
   "FIRST CLASH" as set of custom combat missions by Keith Heitmann for NovaLogic's
   armored tank simulation ARMORED FIST. Based on the book "FIRST CLASH" by Kenneth 
   Macksey.

   HOW TO USE
   ----------

   1. Unzip the archive and copy all the FCJUN24.* and FCJUN25.* mission and text
      files into the \FIST\FISTDATA directory of the game. 

   2. Load ARMORED FIST.

   3. Select BATTLES from the main menu. Start with FCJUN24A and work your way
      down the list of "FIRST CLASH" missions.


   
   ABOUT THE BOOK
   --------------

   "FIRST CLASH" was written as a an offical training manual by a former tank 
   commander in the Canadian military. Although the book is a speculative work,
   it details the actual weapons and techniques to be employed by NATO in the
   event that war broke out in Europe. The book is written like any other 
   fictional account of World War III and is not just a book of technical 
   specifications and probability charts so it makes for interesting reading.

   The forces represented in this book are those of the Canadian military,
   specifically the 3rd Royal Canadian Dragoons armored unit. The Canadians
   equipped their forces with West German made (at the time) "LEOPARD" tanks,
   U.S. made M113 APCs, and West German made "Lynx" armored personnel vehicles.
   At the time the book was written NATO faced Soviet T-72 MBTS, BMP and BDRM
   vehicles. For the purposes of these missions I've had to make due with 
   the M-1, M-3, T-80, and BMPs used by ARMORED FIST. The scenarios in the 
   book could have happened at any time up to the collapse of communism in
   Russian and East Germany, shortly after the more modern equipment on both
   sides arrived at front line units.

   ABOUT THE "FIRST CLASH" MISSIONS
   --------------------------------
   
   The book, intended as a training manual, was not written with what one 
   would call a satisfying conclusion. The missions I've created have reflect
   this fact. The book only covers the opening engagements in a wider scale
   war and ends with the battered Canadiand forces withdrawing to a new line
   of defense after relative success in a delaying defensive action against
   a larger Soviet armored division.

   These ten missions represent the battles described in the book. So you 
   can picture the battle area a bit better I include a map in ".GIF" format.
   If you have a utility to convert GIFs to PCX format you can print this 
   map out on paper.

   I've played each one of these missions through many times. Each time I
   play them they play differently. In most cases you will end up with
   your nose severly bloodied. Just as in war, you may get lucky and complete
   a mission with outstanding success or in dismal failure. Most times you
   will have to really scrap to end up with a good or satisfactory mission
   rating with a liberal sprinkling of "no comment" mission results too.

   I would recommend that if you lose a mission (wiped out), you fight it
   over again before moving on to the next mission. Play them all in the
   chronological order from FCJUN24A to FCJUN24F and then FCJUN25A to 
   FCJUN25D. 

   Have fun! Do your best for Queen and country!

   ABOUT THE "FIRST CLASH" MISSION AUTHOR
   --------------------------------------

   My name is Keith Heitmann. I used to build missions for games like LucasArts
   SECRET WEAPONS OF THE LUFTWAFFE and their earlier sim THEIR FINEST HOUR. I
   got interested in this when these two sims included a mission builder in 
   their programs. I got hooked on making them for myself and eventually offered
   them to a group of interested people on the Prodigy computer service to play
   for themselves. Our SWOTL GROUP created a whole host of such custom missions
   and we swapped them around so we could all play them. We even got into 
   modifying the actual program to create new battle fronts and altered data
   files to create new planes, etc. Some of our creation have appeared on 
   various shareware floppy disks and now shareware CD-ROMS. I still see them
   on various boards running CDs on their systems.

   I also created a set of missions for RED BARON. The first set was actually
   a set of altered VCR files, but when Dynamix came out with a real mission
   builder the next sets were created using it instead. I've uploaded a few
   of my custom missions to the Dynamix/Sierra BBS.

   To make things easier for folks to obtain these custom mission files I began
   running a weekend bulletin board and soon had callers from all over the U.S.
   calling to download these files.

   I am no longer on Prodigy or any computer service for that matter. However,
   my weekend bulletin board has expanded into a 24 hour operation with tons
   of gaming files. However, many of these areas are restricted to subscribers
   of my board. I had to do it to keep the board going. 

   The point is that I will be looking for, collecting, and creating my own
   mission files for ARMORED FIST and placing them on my board for all callers
   to access and download. I have already added an ARMORED FIST file area to
   my bulletin board and have some patch files for ARMORED FIST in there at
   this time and when I'm done typing this I will add this set of custom
   missions to this file area.

   If you have ARMORED FIST and have created your own custom missions please
   upload them to my board. I expect to see a lot of folks dropping in to 
   my board to drop off and pickup new ARMORED FIST files.

   My board is called STALAG 13 BBS, 219-763-0826, 8n1, 14.4K, 24 hours/7 days
   a week. I can also be contacted through Yankee Net a QWK mail network.

   PREPARING YOUR ARMORED FIST CUSTOM MISSIONS FOR UPLOAD
   ______________________________________________________

   1. You can upload them as a set or each mission in its own PKZIP file.

   2. You must use PKZIP. My board won't accept any other format.

   3. Create a FILE_ID.DIZ text description file for your ZIPfile. It
      should be no more than 40 characters per line, and no more than
      about 10-20 lines long. It should tell us something about your
      custom missions.....theme, historical battle, fantasy battle.
      Put the FILE_ID.DIZ inside the ZIP file with your custom mission
      or set of missions. (Please, *.DIZ all ZIPfiles before you upload
      them. Thanks.)


   4. Logon to Stalag 13 BBS. Do the callback if you are a new user on the 
      board, then go to the file area type "U" to upload. The rest should
      be simple if you are familiar with BBSes.

   5. If you prepared your ZIPfile with a FILE_ID.DIZ inside you won't
      have to type a description while on-line. When the board asks for
      a description of the file you are about to upload just press ENTER.
      The board will use the FILE_ID.DIZ as the description on the file
      listing after the file is uploaded.

   6. You will be compensated 3 minutes for every minute it takes to 
      upload the file.

   You may download 3 files from any of the multiple free access areas of
   the BBS during your visit per day. You get 30 minutes to look around.
   Grab one of the master file listings from the Main Menu options or
   from the file areas. These don't count as a download since they are
   FREE DOWNLOADS.

   ARMORED FIST is a free access file area on my board so drop in from 
   time to time and look around.

                                                Keith Heitmann, Sysop
                                                Stalag 13 BBS
                                                219-763-0826
