Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Crossroads

Now with the Middle East release date out in the open, and a couple of months still to go, time to dust up that old Divided Ground one more time and to enjoy a set of Chinese Farm scenarios (eight, in fact) by Alan R. Arvold:

One of the big battles of the 1973 Yom Kippur War was the battle of Chinese Farm. Yet the game Divided Ground did not have a scenario for it though it certainly deserved one. As it was a Chinese Farm scenario was being designed for the game when it was in development, but as is well known the development was cut drastically short as Talonsoft wanted to get the game out before they went under.

What was left in the game was the map that was developed for the scenario and two scenarios that were quickly made, one being a test scenario that was used to test out the game system, and the other being the Botzer scenario where the Egyptian 25 th Armored Brigade gets destroyed.

That’s not very exciting if you ask me. Well I am going to change that now. In this set are eight scenarios dealing with the Battle of Chinese Farm. Each deals with a day or night phase of the four day battle. Each scenario is complete and has its own victory conditions. The scenarios are not linked in a campaign and thus the outcome of a scenario does not affect the set up or conditions of the next one on the list. Each scenario uses a common mapsheet and the order of battle for each scenario comes from a master order of battle for the entire series.

Also included in this set are the revised versions of the scenarios “The Most Terrible Night” and “Across the Purple Line”, both by Al Sandrik, which can be found on the Games Depot website.

Get them from here: LINK


I don't own Divided Ground so any issues with the files please report here.

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ORIGINAL: Crossroads

Everyone, I am please to announce the availability of another set of great Divided Ground scenarios by Alan R. Arvold:

DESIGN NOTES FOR “INTO THE VALLEY OF TEARS THEY RODE”

By Alan R. Arvold

Back when I first got the game Divided Ground, one of the first scenarios that I played was “Valley of Tears”. I found the scenario to be intriguing but was plagued with some historical inaccuracies. I also tried the linked campaign series for both sides of the 73 War up in the Golan and again found the scenarios in them filled with inaccuracies. I then resolved to correct these inaccuracies and make the Valley of Tears scenarios more historically accurate. But first I had to do some research on the subject. I found that there were six separate battles over four consecutive days, although some histories tend to blend these battles into three or four. Another factor was getting the equipment and vehicles right for each side. Divided Ground does have some inaccuracies in its orders of battles for the various sides, despite the work of various gamers in improving them over the years with numerous patches.

They can be downloaded here: LINK.

I don't unfortunately own Talonsoft's Divided Ground, so should you observe any issues with files please report here.

Again my thanks to Alan for sharing his work with the community!

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ORIGINAL: Crossroads

And here's another set of Divided Ground scenarios by Alan R. Arvold:

DESIGN NOTES FOR BATTLE OF JERUSALEM 1967

By Alan R. Arvold


When Divided Ground came out there were a bunch of unfinished scenarios in the game. One of these was the Battle of Jerusalem 1967. Like the others it had a rather well done map, but unlike the others it also had a partially complete order of battle. Of course there was no scenario per say, but parts of the map were used for two smaller scenarios, “Assault on the Ancient City” and “Hill of Evil Council”. Still there was a need for a scenario for the battle of Jerusalem and I finally got around to doing it here.

Because the actual battle lasted for three days and thus could not be presented in a single scenario, it was necessary to break it down into four separate phases, with a scenario for each. Before discussing the four scenarios I will first discuss the map and the order of battle.

They can be downloaded here: LINK

Again my thanks to Alan for sharing his work with us!

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ORIGINAL: Crossroads

Great news, Middle East 1948-1984 has now been officially announced! Wish us luck!

Meanwhile, those of you who've still got the Divided Ground install, here's four new scenarios by Alan R. Arvold for your playing pleasure. My thanks to Alan for sharing his work with the community!

From his design notes:

In the game Divided Ground, there is a scenario entitled “Red Sheet”. It is about the initial battle for town of Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip. Like all of the scenarios in Divided Ground it was done in a hurry and without much research into the actual battle.

In my program to update the Divided Ground scenarios I came upon “Red Sheet” and found a flawed product. Oh the scenario set up generally follows the historical one, but the unit designations for the Arabs were way off. Not only that, I also found that there were four separate engagements to take the town during the first three days of the 1967 War.

Instead of just up dating the original scenario, I decided to expand it into four separate scenarios, one of each engagement.


Again, I don't have the game so any issues or observations please post here. Enjoy!

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DESIGN NOTES FOR THE BATTLE OF BIR LAHFAN
By Alan R. Arvold

In Divided Ground there is a scenario entitled “Capture or Death”. It is about the battle of Bir Lahfan, but is a very poor scenario at best. Like most of the other original scenarios in the game it was done in a hurry in order to complete the game for a moved up release date. As a result several mistakes were made and the scenario does not really portray the battle as it really happened. So some changes were in order and I intended to make them. Therefore I have decided to divide the battle into three separate engagements, thus requiring three different scenarios.

