advice request for large-scale scenarios

[p1t1o]

Hi All,

I am building a fairly large scenario which will involve almost all aspects of CMO warfare, ship/sub/air/land. The theatre is approx 1500nm across and it involves many-day naval travel, the player will be assaulting a country with a very strong carrier group.

What I would like to ask about is the degree of complexity to give to the programmed enemy.

Do you "over equip" the enemy? (for example, with few enemy submarines, its quite possible in a large scenarios to not encounter them at all. if you add more enemy subs, you increase the chance of an encounter. Or, adding large numbers of aircraft to support the missions needed for an engaging scenario - or a realistic number of aircraft with LUA scripting to swap them between missions?)

Generally speaking, how many missions are required to simulate a decently aggressive enemy, ballpark?
How much to rely on unit AI and how much to "micromanage" mission planning? (eg: many strike missions with independent characteristics, or fewer missions with large numbers of assets assigned.


Many strike missions naturally require a/the target to be located/spotted first - how much effort to put into enemy recon? (otherwise many missions could go untriggered making a pretty boring scenario.)

At the moment I am planning quite extensive recon, involving airborne maritime patrols, many drones and a handful of smaller naval groups on patrol. May potentially add in civilian cooperation with the enemy so that they can spot for them. Given the pretty long-range nature of the players CAP capabilities and the generally quite shortish-range of available surface-search radars(max 225nm), it may become quite difficult for the AI to get a bead on the player group. Or at least to maintain one - it appears long-range strike really need eyes on the target at all times, at least until missile launch. Non-Pinpointed targets (area contacts) make poor targets for AI strike missions, making ELINT and sonar less useful in this role.


Long range CAPs and patrols are fairly easy to manage with in-flight refuelling, but I am having trouble efficiently extending the range of AI strike missions with AAR - especially when the targets (the player group) will not arrive in a fixed location, any pointers?

How much LUA code does a good scenario use?
I have been able to figure out LUA to add units to the scen, which is quite useful with the event system. Is it going to be essential to learn more complex LUA functions to make an interesting AI?


I apologise for the vague nature of the questions, at the moment I believe I have placed sufficient ground/naval units to constitutes a decent enemy, and am just starting to add the missions and aircraft to support the various AI defensive strikes, CAPs and recon.

Any input welcome, I think a few pointers could make the 1st iteration much better and require much less reworking, many thanks in advance

P

[BeirutDude]

May I make a suggestion? I often make small scenarios which are sub portions of a larger scenario and test out concepts that way. Sometimes I post them but most times that just go into a folder I call "Sandbox" that way I test out certain concepts. I just did that in the Line of Death, 1986 scenario I just posted which was testing out some things for the scenario I am working on now. You can get very detailed in missions and of course the larger the scenario the more missions to set up. In Fiery Cross Reef 2021 I did give the PLA(AF) more J-20s than they actually have to balance out the USAF's F-35s, and it is near future. Now as far as Lua is concerned you can create a large scenario without it, but it gives you more flexibility.

I really suggest before jumping into a large scenario (and I have produced too many large scenarios!), create several small ones using the concepts you want to incorporate into your larger scenario.

Good luck and there are lots of good people here who will give you advice and help you along.

[Gunner98]

Hi All,

I am building a fairly large scenario which will involve almost all aspects of CMO warfare, ship/sub/air/land. The theatre is approx 1500nm across and it involves many-day naval travel, the player will be assaulting a country with a very strong carrier group.

What I would like to ask about is the degree of complexity to give to the programmed enemy.

Building a large scenario is not an easy task, I've done a few and echo BeirutDude's advice - start small. Break it up into phases, adjust the player's forces to match potential attrition.

Do you "over equip" the enemy? (for example, with few enemy submarines, its quite possible in a large scenarios to not encounter them at all. if you add more enemy subs, you increase the chance of an encounter. Or, adding large numbers of aircraft to support the missions needed for an engaging scenario - or a realistic number of aircraft with LUA scripting to swap them between missions?)

You can, but it is probably better to switch them from mission to mission with lua and use lua to add replacements and reinforcements etc

Generally speaking, how many missions are required to simulate a decently aggressive enemy, ballpark?
How much to rely on unit AI and how much to "micromanage" mission planning? (eg: many strike missions with independent characteristics, or fewer missions with large numbers of assets assigned.

