Baghdad Raid-Thunder run-scenario posted!!!

[daskal]

This scenario depicts the "Thunder run" of 5th April 2003 in Baghdad along Highway 8. Just put the *.sce file to "My scenarios" folder & enjoy. I've also made an ambient file for the scenario - Its up to you wheter you want to use it or not (look for it in the mods section). It took me quite a few months to make this mission&terrian, but I hope it was worth it.

I've also attached the terrain file hat I made for this mission (its not necessary to use it because its already embeded in the *.sce file) in case somedy else wants to work with it/expand it later.

Have fun, cheers:

Daskal

[mbv]

Thanks for the excellent mission. Just tried it out and for some reason my view is constantly spinning if I am in external mode F8 (EDIT - joystick cable was holding down a cursor key, all OK now :D )

The mission is great fun. So many targets I don't know where to turn. Got hammered shortly after turning the first corner beyond Curly objective - damned RPG's. Managing ammo levels is close to the difficulty of the 73 Easting scenario.

[Skybird03]

Feedback :luxhello:

Great job in creating the place. Time-consuming, without doubt.

But I wonder how it is meant to be played? I had three attempts and took the word thunder-rush literally, in loose coordination I jujst had the convy chasing down the highway, and it got shredderted into piece and was dead when approaching the area of the first objective.

I then played without plan and handled all plattons manually, and sneaked my way forward. Here I found the AI often getting messed up by the presence of the roads, making my platoon mates spinning around, exposing their rears to fire when wanting to stay in formation conflicted with wanting to stick to the highway. many vehicles got stuck in building corners. I used narrow spacing, and switched from column formation to line abreast, manually driving each moving platoon. That way it worked with only managable messups of the AI and unit formation.

I lost one Bradley and two tanks.

It took me close to four hours to reach the upper right corner of the parcours (somewhat the middle of the complete distance). :dead:

I then started an edit, deleting the enemy in the areas that I already had passed, and locating the batallion minus three vehicles into the area in that corner (second objective I think). Then spend another four hours to reach the airport.

I am aware that you have no influence on the AI, so I do not mean this as criticism. I am jst wonderign, have you ever played the mission yourself, and successfully? how did you do it? A mission time of 8 hours can'T be meant serious for a computer simulation that has no save game option. But chasing down the highway in one rush leads right into hell.

Maybe I will edit the terrain myself, and simply delete the defined roadlanes between those lines of houses, so that the terrain is there, and the feeling of driving an alley, but the AI no longer conflicts with the autmatic that tries to make it using roads.

Anyhow, i spend 2x4 hours, so something you must have done right! Maybe it is a question of a person's character how to play it. A psycho-test! :lol:

[daskal]

I am jst wonderign, have you ever played the mission yourself, and successfully? how did you do it?

Well ofcourse I have played it - and I even managed to complete it almost all the time :) in about 2 - 2,5 hours (propably faster in a cooperative network session).

Let me give a few tips for this scenario:

-this is meant to be played as "thunder run" - but unfortunately the AI doesn't have such a movement type - however this problem can be solved quickly. Use column formation + normal spacing + slowets speed when advancing up the highway. Set your waypoints up to short distances (try to reach Curly first, then wait for the rest of the convoy close up with you, then proceed to Larry and so on and so forth...) this way you can eliminate the AI's movement problems.

- there are lots of bad guys spread out along the highway - but infact only a FEW of them are able to take you out - so if you proceed slow and in formation there will be no problem :)

-take out the suicide trucks and jeeps in time because they are not just there for decoration - each of them has several IEDs attached to them, and they are going to detonate if they get near you.

[Suicidal_6]

That's what I did. I set the waypoints for one obj at a time and did the thunder run. It still took me about 3-4 hours. I completetly lost track of time and had a blast. Great mission.

[Skybird03]

That's what I did, too, column, slow, attack mode and engage mode - tried that in the beginning. Screwed up the convoy before reaching first objective. For some reason the tanks spend most of their timing to point their turrets at their rear to enage bypassed enemies, instead of spending more time for scanning the new emerging dangers ahead.

I initially also increased unit platoon spacing, for they always slammed into each other and blocked the road and were bogged down.

Those FEW units able to take me out - take out a very good bit of me. Almost all units. Suicide trucks are no problem, though. :D

Once the road gets blocked by own or enem,y burnign vechicles, the AI messes it up completely in it'S attempt to evade the blocks and go back to the road again.

If you say it works, I believe you. But I have no clue how it could work. :(

[Skybird03]

Tried again, and got chewed up. Daskal, could you send me your pln-file? There must be something that you make decisively different in mission planning than me. Some other scenarios for SBP are difficult, too, but usually sooner or later I get them done, after some experimenting. But this one leaves me clueless.

