Black Hawk Down Questions

[Junkie]

I've never been to TriggerTyme and I'm looking forward to playing there. Thumper, can you talk to us a bit more about this 8 hour mass game?

From what the web site says: "8 Hour Mass Game - In keeping with the early mass games of paintball, we will use a large wooded field with 10 flag stations, each worth 10 points, and one worth 50 points. These are scored on the hour. Play is continuous as the eliminated players are allowed to reinsert on the half hour. No spies, tanks, medics, or special cards."

I have knowledge of this situation and I've seen the movie. I'm assuming we are going to be broken up into squads to get to a certain point (flag) to achieve all the objectives?

[Grendel]

The game structure will be very simple. There will be two teams designated by Red and Blue arm bands. The basic premise for the game will have a total of 10 flag stations positioned throught out the approx. 80 acres. Each teams basic objective is to keep there respective color flag hanging at as many of the flag stations for as long as possible. On the hour of each hour of play the number of flags will be tallied to determine how many points each team has earned. This is the only way to make points so the rules are very simple making this game a good way to introduce new players to scenario/mass game play. In addition seasoned players should enjoy the freedom of running their game and stratagy as they see fit and not have to base their style and stratagy on the whims of the Gamesmaster.

There will be some "missions" hand delivered the respective teams generals by an Old School Paintball Staff. These "missions" are not given often or intended to give points to a team but used to provide some control and direction in the game to simulate the story line. An example for this game might be the general needs to send 5 players to hook up with the 10th Mountain Armor in the Olympic Stadium at a specific time and this will coincide with the next insertion of players. We are trying to give the players a chance to get into the story with out too much "role playing" and micro-management.

You may see "props" on the field but these are for asthetics only they have nothing to do with points, so do not move them. Again you gain points by having your flag flying at point count.

Thats basically it, but if you have any more questions please do not hesitate to ask.

[thumper]

Greetings all - Grendel and I of SC Roadkill and the promoter/owner of the Palmetto Pride Championship Wrestling (www.palmettowrestling.com) are teaming up to form a paintball promotions group with a focus on what we love : old school paintball.

I met w/ TriggerTyme's owner at lunch on friday and the negotiations are underway. He loved the idea and dropped dime that he would love to see us put on 2 to 3 games/year there in Columbia. Unfortunately we have to throw the first date up in the air right now. But somewhere between Jan 20 and Mar 5, 2005 and we may have to spin a different name than Black Hawk Down.

Gamesmaster Grendel is working on a variation of similar theme, but slightly less copywritten.

With all of this in mind - please check out www.oldschoolpaintball.net

But the whole idea is still gelling so all of the details are subject to change.

'mone back - Thumper - SC Roadkill, e: john@hgwt.net

[Grendel]

WE HAVE OUR DATES!!!!!!!!

Old School Paintball Production's *SUPER 61* - The Battle of Mogadishu

WHEN - Saturday April 9th 2005 from 10am-6pm. Registration begins at 8:00am -
**Pre-Resitration starts Jan 1st, 2004**

WHERE - TriggerTyme Paintball, Columbia South Carolina (80ac. hardwood - rolling hills)
(where Combat USA started 1987, and Vanguard Paintball was 1990-2001)

FORMAT - 8 Hour Mass Game - In keeping with the early mass games of paintball, we will use a large wooded field with 10 flag stations, each worth 10 points, and one worth 50 points. These are scored on the hour. Play is continuous as the eliminated players are allowed to reinsert on the half hour. No spies, tanks, medics, or special cards.

[Jarhead89]

How will you balance the game format against the the historical plot?

A small force of Rangers and Spec Ops (less than 100) vs. 1000 plus Somali militiamen.

I don't see how the mass qame format lends itself to this storyline without some adjustment.

Will you have unbalanced teams?

Do you plan to incorporate any elements of the historical account into the game?

[scpaintballer01]

one of the main things i can see is the insertion points for the rangers, and the time out when your tagged. For the rangers it may be 5-15 min. Milita 10-20

[thumper]

One idea we are kicking around is to forward deploy the militia onto the field and then chopper in a few unforunate ranger chalks - and then as the RPG takes down the chopper, we pop lots of smoke and THEN we start the game.

The americans numbers? Ill let Grendel take it from here.

If you guys have some suggestions or ideas of your own, here is the place to share them.

ps: I smokinjo w/ SC Roadkill is itching real bad to lead the humvee column to save the rangers. We are looging for Generals now.

[Jarhead89]

Will this game deal strictly with the downing of the first Blackhawk, Super 61?

If so there are three plot lines that you can run.

1. Action at the target site, near the Olympic Hotel.

2. The Super 61 crash site.

3. The Relief convoy

Also, if your goal is to recreate in some way for the game players the excitement, emotions, and tensions of the historical event you must also recreate the competing goals of the antagonists.

Strike Team (Rangers/Spec Ops)
1. Complete the original mission
2. Move to, secure and hold the Super 61 crash site.
3. Survive untill help arrives.

