South africa mod

[justanomad 0]

Hi everyone. Been playing OFP a few months and am blown away by the game. I would like to help, preferably scripting (but I have to learn first) and any info that may be required. I can supply Afrikaans, Portuguese, and Zulu voices. Zulus were never involved in the war, but hey, I'm hundreds of kilometres away from the African languages that took part in the war (probably more than 10 tribal languages). Maybe photos that I can find from people I know. I have a few of Moçambique.

Please excuse me if I indulge in a little background. This is not exaustive, merely a few ramblings.

I live in SA and did my two years national service from 1979 to 1980, and yearly 1 or three month camps thereafter until 1988 (when I refused to do anymore). Due to a childhood neck injury I served as a clerk, so my war was easy. Others were not so lucky if they were sent to the "border" as we called it - the Namibian (then South West Africa) and Angolan border. In the eighties, township violence between different African political factions often escalated into serious violence and mini wars. Also, the police and army, sometimes together, often encircled a township and moved in, thightening the noose, clearing the township of terrorists and munitions. For most infantry men, camps were spent doing township duty, road blocks and so on.

I had no interest in war at the time, considering I was 17 going on 18 when I got drafted, so I'm not a repository of information, but I know two guys who spent many years fighting, one in Rhodesia and SA, the other in Rhodesia. He was envolved in a few raids on my old home town, Chimoio, about 80 kms from the border, about two years after we'd left Moçambique. If you need any info about firefights etc, I'm sure these two guys would be happy to supply. Maybe they've got photos etc.

I'm currently reading a book by Chris Cocks, (what a name) titled, Fireforce,

http://www.amazon.com/exec....reviews published initially by Galago Publishing, then by http://www.covosdaybooks.co.za/

Chris Cocks got drafted into Rhodesian Army in January 1976 and spent 4 years in the army serving in 3-Commando. This book is a must read!!!

You may wonder what Rhodesia has to do with SA. When looking at the SA bush / terrorist war, it may be necessary to consider the whole slow colonial into "liberation" evolution, that climaxed in the sixties and seventies. In the sixties, nearly the whole of Africa was colonially administered. In Southern Africa, Rhodesia and South Africa had white governments and although no longer colonial, they had a whites only policy. Moçambique and Angola were at the time Portuguese colonies.

In South Africa the Afrikaners are the only white ethnic population in Africa. The language was born here, even though the mainly Dutch settlers came from elsewhere starting in 1652. The offspring of English and immigrants from other European countries over the course of the few centuries accounts for the other group of whites, the English speaking "Africans". Reference to "white people" is not done racially, merely to indicate the variety of people. SA has 11 national languages.

The Africans in general, resented the unfair treatment they got, and this led the more radical to embrace terrorism.

To the east is Moçambique and west Angola, still Portuguese colonies in the early seventies, and if I'm not mistaken the last two African countries to relinquish colonialism. Terrorism, backed by the USSR and China, started taking shape, attacking mainly farms and sowing political dissent. In reply, the governments of these 4 countries started sending conscripts into areas of contact and hot spots. The entire war was fought in remote jungles. Towns were occasionely hit with a bomb planted in a restaurant or an office block. In Rhodesia and SA, townships, (were black people lived (they could work anywhere) but needed to live in townships or rural areas or homelands) were often targeted by the military in cleansing ops. The Portuguese colonies did not really have racism and it was bush war.

South Africa's war at the time was mainly to stop insurgents / terrorists from reaching places they could do damage. This meant patrolling South West Africa's border and mostly going into Angola to destroy enemy camps. They even went into Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia, Moçambique, Tanzania and Lesotho to destroy terrorist camps. South West Africa was a protectorate of South Africa since end of 1st World War when it "belonged" to Germany.

Many times the terrorists attacking SA spoke Portuguese as they were from various tribes and or countries. Many were trained in Tanzania, Cuba, China and the USSR. I remember names like APLA, the Pan African Congress (PAC) and MK (umkhonto Usizwe) (I must check spelling) which was the ANC's army. Swapo, headed by Sam Nujoma, now Namibian president. FAPLA from Angola

Cuba joined Angola in fighting SA some time in the late seventies I think. I heard many a rumour that Russian pilots were fighting in Angola and that they were giving the SA Mirages plenty of problems. It was rumoured that the USA and South Africa were helping Jona's Savimbi from UNITA in Angola who was against communism. The USA also helped the FNLA. So you had many different people / groups fighting. SA, UNITA, FNLA against MPLA, Russia and Cuba.

Moçambique has been devasted by more than 20 years of fighting between Frelimo and Renamo from more or less 1975 to 1995. In Moçambique the fighting stopped a few years ago and now the country is quite peacefull, if extremely poor.

Rhodesia became Zimbabwe I think in 1980. It is currently busy with an ethnic cleansing of sorts.

