Does Soviet tactics work in Combat Mission?

[dbsapp]

In Soviet training missions they show how to concentrate your forces and to use them en masse under heavy artillery support, you gather momentum and rush with all you have in one focused blow. 

In the campaign and many other single scenarios it simply doesn't work. To deploy this tactics means to lose your forces quickly and to do little or no damage to the opponent. The peculiar thing with the Soviet campaign is that it literally asks you to do the opposite things you had learnt from Soviet training missions. What is required from you in the first mission of Soviet campaign is to carefully scout enemy tanks and TOW vehicles and call pinpoint artillery strikes on them.

Cold War Red Army is described as heavily dependent on artillery assets and massive artillery support to pin down the enemy. But in CM world  artillery strikes on areas simply don't do anything to the vehicles, the only application they have is to bombard towns or infantry positions. At best areal artillery strikes can kill one or two lightly armored vehicles, which is far from being enough to suppress enemy defense. Many times I called pinpoint strikes on single M60 tank to find out 10 or 15 minutes later that bombardment didn't scratch the tank, it seats in full health in Moon landscape among craters with no trees around. 

In reality it should be completely destroyed or severally damaged. IRL photos from the tests:

 

 

That's one of the biggest drawbacks of CM engine and inconsistences of CMCW. In theory artillery plays major role in Soviet military planning, but in game practice it has little effect on the enemy. This virtually strips Soviet army of one of its most powerful forces. 

So does "Soviet tactics" work?

In my experience it does, but primary in Quick battles. To work it needs certain conditions. First of all, Soviet forces must have serious numerical advantage. In Quick battles this condition is met by assigning more points to the Red side than to the Blue. Second, the terrain conditions should be more or less equal. This is also true for the most of the Quick battle maps. Even artillery, which is relatively weakened under CM engine framewok, could be applied to block enemy infantry from reaching certain zones. 

But it definitely ineffective under conditions that differs from those of "equal" conditions of Quick battles.  

 

[BeondTheGrave]

To your larger point, as I cant comment on the effectiveness of arty, the problem with the CMCW simulation is that its limited by numbers, which forces battles which can only be *so* big. Id argue that NATO also suffers from this issue in its own offensive situations. In real life, as best as I understand Soviet doctrine it would have been not to fight first and foremost, if the spear can flow  around an enemy position then it ought to do so. But if it had to fight that it was up to HHQ, either at the regimental or divisional level most likely, to concentrate maximum force onto a single axis. Probably this would mean picking one battle and dumping the entire divisions artillery pool on it, plus helo and air support. This concentration of arty assets would be possible in engine, certainly it would give you the effect youre looking for, but I think it would drive most players insane. Moreover, the idea of the balanced battalion on battalion boxing match is IMO probably not as it would have actually gone in many situations. If the forward detachment and combat patrols located a serious NATO obstacle, division HQ would make a determination as to the best case of action. If it was decided to attack, several battalions from the regiment would be moved into position to overwhelm the position, and depending on the situation perhaps several regiments from the division would also engage in the attack. The goal being to make the fight unfair, to hit the enemy with as much as the can from as many directions as possible to fold up resistance quickly and get back to moving. CMCW doesnt simulate any of this because it doesn't do the operational side of the conflict and anyway I doubt many players would like the lopsided engagements that commanders would try to produce on the battlefield. 

As I understand it NATO doctrine is mostly the same re: concentration and dispersal. FM71-2 in one of its scenarios recommends that the commander concentrate several companies of his battalion to systematically destroy each enemy platoon. Operationally the same thing would apply at the higher levels. Several battalions ideally would want to hit a single one, several brigades a sole regiment. 

Ultimately CM is a game, not real life. Its a cool game. But it cant capture many of the factors actual Cold Warriors would likely have faced. 

[DMS]

You shouldn't rush, proper line formation is slow, moving by leaps from one phase line to another.

But I agree, air bursts should damage external elements more.

