Syrian Civil War: Assault on Base 46

A

agusto

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The posting below is the same as the one i made at battlefront.com. I am going to write a second post and provide some more info there.

I am almost done with this semi-historical scenario that is set during the Syrian Civil War and that depicts the final phase of a battle that took place on 18th and 19th November 2012 between the FSAs Al-Tawhid Brigade + Mujahideen and elements of the SAAs 46th Special Forces Regiment.

Here is some text based background info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Base_46

http://www.timesofisrael.com/syrian-rebels-seize-base-arms-trove/

Some satelite images of the IRL location:

http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/siege-of-base-46/view/?service=1

http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/siege-of-base-46/view/?service=0

A video of rebels driving through the IRL Base only a few hours after the battle. There are still some fires burning:


I tried to be as accurate as it seemed useful to me. I had to scale down the whole battle by ~50% (map and forces) in order to fit it into a CM scale engagement. The real life Base 46 is huge, it covers an area of 12 km² (and in order to have a playable battle you would need some of the surrounding areas too wich would lead to a map sized like 4x4km or even bigger).

Anyways, here is the map area IRL (ignore the red dots and the numbers):

krgz.jpg


and my interpretation of it:

yjac.jpg


It is probably going to be playable both vs AI.
 
So, this scenario is obviously work in progress. I 've finished the 95% of the map by now and have started with play testing in order to see if the TO&E i had in mind for both sides works well. I am going to open a thread in the public playtesting section as soon as it is ready.
 
I am going to regularly update the progress i am making with this scenario.

In this post, i am first going to write a few more words on the scenarios background. As JonS did advice in his excellent Scenario Making AAR wich he is doing at the Battlefront.com forums, i asked myself the following questions while making this battle:

What is the tactical problem for each side? What does each side ant to accomplish during this battle?

- The defending forces of the 46th SF Regiment are highly trained professionals but after 2 monthes of beeing besieged, their morale is very poor. Ammunation is sacre and the are outnumberd by the enemy 1:5. Their advantage is their training, that they have access to an abundance of heavy weapons (including a few operable tanks) and that they are beeing supported by aircraft and artillery from Aleppo wich is only 18km to the north east of Base 46.

The defenders must hold Base 46 or face annihilation.

- The attacking rebel forces, who in generally have poor training but are highly motivated, face the task of attacking a prepared enemy defense on a high ground with a force that consists almost exclusively of infantry. Ammunation is limited, as is support by indirect fires. Their advantages are numerical superiority, motivation and the fact that they have the enemy completely surrounded.

The attackers want to take Base 46 because of its strategic importance (the one who controls the base also controls the adjunct highway wich is one of the main connections between Turkey and Syria). The rebels also want to plunder the heavy weapon storages located inside Base 46 (preserve objectives - if you blow the up during the attack, you loose victory points!)

What is going to be the "hook" of the scenario?

- This scenario is going to be the only one available that allows the player to play as FSA.

- Due to the enemy beeing surrounded, the rebel player has almost complete freedom of deployment during the set-up phase, wich allows for many different tactical approaches on attacking Base 46.


Update:

- During the first 20 minutes of the first test run, it showed that the SAA forces are too hard to surpress (almost impossible!) with the untrained FSA forces and that firefights usually last until either the SAA runs out of ammo or the rebels run out of men, regardless of tactics - wich isnt fun!. This going to be solved by decreaseing the SAAs skill levels from Elite/Crack to Crack/Veteran and by increasing the rebels skill from Conscript/Green to Green/Regular. SAA Fitness leves are going to be decreased from Fit to Unfit/Weakned in order to further decrease their capabilities. I also thought that it might be a good idea to give the rebels at least a single tank, so they have a better chance to succeed in their attack, although this would be ahistorical.

- The rebels AT-3 ATGMs have a minimum engagement range of 500 meters. That makes them very uncomfortable to use. This problem is going to be solved by replacing the AT-3s with a more modern model.

- The base is surrounded by a stone wall. This obstacle is very hard to overcome for the rebels since they neither have heavy weapons nor demo charges. I anticipated this problem and tried to avoid it by creating artificial entrances that are explained by holes in the wall created by mortar bombardment that took place before the battle. The eastern part of stone wall however does not yet have enough holes and i am going to add 1 or 2 additional entrance points.

