting tradeoffs I've been trying to make so that they're all at least somewhat winnable.

One thing I've noticed in general: the fragile Russian (and opposition) morale can really crumple their forces on the face of artillery and mortars (especially heavy ones). This is generally not an issue when you're playing the Russian side, since the AI won't be "buying" very much of either - not something you may want to be aware of generating scenarios if you're playing against the Russians. I recommend limiting the amount of points you allow yourself to put into artillery and heavy mortars!

New units in the upcoming version (0.6) so far include:
-reintroduced indirect-fire 2S9 Gvozdika guns, clearly marking them as such. Unfortunately there's still no way to make them do both direct-fire and indirect fire (without unrealistic complications or loadouts). The AI/auto-purchase will still only "buy" the direct-fire version (which is the role in which these mainly saw use in Grozny), but you can manually add either one to scenarios.
-Same two variants of 2S9 (direct and indirect) added to the Chechen side, with small chance of either being auto-purchased (biased slightly towards indirect). Research shows that the separatists did have a number of these running and used them in the battle for Grozny.
-added SU-122 SPG to the Chechen separatist side as some sources list them having a small number of them running. I'm a bit skeptical about this - it might just be a mis-print referring to the 122mm Gvozdika SPGs mentioned above. But it's an interesting enough possibility that I'll put it in for now (only for manual unit purchase).
-Replaced the mech infantry dismounts on the Chechen side with militia sections instead of combat teams (seemed odd to me to have 3-man teams with all those tubes and long-barreled weapons being tied to vehicles). The separatists really didn't have much of a mechanized doctrine either, and the vehicles tended to get used as scouts, command cars, or resupply vehicles more than anything.
-BTR-80 on the separatist side - the Chechen forces didn't originally have those, but apparently captured a number from the opposition during the fall of 94, particularly in the failed assault on Grozny in November - and had them available for use in time for the Russian assault. A couple were scouting the northern outskirts early on Dec.31st, where they were blown up by Group North's forces from long range.
-Added single BMP-1/2 and BTR-80, as well as single T-62s/72s as scouts for the Chechen side (due to evidence of a few being used as such in above-mentioned actions). Very low chance of auto-purchase.
-Added RPG tubes as weapons to Chechen BMPs, BTRs, and MT-LBs that lack other AT weapons of any serious capability. Like their Russian unit counterparts, these can only fire those on-board tubes when unbuttoned.
-added one extra RPG-7VS round and/or two extra (AT-capable) grenades to certain separatist and opposition infantry units.

Map changes:
-Flattened a couple of water features (that for some reason weren't flat yet!)
-(currently attempting) to add a few sharp elevation features (e.g. berms and rivers running in steep gullies) where needed.
-(currently attempting) new night-time light map. The current one works alright but only for peacetime - and it looks really odd for the whole city to be still lit up in a half-destroyed state!
I'll likely reduce the night lighting by half around the outskirts where the fighting was limited, and in heavily fought-over areas, I'll only have a very small number of areas next to key buildings where lights will still be in at night.
-Misc label and location fixes.

ETA: currently still a couple of days [:)]

[nikolas93TS]

While the available Russian sources report that the SU-122-54 was used by the Soviet Army into the second half of the 1960s (including the Dnieper maneuvers in 1967 and Operation Danube in 1968), the ARV and CEV variants soldiered on into the 1970s and 1980s.

Even ISU-152 was keep in Soviet Army service until 1972, mostly in indirect fire role (they were equipped with dial sights, range was ~15km) until enough 2S3 came in service.

Most of such obsolete equipment (including even T-34-85s,IS-2M, IS-3 etc) was officially withdrawn in 1993, and area in question had some deposits with that old equipment.

Although I agree it is most likely Gvozdika, particularly since they mention several being operated.

