Lost Brothers Syrian Army Pack

[miles teg 1]

You all will be happy to hear that my mod is rapidly working on a Syrian Army pack that will be released in beta very soon.  Its a pretty simple pack (largely using BIS SLA vehicles which have no markings and are identical in color to many Syrian Army units), but it has a custom textured T-72, modified SLA troops (woodland uniform was modified a tiny bit as it was very similar to Syrian woodland cammo) and a Lizard cammo uniform infantry section was created that also has helmet covers in that pattern and that look like a cloth helmet cover (rather then the default metal shine).  

The soldiers are divided into four groups:  infantry (woodland/lizard) and  Commandos (woodland/Lizard).  There is also a tank crewmam and pilot.   All are modified from BIS models, but as you can see from the pics below, we added some content from our old OFP stuff to customize them.

I should also note that before anyone whines about it, the Syrian Army actually DOES use AK-74's (the only Arab army to do so).  If I didn't know any better I'd say that the SLA army BIS made ws patterned after the Syrian military.  lol

Anyways, the pack should be released very soon (as in a few days).    Below are some pics:

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[Clavicula_nox4817 0]

They look pretty cool, man. I have a question you might be able to answer. What is the significance of naming the divisions "Medina"? Baath-Iraq had a RepGuard division named Medina, is it solely a reference to Pre-Islam Mecca..or what? I might be confusing it with the place MOhammad fled to after Mecca told him to GTFO.

[miles teg 1]

Its just a common name for Arab military units. Same with stuff like "Jerusalem Brigade" "Shahid (martrys) Brigade", etc...

In this case however, the names of the units are purely fictional. I need to do more research before I add any permanent units with specific names like we did for our Egyptians in our OFP Lost Brothers Mod. In that mod, the units were based on actual units. For Syria however, information is very tough to come by. We actually had an Egyptian General help us with non-classified info for our OFP mod along with some good open source material for Egyptian units. That was why in our addon pack #3 we added specific Egyptian Marine units and naval commandos.

Hopefully we'll be able to do the same in ArmA with the Syrians and get some good info to make them as realistic as possible.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[Clavicula_nox4817 0]

Okay, makes sense. I can believe the Syrians aren't too open when it comes to their military. Good luck to you, I like the stuff you guys put out, always a unique ground to cover.

[manzilla 1]

They look pretty cool, man. I have a question you might be able to answer. What is the significance of naming the divisions "Medina"? Baath-Iraq had a RepGuard division named Medina, is it solely a reference to Pre-Islam Mecca..or what? I might be confusing it with the place MOhammad fled to after Mecca told him to GTFO.

It has to do with the significance of the city of Medina to the Prophet Mohammad. He had troubles in Mecca, left for Medina, gathered forces and converts there, then he took on the merchants that ruled Mecca and eventually "took control" of Mecca. More or less, Mohammad used Medina as a "base of operations" to ride Mecca from the Merchant rulers(some from his own tribe, Kureysh.)

I can explain this further later tonight or in the morning but unfortunately I have to head out now. It really is a fascinating piece of history. All religion aside, that period of history and the history of Mohammad and the founding of Islam is remarkable.

That is a very, very basic explanation of one of the many reasons that I've heard about. Though it is the most historical, IMHO.

[eagleusa 0]

Great!!

Which country will be released next?

Iran?Saudi Arabia?Or Lebanen?

Eagpt has been peace for a long time

I think Iran is a good choice

And Saudi Arab has many kinds of weapons from Other coutries,it is intesting,too.

[Clavicula_nox4817 0]

They look pretty cool, man. I have a question you might be able to answer. What is the significance of naming the divisions "Medina"? Baath-Iraq had a RepGuard division named Medina, is it solely a reference to Pre-Islam Mecca..or what? I might be confusing it with the place MOhammad fled to after Mecca told him to GTFO.

It has to do with the significance of the city of Medina to the Prophet Mohammad. He had troubles in Mecca, left for Medina, gathered forces and converts there, then he took on the merchants that ruled Mecca and eventually "took control" of Mecca. More or less, Mohammad used Medina as a "base of operations" to ride Mecca from the Merchant rulers(some from his own tribe, Kureysh.)

I can explain this further later tonight or in the morning but unfortunately I have to head out now. It really is a fascinating piece of history. All religion aside, that period of history and the history of Mohammad and the founding of Islam is remarkable.

That is a very, very basic explanation of one of the many reasons that I've heard about. Though it is the most historical, IMHO.

Okay, that's what I had thought.

[miles teg 1]

The only other country planned in the near future is Lebanese units which will mainly be Hezbollah (along with maybe some Lebanese Army units).

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[Inkompetent 0]

Nice units! I love all the alternative middle east stuff you guys making! Can make for some really interesting missions.

Think of possible alternative attacks on the Baghdad nuclear reactor in 1981, Israel-Syrian war and stuff like that.

Keep 'em coming!

[CanadianTerror 0]

Good stuff Miles.

[eagleusa 0]

The only other country planned in the near future is Lebanese units which will mainly be Hezbollah (along with maybe some Lebanese Army units).  