- SAA forces are going to be reduced from 175 men to 150 men. FSA forces are going to be reduced by 1 company.

- More Flavor Objects are going to be added.

- Correcting Landmarks. The adjunct villages name is going to be changed from "Kafr Amar" to "Urum al-Sugrah"

I am planning to implement these changes this afternoon.

EDIT:

A first screenshot of rebels surpressing SAA positions in order to allow their comrades to advance:

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I have implemented the changes i mentioned in my earlier post. Additionally i corrected a problem with the SAAs Artillery Support arrival schedule that i forgot to mention in my first post. Now it works like that: The more time the rebels need to conquer the base, the more support from indirect fires the SAA forces get - this continues until a full battery of 130mm M46 guns is online and ready to fire. If there are still survivors left inside the Base after roughly 1 hour, aircraft will provide additional support. The next test run will show if that works well.

Here are two more screenshots (note that there is more foliage and details present than you can see on these pictures - i have an old PC, so distant foliage and flavour objects arent visible and the texture quality is very low! The map probably looks much better on more modern computers.)

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As soon as i am sure about what size the forces on both sides are going to be i will write a briefing and it is going to ready for other people to test. I hope i am going to get that far until this weekend.

Update:

- added some buildings for improved cover & concealment and in order to make some empty areas appear less "empty".

- changed some gras in the north eastern area of the map into corn fields. If you look closely at teh satelite images, that appears to be the more accurate depiction of the foliage in that area.

- added some flavour objects.

All changes are marked in the pictue below:

txrc.jpg
 
I am 25 minutes into the 2nd test run now and it appears that all the changes i applied in the last 2 updates work as intended and that playability was improved a lot by these changes. It turned out that it was the right decision to give the rebels a captured T-62, it does not only make it easier for the rebels to attack the base but also adds a nice tactical nuance to the scenario. I am probably going to post an update later this day.

BTW, here is another screenshot:

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Update:

- Changed FSA reinforcements arrival schedule. Now, after a 5 minutes recon phase at the start of the battle, the main force arrives between turn 5 and 20 over a period of 15 minutes. This is supposed to make gameplay smoother. Previously the main force arrived between turn 20 and 45, after a 20 mins recon phase, wich reulsted in a "gap" where pretty nothing was happening).

- Reduced the time available from 2 hours 30 minutes to 1 hour 40 minutes.

- 2 technicals added to the reinforcements coming from the west.

- Rebels now have 10% pre-battle intel.

- Added 3 more entrances in the stone wall (2 in west, 1 in the east) around Base 46 in order to improve playability

- Added Flavour Objects and vehicle wrecks.

- I made the strategic and the operational map (images below) and started to put togather a briefing for the red forces (the rebels).

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Yesterday i gave the scenario a 3rd testrun playing as FSA (red) vs AI and this was the first test that i played till the end. Everything went pretty much as intended. Casualties were high on both sides (as they were in the real life engagement too) and the limited ammunation levels on both sides did add another tactical nuance that the rebel player will have to consider. The SAA (blue forces), although suffering from a bad supply situation too, turned out to have sufficient ammo to last long enough to put up a good fight, so slugging it out with them until they run out of ammo is absolutely not the best option for rebel player (although that is and should still be possibly).

Besides that, i did apply the following changes before running the third test:

Update:

- Reduced the number of rebel forces from the original 50% of the historical number of fighters involved by a full battalion. Previously there were way too many forces on the map (almost 600 men on the red side :eek:) and this turned out to be a micro manegement hell. In order to make sure the rebels still have enough firepower an ammo to accomplish their mission of taking the base, i added another captured AFV (a BMP-1) and increased all red ammunation levels from limited to adequate. While this TO&E may be ahistorical, it is still realistic and IMO adds much to the playability of the scenario. The additional BMP-1 also adds to the tactical possbilitys the red player has and takes away way the pressure of keeping the single T-62 alive. I dont want to give the rebels full ammunation though because supply problems were an important consideration for the IRL commanders of the FSA and one of the main reasons that it took 2 months until they were able to launch their final assault on the base.