[CCIP-subsim]

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking - though stranger things have happened! There was that one or two cases in the Ukraine back in 2014 when museum pieces were started up, one of which was a SU-122 iirc (although it's doubtful they were fit to fire anything larger than a machine gun). So it could have been something like that - in which case, yeah, I would not count it. From what I recall, the Chechens started up one or two T-34-85s the same way, but there's no record of them ever being used in combat. On the other hand, they also had a pair of two-seat MiG-15s and a MiG-17 in flyable condition, at least two of which had flown between 1992 and 1994 (pictures of which exist), and one of them was thought to be one of their relatively few aircraft actually fitted with rockets (though the only two known incidents where Chechen separatists actually conducted air attacks during the 1994 Civil War were both by their L-29s).

But it's always tricky with conflicts like this - the claims are often pretty wild and unreliable on both sides, and myths get spread really easily.

For the record, I'm never, ever adding "White Stockings" as a unit! [:D]


(for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about - it was an extremely widespread myth among Russian troops that mercenary female snipers from the Baltic states were operating in Chechnya against the Russians. Like a similar rumor that spread among US troops in Normandy about French women snipers in bed with the SS, there's never been a shred of evidence about it - and yet it's still a myth that's out there, and was even back in vogue in the Ukraine conflict again. It'd be a silly thing, were it not for its maliciousness and the civilian killings it's likely been a cause of).

[CCIP-subsim]

So after thinking on it a bit - I've decided to create more of a "light pollution" map than a pure light map - this is still WIP and not 100% where I'd like it to be, but I think makes for a better compromise in terms of representing a city in the midst of an urban battle than neat little rows of bright lights:

BEFORE:


AFTER:




BEFORE:


AFTER:




You can do some pretty cool things, too, if you're going for a sort of night-time mist effect you get if you blend colours (i.e. have different shades or gradients next to each other on the light map). Here's what I did in the relatively undamaged "Microdistricts":



What do you think? [:)]


As a bonus, I'm pretty happy with the airport lighting now:

[exsonic01]

Wow, this is really creative. We could make a permanent building / field / forest fire effect (no fire damage though). This might be a good way to describe the feeling of "burning city". I really wish to try this in the future.

[CCIP-subsim]

One thing you could always do is just provide an alternate lights.png file per scenario (heck, if you really wanted to - you can actually even just create new variations of maps for each scenario. It might get a bit confusing with a lot of map variations, but not totally unreasonable!)

I've noticed that adding a bit of a dark blue shade to areas of the light map is a good way to create the illusion of night-time mist in low-lying areas. I might actually do that for this map. The neat thing is that since (as far as I can tell), it's a 24-bit png file, meaning you can do lots of pretty creative shading.

[CCIP-subsim]

And finished testing all the short scenarios tonight - just some finishing touches left now [:)]

Pretty proud of how my final run at the two Chechen offensive scenarios went - they are both tough but winnable with the right approach. I like them in particular because they're as asymmetric as it gets between the two sides, especially in terms of raw firepower, and yet the way to winning them is in most respects pretty realistic.

From "Pavlov's House" (head-on attack around sunset)







And same result from "Shot in the Dark" (flanking attack in early AM hours)





Same area seen in real-world photo (dated from 2002, after the war):

Buildings left to right: "Glory to Soviet Rail Workers" building (top left), "Volcanization" (small building midway down the left side), "construction site" (depicted in game as much smaller than in the real world), main rail station building at center, "Pavlov House" at top center just above it). Post office just off-screen on the right.



Managed to capture the station both times in today's attempts, and not without difficulties (especially in that head-on attack!)

[Rosseau]

Great project.

One thing I find helpful for those who are "modding" your modded units, is to put something in the comment box. For example, I usually mod with the xml files but can't find the "ambush" squad and others inside the new database. I see SU. but not CH or CHO for example. You can use the game's editor to search for words like "ambush" but a lot are just named generically.

Thanks again for all the work!

[CCIP-subsim]

ORIGINAL: Rosseau

Great project.

