64 player skirmish map, simulating a set-peice assault.

Mikemonster · 2012-09-25, 09:07

Hi Rhino,

This should be an interesting mod, congratulations for giving it a go.

Whilst PR attempts to simulate combined arms, to my knowledge the main infantry battles were fought in set-peice moves (company assaults, etc) and supported by army artillery and naval gunfire.

I understand that it's exciting to have the planes and simulate an air battle, however is it possible to create a 'simulation' type scenario of a set-peice infantry attack (in low light/the dark if possible)?

I'm no army man, I have no idea of the dimensions involved, but my thinking was thus:

# Instead of the 'normal' BF2 map allowing different routes to objectives, instead the map could be a 'corridor', perhaps 800m wide yet a couple of km long.

# British start spawns are simply the 'front line' i.e. dead ground within 200m of the enemy, and 'rear area', which is a mortar position (to simulate artillery).

# Argentinian start spawns are on trench lines (or lines of earth bunkers), each trench line 150m behind the other.

Hence ironically, we have a set-out battle with planned defence and planned offence, and little room for improvisation. It goes completely against what BF2 and PR normally strive for, and I think it would work very well.

There could be shell holes/peat ditches for cover (if needed), but generally the side with the best shooters should always win.

Obviously the map could be tweaked, but I think that this would add an excellent simulation of something not ever tried before in PR - a set piece attack and a set piece defence.

I'm gonna get slated for this.. I just think it is an excellent opportunity to bring back some simple (ish) infantry combat without making things complicated.

Yes, you could simulate medevac and supply to the mortars, but I think that this would be pointless and it would be great to see a 32 vs 32 infantry combat map. I suggested it be narrow and linear to simulate the lines dividing other units' attacks.

Variables could obviously be night/day (are flares available?), smoke in the mortar ammo or just explosive, Argentinian mortar support, on-call artillery in the JDAM request style (to simulate naval gunfire), etc. And obviously the HAT kits would be invaluable to the British side, as they were at the time.

But I'd be very excited to see a PR map that for once doesn't just involve a huge flank via helicopter, and instead relies on the overall skill of supporting MG's and individual accuracy/suppression.

disclaimer: Yes, it would end up as a huge skirmish. To my knowledge that's what a night assault basically is.

You could disallow crates, and simply have the respawns (in the dead ground or in the Argentinian rear area) simulating people returning to the fight after making sure their mates got medical attention, or rationalise them as ammunition carriers, stretcher bearers, etc.

Rhino · 2012-09-25, 09:45

- Topic moved to PR:F suggestions...

First of all, there is a planned AAS 16 Infantry layer for the map which is basically the same format as the AAS 64 Standard layer, but without jets and is at night, and like AAS 64, has a few choppers and very few land vehicles, which I feel meets most of what your asking for.

Although what your mainly asking for really can't be done effectively with this map. This map is designed to include all the major aspects of the war and in order to do that I had to make the map to 1:30 scale (ie, every 30m of terrain in r/l is represented by 1m ingame). As such focusing on small areas at one time like the Battle of Goose Green or Mt. Tumbledown etc alone, is really not an option. This is why GP_MineralWouter is working on his own, focused version of the Battle of Goose Green, which although not to 1:1 scale, is much closer than the main Falklands map and can focus the battle much more effectively: https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f35...-wip-pr-f.html
I would suggest others to do the same onto other battles they want to focus on if they want them in any detail.

As for your "corridors", we are not stepping backwards into what vBF2 had like that, the nice thing about PR is players have the flexibility to attack how and where they like, only limited by terrain limitations like you are in r/l.

Mikemonster · 2012-09-25, 10:47

Apologies for not seeing the Suggestions forum and posting in the right place.

Fair enough if it's a question of scale. When someone mentions the Falklands war I think of the last conventional war that we as a nation fought, with company vs company on the same terrain they trained to fight on (i.e. peat bogs and moorland, rather than Basrah city centre).

I don't want to get into a factual debate really, but it's my impression that the Falklands war wasn't strictly about air power, it was about infantry combat. Dogfighting jets is good fun no doubt (i'm not knocking it really), but what I was hoping for in a Falklands map was a nice simple combat, with no tanks, not much cover (just dead ground and heather), and finally a proper infantry battle.

As I stated, in vBF2 and in PR you can indeed use the maps to flank objectives, but does this represent how the guys fought in the Falklands? Perhaps, if you want to simulate SF recon, etc, that's a possibility. But like I said, at the end of the day the big battles were set peice attacks, supported by HMG's and artillery. The Argentinians were dug in expecting an assault to come, and the British were assembling knowing that they were attacking prepared positions.

Instead of the usual sweeping-airtank-squad PR style 'oh lol i've got a secret FOB to rush from' it was pretty much rehearsed on the ranges back in the UK. A set peice assault.

In my opinion a linear map would simulate not straying into the fire zones of companies conducting the attack on your flanks.