[Halmbarte]

57 minutes ago, BeondTheGrave said:

To your larger point, as I cant comment on the effectiveness of arty, the problem with the CMCW simulation is that its limited by numbers, which forces battles which can only be *so* big. Id argue that NATO also suffers from this issue in its own offensive situations. In real life, as best as I understand Soviet doctrine it would have been not to fight first and foremost, if the spear can flow  around an enemy position then it ought to do so. But if it had to fight that it was up to HHQ, either at the regimental or divisional level most likely, to concentrate maximum force onto a single axis. Probably this would mean picking one battle and dumping the entire divisions artillery pool on it, plus helo and air support. This concentration of arty assets would be possible in engine, certainly it would give you the effect youre looking for, but I think it would drive most players insane. Moreover, the idea of the balanced battalion on battalion boxing match is IMO probably not as it would have actually gone in many situations. If the forward detachment and combat patrols located a serious NATO obstacle, division HQ would make a determination as to the best case of action. If it was decided to attack, several battalions from the regiment would be moved into position to overwhelm the position, and depending on the situation perhaps several regiments from the division would also engage in the attack. The goal being to make the fight unfair, to hit the enemy with as much as the can from as many directions as possible to fold up resistance quickly and get back to moving. CMCW doesnt simulate any of this because it doesn't do the operational side of the conflict and anyway I doubt many players would like the lopsided engagements that commanders would try to produce on the battlefield. 

As I understand it NATO doctrine is mostly the same re: concentration and dispersal. FM71-2 in one of its scenarios recommends that the commander concentrate several companies of his battalion to systematically destroy each enemy platoon. Operationally the same thing would apply at the higher levels. Several battalions ideally would want to hit a single one, several brigades a sole regiment. 

Ultimately CM is a game, not real life. Its a cool game. But it cant capture many of the factors actual Cold Warriors would likely have faced. 

Exactly this. The real life fight should be the Sov battalion attacking a seam in enemy forces where there are few if any troops or an overwhelming force attacking enemy positions. But those aren't fun games, for either side. So scenarios tend to focus on the meeting engagement and times when the upper HQs have failed and you're in a roughly even match. 

I do agree that artillery doesn't seem to damage AFVs as much as I'd expect although I've lost BTRs, BMPs and M113s to close artillery hits, including VT fused airbursts. 

H

[The_Capt]

Interesting question, although I am suspect of the intent behind it.  Regardless, the bigger question is whether Soviet tactics would have worked at all.   At the operational level the theory was centralized controlled maneuver, which worked in WW2 but was a serious leap of faith in the much faster and comms denied battlefield of the 1980s. Air power is the other issue as without air supremacy those long lines of logistics were never going to work.

 At the tactical level the idea that mass would beat quality was also weak and built on hope.  The idea that massed arty would smash all-mech forces of NATO was a serious leap.  It takes a well shaped, dense piece of exotic metal to kill a tank, metal fragments from HE can damage it but would not likely sweep away NATO formations.  I would argue that CMCW is accurate (with caveats) in demonstrating the weaknesses of Soviet doctrine at the tactical level (jury is out on operational).  Every Soviet campaign scenario gives the Soviet player at least 2:1 advantage and in cases 3:1 and better.  But they show just how hard it is to “smash” through well prepared and sighted terrain that your opponent has owned for over 25 years.  Arty may be a little weaker, testing is probably required and this is not a new issue, but you will note that engineer obstacles for NATO are no where near what would have been employed in RL so I am betting it evens out closer to RL when the “most effective offensive tool for the Soviets” is blunted along side that of the most effective defensive tool for NATO.

So what?  I personally think the Soviet theory was broken.  It worked in WW2 but they were not keeping up with the times and would have been seriously crushed in late 70, early 80 which would have likely led to nuclear options being employed and inevitable escalation…let’s be grateful it never happened.  CMCW is only demonstrating the weaknesses of the Soviet approach, which is what a simulation should do.

Now all that said, we have players who have clearly mastered the Soviets, @Grey_Fox and his series of the Soviet campaign definitely show what can be done to with the Soviets in the right hands.

 

[Pelican Pal]

Artillery in CM has two key weaknesses that make it suspect within the context of a mech heavy environment. The first being (as I've been told) that CM does not model vehicles closing up vision ports when under artillery fire. The second that the game does not model fragmentation damage to vehicles^{.^1} Combined this is causing artillery to under perform against armor. I'm not sure by how much it is under performing but my suspicion is that its not a meaningless loss.

