A3 - Global Mobilization "State Scarlet"

A3 – Global Mobilization “State Scarlet”

By @BeachAV8R - Setpember 29, 2020

Originally published at: Articles - Mudspike Forums


Cold war gone hot! – We take a look at the 10-mission, single-player campaign included with the Global Mobilization DLC for Arma 3…

Global Mobilization

Released in the Spring of 2019, Global Mobilization became the first official third-party Creator DLC for Arma 3 (A3). A collaboration between Vertexmacht and Bohemia Interactive has brought some interesting content into the A3 sandbox with a look back in time to when the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) stood toe-to-toe against the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). Those of us that grew up in the era remember the tension that gripped the globe as various locations around the world waited for the powder keg to light off. Interesting personal anecdote – my mother, myself, and my brother were detained at Checkpoint Charlie in the early 70s due to a bent corner on my mother’s passport photo.

With over 75 vehicles and variants, dozens of classic weapons, uniforms, equipment, and 419 square kilometers of winter and summer terrains of Weferlingen, Global Mobilization offers an enormous library and canvas for mission and campaign creators. An additional update in late 2019 (1.1) added more assets such as the T-55 series of tanks and Danish and Polish Army factions. In the summer of 2020, a further update (1.2) added helicopters, aircraft, more weapons and vehicles.

This article is not going to be a review of all of the content included with Global Mobilization – but is simply a look at the included single-player campaign.

“State Scarlet”

This review of the single-player campaign is intended to give an overview and some flavor of the campaign, without ruining the storyline for those that seek to play it in the future – so details will be purposely vague. The premise of the campaign is simple – it is August 1983 and East German forces have crossed into West Germany along the northern border. The campaign kicks off with some nice, albeit simple cut scenes that start events unfolding.

Briefings are well done, voiced over in German, but with English subtitles. The graphics on the map provide an overview of the situation, objectives, and presumed friendly and enemy force dispositions.

Roles

The player assumes two roles during the course of the campaign: an infantry soldier – Pvt. Klemmer, and a tank platoon commander – Sgt. Brandt. The mix of mission types assigned to each role is a nice feature that provides a mix of combat that will probably appeal to most people. I was particularly happy to see that I wasn’t overwhelmed in most missions, although managing the crews of the four tanks in your platoon could sometimes leave my own tank exposed while I tried to preserve the lives of those under my command.

Unit quality

I’m not an expert on 1980s East and West German units, uniforms, tactics, or footwear choices, so lets just say that the DLC feels pretty darn good. Yes, there are a ton of freeware mods out there that might be able to provide similar units, but the beauty of Global Mobilization is the buy/install/play order of operations that doesn’t require chasing down mod dependencies. Normally priced at $22.99 – I was able to pick up the DLC for a mere $11.49 during one of the regularly occurring Steam seasonal sales.

The tanks, APCs, weapons, and infantry all looked great during the campaign gameplay. The campaign missions are usually multi-staged, and perhaps not as complex as some offerings I have played, but they are very satisfying. The single-player campaign does not use some of the assets that came along later in the development (for instance, the helicopters or planes that were added with the 1.2 update), so it would be nice if we could see additional missions and campaigns released that focused on some of those excellent units.

Difficulty

I died. A lot. Because I’m a horribly infantryman. I’m usually looking at butterflies or admiring the stubble on my own face when the bullets start to fly. But at no time did I feel the campaign was frustrating. In fact, I enjoyed the whole campaign and had almost no trouble with the AI – particularly once I figured out how to give my tank platoon formation commands. When crossing bridges, trail formation is a good idea..since echelon type formations can lead to..well, consequences. Yes..mistakes were made…

Rolling through the countryside was to feel near constant high tension. At what point would I be ambushed? Would artillery rain down on our heads? Who was on our flanks? Was that something in the trees? Looking through the gunner’s sight one always feels like they are missing out on the jump scare coming from the sides. But it is wonderful. And in typical A3 fashion – you are given the latitude to accomplish your mission in whatever way you want. Yes, the missions have goals and objectives, but there are many ways to accomplish missions – a feature of A3 that has brought me back to it time and again.

Terrain

Adding to the immersion is the wonderful terrain that the developer’s created with this DLC. Again, not being an expert on German geography, it felt authentic enough. Border crossings are well represented and wide areas of armor friendly terrain mix with dense forests and tight quarters maneuvering through villages. Canals and rivers feature heavily, funneling forces into crossing areas that are prime candidates for action. Long distance tank battles preceded by a good bit of reconnaissance remind me of the hunter/killer action that I enjoy in combat helicopter simulations.

Music

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the awesome soundtrack that accompanies the missions. A very 80s, synthesized music selection perfectly sets the scene for some of the missions. You can give a listen here (1983 is my favorite!): https://soundcloud.com/lordforklift

Infantry battles are taut and well planned out. There is a near perfect mix of feeling like a big fish in a little pond while retaining the role of being part of something much larger. German voiceovers are good and the dialog is good enough to keep the campaign interesting and to develop a bit of a vested interest in your characters.