This is a hard question to answer as to how much but plan your missions closely, the AI will do an OK job if you just lump a bunch of assets into single mission but you will often be disappointed. A strike on a player base for instance, should be planned in detail.

Many strike missions naturally require a/the target to be located/spotted first - how much effort to put into enemy recon? (otherwise many missions could go untriggered making a pretty boring scenario.)

This is the single hardest thing to do - any decent player will poke out the AIs eyes as soon as he can so you need to be very aggressive with reconnaissance. In one scenario where I have an AI strike on a player CVBG there are over 100 recon assets to support an 80 bomber strike. Some are very old and serve as not much more than kamikazes but it helps.

At the moment I am planning quite extensive recon, involving airborne maritime patrols, many drones and a handful of smaller naval groups on patrol. May potentially add in civilian cooperation with the enemy so that they can spot for them. Given the pretty long-range nature of the players CAP capabilities and the generally quite shortish-range of available surface-search radars(max 225nm), it may become quite difficult for the AI to get a bead on the player group. Or at least to maintain one - it appears long-range strike really need eyes on the target at all times, at least until missile launch. Non-Pinpointed targets (area contacts) make poor targets for AI strike missions, making ELINT and sonar less useful in this role.

Use every trick in the book; snoopers on another side, invisible SOF on any land features, satellites, fishing fleets, Cessna's with radar, rowboats with NVGs - I've used them all.

Long range CAPs and patrols are fairly easy to manage with in-flight refuelling, but I am having trouble efficiently extending the range of AI strike missions with AAR - especially when the targets (the player group) will not arrive in a fixed location, any pointers?

Hard to do, and expensive on assets. If there is a plausible back-story to have the strike pre-positioned at a neutral base the player has to travel near... lua them in a few hours before the strike and then launch...

How much LUA code does a good scenario use?

I have been able to figure out LUA to add units to the scen, which is quite useful with the event system. Is it going to be essential to learn more complex LUA functions to make an interesting AI?

The more complex you get the more lua you need

I apologise for the vague nature of the questions, at the moment I believe I have placed sufficient ground/naval units to constitutes a decent enemy, and am just starting to add the missions and aircraft to support the various AI defensive strikes, CAPs and recon.

Any input welcome, I think a few pointers could make the 1st iteration much better and require much less reworking, many thanks in advance

Its difficult to gage many of the things you are asking about until you get a feel for how players will approach your scenarios. There are some real sharp cookies that will tear apart most of your good ideas by simply doing things you haven't anticipated. On the other hand if it is too difficult many players will avoid playing it altogether. Large scenarios are not played all that often so approaching it with an idea of who will play it helps.

More smaller scenarios will get played more, the more they are played the more feedback you will get and the better they will become.

B

[SeaQueen]

1500nm across? That's a little outside of TLAM range! That's not that big.

The problem with multiple days is the air picture. CMO does not have a built in ATO generator so if, for example, a strike is effective, those aircraft remain tasked for those strikes unless something (presumably LUA code) assesses the strike to be successful, and re-tasks those aircraft for another mission, potentially after selecting another loadout, coordinating it with appropriate supporting assets. I've yet to see anything that does that really well, although, some of the things like Ares have made a big step in that direction, it's still not what I'd be looking for. It doesn't go through the whole ATO cycle necessary to build a true multi-day scenario. Building something like that is an enormously complex endeavor for it to be good, because real air strikes demand a lot of coordination and support, and part of the juggling act is making sure everything has what it needs when it needs it. Real air strikes may be timed down to the second with no room for error. Then what do you do when the enemy does things like put a fighter sweep in your cruise missile launch baskets? In real life they might spin the strikers or maybe rolex the whole package. Does the game have that built in? No, you have to build it.

I guess my question is, what is the task at hand and why do you take a few days to do it? Why can't you break the scenario into several and do it right?

Do you "over equip" the enemy? (for example, with few enemy submarines, its quite possible in a large scenarios to not encounter them at all.

No. Why would I? If you understood the employment of their assets, and defined the scenario well, it shouldn't be an issue.

