Modern Conflicts (Version 1.5 RELEASED)

[McGuba]

Regarding the terrain, correct!, not a single forest was added to the scenario. Some pictures of the desolated landscape:

Awesome!
Hm, maybe a few more swamp terrains could do? As I read the British marines had a hard time crossing the terrain due to the frequent bogs all over the island?

But there will be no deployable airfield for the British, they have to rely (as it was historically) on the aircraft carriers, they are the heart of the task force and they should be the main target of the Argentinian planes.

I like this historical approach, the Harriers indeed only operated from the carriers. But making the Atlantic Conveyor an additional auxiliary carrier is a good idea. I guess it makes the multiplayer version even more exciting as there will be a real hunt for the British carriers, as it was historically. Sinking just one of them may turn the tide. Actually the sinking of the Atlantic Conveyor made the job of the British task force so much harder as most of the Chinooks and several other helicopters went down with it which forced them to change their original plan as they intended to use those helis to move the marines around. Without them the British soldiers had to yomp which made everything much more difficult.

[Akkula]

Regarding the terrain, correct!, not a single forest was added to the scenario. Some pictures of the desolated landscape:

Awesome!
Hm, maybe a few more swamp terrains could do? As I read the British marines had a hard time crossing the terrain due to the frequent bogs all over the island?

But there will be no deployable airfield for the British, they have to rely (as it was historically) on the aircraft carriers, they are the heart of the task force and they should be the main target of the Argentinian planes.

I like this historical approach, the Harriers indeed only operated from the carriers. But making the Atlantic Conveyor an additional auxiliary carrier is a good idea. I guess it makes the multiplayer version even more exciting as there will be a real hunt for the British carriers, as it was historically. Sinking just one of them may turn the tide. Actually the sinking of the Atlantic Conveyor made the job of the British task force so much harder as most of the Chinooks and several other helicopters went down with it which forced them to change their original plan as they intended to use those helis to move the marines around. Without them the British soldiers had to yomp which made everything much more difficult.

Yes, there are some swamp hexes in the scenario, not too much but as realistic as possible. For sure they will prove to be a challenge for the British player
And about the Atlantic Conveyor, indeed it was a critical loss for the task force and a great sucess for the Argentinian forces. Funny thing: about this sinking: the attack was aimed to the carrier Hermes but right after the missiles were detected, all the ships were ordered to be aligned to shield the carrier; the Atlantic Conveyor, being the next biggest ship in the area, was a decoy to the missile and indeed it worked. The entire British campaign was saved by the smallest margin.

Some Land Rovers for the British infantry:

[guille1434]

Akkula: Congratulations for your fast advancing work on the South Atlantic War mod! Keep it up!

And now, and a little bit of an "off topic": I always would have liked to ask some of the veterans pilots who fought in the war attacking the British ships... What would have been the result of such attacks if in place of using iron bombs which they often failed to explode or just going through the ships hulls, they had fired big caliber rockets in volleys againts them, which I think are inherently more accurate than "dumb" bombs, and they would been much more difficcult for those rockets to go right through the ship hull without exploding or less harmlessly exploding after exiting the ship hull? I am thinking about the big Bofors 135 mm rockets that were carried by that sime timeframe by Swedish SAAB Viggen aircraft which were carried in six rockets pods. The Viggen could carry four pods of six rockets apiece (24 rockets). May be the A-4 and Mirage V, being lighter aircraft than the Viggen, would have carried just two instead of four of such pods, but as those big rockets had a fairly large warhead (I think comparable to a 155 mm artillery shell, as the warhead had smaller diameter, but being fired by a rocket instead of having to support the enormous acceleration of being fired from a gun tube, the rocket warheads had thinner metal walls and more explosive payload for the weight.

I can imagine that the results on a light construction (1980s warships were not armored like their Second World War equivalents) warship receiving a volley equalling to sometihing like ten to twenty 155 mm shells (assuming an attack by two aircraft). May be they would not cause many sinkings but, I think much more ships (warship and logistical) would have been put out of combat for a long time (and not able to be repaired on time for going back to combat duty on that campaign), not to mention, probably, much more casualties amogst crewmen. Another what if...

[uzbek2012]

Most of the Argentine missiles and bombs didn't work ! So Britain's losses would have been even greater )

https://masterok.livejournal.com/581755.html


https://www.aex.ru/docs/1/2015/5/13/2229

[Akkula]

Akkula: Congratulations for your fast advancing work on the South Atlantic War mod! Keep it up!