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

Great!!

But Syrians do not have so dark faces

[lone.wolf 80]

Very nice looking units, i am loving the commando's look... Cant wait to see more from ya work...

[miles teg 1]

Yes I know some Syrians have very light skin...like most Arabs they are mixed with all kinds of ethnicities and often have more of a mediterranean look like Lebanese, Turks, and Greeks. Maybe I might mix in a few more faces with lighter skin, but we basically just used a generic dark skinned face pack as a rough approximation until someone who's a better artist makes a good Arab face pack like they did a long time ago for OFP.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[Kristian 47]

does the syrian army use modified US Interceptor OTV vest? ...

I know dude, but it is a NICE retext. I am sure gonna test these out!

[miles teg 1]

Nope...they have the wrong vest, however, the vest they normally wear actually looks similar but is not body armor. It is basically a kinda crude ammo carrying vest that looks more like a photographers vest. Similar vests were worn by the Iraqi Army during the 80's.

But as we get more skilled texture artists hopefully we'll give them more accurate and realistic vests as well as units without vests as others develop such models in olive green (like the Vilas mod is doing which will be a HUGE boon for the community if they are shared), we can overlay our cammo (or vice versa overlay a black and white blend of their uniform over our basic cammo background aside from the boots.

But these are designed as just a basic OPFOR for our Israeli IDF units and as such they are pretty good and are fairly tough enemies. When I get home today I'm going to try and release these units this evening I think. There is just one major bug on the T-72 regarding an inherited skeleton problem where you just have to start the mission twice to get it to work. Not a big deal, but still annoying and it may screw up MP missions. But hopefully someone who knows more about skeleton cfg's will be able to tell me how to fix the bug. Once I learn how to do that, I will make custom cammo jobs on all of the BIS vehicles used currently in this little Syrian addon pack (BMP-2, BRDM-2, URAL truck, UAZ(MG), Mi-17 HIP).

When that bug is fixed, I'll give all those vehicles a similar custom texture job like I did for the T-72 (based upon BIS textures with with a nice cammo overlay).

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[Col. Faulkner 0]

Your Syrian infantry also look remarkably similar to Palestine Liberation Army troops from the 1970s.

[Stewy 1]

Looking great mate, congratulations!

[miles teg 1]

Well the PLO troops from the 70's looked alot the same simply because they used mostly Syrian uniforms and equipment (although some units used old Jordanian stuff).

These days they use a mixture of everything.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[Col. Faulkner 0]

Well the PLO troops from the 70's...

PLA, not PLO fedayeen. The PLA had no connection

with the PLO. The PLA were a regular army formation and

their brigades were attached to Egyptian and Syrian

divisions during the wars of the 1960s and 70s.

[miles teg 1]

Ah...ok...thought you were talking about the Palestinian Authority. At any rate, yeah pretty much all the Palestinian groups were equipped with whatever gear they could get from neighboring Arab countries. So I suppose the gear was dependent on what Army they were attached to during wartime. What is interesting is that the gear has not really changed much since then. Its still the same basic helmets, same basic gear and only slightly different uniforms. In those pics that were posted of Syrian Army units, if you notice in the top picture they are wearing three different uniforms. So its kinda difficult to make all the uniforms worn by the Syrian Army. That's why we're just using a generic woodland uniform that looks pretty close and the Syrian lizard cammo which is accurate (although not as commonly used). The vest is close in color and overall look, but should not look so much like body armor as Syrians rarely use body armor. Usually its just the old photographer type vests that they use. So hopefully eventually we can more accurately texture the vest. We also need to convert the BIS SLA officer into a Syrian officer after I find some good pics of ranks and uniforms of high ranking Syrian officers. As for PLA historic armies,if we ever get our historic stuff converted we might make some.

We have some great historical vehicles that would kick ass in ArmA like our Isherman and M3 halftrack (and Egyptian T-34).

The hard part will be making historical looking Israeli soldiers without body armor.

I was going to release the pack last night, but I got home late and didn't have time..so hopefully this evening I'll get it released as I'm the university right now.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[eagleusa 0]

PLA

It's my coutry's army

People's Liberation Army

[sniper pilot 36]

lol " i need to take a piss so bad"

Yossy's work?

[miles teg 1]

Nah, I made that. lol.

Seriously it sucks SO bad when you're out on an ambush and you have to piss or take a dump.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[Clavicula_nox4817 0]

They're great and everything Miles, but what we *really* need is moar Fremen.

[miles teg 1]

That would kick ass if BIS made a Dune mod. Someone probably could make a Dune mod but it would be hard to simulate a sand worm disappearing back into the sand (not to mention eating people and vehicles). Also there lacks a good hand to hand combat engine for the game. In my opinion BIS would make a HUGE amount of money if they bridged the gap between games like the Total War series (Rome, Shogun, etc...) and FPS games like ArmA. With a game like Arma having a good hand to hand combat engine (like the classic "Die by the Sword"), a good horse riding system, etc... you could create absolutely amazing historical combat system that would revolutionize the gaming industry.

But back on topic... our mod needs some camels.

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>