Command: Modern Operations – The new simulation & editor features

October 22, 2019 · Posted in Command · Comment 

Command: Modern Operations (CMO, aka CMANO2) is coming soon! Are you ready? As part of our pre-launch coverage, we explore the main features of this new milestone release in the Command franchise.


We have already covered the massive UI/UX changes and improvements in CMO in a previous twoparter piece. We also saw the significant improvements in ground operations.  But at the end of the day, Command’s beating heart remains an elaborate simulation engine of air, naval, strategic and joint operations at the tactical and operational/theater level, together with a powerful editor for manipulating and creating with it. So let us take a look at some of the major new features in this area.

 

Turbo-charged for your pleasure

One of the most immediately noticeable features, especially when running large or elaborate scenarios, is the jump in performance. Command now offers both greater absolute speed in simulation execution (ie. reduced “pulse time” as displayed when the “Show Diagnostics” option is enabled) as well as significantly increased CPU utilization, as a result of improved parallelism. (As an example of the latter, on a recent trial run of “Northern Fury #9: Hold the line”, CPU load was observed fluctuating between 65%-75% on a Core i7-6700 system. This may vary across different systems, of course). Maximum practical unit count has also increased thanks to better memory management, with the result that even more massive scenarios are now feasible.

 

Until the COWs come home: Comms disruption, aircraft damage & new weapons

As we previously mentioned, it was decided to merge the previously DLC-locked features of “Chains Of War” to the core simulation available with Command. This allow both scenario authors and players to make extensive use of these features without any licensing concerns. We’ve covered these features extensively before, and we included cargo, amphibious and airdrop operations on our previous article on ground warfare, so here is a short summary of the others:

  • Comms disruption explores the different & numerous ways that a unit can be isolated from its parent side’s communications grid, and the repercussions of “going offline” (spoiler: none of them are pleasant). This feature has been used very successfully on COW, Shifting Sands and The Silent Service, and now it can be used on any scenario. One of the post-launch improvements of this feature is that when a unit re-joins the comms grid, the UI provides much more finegrained feedback on what type of information was updated for a contact (if any), and skips mentioning contact merges that produce no new info. Ready to feel a cold sweat as your units abruptly go out of visibility and out of your control?
  • Detailed aircraft damage is arguably the most popular feature of the bunch, enabling a much more finegrained level of damage & attrition on aircraft than classic CMANO’s “kill on first hit” paradigm. Since its original introduction, this feature has been significantly enriched with feedback from both commercial & professional users.
  • Advanced weapon types: High-energy lasers, railguns & HVPs, and tactical EMPs are now available at your disposal, to mindlessly include in the next Transformers flick use in all scenarios addressing the challenges of warfare in the foreseeable future.

 

Alone and unafraid: Realistic submarine comms

One of the benefits of absorbing the COW features is that now we can freely use them as building blocks for additional functionality, inserting features & mechanics that would previously require some non-trivial Lua elbow grease. Realistic sub comms are one such example.

When this feature is enabled, submarines who go below 40m depth go off the communications grid. As in other cases of comms disruption, they are no longer under direct player control, and only their last reported location is available (this BTW means that sending them deep without first tasking them with a mission may be pointless, since they will simply sit there). The player can, at any time, send a “bell-ringer” ELF signal to a no-comms submarine to recall it to re-establish comms (right-click on sub icon, click on “Summon to re-establish comms”). The sub will attempt to rise to shallow depth to rejoin (this may not be immediate, as it will try to evade nearby hostiles). Once it rejoins, the sub will share its contact updates with its parent side.

 

Never stray from the path

One of the more persistent problem of CMANO’s navigation AI was that its pathfinder was binary-based: Either a spot was passable by a unit, or it was not. This resulted in a tendency in units to aggressively cut corners in their plotted paths in order to travel to their destination as efficiently as possible, sometimes coming dangerously close to shore or other obstacles. This can result in some unintended “beach surfing”, as this example demonstrates:

In this case, the Freedom is placed in the mouth of the Hormuz straits and ordered to travel inside the Persian Gulf. It plots an efficient path — too efficient, as it nearly clips the shoreline at Khasab. There is a possibility that the ship may get stuck on the shore, if left unattended. Ships generally don’t navigate this way if they can help it.

To address this issue, we implemented a new cost-based pathfinder that evaluates a location’s suitability based on a number of different factors. In the case of ships, a primary concern is local depth and proximity to terrain; generally large ships tend to prefer to maximize both, while smaller ships are somewhat more freewheeling. Using this new logic, ships are now able to plot much more realistic (and gameplay-friendly) courses, as the very same example played out in CMO demonstrates:

 

Stay in formation

This has been a popular request, which we are finally happy to oblige: The formation editor can now also been used to define and edit aircraft formations. It sounds like a simple change, but in reality we had to go through extensive reviews of the mission AI logics to make sure that this did not interfere with aircraft assembly & grouping logics (in some places it did, and we had to make adjustments). But we think it’s worth it, and you will probably agree: This opens up new opportunities for formation tactics and optimum placement & distribution of air assets in a group, both for regular transit or surveillance as well as combat.

A patrol of four MiG-31B sweeps over the sea north of Murmansk. The group is in loose line abreast formation, to widen the search area. Lead and the nearest wingman are already in position, while the two outer members race to catch up to their stations.

 

I like the way you move (and think)

Various tweaks & improvements have been applied to the kinematics models & AI routines, with a strong emphasis on aircraft and missiles. Among other items:

  • Numerous tweaks to aircraft flight model, specifically for “combat” conditions. For example, aircraft no longer “wiggle” between headings as they must first roll towards the turn direction before committing to a turn. This in turn makes inherent roll-rate more important to close air combat maneuvers (This is easier to observe in the Tacview window).
  • Helicopter diving rates have been reduced (they were previously dropping like a stone)
  • Surface- and underwater-launched missiles now use the same improved pitch kinematics as air-launched missiles, resulting is more realistic trajectories.
  • Lofted AAW missiles now begin their terminal dive earlier, to avoid a too-steep approach to the target.
  • Air combat AI improvement: Aircraft now consider approaching fighters/interceptors as imminent threat, not just missiles. This helps AI-controlled aircraft perform more proactive evasive maneuvers against fighters about to perform gun attacks on them (e.g. MiG-17 vs F-105).
  • Significant change in unit AI logic: The “evaluate targets” and “evaluate threats” logics are now not performed on every sim pulse, but instead on regular intervals dictated by the OODA-Targeting (modified by crew proficiency) and OODA-Evasion values respectively. Therefore these two OODA values, combined with crew proficiency, become even more critical to a unit’s effectiveness and survivability.

 

Feeling the strain: Aircrew G-tolerance

If you have ever closely watched a dogfight in CMANO, one of the things that may seem odd if you are familiar with real-world ACM is the seemingly iron-man constitution of the virtual fighter pilots; they seem to be constantly engaging in turns, climbs and dives as tight as their airframes will allow them, without regard for their own fatigue from the continuous high-G acceleration loads. This isn’t how close air combat works in real life; even the best pilots need a breather between aggressive maneuvering in order to allow their bodies to recover, otherwise they become more dangerous to themselves and their side than to the enemy (yes UCAV fanboys, you can laugh now). So we set out to model this nuance in CMO.

When an aircraft is considered to be performing “combat maneuvers”, an extra UI element is shown on unit status panel:

This represents the crew’s tolerance to hard maneuvering. The longer the aircraft is continuously pulling a hard turn, the more this buffer fills up. (Getting out of a hard maneuver, e.g. reversing a turn, reduces this strain and allows recovering. This is one of the reasons that scissors are a popular practice in RL dogfights.)