Generally speaking, how many missions are required to simulate a decently aggressive enemy, ballpark?
How much to rely on unit AI and how much to "micromanage" mission planning? (eg: many strike missions with independent characteristics, or fewer missions with large numbers of assets assigned.

It depends. Depending on what the target is, where it's located, what assets you have, what the weather is like, what time of day it is, who the enemy is, who you are, what sorts of things they've got, what time period it's in, there may be hundreds of missions to support a single target.

Many strike missions naturally require a/the target to be located/spotted first - how much effort to put into enemy recon? (otherwise many missions could go untriggered making a pretty boring scenario.)

It depends. There isn't really one answer to that. Probably a lot if they don't have any targets.

Long range CAPs and patrols are fairly easy to manage with in-flight refuelling, but I am having trouble efficiently extending the range of AI strike missions with AAR - especially when the targets (the player group) will not arrive in a fixed location, any pointers?

Yeah, stop!

Seriously.

Just.

Stop.

Have you pushed the pause button yet?

Pick one well defended target that you think you understand (e.g. a CSG), carefully plan and try to strike it. What does that take? How successful were you? How did you do it? What was important? That's your scenario.

I've never seen a well done megascenario. They're almost all messed up, and reflect a very poor understanding of how things actually work on that scale. At some point they all run into the "too many hats" problem which is the person in command of a force that large wouldn't actually be concerned with the tactical employment of any of them. They'd be painting very broad brush, and Command is just too detailed to reflect their thought processes.

How much LUA code does a good scenario use?

Maybe none. LUA is not the measure of a good scenario. As I've become more experienced making scenarios, I've used more LUA to do useful things, like make radars turn on and off more smartly, or move stuff, but it's not essential. It just depends.

Is it going to be essential to learn more complex LUA functions to make an interesting AI?

No, not at all. LUA is a tool in your toolbox, nothing more. The issue is whether or not you used the tools in your toolbox to do interesting and smart things, to pose a challenging threat presentation to the player. If you understand that well, I think you'll find your reliance on LUA to shape the unit behaviors will be minimal, and it's really more of a labor saving device. It can be used to help do the math of coordinating and timing things, keeping track of book keeping, make a little more sophisticated victory conditions, and just generally be slightly more sophisticated, but it's not necessary.

What are you trying to do anyhow?

[p1t1o]

Many thanks BeirutDude, Gunner98 and SeaQueen, much of what you have all said I have found quite relevant.

I do understand some of the nuances of the impact on realism, such as the ATO issues described above. However I do personally enjoy the larger-scale missions, so thats my main motivation really - to make an enjoyable scenario (by my own definition admittedly) that is as realistic as practical.

Addressing the issues that scale brings to realism - I have tried several times to create larger-scale scenarios and most of the difficulties correctly identified above do make it extremely difficult.

So the scenario I have in mind at the moment is imagined with this in mind:

It is an attempt at a "full theatre" scenario, but it does have its limitations.
Its a modern Falklands set in 2026, with an *extremely* made up story to justify the scenario.
The target is Argentina - currently an very sparsely equipped nation militarily - so it isnt incredibly implausible that a "strong Argentina" represents a reasonably un-complex enemy to model. (I have used various nations forces to build the Argentine military - chosen from nations that have recently been in arms deal negotiations with Argentina IRL. Obviously this includes the old favorites, China and Russia, but I have tried to introduce some variety as well)
The Player force is a single UK-FR Naval group (and a single Air base at Ascension but this plays a smaller role. And some subs.) - a very strong Carrier/Assault group. This means the enemy only really has a single target - the CSG. This makes AI mission planning, not easy, but possible. It does appear not to need much LUA work as most aircraft can remain on the missions they are assigned to.

In essence it is simply a larger version of a very common scenario trope - the assault of Land targets by a CSG.



Some of the advice given above has proven helpful, for example I have abandoned attempting much AI air refueling and shrank the enemy mission radius somewhat.

As I said, the vast majority of units I think are placed - recently I have been testing various mission styles. I can make the AI launch missions against the CSG at various ranges with various units, with a bit of finessing and planning, it seems a reasonable sortie rate can be generated.

One issue is submarines in a large theatre - I have not tested a transit of the fleet yet but I am concerned that even with a figurative wall of defending subs (very large sub fleets really start to stretch plausibility, even for a made up scenario), a fleet may simply sail past them all, its a big ocean. This could be realistic, but it isnt much fun. One answer pops into my head just now - I could withdraw submarine combat closer to the coast? Increase their density. Does that have any roots in realism?