And now, and a little bit of an "off topic": I always would have liked to ask some of the veterans pilots who fought in the war attacking the British ships... What would have been the result of such attacks if in place of using iron bombs which they often failed to explode or just going through the ships hulls, they had fired big caliber rockets in volleys againts them, which I think are inherently more accurate than "dumb" bombs, and they would been much more difficcult for those rockets to go right through the ship hull without exploding or less harmlessly exploding after exiting the ship hull? I am thinking about the big Bofors 135 mm rockets that were carried by that sime timeframe by Swedish SAAB Viggen aircraft which were carried in six rockets pods. The Viggen could carry four pods of six rockets apiece (24 rockets). May be the A-4 and Mirage V, being lighter aircraft than the Viggen, would have carried just two instead of four of such pods, but as those big rockets had a fairly large warhead (I think comparable to a 155 mm artillery shell, as the warhead had smaller diameter, but being fired by a rocket instead of having to support the enormous acceleration of being fired from a gun tube, the rocket warheads had thinner metal walls and more explosive payload for the weight.

I can imagine that the results on a light construction (1980s warships were not armored like their Second World War equivalents) warship receiving a volley equalling to sometihing like ten to twenty 155 mm shells (assuming an attack by two aircraft). May be they would not cause many sinkings but, I think much more ships (warship and logistical) would have been put out of combat for a long time (and not able to be repaired on time for going back to combat duty on that campaign), not to mention, probably, much more casualties amogst crewmen. Another what if...

Most of the Argentine missiles and bombs didn't work ! So Britain's losses would have been even greater )

Indeed a LOT of bombs didn't explode, and some even couldn't be fired because of technical failures. If they all worked properly for sure the British navy would have much more losses, some British veterans even said (many years after the war) they could have suffer catastrophic losses. And not only the bombs didnt work as they should: many pilots lost their lives because failures in their ejection systems.
Of course this is impossible to emulate in the game, so I will try to balance the units stats the best way possible. I want the scenario to be winnable for both players.
Thanks for your research Guille, for sure to put more ships out action could have been better than sink few of them.

[Estherr]

And I always thought it's Soviet/Russian Air Force (and artillery ofc) paying great deal of love to rocket pod "missile spam" =)

[Akkula]

Hello guys.
Time to show some info about the grand South Atlantic scenario.
Size: 138x74
Date: April 1982
Sides: Argentina / UK
Objectives: Take and hold all objectives at the last turn (same for both sides)
Turns: TBD (near 50 maybe)

The scenario tries to emulate the difficult logistics endured during that war, but without changing or breaking the original game mechanics. Some new rules:
- Exclusive areas for air refuelling. Moving attack aircrafts over those hexes will replendish their fuel, of course a tanker must be there too at the same time. Note: tankers are NOT purchasable, so they need to be protected.
- Exclusive areas for the British to deploy their landing parties. The player has to choose between two of these area, will you land from north or south?.
- Exclusive areas for the British to deploy the supply ships, once in those hexes the player shall receive a prestige boost and some air support units.
- The Argentine forces have three depots on the islands, by losing each of them the player core is reduced by 5, so be careful.
Maybe some messages could appear for both sides, just for the immersion sake.

British assault ships approaching their deployment areas.

And then, the landing crafts are deployed to begin the invasion:


Air refuelling in progress (the hexes markers are WIP, I am not satisfied with them):


The Argentine player has to protect the supply depots, or suffer core units reduction:


And some Argentine transports, the Mercedes Unimog and the AAVP-7A1:


Best regards,
Akkula.

[McGuba]

Note: tankers are NOT purchasable, so they need to be protected.

Maybe none of the units should be purchasable? There was an arms embargo in place for much of the war (even though it looks like some countries may have breached it and supplied this and that...) so Argentine had very limited access to new weapons and the distance to the UK made it very hard for the British to lift in reinforcements. Once the Argentines or the British ran out of aircraft they ran out, that was it for the duration of the war.

Maybe some messages could appear for both sides, just for the immersion sake.

For sure we need these!

Air refuelling in progress (the hexes markers are WIP, I am not satisfied with them):

I think it is fine, maybe just leave the sea hex tile have the same colour as the normal sea, instead of being a different, somewhat artificial-looking blue?

