17-06-2005 01:28									#1
	WIP: The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan 1979 -1990 Enter the AD-FREE zone

Hi all. It's time for me to announce that I'm progressing quite well with my current bi-annual scenario project. As some of you are no doubt aware, communism was working on an Afghan scenario, but I haven't seen any sign of him since the forum crash.

Impatient as I am, I decided to dust off some of the stuff he did and base a scenario around it. Only a few days into it however I decided I'd take a radically different approach to what he was working towards. communism was going to have a separate Soviet civilization and an Afghan People's Republic allied to them. I was never the biggest fan of alliances - lots of AI units clogging up your transport network and taking up time between turns gets on my nerves.

I solved this by having a joint USSR/Democratic Republic of Afghanistan civilization under Babrak Kamal, with Soviet units only available via events. The mujahideen don't really feature in the first few turns of the scenario; it starts off at the very beginning of the Afghan war, 25th December 1979. You'll be expected to storm Kabul, kill Hafizullah Amin and finally defeat any remaining PDPA forces loyal to him to take control of the country. Amin certainly won't go down without a fight! The mujahideen will be trying to do the same however, so it's a race against time!

I'll post a few screenshots of what I've done below. If anyone has any comments/suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

	17-06-2005 01:40									#2
	24th December 1979, just before midnight Support Apolyton

The quiet of the hot Kabul night has been shattered these past few days by the increased frequency of Soviet flights into Bagram airport. Amin has grown suspicious of the increased traffic and has relocated the offices of the president to a more defensible position. On the ground however, as you can see from this screenshot, all is calm. Nevertheless 2 PDPA infantry units guard the approach from Bagram into the city centre of Kabul.

It's boring duty, but safer than fighting the rebels in the countryside. After all the Soviets are fellow comrades in the worldwide struggle for socialism! What threat could they pose?

Attachment: kabul.jpg
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	17-06-2005 01:45									#3
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But wait! Reports are coming in of large movements of Soviet units, just across the border from Mazar-i-Sharif! It's estimated that 3 Soviet motorized divisions are poised to cross the border, supported by 4 reserve divisions in the southern Soviet Union. What could this mean?

Attachment: mazar-i-sharif.jpg
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	17-06-2005 09:18									#4
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My my my, you see to have made quite a bit of progress there already. I love the colouring of the Soviet tanks personally.

Please, allow us the privillage of more screenshots good sir! Also, did you make those city graphics yourself?

	17-06-2005 11:52									#5
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@ our_man: I still have some funky coloured Late-cold war units Chris/sarsstock made for my Oktyabr scenario - I might as well share them with you PM me if you want to see them

	17-06-2005 20:09									#6
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Personally I love the glimering shine on the units as they are. They have the kind of texture that I would love to learn to apply to units. Did you colour those units yourself or get them from a pre-existing unitset?

Last edited by Sarsstock on 17-06-2005 at 21:39

	17-06-2005 23:01									#7
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Thanks for the comments so far. None of the graphics are mine - the extent of my alterations are putting a shield on them are changing their orientation from left to right.

The Soviet tanks are taken from Pablostuka's Morroco scenario. The great cities are by Stefan Härtel and are taken from his 'Fire & Roses' scenario, as are the suburbs (railroads). I don't think I've seen any other city set that creates such an accurate image of Central Asia.

OK, another screenshot. I can't really give another 'in-game' screenshot as I don't want to reveal the location of the Mujahideen bases, and there's not a lot of action on the ground from the start due to the precarious situation of the Afghan army (expect an account of the Soviets treachery in the readme file) and the Soviets need to maintain the element of surprise. Below however is what I hope will demonstrate the reinforcement concept of the scenario. From USSR Air Force the player can either invest their resources into building up an Afghan air force, or they can call in more Soviet gunships (request Mi-24) or recon craft (request MiG-25).

P.S. None of the units displayed in this screenshot are actually buildable during the scenario - they'e just there to show up in the pedia. This isn't always the case, but the rule of thumb is that if it has a Soviet shield, it's unbuildable.

Attachment: research concept.jpg
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	18-06-2005 00:08									#8
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Nice to see this O-M

	18-06-2005 13:16									#9
	Re: 24th December 1979, just before midnight Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: Originally posted by our_man The quiet of the hot Kabul night

Just to be pedantic, but Kabul is anything but hot in December

	18-06-2005 15:10									#10
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quote: Just to be pedantic, but Kabul is anything but hot in December

Er... Artistic licence?

	18-06-2005 16:21									#11
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Kabaul in winter is probably warmer than Glasgow in summer though.

	18-06-2005 17:46									#12
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I know which of the two I'd rather visit.

Stumbled across this on Afghan weather at Burke Chair in Strategy. Don't know much about the site. Looks like a think-tank of Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst who hasn't been afraid to criticize the US-led effort in Iraq.


(http://wintercenter.homestead.com/photokabul.html)

	18-06-2005 17:57									#13
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quote: Originally posted by Case Kabaul in winter is probably warmer than Glasgow in summer though.

Pff!

Obviously you have not experienced the disgustingly clammy Scottish summer!

Sweltering here in Caledonia, but under the usual iron grey sky!

	19-06-2005 04:52									#14
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Will these Hinds do?

I had posted a hind ages ago, so I felt it needed a retouch...

The leftmost is more realistic for the Soviets
The rightmost is in Afgan/Indian camo.

Mig 25R in the works...

Attachment: tanelorn new mi24d hind.gif
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	19-06-2005 05:50									#15
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sweet!,
a new mig25 soon?