But that would make some sections of the scenario rather uneventful. It is possible that the best solution would be careful and individual mission planning to get the most out of each sub, covering the most likely routes.



But by far the main issue is enemy recon of the player fleet for targetting AI missions. This would appear to be an issue not limited to large scenarios and Im not sure how to solve it. Possibly it is realistic:

With a modern tech-level, a fleet can extend its AA and ASu umbrella out to 4-500nm and can exert a vulgar amount of ammunition.
They can extend their ASW net out almost as far and deploy thousands of sensors.
It is even possible for a fleet to be equipped to take out satellites (this is not present in my scenario).



Getting a long-range target fix on a fleet equipped thusly, even with cutting edge tech AND an unreasonably large numbers advantage, is extremely hard, it appears. Especially since air-surface radars only go up to about 200nm in range, I presume due to the radar horizon.

Once the fleet closes with Argentina, I can program in a good scrap between SAM sites and CAPs, throw in some ground targets, no problem, thats scenario design 101.

The biggest issue I have is with long-range antiship combat in general

Many of my experiments with long-range (>1000nm) naval strikes show that a temporary contact from a satellite pass or from an aircraft that gets close enough but is shot down, is not sufficient as the contact is too old by the time the bombers arrive 3 hours later.

Currently Argentina has, for recon:
A large number of long range recon drones equipped with 45nm FLIR
A fleet of submarines
1 RORSAT (Saocom 1-A)
A fleet of spy ships w/25nm surface radar
1 CSG, 1 SAG, 1 ASW TF
AWACS, P3 Orions and Chinese Badgers

To search an area approx 1600nm x 1300nm

Not sure what else to throw at the problem - again, this does not appear to be an issue caused by the size or complexity of the scenario: if you want to prevent a carrier from approaching strike range with your coast, how do you track an aggressive, well-equipped, modern fleet on the open ocean?

Is the answer what I fear - that you dont?

If I can make 1000nm AI antiship strikes work, theres a chance I can make a pretty decent scenario...by my standards at least

[thewood1]

It seems recon is one of your bigger issues. A good way to recon in a modern AA threat environment is using neutral shipping of an ally. I sometimes use a fishing fleet allied to the blue side, but neutral to the red side. I have also used national airlines as a general recon tool. This also helps your sub problem by giving the subs some general targeting info for placing your "wall" of subs. I sometimes put up an exclusion zone around fleets to make a realistic "war zone" to warn off neutral parties as a twist.

IMO, recon is one of the biggest issues in modern naval warfare. Its also an big piece that is usually left out of big scenarios. There are all kinds of neat little features and tricks for building out a recon plan for both the player and the AI side. In fact, to me, the recon battle battle is 80% of the battle and the fun. Screens, anti-screen, satelites, trawlers, etc. are interesting pieces of it all

[BeirutDude]

A good way to recon in a modern AA threat environment is using neutral shipping of an ally. I sometimes use a fishing fleet allied to the blue side, but neutral to the red side. I have also used national airlines as a general recon tool.

p1t10: Suggestion with these tactics, make sure you turn off "collective responsibility" for the merchants/aircraft, just in case something happens. That is actually more important if warships are your "tattletales." In a scenario I'm currently working on the Soviets are tattletales for Libya. I tried using an "Unfriendly" posture between them and the Libyan OPFOR (France and U.S.) and the Soviets still jumped in on me, so I changed all the postures with the Soviets to "Neutral." Also have a simple Lua script to change the posture back to Neutral every second just in case something happens.

[p1t1o]

@thewood1 & Beirutdude

Yup I do have civilian sea traffic in place, with a number of spy ships mixed in. Its still tricky due to short range surface radar but it sounds like Im at least going in the right direction.

I havent added civilian air traffic yet...its not really compatible with the scenario storyline...I do like the idea, it would make the air war more interesting too.

The backstory is that Argentina have fully occupied the Falklands and landed significant hardware. It has taken some time (say 2 weeks) to put together a fleet and to sail to the South Atlantic and it would be quite public knowledge that the Fleet was sailing across the ocean to war. Im not seeing many civilian aircraft in the region under these conditions. Any ideas how I can make an excuse to add them in?

