Thunder Run: Assault on Baghdad

[Skybird]

I wanted to post this link in the past, but didn't find the link. Now someone has reposted the link for this real life-video at stealbeast.com:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...&q=iraq+combat (8-9 minutes)

[TteFAboB]

Very interesting.

[Skybird]

http://www.tankmastergunner.com/thunder%20run.htm

This is the story of the real event. It was by far not the smooth affair the medias described it as, but was a hell of a sharp fight, and the US loosing the battle (which took several runs and days in fact) was a very realistic possebility.

The author of that long article is author of the book "Thunder Run" and very much summarizes his own written work in this.

[joea]

Wow what a vid, thanks Skybird, looks like the article will be a good read too.

[ReM]

Some heavy footage indeed.....
what was the guy in the truck thinking?....what a death-wish move...

[Skybird]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/080...537747?ie=UTF8

I reserved this title for a future reading. Excellent reviews.

[ReM]

You might want to check out this link:

http://call.army.mil/products/on-point/ch-6.asp#2

[ReM]

I reserved this title for a future reading

I am reading the book right now....very readable, very compelling stuff...
And a nice complementary read to the SBPPE Thunder run scenario which I will try if I ever get to the point that I kick ass! (instead of having mine kicked)

[Skybird]

Oh, I was engaged in a debate about that scenario just days ago, it gave me plenty of headaches. The AI of SBP is not well equipped to deal with convoys moving under fire. do not expect that scenario to be playable like the real thing. Daskal made a great map, 24 km of highway road through Baghdad, but the oppositon is much tougher than it was in reality, and the Ai messes it up time and again. i finally made it after editing the scenario massively, and moving one platoon at a time, manually, sprint and stop, overwatching the movement of others. That way, I needed not 2.5 but 8 hours or so until I reached the airport. In a way it is a great scenario, but it should be split into to sessions.

Use the ambient battlefield sound file for that one, too!

daskal also made a "Iran Thunder run" scenario, which is a little bit shorter, but ends in tanks engaging massive infantry presence in a dense settlement - which is against all military reason. A tbird scenario I plqayed by him, again a convoy but this time in a twiosted valley canyon, also suffered from the fact that tha AI is not well-equipped for handling these situation - or scenarios when the designer creates a situation that somewhat violates military common sense (like the real Thunder run did!) Daskal makes great maps and sound files, but his scenarios are not making good use of SBP's potentials and do not really succeed in evading it's typical limitations.

Many scenario designers seem to set up opposition levels the player is confronted with that in real life no military commander would even consider for a second to attack all by himself with that limited ressources the designers allow in these scenarios. Such scenarios seem to be gamer's approaches to realistic simulations - it does not work too well in many cases. It's not simply a game.