Once the tolerance is exhausted, the crew begin suffering G-LOC and have to significantly relax the turn (this is easier to notice in Tacview, as the aircraft wing bank visibly changes, but you should also observe a noticeably larger turn radius on the map’s top-down view as well), while regaining their senses and control of the aircraft. Of course the aircraft is particularly more vulnerable during this recovery period, which makes cooperative tactics and mutual support all the more important. The maximum tolerance level depends on aircrew proficiency, so experienced pilots get one more significant advantage against greener adversaries (Ed: Like they need one more…).

 

Radar frequency agility

Not all radars are created equal. One particular feature that became quite important during the Cold War for radar performance against jamming and other countermeasures was its ability to “frequency hop”, ie. shift its operating frequency to a different value within its feasible operating range. CMO now models this, and two particular operational benefits of this ability:

  • Frequency-agile radars are significantly harder to noise-jam, as they can shift to a new frequency once their existing one gets flooded with static. The jammer has to either start hunting for the new frequency, effectively hopping after the radar operator, or alternatively flood the entire frequency range with jamming power to make hopping pointless; both counter-actions are feasible but they both have complications of their own.
  • These radars are significantly less susceptible to doppler-notching maneuvers (more on this below).

This feature became so important to radar engineering & operations from the mid-1960s that, quite often, the main difference between a very capable domestic radar set and its export-cleared variant was the physical removal of the frequency-hopping circuits in the latter kit.

As in other cases, electronic-scan arrays and especially AESAs get massive advantages; in this case, all P/AESAs are automatically considered as being frequency-agile, while older mechanical-scan sets have to explicitly have this declared in the simulation databases.

 

A notch on the bedpost

Doppler notching, a maneuver designed to exploit a fundamental flaw in pulse-doppler radars in look-down mode, has been included until now abstractly in CMANO as part of the weapon endgame calculations. This time, however, it can be actively and preemptively used as a maneuver, both for missile track lock-break and for general surveillance radar detection avoidance.

Aircraft can attempt to fly perpendicular to an emitter using doppler filtering in order to hide inside its “blind” velocity gate. The effectiveness of the maneuver varies with crew skill (an “ace” pilot will execute it far more effectively than a novice), to discourage manual micromanagement by players. Aircraft under missile attack with a doppler radar guiding the missile will also actively try to beam the radar instead of the missile (the geometry of the two axes can vary significantly). The maneuver is ineffective against pulse-only radars and less effective against frequency-agile radars.

Players can also deliberately plot courses for aircraft that fly perpendicular to known PD search radars, to reduce the actual detection range. (If you’re a Microprose F-19/F-117 virtual vet this may bring back some memories).

 

Patrolling in style

This has been another popular request: “I like the flexibility of the patrol mission, but sometimes I want to enforce my custom patrol movement patterns instead of the ‘random within defined area’ logic, even at the cost of predictability”. Well ask, and ye shall receive – in the form of an extra patrol mission option: movement style.

This option has two settings: “Random within area” (default) and “Repetable loop”. “Random within area” is the patrol behavior you are already familiar with. If “Repetable loop” is selected instead, the assigned units treat the reference points of the patrol area as a racetrack, just like in a support mission. This allows the player (or scenario author) to define precise, consistent patrol patterns (figure-8, expanding spiral, ladder etc.) while also retaining the “investigate & prosecute” behavior that distinguishes patrol missions from support ones.

When the “Repeatable loop” setting is active, the patrol area is depicted very similarly to support mission racetracks, to emphasize the difference:

 

Till death do us part: Merge scenarios

This is another gift from the PE world, and we bet it will be a much-appreciated one. If you are a scenario author, you are already familiar with the base & group import/export (ie. the .inst files), and how convenient and time-saving they can be when putting together the elements of a scenario. This “construct once, re-use everywhere” concept has now been taken a step further: You can make individual scenarios and then merge them into a single scenario.

Scenario #1 is treated as the “base” for the merge, so behind the scenes you are essentially cherry-picking all transferable items from scen #2 and adding them to scen #1 (the log output also makes this clear). Elements that are “atomic” or otherwise hard to merge (date & time, weather, title & description etc.) will, on the output, be those of scenario #1.

The power & versatility of this tool should be readily apparent to anyone who’s delved in scenario editing. Now you can create once, store and re-use not just groups or bases, but multiple foundational scenario elements: Sides, missions, events, actions, conditions etc. We have been repeatedly amused by the wacky, quite unforeseen ways the original import/export functionality has been employed by industrious scenario creators, so naturally we are curious to observe how they’ll bend this one to their will.

 

Lua loco

The Lua API continues its expansion in CMO and offers additional hooks into the simulation engine as well as various methods for pulling the strings of the running scenario. One of the new hooks ties directly into the AI model: You can individually instruct units to, quite literally, not think for themselves (You in the back, quipping “you mean they do this now?” – SIT DOWN!). More specifically, you can set individual units to skip their AI routines for evaluating valid targets and picking out the primary one among them. This has two direct benefits:

  • It makes it easier to implement custom targeting AI routines in Lua, since an author not longer has to “compete” with the build-in AI for this.
  • As these routines are among the most CPU-expensive pieces of the simulation pipeline, disabling them can have a drastic effect on the speed & scalability of a large scenario. For example, if you disable the AI cycles of all static/inactive buildings, then only “active” units will use the CPU for this work (internally Command already does a lot of such optimizations, but since it cannot “intrinsically” know which units are static & inactive, it has to check them, which itself is not free).

Additionally, this ability can allow simulating “dormant” states for units (e.g. units begin a scenario in a “comatose” state, but later because of XYZ they become activated).


Stay tuned for more articles & news on Command: Modern Operations soon!

Command: Modern Operations – The grunt’s lot: Improvements to ground operations

October 15, 2019 · Posted in Command · Comment 

Command: Modern Operations (CMO, aka CMANO2) is coming soon! Are you ready? As part of our pre-launch coverage, we explore the main features of this new milestone release in the Command franchise.


CMO is not just about massive improvements to UI & UX as we saw in the last two articles. It also includes significant changes and additions to the simulation engine itself. Many of them encompass ground operations, and this week we take a look at them.

 

The obligatory disclaimer

Let’s get something out of the way up front, which we already stated clearly before but is worth repeating in order to avoid unreasonable expectations.  

CMANO has always been about joint, cross-domain operations: ground forces interact with air, naval, strategic and other elements as they execute their mission (the interaction often but not exclusively being of the “shooting at and being shot by” variety). This disciplined focus continues in CMO. 

Players expecting CMO to feature the tactical finesse of ground-centered games like Armored Brigade, Flashpoint Campaigns Red Storm, Combat Mission or SPMBT will be disappointed. Troops vs. troops slugging it out muzzle-to-muzzle is doable, but with limitations & abstractions that will likely dismay tactical land combat aficionados. Quick examples: no intricate modelling of per-side armor, no built-in model of suppression & rallying effects (this is doable through scripting if you get creative), not taking advantage of roads, no more than 2 levels of hierarchy etc. So, players who absolutely need these nuances in their wargaming experience should look elsewhere.

Now that we made it clear what CMO does not (yet) provide, let’s see what new and/or improved features it does bring to the table, and why we think it offers the best yet modeling of ground ops in a game not centered around them.

 

The lay of the land

In Command v1.x, the terrain has world-accurate elevation & slope, and this affects both mobility (it’s much easier to traverse a valley than a mountain ridge) and sensor detections (radar & IR clutter). However, the earth’s surface is treated essentially as a global desert: No modifiers for different terrain types affecting mobility and visibility. This changes dramatically in CMO.