It may be more plausible to add other nations air assets allied to Argentina (eg: Bolivian maritime patrols) - would these be legitimate targets under these conditions or would they be off-limits? Dedicated recon aircraft seem like a significant threat under the circumstances.

Anyhoo, details, details. Sounds like I need to ramp up the recon effort even more, increase numbers reasonably and see if I can add some "traps" and somesuch. Satellites appear to work very well with SSGNs at least.

The scenario is approaching readiness for a first playthrough - which will be the first time I will really be able to measure how good the recon is. First thing Im going to do before that is double the amount of civilian sea traffic and explore civilian air traffic.

[Gunner98]

p1t1o

Just catching up on this one. So I see that you're large scale is more a question of geography & time than number of units - is that right?

Still many of the same issues but more manageable.

If you want to check out what I call large scale: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.a ... =&#4935115

[p1t1o]

ORIGINAL: Gunner98

p1t1o

Just catching up on this one. So I see that you're large scale is more a question of geography & time than number of units - is that right?

Still many of the same issues but more manageable.

If you want to check out what I call large scale: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.a ... ey=�

Haha yes the distance mostly, I deliberately didnt want to manage too many units (without sacrificing realism too much) - both due to personal taste and my own limitations. This scenario is intended to explore very long range aviation, very long naval transits and naval warfare lasting many days - whilst being as complete/realistic as practical as well as manageable by my standards.

My last scenario (Set Defence Condition 1) was purely focused on intercontinental air combat which is where this idea started.

I have tried - and may revisit - an attempt at a partial 1:1 sim of a Fulda gap cold war tank invasion. A list of units forming the 1 British Corps was as far as I got before I got too intimidated. If I ever manage a truly large and complex theatre scenario, it'll likely be that.

[thewood1]

The one thing to be careful about putting a lot of civilian air and sea traffic in place is that any large, or even small, fleet action would generally have in place an exclusion zone with well-publicized maritime exclusion zones and NOTAM warnings. I think the RN had one for 200 miles around the Falklands and a smaller one for the task force as it travelled to the South Atlantic. When I have the room, I use relative RPs on the carrier to create a version of those zones.

[SeaQueen]

The target is Argentina - currently an very sparsely equipped nation militarily - so it isnt incredibly implausible that a "strong Argentina" represents a reasonably un-complex enemy to model.

That's not a target, that's a country.

Pause button again.

Forget about your grand story for a second, Tom Clancy.

What are you striking in Argentina? An air field? A center of political power? An economic target like an oil refinery? A naval base with ships in port? Ground forces? If it's ground forces is it their garrison location (a bunch of buildings) or are they deployed? Maybe it's a C2 node? A nuclear site? A chemical or biological weapon storage areas? TBM sites? Argentina is a huge country. You need to know what you're striking and why for the scenario to be interesting and meaningful. You don't just strike, "a country." You strike specific things within that country, intended to support specific political goals. That might be WMD sites, economic or war production targets, political targets, command and control, or any of a million other things. Typically, at least according to US doctrine, but other nations follow similar lines of logic, these are Clausewitzian "centers of gravity." What are they? There's multiple levels of "centers of gravity," as well. At the lowest level, there's tactical centers of gravity, which might be something like, "XXX MRB's HQ company." At the highest levels, there's strategic centers of gravity which might be something like, "Weapons of Mass destruction." Somewhere in between there's operational centers of gravity, which are something like, "XXX Ballistic Missile Brigade C2 Complex." Notice how the strategic level ones are typically very vague, and need to be further fleshed out by lower levels. That's because higher level commanders and civilian leadership paint with very broad brushes, to the point that it's not likely to be much use in itself for targeting.

Once you've decided what you're striking, what are the intended effects you want to have on that target?

If I'm striking an airfield, for example, I really don't care about airfield, I care about the airplanes that come out of it. I want to neutralize them. How long? Do I want them out of the game for a few hours or days, or do I want them dead? How am I going to do that? There might be 200 possible points of impact at a single airfield. Which ones do I want to destroy? Which ones do I want to damage? How much damage? Why?

