Operation frenchpoint release

[miles teg 1]

Well said Horrido. Although I should add that the Americans who hate French people are the conservative ones who believe 100% in Bush. They see Bush as divinely inspired by God to fight the evil of Islam (aka-forces of satan) and anyone else who sides with them. They take literally Bush's quote "You are either with us or against us." I could go on and on, at how Bush has mislead the American public on domestic and foreign policy issues, but hellfish is right, that's better left for the offtopic section of the forum. Suffice to say that many Americans like myself appreciate the French and have no problems with them accept for perhaps specific policies that we may disagree with.

Myself, being ex-military, I also think the French military got some really nice weaponry,equipment, and vehicles and have interesting experiences in conflicts around the world.

For awhile I seriously thought about once joining the FFL, but was talked out of it by a few ex-FFL members who said not to try it unless I enjoyed a good beating every so often. It just sounded a little too extreme for me... much more so then U.S. Army basic training/AIT.

Anyhoo... these addons let me live out the fantasy of being a legionaire in the comfort of my bedroom...and without getting shot at for real which is always a good thing.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[hellfish6 7]

For awhile I seriously thought about once joining the FFL, but was talked out of it by a few ex-FFL members who said not to try it unless I enjoyed a good beating every so often.  It just sounded a little too extreme for me... much more so then U.S. Army basic training/AIT.

Anyhoo... these addons let me live out the fantasy of being a legionaire in the comfort of my bedroom...and without getting shot at for real which is always a good thing.    

Same.

[horrido 0]

For thoses who wants to read more about the operations of the french army in Somalia, here is the text that Ran was mentionning: combt experience in mogadishio

It is the story of a combat between the french troops and thoses of Aideed. Something like "Black hawk down" without choppers.

The text is both in French and English. It relates the combat operation against Aideed HQ on June 17th 1993.

-Horrido

[frk19732001 0]

man good job on the info there man

and outstanding job on the vehicles reminded me of the old days in the 1st RHP

[ran 0]

For thoses who wants to read more about the operations of the french army in Somalia, here is the text that Ran was mentionning: combt experience in mogadishio

It is the story of a combat between the french troops and thoses of Aideed. Something like "Black hawk down" without choppers.

The text is both in French and English. It relates the combat operation against Aideed HQ on June 17th 1993.

-Horrido

je t'adore

je suis pas famillier des publications du CDES autres que certains manuels qu'ils émettent ... objectif doctrine est pas mon mag de prédiléction

mais je me souvenais avoir eu un truc de ce genre en mains, en plus y'avais un post sur les forums frenchpoint

[coporal_punishment 0]

well said ran no seriously what did you say

[whisperFFW06 0]

I'll summarize what Ran said by this :

"Horrido, I love you".

There is more underway that it seems

As a french I would like to point that such comments are in no way normal french behaviour

[Ex-RoNiN 0]

Please no French on the forums, the official Forum language is English, or Czech in its designated sections.

other languages are restricted to PM's please

[SPQR 0]

A big difference between US SOF operation vs AÄdid as described by Mark Bowden, and the French operation is that :

1) It was a french rescue mission to give a helping hand to ambushed pakistanese troops, with about 200 men & 50 vehicles.

2) the "retreat" paths were already secured.

3) armored vehicles were used (VAB), supported by 20mm AA gun (able to fire against ground target, including hidden ones in high buildings).

4) AÄdid didn't, at the present time, had the time to study enough his opponents' tactics and planned new tactics against them.

5) sure I'm forgetting others stuffs...

There were choppers, one Puma with 20mm cannon, 2 Gazelles AT HOT and two command & recon choppers (one was a Puma).

French love habits ... Didn't the world know about the "French Kiss"

France, land of greedy people loving all mouth-watering stuffs

[ravendk 25]

enought abt the nuking frog eaters...

I for one look forward to see the Danish Recon units in there mercedes GD along whit french peacekeepers in there P4's

NICE WORK!

[miles teg 1]

Good information.  I'm trying to work on some missions with the Tonal map right now.  One is a peacekeeping mission where you escort a bus full of Tonali civilians to a polling station where they can vote in elections...

But the rebels have other plans.    

One thing I wish is that the Tonal RPG soldiers weren't so accurate with their RPG's.  The VBLs and VAB's often get nailed by RPG's at far distances.  Although one scout car I was in survived a hit by an RPG incredibly in one mission.  It killed my gunner however and my assistant driver jumped out of the vehicle because the wheels were dammaged and it barely moved.  Sadly however, he was killed by enemy gunfire that immediately opened up on him.