South Africa's bush war stopped some time before or after Mandela was freed in 1990 (I can't really remember) and South West Africa became Namibia in 1989.

The most feared soldier by the terrorists and ourselves were the Recces (Reconnaissance Commandos) These men were of legendary status, often spending months undercover in the bush monitoring terrorist movements and clandestine ops. When I was 15 my girlfriend's brother was a parabat and a recce. I knew him when he had just finished his service (about a year) and he would do a 10km run nearly every night around midnight, after returning from visiting his fiance.

I have to stop now! Will post info as time goes by plus a few pics. Cheers.

LINKS

http://www.netcentral.co.uk/~cobus/

http://www.netcentral.co.uk/~cobus/

http://www.regiments.org/milhist/africacentral/regts/zw-selou.htm

http://www.galago.co.za/

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/17/documents/angola/

http://www.tomfolio.com/bookssub.asp?catid=28&subid=3623

SEARCH : Do a search on google for :

koevoet

cuba angola war

32-Battalion

Rhodesian bush war

Rhodesia

Selous Scouts

South African Special Forces

swapo guerrillas

swapo terrorists

[GoOB 0]

Very interesting read justanomad! I am very fascinated by these Recce troops you mentioned, somehow recon just feels

very exctiting and the people doing it also seem very exiting.

I hope this mod will progress as it would be very nice to see some SA stuff in OFP. And they would be fun to play with on Tonal island aswell.

[Wumpel 0]

wow, I was very excitet as well about this reply!

I found 2 other people who wantetd to start a SA mod and now we are working together! I almost finished the rooikat and begun to work ond the rooivalk (helicopter).

We are actually looking for people who can texture and do models, as well as scripting stuff as mentioned with the ratel!

Well, I don't have much time at the moment, I'm going to write more in a later time

thanks to all

have a nice evening!

[CanadianTerror 0]

@Hellfish6

Rhino 3d is just a modelling program. I know some people who use it for another game and they never got into OFP because they could'nt figure out how to model in Rhino and then transport that to O2.

It might be possible, I just havent tried it myself.

[hellfish6 7]

I think we'll have the Recces covered. I've got several books about them and the Parabats for reference materiel.

As for vehicles, there is a lot of stuff that has actually been made or being made so far that we can use for the South African mod, with permission:

C-130 Hercules

C-47 Dakota

AML-90

T-55 (Some SADF units used captured T-55s in Angola)

Centurion

FN MAG

Puma

Alouette III

Unimog

And probably more that I can't think of right now. I strongly suggest that we use as much of what is available from the community as we possibly can - no sense reinventing the wheel, so to speak.

[Sapper 1 0]

Hi Guys

Great to see that this will be done, I have been in contact with Hellfish6 and will be sending him some photos of current equipment, vehicles and data of SANDF.

Please ask me if you have any requests. I am a officer in the Combat Engineers (Reserves) SANDF.

[hellfish6 7]

Hey guys

I'd like to get working on an island, or at least doing some preliminary work on it. I think I can reasonably simulate kopjes, but I'm wondering where we'd like to see the mod based at. Do we want to do something ala Namibia? Something with Zimbabwe (Mugabe falls from power, UN asks the SANDF to restore order).

Personally, I'd like to make a map resembling Zimbabwe, as it can easily be converted over to a Rhodesian war map if need be. And I think the savannah-like terrain is very representative of Africa as a whole, especially to people who've never been there (like me ).

So, I'm thinking largely flat, reddish brown soil, maybe some dry riverbeds, some patches of scattered trees, rocks... correct me if I'm wrong...

[Wumpel 0]

Hello again!

I was off for some time, had to do some stuff in real life, but I'll continue work as early as it's possible

the rooivalk and the rooikat are coming along nicely and I planed to finish the models (without textureing) this weekend!

[hellfish6 7]

I'm going to have a new website up soon... I hope. We'll have a forum there we can move the discussion to.

[Maddmatt 1]

I've been talking to wumpel. I will be making any missions for the mod. I can also do some particle effects and scripting. We are in need of someone to do our textuers, if you can do textures contact me or wumpel.

@Justanomad, how about you do the voices for us? I also live in South Africa, in Pinetown. What town are you in?

We want to do a modern mod and the war will probably be fictional.

@hellfish6, I think it would be better if you made the island in South Africa, not Zimbabwe or wherever. A map in the bush area with some small villages and another, smaller map with a city (for ideas on what the city should look like look at some pics of Johannesburg(not sure about the spelling,might be Johannesberg), just search in google) and some shanty towns nearby. It would be great if you could do that but just do the planning and basic stuff for now, we can decide on exactly what vegetation and buildings at a later stage as it would be better to create our own.

So how about you be our island maker, hellfish6?

Any one to do textures?

[hellfish6 7]

I'd love to be an island maker, but beware - I'm pretty awful at most everything I do. Ask my ex-fiancee.

