Is Fulda Gap most likely never in the cards?

[Sequoia]

7 minutes ago, 3j2m7 said:

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

Well since we're dreaming. I think a natural progression would be:

1. US Seventh vs Soviet Group of Forces Germany

2. Germans East and West.

3. BAOR and 4th Canadian MBG maybe with Czechoslovakians, or Poles.

Nukes and Chemical weapons would be a non-starter. Too much code for too little use for what most players think makes CM games great, no matter how likely they may or may not have been in the real thing.

[DMS]

Just now, IICptMillerII said:

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. 

Yes, it is possible on company level! But controlling battalion is hard when you have 2 companies in 1-st echelone and impossible when all 3 are in 1-st... Some simple tools would help. Like setting waypoints in line with 50m intervals if you hold Ctrl. Or with 100m intervals if you hold Alt. Soviet manuals are focused on line formations with right intervals, so geometrically regular formations would be realistic, I think.

With right tactics good timed Soviet attack had good chances. In theory. When artillery shifts in depth in time, motor riflemen dismount in place and in time and follow tanks... But if unit has to pass a defile or gets flank fire, things turn bad. Or that hull down or keyhole positions... Were they so effective in real landscape? Interesting. Would be great to play such scenarios in the game.

[JM Stuff]

13 minutes ago, Sequoia said:

Well since we're dreaming. I think a natural progression would be:

1. US Seventh vs Soviet Group of Forces Germany

2. Germans East and West.

3. BAOR and 4th Canadian MBG maybe with Czechoslovakians, or Poles.

Nukes and Chemical weapons would be a non-starter. Too much code for too little use for what most players think makes CM games great, no matter how likely they may or may not have been in the real thing.

Sniff...Joke ... so no chance to see my english vehicles, I dont saw anywhere these vehicles in a gameplay... I mean a good gameplay...

[Ultradave]

21 hours ago, Sequoia said:

But were all glad that was the case.

Oh, absolutely

[Sequoia]

9 minutes ago, 3j2m7 said:

Sniff...Joke ... so no chance to see my english vehicles, I dont saw anywhere these vehicles in a gameplay... I mean a good gameplay...

Not sure exactly what you mean? BAOR = British Army of the Rhine.

[JM Stuff]

6 minutes ago, Sequoia said:

Not sure exactly what you mean? BAOR = British Army of the Rhine.

I Was just in the sky, ...dreaming already to move some east germany and soviet tanks to the german border...in case I take the red player place of course...:)

Edited October 25, 2018 by 3j2m7

[HerrTom]

1 hour 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?

To the best of my knowledge I think Bil and CptMiller are correct in disagreeing with this.  Once strategic parity was reached in the mid 1970s, Soviet strategists appear to have come to the conclusion that limited nuclear war was a non-starter.  Prone to full escalation.  In this sense, the USSR believed in two possible wars: a conventional war (either confined to Europe or otherwise) and a full nuclear exchange, with no in-between.

The wild card likely is actually the United States, which never pledged "no first use," and from what I've studied would need them to defend Europe until the microchip revolution in the 1980s came into full swing.  Unfortunately, the Soviet policy appeared to have been massive retaliation, even though many Western planners anticipated Soviet first use.

This is an interesting book on the subject: http://www.npolicy.org/books/Getting_MAD/Ch5_Battilega.pdf

[Sequoia]

I think France would have declared they WOULD use nukes if the Soviets approached the French Border. We'll never know but a possible NATO strategy might have been let's not go with first use, as a nuking Germany to save it would be unappealing, but rather let the Warsaw Pact offensive run it's course with what ever percent of Germany captured, then remain on a war footing until the Soviet economy collapses trying to do so as well. Other Warsaw Pact countries might try to defect in such a situation.

[Thomm]

In my humble opinion, this talk about nuclear or other non-conventional weapons is material for the briefing text boxes and should not stand in the way of a good tactical clash of Cold War units in CM.

"Red Storm Rising" is a bestseller and did not have to resort to nukes, if I recall correctly.

Here is an idea to keep it limited: Let them fight over Austria. Nobody would use nukes in a fight over neutral territory, would they?

Thomm

[JM Stuff]

2 minutes ago, Thomm said:

In my humble opinion, this talk about nuclear or other non-conventional weapons is material for the briefing text boxes and should not stand in the way of a good tactical clash of Cold War units in CM.

"Red Storm Rising" is a bestseller and did not have to resort to nukes, if I recall correctly.

Here is an idea to keep it limited: Let them fight over Austria. Nobody would use nukes in a fight over neutral territory, would they?

Thomm

...a good tactical clash of Cold War units in CM...

with all these vehicles pak, we have already a foot in the next areas, of Arabs Israely war...have only to change weather landscape and names... 