The occasional Pucara attacking the ground forces would be a nice introduction, but more of a novelty in my opinion. Really if an air war is included the map is basically representing the logistics tasks that were hampered by Argentinian strikes, rather than dedicated CAS. Those two helicopters caught in the open by Argentinian jets or strikes on shipping, I presume were alien to the troops assembling to assault.

We have the chance here to create a piece on piece battle between fairly well matched forces, with a parity in firepower. A linear, well designed (or selected) part of the map would present a great representation of as mentioned an actual assault.

16 vs 16 may work, it depends how big the map is I suppose.

Quote:

As for your "corridors", we are not stepping backwards into what vBF2 had like that, the nice thing about PR is players have the flexibility to attack how and where they like, only limited by terrain limitations like you are in r/l.

That's true, it is nice, but is it representative of war? Sometimes a frontal assault is the only remedy, and you take casualties as a given. Attacking prepared positions would never happen otherwise - In PR I hate the stupid empty maps and the invulnerability of transport (if it goes sufficiently far away). In the Falklands they didn't just walk around the enemy did they?

The battle for Goose Green looks like my cup of tea, will post there instead

Rhino · 2012-09-25, 11:15

Did you play the map in the beta at all? I take it from your comments you haven't...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mikemonster

I don't want to get into a factual debate really, but it's my impression that the Falklands war wasn't strictly about air power, it was about infantry combat. Dogfighting jets is good fun no doubt (i'm not knocking it really), but what I was hoping for in a Falklands map was a nice simple combat, with no tanks, not much cover (just dead ground and heather), and finally a proper infantry battle.

This is a common misconception most people have before they have tried the map and all they have seen is a few screenshots of jets etc...

While yes, the air combat is a significant part of the map and the real war, it isn't focused around that. The air combat is merely a supporting role and can't win the battle on its own, its up to the ground troops to win the battle on the map, like it was in r/l. Due to the amount of, and mainly how common the air power is (5min spawns for most jets), the jets are soo busy fighting each other to gain air superiority, that most of the time trying to take out infantry targets simply isn't possible. Also due to the very long view distance, AA is very, very effective and is a lot of the time more of a threat than enemy jets.

What your hoping for is really what you get, but with the odd jet flying overhead dog fighting with another.

I suggest watching some vids of the Open Beta gameplay from an Infantry POV:

+ many more: Project Reality Falklands - YouTube

Note that hardly ever do the ground troops come under enemy fire from aircraft but you see them quite a lot overhead dog fighting.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mikemonster

As I stated, in vBF2 and in PR you can indeed use the maps to flank objectives, but does this represent how the guys fought in the Falklands? Perhaps, if you want to simulate SF recon, etc, that's a possibility. But like I said, at the end of the day the big battles were set peice attacks, supported by HMG's and artillery. The Argentinians were dug in expecting an assault to come, and the British were assembling knowing that they were attacking prepared positions.

They attacked in r/l just as you would ingame. If you make it so you have to attack up a single route, the defending team is going to know excatly where the enemy is coming from and what they are doing, giving them a massive advantage, where in r/l, they don't and the same should be true ingame.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mikemonster

16 vs 16 may work, it depends how big the map is I suppose.

In PR the AAS16 (Infantry) layer doesn't mean it a map for 16 players, (8v8 ), like in vBF2, its a map for 64 players, to play only as Infantry. Our Skirmish layers are meant for small battles mainly used by clan vs clan scrims.

EDIT: also one other thing I should note is that most of the aircraft ingame are souly Anti-Air (Fighter) aircraft with no ground to air weapons other than cannons, and even one aircraft (The Anti-Ship version of the Mirage) doesn't have a cannon since it can't be equipped with a cannon when carrying an Exocet AS missile. Also most of the air to ground, CAS jets do not have any AA weapons, other than cannons, only one aircraft is equipped with both AA missiles, cannons and bombs and that's the IAI Dagger which in the AAS 64 layer, there is only one of them and its on a 5min delayed spawn. Its also not as good in the AA role as the Mirage IIIEA since it doesn't have the R.530 AA missile and only has the two archers on its wings, that the Mirage also has.
From this interview here you can see the aircraft I have in PR:F (although not all the load outs of the aricrafts), although its actually missing one new one now that I've added which is a chopper which I'll post about soonish with any luck

https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f10...falklands.html

Quote:

Mikemonster · 2012-09-26, 10:14

Well explained, the videos tell a thousand words. I've been away from PR for ages and thought i'd nip back to see what was going on - Sounded like 1.0 wouldn't increase the inf play very much (from the snippets of info I could gather) so I was thinking omgbbq when I heard about your project here.

I wasn't so aware that this was a mini-mod, I was thinking more that the Falklands map was just going to be one map with the forces on it.

I'm sorry for the hectoring tone.

