With the Arma2 community continuing to deliver great cold war add-ons, here is another update of the add-on database. New in the air are SCAJolly's RAF Phantom FGR-2 in various (squadron) liveries and Foxtrop's Argentine FMA Skyhawk A4B / A4C's.

Cold war RAF Phantom FGR-2 from 43Sqn over Schwemlitz (Arma2)

British paras with their maroon berets from the CWR2 BAF add-on (Arma2)

BAOR's CRV(W) FV721 Fox platoon (Arma2)

On the ground, we have Trouble's CRV(W) FV721 Fox recce vehicles and para and marine berets for the Cold War Rearmed² - British Armed Forces Expansion, by CWR² Team.

With a little bit of scripting, the CWR² BAF add-on allows you to recreate the 29Cdo RAR batteries from the Falklands campaign. PlannedAssault has these units ready to use in its unit database, handling all the configuration and scripting for you.

29Cdo RAR battery firing, with CWR2 BAF marines (Arma2)

Cold war Royal Marines advancing (Arma2)

FMA Skyhawk A4-C (Arma2)

Enjoy,

William

"Cannot find maneuver space to execute a coordinated attack...". If PlannedAssault fails to generate a mission, it most frequently is for this "lack of maneuver space" reason. In case of eight 4-tank platoons being asked to attack through a single valley in Takistan, it's hard to blame the mission planner. However, in some other cases, the planner wasn't seeing all the options available.

Form-up position candidates for unit Hotel

Checking form-up positions for crossing routes

CWR2's M2A2 Bradley in combat (Arma2)

I've just updated the planner behind PlannedAssault with a new set of algorithms to identify and select the most promising form-up positions and avenues of attack. The new approach takes into account more candidate form-up positions which also have higher quality. It balances multiple prongs in a joint attack better. This improvement applies to all supported games and simulators, from Arma1 to Arma3, Iron Front and any VBS.

And, most important, it is better at finding maneuver space. It is successful more often based on off-line runs against 100s of your missions.

In the first two images above, you'll get a glimpse of the new approach. The image on the left shows potential form-up positions for combat unit Hotel and its transport (not shown), along with course avenues-of-approach to the objective. The image in the center illustrates a sanity check performed when picking form-up positions for multiple units; when a combination of form-up positions leads to units crossing each other towards the form-up, this combination is rejected.

Column of CWR2's new T-64s and BRMD-2s (Arma2)

A CWR2 OH-58/AH-64 hunter killer team (Arma2)

CWR2 SAS engaging P82 Pucara with Stinger (Arma2)

This update also brings a few new (Cold War era) units to the unit database. Ready for inclusion in your mission are new additions to the Cold War Rearmed 2 (CWR2) add-on: the M2A2 Bradley IFV, the OH-58 Kiowa scout helicopter, and Warsaw Pact T-64 tanks and the BRDM-2 family of recon/HQ vehicles.

Also new is the Argentine FMA IA-58A Pucara by Foxtrot, which combines nicely with the CWR2 UK forces.

Enjoy,

William

With the new Arma3 alpha being released, here is the ability to generate Arma3 single-player missions right from your browser.

PlannedAssault supports infantry teams (including diver teams starting at sea), AI teams mounting and dismounting transports, AI mortar units, AI gunships and transport helicopters. Infantry teams are available in different sizes, and customized differently (plate armor and helmet carrying assault troops as well as cap and backpack wearing light patrol units).

Automatically generated briefing (Arma3)

Attack at dawn (Arma3)

Heli insertion (Arma3)

But... All of this comes with a big warning: Arma3 is 'alpha' for a reason: it needs testing, bug finding and -fixing. Currently in need of improvement are the automatic vehicle placement (trucks rolling over upon spawning in 'formation' on a slope) and vehicle AI (trucks getting stuck, helicopters not progressing to next waypoints).

MH-9 carrying infantry fire team (Arma3)

Ifrit and team leader scanning (Arma3)

Frogmen insertion (Arma3)

I'm supporting Arma3 this early to help test Arma3 thoroughly. I'm trying to keep up with the development branch. If it is your purpose to test Arma3, then PlannedAssault will help you. Otherwise, you're better off with PlannedAssault generating missions for your Arma2 or Iron Front while Arma3 gets rid off its rough edges.

AI diver team ingressing stealthily (Arma3)

AI crewed mortar with hostile gunship overhead (Arma3)

OPFOR hit by AI mortar strike (Arma3)

As the screen shots above show, there is a lot to like in Arma3: the weather, the infantry animations, kit customization, the built-in configuration viewer, and the use of well understood file formats for terrain (I just need help parsing the new road format).

Enjoy,

William

The database has been cleaned up, removing some inconsistent unit data that was causing 'We're sorry - something went wrong' errors during mission creation with certain add-ons (notably CWR2 for Arma2CO).

William