The action is fairly low tech. I didn’t study up much on how best to use the tanks I was given, but they did have some thermal sights that helped when scouting for enemy ambushes and doing recon to better plan an attack. Shooting on the move wasn’t particularly effective and I found myself just eyeballing range and lead computations. It was also cool seeing the different shell trajectories of the APFSDS (Armor Piercing – Fin Stabilized – Discarding Sabot) rounds versus the arcing path of the HEAT (High Explosive Anti-Tank) rounds.

Conclusion

I’ve made it no secret that I love gameplay DLC..no matter whether it is freeware, donationware, or payware. It has long been my philosophy that I have plenty of games to play, but give me things to do with them instead of having to relearn sims over and over again. I would be perfectly content to play A3 for the next decade buying these $10 and $15 campaigns that allow me to indulge my Water Mitty fantasies. It is my sincere hope that either the creators or fans of the Global Mobilization DLC take advantage of some of the other units introduced in later patches. I would love to see a helicopter specific campaign with sling loading, medevac, and offensive and defensive operations. Global Mobilization has the tools – I just hope someone takes advantage of them!

– Chris “BeachAV8R” Frishmuth

Global Mobilization available on Steam: HERE

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[Eric looks left, right, left. “Really? Nobody has anything to say?” It’s been a busy week I guess.]

Another nice one, @BeachAV8R. And thanks! You’ve almost talked me into it. I put ARMA on the shelf once VR captured my heart three years ago. But even when I was moderately active I found my own ineptitude to be hard to overcome. I guess I should have chosen a path that did not involve testosterone, tactics or a steady aim. Oh wait! I did! But next Steam sale I will dust off the TrackIR cap and enjoy hours of hiding behind a rock until those bad commies go away.

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Ha…yeah…it would really be something if we got native VR support for A3. I have dabbled with it in VR using vorpX, but the end result really isn’t all that satisfying. I particularly love the slower paced recon/plan/execute missions where I feel I have a chance…and I always enjoy non-linear play. The ability to rearm and scavenge weapons from soldiers or vehicles is a neat feature that always feels like a bit of an adventure game.

A3 content can be hit or miss for sure. Steam Workshop missions vary greatly in quality…but I’ve managed to find some fun ones.

It’s a bit of a dated concept, but I made a UH-1 Huey transport scenario for Weferlingen and RHS and Len Cold War Aircraft, way before 1.2 of GM landed: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1735571089
I hope I one day find the time to update it further to use the GM air assets!

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I saw that when going over the Steam Workshop and am excited to give it a whirl(ybird)… The 1.2 helicopters and fixed wing planes are fun. It is shame there isn’t a small airbase to use in the terrain, although roads and fields work fine. And I think someone did make an airbase template for it as well…

From what I know the lack of an airfield is intentional, as the terrain intends to be a 1:1 replication of the inner German border back from the 1980ies. And there’s just no airfield so close to the border. For gameplay purposes, however … one may differ with the map makers design decision.

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Yeah…I’m not very knowledgeable about how you mission and campaign designers make stuff…but can you “import” an airfield or FARP into a different terrain? Is it just an object you can add in the mission editor or is it way more complicated than that?

Depends on how the airfield/FARP/fortification is setup initially. The Arma 3 3D editor Eden can be used to assemble different objects and save them as ‘composition’. This ‘composition’ can then be re-used in missions and altered subsequently.

But you cannot copy/paste for example the Chernarus airfield onto Weferlingen, as the Chernarus airfield terrain objects are ‘baked’ into the terrain and not a ‘composition’.

Also I admit I’m not very knowledgeable on how those compositions are shared between mission developers. Maybe there’s a library somewhere on Armaholic or the steam workshop?

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I like this Autobahn airfield… :slight_smile:

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Or…I guess you could…

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I haven’t found the airfield template anywhere, so I just went ahead and changed the Huey with the CH-53 and uploaded https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2246639188 - Helo Over Weferlingen. Enjoy :slight_smile: Hope it works, it’s barely tested.

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Sweet…I’ll give it a go!

i want that plane in DCS, lol.

Just finished up the campaign. Hoofed that last mission the whole way. Also, equally disappointed there weren’t any missions with helo or air! Especially that Dornier!

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Haha…yeah… It is good fun killing things in that tank though. And I enjoyed the music…

There’s a global mobilisation discord channel (Discord) that has a channel for user-made missions, that include the new assets.

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Here’s a little tank commander mission I made with GM, no other mods or DLC required. I’m not a talented mission maker by any means, but it’s a fun send sabots through T-55’s. No voice acting, and the artillery support available to the player might be a bit OP, but I didn’t want anyone to be ‘stuck’. Open to feedback and criticism from anyone that decides to give it a try. :smiley:

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Ill give this a whirl on Sunday and report back

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Sweet! All of the other units should act according to plan, but the High Command module can be used to ‘improvise’ a bit if things start to bog down, since no good plan survives first contact… and as your character’s note to his wife implies, it’s not a great plan to begin with…

There’s also a full support company you can utilize to perform repairs/resupply ammo as necessary. Usable through the call support function or HC module.

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