The new “land cover” map layer in action

Terrain type is now a decisive factor in land operations. The various terrain types (urban, desert, forests, croplands etc.) have different effects on the mobility of ground units, on weapon effects (especially blast and frag warheads) and spotting visibility. As examples:

  • Water is impassable
  • Wetlands reduce speed to 10% of original (bog!), and impair visibility slightly.
  • Snow/Ice reduce speed to 20% of original, and impair visibility slightly.
  • All forest types reduce speed to 30% of original, significantly hamper the destructive effect of blast and fragmentation detonations, and sharply reduce spotting ranges.
  • Shrublands reduce speed to 50% of original, slightly reduce the blast & frag effects, and moderately reduce visibility.
  • Croplands and vegetation mosaics reduce speed to 70% of original, and slightly reduce visibility.
  • Open and wooded savannas reduce speed to 80% of original
  • Barren / sparsely vegetated terrain and grasslands have no impact on speed, weapons or visibility.
  • Urban & built-up terrain increases speed to 110% of original, but severely block both weapons and visibility.

These combined effects have startling tactical & operational implications. For example:

  • How do you move a unit rapidly and minimizing observation by the enemy? Move it through urban terrain. (If stealth is more important than speed, a forest will also do. If speed is paramount and no urban infrastructure is nearby, go flat-out through barren/plain terrain).
  • Do enemy weapons/sensors outrange yours? Deny him a shooting gallery by closing on him through a forest or, failing that, a shrubland. (Conversely: How do you maximize your weapon & sensor standoff? Fight in deserts or plains. Ding ding ding!)
  • You know the enemy is holed up inside a forest but your conventional explosive & frag weapons are seriously degraded inside it, and you don’t want to send your own forces inside for a bloody knife-fight. How do you kick them out of the forest? You rain down napalm and fuel-air explosives on their heads. (If civilian casualties are not a concern, this can also apply to urban terrain).

 

Units are aware of the terrain type and take into account in their navigation & pathfinding calculations. They use a new cost-based pathfinding algorithm that considers both terrain slope and terrain type to generate the optimum (fastest) route to their destination. 

In the example below, a M60 tank platoon in southern Attica (outskirts of Athens) is ordered to move to the northeast of the peninsula. The unit selects the displayed path both to avoid the surrounding mountain ridges (red ellipses) and to maximize its mobility, going through the urban area instead of the croplands to the east.

 

Apart from being visually displayed on the map, the land-type information is also listed on the map-cursor databox, next to the existing terrain slope info:

 

 

The goodies of COW: Cargo, amphibious & airdrop operations

As we previously mentioned, we decided to incorporate into CMO’s core simulation model a number of features that were hitherto unlockable only by certain DLC packs, chief among them “Chains Of War”. Of these features, the one most relevant to ground operations is undoubtedly the cargo, amphibious & airdrop operations.

We have described this feature extensively in the past, so as a brief summary: You can now transport ground forces in any platforms that are able to take them, and unload them where suitable. Platforms are realistically limited in the weight, area & personnel they can take (e.g. you cannot load an M1 tank on a C-130, but you can fit it on a C-17 or C-5). Ground units can be transferred between bases by aircraft, or between ports via ships, or embarked on beaches on a landing assault, or airdropped from aircraft or helicopters. Combined with the much higher terrain detail offered by the Sentinel-2 layer, you can extensively model amphibious and airdrop assaults, both when they go well and when they don’t unfold as planned, as in this example:


Amphib Ops 101: Don’t copy Omaha Beach or the Bay of Pigs
 

 

Beans & bullets

This has been a popular request for some time, and we are glad to fulfill it. Land units can now replenish their ammunition from any suitable provider (e.g. supply trucks). This works in a manner similar to UNREP for ships, ie. the player selects the unit low on ammo and orders resupply either via automatic selection or manually designating the desired provider. Units will race to the selected provider and take on as many stocks as they can.

In this example, a coastal C-802 missile battery shoots at a hostile target and then, low on missiles, performs a rendezvous with a supply truck to refill its ammo:

Obviously, both players and scenario authors can use this new feature for much deeper modelling of ground operations. Greater emphasis must now be given to the resupply chains of ground formations; it is entirely possible to render an otherwise powerful tactical group virtually impotent by denying it its replacement stores (though fuel is still abstracted as “infinite”). This opens the door to new tactical and operational dilemmas; for example, do I pull back some of my anti-air defences from the front to better protect my logistics train? And how many of them before it becomes counter-productive?

 

The gods of war

Artillery and air support (and conversely, tactical anti-air defences) have been CMANO’s main strength on ground ops since the beginning, and their presence is still felt everywhere in CMO. This is one of the areas that benefits greatly from the addition of the terrain-type nuance, as now the actual effect of different sensor and warhead types varies with the type of landscape that the units on the receiving end are occupying.

This has significant implications for both avoiding and delivering fires: If you are trying to avoid enemy strikes, you can delay detection by using terrain to your advantage (or destroy his spotters on the ground or in the air, of course). If you are under fire, clever use of the terrain can reduce your casualties or afford you greater mobility so that you can ruin the enemy’s aim. If you are the attacker, you now have to carefully consider your battlefield reconnaissance and your selection of ammunition; your spotters must be carefully placed (or orbited) to maximize their coverage, and an incendiary, cluster or FAE warhead may often be far more efficient than normal hi-explosive. (Employing precision munitions if also often necessary, particularly in environments with numerous potential collateral damage).

Used properly and combined with useful recon, massed artillery can be quite effective, as this example demonstrates:

Air support and anti-air defences continue to be simulated in great detail as in CMANO. The extra wrinkles of terrain type and ground units replenishment add new headaches for the virtual JTAC; SAMs and triple-AAA are no longer “out of the fight” once they expand their built-in ammo, and aircraft no longer roam over a virtual desert plain. Visualization through Tacview or other means can be useful here to better illustrate the geometries of the tactical situation, as in this example:


If the enemy has even minimal air defences this can be an “exciting” overfly
Next: Simulation and Editor improvements

The scenarios of Desert Storm – Part 1

March 21, 2019 · Posted in Command, Uncategorized · Comment 

The new “Desert Storm” DLC is now well into production, and is set to launch on March 28 (see the trailer!). The companion v1.15 update has also been released, and the dev team is already tweaking the new features and fixing issues based on early feedback. Let us take a look through the scenarios available in this battleset and explore the historical and hypothetical events that it surveys.


1. Invasion

Coalition vs. Iraq

Date/Time: 1 August, 1990/ 23:00:00 Zulu
Location: Middle East
Duration: 48 Hours
Playable Sides: Coalition

On August 2, 1990, the world watched in stunned surprise as Iraq’s elite armor divisions invaded and conquered Kuwait within two days.

This irrevocable act was the culmination of years of disputes between the two states. During the Iran-Iraq war, Kuwait had made a series of large loans to Iraq totaling over $14b. By the war’s end in 1988, Iraq was unable to repay and repeatedly asked Kuwait to forfeit the debt, arguing that by standing up to Iran it had indirectly protected the small, wealthy state. Furthermore, Iraq accused Kuwait of “drinking its milkshake”, i.e. using slant-drilling techniques to exploit oil reserves from the Iraqi portion of the rich Rumaila field.

The US administration, balancing between its long-standing allies Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and its desire to continue using secular Iraq as a bulwark against fundamentalist Iran (as it had done throughout the 1980s), had long been trying to mediate a solution that would placate all sides. During the spring and summer of 1990, Iraq’s military preparations were closely observed by western intelligence but were interpreted as a show of force designed to intimidate Kuwait and third-party negotiators rather than as the prelude to action. On July 25, the US ambassador met with Iraq’s leader, President Saddam Hussein, to reaffirm that (a) the US was committed to a peaceful resolution of the disputes between the two states and (b) that they held no opinion or favor towards either side in the disputes themselves. Hussein apparently interpreted the former as a token statement and the latter as a tacit approval of his regional ambitions. He thus finalized his operational plans and, just one week later, set them in motion.