	19-06-2005 06:10									#16
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Not really. I just replaced the radar with a recce-nose thingy and tried to fix the copkit postiton on the old Foxbat interceptor. This is supposed to be a recon Mig 25RB.
You have painted some very nice camos of it too Erica, IIRC,

Attachment: tanelorn mig 25r.gif
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	19-06-2005 08:43									#17
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Sounds fun, OM! I like the concept. Perhaps the Soviets might also use spies to win over some of the Afghan cities and units? Any chance it'll be done in Test of Time?

	19-06-2005 14:33									#18
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quote: Sounds fun, OM! I like the concept. Perhaps the Soviets might also use spies to win over some of the Afghan cities and units? Any chance it'll be done in Test of Time?

With regard to spies: at the moment I've decided that only the mujahideen will have them. Soviet spies being used against mujahideen camps would create problems; I don't want to give too much away with regard to what I've done for their cities. I'll just say that there was a rather neat trick you used in Prince of Darkness that I'm recycling.

Besides, the entire softly, softly approach wasn't really a feature of Soviet policy in Afghanistan after 1979. No, gunship diplomacy was the diplomatic weapon of choice AFAIK.

I'm hoping that the AI spies (Pakistani ISI agents) will stick just to sabotage mission and poisoning water supplies - if they start stealing technology I'll have to start reconsidering their use.

ToT? You really are the foremost proponent of this platform , but I can't see me making this for ToT. Two reasons: 1) I still use the in-game editors for 75% of scenario creation & 2) I don't know enough about the advanced ToT functions to know how my scenario can benefit (if at all) from them. I'll concentrate on making a MGE version and if I'm not too burned out afterwards I'll consider collaborating with someone more experienced to port an enhanced version over to ToT.

quote: Will these Hinds do?

They look great tanelorn.

	19-06-2005 17:46									#19
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If you are going to use spies in a fragile MGE scenario, there are a couple of things you might want to take account of...

1: You probably know this anyway, but there can only be one "Spy" type unit in the game. You could have a dozen "Diplomat" types, but only ever one Spy.

2: If you fear the accursed AI will try to ruin the scenario by stealing technology (and it will, just out of spite...), you might as well do what you can to limit the possibility. When you've placed every city on the map, a good idea might be to meticulously go through each city, and use a diplo/spy unit to steal a tech from it. It will eliminate the possibility of tech steals by "Diplomats" altogether, and will lessen the chance that "spies" will be successful too...

Last edited by Tigey on 19-06-2005 at 17:53

	19-06-2005 19:01									#20
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quote: 2: If you fear the accursed AI will try to ruin the scenario by stealing technology (and it will, just out of spite...), you might as well do what you can to limit the possibility. When you've placed every city on the map, a good idea might be to meticulously go through each city, and use a diplo/spy unit to steal a tech from it. It will eliminate the possibility of tech steals by "Diplomats" altogether, and will lessen the chance that "spies" will be successful too...

This is a good idea, and one I'm giving serious thought to implementing. The only thing I need to know is if the AI 'obeys' this rule i.e. just because the human player can't do it, it doesn't mean the AI can't...

	19-06-2005 21:00									#21
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You can do that with CivCity.

Just "checkmark" the appropriate box.

	21-06-2005 00:56									#22
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Late in the war the Soviets made heavy use of the Su-25, so maybe you should have one of them.

Also, one question- why do the cities in one of the screens have Chinese flags?

Second, maybe the motorized divisions should have a different graphic than a 1940's division? Maybe the BMP1 or their wheeled APC's would be a more time appropriate choice?

	21-06-2005 03:04									#23
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2 su-25's, the original one by fairline, with a few tweaked pixels, and a reskinned one,

Attachment: su-25s.gif
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	21-06-2005 03:24									#24
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quote: Originally posted by GePap Late in the war the Soviets made heavy use of the Su-25, so maybe you should have one of them. Also, one question- why do the cities in one of the screens have Chinese flags? Second, maybe the motorized divisions should have a different graphic than a 1940's division? Maybe the BMP1 or their wheeled APC's would be a more time appropriate choice?

All taken care of.

I already have this stuff in - Request Su-25 requires you to research Request Mi-24 (think of it as the Soviets not deploying the Su-25 until they realize that the Mi-24 is not up to the task.

The Chinese flags are a placeholder until I can design a PDPA flag.

The motorized divisions represent the older Soviet designs, which at this stage were really showing their age. My sources indicate that the BTR-70 and BMP-2 didn't show up in Afghanistan until 1980. BTR-70s start appearing for the USSR after turn 1, but you have to 'Request BMP-2' from military command.

I'll see if I can post the unit graphics tomorrow.

	21-06-2005 03:47									#25
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when did the bmd-2's start appearing,
i'll try to do a desert camo bmd-2, as well as giving desert camo to a number of other units,

	21-06-2005 08:09									#26
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Looks cool, wish I had the time to help.

	21-06-2005 19:58									#27
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BTR-50 APC's would be a better choice for the motorized division,

	21-06-2005 20:00									#28
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hmmm, i attached the wrong one

Attachment: btr-50.gif
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	21-06-2005 22:20									#29
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quote: i'll try to do a desert camo bmd-2, as well as giving desert camo to a number of other units

Thanks Erika, I might take you up on that.

Here's the current units.gif in case anyone thinks I'm omitting any important units or that they can improve the graphics. If you want me to clarify what a particular unit is meant to be, ask.

AFAIK BMD-2's were used at the beginning of the invasion. The VDV start off with a few of them in the scenario.

	21-06-2005 22:24									#30
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Forgot to attach:

Attachment: units.gif
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