- Changed the weather and time the battle starts from overcast and 10:10 a.m. to clear and 5:45 a.m.. This is more historically accurate (The scenario depcits the final assault takes place on the morning of the second day of a 2 day offensive. Videos shot by the rebels only hours after the battle also show that the weather was not completely overcast that day.) and also looks much better IMO. It also gives the rebels a few minutes of a little bit of additional concealment during the early stages of the battle, wich supports unit movement during that phase.

- I continued writing the briefing for the FSA forces. I tried to add as much historical information as relevance to the battle/availabilty of accurate data would let me. For example the command disputs and between the historical local commander of the FSA forces of the Al-Tawhid Brigade, General Ahmad al-Fajj, and the commander of the Fajr al-Islam Brigade are mentioned and set into a context of what is happening on the map (in this case the command dispute leads to the player, who impersonates an FSA commander, not beeing told exactely when and how many reinforcements he will receive from the Fajr al-Islam Brigade.). I also tried to formulate the briefing as accurate and unmistakeable as possible. Something i hate about scenrio briefings is when they are hard to understand and are badly structured, so i want to make it better.

- Changed the operational map as Bootie suggested.

To-Do list:

- Finish writing the Red briefing.

- Define objectives in the editor (currently they only exist on paper)

- Make at least some sort of rudimentary Blue AI plan. There isnt much AI needed for the Blue side in this battle since they Blue is doing a static defense operation, but i want at least some sort of movement going on in order to keep the player busy with dealing with unpredictable things happening. Probably i will let the SAA tanks change their positions inside the base a few turns after the FSA main force arrives, simulating the SAAs reaction to seeing a large FSA force approach Base 46.

EDIT: another screenshot:

jfwe.jpg
 
Thanks - i appreciate your positive feedback, it took me quite some time to make this scenario.

Here is another Update:

- Changed some of the grass so the distribution looks more natural.

- After running 4 tests, i decided to not make this scenario playable Blue (SAA) vs. AI. First of all, i dont think that there would be any challenge in playing this Blue vs.AI because neither do i have any experience in making AI attack plans nor do i think that it would be posseble at all to make a Red (FSA) AI plan that could challenge a human player in this scenario. Secondly, i initially didnt plan for a Both vs. AI scenario anyways, i just came up with the idea during the process of making the map, thinking that it might be possible.

- Improved the defensive positions of the Blue AI.

- Made a rudimentary Blue AI plan. It is not completely finnished yet though and I plan to refine this after running another test.

- Some minor change of the Red TO&E. Now the Fajir al-Islam units have 2 RPG-29s and 2 PKM MGs. Previously they only had AKMs and RPKs.

- I finnished the distribtuion of the Victory Points. If it works as supposed however has yet to be reveiled by another test. In order to score a minor victory, at least 1000 to ~1550 of the 2000 victory points must be gained, depending on the enemy casualty percentage and the remaining enemy ammo at the end of the battle. The exact Red victory points allocation is mentioned further down below in this posting.

- I finnished writing the Red briefing.

I am going to add it to this posting and i would very much appreciate it if a native english speaker could read it and correct possible errors i may have made. I think that wont take more than 5 to 10 minutes. I read it countless times myself already but maybe i missed something or maybe i chose a bad expression or something like that.

I would also appreciate some feedback on the content of the briefing in general: is everything expressed clearly? Is there anything that sounds weird and are the historical background facts put into a reasonable context?

So, here is the Red briefing for the Syrian rebels:





SITUATION: ENEMY FORCES

The enemy forces inside Base 46 consist of the remants of the 46th Special Forces Battalion*, a subunit of the larger 15th Special Forces Regiment*, and the remants of a regular SAA (Syrian Arab Army) tank company that was in the area when we encircled Base 46 nearly 2 months ago, during our 2012 fall offensive.
Since then, the base has been cut off from all land based supply routes and has been under almost continous mortar fire.
The Syrian Airforce' attempt to supply the units inside Base 46 by dropping supply crates from helicopters, hovering at high altitudes, has mostly been a failure and the crates did end up spread over the whole area, many of them even fell into our hands.
This means that the regime soldiers inside the base are probably near starvation and almost out of ammunation and medical supplys, wich makes it likely that they are in a weakened condition and that their morale is low.
The latter was also recently confirmed by some defectors and POWs we captured yesterday, when we launched the first phase of our final attack, wich resulted in the capture of the 46th Battalions Officers Residences adjunct to Base 46, and a general tightening of the noose around the base.
However it would not be wise to underestimate the 150-200 men who are still resisting inside Base 46. Their training and their access to numerous heavy weapons, including the remaining tanks of the tank company that was encircled togather with them, make them a foe that wont be easy to destroy.

