Matrix Games Forums

It seems surprising that there are no more scenario settings in Afghanistan, a country in conflict since 1978 (for a CMO context).

Specially the Soviet-Afghan War 1979-1989 and the War in Afghanistan 2001-2021.


I only found this scenario, Turkmen Bombardment 1998. That is not related with none of those.

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... n#p3479683


What can the cause? That CMO is not the proper game for this kind of wars?


A pair of links for the Soviet-Afghan War:

Westermann, Edward B. The Limits of Soviet Airpower: The Bear Versus the Mujahideen in Afghanistan,1979-1989

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA391797


An air war russian site with sections in english on several topics including the S-A War. More content in russian, with units, losses, etc.

According to this site (Google translation): "The Soviet Air Forces were actively used in the Afghani war (1979-1989). For this period it is made more than 1 200 000 combat sorties, 114 planes and 333 helicopters are lost." Surely this is more than enough for a scenario or two

http://www.skywar.ru/afghanistanen.html


A splash screen for the new loading interface, just in case there is a volunteer for the Soviet-Afghan War

Both Afghan wars largely revolved around CAS and COIN. During the Soviet war the only air opposition basically amounted to AA guns and Stingers while there was even less during the American one.

There just isn’t a lot of potential for scenarios with that. You would basically fly in, drop bombs on ground targets, and that would be it.

The ground warfare model is good for conventional combat but I think it would suffer when using it to try to model guerilla warfare. It could be done but the results might be lacking.

That said, it would be interesting as an experiment.

Nikel wrote: Sun May 22, 2022 8:24 pm What can the cause? That CMO is not the proper game for this kind of wars?

Yes, that.

This is pretty consistent with most other counter-insurgency conflicts and CMO. Almost all the Vietnam-era scenarios are about the air war over North Vietnam, and I don't think I've ever seen a scenario dealing with the NATO mission in Afghanistan or the US occupation of Iraq. As SunlitZelkova says, these sort of situations generally don't make for great CMO scenarios.

The one scenario I have seen that sort-of dealt with an insurgency was Caribbean Fury 3, which probably stretched CMO's ground model to about as far as can be done while still having an enjoyable scenario. But even that had the counterinsurgency play out as part of a larger scenario, and the actual conflict was more of a short conventional ground campaign against a very weak opponent than a proper insurgency.

Not to say it can't be done, but it would certainly be an uphill battle.

I tried a few years ago to do several scenarios or even a campaign on the 1979-1989 Afghan War. But I encountered several difficulties.
1. Database. There are no real loadouts for the Soviet aircrafts and helicopters used in Afghanistan. There are no bomb loadouts, gun pods for helicopters, unguided rockets only old modifications, no reconnaissance pods for Su-17M3-Rs. I sent the developers SQL scripts to add this data to the database, but nothing has changed.
2. Game engine. In CMANO, ground units did not take into account underlying surface conditions when moving. For example, a Mujahedeen mortar could move through the mountains at 30 km/h and still shoot. It is possible that this problem has been solved in CMO.
3. Game engine 2. The propagation of radio waves in the mountains is not modeled in the game. That is, HF-radio are not shadowed by the surrounding mountains. In reality, we had to take this into account and use radio relay aircrafts. This can be modeled by lua-scripts.

Engine of CMO is not enough good for modeling tactical ground fights. So scenario designer should work hard to create really great thrills. Helicopter landing operations in Panjsher Gorge, air battles against Pakistan.

Filitch wrote: Tue May 24, 2022 1:00 pm I tried a few years ago to do several scenarios or even a campaign on the 1979-1989 Afghan War.

If somebody is going to create a SAW campaign, is a Russian fan of CMANO/CMO

Are not there Russian web sites, where related scenarios are posted?

Filitch wrote: Tue May 24, 2022 1:00 pm There are no real loadouts for the Soviet aircrafts and helicopters used in Afghanistan. There are no bomb loadouts, gun pods for helicopters, unguided rockets only old modifications, no reconnaissance pods for Su-17M3-Rs. I sent the developers SQL scripts to add this data to the database, but nothing has changed.

Really? They seem to be very responsive. Try again!

"I sent the developers SQL scripts to add this data to the database, but nothing has changed"

Why would you send SQL scripts? Why not just submit the request? It also helps if you pointed out the scenario impacted or that you have one in development that needs the unit. Maybe you can insert that as a comment in the SQL statement.