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) had long-prepared plans for the rapid transfer of heavy US forces in the Middle East and Arabian peninsula. The concept of the Rapid Deployment Force (RDF) postulated a sudden threat to the oil fields of Iran or Saudi Arabia, in both cases from a sudden Soviet invasion out of Afghanistan or the Caucasus TVD. To counter such a threat, multiple rapid-reaction forces and schemes were put in place: Elements of the 82nd Airborne Division were on a constant two-hour alert, with a brigade-size commitment scheduled 18 hours later; division-sized army forces were to be airlifted and delivered within 2 weeks; multiple container ships pre-positioned in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean carried supplies to be used by the arriving troops; multiple tactical and strategic airwings were earmarked for immediate relocation, and more. CENTCOM regularly practiced these plans in concert with regional allies, e.g. the bi-annual “Bright Star” exercises held in Egypt.

Though nobody on the ground yet knew it, all these plans and preparations were about to be put to the real test.


2. The Thin Red Line

Coalition vs. Iraq

Date/Time: 15 August, 1990/ 20:00:00 Zulu
Location: Middle East
Duration: 38 Hours
Playable Sides: Coalition

 

“I can tell you this, those first few nights were pretty strenuous, we didn’t have very much to stop ’em. [If the Iraqis attacked], the plan was to hit the supplies for the attacking army, slow ’em down that way, and meanwhile we kept a full tank of gas in all of our cars and we were ready to [withdraw] to Jeddah (Red Sea coast).”

– Charles Horner, commander of coalition air ops on Desert Shield / Desert Storm

Emboldened by his army’s swift success in conquering Kuwait and its oil fields, Saddam Hussein considered a possible advance into Saudi Arabia.

US reinforcements had already started pouring into the country, but slower than required, because the Saudi monarch was unconvinced that Iraq would invade (Saddam had privately assured the Saudis that Kuwait was his sole objective). A massive global air/sea-lift operation was well underway, but forces and supplies were by necessity streaming in piecemeal and simply getting the right people and hardware where they needed to be was challenging. In many ways, the rapid-reaction force being assembled in Saudi Arabia during August & September was a rag-tag motley crew of assets. Opposite them, just across the border stood Iraq’s best armored units, flush with confidence, ready to advance on a moment’s notice.

If that armored fist had crossed the border, would the thin red line have held?


3. First Night

Coalition vs. Iraq

Date/Time: 17 January, 1991 / 00:00:00 Zulu
Location: Middle East
Duration: 48 Hours
Playable Sides: Coalition

Two Soviet generals sit at a café in Paris, watching the Red Army’s victory parade. One of them turns to the other and asks: “By the way, comrade, who won the air war”?

This grim joke, popular in NATO circles in the 1970s and 80s, reflected a common prevailing wisdom distilled from the lessons of WW2, Korea and Vietnam: Airpower alone had never been able to decisively determine the course of a war.

The potential of airpower as a paradigm-shifting strategic weapon had been evident since its inception. Capable of bypassing the front lines to strike at the enemy’s heartland, it might end wars in days, rather than the years of brutal front-line attrition required in past conflicts. A century of failed attempts dispelled the dream; the reality was an attritional war of fighters and flak (and more recently SAMs), as bloody as anything earthbound. The same applied to direct destruction of fielded enemy forces; airpower was important, but as plenty of experience attested, never dominant.

As the US-led coalition air forces prepared for their first round of offensive operations against the Iraqi military, a lot was riding on the men and machines tasked with the job. The machines themselves were a mix of old and tried, and new and untested. The US military still lied in the shadow of the failures of Vietnam, where “a thousand tactical victories” had nevertheless ultimately resulted in strategic and political defeat. The directives from the highest level were clear as crystal: This would not be allowed to turn into another Vietnam. Strategic victory had to be achieved swiftly, massively and decisively – in other words, unlike any previous major conflict the US and its allies had ever fought.

Some students of airpower pointed to Israel’s swift victory in 1967 (and especially the first-day annihilation of the Egyptian air force) as a possible model to emulate. While there was indeed much to learn from the Arab-Israeli conflicts of the past (indeed, Israel’s extensive use of electronic warfare in 1982 did not go unnoticed and was to be intensely replicated), the reality was that the conditions that enabled the IAF to triumph in 1967 had come and gone. Low altitude was no longer a safe sanctuary for strike aircraft; Radars had become more resistant to jamming; Aircraft were no longer parked in long rows in the open begging to be bombed & strafed, each instead now being individually protected by a hardened aircraft shelter (HAS) seemingly impervious to anything but a dead-on nuclear impact. Catching the Iraqi air force on the ground and wiping it out within a few hours was a pipe dream. The Iraqi integrated air defence system (IADS), an odd mix of Soviet-supplied radars and SAMs together with a backbone of mostly French-originated command, control and communication infrastructure (a detail that turned out to be eminently exploitable) appeared to be a very tough nut to crack. Campaign planners, by every right a conservative group, estimated potentially heavy aircraft losses for the first nights of intense airstrikes.

Desert Storm would famously prove the “never dominant” claim invalid, but before airpower savaged the Iraqi army itself, it reached one more time for the first and dearest dream – overwhelming and instant strategic supremacy. The first night’s strikes on Iraq proper saw a dizzying ballet of assets, coordinated by modern AWACS and satellite communications, overwhelm Iraq’s air defenses, plaster its airbases and hammer its C3 infrastructure – simultaneously. Assets ranging from fighters and bombers to attack helicopters to drones to cruise missiles struck their targets with impunity, but none more boldly than the F-117s which braved Baghdad itself, hit their targets, and returned without loss.

To what extent those first-night strikes realized the traditional goals of strategic airpower – especially the shattering of enemy morale – is a question still debated and might never be truly answered. But one promise, beyond a shadow of a doubt, had finally been realized: At long last, the bomber had gotten through.


4. The Gates of Hell

Coalition vs. Iraq

Date/Time: 18 January, 1991 / 04:00:00 Zulu
Location: Middle East
Duration: 36 Hours
Playable Sides: Coalition

Prior to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, it had been established that Iraq possessed a significant chemical weapons capability. Iraq’s military had used chemical weapons on numerous occasions against Iran, as well as various rebel groups such as in Kurdistan. By the time of the coalition build-up during Desert Shield, the consensus of western intelligence agencies held that Iraq still had a sizable chemical arsenal, had likely forward-deployed these weapons, and was prepared to use them against coalition forces.

The concern about Iraq using WMDs as a counter to the coalition’s superiority in conventional forces prompted numerous US officials to implicitly or even explicitly state that the US would respond to such an attack with WMDs of its own, probably employing tactical nuclear weapons.

At the tactical and operational level, Iraq’s chemical weaponry constituted one of the prime strategic targets of coalition air power. The effort to neutralize it was two-pronged: chemical agents still stored in their rear-area bunkers were attacked before they could be deployed; and ready-forces already outfitted with chemical warheads (Scud missile batteries, artillery units, etc.) were prioritized by coalition airpower. But as frequently happens with such plans, the best efforts still resulted in misses and leakers.

On January 18, the second day of Desert Storm, Iraq’s President Hussein – dismayed by Iraq’s inability to resist the coalition’s massive aerial onslaught – conveyed an ultimatum to CENTCOM headquarters: unless coalition forces immediately ceased offensive actions and withdrew from Kuwait, Iraq would strike coalition troops and/or any city of their choice with chemical weapons.