[HUSKER2142]

3 hours 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 do not think that which side would be the first to use tactical nuclear weapons in the attack. I admit that the commanders of military units would begin to use it in cases of serious defeat.

 

I have long wanted to also propose a time period of 1960–80, or more precisely 1983–89, when the armies of NATO and Warsaw Pact were equal in firepower. Without the conditions for use of nuclear weapons and not in spirit of Tom Clancy. There is a huge amount for the space of northern group of troops, western group of troops, etc , this is DLC.

[John Kettler]

Some facts to go with all this fascinating punditry.

Firing the 152 mm gun/launcher on the Sheridan WOULD decollimate the infrared beam transmitter from bore axis, killing ATGM capability. This was because of the shock loads on a very light chassis and was reported in ARMOR magazine in the late 70s or early 1980s. Never saw any such discussion regarding the much heavier and stoutly constructed M60A2. What I did see were complaints about what a beast it was in terms of maintenance, what with all that advanced tech.

Shortly after the Berlin Wall fell, Armed Forces Journal, a big deal defense magazine, published a brief but harrowing report of a key finding from a recovered Soviet war plan for Europe. Hope you're sitting down. It envisioned the use of no fewer than 200 tactical nuclear weapons (strategic weapons held in reserve as a deterrent) and being to the English Channel in two weeks. Memory hazy as to CW, but I recall no mention of BW. Would further note the Russians had 'mask breaker" agents to defeat respiratory protection and new gen CW weapons combat tested in Afghanistan--Novichok (recently in the news) and a super powerful knockout agent called Blue X,. The last was used in Afghanistan for sure. And let's not forget the tricothecene Yellow Rain munitions. Don't buy the bee poop nonsense. It doesn't cause whole villages to projectile vomit blood, which is but one of the grisly effects.

The Russians didn't trust the Poles as allies and didn't at all relish the thought of the Poles being in a position to strangle their all-important rear and transshipment point (rail gauge conversion) where reinforcements and supplies came in from Russia. Suvorov/Rezun says this was the view when he was in the GRU working in the GRU HQ for the Carpathian Military District, and I've seen it elsewhere. Meanwhile, we in the West were concerned about the significant force increment and modern equipment the Poles contributed to the overall effort, including highly capable SOF equipped to do Skorzeny type false flag ops while equipped with the right vehicles!

What was the only NATO (including US) ground force unit that scared the Russians, per Suvorov/Rezun? The BAOR.  The GRU was so obsessed with it that when a TOP SECRET message from agents of the Carpathian Military District reported two Chieftains had been seen on a certain bridge, but the agents failed to note direction of travel, GRU there sent a blistering admonishment regarding this, for it was vital to know whether the tanks were being added to or subtracted from the BAOR's force strength. 

Finally, as I've said many times, if BFC is going to do a Fulda Gap game, it is essential that the armor-anti-armor situation be correctly depicted. As I've noted previously, we were grossly deficient on both ends of the equation. LAW was obsolete, likewise Dragon, even TOW until mod after mod was fielded. In fact, the classified assessment in 1984 was that the only two  weapons we had that could reliably defeat Russian MBTs frontally were the Hellfire and the mighty Maverick. On the other end of the scale, we discovered that in the early 1960s, in response to the T95 we didn't build), the Russians had developed and deployed HEAT munitions which would defeat that MBT's silceous cored armor. CIA's assessment in 1985, and which was briefed to some 200 defense contractor threat specialist personnel, was that the HEAT round recovered from PT-76s (using the same gun as the T-34/76) could get a frontal kill on the brand new XM1. Lots of gasps in the auditorium over that one. Felt nauseous. We also discovered that static firing cannon launched Russian HEAT munitions was a bad idea. Why? It had to do with the way the warheads were designed to take advantage of the impact kinematics, resulting in performance understatement of some 40%. Memory fuzzy on the missile side of things. This list isn't complete by any means, but I think it important to note that Shtora has proven to have significant effect vs. even TOW 2 in Syria. That being the case, I shudder to think what it would've done to stock TOW. In a nutshell, we were in a horrible situation in armor-anti-armor at a time when we were counting on our tech to get us long range kills to thin the horde, but the Russians had the cards to win the ground war, and that was their General Staff conclusion. But if you read the debriefings of top Russian defense officials, they didn't attack because of our strategic superiority. There was also the small matter that they were reading our mail in real time, thanks to the Walker-Whitworth spy op which gave the Russians key settings for crypto gear recovered from the USS Pueblo by Russian crypto specialists who went to North Korea. Said ex-KGB Major General Kalugin flatly of the situation, had war come "We would have won."

Regards,

John Kettler

 

 

[Aragorn2002]

Fulda Gap would be nice. As long as the dutch army is in.