Reliefe Convoy (10th Mountain/Rangers/Spec Ops/Pakistani)
1. Reach the Super 61 crash site and relieve the strike team.
2. Extract everyone back to the compound

Somali Militia (Habr Gidr Clan)
1. Stop the Rangers/Spec Ops from securing the the Super 61 crash site.
2. Overrun any Ranger/Spec Ops postions.
3. Stop the reliefe convoy

The key to recreating the "experience" is somehow recreating these elements while keeping to your goal of simplicity of game format.

Do you plan on running missions?

Perhaps you can designate the 50 point flag station the Super 61 crash site?

Or maybe rotate the 50 point flag through different parts of the field to simulate the fluid nature of the battle as emphasis shifted from the orignal target site to the crash sites.

Another option may be to have the main reliefe convoy follow a set progression through the flag stations in order to simulate the original convoy negotiating the narrow city streets which limited their ability to move in a direct line.

I like the idea of forward pre-deploying the militia, what about starting the game by deploying the militia over several of the flag stations. Randomly select one as the original initial site making it the first location of the the 50 point flag. Chopper in the Ranger chalks and start the game with smoke as you stated.

The militia commander now has a choice. Does he send all of his/her forces to overrun the the intial strike and get that inital 50 points? Or does he/she sit and wait to down the helo and attack the the relife convoy?

At some point you have Super 61 go down and move the 50 point flag to that station. Later in the game you can designate other 50 point targets.

For example, the Habr Gidr maintained what we would loosely call weapons depots. One major site was an abandoned cigarette factory. Several weeks after the battle this was considered as a potential target for US forces (A Marine MEU(SOC) had come on station by that time and would have been the the strike force used). The plan was scrapped due to the potential political fall out.

Here's a wrinkle, if the US forces hold the station on the hour in addition to the fifty points the Somali re-insertion time goes up by 15 minutes, So instead of on the half hour they have to wait 45 minutes for the next reinsertion! If the Somalis hold the flag their reinsertion time goes to every 15 minutes......

There are other examples you could use...

Neither team should know which station will be designated as what untill it happens! This is pretty much what happend in real life and what created so much of the friction and tension. Each side had to respond as events and priorites unfolded, in real time and as fast as they could.

Just some idea's.....

[scpaintballer01]

really really good ideas that may be looked into. Lets remember that this is only part 1 of a three part series. So this time it would be fitting to go into the original story. Here is what would HAVE to happen for the story to go as planned. Addid must NOT be captured. (i believe that his name). Best way to do this...send in a special unit assigned to this task and have them throw the game. This is how i think it could be done.

1 hr. before the innitial insertion, American Base. Gen briefs on target, ect...

American Gen. on the way to the insertion point VIA Hellocopter.
"As you all know there is a spec. ops team in front of us. Once they get Addid we will extract them and go out."


WHOOOOSH! BAM! (hellocopter goes down)
via radio "Super 62 report..61 report in....." static Super 62 Reporting...Super 61 do you copy" more static. "Sir Chopper Super 61 has been downed..i repeat Super 61 has gone down."

All this should be happening while the American forces are moving toward the battle site. To be precise when the words "I repeat..Super 61 has gone down" all refs should be screaming 30 sec. This will be the beginning of the game.

Now the cool part about this is that also just about the time the crash happens the Americans should be inview of our "play" battle. And the milita should be waiting in cover untill ref's go "GAME ON!!!"

This is hopefully look like a modern D-Day. Best place to have this battle i c would be the village. Best place for chopper to go down: POW Camp.

ill keep working on it. but this would be VERY cool.

[Grendel]

This is not a historical recreation or a scenario game but a basic Big Game with a simplified overlying story of "Blackhawk Down" to add some ambiance to the game with some inherent goals and objectives inspired by the real events. The detail you are talking about would be great for an involved scenario with well established scenario experienced players and teams. Our goal to begin with is to provide a simplified big game enviorment to bring new players into scenario and big game play while providing some outlet for the more experienced scenario players. As time goes on and we run more games the complexity of the games will increase until we are running true scenarios.

The game structure will be very simple. There will be two teams designated by Red (Somali) and Blue (Rangers/Delta) arm bands. The basic premise for the game will have a total of 10 flag stations positioned throught out the approx. 80 acres There will also be a 50 pt station that will change postions throughout the event. Each teams basic objective is to keep there respective color flag hanging at as many of the flag stations for as long as possible. On the hour of each hour of play the number of flags will be tallied to determine how many points each team has earned. This is the only way to make points so the rules are very simple making this game a good way to introduce new players to scenario/mass game play. In addition seasoned players should enjoy the freedom of running their game and stratagy as they see fit and not have to base their style and stratagy on the whims of the Gamesmaster.

There will be some "missions" hand delivered to the respective teams generals by an Old School Paintball Staff. These "missions" are not given often or intended to give points to a team but used to provide some control and direction in the game to simulate the simplified story line. An example for this game might be the general needs to send 5 players to hook up with the 10th Mountain Armor in the Olympic Stadium at a specific time and this will coincide with the next insertion of players. We are trying to give the players a chance to get into the story with out too much "role playing" and micro-management.

You may see "props" on the field but these are for asthetics only they have nothing to do with points, so do not move them. Again you gain points by having your flag flying at point count.