While we besieged Base 46 during the past 2 months, we have been under attack by aircraft and artillery fire coming from Aleppo almost on a daily basis. Although we havent been under attack yet today, there is no reason to assume that the government forces in Aleppo wont support Base 46 once we start our final assault.

*Designers Note: Due to the size of the IRL engagement, SAA unit designations of Divisions were changed into Regiments and Regiments were changed into Battalions.

SITUATION: FRIENDLY FORCES

The friendly forces involved in this engagement mostly consist of elements of several subunits of the FSAs (Free Syrian Army) Al-Tawhid Brigade**, wich is the largest unit of the FSA operating in the Aleppo Governorate. The local commander of the rebel operations that took place around Base 46 during the past 2 months is General Ahmad al-Fajj, a defected former SAA officer. Noteably Ahmad al-Fajj had initially banned the Islamists of the Fajr al-Islam Brigade** from participating in the operation to capture Base 46, but was later forced to let them join his forces anyways due to the fierce resistance of the 46th Special Forces Battalion.

Currently on the map are several small groups of FSA rebels, snipers, a FO team for our mortars and a couple of heavy weapon teams, who had the task of holding yesterdays gains throughout the night. Due to the danger of SAA airstrikes on our positions, we did not deploy the our main forces in the first line, where they would be an easy target. The main FSA forces are expected to arrive within the next 10-20 minutes, coming from the directions of Al-Atarib and Aleppo. They consist of roughly 300 men equipped with small arms and 7 Technicals, of wich 2 are equiped with SPG-9 recoiless rifles. General Ahmad al-Fajj has also authorized the use of 2 of our captured armoured fighting vehicles, a T-62 and a BMP-1, wich are going to arrive togather with the rest of the main force. In general the morale of the men of the Al-Tawhid Brigade, who are either SAA defectors or volunteers from Aleppo, is very high. Their training and experience however is nowhere near as good, and while some of them underwent the regular training of the SAA before they defected, many of them are still green and have had almost no training or combat experience. While our supply situation is not ideal, our units are adequately equipped with ammunation for the battle that lies ahead of them.

The commander of the Fajr al-Islam Brigade also promised to send some fighter in order to support our efforts, but since the brigade is not integrated into our command structure on an operational level, we dont know exactely how many men they are going to send and when or from where they will arrive.
The morale, training and experience of the Islamists of the Fajir al-Islam Brigade is significantly better than the one of men of the Al-Tawhid Brigade. They are fanatic fighters who will willingly die for their cause and many of them are foreigin veteran Mujahideen who had already participated in other conflicts in the Middle East before they joined the struggle against Bashar al-Assad. The men of the Fajr al-Islam Brigade have the reputation of beeing very effective assault troops.


**Designers Note: The Syrian rebels unit designations are very inconsistent and are not compareable to the unit designation systems of regular military forces. The size of rebel 'Brigades' can varry from less than 10 to more than 5000 men and 'Brigades' regularly have subunits wich are also designated as 'Brigades'.

TERRAIN AND WEATHER

Located southeast of rebel-held Atarib near the crossroads village of Urum al-Sughra on the main highway between Turkey and Aleppo, Base 46 covers an area of several square kilometres on a hilltop***.
A major supply and command centre for government forces operating in northwest Syria, it is considered possibly the largest base of its kind in northern Syria. The base takes its name from the resident 46th Special Forces Battalion of the 15th Special Forces Regiment, one of the main government units fighting in the Battle of Aleppo.
Base 46 is a strategic prize in the battle for Aleppo, as it occupies a chokepoint on the main army supply route from Idlib to Aleppo. It has been used to shell towns and villages throughout Idlib and Aleppo provinces.

