Is Fulda Gap most likely never in the cards?

[BletchleyGeek]

A war that never was is well served by a game that never(?) will be.

[Kinophile]

Very good point re Fulda Gap being way more analysed and detail planned (in RL) than BS.

[Michael Emrys]

2 hours ago, kinophile said:

Very good point re Fulda Gap being way more analysed and detail planned (in RL) than BS.

You're certainly right there. There must have been multiple millions of pages of planning documents generated by that and all the other possible battlefields for a NATO/Warpac confrontation.

Michael

[Thomm]

So I did a stupid little research on the most interesting NATO Cold War vehicles, their production and service years:

M60:   1960-1962
M60A1: 1962-1980     
M60A2: 1969-1975 ... 1981
M60A3: 1978-1983 ... 1997 (phased out by US Army)

M1 Abrams:   1981
M1A1 Abrams: 1985

M2 Bradley IFV: 1981 ...

M113: 1961 ...

M163 Vulcan:  1968 ... 1994

M551 Sheridan: 1966 ... 1996

Leopard:     1965-1970
Leopard A1:  1975-1977
Leopard A2:  1972-1973
Leopard A3:  ....-1973 ... "End of the Cold War"
Leopard A4:  1974-1976 ... 1989
Leopard 1A5: 1986-1992 ... 2003
Leopard 1A6: 1986-1987 ... Prototype only, .

Leopard 2:   1979 ...

Flakpanzer Gepard: 1973 ... 2012

Marder: 1971 ...

It seems that the most interesting time period would be shortly after 1981, with the M1 Abrams, the M2 Bradley and the Leopard 2 becoming available.

I guess this is common knowledge for wargamers, but I had to find it out for myself.

Best regards,
Thomm

[Thomm]

As for the Soviets: Combat Mission: Afghanistan seems to cover exactly the right period of time equipment-wise.

So the research must have been done already.

It even has some NATO small arms (M16A1, FN FAL, G3)!

Best regards,
Thomm

 

 

Edited October 25, 2018 by Thomm

[IICptMillerII]

2 hours ago, Thomm said:

M1 Abrams:   1981
M1A1 Abrams: 1985

Forgot the M1IP (or IPM1, IP standing for Improved Protection) which began being fielded in 1983. Another note on the M1A1 is that all new models were sent directly from the factories to units in Western Europe. In 1989 production began on a limited scale on the M1A1HA (heavy armor) with the new depleted uranium armor inserts. These models were largely the ones used during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. 

1 hour ago, Thomm said:

As for the Soviets: Combat Mission: Afghanistan seems to cover exactly the right period of time equipment-wise.

There is a lot of Soviet gear in CM:A which is great, but it's important to remember that they are all "category B and C" units. Meaning, they were not equipped with the latest and greatest the Red Army was operating at the time. As an example, if you set the year to 1989, the best tank variants you can get are late model T-62's, instead of T-80's being fielded by the Shock armies and Guards tank divisions in Eastern Europe. But I agree that between CM:A, CM:BS, and CM:SF2 much of the equipment is already modeled. 

[Thomm]

2 minutes ago, IICptMillerII said:

But I agree that between CM:A, CM:BS, and CM:SF2 much of the equipment is already modeled. 

I guess that was the point I was trying to make, as I found some vehicles (in particular earlier APC models), which are not included in CM:SF2, in CM:A.

Best regards,
Thomm

[MOS:96B2P]

5 hours ago, Thomm said:

M60A3: 1978-1983 ... 1997 (phased out by US Army)

M113: 1961 ...

M163 Vulcan:  1968 ... 1994

M551 Sheridan: 1966 ... 1996

It would be really cool to have the above vehicles in a CM game.  +1 

[DerKommissar]

1 hour ago, MOS:96B2P said:

It would be really cool to have the above vehicles in a CM game.  +1 

OH, and the M60A2 "Starship", hopefully!

6 hours ago, Thomm said:

As for the Soviets: Combat Mission: Afghanistan seems to cover exactly the right period of time equipment-wise

Considering I'm one of those suckers for CM:A and am sad that it's not getting upgraded to the current engine -- I'd be so glad to have a part of it in a new CM game.

[SgtHatred]

Matrix is released Armored Brigade in a few weeks, which looks like a pretty killer Fulda gap game. Next best thing to a CM game that will probably never happen.

[Sequoia]

I can tell you the 2nd Cav got it's Sheridans replaced by M-60s in 1978 as I saw it happen at my base in Bamberg. I would assume 11th Cav, the unit that would actually screen Fulda Gap did too.   