[Sublime]

OK so let me get this straight. So far HerrTom and a couple other people agreed with Capt Miller agreeing wirh Bil Hardenberger who agreed with me about the use of tac nukes? Geez you guys think if you.re gonna toss kudos out you could name the first guy in the chain.

Ok Bil H i think you may have me, and JK may be right I may be thinking of the Sheridan.  HOWEVER to remark on the service trials thing... Im certain youve heard the tales and seen the movies about the Bradleys development cycle and the pentagon/mil indust complex trying to just push through an inferior weapon system knowing it had major flaws..

DMS Gorbachev was ONLY in power in the 80s for about half the 80s. And I think thats a sorta "unique" view to say he "surrendered" to the west. i hate to see what you think him "winning" would have looked like.

Of course Soviet 60s plans had zillions of nukes. NATO plans until the 80s had nuclear response if you guys shat and didnt wipe enough with old Pravdas   (interestingly when you read BAOR yarns on Arrse.com the stories from the Brit SOXMIS mission - basically legit open spying - one of their absolute gold mine sources for info was old Soviet latrine spots after maneuvers. The socialist paradise didnt have toilet paper for the average folk I guess, nor even lower field grade ones.)

Ohh JK that was interesting to bad Suvorov has been thoroughly discreditted and I dont believe anything he says. Especially about WW2. ESPECIALLY.

Edited October 26, 2018 by Sublime

[slippy]

Matrix are releasing Armored brigade (thier spelling), on the 15th November, which may be worth a look in the meantime. It seems to cover the 1970's through to 1990's

 

http://www.matrixgames.com/products/685/details/Armored.Brigade

[DerKommissar]

11 minutes ago, slippy said:

Matrix are releasing Armored brigade (thier spelling), on the 15th November, which may be worth a look in the meantime. It seems to cover the 1970's through to 1990's

Uh oh, man. Gotta remove that link before you get a spanking. Against one of the rules, I think. Really hyped for that game, though.

Edit: realized I quote the link. xD

Edited October 26, 2018 by DerKommissar

[Sublime]

Isnt that all hexonagol though?

 

EDIT no it isnt and doesnt look bad at all but not up my.alley for operational/tactical warfare.

I will submit to massive abstraction in something like CK2 Ill admit but Paradox games IMO just does grand strategy so well I couldnt help myself.  That said even then the warfare continually drives me insane. Total War just.. I have some fond memories especially of MTW but its too mainstream for me to take really seriously opposed to some other games that deal with history. Sorry for the tangent.

Edited October 26, 2018 by Sublime

[Sublime]

On 10/25/2018 at 5:15 PM, Thomm said:

In my humble opinion, this talk about nuclear or other non-conventional weapons is material for the briefing text boxes and should not stand in the way of a good tactical clash of Cold War units in CM.

"Red Storm Rising" is a bestseller and did not have to resort to nukes, if I recall correctly.

Here is an idea to keep it limited: Let them fight over Austria. Nobody would use nukes in a fight over neutral territory, would they?

Thomm

Whilst this is inline with 60s Societ thinking as I pointed out Soviet plans from that era that have been proven real and are readily available envisioned hitting Vienna with several multi megaton strategic weapons neutral or not.

Edited October 27, 2018 by Sublime

[Thomm]

8 hours ago, Sublime said:

Whilst this is inline with 60s Societ thinking as I pointed out Soviet plans from that era that have been proven real and are readily available envisioned hitting Vienna with several multi megaton strategic weapons neutral or not.

In what context? A limited conflict on Austrian soil (for whatever reason can be made up)? Or in an all out attack on NATO?

Take, for example, the "Seven Days to the River Rhine" plan including two 500 kt nukes on Vienna (according to Wikipedia). This was to happen in the course of a counter-attack after a NATO nuclear first strike (according to Wikipedia). And even then, no nukes were to be dropped on France or the UK.

I am reading "Team Yankee" at the moment. So far this book listed a couple of paragraphs with newspaper headlines to give "some sort" of backstory, a few pages of family life and preparing for a Soviet attack stories, and then good old CM-scale fighting starts. No nukes were dropped so far, but a chemical attack took place.

CM soldiers with gas masks could make for great screenshots.

Fact remains, that I grew up with M60s, Leopard 1s, Gepards ... much more so than with M1s, for example.

Please don't nuke me for it!

Best regards,
Thomm

Edited October 27, 2018 by Thomm

[nik mond]

Tac Nukes are absolutely moot when discussing a prospective CM Fulda Gap or Reforger, or Gruner Laubfrosch etc. The game would be about the units that are fighting around or through the hot zones. The SOP's were solidly in place for fighting in an NBCW environment as the mentality was nukes were definitely going to be used. The emphasis was on how to adapt and mitigate the loss from nukes in order to carry on with the conventional fight.

