East Prussia '14 by John Tiller Software - Death by a Thousand Bullets (Part 1 of 2)

One of the most under-gamed theater of operations (Eastern Front, WWI) got the deep and thorough treatment it deserves. East Prussia '14 (John Tiller Software) is an operational/grand tactical war game that I have been waiting for ages.

War in the early machine age was unforgiving, a beast hungry for blood and limb. The firepower was there, deadly as no man have seen before. The tactics to cope with it were neither complete nor ubiquitous.

How Germany ended up fighting a two front war is irrelevant for the landsers, jaggers and dragoons I will be commanding. For them there will be death today, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. Few will see the end of the campaign. Even less will shake off their minds the nightmare of thousands of Russian rifles taking aim at them, just below the bright morning sun.

The initial situation at the Stallupönen scenario of East Prussia '14. The German forces are the grey counters with green and blue details.

Operation Wajbah, Civil War in Iraq - Steel Beasts ProPE, AAR

This AAR is from a fictional custom-made, single player scenario played in Steel Beasts ProPE. No political or moral statement is intended other than the tactics and weapons used in real conflicts here and there. You have been warned, this one hits home in time and space closer to real life. 

The plan for breaching through the minefield is quite simple: our tank platoon (1 M1A1 and 2 T-72M1s) will move to the edge of the obstacle and engage enemy threats to our breach team. Once the breaching team is through the minefield, the tank platoon will cross through the breach and engage any remaining targets around the objective. Having achieved the destruction of such targets, our soft units (infantry in trucks) will move up to clear the objective.

Tempo: Firing the Right Stuff at the Right Time

If this post entitles me to the Leonhard's fan-boy tag, so be it.

Today, a quick note of Leonhard's concept of tempo using ArmA 3 and DCS Flaming Cliffs as examples.

Operation Wajbah, Civil War in Iraq - Steel Beasts ProPE, Briefing

This AAR is from a fictional custom-made, single player scenario played in Steel Beasts ProPE. No political or moral statement is intended other than the tactics and weapons used in real conflicts here and there. You have been warned, this one hits home in time and space closer to real life. 

The empty desert and the roads that cut their monotony. The chill of the morning and the distant sounds of men putting out cooking fires and readying for battle. The smell of gas and the massive puffs of smoke from armored vehicles heating up their under-maintained engines. A weary Iraqi officer, veteran who by now knows more war than peace, takes a stab at the younger corporals' kit, divesting him of almost everything but his gun, BDU, ammo and water.

IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad

Back in 2001, I never thought that the very words "IL-2 Sturmovik" would become some sort of toxic asset for a flight simulator title. But that's the way it goes after the vacuum of leadership generated by the retirement of Oleg Maddox from the entertainment business.

IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad, was kind of rescued from demise by 777 Studios, the guys who made Rise of Flight. The Rise of Flight franchise has the ingredient I hate the most in my simulators: optional DLCs. And sure enough you can see 777's marking in the two IL-2 Sturmovik editions now featured at Steam. But I am digressing.

To End All Wars - Preview

It was 11 a.m. on a fine summer morning in Sarajevo, June 28, 1914, when the driver of an automobile carrying two passengers made a wrong turn. The car was not supposed to leave the main street, and yet it did, pulling up into a narrow passageway with no escape. It was an unremarkable mistake, easy enough to make in the crowded, dusty streets. But this mistake, made on this day and by this driver, would disrupt hundreds of millions of lives and alter the course of world history.

Rangers and Engineers at Gela - Combat Mission Fortress Italy Scenario Now Available

The scenario is now available at the repository.

You can download it from the link below. Version 3.0 is required.
http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=314&func=fileinfo&id=3293

Cheers,

DCS: F-86F Sabre (Beta)

An icon of air combat from the dawn of of the missile age is now available at the DCS store.

Flying and aiming the guns of the Sabre with those airspeed-hungry swept 5:1 wings will prove a challenge for many air jockeys out there.

Belsimtek, a third party developer, is running circles around everybody else in the DCS World. With two helicopters already out (UH-1H Huey and the Mi-8MTV2 Magnificent Eight), they are now in open beta with their first fixed wing project.

Rangers and Engineers at Gela - New Combat Mission Fortress Italy Scenario

Combat Mission Fortress Italy has been upgraded to version 3.0, which brings the game into the Red Thunder standards. With this upgraded installed I decided to finish up a couple of scenarios I had in the hard drive for quite a while now.

Col. Darby just commandeered this AT gun from the beach head and saved the day.

Move, Strike, Protect - ArmA 2 AAR

In what is likely the most compact description of combat, J. F. C. Fuller distinguished three essentials in fighting: move, strike and protect.

It is when one of the essentials is missing that you value it. And adapt to the shortcoming.