It would be great to have an updated homepage with the WIP progress trees, and nice clear diagrams showing what is going on in the PR world.

You've done a great job with the stickies though, which I completely missed. (my bad).

This looks like a very fun map, well done, wish you all the best Rhino.

2012-09-25, 09:07	#1
Mikemonster Join Date: Mar 2011 Posts: 1,372 United Kingdom	64 player skirmish map, simulating a set-peice assault. Hi Rhino, This should be an interesting mod, congratulations for giving it a go. Whilst PR attempts to simulate combined arms, to my knowledge the main infantry battles were fought in set-peice moves (company assaults, etc) and supported by army artillery and naval gunfire. I understand that it's exciting to have the planes and simulate an air battle, however is it possible to create a 'simulation' type scenario of a set-peice infantry attack (in low light/the dark if possible)? I'm no army man, I have no idea of the dimensions involved, but my thinking was thus: # Instead of the 'normal' BF2 map allowing different routes to objectives, instead the map could be a 'corridor', perhaps 800m wide yet a couple of km long. # British start spawns are simply the 'front line' i.e. dead ground within 200m of the enemy, and 'rear area', which is a mortar position (to simulate artillery). # Argentinian start spawns are on trench lines (or lines of earth bunkers), each trench line 150m behind the other. Hence ironically, we have a set-out battle with planned defence and planned offence, and little room for improvisation. It goes completely against what BF2 and PR normally strive for, and I think it would work very well. There could be shell holes/peat ditches for cover (if needed), but generally the side with the best shooters should always win. Obviously the map could be tweaked, but I think that this would add an excellent simulation of something not ever tried before in PR - a set piece attack and a set piece defence. I'm gonna get slated for this.. I just think it is an excellent opportunity to bring back some simple (ish) infantry combat without making things complicated. Yes, you could simulate medevac and supply to the mortars, but I think that this would be pointless and it would be great to see a 32 vs 32 infantry combat map. I suggested it be narrow and linear to simulate the lines dividing other units' attacks. Variables could obviously be night/day (are flares available?), smoke in the mortar ammo or just explosive, Argentinian mortar support, on-call artillery in the JDAM request style (to simulate naval gunfire), etc. And obviously the HAT kits would be invaluable to the British side, as they were at the time. But I'd be very excited to see a PR map that for once doesn't just involve a huge flank via helicopter, and instead relies on the overall skill of supporting MG's and individual accuracy/suppression. disclaimer: Yes, it would end up as a huge skirmish. To my knowledge that's what a night assault basically is. You could disallow crates, and simply have the respawns (in the dead ground or in the Argentinian rear area) simulating people returning to the fight after making sure their mates got medical attention, or rationalise them as ammunition carriers, stretcher bearers, etc.

	Last edited by Mikemonster; 2012-09-25 at 09:13..

2012-09-25, 09:45	#2
Rhino Retired PR Developer Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 47,448 United Kingdom Location: Somerset - UK Blog Entries: 45	Re: 64 player skirmish map, simulating a set-peice assault. - Topic moved to PR:F suggestions... First of all, there is a planned AAS 16 Infantry layer for the map which is basically the same format as the AAS 64 Standard layer, but without jets and is at night, and like AAS 64, has a few choppers and very few land vehicles, which I feel meets most of what your asking for. Although what your mainly asking for really can't be done effectively with this map. This map is designed to include all the major aspects of the war and in order to do that I had to make the map to 1:30 scale (ie, every 30m of terrain in r/l is represented by 1m ingame). As such focusing on small areas at one time like the Battle of Goose Green or Mt. Tumbledown etc alone, is really not an option. This is why GP_MineralWouter is working on his own, focused version of the Battle of Goose Green, which although not to 1:1 scale, is much closer than the main Falklands map and can focus the battle much more effectively: https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f35...-wip-pr-f.html I would suggest others to do the same onto other battles they want to focus on if they want them in any detail. As for your "corridors", we are not stepping backwards into what vBF2 had like that, the nice thing about PR is players have the flexibility to attack how and where they like, only limited by terrain limitations like you are in r/l.

2012-09-26, 10:14	#5
Mikemonster Join Date: Mar 2011 Posts: 1,372 United Kingdom	Re: 64 player skirmish map, simulating a set-peice assault. Well explained, the videos tell a thousand words. I've been away from PR for ages and thought i'd nip back to see what was going on - Sounded like 1.0 wouldn't increase the inf play very much (from the snippets of info I could gather) so I was thinking omgbbq when I heard about your project here. I wasn't so aware that this was a mini-mod, I was thinking more that the Falklands map was just going to be one map with the forces on it. I'm sorry for the hectoring tone. It would be great to have an updated homepage with the WIP progress trees, and nice clear diagrams showing what is going on in the PR world. You've done a great job with the stickies though, which I completely missed. (my bad). This looks like a very fun map, well done, wish you all the best Rhino.