I'll give it a go, though. I imagine I'll begin serious work on it starting April. Hopefully the website will be up and running by then.

I did have an idea in mind - conflicts in Southern Africa seem to feature mines pretty prominently, hence the development of so many mine resistant vehicles. Anyone know of a script, or if it's even possible to have mines randomly placed on the maps? Like a .01% chance that any given square meter area will have a mine in it? It would be neat if we could do something like this, maybe integrating the CoC mines or just using the standard BIS mine. Anyway, it's a thought and there'll be a lot of work needing to get done before we have to start thinking seriously about it.

[Maddmatt 1]

Quote[/b] ]I did have an idea in mind - conflicts in Southern Africa seem to feature mines pretty prominently, hence the development of so many mine resistant vehicles. Anyone know of a script, or if it's even possible to have mines randomly placed on the maps? Like a .01% chance that any given square meter area will have a mine in it? It would be neat if we could do something like this, maybe integrating the CoC mines or just using the standard BIS mine. Anyway, it's a thought and there'll be a lot of work needing to get done before we have to start thinking seriously about it.

I can do that, but I think we should discuss those things in places less public.

[Sapper 1 0]

Yes, here in Africa landmines was and are used extensivly, but remember they are not just scattered allover the place but are used tacticaly to achieve certain aims. Therefore for the sake of realism ask an Combat Engineer , how and where landmines are used both for OPForces and OWN forces.

[hellfish6 7]

I meant more like a guerilla's use of mines. I know that the script would probably work best if the mines were placed on roads, trails, and chokepoints, but I thought it might be interesting, if not wholly realistic, to have mines out in the bush as well, to keep players on their toes.

[Maddmatt 1]

I meant more like a guerilla's use of mines. I know that the script would probably work best if the mines were placed on roads, trails, and chokepoints, but I thought it might be interesting, if not wholly realistic, to have mines out in the bush as well, to keep players on their toes.

I could make the placement random but still not in stupid places, all it takes are a lot of modifications to any artillery script. It is very easy to do.

Now will anyone do textures? We still don't have someone for that!

[justanomad 0]

Howzit everyone.  A few pics.  I hope you guys don't mind, if so, please report to moderator so he can delete the pics.

If you don't complain I'll be posting more.

Southern Africa is large and geography and flora is varied.  So you'll have to decide where.  My preference would be for a historically correct mod of a place and time, with missions and events based on what occured, with of course focusing on playability.

But I'm ok for whatever is decided.  I'm thrilled that our distant corner of the planet has a few people interested in it.  Just like the WW2 mods, it may be that many mods flow from this.  I am willing to learn to do anything, though initially I'd prefer to script.  I also don't think that anything of the mod must be "closed".  The development should be much like open source software's dev.

[hellfish6 7]

I finally got off my lazy ass.

Anyone interested in this, please go here:

Bushfires.org

It's our own site, our own registered domain, our own FTP and our own forums. I'm opening it up to some outsiders as well (specifically those who are interested in the region) but by and large this is a website to get this mod off the ground.

Please register on the forums. Anyone expressing interest in joining the team (modeller, texturer, config writer, researcher, etc. - no beta testers or mission makers just yet) should register and I'll get you squared away for the private forums.

I know it's been quiet lately, but Wumpel and I have been talking and we've got at least one model to work with (a Buffel APC), plus the Rookiat and Rooivalk he's been working on.

So stop on by, say hi, and let's get something going.

[Maddmatt 1]

Nice 2 see we are getting off the ground

[hellfish6 7]

I know... sorry.

[Gecko 0]

Hello,

I saw that you are planning an SADF Mod. Last year (after having read Larry Bond's "Vortex" novel) I decided to make my first OFP Addon. And I thought "Why not something noone has done yet?". Result is a SADF R5 assault rifle. It still needs some config tweaking, textures are bad - I'm not an artist - but I think it's not too bad for a first model. If you like I'll try to finish it with better textures and you can use it for your mod.

It's not too detailed (570 faces) now.

bye, Arne

[hellfish6 7]

Hello,

I saw that you are planning an SADF Mod. Last year (after having read Larry Bond's "Vortex" novel) I decided to make my first OFP Addon. And I thought "Why not something noone has done yet?". Result is a SADF R5 assault rifle. It still needs some config tweaking, textures are bad - I'm not an artist - but I think it's not too bad for a first model. If you like I'll try to finish it with better textures and you can use it for your mod.

It's not too detailed (570 faces) now.

bye, Arne

Hi Arne

(I just got your PM, was going to reply to it - honest! )

Vortex is what got me all interested in southern Africa as well. I read it when I was about 12 and it stuck with me.

I'd love to have your R5 in our mod - it would go great with the 44 Para Brigade troops. I can do the config tweaking, but I'm totally lost at texturing.

I'll contact you via email in a little while.