I stopped and jumped out taking cover behind the armored car as rebel machine gunners opened fire on me.  I then, with my FAMAS (aimpoint) took careful aim and neutralized 4 of the attackers.  Since I was the recon element, by that time the main force of infantry had arrived after deploying from their VAB.  These men finished off the rest of the rebel forces with only minor injuries and no losses.  

Lessons learned:  

Speed matters:   When conducting recon with light armored wheeled cars, take full advantage of their speed when in close contact with RPG equipped enemy forces.  It was only when I slowed down that a RPG hit my vehicle (or very close to it) and the team suffered casualties.  

Unarmored vehicles:   These should be left at a distance.  If driving even an MG armed jeep, you should avoid close-in firefights with the enemy because you will usually last all of 20 seconds before your vehicle and you and your men are destroyed.   However at long range they can be successfull used in combat against opponents with AK-47s(HD) and SKSs(HD) as they will have a tougher time hitting a fast moving jeep.   The jeep is also good for moving recon forces quickly to an area overlooking a target objective so that you can scout out the enemy positions before ordering the main force to advance on the objective.   From this position a battle strategies can be better formed.  Also supporting sniper's should be taken on such recon teams as they can be critical in providing accurate fire on the enemy as the main force engages the enemy troops.  This results in a whithering cross fire where the enemy troops are too busy fighting the main force to notice the snipers picking them off.   Timing is critical however.  Premature engagement of targets by your snipers will give your position away and will require you to move out in your vehicle to another, safer position before enemy troops converge on your position or begin to return fire with suppressive machine gun fire or artillery.  

Air support:  In this latest mission, we had no air support.  A cannon armed Gazelle or a Puma Pirate would have been very useful.  In past missions the Puma Pirate with its 20mm autocannon was extremely potent in neautralizing enemy gunmen and RPG gunners thus helping to reduce the risk to our armored vehicles.

Mo' firepower:  Armored cars need 20mm autocannon or  90mm low-velocity cannon on them to quickly suppress masses of enemy soldiers. An example of this is the AML-90 armored car, a vehicle proven highly effective in various conflicts that South Africa has been involved in.  The 7.62mm and 12.7mm machine guns currently used on the French vehicles are useful, but they often take too long to suppress large numbers of troops as AI soldiers routinely fail to employ machine guns properly as they concentrate on point targets rather then trying to saturate an area with bullets with sweeping motions (suppressive fire).  Experience using the Minimi on the streets of Tonal leads me to believe that such "sweeping" techniques are highly successful in urban combat as I routinely was able to mow down rebel soldiers as they tried to cross major street intersections in the cities in which we were fighting.  This was done using long bursts of fully automatic fire where I would only pause to see if anything was left moving...and when movement was spotted I resumed saturating the area with suppressive fire until all movement stopped.  

The downside of this is that it causes a risk of friendly fire if friendly troops decide to engage the same target at close range and you misidentify them as enemy soldiers since they are so close to the rebels.   Always know where your troops are.  Binoculars are a must-have item for machine gunners.

Allies are important:  While the government troops of Tonal are poorly trained, they can still provide critical support in terms of shere numbers and in undertaking more dangerous tasks such as frontal assaults.  For critical missions French troops should be used, but the Tonal government forces also have heavy armor in the form of T-55's and BMP-1's that can be effective especially in long range shelling of enemy strongholds or when engaging enemy armor.  Likewise they retain a few Mi-24 Hind gunships which provide overwhelming firepower against the rebels with their rockets and cannon.  In addition in areas defended by enemy 23mm AA guns, the Hind can surivive longer against such defenses and have a greater chance at neutralizing the AA guns.  However in most cases we recommend ground assaults to neutralize such weapons before helicopters are brought in.  

While the term ally may be weak with the Americans, do not

also spurn support from the BAS Rangers and Delta Force soldiers of the US Army.  They and their special operations vehicles can provide critical support in joint special operations missions where their expertise may be needed.  It also may improve relationships between America and France.  

Finally I hope my own Mod team's (The Lost Brothers) Israeli Defense Forces can perhaps serve eventually with these French troops in joint operations to suppress terrorists in the desert areas of Tonal where Al-Qaeda has gained a foothold.  

