Matrix Games Forums

Hey all,
I just recently discovered CMO and I really like the scenario editor and all the things that are possible with it.

My problem is that I have no real knowledge of military things. If I wanted to make a scenario about a particular nation, I would have no idea what a realistic military size would be. How many planes should this base have? How many tanks should be here? etc etc.

Any resources or tips anyone can provide on this?

Thanks all!

The possibilities are endless because you always may create hypothetical scenarios.

Anyway of which conflict are we talking about for your first scenario?

Well to be honest, being an amateur writer, about a million come to mind. What if kind of scenarios are my favorites.

Taking El Salvatore through a series in which they take over central America.
A modern American civil war.
Irish War for independence.
Reestablishing the Roman Empire.
Japanese civil war reestablishing the Shogunate.

The one I am most interested in is doing an American civil war, but it's also a very large one. America has a very large military with many bases, and a civil war would also need to bring in national guard bases.

I'm sure that finding the bases is doable, but I would have no idea what a realistic amount of aircraft, tanks, and infantry would be. And the same applies to the other ideas.

CMO is a very good game/simulation, but not sure it is good enough to restore the Roman Empire


Regarding a modern ACW. That sound quite interesting indeed, what could be the context for that?

I guess you could do it in a campaign with multiple scenarios, but you would not want to put in a single map all the bases and units, what computer can handle that?


A good starting point is the wikipedia, as usual. Several links with bases and organization:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U ... tary_bases

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... of_Defense

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure ... tates_Army

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizat ... rine_Corps

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure ... tates_Navy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_St ... _of_battle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizat ... of_Defense

Orbats in graphics

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cate ... raphics/US


2022 Index of US military Strength

https://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2021/2022_Military_Index/2022_IndexOfUSMilitaryStrength_WEB.pdf


A nice and official pdf from 2021 with structure, numbers, costs and projections

https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2021-0 ... Primer.pdf


OOB from 2008. Many of the .mil links do not work.

http://baummil.org/usaob.html



How many aircraft per squadron? These infographics look nice and recent, 2015. USAF

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-con ... ombat.html


And for the USN, 2019.

https://i.imgur.com/SqvCtCg.png


USMC aviation





US Army Aviation

http://dailyinfographics.eu/wp-content/ ... xEE93J.jpg


US Coast Guard Aviation

https://s3.amazonaws.com/idme-wordpress ... N2VtZM.png



Found this site for the army.

https://www.battleorder.org/us

And these graphics










USMC







US Navy

https://external-preview.redd.it/f3ZfFw ... e5da7a694a


2021 pdf

https://aresdifesa.it/wp-content/upload ... ytheon.pdf



US Coast Guard, 2015

https://external-preview.redd.it/QrMjs- ... c547197f3a



Special Operations command structure

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... ommand.png

Well, I disclaimer this by saying that I HATE politics with a burning passion. So please, if anyone is reading this, take it as my personal thoughts and don't engage in political debate.

I've always been kind of interested/amused with the fact that technically the US Constitution technically says that the people have a right and duty to overthrow the government should it become to corrupt (I am paraphrasing of course).

What amuses me about that is that first of all, I don't think that there would ever be a point in which people would put that into action. They are far too convinced that things can be changed by voting the right person into office. Secondly, even if such a revolution were to materialize, it's not like it would be seen as a legal action. The government would paint them as rebels and act accordingly. It's not like you can get Congress to pass the "Overthrow the Government Bill."

So, the basis of my scenario at the moment is that in this reality this is actually put into action. Of course, any revolution in the US would need the support of at least a portion of the military. So, I have it that the military is fairly split on the issue and part is supporting the rebels and part is supporting the US.

I will take a look at Wiki and see what I can gleen from it.

I do not think there is any problem with politics.

I enjoy reading the details and briefings wrote by the scenario designers.

A context for role playing is important for immersion, just my opinion!

I agree completely. Which is one reason I had a hard time figuring out how I wanted to do this scenario in a believable way because in reality I don't think it could EVER get bad enough for this to actually occur. So, I have to suspend a little disbelief and just try to make it as realistic as possible.

And by writing in that the rebel faction was able to place a loyal captain and crew on a few ballistic missile subs brings MAD into the picture. So even if my rebel faction is small, it could still be believable that it could dig in before being over run.

I have a rough draft of my initial campaign briefing but it's still a little over dramatic. I need to edit it little by little.

To add to resources, alphasierragaming[.]com has good resources, tutorial videos, and lua examples.

As a general observation, game performance can be a major issue when large numbers of units are active. I am working on a large scenario, and have decided to break it up into a campaign, each with chapters, to help keep the scenarios manageable, performance and playtime wise.

If you are interested in a Second American Civil War, I recommend having a nuclear war and then have the economic and political problems afterwards be the split.

This would allow the elimination of some bases through nuclear strikes to lower unit count. If it is set a few decades after the war rebuilding will occur and the nation will be a little more normal, if that is what you desire.

Are you thinking of federal government vs. separatists or US collapse and infighting between states or coalitions of states?

I did indeed consider a nuclear war before hand. It would greatly simplify things in that unit count could be reduced and it would also explain why a place has a different amount of stuff than one would expect.

I aim is federal vs separatist. Which in some ways is another good reason to have a nuclear war because it would also be the perfect opportunity for such a group to make it's stand.

I guess that after a nuclear apocalypse you may create your OOB from scratch.