[Akkula]

Maybe none of the units should be purchasable? There was an arms embargo in place for much of the war (even though it looks like some countries may have breached it and supplied this and that...) so Argentine had very limited access to new weapons and the distance to the UK made it very hard for the British to lift in reinforcements. Once the Argentines or the British ran out of aircraft they ran out, that was it for the duration of the war.

I want give some freedom to the players. Lets say the Argentine side player have some available slots, that would allow him/her to increase the air power or ground forces and that way the gameplay style could change. Maybe that could add some replayability value.
But for sure your approach is totally valid (and aligned to my concept of "difficult" logistics), so I will not let too many slots for both players... also the "best" units will be expensive enough to avoid any spamming or abuse.
Thanks for your suggestion.

For sure we need these!

Yeah, I found a LOT of interesting pictures out there. It is amazing how as the years go by, so many photographic material appears from time to time, both in Argentina and the UK.

I think it is fine, maybe just leave the sea hex tile have the same colour as the normal sea, instead of being a different, somewhat artificial-looking blue?

I will try it and see how it looks like. The scenario will have 3 unique hexes:
- Aerial refuelling areas
- Landing platforms deployment areas
- Logistic ships deployment areas.

Best regards,
Akkula.

[Estherr]

I think limited supply worked really well back in "Great Patriotic War" scenario (too bad it's incompatible with latest PzC build... though I miss updates on all mods I must admit ) - I barely ever bought units down there due to prestige limits and playing with units on hand (upgrading maybe) was quite immersive. Unlike standard type campaigns. So, some kind of adaptation of GPW mechanics could be really nice.

[IanH755]

Hi there, firstly this Mod looks amazing and you can tell it's had a lot of time and effort put into it so please don't take this to heart as I don't know if this is something adjusted in the Mod, or just massive "bad luck" on my side, but I only made it about 10 mission in before quitting purely down to my attacks repeatedly hitting "Rugged Defense" at least eleventy billion times per mission (maybe a slight exaggeration). It's happening far more than I was ever getting playing the stock game (about 150hrs played of PCG so far) where I use Arty/Planes to suppress the defenders until their health number is Red or use an Engineer/Pioneer unit to attack if available.

As an example which finally broke me - I'm hitting a CityTown Hex with 3 arty (M109 and M777) and 1 airstrike (Alpha jet) and the 10 health infantry defender goes Red with only 7 Health left and is fully suppressed but with a dug-in rating of 3 still. My 2 US infantry and M1A2 Tank have the defender surrounded on 3 sides with +5 Enemy damage & 0 Friendly damage shown from all three so after checking the chance of Rugged Defense first using CTRL-Click (it's low) I attack, confident that at worst it'll take two attempts to kill the enemy with minimal damage to my troops - All 3 get "Rugged Defense" during the attack (infantry first then Tank last) and afterwards I've lost 9 Health total between my 3 attackers (2-4-3) and the 7 Health defender is now left on 4.

This sort of thing was happening consistently through-out those first 10-ish missions where suppressed units were easily able to survive attacks that my WW2 gameplay experience tells me they should never have purely due to repeated Rugged Defense activation and, in the end, I just got frustrated by it.

I've no idea if it's just RNG screwing with me or I'm doing something different with these Modern units that I haven't done in hundreds of WW2 mission so far where you'd still get Rugged Defense but it was only a few times per mission when your Core is 50+ units and I'm getting 10+ per mission with a core of just 20 making it far more annoying.

Again, I know this Mod has had a lot of time effort put into it and I really wanted to continue with it as it looks amazing but I can't thing of anything I could do differently that wouldn't have the same reaction and it was leaving me annoyed after playing rather than happy.

[Akkula]

Hi there, firstly this Mod looks amazing and you can tell it's had a lot of time and effort put into it so please don't take this to heart as I don't know if this is something adjusted in the Mod, or just massive "bad luck" on my side, but I only made it about 10 mission in before quitting purely down to my attacks repeatedly hitting "Rugged Defense" at least eleventy billion times per mission (maybe a slight exaggeration). It's happening far more than I was ever getting playing the stock game (about 150hrs played of PCG so far) where I use Arty/Planes to suppress the defenders until their health number is Red or use an Engineer/Pioneer unit to attack if available.