Today is Monday, November 19th 2012, and it is a cool, clear Novemeber morning. Civilian denisty is sparse and there is a gentle wind comming from the West. The terrain to the South of Base 46 is very open and there is almost no cover, wich means that we are not able to use this area as Avenue Of Approach for our attack.

***Designers Note: The map had to be scaled down by 50% in order to fit into CMx2.

MISSION

Victory Points Allocation:

Occupy Objectives:
A Company Barracks: 175
B Company Barracks: 175
C Company Barracks: 175
D Company Barracks: 175
Military Hospital: 150
46th Special Forces Battalion HQ Building: 350
Administrative Buildings: 175
Total Occupy Objectives: 1375

Other:
Friendly Casualties <25%: 200
Friendly Ammo >50% 200
Preserve Storages (both togather): 225
Total Other Objectives: 625


COMMANDERS INTENT

The primary goal of this days operation is to end the siege of Base 46, either by destroying the remaining government forces or by enforcing their surrender.
This is to be accomplished by clearing and occupying all of the major buildings inside the base.

The secondary, but nontheless important goal, is to maintain the ability of our forces to 1) hold Base 46 against a possible SAA counterattack in the near furture and 2) maintain our ability to conduct future operations in the Aleppo Governerate.
This is to be accomplished by loosing not more than one quarter of our men, by avoiding the loss of our precious captured vehicles, and by maintaining at least 50% or more of our ammunation.

The tertiary goal is to seize as many heavy weapons from the SAA forces inside the base as possibly. This is to be accomplished by avoiding the destruction of the Storage buildings.

BASIC PLAN

I fully trust in your ability to use your forces effectively, commander, and i dont see any necessity to intervene with you plans. Be advised, however, that the 46th Special Forces Battalions soldiers training and experience is way superior to the one of your own troops and that you will need lots of suppressive fire in order to keep their heads down. The experiences made during the fighting of the past 2 months did show that usually a local numerical superiority of at least 3:1 is required in order to win a firefight against these professional soldiers. I also recommend that you monitor your soldiers ammunation consumption very careful during this battle. Our supply situaion is nowhere near as good as we would like it to be and you surely dont want your men to run dry during an ongoing firefight. It may also be a good idea to use some of the small teams that are on the map at the start of the battle for reconnaisence, so that you already have some accurate information on the exact location of the enemy forces when your main force arrives.

Good luck! Inshallah, we are going to blast our enemys into tiny bits today! Allahu Akbar!
 
Update:

- I decreased difficulty by fiddling with the Blue (SAA) Victory Points. Previous versions were too hard to win (out of six test runs i lost 4)

- I gave the Red (FSA) side just a tad more ammo. This is supposed to make it easier for the player too.

- I added a 2nd AI plan for the Blue AI.

- Some changes in the Briefing text. It should be more clear now and i took out the stupid joke in the last line. I used one of GeorgeMCs briefings as example for the text. I always found that his briefings are clear and well structured.

- I made a Tactical Map.


I am going to to do one more test run myself after these changes, just to make sure it is playable enough for others to test.

The map in its current state:

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I more or less accidentially stumbeld into testing this scenario H2H although it absolutely wasnt intended to be played this way. That is a kinda unexpected turn of events because i normally dont play H2H. So, that is my first H2H game and i have absolutely no idea how this is going to turn out (but i expect my guys to get massacred by the hundreds :D, though). I am going to post a report once the first few turns have been sent back and forth.

Udate:

- Made a few modifications (including a Blue briefing) to make this scenario playable H2H. If it turns out that it can be played well H2H, i think i am going to make 2 different versions: 1 dedicated for H2H play, one to be played Red vs. AI.
 
Ok, i think the scenario is ready to be tested by others.There are two versions available: One to be played Red (FSA) vs. Blue (SAA) AI and one that is optimized for H2H. Currently i am testing the H2H version in a PBEM with Schmoly War and i am playing as FSA. I havent had the time yet to fully play through both current versions, but i think everything should work fine. If anyone wants to test it, send me a PM that contains your email adress and wich version you want to test and i am going to send you the file.
 
 
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