While US forces scrambled to locate and neutralize the chemical threat immediately, other standing-alert assets prepared to deliver the nuclear response the US had committed to. The gates of hell were about to swing open…


5. Scud Hunt

Coalition vs. Iraq

Date/Time: 19 January, 1991 / 00:00:00 Zulu
Location: Middle East
Duration: 36 Hours
Playable Sides: Coalition

Saddam Hussein’s first serious reaction to the commencement of Desert Storm was to unleash a protracted bombardment of Israel (and to a much lesser extent Saudi Arabia) using Iraq’s considerable arsenal of SS-1C Scud-B tactical ballistic missiles (TBMs). While the strikes against Saudi Arabia were merely punitive gestures, attacking Israel was an astute political gambit: if Israel retaliated, as Hussein hoped, reawakened anti-Israel fervor in the various Arab states that had either remained neutral or actively joined the coalition could fracture the alliance mere days into the campaign.

CENTCOM planners and Schwarzkopf himself had neglected the Scud threat up to that point, correctly considering the missiles as militarily insignificant without WMD warheads (which the US nuclear deterrent would preclude.) Though tactically and operationally ineffective, they had suddenly become a serious strategic/diplomatic threat. Persuading Israel to hold back was no easy task, again demanding multiple parallel measures. First, several Patriot batteries with PAC-2 missiles (optimized for TBM engagements) were hurriedly deployed to key Israeli target areas like Tel Aviv. Secondly, Iraq’s TBMs and launchers became priority targets for air campaign planners.

The missiles installed in fixed launchers at the large H2 and H3 airbases in western Iraq were straightforward enough to attack; however, most Iraqi Scuds were deployed on highly mobile 8×8 transporter/erector/launcher (TEL) vehicles exploiting the vast Iraqi desert to hide themselves. To destroy them, a large portion of available coalition aircraft and special operation forces (SOF) teams were re-tasked to seeking out and eliminating Scud TELs exclusively. This veritable “needle in a haystack” hunt would become the longest operation of the entire conflict and a maddeningly frustrating experience for everyone involved.


6. Reviving a Giant

Coalition vs. Iraq

Date/Time: 24 January, 1991 / 00:00:00 Zulu
Location: Middle East
Duration: 48 Hours
Playable Sides: Coalition

By January 20th, 1991, the initial strikes on Iraq had been highly successful, destroying or degrading much of Iraq’s communication and anti-air capabilities. However, the coalition naval fleets in both the Eastern Med and Persian Gulf had by this point expended most of their long-range land-attack capability. In particular, the Persian Gulf Task Force needed to replenish its stock of Tomahawk cruise missiles as soon as possible.

Historically, two Iowa Class battleships, Missouri (BB-63) and Wisconsin (BB-64), played a part in the Gulf War. Four Iowas were built during WWII and two other keels were laid – the Illinois (BB-65) and Kentucky (BB-66). These two hulls were to be the Iowa’s follow-on class, the “Montana Class” battleships. In real life, the end of WWII halted their construction and they were never commissioned. The BB-65 hull was broken up in September 1958.

In the 1950s, several proposals were floated to complete the Kentucky as a guided missile battleship. This project was authorized in 1954, and Kentucky was renumbered from BB-66 to BBG-1, only to be canceled later.

Conversion of the 73% complete Kentucky would have entailed extensive refits to replace the two original aft 16″ turret barbettes with an assortment of missile launchers and sensor systems. Apart from Phalanx CIWS, quad Harpoon launchers and Tomahawk armored-box launchers received by the four Iowas during their 1980s modernization, the Kentucky would also have room for multiple SM-2 Standard area-defence missile and Sea Sparrow point-defence missile launchers, plus their associated air search and SAM-illumination radars. Its original twin 5-inch gun turrets would’ve been replaced with modern Mk45 guns. If employed correctly, the last of the BBs would have been a fearsome addition to coalition naval power.

In this hypothetical scenario, the conversion was completed instead of abandoned, and BBG-1 Kentucky has been commissioned into service, receiving subsequent modernization during the 1980s similr to the Iowas. The Kentucky and her accompanying escorts and supply ships have been tasked to reinforce the Coalition’s naval force in the Northern Persian Gulf and relieve the first-strike shooters.


7. Israel Stands Up

Israel vs. Iraq/Gaza

Date/Time: 26 January, 1991 / 23:00:00 Zulu
Location: Middle East
Duration: 36 Hours
Playable Sides: Israel

Desert Storm was arguably the strangest war in Israel’s military history. Even though a nationwide state of emergency was declared, and the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) were put on alert, the order to commence offensive operations never came.

Saddam Hussein had attempted to turn Iraq’s dispute with Kuwait into a larger Arab-Israeli matter long before the air campaign started. For example, on August 12, 1990, just ten days after the Iraqi invasion, he had publicly suggested that Iraq might withdraw from Kuwait if Israel withdrew from all occupied Arab territory and Syria withdrew from Lebanon. Unsurprisingly this proposal drew considerable praise from the Arab world, even from principals that were otherwise critical of Iraq and its invasion.

Hussein’s order to fire a protracted barrage of Scud missiles against Israel right after the beginning of the coalition air campaign was therefore a step-up in this shrewd political maneuver: he attempted to draw Israel into battle, thus transforming what had started as an Arab-Arab conflict into an Arab-Israeli conflict, one in which Iraq would suddenly find new allies. Realizing this, the US-led coalition urged Israel to “stay down” and take the punches on the chin. It was necessary to keep Israel out in order to keep the Arab states on the side of the coalition. To demonstrate the US commitment to Israeli defence, a number of Patriot missile batteries were hastily ferried to Israel to provide additional ABM cover, and a substantial part of the coalition’s tactical airpower was dedicated to eliminating the Scud threat at its source. The Israeli government understood the stakes and, despite suffering repeated Scud impacts on Tel Aviv and elsewhere, held fast.

In this hypothetical scenario, Saddam’s gamble paid off: mounting public pressure in Israel from the relentless Scud bombardment has reached the breaking point. Rumors are spreading that dissident Arab factions within Palestine and the Gaza Strip are assembling material, supplies, equipment and personnel to launch independent attacks against Israel in support of Iraq’s pressure. The government feels that it has to respond, even in a limited fashion, or completely lose legitimacy. Israel’s gloves are about to come off.

Santa’s new year gift: Thirty new Command community scenarios

January 5, 2019 · Posted in Command · Comment 

Miguel Molina has released the updated version of the Command community scenario pack. In addition to updated and refresh versions of existing works, the new release includes a blistering thirty new scenarios:

* Syria 413, 2018: President Trump charged the Syrian government that it had used chemical weapons to attack the Syrian opposition and general citizens had suffered damage. He declared to strike Syrian major chemical facilities with the aid of the UK and France.

* Air Battle – July 28, 2020: Chinese and Taiwanese air forces clash over the straits.

* Albania Strikes Again, 1984: A sequel to the classic “Albania Airstrike”, this features Albania hitting back against the Italian Navy and Air Force, with new features like detailed aircraft damage and ports that were not present in the original.

* Beyond Kashmir, 2019: Amidst a new crisis between India and Pakistan (and an intervening Iraq), a joint USAF/USN task force is assigned to neutralize Pakistan’s nuclear capability within 3 days.

* Coiler’s Halloween Iceland Adventure, 2018: It’s Halloween, and the zombie sorceresses have decided to send an air force of rather spooky creatures (or rather, aircaft named after them) to strike Iceland. Are you a bad enough dude to hold back the zombie sorceresses?

* Enough Is Enough, 2018: Russia has been steadily militarizing the Kuril islands against Japanese protests. New intelligence that elements of an S-400 system are to be deployed there was the last straw for the Japanese government. In direct violation of the its constitution, Japan will conduct its first offensive action since WWII.