As an example which finally broke me - I'm hitting a CityTown Hex with 3 arty (M109 and M777) and 1 airstrike (Alpha jet) and the 10 health infantry defender goes Red with only 7 Health left and is fully suppressed but with a dug-in rating of 3 still. My 2 US infantry and M1A2 Tank have the defender surrounded on 3 sides with +5 Enemy damage & 0 Friendly damage shown from all three so after checking the chance of Rugged Defense first using CTRL-Click (it's low) I attack, confident that at worst it'll take two attempts to kill the enemy with minimal damage to my troops - All 3 get "Rugged Defense" during the attack (infantry first then Tank last) and afterwards I've lost 9 Health total between my 3 attackers (2-4-3) and the 7 Health defender is now left on 4.

This sort of thing was happening consistently through-out those first 10-ish missions where suppressed units were easily able to survive attacks that my WW2 gameplay experience tells me they should never have purely due to repeated Rugged Defense activation and, in the end, I just got frustrated by it.

I've no idea if it's just RNG screwing with me or I'm doing something different with these Modern units that I haven't done in hundreds of WW2 mission so far where you'd still get Rugged Defense but it was only a few times per mission when your Core is 50+ units and I'm getting 10+ per mission with a core of just 20 making it far more annoying.

Again, I know this Mod has had a lot of time effort put into it and I really wanted to continue with it as it looks amazing but I can't thing of anything I could do differently that wouldn't have the same reaction and it was leaving me annoyed after playing rather than happy.

Hi Ian,
Thanks a lot for your kind words! , I really appreciate it.
Regarding the "rugged defense" issues I am surprised. During my tests I never experienced something similar, also I had no complaints from other users about this matter, odd. In fact no infantry (for any nation) has close defense values above 3 (being 3 the "elite" ones).
Question: it does happen in ALL your cities assualts?. Any info you can provide would help (no more than ever as the new update is coming soon )

Best regards,
Akkula.

[IanH755]

Hi Akkula,

My guess would be that the game is trolling me

For more info, it's only in City/Town and Fortification hex's where this happens, every other type of Hex is fine and it's on both unsuppressed targets (expected) and more commonly on Suppressed target (not expected) where the CTRL-Click says Close Defense should be minimal yet I get Rugged Defense pop-up about 33% -50% of the attacks.

For testing I re-ran the very first tutorial mission with custom difficult selected (+5 health to me & -5 to enemy - 200% exp to me 0% to enemy) just to give my troops the absolute best chance of doing full damage and on the very first Objective (Polish infantry in Fortification) I got Rugged Defense despite hitting it with Arty and turning it Red (no health removed), Then I got the same at the 3rd Objective hex just across the river (again, Polish Infantry in Fortification) after again using my Arty to make them go Red this time and making sure I wasn't on a river hex first. Then lastly it happened using the Tank to attack the paratroopers just South of the bridge which should have been a +2/-2 draw according to CRTL-Click but was a -4/-1 defeat for me with yet another Rugged Defense - thats 3 in a single tutorial mission with just 8 units which seems excessive based on my WW2 campaign experience of hitting a Rugged Defense.

So I replayed the same mission 5 times to check for repeatability and to my surprise I only got an "excessive or unexpected" number Rugged Defense's on 2 more of them (so 3 out of 6 run throughs had them - 50%), so it looks to be more of an "RNG" issue rather than a constant problem for me.

However for further testing I then played the first two missions of the stock PCG tutorial ('39 Germany vs Germany) 3 times and had no unexpected Rugged Defense in any of them (6 missions) which is more like how my experience has been before and with the enemy units dug in at similar +3 Entrenchment levels in City Hex's.

So either the game is heavily trolling me with a reduced number of Rigged Defense in WW2 scenarios, or McD seems to have a greater amount of RNG than the WW2 scenarios do but as that would be hard-coded I can't understand why it's happening to just me so far, which obviously isn't very helpful for your own testing I know, sorry

[Akkula]

Hi Akkula,

My guess would be that the game is trolling me

For more info, it's only in City/Town and Fortification hex's where this happens, every other type of Hex is fine and it's on both unsuppressed targets (expected) and more commonly on Suppressed target (not expected) where the CTRL-Click says Close Defense should be minimal yet I get Rugged Defense pop-up about 33% -50% of the attacks.