[Sublime]

19 hours ago, Michael Emrys said:

Thing is, so was everyone else, which is probably the reason it never happened.

Michael

I disagree in that EVERYONE was tapped out -Russia had lost terribly but probably could have fought on another few years.

(I want to add i do agree its mostly likely why it didnt happen, everyome was still war weary and noone wanted to have to have a vicious Ost Front 2 rematch within a month of the end of part 1. I mean jeez even with the Nazis gung ho for it Germany still took from 1918 to 1939 to be able.to turn to aggressive conquest then - and I still marvel that the only nation thats been acknowledged as the most capable enemy that lost WW1 was able to give the world a run for its money again just 2p short years later. Let alone losing 2 world wars amd 20 years later be a leading European nation; I digress..)

America definitely had nowhere near the casualties of Russia or Germany America easily could have fought a huge ground war as far as bodies are concerned.

Britain was very low but not out. Canada still had a good amount of men IIRC. Yes it.d be a way more American heavy show with maybe a German corps total. Brit units. Canucks. The French would probably get pressured into quickly rearming and pumping men out.

[Jiggathebauce]

I know Steve and Co don't want to do it and they have their reasons, but geez if they did it, cm fulda gap would frickin print money

[Sublime]

8 hours ago, Thomm said:

So I did a stupid little research on the most interesting NATO Cold War vehicles, their production and service years:

M60:   1960-1962
M60A1: 1962-1980     
M60A2: 1969-1975 ... 1981
M60A3: 1978-1983 ... 1997 (phased out by US Army)

M1 Abrams:   1981
M1A1 Abrams: 1985

M2 Bradley IFV: 1981 ...

M113: 1961 ...

M163 Vulcan:  1968 ... 1994

M551 Sheridan: 1966 ... 1996

Leopard:     1965-1970
Leopard A1:  1975-1977
Leopard A2:  1972-1973
Leopard A3:  ....-1973 ... "End of the Cold War"
Leopard A4:  1974-1976 ... 1989
Leopard 1A5: 1986-1992 ... 2003
Leopard 1A6: 1986-1987 ... Prototype only, .

Leopard 2:   1979 ...

Flakpanzer Gepard: 1973 ... 2012

Marder: 1971 ...

It seems that the most interesting time period would be shortly after 1981, with the M1 Abrams, the M2 Bradley and the Leopard 2 becoming available.

I guess this is common knowledge for wargamers, but I had to find it out for myself.

Best regards,
Thomm

Well the world very very mucb almost went to war in the fall of 83 over Able Archer. Thats pretty much universally agreed as the closest to WW3 we got in the 80s and perhaps at all ( C Missile Crisis in 62 obviously is a strong contender) so late 83 would be great. Im sure a lot of equipment that theoretically was phased out was still arnd, maybe mothballed or back in the US but would show up on the field within a month or two if the human race lastwd that long.

[Sublime]

the starship iwud be interesting if we got it. Becayse after one main round shot the missiles were useless. Itd throw off the aiming system totally. Id love to read the outraged posts until theu found out that was a faithful model

[Sequoia]

Sublime, please elaborate. IIRC the Shillelagh missiles were the main round armament. Are you saying after one shot the aiming system was off? You said totally off. Does that mean useless? 

[DerKommissar]

33 minutes ago, Sublime said:

Canada still had a good amount of men IIRC. 

Canada was still a very young country back then. We had massive issues with two conscription crises (1917 and 1944) that divided the country. King even refused the royal call for war with Germany for a week or two (US did so until Pearl Harbor). Even then, a very small number of conscripts were sent outside of Canada -- many men really didn't want to fight a war that didn't concern them (especially Quebecois). Even that was enough to spawn internal divisions and separatism that lingers to this day. We lost a great deal of men in WW1, 1/3rd of our town's male population died, and we got nothing in return.

43 minutes ago, Sublime said:

( C Missile Crisis in 62 obviously is a strong contender)

Yeah, that's a good concept for a CM game too.

45 minutes ago, Sublime said:

the starship iwud be interesting if we got it. Becayse after one main round shot the missiles were useless. Itd throw off the aiming system totally. Id love to read the outraged posts until theu found out that was a faithful model

It was too innovative. The only tanks that tried to field a similar concept was Armata and MBT-70. More of a Warsaw Pact deal with big ol' HE and ATGM.

Who needs an aiming system when you got a 152mm? xd

[Sequoia]

Didn't the Sheridan also use the Shillelagh?