Is there stuff the player doesn't want to hit too? If it's a nuclear or chemical site, it's possible that it's as important to leave some things (relatively?) undamaged as it is to have the desired effects on the things you're trying to hit. This might influence the player's weaponeering. Maybe the brigade headquarters you're striking is next door to a children's hospital? Once you understand EXACTLY what you're doing and why, you can move on. "I want to fight Argentina!" is vague and doesn't really help you decide things like, "What does winning look like?" for the player. If you can't say exactly what that is, then you don't have a scenario, you're just slapping a bunch of stuff down on a map and playing with it.

Next, how important is that target to the computer controlled side? What's defending that target? Anything worth striking ought to be worth defending, right? The more important it is, the more heavily defended it is. How are they going to be emitting? Are they going to make use of mobility where possible? How?

Now you've build a challenge instead of a mess.

[p1t1o]

ORIGINAL: thewood1

The one thing to be careful about putting a lot of civilian air and sea traffic in place is that any large, or even small, fleet action would generally have in place an exclusion zone with well-publicized maritime exclusion zones and NOTAM warnings. I think the RN had one for 200 miles around the Falklands and a smaller one for the task force as it travelled to the South Atlantic. When I have the room, I use relative RPs on the carrier to create a version of those zones.

Thats a good point, and has made me have to think about the recon issue from a different angle - and I have come up with a few neat ideas. It'll take me time to test them.

ORIGINAL: SeaQueen

The target is Argentina - currently an very sparsely equipped nation militarily - so it isnt incredibly implausible that a "strong Argentina" represents a reasonably un-complex enemy to model.

That's not a target, that's a country.

Pause button again.

Forget about your grand story for a second, Tom Clancy.

What are you striking in Argentina? An air field? A center of political power? An economic target like an oil refinery? A naval base with ships in port? Ground forces? If it's ground forces is it their garrison location (a bunch of buildings) or are they deployed? Maybe it's a C2 node? A nuclear site? A chemical or biological weapon storage areas? TBM sites? Argentina is a huge country. You need to know what you're striking and why for the scenario to be interesting and meaningful. You don't just strike, "a country." You strike specific things within that country, intended to support specific political goals. That might be WMD sites, economic or war production targets, political targets, command and control, or any of a million other things. Typically, at least according to US doctrine, but other nations follow similar lines of logic, these are Clausewitzian "centers of gravity." What are they? There's multiple levels of "centers of gravity," as well. At the lowest level, there's tactical centers of gravity, which might be something like, "XXX MRB's HQ company." At the highest levels, there's strategic centers of gravity which might be something like, "Weapons of Mass destruction." Somewhere in between there's operational centers of gravity, which are something like, "XXX Ballistic Missile Brigade C2 Complex." Notice how the strategic level ones are typically very vague, and need to be further fleshed out by lower levels. That's because higher level commanders and civilian leadership paint with very broad brushes, to the point that it's not likely to be much use in itself for targeting.

Once you've decided what you're striking, what are the intended effects you want to have on that target?

If I'm striking an airfield, for example, I really don't care about airfield, I care about the airplanes that come out of it. I want to neutralize them. How long? Do I want them out of the game for a few hours or days, or do I want them dead? How am I going to do that? There might be 200 possible points of impact at a single airfield. Which ones do I want to destroy? Which ones do I want to damage? How much damage? Why?

Is there stuff the player doesn't want to hit too? If it's a nuclear or chemical site, it's possible that it's as important to leave some things (relatively?) undamaged as it is to have the desired effects on the things you're trying to hit. This might influence the player's weaponeering. Maybe the brigade headquarters you're striking is next door to a children's hospital? Once you understand EXACTLY what you're doing and why, you can move on. "I want to fight Argentina!" is vague and doesn't really help you decide things like, "What does winning look like?" for the player. If you can't say exactly what that is, then you don't have a scenario, you're just slapping a bunch of stuff down on a map and playing with it.

Next, how important is that target to the computer controlled side? What's defending that target? Anything worth striking ought to be worth defending, right? The more important it is, the more heavily defended it is. How are they going to be emitting? Are they going to make use of mobility where possible? How?

Now you've build a challenge instead of a mess.

Sorry, I have not given enough information on the scenario. I have given thought to what you describe, planning those parts of the scenario doesnt give me much issue so I didnt give enough detail. So if it helps, I'll explain a bit here and I'll attach the scenario file as well, what I have saved permanently so far.