Filitch wrote: Tue May 24, 2022 1:09 pm Engine of CMO is not enough good for modeling tactical ground fights. So scenario designer should work hard to create really great thrills. Helicopter landing operations in Panjsher Gorge, air battles against Pakistan.

I, for one, would be quite interested in playing these scenarios if you do end up designing them.

I wanted to stick my head in really quickly just to comment on this:

Filitch wrote: Tue May 24, 2022 1:00 pm There are no real loadouts for the Soviet aircrafts and helicopters used in Afghanistan. There are no bomb loadouts, gun pods for helicopters, unguided rockets only old modifications, no reconnaissance pods for Su-17M3-Rs. I sent the developers SQL scripts to add this data to the database, but nothing has changed.

"A few years ago" would have been before my time, so I never saw said SQL scripts, but please don't send SQL if you want stuff added to the DB. I appreciate the effort -- really, I do, it's awesome to see people trying to make my life easier -- but the internal DB has a lot of tables, associations, etc. that you guys don't have in the .db3 file and any SQL you try to generate won't run. In the end it just creates more work trying to untangle the SQL into something useable.

Fortunately our process for DB requests has gotten significantly better since then (if I do say so myself). I'd encourage you to post your requests once more over in the DB Requests Github!

Pygmalion wrote: Wed May 25, 2022 12:42 am

thewood1 wrote: Tue May 24, 2022 8:40 pm

Nikel wrote: Tue May 24, 2022 1:40 pm

Fellows, thank you for your participation. You are right, I will make a new request and send it.
I will not promise that I will be able to quickly return to work on scenarios and give a result - I'm having a pretty busy period right now, including professionally. But judging by the interest of the community - I should do it, or at least take an active part.

thewood1 wrote: Tue May 24, 2022 8:40 pm Why would you send SQL scripts? Why not just submit the request?

My request was enough complicated. Not simple new loadouts, but new weapons, new gun and grenade launcher, reconnaissance pods. These pods contain new not existed in DB sensors and weapons. Weapons require new warheads and so on. Also new, Afghan specific, Mi-8 helicopter modifications. So I thought it would be more simple for me and the developers if the request is immediately in the form of SQL.

thewood1 wrote: Tue May 24, 2022 8:40 pm It also helps if you pointed out the scenario impacted or that you have one in development that needs the unit.

There were no concrete scenario. Only tests.

Filitch wrote: Wed May 25, 2022 2:34 pm I will not promise that I will be able to quickly return to work on scenarios and give a result - I'm having a pretty busy period right now, including professionally. But judging by the interest of the community - I should do it, or at least take an active part.

For sure there is interest!

Take your time, I hope you manage to create something or at least improve the database.

Filitch wrote: Wed May 25, 2022 2:34 pm My request was enough complicated. Not simple new loadouts, but new weapons, new gun and grenade launcher, reconnaissance pods. These pods contain new not existed in DB sensors and weapons. Weapons require new warheads and so on. Also new, Afghan specific, Mi-8 helicopter modifications. So I thought it would be more simple for me and the developers if the request is immediately in the form of SQL.

You are right. There are missing items. Just an example.

There are several versions of the Mi-24 attack helicopters in the database, and in the loadouts, none of them use bombs.

But they did, 4 FAB-250 M62 or 2 FAB-500.

Guys, go put an entry in for stuff you need. Grousing about it in here and writing sql code won't get them in. This gets said over and over again.

There were only ten warthogs in Afghanistan. 2000 sorties means a sortie per day.

Not enough happened in Afghanistan to justify scenarios. Also, CAS almost never happens in real life. The Korean War was the only time CAS sort of happened and it was a lot of friendly fire and bombing civilians.

So neither part of the situation works in CMO. At best you could simulate the Taliban hitting an f16 with a rifle.

mustang191 wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 1:09 am There were only ten warthogs in Afghanistan. 2000 sorties means a sortie per day.

Not enough happened in Afghanistan to justify scenarios. Also, CAS almost never happens in real life. The Korean War was the only time CAS sort of happened and it was a lot of friendly fire and bombing civilians.

So neither part of the situation works in CMO. At best you could simulate the Taliban hitting an f16 with a rifle.

Not sure where you're getting this information but I can confidently say that it is patently not true. There was a lot of CAS in Afghanistan, and Iraq and several other conflicts.