One thing I find helpful for those who are "modding" your modded units, is to put something in the comment box. For example, I usually mod with the xml files but can't find the "ambush" squad and others inside the new database. I see SU. but not CH or CHO for example. You can use the game's editor to search for words like "ambush" but a lot are just named generically.

Thanks again for all the work!

Cheers, thank you!

Yes, that's the plan eventually - I've been putting it off until I have a chance to do more substantial work on the database (including hopefully isolating it from the original Cold War assets). It's still very much a work in progress - and since I have a near-photographic memory for things like that, it's been a bit low-priority right now, but that'll change as I flesh things out more [:)] Thanks for the note!



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Meanwhile, I ended up exploring my "light pollution" concept more and while this is still WIP (though will probably be in the next update as-is), I'm already liking the result.

What I did was add a mist in low-lying areas near water. It's fairly subtle, but definitely there, and I think it adds some interesting depth to the look of the maps. The mist is mostly blue, but I've also thrown in some areas (like the refinery district, or areas where heavy fighting took place) where it has more of a reddish glow as well.

BEFORE:


AFTER:

Quite a difference there!










And it seems to work pretty well in winter, too!





Done all the terrain changes today as well, so it's just a few more minor things left till the update is ready.

[CCIP-subsim]

And a couple more before/after shots... [:)]

[CCIP-subsim]

And good news - I've finalized the update, just in time for the new patch which will (hopefully!) make mod scenarios completely trouble-free so I can just put them into the mod itself with no extra steps to the installation.

Had a pretty great run at playing the "full Group North from the Chechen side" scenario today to see how the new detectability changes for infantry affect things. So far so good - I do get the sense that they might make things a little bit more challenging for the separatists, but not by any huge amount. As far as I can tell, the whole "asymmetric conflict" idea behind the mode is still very much intact.


It was the sort of mess you'd expect, given the circumstances!

What I was against pleasantly surprised by that, despite everything being unscripted and the AI shuffling the Russian force around at the start - they still used more or less the historical approach routes downtown, and the timeline of their advance wasn't that far off either. Note the areas where the unit losses happened:

And hey, if I played a scenario for over 4 hours and only got a draw, yet still feel like that was a pretty good time - that's a good sign I think!

Anyway, just some final checks and the new version with this scenario pack will be good to go.
ETA: sometime tomorrow [:)]

[Rosseau]

Ha! The new map effect looks good. We also have a true urban warfare map that can technically be used with any database. The labels add immersion and zoomed in all the terrain looks wonderful. Congrats.

Can you mention an English-language book on the war that would be of some value when playing your mod?

[CCIP-subsim]

ORIGINAL: Rosseau

Ha! The new map effect looks good. We also have a true urban warfare map that can technically be used with any database. The labels add immersion and zoomed in all the terrain looks wonderful. Congrats.

Can you mention an English-language book on the war that would be of some value when playing your mod?

Certainly!

If you'd like a good introductory read - this is a very good one. It's short and definitely useful if you don't have much background knowledge of this conflict: https://www.amazon.com/Russias-Chechnya ... 1782002774

[Veitikka]

The red light map is a very interesting idea. I had to get closer to the screen because I wasn't sure if that's really from the game [:)]

Extremely impressive overall!

I've been making great progress with removing the one-unit-per-cell stacking limitation. Currently we're testing it with max three units per cell, and it's working very well. I believe it will change how urban battles play out in this game.

[budd]

ORIGINAL: Veitikka

The red light map is a very interesting idea. I had to get closer to the screen because I wasn't sure if that's really from the game [:)]

Extremely impressive overall!

I've been making great progress with removing the one-unit-per-cell stacking limitation. Currently we're testing it with max three units per cell, and it's working very well. I believe it will change how urban battles play out in this game.

Hows the path finding working out with more units per cell?
My major gripe is being able to tell elevation changes on the regular map quickly.

That is one outstanding looking map CCIP-subsim, i keep checking the forum for the release.Don't know a lot about that conflict, but looking forward to giving the scenarios a whirl on that map.