Beginner needs help. (Redirection problem)

[GeraldE]

I'm a pretty good PHP programer, but Mod Rewrite is still baffling to me.
What hair I had is now gone.....

Can someone tell me why this doen't work. I've done more complicated redirects than this.

Thought I'd be able to do this:

RewriteRule ^Web_Links+index-req-viewlink-cid-1.html$ modules.php?op=modload&name=Web_Links&file=index&req=viewlink&cid=1

That first + seems to be a problem. "puppy won't hunt"

This is where I'm at now.

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/Web_Links^.index+req+-viewlink+-cid+-[0-9]\.html$
RewriteRule ^Web_Links^.index+-req+-viewlink+-cid+-[0-9]+\.html$ ^/modules.php?op=modload&name=Web_Links&file=index&req=viewlink&cid=$1 [L]

Need a new dog! I'm stumped..

Can somebody explain the errs of my ways, and direcet me in the right direction.

Thanks,

GeraldE