Laurin03ATwebDOTde

[Kegel]

This is killing me. I keep running into the same problem as the guy above me. Turrets keep firing at the crap behind me and not paying attention to what is coming in front...too many of my mates clogging the road up front to pass quickly. How did you do it??? Is there any way to make the main gun fire fully auto?...say about 120 rounds a minute?

[daskal]

Try to be in the first tank of your lead platoon - gunner/commanders position. That way you will be able to designate the targets for yourself (in the gunners position press "T" so that the commander won't ovverride / counter-slew the turret for you). You might as well stop sometimes the armored column to clear up the 2 sides of the Highway a bit. Don't waste main gun rounds on the trucks and technicals - use the COAX instead.

[jens198]

Might be a stupid question, but how do I use the ambietn sound file that came with this (great) scenario?

Jens

[CommC]

Great scenario. Great job especially on the map and suicide vehicles.

One small suggestion, the historical M1 ammo loadouts for this mission were mostly Heat/MPAT, with only a few Sabot rounds. You might want to edit the default loadouts of the M1s to be more like that, i.e. 30 Heat rounds and 10 Sabot, etc.

[daskal]

Might be a stupid question, but how do I use the ambietn sound file that came with this (great) scenario?

Jens


Oooops sorry - it looks like - I've forgot to upload the abient sound file (upluading now: ) Just play it in Winamp or Windows mwdia player in the background.

[Skybird03]

I tried it two more times again. Maybe I do something stupid, but I admit, the difficulty setting of this mission is a no-go for me. Platoons collide sooner or later with each other, ending up in furballs that get lethal shots in backs and flanks. Column formation, normal space, slow or normal speeds. Evading obstacles on the road totally messes up the Ai that wants to stick to the rods - leads to more lethal confusion. No tank survives for long in the leading position. All platoons seriously crippled at around the first objective, or after that. What ever you guys who play it successfully are doing in planning phase - it remains a complete mystery for me. This is the first scenario I played in SBP that I capitulate to.In two weeks I have more time, and maybe some interest rebuilt. Thzen I will look at the map and delete the roads from the ally. I think that will increase the performance of the AI fundamentally, and maybe then I can win that mission.Nichts für ungut, Daskal! I still would like to learn about your pln-file, how you plan your force to run through.You seem to make something very different that I even cannot imagine, or I make some very stupid mistake in the planning.Why are those two triggers included, btw? They do nothing for me neither at mission start nor short before the first objective, even when waiting for some minutes.

[mbv]

Well I finally managed to finish it - but only with 8 surviving vehicles :( and after playing it for 5+ hours !!! Like Skybird I lost loads of vehicles to poor AI on the blocked highways. I had to physically go back and command each stuck vehicle and drive it to the airport, most seem to have managed to go round the back of the building frontages and got stuck in corners. The well hidden T-72's on the last straight section play hell with my convoy and I lost most of the vehicles in that last stretch. RPG's accounted for the rest of the casualties. Seems insanely difficult to me, but I may be doing something terribly wrong. This mission reminds me of the slugfest An Nasiriyah scenario which was completely impossible until the RPGs were toned down in one of the patches. I cannot see anyone getting to the end with a victory based on 80% of vehicles surviving unless you avoid the highway completely and drive round the back of the highway through the desert ;)

Reading up on the real Thunder Run I don't think any T-72's or ATGM launchers were encountered at all. It was all MG's, suicide vehicles, bunkers and RPG's and I think the inclusion of so many well hidden
T-72's in particular is making this mission impossible to finish with the given victory condition. Of course once you have played it through a couple of times you know where the enemy are and it presumably gets easier each time you subsequently play it, but I don't have many opportunities to sit on my butt for 5 hours plus playing a lopsided scenario, so I guess I will never know.

A few screens of the action. Click the thumbnails to enlarge to 1024x768

Near the start of the mission. I used two columns of M1A1's on slow speed to clear the path ahead then moved up the rest of the column behind at each main objective. Even though the MG is used most you will need to reload KE ammo often and may even need to re-supply.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v94/markwalters/Steel%20Beasts/th_SS_23_17_27.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v94/markwalters/Steel%20Beasts/SS_23_17_27.jpg)

Admiring our work - a T-72 turret embedded in the ground.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v94/markwalters/Steel%20Beasts/th_SS_03_04_24.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v94/markwalters/Steel%20Beasts/SS_03_04_24.jpg)

[mbv]

There are many hull down enemy tanks along the route that are difficult to spot as they give off no heat signature with the engines off.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v94/markwalters/Steel%20Beasts/th_SS_00_54_46.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v94/markwalters/Steel%20Beasts/SS_00_54_46.jpg)

