Why is there no EOD in the game? HUGE MISSED OPPORTUNITY

Afghanistan '11 changes the paradigm of wargaming and manages to bring Counter-Insurgency and guerrilla warfare to your screen, properly represented thanks to a revolutionary gameplay formula!
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EODxRaptorias
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Why is there no EOD in the game? HUGE MISSED OPPORTUNITY

Post by EODxRaptorias »

Now I'm not hating on the game but there is a very large piece of the Afghanistan war that is missing. And if utilized, could really drive the immersion of this game to new heights.

As a former US Army EOD soldier, who deployed to Afghanistan in 2013, Kandahar region, and Iraq in 2010-2011, around Kurdistan; I find this game is missing a big element of the war on the ground. EOD, Explosive Ordnance Disposal, became the most important combat enablers for both Iraq and Afghanistan, due to the sheer number and lethality of IEDs. Infantry would never be allowed to disarm IEDs in any realm of possibility except when they run it over and get themselves killed.
Now I understand the desire to keep the number different units down in order to streamline simplicity, but I feel this game is missing a huge puzzle piece that was the war in Afghanistan; yall want to be realistic correct??? Now, as EOD, our mission was to ride along in a route clearance mission, behind the Husky, which you have included in the game, and when it found anything we would take care of it. Husky was just a very large metal detector in essence, couldnt do shit more than that. Our other role was to respond to found IEDs; whether that be from regular Army units or civilian intelligence, and those units would have to stand by and wait for our arrival in order for us to remedy the situation.
Now, our secondary role while defeating these IEDs was to collect evidence (tape from IED would have biometric evidence, etc.) from the IEDs in order to produce intelligence on the bomb maker, eventually leading to a BOLO for a specific person in the communities that would be the Taliban IED maker, even though he was not the guy planting the IEDs.
The movie The Hurt Locker gives a very Hollywood derivation of what EOD does, but that was what we did more or less; just with more robots and less bomb suit.
And if you're looking for what vehicle EOD would use that you should put into the game to represent EOD, we used the JERRV 6x6, Joint EOD Rapid Response Vehicle 6-wheeled.

The IED was the most deadly, feared, and unpredictable weapon that was ever used in both the Iraq and Afghanistan war. And for this game to just glass over it and dumb it down really brings down the immersion and does a disservice to all those soldiers lost. The amount of casualties caused by IEDs vastly overshadowed the casualties caused by firefights with the insurgents.

Thank you
Last edited by EODxRaptorias on Fri Mar 24, 2017 4:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
EODxRaptorias
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Re: Why is there no EOD in the game? HUGE MISSED OPPORTUNITY

Post by EODxRaptorias »

Plus, our role directly affected the hearts and minds mission, as the Taliban and AQI would plant IEDs in and around the nearby villages, not tell the locals about them nor caring if they got hurt, and then when US forces detonated on them, locals would be hurt or killed and the insurgents would come back later and tell the villagers that it was something the US forces had done while driving through that blew up, as if they dropped some explosives or something careless like that, and use that in order to recruit more fighters. The COIN fight helped villages out that didn't want to follow the Taliban and really needs to be implemented as well. IEDs were not some kind of inconvenience in this war.
EODxRaptorias
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Re: Why is there no EOD in the game? HUGE MISSED OPPORTUNITY

Post by EODxRaptorias »

Okay, and the Engineer (Buffalo) unit was used for clearly IEDs during a Route Clearance if EOD was not available. Never would it be used for recovery of down vehicles. Yall need the HEMTT "Hemmitt"

Again, I'm just offering suggestions for changes to increase realism and immersion
MikeAP
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Re: Why is there no EOD in the game? HUGE MISSED OPPORTUNITY

Post by MikeAP »

EODxRaptorias wrote:Okay, and the Engineer (Buffalo) unit was used for clearly IEDs during a Route Clearance if EOD was not available. Never would it be used for recovery of down vehicles. Yall need the HEMTT "Hemmitt"
I agree that the Buffalo wasn't the best vehicle to represent a vertical engineering unit. The Husky is spot on for route clearance, though.
Every Single Soldier
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Re: Why is there no EOD in the game? HUGE MISSED OPPORTUNITY

Post by Every Single Soldier »

So trying to keep the unit count down as with every addition the balalance challenge goes up exponetially, I have had requests from every arm in the US military to include their particular specialisation, just keeping it real to start with and then will gradually introduce upgrade paths , like dogs , marksmen , FAC's , interpreters and now even EOD's :D
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