Cold War Module speculation...

[Amedeo]

Well, don't consider the "end of service" date for a given piece of equipment as a reliable indicator for what frontline Soviet troops in central Europe can be expected to be issued with. Even in the '80s there were Soviet divisions in central Asia still equipped with T-34-85 and IS tanks but, of course, you won't fond these AFVs in CMCW, and with good reason.

Basically the Soviets didn't throw away anything (e.g. the last remaining IS-2s in Germany were sent back to the USSR, not scrapped, in 1976!) , but GSVG troops and Western Districts troops tended to have state of the art equipment. Sort of.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

1 hour ago, Amedeo said:

GSVG troops and Western Districts troops tended to have state of the art equipment. Sort of.

For urban combat in CM that's a pretty good description of the PPSh! 

Edited September 27, 2021 by Sgt.Squarehead

[markus544]

West German stuff for sure soviet paratroopers most definitley

[sawomi]

CMCW "West Berlin"

Blue Forces:

- Berlin Brigade (US)

- Berlin Infantry Brigade (UK)

- Forces Françaises à Berlin (France)

Red Forces: The plans for the "Case Berlin" envisaged mainly GDR forces for the occupation.

- NVA (GDR Army)

- Grenztruppen (GDR Border Guards)

- Kampfgruppen (de facto SED Militia)

- Bereitschaftspolizei (Barracks units of the GDR Ministry of the Interior)

 

Edited November 27, 2021 by sawomi

[Sgt.Squarehead]

[Combatintman]

1 hour ago, sawomi said:

CMCW "West Berlin"

Blue Forces:

- Berlin Brigade (US)

- Berlin Infantry Brigade (UK)

- Forces Françaises à Berlin (France)

Red Forces: The plans for the "Case Berlin" envisaged mainly GDR forces for the occupation.

- NVA (GDR Army)

- Grenztruppen (GDR Border Guards)

- Kampfgruppen (de facto SED Militia)

- Bereitschaftspolizei (Barracks units of the GDR Ministry of the Interior)

 

First force to capture the bath in Mon Cheri wins ... 

By night, Ich bin ein bare limber (irishtimes.com)

 

[sawomi]

7 hours ago, Combatintman said:

First force to capture the bath in Mon Cheri wins ... 

This is just a stone's throw from the Kaiserdamm Bridge...

Quote

 

...Berlin's most important point is exactly where the Kaiserdamm crosses the city highway. More precisely, this was the most important point in West Berlin. This bridge, of all places, was the primary target in the plans of the Stasi, the National People's Army of the GDR (NVA) and the Soviet General Staff for an attack on the walled-in part of the city. If this bridge was blocked, the American and British brigades in Berlin could not unite to form an effective combat unit; the French troops from the barracks at Tegel Airport would also have been separated from their allies.

The second most important targets of the East Bloc troops in West Berlin, as can be understood from the experiences of the blockade in 1948/49, were the three airfields. Tegel, Tempelhof and Gatow were not to be used again to defy the hostage-taking of the enclosed city. Therefore, the three airfields were assigned as targets to the NVA elite force Luftsturmregiment 40 from Beelitz.
[...]
Every West Berliner knew that there was intensive planning by the GDR for a conquest of the "Stachel" in the midst of the dictatorship. What is surprising at most is that, according to the research of military historian Winfried Heinemann, the planning apparently only began in concrete terms in 1969.
[...]
Of all things, a note by Stasi Minister Erich Mielke, who was obsessed with conspiracy, is the only evidence of the start of planning. At the October 1969 meeting of the GDR's "National Defense Council," in reality the central emergency committee of the East German dictatorship, an NVA general gave his first account of plans to take West Berlin, according to the files. At some point, whether before October 1989 or in the following eleven months, traces of this lecture were erased - except for a note in Mielke's own meeting minutes. It is proof that the top leadership circle of the SED dictatorship had concrete war plans against West Berlin.

...The Soviet and East German troops around West Berlin were many times stronger than the more token troops of the three protecting powers. Although these soldiers would probably have been prepared to defend themselves and thus West Berlin against a multiple superior force - it would have been a very short fight.

In the case of an attack by the Warsaw Pact, it was a matter of five, six or seven hours, Egon Bahr puts it succinctly. The former Rias chief commentator, known for his laconic honesty, and later confidant of Willy Brandt, knew what the chances were in the event of an attack on West Berlin: Half a day, in which world politics would have been made, would already have been considered a success.

For a much longer time, even the few dozen American, British and French tanks would hardly have been able to hold their own in street fighting - although intensive training was carried out in "Fighting Cities" in Lichterfelde Süd and Ruhleben, in Grunewald and, exceptionally, even in demolition quarters in Kreuzberg.

At 59 precisely described locations, NVA troops would have broken through the wall around West Berlin on "Day X" and first smashed the Allied protective forces. In a second step, the West Berlin infrastructure would have been brought under control - this included arresting and imprisoning all potential organizers of resistance. Lists of senior police officers, politicians, top officials, secret-keepers and important journalists who were to be imprisoned if the worst came to the worst were updated several times until the end of the SED regime. 604 full-time Stasi officers were supposed to set up a repressive apparatus in West Berlin.

In 1985, the Stasi was still working out a precise plan for "stabilizing" the situation in the conquered western part of Berlin. The Wall was to remain standing for the time being, and a "war currency" would immediately take the place of the DM. These plans have never been shown as densely as in Sparschuh's and Burmeister's film.

Incidentally, the storm troopers would have been ready. An MfS film team drove through West Berlin in the early 1980s in the best tourist manner and captured many of the city's major streets and intersections on celluloid. Presumably, this footage was to be shown to NVA officers in case of an incident - so that they would not have been too surprised by their area of operations.

The last concrete exercises with reference to West Berlin can be traced to 1988. At that time, the NVA top brass scheduled a maneuver in which Magdeburg was to be conquered. It is noteworthy, however, that according to the specifications of this war game, the city on the Elbe was to be occupied by an American, a British and a French brigade and was even to have a "Governing Mayor"... . With so much "camouflage" of the maneuver's true objective, the detour via Magdeburg might as well have been spared. ...

https://www.welt.de/kultur/history/article8941089/Fall-X-Die-Angriffsplaene-der-DDR-auf-West-Berlin.html

 

 

 

Edited November 28, 2021 by sawomi