Thank you for the extensive review!
I like "showing my work", so it was definitely a goal to give a lot of inspiration on how to run an ambush, besides giving the means to run this particular ambush. I don't have quite enough there to release it as a separate framework, but I hope it can inspire people to modify it, take it apart and run their own!
As per the geography, that's definitely one of the fun discoveries of writing FIST missions, since I almost exclusively wrote fantasy stuff before this. It really started on Google Maps, and trying to figure out what would make sense with the parameters of the mission.
When I found actual historical maps it felt like the icing on the cake - this really grounded it in reality so much more. The real stretch north of Kunduz has a few more villages, so it's about finding the right level of granularity and a balance between real life and "interesting gameplay mechanics". I wanted an earlier ambush to be riskier to execute, with a later ambush feeling providing better terrain, but also less leeway if things go south.
Anyway, I appreciate the thorough analysis, and it's extra motivation to deliver a good final chapter to this saga!