Scenario (as currently intended, everything subject to revision) starts with Argentina having bought itself a military and occupied the Falkland Islands.

They have a decent military (Air, Sea, Land, Air defences) built from 2000-2020 era Chinese, Russian, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and Indian units.

The player starts with an AB at Ascension, a fleet of French and British subs, and a joint French-UK SAG. Strong all around. Includes 2 carriers with roughly 50 F35 Lightning II's and 50 Rafales (+the usual supporting aircraft for all your fleet needs). Most if not all weapon options will be enabled to give the player as much flexibility as possible in overcoming the enemy. TACTOMs and antishipping missiles have been made available to the surface and submarine fleets as appropritate to enhance those roles. Some ship magazines have been made full, or have been had their loadout slightly optimised.

Player is intended to sail towards Argentina, down the coast and towards the Falklands. There will be high-priority targets on the Mainland (power stations) and air bases will be targets as well. The player is supplied with varied weapons to offer various strategies. The course the player plots for the fleet is entirely at their discretion to complete the objectives.

The mainland itself will be defended with onshore and offshore CAPs, SAMs, ASu defences.

The Argentine Navy will have 1 CSG, 1 SAG 1 ASWgroup and so far 2 small dedicated Antiship groups, plus a submarine fleet. The Navy in particular is subject to revision following recent testing of recon needs and capabilities.

Once the player fleet reaches shooting distance of the Falklands there are defences to overcome and targets to hit as well. The finer points of the scenario endgame I have yet to decide or plan but I want to include the landing of ground units and the capture of an airbase - the details of this will be subject to much testing later on and could change a lot.

It is (currently) intended that the player will need to sail for 2-3 days to reach shooting range and a further 1-2 days to reach the Falklands.

Phase 1 - South Atlantic approach - long range ASW. Missile defence. CAPs.
Phase 2 - Close Approach - Fleet ASW. Missile defence. CAPs. Naval defence and offence.
Phase 3 - Shooting range - Fleet action against land targets. Missile defence. Fleet ASW. CAPs. Naval action.
Phase 4 - the Falklands - Fleet action against land targets. Missile defence. Fleet ASW. CAPs. Naval action.
Phase 5 - Assault landing - (the whole section TBD) The landing of ground units. Ground combat. Airbase capture. Long range transfer of air forces Plus probably all of the above.
Phase 6 - Further action - (this section currently totally imaginary and not thought out at all. May be a bridge too far.) Using transferred air forces and remaining fleet assets to strike further targets.

The parts of the scenario I have not had experience making before are proving the most challenging. How Argentina uses its land based forces to police the South Atlantic (especially given that they will know the fleet is on the way) - how far they can or should reach, who should be the shooters and who should be the spotters, how should they all be placed and move, and what missions they should be attached to.

However, I have made some progress in this area thanks to some pointers so know that the attached file is incomplete as not everything has been set in stone and thus is not saved in the file. What you can see is:

The disposition of the player forces - Im quite happy with it, exact positions may change, especially the starting point of the fleet. Finer details of the loadout of the fleet to be completed as well. There are aircraft based at ascension intended to be used at very long range. I hope these will be useful but very much subject to testing. There is a possibility that the final goal may be the flying of cargo from Ascension to the Falklands.

The broad strokes of the Argentine forces. Air defences I think are good - not to weak, not too strong - subject to playtesting. The coastal defences are probably useless but make easy targets. The actual composition of the airforce is almost completely absent. I know what most of it will be, but there is much work to be done and little is set in stone. I am planning to rely heavily on Norwegian Gripens - with many other additions, the reasonable use of lesser-used unit has been a main intention from the start.

You will also see some civilian units. Much to be changed here as well.

You can also see an attempt at involving the use of Special forces on the mainland. Subject to revision but I think it could be a cool feature - I have successfully tested them at recon of airbases (useful for airstrikes) and even destroying parked aircraft, very cool. Special forces are very slow - 4kts - but its a long scenario.


Very much work in progress - there is much i already know I need to add.