* Escape Port Haucurt, 2022: A bloody civil war exploded in Nigeria in year 2022 and radical muslims have taken control of several cities. Western citizens in the country were evacuated but some of them were stranded in the coast in a factory protected by contractors in Port Harcourt area, facing growing hostility. A tiny US Navy task force, focused on new LCS ships, fully equipped for littoral warfare, approached the coast to extract western citizens, knowing the rebels have very limited air support. LCS Montgomery ventured inside the huge Niger delta at night undetected and thanks to spec ops boats, Seahawk helicopters and a SEAL unit managed to extract all the people. The operation has been a great success, but at dawn rebel forces knew they have been cheated and throw at the Americans everything they have.

* Hanukkah War, 2018: Iran has established a series of ballistic missile batteries aimed at Israel, protected by its newly-acquired S-300 SAM units. Israel’s armed forces have been tasked with promptly eliminating this imminent threat.

* Into the Dark Nordkapp, 1985 (NATO + USSR versions): Realizing the Reagan military buildup was pushing the correlation of conventional forces away from their advantage and toward NATO, the Kremlin decided it was time to act. At Noon, Moscow time, on December 24th the word went out to all commands to execute “Operation Rhine” – the “Bolt Out of the Blue” attack from barracks, airfields and ports with no notice. The Soviet Union (& Warsaw Pact) would achieve strategic, operational and, for the most part, tactical surprise on all fronts with NATO caught massively out of position.

* Mesa Verde meets ’em head-on, 2024: The Republic of the Congo has been involved in a border dispute with Gabon in the last few years, and some of its soldiers are accused of having committed war crimes. The United Nations has attempted to broker a cease-fire, but has been rebuffed. The US and its allies believe this represents sufficient justification for limited “show of force” strikes that it is hoped will finally bring the Republic of the Congo to the bargaining table.

* New Mexico goes to war, 2023: Tensions between the United States and China have finally boiled over into actual hostilities. To the surprise of China, the American strategy was not to take the offensive in the South China Sea, but rather to make sure its allies could defend themselves. Meanwhile, the US moved to attack China on other fronts–cyber, space, and in the Indian Ocean.

* Oil In Somalia – Italy vs India, 1990: Italian Somaliland was an Italian colony and in later years the Trust Territory of Somalia until 1960 when Somalia was granted independence. During this period Italians made up a significant proportion of the population. The civil war has escalated and the nation is in a state of chaos, the civil government close to complete collapse.
Nine days ago the Indian air force dropped troops providing ‘humanitarian aid’ to the small port town of Eyl. It is clear the Indians are establishing a foothold attempting land grabs and expansion of an Indian-controlled Indian Ocean. The Italian marines of the San Marco regiment have been loaded onto the LPDs San Giorgio and San Marco and are tasked to land at Eyl and re-establish control of the airfield and expel the Indian troops.

* Red Phoenix – Battle of the Tsushima, 1987: The 2nd Korean War is over. A Chinese airborne division sits in the no-mans-land between the 2 sides, making sure that the peace is kept. North Korea is finished. Not even the late intervention of the Soviet Union could have prevented its demise. However, that same Soviet intervention has sent shockwaves around the world. NATO and the USSR are closer to WW3 than they were during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the North Pacific, a massive Soviet SAG prepares to cross through the Tsushima Strait. The only problem is that the survivors of the South Korean navy, as well as the American Constellation and Nimitz battlegroups, stand in their way.

* Revenge in Beirut, 1983: On October 1983, a USMC barracks and a French paratroop headquarters were almost simultaneously bombed, with heavy casualties. Historically, France and the US took separate retaliatory actions with mixed results. This scenario assumes that both nations instead agreed on a joint reaction just before the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit (MAU) turn over on 17-19 November to both show resolve and create a safer environment for the relieving 22nd MAU. This attack would have three full (combined) carrier task forces in a battle group with the French carrier Foch also participating.

* Senkaku Islands Clash, 2019: Tariffs and work economic disruption lead to increased tension and nationalism across the globe. With major problems in Chinese ports due to slowing trade, the PRC whips up nationalism over the Diaoyu (Senkaku) islands, leading to a Falklands-like amphibious assault in November 2019. Japan is not prepared to let that aggression stand and unlike the Falklands the U.S. (honoring their treaty obligations) will be a full belligerent. The World’s three largest economies are poised to square off over 7 square miles of island.

* Southern Brawl (The War That Never Was), 1989: One day into World War 3, and Greece and Turkey are already beginning to crack under Soviet, Bulgarian, and Romanian pressure. The skies over Northern Greece and the Bosphorous Strait have been surrendered to Warsaw Pact air forces, who roam freely over the retreating Greek and Turkish armies. A new day brings new hope, but also dread at what the Warsaw Pact forces will do today. The Turkish and Greek air forces are given one job: Stall the Warsaw Pact air offensive, or die trying.

* Sri Lanka Crisis, 2021: The recent election in Sri Lanka has been challenged by the losing party. The new government, already meeting strong opposition in the country, is expected to strengthen even further the commercial and military ties with the Chinese government. These include massive investment in Sri Lankan business and a new port at Hambantota, extensive sales to the army and the recent sale of a squadron of JF-17 Thunder fighters to the Sri Lankan Air Force. The Indians, asking for new elections are sending an amphibious task force to Colombo to stop the civil war, but the Chinese carrier task force Liaoning in the area is challenging them. A fierce fight between the Chinese and Indians formations with air support is expected in the next few hours.

* The Gauntlet, 1989: With WW3 raging, NATO attempts to deliver two Amphibious Ready Groups centered on the USS Iwo Jima (LPH-2) and the HMS Ocean (L11) to Narvik and possibly bring the Warsaw Pact offensive in the North to a halt. Soviet forces will throw everything in their arsenals to stop this force from reaching Narvik.

* The Seto Submarine Scare, 2018: In June 2016, the US put sanctions directly on China for “transfer of missile technology to North Korea, human rights abuses, aggression in the South China Sea, and sinister trade and diplomatic practices. Japan quickly followed, copying the US’s decision, adding sanctions for “mistreatment of Japanese POWs after WWII, promoting anti-Japanese sentiment, and espionage”. Anti-US and anti-Japanese protests broke out throughout China almost instantaneously as CCTV reported on the sanctions. Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned the US and Japan it would not tolerate aggression against the Chinese people, and would eagerly respond the the “information war declaration” that they had delivered.

* Three CV’s exercises, 2017: The USN carriers Reagan, Roosevelt and Nimitz gathered around the Korean Peninsula to contain North Korea launching missiles. The North Korean government abruptly declared they would launch an ICBM toward the Continental United States. The US president decided to strike North Korean missile pads and nuclear facilities. Because the South Korean government expressed that it did not hope an all-out confrontation with North Korea, only the US forces would engage in the operations.

* Turning the Tables, 1992: No US ground forces have come under air attack since the Korean war. This is now about to change.

* Ulleungdo Island, 2018: A failed coup attempt on September 8th has resulted in civil war in North Korea and heavy, but confused, fighting is occurring across the country. On 10 September 2018, a US-Flag Ro/Ro ship was torpedoed and sunk by a rogue submarine. Your mission, as commander of the USS Campbell, is to sink that submarine before more commercial vessels can be sunk. One problem is you are alone, the ROK and Japan do not want to take action due to the sensitive situation in the North, and American naval assets in Japan have been evacuated due to a Category 5 Typhoon rapidly approaching the islands.

* WWIII ’87 – Air Campaign Denmark, 10 July 1987: 10 July saw the beginning of a major effort by the Pact to secure air and sea supremacy in the Baltic. The focus of this effort was on Danish airbases. Of the fifty NATO airfields that were hosting combat aircraft in Central Europe, six were located in Denmark. The Royal Danish Air Force was a relatively small, well-equipped force with a respectable number of F-16 Fighting Falcons forming the core of its inventory. USAF F-16s were also anticipated to begin arriving in Denmark within the next forty eight hours to reinforce AIRBALTAP. When WP amphibious and airborne operations against the Danish homeland were inevitably launched, it was anticipated that they would be taking place in uncontested airspace. In order for that to happen, Danish airbases, radar sites, and air defenses had to be dealt a knockout blow before then.