Passing a knocked out Bradley with fierce opposition all around
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v94/markwalters/Steel%20Beasts/th_SS_00_06_41.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v94/markwalters/Steel%20Beasts/SS_00_06_41.jpg)

The dregs of my badly mauled column finally make it to the airport
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v94/markwalters/Steel%20Beasts/th_SS_05_06_21.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v94/markwalters/Steel%20Beasts/SS_05_06_21.jpg)

[daskal]

Well I'm really sad that this mission turned out to be rather frustrating for most of you :( The scenario was in fact meant to be played in cooperative sessions - but it can also be played in single player mode (well at least that what I thought). I've read the book called "Thunder run" so and I 've done a pretty wide-scale background research before starting the scenario. I know there were only a couple of T-72s in real life - and those were unmanned and abandoned......BUT I've decided to put in some T-72s and AT BRDMs to make the mission more challenging and enjoyable. Every enemy tank and PC in this scenario is equipped with the oldest - most out-dated ammunition that SB PRO had to offer - meaning that they will not penetrate the armour of the M1 (except from the rear)

[mbv]

No need to be sad about your mission Daskal, the map design is excellent and the mission itself, while very difficult to complete successfully, is still great fun to play.

Even though the T-72s have low quality ammo they are penetrating the Abrams from the side and front which may just be a problem with the in-game ammo values. RPG single or double hits to front and side are still too lethal in this sim too.

Have you actually won the scenario yourself with an 80% intact force ? If so, what was your primary tactic on this one ?

[Skybird03]

I agree, no reason to be sad, Daskal. There is the great map design, which really is an attention-getter and an impressive job you did. :up: And everybody is free to load the mission itself into the editor, and edit it to his liking. I currently downgrade the opposition, so that the many opportunities when the traffic AI will expose the rears of turrets or vehicles to the enemy at the front will not have so severe lethal consequences. The map is great, and the mission design can be edited by players, while still using the better part of your enemy-setup, which spares us a lot of time.

[Jimmybar]

After reading the first posts I got interested in this scenario. I did not even try advancing fast.

I spent about 5 hours and managed barely to get 80 % into the airport.

I put one tank platoon in close spacing and wedge formation in front. Just behind it I had M2 platoon in close spacing and wedge formation. Autocannon HE is effective against infantry further away. In narrow parts I have to split the platoon into two sections. I drive the front platoon leader manually and check that the vehicles do not get stuck.

Whenever the ready ammo is low, I take another platoon in front and let the previous platoon stop, reload and resupply.

Every time I hear rifle shots I stop and deal with it. Sometimes the infantry is very well hidden, and I just can not see who is shooting the tank. If the infantry would be clever enough not to use rifles against tanks they would be even more deadly.

Supply trucks were essential and fortunately I had time to use them.

I have low framerates even with very low settings, about 8-20 FPS. According to posts in this forum I quess a flat terrain and lot of infantry causes that.

Do you have links to some public information about the real Thunder run ?

[HotTom]

A simple but challenging (maybe a bit too challenging?) mission. After a couple of tries running this as a convoy (which was the way it really happened), I got a few tanks limping into the airport by using the terrain, bounding overwatch, staying way off the road, pounding everywhere and everything and everybody ahead of me with artillery and mostly going slow.

I had no problems with the vehicles playing "bumper cars" but I spread everyone out as much as possible.

If you're going to tweak it, I would drastically reduce the amount of infantry. I don't know how correctly they are modeled, but those RPGs are the deadliest weapon in this sim IMHO. I actually had no trouble with the enemy vehicles because my AI tanks got most of them. But I think that was dumb luck on my part. I run at default graphic settings and my FPS was just fine.

It's a fun mission and I will try it again I'm sure but I would suggest toning it down a tad. Or renaming it "Suicide Run." :)

HT

[CommC]

One simple way to deal the problem of too many enemy units is to edit the scenario to put (some of) them on a random chance to spawn.

[Skybird03]

Tried it again this night, after having deleted all T72s, and a good ammount of the column, until I had three M1 and three M3 platoons and the ammo trucks left. Then abandoned the idea of thunder run and did what I did in the beginning: manually moving one platoon at a time in wedge, narrow, Abrams in lead, Bradley short behind. the second M1 and M3 platoon was trailing behgind as a reserve. The third platoons of both always far behind, resupplying, then taking the lead, while the ammo trucks movd to the now last platoons.

That way it was playable, I lost one abrams, one Bradley, and two more vehicles drowned in the small body of water in the middle of the road, due to the broken AI. I do not count them as regular losses for that reason.