 Units within brigades were spread out from each other. Always moving. Even defensive units were to relocate in their entirety after a short period of time (German roads were extremely hazardous when Corps exercises were going on). If the balloon went up these units would have operated this way for the real thing. Sealed in tanks, or dug in the ground Top High mode would have kept units with adequate distance peripheral to ground zero combat effective. It would have been rare to see many entire battalions wiped out from low yield tac nukes because of this.  Once contact was made the threat of a tac nuke would be gone for the time being and that is where CM would take place. Direction finding a Div HQ and nuking it wouldn't be all that successful either as these units were sending signals remotely by linked radio vans miles away. Also radio silence and dispatch riders were still heavy relied on even in the 80's.

Yes they were too optimistic with their mobile decontam centers and many soldiers would likely perish shortly after the war.  But I really don't want to go there.  We have Combat Mission Black Sea which featured nuclear super-power adversaries. I don't see nuclear weapons as a deterrent for the original topic here.

[Sublime]

Oh yes ONCE AGAIN as I statwd above nukes and chem weapons have no place in CM like heavy bomber actioms before Op Cobra or naval bomvsrdment. Make the map and maybe add so envirpmental effects to troop speed and health thats it.

 

For the Vienna nuke context I assume it was for an invasion of Western Europe/atomic WW3 scenario. A quick google of Soviet nuclear map plan of Vienna revealed will tell you better than I. Basicallt every city in Europe neutral or not was getting nuked unless they were with the Soviets

Link the the first article that appeared on a search and there are dozens at least -https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/austria/1364037/Vienna-was-top-of-Soviet-nuclear-targets-list.html

 

Accdg that article I was wrong only in that it was to receive 2 500 KT warheads instead of multiple megaton warheads. Still 1 mt easily would destroy any major city imo

For whilst on more spread out cities the blast damage wont be as severe further out the thermal effects causing fires, and of course the radioactive poisoning would just make the entire area a no go. Add to that hundreds of thousanda of casualties and dead if not more, looters, and in that scenario probably combat as well and nukes going off all over the world. Its a truly truly amazingly scary thought that us, as all humans together whatever our views about anything - would willingly have gotten ourselves in a position that had a high chance of leading to our extinction and we were self cognizant of that and rode with it. Its just.. To me its insanely selfish to the future.

And sorry last derailment but

1 jeez that Russ Poseidon nuke torp is friggin scary huh

2 ironic i think russias testing of their own Slam type missile may be why the US is pulling ouf of this last arms treaty and I find it ironic that during the 60s our higher ups apparently were told the Soviets probably would go nuclear before thebweapon went operational... Here we sit with them trying to make it and our reaction at worst seems to be to cancel a treaty?

 

Edited October 27, 2018 by Sublime

[Sublime]

Ok so now i have more time. Minor digging on the starship seems to indeed prove I was wrong. However it has been mentioned there were significsnt teething problems with the gun and the missiles had a nasty habit of venting exhaust into the crew compartment.

http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/coldwar/US/medium-tank-m60a2-starship/

This site had the best info Ive gleaned in a very cursory search mind you. It did help a lot to the M1 and of course the mbt70 did as well which was a fascinating project I kinda wish they.d made..

[Sublime]

Crap rereading your post @Thomm Ive always took it to mean in the context of a general offensive or preemptive (in Soviet minds) attack. Interesting you say UK and France werent targetted, I dont know about France but the UK could easily have been the most nuked spot on Earth going by Soviet nuke plans Ive seen posted online especially again on arrse.com.  Stuff Ive seen on the US hasmt been as specific beyond that any major population center or military base, major port,  missile silo area, would be definite targets. Enough for me most of my life Ive lived definitely in some sort of nukes cross hairs whether in the FRG, near Wright Patterson AFB, near Norfolk, in Boston,and a brief 9 mnths on Maxwell AFB.

The SLAM concept has always been very frightening to me personally only recently superceded by the Poseidon unmanned nuclear doomsday torpedo. All the effects are bad enough but I often sit and think the largest nuke ever detonated was 50 mt and it was just ridiculously big, the designers dared not actually detonate a 100mt device. And each of these torpedoes is 100mt. Smh 

[Ivanov]

There could be maps, that would represent nuclear wastelands and a new category of units - post nuke stragglers

[sburke]

who gives a s**t about Nukes.  I still want Fulda Gap.   

Team Yankee!!!!  (Funny enough in Team Yankee they do confront a nuclear launch by Russia taken from Hackett's World War 3 novel scenario and the corresponding response for units at the front line and it is eminently doable with CM )

This nuclear discussion is not helping to sway Steve's mind so if you are interested in a Fulda Gap game I suggest not bringing it up every time someone says let's have CM Fulda Gap.....