What I am testing out know are alternate recon strategies for the Argentines for the use of guiding long range naval strikes with Chinese Badgers armed with 400nm-range ASu cruise missiles - Including sneaking recon helicopters aboard cargo vessels, patrolling missile attack surface groups, ELINT and OECM aircraft.

[thewood1]

I think one aspect that SeaQueen mentioned is especially important to consider, and that's scope of a single scenario. You have very well defined phases. I would consider breaking the big scenario into a 5-6 scenario campaign. You can move losses and damage from scenario to scenario if needed. Otherwise, you are going to severely limit who has the ambition to play a scenario that might cover a month of logistics and combat.

[p1t1o]

ORIGINAL: thewood1

I think one aspect that SeaQueen mentioned is especially important to consider, and that's scope of a single scenario. You have very well defined phases. I would consider breaking the big scenario into a 5-6 scenario campaign. You can move losses and damage from scenario to scenario if needed. Otherwise, you are going to severely limit who has the ambition to play a scenario that might cover a month of logistics and combat.

I have considered this. If I get desperate to complete the campaign, I may resort to this. But its a personal preference, I prefer the longer scenarios myself which I acknowledge might not be to everyones taste, but I dont feel like Im going down a dead end....yet. If I think its not going to be fun, then i'll consider making it a series or a reduced version of the original.
Im trying to make a scenario I'd like first, and then hopefully others might too.

[SeaQueen]

ORIGINAL: p1t1o
I have considered this. If I get desperate to complete the campaign, I may resort to this. But its a personal preference, I prefer the longer scenarios myself which I acknowledge might not be to everyones taste, but I dont feel like Im going down a dead end....yet. If I think its not going to be fun, then i'll consider making it a series or a reduced version of the original. Im trying to make a scenario I'd like first, and then hopefully others might too.

The problem with scenarios like this is that at some point it ceases to be realistic thanks to what I call the "too many hats problem." The Too Many Hats problem is that the person in charge of a force that large is completely unconcerned with the tactical employment of his force, that's delegated to other people. That means that even though you're sort of in the JFACC or JFC chair, you're not really illuminating the actual problems they face. CMO/CMANO is ultimately a tactical level game. The fundamental mechanic is hitting targets. The problem is that at the purely operational level, it's not really about hitting targets necessarily, and CMO/CMANO isn't very good at capturing the problems they actually do have. People make the mistake that the operational level of war is just lots and lots of tactical, and that's incorrect.

[p1t1o]

ORIGINAL: SeaQueen

ORIGINAL: p1t1o
I have considered this. If I get desperate to complete the campaign, I may resort to this. But its a personal preference, I prefer the longer scenarios myself which I acknowledge might not be to everyones taste, but I dont feel like Im going down a dead end....yet. If I think its not going to be fun, then i'll consider making it a series or a reduced version of the original. Im trying to make a scenario I'd like first, and then hopefully others might too.

The problem with scenarios like this is that at some point it ceases to be realistic thanks to what I call the "too many hats problem." The Too Many Hats problem is that the person in charge of a force that large is completely unconcerned with the tactical employment of his force, that's delegated to other people. That means that even though you're sort of in the JFACC or JFC chair, you're not really illuminating the actual problems they face. CMO/CMANO is ultimately a tactical level game. The fundamental mechanic is hitting targets. The problem is that at the purely operational level, it's not really about hitting targets necessarily, and CMO/CMANO isn't very good at capturing the problems they actually do have. People make the mistake that the operational level of war is just lots and lots of tactical, and that's incorrect.

You already mentioned this a few comments previously.
As far as I am concerned, the player cannot consider themselves in a real military role. Even in the smallest scenarios the player has magical abilities. IMO, as long as there are not so many units in play that the player cannot effectively control them, then Im golden.
Its way beyond my experience to plan in real life operational considerations anyway. Im just trying to make a fun scenario that is as realistic as practical. Admittedly that is measured by my own standards, but then thats the only way I can do this.

[kevinkins]

Not sure what the discussion amounts to here. We all sandbox current events at a small scale to just test systems and tactics in relation to current events. Fun as Hell. If a designer wants to scale things up, so be it. When they post a huge scenario, just let potential players know they are entering into a scenario that has not been playtested by someone other than the designer because of its size and time it takes to get feedback.

[thewood1]

He asked for advice and was given advice from across the spectrum. I think that's what the discussion was about.