Scenarios

We already have a wide variety of scenarios available for testing.  There are several broad types, depending on the Opfor and the situation. Current and planned scenarios include; defense (static and mobile), delaying action, advance to contact, meeting engagements and offensive ops. Likely Opfors  vary from rag tag militias with armed (but not armored) vehicles (think Somalia.) At the high end we have Soviet style mech formations using the latest 2nd rate gear like (T-90s or loaded T-80s, or even Western MBTs.  We will use fairly small scenarios (company size) initially, just to get a sense of the impact of various new systems. 

Although we call the .tac  files 'scenarios', to the TacOps game engine they are actually 'saved game' files (i.e. they have a file extension of '.tac').  Thus to load them you need to first select the 'Saved Game' radio button in the initial TacOps game selection window.

 To use the Team Trackless saved game files, you also need to have the file titled  Teamtrac.sce (also sometimes titled as 'Team Trackless 001.sce') in your TacOps folder.  This is the actual Team Trackless scenario file.  When the TacOps game engine is told to load one of the Team Trackless saved game files ending in '.tac', it will automatically search for the actual Team Trackless scenario file.  If the game engine can not automatically find 'Teamtrac.sce' or 'Team Trackless 001.sce', then it will put up a file finder dialog asking you to manually locate the file.

Mac users, see the bottom of the file for special instructions.

Pick whichever scenario that strikes your fancy, play it and report your findings.

This is the OPORD / Designer notes for TeamTrackless Test 1. 

Test 2 is the Medium Battalion against a Motorized Regiment. This is taking a long time to set up. It will be on the same maps that the Test 1 scenarios are on. (Map 001 and 911 (NTC).

Test 3 is a movement to contact between either the Medium Recon Squadron or a medium infantry battalion against the MR Brigade Recon company and an advance guard. The only maps that have the room for this scenario are at the NTC.

This is the Designer Notes / OPORD for Test 3:  Movement to contact.

Test 3 red overlay. Test 3 blue overlay.

Tests 2 and 3 will require a table that prompts the solitaire player with artillery targets and timetables and routes for moving follow on forces, which have to all be placed on the map at startex in view of the limited terrain available.

Test 4 is a series of special situations. Tests 4a and 4b have a Mech Team/Medium Company attempting to break into a town and extract a surrounded Airborne Infantry Platoon, much like in Mogadishu. It is pretty challenging with the forces presented, but can be done. This will require TACOPS 3.0 for the map.

Test 4c and 4d are going to be an airfield defense which contrast a unsupported airborne battalion versus an airborne battalion plus a Medium company against a company + on the airfield and an arriving advanced guard battalion in BTR-80 or BMP.

The 4f,g,h  scenarios cover convoy escort.

Designer notes for the three scenarios above. 

TF Gallagher - Team Trackless Variant - No engineer support.  

Player may use the UAV and the 3 mine fields from Blue Optional Units to simulate scatterable mines (FASCAM and Volcano).  In the Engineer AAR,  only the FASCAM minefield was used.  Other than that, follow the in game documentation. Works best if placed in the TF Gallagher folder in TACOPS.  Requires TACOPS 3.

Dug in version of TF Gallagher

This is the dug in version.  Two minefields are already laid.  THe player can use the FA minefield and the UAV.  Place in the TF Gallagher folder.  In this variant, all vehicles are dug in.

Basic TF Gallagher Scenarios 

The main advantage of this one is that it is against the computer AI, so that the player doesn't have to play both sides.  It is quite a challenge.  The scenario is a movement to contact. One Company, with the battalion CMD group is in the north and two companies are in the south in column.  The blue objective is to make contact and try to attrit the enemy so that the force ratio is less than 2:1.  If the player is good he can get it down to less than 1:1.

 It has two versions.  One is a trackless (Lavs) and the other is tracked (M113/AGS).

Future Scenario

Convoy escort  typically belongs to MPs, but was done in Viet Nam with the 11th ACR, improvised gun trucks (the most interesting of which had M113 hulls on the back of 5 tons), and MP Commando V100 armored cars. There will be ambushes and such strewn through the convoy route for the convoy to contend with.

We are toying with another pair where there is some sort of link up between US Army forces from an airhead with USMC beaches in an beachhead, the objective of which is to secure a facility for the fly in of heavy forces.

We are, of course, open to other suggestions for scenarios and encourage others to develop them.

The protection of an airhead from an enemy heavy force would be another.

These are made with the retail version of TACOPS 3.0 but are compatible with the demo version on the battlefront.com web site.  Note that there is a new demo available that will handle version 3 data. This new demo was posted just before Christmas, and those with the older demo have to download the new one. 

Mac Users

Mac users may have trouble loading Team Trackless into TacOps 3.0 (Mac version). The Mac internal 'Finder Type' field for these files probably gets set to something that TacOps can not understand during the download process. The Mac version of TacOps expects PC saved game files to have Finder Type fields of either 'TEXT' or '????'. When you download these files using Microsoft Explorer the Type field ended up being 'BINA' - probably because Explorer has a mind of it's own  Thus the TacOps file finding dialog refuses to display them as loadable files.

If you have ResEdit and know how to use it, you can easily change the Type fields in these files.

Run ResEdit.

Select the File - Get File/Folder Info menu item.

Select the TacOps PC saved game file.

Change the 'Type' field from whatever it is to '????'.

Save the file and quit ResEdit.

TacOps Mac should now show the PC saved game file in its file finding  window.

Or you can download a Mac .sit file containing the .tac files here