Part of my reasoning is that, as you have said, the Soviet forces are often at a 2:1 to 3:1 advantage. Within this context you might have a M60 TTS platoon against a 2-3 platoons of Soviet armor and the reduction of even a single TTS's capability to effectively engage results in a significant drop in combat power for NATO.

Now this can be worked around but it requires that you use artillery in a way that I suspect most players don't readily take to. For example, you have located a TTS platoon astride the advance of your FSE. A player might drop a large number of shells over 8-10 minutes only to find that no damage has been done at all to the opposing armor. Not only that but during the barrage their spotting ability is not being reduced. The player has therefore expended a large amount of firepower and a significant amount of time for no impact on the enemy. I think this fairly leads to frustration on the players part.

^1 Documented bug but I also have a suspicion that how CM would model fragmentation might be doing a bit of a disservice to them.


~~~

Overall though I actually disagree that the Soviets don't work. But I do think that the peculiarities of both the Soviets and CM work against players having initial success with them.

[Rinaldi]

Ratio lmao

[Halmbarte]

43 minutes ago, Pelican Pal said:

Artillery in CM has two key weaknesses that make it suspect within the context of a mech heavy environment. The first being (as I've been told) that CM does not model vehicles closing up vision ports when under artillery fire. The second that the game does not model fragmentation damage to vehicles^{.^1} Combined this is causing artillery to under perform against armor. I'm not sure by how much it is under performing but my suspicion is that its not a meaningless loss.

Part of my reasoning is that, as you have said, the Soviet forces are often at a 2:1 to 3:1 advantage. Within this context you might have a M60 TTS platoon against a 2-3 platoons of Soviet armor and the reduction of even a single TTS's capability to effectively engage results in a significant drop in combat power for NATO.

Now this can be worked around but it requires that you use artillery in a way that I suspect most players don't readily take to. For example, you have located a TTS platoon astride the advance of your FSE. A player might drop a large number of shells over 8-10 minutes only to find that no damage has been done at all to the opposing armor. Not only that but during the barrage their spotting ability is not being reduced. The player has therefore expended a large amount of firepower and a significant amount of time for no impact on the enemy. I think this fairly leads to frustration on the players part.

^1 Documented bug but I also have a suspicion that how CM would model fragmentation might be doing a bit of a disservice to them.


~~~

Overall though I actually disagree that the Soviets don't work. But I do think that the peculiarities of both the Soviets and CM work against players having initial success with them.

I don't know that that is true. I've had a BTR knocked out (and I think set on fire) by an artillery airbursting directly over it. 

H

[The_Capt]

As to artillery performance in CM vs RL, that is tricky.  I have run tests and have seen numbers that mirror some RL data but that is one rabbit hole I have not gone too deeply into.  Here is one very technical document we dug out during research https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a131493.pdf

If I am reading this correctly (but most tests were vs BMPs), killing armour vehicles with arty is a lot harder than a few screenshots from the internet might suggest.  I may have time to run some more test to see just what in game performance offers but a lot of variables at play here.  

Edited December 25, 2021 by The_Capt

[Pelican Pal]

26 minutes ago, Halmbarte said:

I don't know that that is true. I've had a BTR knocked out (and I think set on fire) by an artillery airbursting directly over it. 

 The interactions shown here not only show the bug in question but also make me question exactly how fragments are being modeled. If you notice the BMPs that are knocked out have no system damage and are just destroyed. That makes me think that the game isn't model any sort of fragments as projectiles but instead use some sort of blast radius calculation. Since a fragment hitting the vehicle would cause some sort of system damage or possible crew casualties.

My guess is that modeling fragments explicitly in 2008 was seen as prohibitive so they are abstracted out.


@The_Capt

Yes, tracking down info on this is generally difficult and I don't really think vehicle destruction is that far off from what I've been able to find.

This is from the Dupuy Institute which puts armor losses during WW2 around 12% although I'm not sure how trustworthy they are as a source. One of the obvious questions (in relation to CM) is how concentrated are these losses are. 12% across a multi-day battle isn't huge but its possible that they could be concentrated in several CM scale engagements in which case they might be significant for our purposes.