What are the facts and figures behind your statement about Korea, that is new to me and I have looked at the war in detail.

I don't disagree about CMO not necessarily being the best platform for COIN scenarios, but if you make a statement like that you should a)know what your talking about and b) back it up.

Gunner98 wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 1:19 am

mustang191 wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 1:09 am There were only ten warthogs in Afghanistan. 2000 sorties means a sortie per day.

Not enough happened in Afghanistan to justify scenarios. Also, CAS almost never happens in real life. The Korean War was the only time CAS sort of happened and it was a lot of friendly fire and bombing civilians.

So neither part of the situation works in CMO. At best you could simulate the Taliban hitting an f16 with a rifle.

Not sure where you're getting this information but I can confidently say that it is patently not true. There was a lot of CAS in Afghanistan, and Iraq and several other conflicts.

What are the facts and figures behind your statement about Korea, that is new to me and I have looked at the war in detail.

I don't disagree about CMO not necessarily being the best platform for COIN scenarios, but if you make a statement like that you should a)know what your talking about and b) back it up.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.co ... -war-crime

Millions died in Korea but that's besides the point.

The point is that the statistics for CAS are easy to find. Like I said, Afghanistan was just ten warthogs flying a sortie a day. In CMO this is a very small scenario.

https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display ... ghanistan/

mustang191 wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 1:09 am There were only ten warthogs in Afghanistan. 2000 sorties means a sortie per day.

Not enough happened in Afghanistan to justify scenarios. Also, CAS almost never happens in real life. The Korean War was the only time CAS sort of happened and it was a lot of friendly fire and bombing civilians.

So neither part of the situation works in CMO. At best you could simulate the Taliban hitting an f16 with a rifle.

This is incorrect. Regardless of friendly fire and civilian casualties, CAS was effective in Korea.

The steady withdrawal to the Pusan Perimeter in July/August 1950 and the maintenance of the same was greatly assisted by CAS aircraft. During the Pusan fight, CAS is credited with inflicting equal enemy casualties as ground assets while destroying nearly three-quarters of DPRK mobile equipment and artillery. Likewise, during the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir, CAS is credited for 50% of CCF casualties.

https://dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil/dpa ... AirBattles

SunlitZelkova wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 2:05 am

mustang191 wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 1:09 am There were only ten warthogs in Afghanistan. 2000 sorties means a sortie per day.

Not enough happened in Afghanistan to justify scenarios. Also, CAS almost never happens in real life. The Korean War was the only time CAS sort of happened and it was a lot of friendly fire and bombing civilians.

So neither part of the situation works in CMO. At best you could simulate the Taliban hitting an f16 with a rifle.

This is incorrect. Regardless of friendly fire and civilian casualties, CAS was effective in Korea.

The steady withdrawal to the Pusan Perimeter in July/August 1950 and the maintenance of the same was greatly assisted by CAS aircraft. During the Pusan fight, CAS is credited with inflicting equal enemy casualties as ground assets while destroying nearly three-quarters of DPRK mobile equipment and artillery. Likewise, during the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir, CAS is credited for 50% of CCF casualties.

https://dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil/dpa ... AirBattles

Chosin was a human wave assault. Also the period where the advance was most rapid (Inchon), CAS is only recorded doing friendly fire incidents.

mustang191 wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 1:09 am There were only ten warthogs in Afghanistan. 2000 sorties means a sortie per day.

Not enough happened in Afghanistan to justify scenarios. Also, CAS almost never happens in real life. The Korean War was the only time CAS sort of happened and it was a lot of friendly fire and bombing civilians.

So neither part of the situation works in CMO. At best you could simulate the Taliban hitting an f16 with a rifle.

Guys this the troll from the other thread, just ignore him.

BobTank63 wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 3:07 am

mustang191 wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 1:09 am There were only ten warthogs in Afghanistan. 2000 sorties means a sortie per day.

Not enough happened in Afghanistan to justify scenarios. Also, CAS almost never happens in real life. The Korean War was the only time CAS sort of happened and it was a lot of friendly fire and bombing civilians.

So neither part of the situation works in CMO. At best you could simulate the Taliban hitting an f16 with a rifle.

Guys this the troll from the other thread, just ignore him.

Explain.

BobTank63 wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 3:07 am

Guys this the troll from the other thread, just ignore him.
[/quote]

Well spotted, thank you.