* Baltic Fury #1 – Storm The Gates, 1994: You are the commander of NATO’s BALTAP (Baltic Approaches) Command. BALTAP is a joint force of land, sea and air forces arrayed specifically to keep hostile WP forces bottled up in the Baltic Sea. Your forces are primarily Danish and German but some NATO reinforcements can be expected. The restricted waters in the western Baltic funnel hostile forces directly to the island of Zeeland and Copenhagen itself. One thing is certain, there will be a lot of combat power deployed into a very small space.

* Caribbean Fury #2 – Retribution, 1994: You are tasked with continuing the reduction of Cuban/Soviet combat power while positioning for the next move – assisting a British and French force in stabilizing Belize while driving the three errant Central American governments out of the war (Caribbean Fury 3 – Rumble in the Jungle). In the midst of these sweeping objectives, the Commander of the new Special Forces Command wants to turn the situation to an advantage by gaining as much strategic intelligence as possible.

* Indian Fury #4 – The Gate Of Tears, 1994: You are commanding the newly formed CTF 155 combining diverse forces to secure the island of Socotra and the Bab el Mandeb (BeM), the narrow gateway between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden know from ancient times as ‘The Gate of Tears’. Your forces will conduct several amphibious and airmobile operations while simultaneously fighting for control of the air and sea in this vital maritime choke point.

* Indian Fury #5 – Hormuz Hoedown, 1994: You are commanding the newly formed CTF 154 centered on the USS Saratoga CVBG and combining all forces in the Persian Gulf region. Your primary task is to open the Straits of Hormuz to unrestricted navigation, but a critical and essential secondary task is to tie down Soviet and Soviet aligned forces (primarily Iran) so they cannot interfere in other theatres, particularly Syria and the Mediterranean. Finally, you must impress Saudi Arabia to commit to the conflict on our side, while preventing the spread of the war. The Indian Ocean is a secondary theater and cannot expect many reinforcements. Commander 5th Fleet will deploy to Socotra Island once it is clear, from there he will fight the larger battles in the Pentagon, but right now more forces and supplies are leaving the area then are arriving.

* A New World, 2005: In 1988, the Cold War turned nuclear. Out of the ashes, many countries emerged as new powers in the world, including Australia, New Zealand, Nationalist China, Argentina, and Brazil. These powers gradually combined to form 2 superpowers, the Pacific Coalition (Australia, New Zealand, China, and the remains of Japan and Korea) and the Latin Confederacy (All of Latin America, mainly occupied by Argentina and Brazil). 17 years later, what remains of the US is finally getting back on its feet. Constantly being probed on its southern border by the Latin Confederation, they turn to the more western-oriented Pacific Coalition for help. The Pacific Coalition responds by dispatching a large naval group of 2 Ex-US carriers, the floating helibase that was once HMAS Melbourne, and escorts formed from every nation in the coalition. As this naval group moves towards the rebuilt Naval Station San Diego, the Latin Confederacy moves to intervene.

* Operation Sapphire Fury, 2019: The United States had in the past stated that the growing occupation and militarization of islands in and around the South China Sea was unacceptable. Publicly stated American policy towards the SCS littoral area was framed in the strongest words, but privately US leadership had made the decision for years to ignore what was happening in the region. Several weeks ago however, after lengthy consultation between the Joint Chiefs and POTUS, Admiral Rolland Marshall commanding officer of USINDOPACOM received standing orders to roll back the illegal occupation of the Philippine island province of Palawan.


As always, the community scenario pack is available for download from the Command downloads page: http://www.warfaresims.com/?page_id=1876 . The complete pack will also become subsequently available for download on the Command workshop on Steam.

Command v1.06 – The new features Part II

December 10, 2014 · Posted in Command · Comment 

On Part I of our coverage of the new v1.06 goodness we covered the radically revised Air Ops and unit-level proficiency settings. If you thought these were the big attractions though, there is an ever bigger fish in the new release. Let’s have a look.

Game-changer, thy name is Lua

The Lua scripting language has been widely employed in games & simulations in the industry and so its introduction to Command marks a milestone event. On this first iteration, Lua has been integrated as another “Event Action” type in the Scenario Editor’s established Event Engine. Within this new action type, a whole range of script functions are supported for altering elements of the running scenario (see HERE and HERE for comprehensive documentation of available scripts).
The new supported functions include:

  • Assigning units to missions, removing them from existing missions or reassigning them to others.
  • Changing EMCON settings. One could make an event for an entire side’s radars to engage.
  • Creating new Aircraft, Ships, Submarines and Land Units at specific or random locations.
  • Moving units, setting new courses for units. Telling units to hold fire, or to open fire.
  • Changing side posture, for example one could make an event to make Soviet Union and NATO hostile towards each other.
  • Changing the doctrine for a specified side, mission or unit.
  • Changing the weather, either specifying a precise change or randomizing the weather.

All of these new actions can be performed by the AI side in a scenario according to events triggered via the Event Editor. Scenario designers therefore now have a whole new set of tools to make more dynamic, highly-variable and interactive scenarios. Imagine for instance a scenario where the AI side performs allocation of aircraft to different CAP missions and zones based on the amount of aircraft destroyed or land units destroyed. Another aspect of this is that a scenario author can move and set course for units. This is especially interesting when a scenario author sets an action to move reference points if there is a mission patrol zone attached to the reference points. This allows a scenario author to edit patrol zones during a mission – thus changing the behavior of the AI in a scenario. Doctrine settings are now manipulable via the event editor as well. An example of this might be the Russian side enabling the use of nuclear weapons if Moscow is destroyed or damaged. Or, tying in with the air operations tempo doctrine settings from earlier, an AI controlled nation could have an event that bumps up air operations tempo from sustained to a surge footing.

Tomcat84 from the beta crew has put together two Lua-in-Command video tutorials: an introductory one, showing how easy it is for someone completely unfamiliar with Lua to use it to enhance a scenario, and an advanced one demonstrating how a familiar author can completely transform a scenario, for example:

  • Making a CAP change mission to become more aggressive once approached
  • Having a 50% chance of an AWACS being added when the scenario is loaded
  • Removing radar information from fighters when the Fighter HQ is bombed (permanently or coming back online after X amount of minutes)
  • Making tanks become detectable to the player side when crossing into an area
  • Making those tanks retreat once they reach a certain amount of damage together
  • Randomizing whether an SA-2 site is dumb with radar on or smart with radar off and a prosecution area at scenario load
  • Randomly adding either an SA-3, SA-6 or SA-8 at a location with 40% chance for SA-3 or SA-6 and 20% for the SA-8
  • Randomizing which CAPs a group of MiG-29s goes to
  • Having the weather improve over time with slight amount of randomness
  • Showing how to have a strike mission marshal somewhere first before randomly selecting which target they go to
  • Having SAM’s EMCON go active once too many EW Radars are taken out
  • Having SAM’s EMCON go active when the SAM HQ is bombed
  • Having SAM’s go passive again when HQ backup is online after X minutes, UNLESS they were already active because EW radars were taken out

Scen authors can use a “Lua script console” (if you have played first-person shooters you are probably familiar with drop-down consoles that offer all sorts of hacks and diagnostics) to try out and experiment with their scripts before committing them to the Event Engine. One thing that is important to note is that the introduction of these new event editor actions in no way changes existing Command scenario functionality. This only acts in addition to existing functionality: your favorite scenarios will still play out just way you like them.