For testing I re-ran the very first tutorial mission with custom difficult selected (+5 health to me & -5 to enemy - 200% exp to me 0% to enemy) just to give my troops the absolute best chance of doing full damage and on the very first Objective (Polish infantry in Fortification) I got Rugged Defense despite hitting it with Arty and turning it Red (no health removed), Then I got the same at the 3rd Objective hex just across the river (again, Polish Infantry in Fortification) after again using my Arty to make them go Red this time and making sure I wasn't on a river hex first. Then lastly it happened using the Tank to attack the paratroopers just South of the bridge which should have been a +2/-2 draw according to CRTL-Click but was a -4/-1 defeat for me with yet another Rugged Defense - thats 3 in a single tutorial mission with just 8 units which seems excessive based on my WW2 campaign experience of hitting a Rugged Defense.

So I replayed the same mission 5 times to check for repeatability and to my surprise I only got an "excessive or unexpected" number Rugged Defense's on 2 more of them (so 3 out of 6 run throughs had them - 50%), so it looks to be more of an "RNG" issue rather than a constant problem for me.

However for further testing I then played the first two missions of the stock PCG tutorial ('39 Germany vs Germany) 3 times and had no unexpected Rugged Defense in any of them (6 missions) which is more like how my experience has been before and with the enemy units dug in at similar +3 Entrenchment levels in City Hex's.

So either the game is heavily trolling me with a reduced number of Rigged Defense in WW2 scenarios, or McD seems to have a greater amount of RNG than the WW2 scenarios do but as that would be hard-coded I can't understand why it's happening to just me so far, which obviously isn't very helpful for your own testing I know, sorry

Very very strange. I performed some quick tests attacking cities and everything went normal: some artilery attacks and then my infantry could take the city with the usual losses..... I will keep digging dont worry.
Just one thing, the paratroopers you attacked are deployed in a forest hex, tanks literally will die in a direct assault.
Regards.
Akkula.

[Akkula]

While the final tests on the Malvinas grand scenario continue, I started to rework some units.
Here a sample:

I hope to improve some more before the new update release.

Best regards.
Akkula.

[Estherr]

While the final tests on the Malvinas grand scenario continue, I started to rework some units.
Here a sample:

Love it!

ps: never had problem with too many rugged defense myself, but after seeing sub evades three dessies in a row and infantry rugs in the open - PzC can play weird on RNG at times =)

[uzbek2012]

While the final tests on the Malvinas grand scenario continue, I started to rework some units.
Here a sample:

I hope to improve some more before the new update release.

Best regards.
Akkula.

That some units are being reworked (added) is good ) But will the original version be updated (fixes, additions, new features, etc.)?
https://p3dm.ru/files/auto/military_equipment/

[Akkula]

Hi Uzbek,
For sure fixes, additions and new features will come!.
But for the next update, which will come soon, my focus in the Malvinas grand scenario.
I already have PLENTY of ideas for future releases, a LOT of new content will come.

Best regards,
Akkula.

[uzbek2012]

Hi Uzbek,
For sure fixes, additions and new features will come!.
But for the next update, which will come soon, my focus in the Malvinas grand scenario.
I already have PLENTY of ideas for future releases, a LOT of new content will come.

Best regards,
Akkula.

Hi Akkula ! I am looking forward to your update and hope that it will be released very soon )

https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/argentina.php
http://britains-smallwars.com/campaigns/
http://britains-smallwars.com/deployments
http://armedman.ru/tanki/1961-1990-bron ... ntina.html

[Akkula]

Hello guys!,
The next release is almost there, I am making some minor adjustements: few balance improvements, icons, UI, sounds, etc.
In all, the South Atlantic grand scenario is ready. Right now we are doing a final test with Estherr (a quite exciting battle by the way), the feeling so far is good: the scenario is pretty balanced and offers a decent repertoire of opportunities to face the objectives.
Also I couldn't fight against the temptation and I kept making some new units which will be available to use in this release.

Some screenshots of my challenge against Estherr:

Landing operations in the southern area of the main island:


And in our last playthrough, Estherr tried the north approach... but he faced fiercely resistance:


And here the complete roster for both nations (units made exclusively for this scenario).
Great Britain:


Argentina:


The "hill strongpoint" icon done by phcas.
The Exocet ITB icon done by guille

For those who are still interested in the mod but don't care about the 1982 scenario, don't worry, I have resumed the work on the modern units and the Russian campaign (and many new ideas as well).
Stay tuned, the release date is almost here

Best regards,
Akkula.