Afghanistan 1979 - 1989

On page 66 of "The bear went over the mountain" you will find the vignette "Storming Spinakalacha village by LTC V. D. Vlasyan" . This amusingly named village was the scenario for an interesting operation in December 1987. I was eager to see if I could develop a campaign for Combat Mission: Afghanistan based on this operation. As always, the first step was to examine the terrain. As I have mentioned before, the names used in Grau's books do not always correspond to those used elsewhere. A quick Google search for "Spinakalacha" only showed references to the book "The bear went over the mountain" and, unexpectedly, a couple of threads in the CM forums where a user mentioned he was working on a scenario based on this very vignette. I was unable to find the scenario, so I assume he never completed it. Vlasyan 's sketch provided in the book. There is another name on the map provided in the book: "Grakalacha". Another amusing name, b...

I would like to share the process I use to create a historical scenario for Combat Mission: Afghanistan. This title has the unique characteristic of lacking an overlay for the editor, which requires a slightly different approach to map making. Be aware there will be spoilers ahead if you haven't played the scenario. Part 01 - Deciding the scenario. While reading "The Other Side of the Mountain", I encountered Vignette 4, Attack on the Tsawkey Security Posts by LTC Haji Mohammad Rahim. This vignette describes two raids on Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) security outposts located near the Tsawkey District headquarters, which were responsible for a section of the Jalalabad to Asadabad highway. The first raid occurred in 1983 at a post set in a high school, while the second took place in 1985 at a post located near a bridge. The second raid was the most interesting of the two, so I chose to go with that one. The first task was to identify the area where these raids ...