So, in this way, I made it to the airport in roughly 5 hours, and two losses.

DO NOT use column formation and autmatic movement, guys. someone above said he did it the same, and also succeeded, but with higher losses. Play careful. Do not thunder run this mission, but play manually, and carefully, then you have a good evening!

There is obviously something fascinating about the idea of the mission. i have spend a very big ammount of time in trying it out now. Could be close to twenty hours, or even more.

[mbv]

Do you have links to some public information about the real Thunder run ?

Jimmy - this is a good summary which is pretty much a very abbreviated form of David Zucchino's book on Thunder Run http://www.tankmastergunner.com/thunder%20run.htm

Skybird - Congrats on getting to the end with few losses. I think I will have to try editing out the T-72 too to make this realistic. Did you take out the missile launchers too or leave them in ?

[Skybird03]

Jimmy - this is a good summary which is pretty much a very abbreviated form of David Zucchino's book on Thunder Run http://www.tankmastergunner.com/thunder%20run.htm

Skybird - Congrats on getting to the end with few losses. I think I will have to try editing out the T-72 too to make this realistic. Did you take out the missile launchers too or leave them in ?

At random, and not systematically. I changed some BMP-2 to BMP-1, and some ATs were replaced with anything from the BRDM or BTR department. Tthe infantry I left untouched.

I really miss one command in SBP, that is movement in orderd formation (or halt at any location), without even reacting to very close enemies that are flanking. The coloumn too often were heading 90° off course when a unit popped up that they had overseen and that now was close in their flanks. Impossible to have a proper unit cohesion that way. I had situations when 8 or even 10 vehicles were crowded at a housewall behind which a single soldier was hiding. Decluttering them again was a pain, for the tanks were blocking each other. Daskal had a fascinating idea, but the simulation does not support this kind of ideas too well, I think.

I think the mission also would play better with the superior SA and viewing options for the TC in a Leo2A5. Maybe change one or two of the Abrams platoons accordingly. ;)

Like I did it last night, I was surprised how fast time was fleeting . :D Something in Daskal's mission idea must be right, obviously, no matter if the sim can handle it properly, or not. :up:

[HotTom]

I opened this .sce in mission editor and counted at least 50 Iraqi infantry units (do Iraqis have fire teams?), EACH with an RPG. And that doesn't count all the other deadly stuff (tanks, ATGM, lucky throws with rocks).

I read the excellent link mbv posted above and in RL the lead battalion suffered only one tank lost (crew rescued) and a TC killed. In the scenario, all the US vehicles are getting slaughtered. What's wrong with this picture?

This .sce has GREAT atmosphere and really is very intense. But I think it needs a bit of a reality check.

As I mentioned in another thread, there is a tendency among many scenario writers to have a small Blue Force attacking a huge Red force that no real life commander would ever even consider. The real "Thunder Run" was indeed audacious, but did not face the odds put into this .sce. A ratio of three attackers for every one defender really is the school solution. And these defenders have a huge "combat force multiplier" in that very nasty RPG, which seems way too effective to me.

Just my opinion, offered for free and worth what you paid for it :).

I'm gonna get rid of a lot of those reds in the mission editor and see if I can make it more reflect the real deal for my use. This really is a super mission but the odds are too stacked in favor of the Red force.

HT

[KevoM1]

I need to have a go at this .sce sounds thrilling!

[daskal]

Okay, okay, okay... I'm gonna go in and edit the scenario - so stay tuned for the updated version. I must admit that I've never managed to get 80% of the convoy over to the airport :O but I always managed to get it above 50% and be succesful in about 2-3 hours.

[mbv]

Okay, okay, okay... I'm gonna go in and edit the scenario - so stay tuned for the updated version. I must admit that I've never managed to get 80% of the convoy over to the airport :O but I always managed to get it above 50% and be succesful in about 2-3 hours.

That is pretty good going with the unedited scenario. With a bit more practice I could be happy with that kind of score. Looking forward to the revised mission, but I haven't given up on the original yet - just need some spare time to play it.

[daskal]

I've got a good idea how to solve the difficulity problem of this scenario :) I'm gonna put in 2 triggers - for different 2 difficulty levels. The player will then be able to decide what kind of resistance he is ready to take on in the mission. If he activates the normal trigger "Normal mode" - you will encounter resistance similar to the real event (mainly troops - fewer than now; a few BMP1's, no T-72's - only wrecks; BRDM-s (not the AT version); and a few MTLB's, and suicide vehicles ofcourse....
The other trigger will be for the "Difficult mode" - this will activate the same gameplay as now (propably preffered for network sessions). So, what do you think of it?

[mbv]

Sounds ideal - go for it !