[DMS]

The problem is nukes. In Soviet doctrine nukes would be used on tactical level, against company defensive positions. How to simulate nukes in the game?

And playing Soviet side would be a nightmare without formations options in the interface. (Or some waypoint placement tweaking, so waypoints would be set in line/column/wedge when you click) Soviet tactics was not just rush forward, is was sophisticated enough, with bmps closely following tanks, dismounting just in moment when last shell is falling, riflemen running just behind slowly moving tanks under covering fire from bmps...You don't want to see another "Syrians" with cooler tanks, do you?

Edited October 25, 2018 by DMS

[Sublime]

Yes IIRC if you look up chieftain talks or maybe its anither vid on youtube but it had a very large caliber 152mm ( right? ) main gun and yes itd completely throw the shillelagh sights off and it.d be useles after it fired. The entire tank was a disaster. Lots of good ideas but..

 

 

SEQUIOA: Not if you just fired the missiles. The gun if you fired another round though such as HE, the shillelaghs aiming would be thrown off and had to be taken and recalibrated again.

Look at blacktail defense iirc. It has great failures of tanks and other weapons. Other stuff. All txt but it elaborates on the starship

Edited October 25, 2018 by Sublime

[Sublime]

24 minutes ago, DMS said:

The problem is nukes. In Soviet doctrine nukes would be used on tactical level, against company defensive positions. How to simulate nukes in the game?

And playing Soviet side would be a nightmare without formations options in the interface. (Or some waypoint placement tweaking, so waypoints would be set in line/column/wedge when you click) Soviet tactics was not just rush forward, is was sophisticated enough, with bmps closely following tanks, dismounting just in moment when last shell is falling, riflemen running just behind slowly moving tanks under covering fire from bmps...You don't want to see another "Syrians" with cooler tanks, do you?

I dont think itd be syrians with cooler tanks. BS is hard because the quality of weapons and advances in tech but also because its near peer enemies. Yes you lose some sensor lethality but thats drastically outweighed by the MASSIVE numbers and "total war from the gate" mentality a WW3 vs the SU would have entailed - nevermind the SU was in an infinitely stronger position than Russia ever could be even after a win in BS. Soviet tactics varied amongst higher quality units especially and arent as cut and dried as popular opinion or indeed you depict.  CM:A shows low quality Russian troops and its hardly just human wave attacks.  Also the diff WarPac countries fought differently with the East Germans being considered especially fanatical.

In fact you give me several hind Ds, arty support, a couple plts mized of T72s and T80s along with a guards motor rifle regiment battalion group and give someone else some AH1s, Tows, XM1s, Bradleys, etc along with an equivalent US sized group..and we got very heavily contested fixed air etc, I bet Id give any Western player a run for their money. In the 80s air to air was pretty close together the west pulling ahead, but especially on the ground the parity wasnt as marked at all. It took about 10 years for the abrams to really mature and until.mid to late 80s before the US helo fleet even had enough apaches and blackhawks for those to outnumber Ah1s and Uh1s..

Same really goes I feel for an attack on West Germans or British units. The smaller battles CM covers would be very interesting and really could go either way. Of course strategically after a few days the West probably would have been overrun and itd have gone nuclear. But you could easily make a CM game with modules initially only covering that few weeks in hypothetical.time.

The nuke thing is another reason why I like the mid or late 40s (47 or 48 Airlift crisis) idea too. Of course for WW3 tac nukes could be used like insanely heavy bomber attacks (i.e. McNairs demise on day 1 of Op Cobra 1944) are figured tobhave just happened with the appropriate moonscape. Maybe add in some nbc models and penalties to troops fatigue etc etc. Add some effects to make a more desolate nuke scape for eaxh type of map i suppose. 

Or simply the game could cover WW3 until nukes occurred. In the 80s besides the immediate start in 45 the Cold War had the best chance not to immediately go nuclear and perhaps at least last until one side or another began really losing, or a couple days or weeks. Just as likely not, tbh one of my earliest memories of my life was my dad explaining if the bad guys come I shouldnt worry about it because it.d end very very soon. I thought he meant we.d kick their ass didnt realize he meant we.d be vaporized probably by a spetnaz nuke or something. ( lived in West Germany, USAF officer dependent 85 to 91)

Edited October 25, 2018 by Sublime

[Bil Hardenberger]

26 minutes ago, Sublime said:

Yes IIRC if you look up chieftain talks or maybe its anither vid on youtube but it had a very large caliber 152mm ( right? ) main gun and yes itd completely throw the shillelagh sights off and it.d be useles after it fired. The entire tank was a disaster. Lots of good ideas but..