Overall combat effectiveness of French troops:

I am happy to report that overall the French soldiers and their equipent of the OFrP packs have performed exceptionally well in combat.   I look forward in the future to continue to fight alongside these brave men in our continuing efforts to bring peace and democracy to Tonal.  

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[frk19732001 0]

well said miles teg

i'm very impressed by all the work and details put on the ofrp

addons it looks great i tried them on tonali island against rebels troops armed with their vehicles and they kicked ass i was simulating a quick action of the 2nd REP of remo equiped with VBLs and VABs and the result was no less tha a slaughter of rebel troops of course they were HD tonal rebels

to simulate the real thing but the french troops went in some urban fighting where they cornered rebel troops

the body count was:

-7 FFlegionaires out of 70

-all rebels that were about 90

again good work guys

[SPQR 0]

We had to work hard on VBL armor value to simulate the fact that it is vulnerable against 12.7mm and above calibered weapons, AT-rockets included.

AIs assault rifles and medium MGs don't loose time trying to fire bullets at VBLs, while any heavy machinegunner AIs take immediately the opportunity to disable the recon armored car. The better that could be done with the OFP core.  

So beware of Rebels UAZ & BRDM DSKh, because they will also fire at you   Also Take care of 14.5 MG fire of BTR-60-70-80 'cause they hit hard, don't be caught uncovered...

But as you have are in a far more protected vehicle, it gives you a better chance to survive to an encounter  

Thanks Miles Teg for your report, really pleasant to read  

RavenDK

Quote[/b] ]I for one look forward to see the Danish Recon units in there mercedes GD along whit french peacekeepers in there P4's

I've been training scouting in OFP in this danish GD240, while waiting for testing the P4... a good armed car

After all, they are both of them based on the Mercedes Jeep... (cf BW-Mod/MMP)

[ran 0]

i didn't say i love Horrido, french language has some fine and subtile nuances you see

i was thanking Horrido for the link since it was the thing i mentionned earlier but couldn't find back

[SPQR 0]

We, frenchies, are very "shy", and always laughing

[hellfish6 7]

Will there be a 20mm cannon-armed variant of the VAB? Maybe a VLRA, FL 501 or 20mm mounted on a TRM truck? I'm looking through my copy of French Foreign Legion Operations 1990-2000 by Yves Debay and I'm getting all kinds of great ideas for missions, and there are pics of all these kinds of equipment and uniforms I'd love to see.

[The Frenchman 0]

http://smileyonline.free.fr/images/gif/france/vignette/thumbnails/zoumzoumzeng_gif.gif

I am going to have to remember this smiliey for future reference.

[GoOB 0]

What aircraft does French paratroopers use for parachute deployment? I want to make a few missions with Remo's R.E.P units and possibly his R.P.I.M.A units. And ofcourse your wonderful vehicle pack. And if the plane used isn't in OFP already, how big is the chance that we will see it in the aircraft pack?

[hellfish6 7]

C-130s for sure. I don't know if there are any C-160 Transalls left.

[Ex-RoNiN 0]

C-130s for sure. I don't know if there are any C-160 Transalls left.

What do you think the Germans use

[ran 0]

C-130s for sure. I don't know if there are any C-160 Transalls left.

we still use the good ol' Transalls , they're to be replaced by the A400M

[hellfish6 7]

Wow. South Africa got rid of their Transalls because of safety (and budget) concerns I thought.

[ran 0]

Wow. South Africa got rid of their Transalls because of safety (and budget) concerns I thought.

good mechanics can make wonders ...... well they have to, considering the availability ratio of vehicles in the french army

[miles teg 1]

Aren't C130's also used. I did some quick searches on the web and found various mentions of French C130's used in peacekeeping operations. Are these ever used for airborne infantry drops?

If so it would be a good idea of the mod to perhaps ask Adammo if they can do a retexture of his C130. Hawk's looks a little nicer, but Adammo's is the only one that actually flies well... plus he did a good job on updating the cockpit textures and animations on the cargo door in his 2.0 version. Personally I think that would make sense rather then to create a new C130 from scratch unless the OFrP team wants to make a Transall cargo plane instead.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[horrido 0]

Ran,

ça fait un moment que je n'y était pas allé non plus. Je n'ai d'ailleurs pas lu tout ce qui y est disponible; il y a des choses intéressantes?

For those who want to read more, there are other publications available on the CDES site, here

All the publications are both in French and English.

-Horrido