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DESIGN NOTES FOR THE BATTLE OF JIRARDI PASS
By Alan R. Arvold

One of the scenarios in Divided Ground on the 1967 War in the Sinai is “Running the Gauntlet”. It’s about the contested run through Jirardi Pass by elements of the Israeli 7th Armored Brigade on June 5, 1967. Actually there were three run-throughs, two which occurred during the daylight hours and the other which occurred that night. As was the case with all the other original scenarios in the game, this scenario was done in a hurry and as a result, was full of inaccuracies. I originally was going to correct the one scenario, but then realized it would be better to depict the three run-throughs in separate scenarios.

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From Design Notes:

If Divided Ground can be faulted (and it certainly has for many things) it is for its absence of a scenario for the battle of Rafah Junction in 1967. This was a critical battle at the beginning of the Six Day War and the Israelis needed to win it and win it fast if they wanted to carry the war to its conclusion. One would think that its inclusion in the game would have been mandatory and it probably would have been if the game’s development had not been cut abruptly short. Still there was a need for this scenario and I finally got
around to doing it.

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Design Note:

Included in this collection are five post war scenarios, all hypothetical, plus the three revised Bootcamp scenarios that came with the game.

Of the five post war scenarios, two originally came with the game, two came as part of the Patch 1.2 for the game, and one was an independent scenario from Games Depot.

All have been heavily revised by the author from their original form.

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From Design Notes:

1956

Back when I first got Divided Ground, one of the first scenarios that interested me was “Adan Takes Abu Agheila …again”. To be honest the scenario was not very good. It only portrayed part of the battle. I wanted something bigger.

I found in the game a bigger mapsheet for the whole Abu Ageila area, but no order of battle or scenario to go along with it. Obviously a bigger scenario was going to be done but was not before Talonsoft went out of business. Left with just a mapsheet, I took up the challenge and decided to make a scenario for the whole battle.


1967

Having done the scenario for the battle of Abu Ageila in 1956, it seemed only natural to also do a scenario for the battle of Abu Ageila in 1967. This was easier said than done. For one thing this was a night battle which made things a little bit more complex. Another thing was that the opposing forces were larger this time on both sides, thus making this a bigger scenario.

There was a lot of information on this battle, but the unit designations and, for the Egyptians the commanders’ names, were very hard to obtain as both sides in this war are being very secretive about this matter, even to the present day 38 years later. Still I could not pass up the challenge of making this scenario.

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From Design Notes:

The scenario “Crisis of Overconfidence” is another example of originally planned big scenario that was abruptly cut short due to the time constraints caused by an accelerated release date. As a result, a small scenario was quickly formulated that only used a portion of the big mapsheet. To make matters worse, the Egyptian order of battle was small and only contained tank and anti-tank units, enough to destroy the Israeli force.

The Israeli force, the ill-fated 190 th Armored Battalion, was set up on the road that it historically traveled down to its doom. The scenario was designed so the historical outcome was the only possible outcome. In other words, it was a boring scenario to play as the Israelis.

I decided to change this and make it a more challenging scenario for both sides. But I also wanted to make a big scenario which used the whole map. To achieve both objectives I decided to create two scenarios out of the one. I do not know what the original designers had intended for the whole mapsheet so these two scenarios are, at best, a guess on my part.

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The Al Sandrik Collection is a set of four scenarios created by Al Sandrik and posted on Games Depot. The problem with them all was that they were done shortly after Divided Ground came out, even before the first patch for the game came out. Thus they were full of error, especially in the order of battles. I have revised all of the them. I have kept Al Sandrik as the original designer in the scenarios, listing myself only as revising them as a foot note in the scenario descriptions.

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The Miscellanious Scenarios consist of four scenarios for Divided Ground.

Three of the Divided Ground scenarios came with the original game, but were inaccurate, so I revised them.

The fourth scenario, Gaza Riot, was an original scenario from another author that I downloaded from Game Depot years ago.

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From Design Notes:

Ode to Arab-Israeli Wars is a collection of the original 24 scenarios that came in the game. These have been converted to Divided Ground standards so that these scenarios may be played in that format. As there have not been any previous scenarios submitted to the Games Depot based on the situations from this game, these will be a first. One may ask why I am doing this. Well to pay homage to this game that was clearly the inspiration for the creation of Divided Ground. Just as East Front was inspired by Panzerblitz and West Front was inspired by Panzer Leader, so too was Divided Ground inspired by Arab-Israeli Wars. And as with my Ode to Panzerblitz Series I have established a consistent set of standards of conversion from the board game to the computer game.

These scenarios are not for everybody. If you want to play Divided Ground, just go to one of the several dozen fine scenarios that the game has, both those with the game and those that are on various websites on the Internet. But if you want to play Arab-Israeli Wars on the computer, then try one or several of the 24 original scenarios which came with the game, which I have presented here.

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A Design Note from Alan:

Ode to AIW IV consists of ten scenarios from the 1967 War. I created these back in the Eighties for the game Arab-Israeli Wars but by the time I submitted them to the General Magazine for publication, Avalon Hill was no longer supporting the game. So they languished in my files until a few years ago I adapted them for Divided Ground. However by the time they were ready, Games Depot was no longer taking submissions so they were never posted anywhere.

Now I present them for posting with the Blitzkrieg Club.

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ORIGINAL: Crossroads

PS please please PLEASE convert these to CS: Middle East!