Sorry, but I don't think this is true.. the thing would have failed service trials and would never have been fielded if that was the case.  You will need to research that for us and prove me wrong.    If I'm not mistaken, I think there were issues with the effectiveness of the Shillelagh, vulnerability of the tank itself and the small number of rounds carried that ended up ending the service life of both the M-551 and the M-60A2.

I personally don't think the Russians would have used tactical nukes right away either.. I believe that they would have only used them in case of emergency... like a collapsing front.  But the repercussions would have been catastrophic for them as MAD would have kicked in.  Chemical weapons now.. those they most certainly WOULD have used.

Bil

Edited October 25, 2018 by Bil Hardenberger

[IICptMillerII]

29 minutes ago, Sublime said:

Look at blacktail defense iirc. It has great failures of tanks and other weapons. Other stuff. All txt but it elaborates on the starship

Blacktail defense is NOT a credible source. He has an entire video series devoted to how "terribly awful" the Abrams tank is. The information is so off base and false that I honestly think the entire channel is a parody/satire channel at this point. 

 

41 minutes ago, DMS said:

The problem is nukes. In Soviet doctrine nukes would be used on tactical level, against company defensive positions. How to simulate nukes in the game?

I agree with @Bil Hardenberger on this one. While the Soviets did have plans to use chemical weapons in all of their scenario's, they were terribly afraid of employing nuclear weapons for fear of nuclear escalation. In the later years of the Cold War that is, primarily post 1973. The US was the same way, post 1973. The issue of if/when nuclear weapons would have been employed is certainly up for debate, but neither NATO nor the Warsaw Pact countries would have initiated a war using nuclear weapons, unless it was a strategic exchange. Even then, the Soviets had no intention of initiating a first strike on the strategic level, and were in fact quite afraid that NATO would be the ones to strike first. 

46 minutes ago, DMS said:

And playing Soviet side would be a nightmare without formations options in the interface. (Or some waypoint placement tweaking, so waypoints would be set in line/column/wedge when you click) Soviet tactics was not just rush forward, is was sophisticated enough, with bmps closely following tanks, dismounting just in moment when last shell is falling, riflemen running just behind slowly moving tanks under covering fire from bmps...You don't want to see another "Syrians" with cooler tanks, do you?

It is quite possible to execute well timed and orchestrated maneuvers of large formations in CM, it just takes a bit longer and a bit of practice. The only way you would get Syrian-like behavior from Soviet forces in a CM game would be to set them all to green/conscript with low motivation and leadership, and give them category B equipment relative to their NATO peers. Otherwise you could expect a matchup that is at least as good as the one between the US and Russia in CM:BS, but likely even more competitive. 

[JM Stuff]

5 hours ago, MOS:96B2P said:

It would be really cool to have the above vehicles in a CM game.  +1 

+1 also British army I would like to see Chiftain and Centurion...

[DMS]

Just now, Sublime said:

The nuke thing is another reason why I like the mid or late 40s (47 or 48 Airlift crisis) idea too. Of course for WW3 tac nukes could be used like insanely heavy bomber attacks (i.e. McNairs demise on day 1 of Op Cobra 1944) are figured tobhave just happened with the appropriate moonscape. Maybe add in some nbc models and penalties to troops fatigue etc etc. Add some effects to make a more desolate nuke scape for eaxh type of map i suppose. 

Nuclear conditions would be interesting. So all units out of IFVs would be considered "WIA" if they stay more than few minutes in open air... With fatique, spotting penalties for wearing protection. With different levels of radiation... But it would be completely different game with vast ammount of new features that had to be coded.

Just now, Sublime said:

Or simply the game could cover WW3 until nukes occurred. In the 80s besides the immediate start in 45 the Cold War had the best chance not to immediately go nuclear and perhaps at least last until one side or another began really losing, or a couple days or weeks. Just as likely not, tbh one of my earliest memories of my life was my dad explaining if the bad guys come I shouldnt worry about it because it.d end very very soon. I thought he meant we.d kick their ass didnt realize he meant we.d be vaporized probably by a spetnaz nuke or something. ( lived in West Germany, USAF officer dependent 85 to 91)

I don't know about 80s. I think that Gorbachev was preparing to surrender and would never start war. But in 60-s Soviet high staff really planned to massively use nukes. There was a discussion about artillery numbers in infantry divisions, and one of the arguments was nuclear war, when small mechanised forces would search and destroy remnats who survived nuclear strikes. It was considered like "normal" scenario, not just like a bad case of loosing the war.