The other new features

Aside from the “big three” new features, the v1.06 release contains a myriad of fixes and additions, some of them long-time desires of the dev team but most of them directly influenced by the plentiful feedback we have received since Command’s triumphant public debut. This is a summary rundown of the most visible additions; for full details see the release notes accompanying the v1.06 release.

* New UI feature: Satellite pass predictions. Selecting this function from the “Game” menu, and then clicking on the desired location on the map, brings up a window with the predicted passes and coverage times (ie. sat being within sensor range of the location) for the next X days for all satellites (default value is 3 days, but this can be modified).
All columns are sortable by clicking on the headers, so for example you can quickly see which sat will pass within coverage from the area of interest, which pass will offer the longest dwell time etc.

* Patrol/Support mission altitude overrides on Mission Editor: You can now set override values for the transit and on-station aircraft altitudes for patrol & support missions. These values are displayed & edited in feet or meters, depending on display preference. 

* Radars able to detect mobile ground units are limited by target speed. A halted tank platoon for example is much harder to pick up than one on the move. Radars with progressively higher frequency (NATO J/K/L/M bands) get extra bonus on this as their higher frequency allows them to pick out even low-speed or static targets. (Not coincidentally, such seekers feature prominently on weapons like Longbow-Hellfire, Brimstone etc.) 

* “Submarine Datum” contact:  If an inbound torpedo is detected where no submarine contact is held, a presumed submarine contact is auto-generated on the assumption that the weapon came from somewhere. The initial AoU for the presumed sub contact has a 10nm radius and expands with time as with normal detections. Likewise, if a sub-launched missile is detected immediately after launch (within 1nm of its firing submarine) then a sub contact is generated with a 1nm-radius AoU (remember how “Operation Doolittle” in RSR went horribly wrong?). This helps surface/sub forces under sub attack to respond quickly to the attack even without having positively detected the attacker (and hopefully kills the player “sub sniping” cheat).
 
* No need to close and re-open the DB viewer: The DB viewer window, if already open, now refreshes properly when you click on a different friendly or identified non-friendly unit, or perform any other action which would normally open it (e.g. clicking on a weapon entry on the loadout selection screen). So you no longer have to close it repeatedly in order to browse through various in-scenario units.

* Fixed long-standing bug on “Unit enters area” trigger: it was firing for every moment at which a unit was in the area (so if it was chained to a repeatable event, the event was firing continuously). Now it fires only when the unit actually steps into the area from outside.

* Loadout IDs are now displayed on the aircraft page of the DB viewer.

* Special reserved variable for Event Engine: UnitX. This is a global (scenario-wide) variable representing the active unit responsible for firing any of these triggers: 
– Unit is damaged 
– Unit is destroyed 
– Unit is detected 
– Unit enters an area 
– Unit remains in area 
So whichever unit causes of the above triggers to fire, it gets tagged as “UnitX”. 
You can then use this special variable as a reference in any Lua-mapped function that takes a unit’s name/ObjectID as a parameter (so for example you can dictate “whichever unit enters this area will get assigned to this mission”).

* New logged message type: New Mine Contact. As with all other message types, it can be configured to show (or not) on the message log and also trigger a clock-stopping popup.


* The various altitude parameters (transit altitude, on-station altitude etc.) of a loadout’s mission profile are now enforced for air patrol & support missions. So for example a P-3 on a typical ASW patrol will transit at high altitude (optimum fuel consumption) and once it enters the patrol area it descends to 300m for the actual patrol. Combined with the optional altitude overrides for patrol & support missions, this means that an aircraft’s altitude is now configurable at 3 different levels (controlled by loadout, controlled by mission-level override, or finally overriden by direct player input).

* The “Select new homebase” function now works for any type of unit and group, not just for aircraft and airgroups. So now you can easily switch home bases for deployed ships, submarines, mobile land units etc.

* New Event Trigger type: “Scenario is loaded”. This fires immediately once a scenario is loaded from file and before it is presented to the player/editor, _if_ the scenario current datetime is at or before the “start of scenario” datetime. This enables doing initial setup actions (e.g. randomize unit locations) before the player starts the scenario.  * On the “Add Unit” window, the unit names are now also hyperlinks to the relevant page on the DB viewer:

* Improved cloud and thermal layer indicators on throttle/altitude window. This makes it easier to quickly visualize if e.g. an aircraft is blocked by cloud cover (important for EO/IR sensors, LGB-lazing etc.) or where a submarine stands in relation to the thermal layer (very important for sonar detections, as explained in detail on the manual).

  

* New patrol & support mission feature: Minimum number of units on station. This appears on the mission editor windows as “Try to keep [XXX] units of each class on-station (0 to ignore)”. 
This value can be used to precisely specify the desired number of units (per class) on-station instead of relying only on the 1/3rd rule. However, it can also be _combined_ with the 1/3rd rule, and the biggest value between them takes precedence. 
Let’s look at a concrete example. We have 12 aircraft (same class) on a base and are assigning them to a patrol. 
– If the “minimum number” value is 0 and the 1/3rd rule is not used: The airops crew just flushes out all aircraft at once. 
– If the “minimum number” value is 0 and the 1/3rd rule is used: The airops crew tries to keep 1/3rd of the force on station. 
– If the “minimum number” value is > 0 (let’s say 7) and the 1/3rd rule is used: The biggest value between them takes precedence. So in this case 12/3 = 4 and 7 > 4 so the “minimum number” value wins. If the force was 24 aircraft then the 1/3rd rule would win because 24/3 = 8 and 8 > 7. 
– If the “minimum number” value is > 0 (let’s say 7) and the 1/3rd rule is not used: The airops crew will try to keep 7 aircraft on station. 

* Additional factor for ship gunnery: Ship size. Large ships are very stable platforms for unguided weapon fire (guns, rockets, lasers etc.) even during heavy seas, while smaller craft face progressively more severe aiming problems (even with advanced fire-control directors) as the weather worsens. 

* Modified patrol behavior for aircraft: Once they get a class ID on a contact, if they do not have suitable weapons to engage it, they stop going after it and resume their patrol. This is meant to address the “MPA twirls over hostile surface ship and gets shot down” problem.

* Torpedoes can now be fired to their maximum kinematic range instead of 8nm. So if you really want to e.g. fire a Mk48 out to a target 25nm away because Jane’s says that’s the max range, now you can. (Just don’t blame anyone if the target easily outruns it or if the firing solution at that range is so poor that the torp misses outright). The firing behavior is configurable as a doctrine setting (so it can be applied to side-, mission-, group- or unit-level), and can be set to apply only for manual (i.e. player-initiated) shots only (so the AI remains conservative), both manual and AI shots, or none.

* New Scen-Edit feature: Clone a unit (ie. copy a unit and also copy all customizations of the original). The keyboard shortcut is Shift + CThe only limitaton currently is that modifications to an aircraft’s loadout (extra weapons etc.) are not copied.

* Added option (ON by default) to display the selected unit’s (or identified contact’s) image as a thumbnail under the unit’s name on the “Unit/Contact Status” info panel:  NOTE: The image will appear only if you have downloaded the DB image pack from the WS Downloads page.

* Aircraft returning to base on RTB-Mission Over / Winchester / Manual status now accept course orders (but not if they are on RTB-Bingo). 

* Pressing Ctrl+X now copies the geo coordinates of the map cursor (in decimal form) to the clipboard.

* Includes a large number of new import files by Mike Mykytyn and Jakob Wedman.

* Includes rebuilt and improved versions of all official scenarios. 

* Includes the latest versions of the DB3000 & CWDB databases, with the usual mile-long list of database fixes and additions in direct response to user requests. * You can drag-select multiple facilities, ships, bases or ship groups and access the Air Ops or Boat Ops menu (F6 / F7 hotkey) to display aircraft on all parking facilities.

 

Version v1.06 (Build 624) of Command is currently under final testing and preparation and should appear in public within December.

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