Quote

The TDI search found that an average of 12.8 percent of tank and other armored vehicle losses[3] were due to artillery fire in seven eases in World War II where the cause of loss could be reliably identified. The highest percent loss due to artillery was found to be 14.8 percent in the case of the Soviet 1st Tank Army at Kursk (Table II). The lowest percent loss due to artillery was found to be 5.9 percent in the case of Dom Bütgenbach (Table VIII).

Anyway... I generally think that too much focus gets put on kills in this discussion when I'm more interested in the effect of artillery during and immediately after a barrage. What sort of non-fatal damage might be caused^{^1}, what sort of suppression might be caused^{^2}, how does artillery impact target engagement^{^2}.

^{^1}  I think this is question is far more important in Shock Force and Black Sea but not without merit in Cold War. 40 artillery shells might not be concentrated enough to kill a tank within the barrage area, however, it might knock out the thermal sight which is not unimportant. Obviously in BS and SF you have modern tanks within even more equipment on them that could be knocked out. And CM is the sort of game where the destruction of a smoke launcher could be critical later.

^{^2} Suppression not only in the sense of the crew themselves being knocked around by blast effect and being worried by the shells falling/fragments clattering off the vehicle reducing their capabilities, but the crew making the decision to lower armored shutters over thermal sights and so on.

CM is often a game of minute details mattering which is why I don't think this is unimportant.

[sawomi]

8 hours ago, The_Capt said:

So what?  I personally think the Soviet theory was broken.  It worked in WW2 but they were not keeping up with the times and would have been seriously crushed in late 70, early 80 which would have likely led to nuclear options being employed and inevitable escalation…let’s be grateful it never happened.  

From 1960 till 1985 Cold War "gone hot" would have been nuclear right from the start. Warsaw Pact military strategic operational concepts in the Cold War went through four phases until 1991.

From "Fulda Gap: Battlefield of the Cold War Alliances":

Quote

1945 to the 1960s:
Defense and counteroffensive deemed necessary, with conventional weapons considered the primary means of combat.

1960s to the 1970s:
The main orientation was the nuclear response strike, with conventional weapons and actions classified as complementary elements.

1970s to 1980s:
Defense and then offensive actions under conditions of use of conventional and nuclear weapons were considered necessary.

1985 to 1991:
The growing likelihood of the use of conventional weapons in armed combat, escalation-preventing limitation of combat operations, and restoration of the status quo ante were assumed.

During the 1970s, Soviet strategists were looking for military solutions to crush the enemy as quickly as possible in a conventional or nuclear war. For penetrating the tactical and operational depth of the enemy to the positional spaces, bases of nuclear weapon carriers and airfields, the "theory of deep attack" was further developed by the Soviet Army through the use of Operational Maneuver Groups (OMG). The essence was to advance surprisingly and quickly into the depth of the enemy formation by surrounding troops. The main task of the OMG of the front was to accelerate the advance of the main forces and to reach the objective of the operation as quickly as possible. The OMG was expected to complete its tasks in a few days, and its deployment would have been possible throughout the depth of the operation. In the process, the attack tempo had been as fast as 100km a day. The introduction of the OMG into the battle would have been appropriate on the second or third day of the operation, at any rate when the troops of the Army's first operational squadron had broken through the tactical zone of the enemy's defenses and shattered his front-line reserves. This did not preclude the possibility that the OMG could have been deployed earlier than planned.

The strategic and operational-tactical principles prevailing until the mid-1980s make it clear that, upon recognition of NATO's intentions of aggression, an attack operation was planned within the framework of the 1st Front, with the objective of taking the initiative as quickly as possible and capturing the Federal Republic of Germany within five to seven days. Admittedly, it was to be expected, especially from 1980 onward, that NATO, using its weapons as well as the mobility of its armored, mechanized, and airmobile forces, would have been able to quickly close gaps and interstices in the order of battle that had developed and to use fire to blast directions that were at risk. The time factor would have been important for the OMG to deny the enemy the opportunity to react, bring up reserves, or regroup.

In order for the OMG to move quickly into operational depth, it was necessary to destroy the enemy's nuclear weapons insertion assets and reconnaissance strike complexes, prevent massive strikes by the airborne enemy, and fight the enemy's groupings and reserves in decisive directions in cooperation with the 1st Squadron Army divisions. In this phase, strikes by fighter-bomber, fighter-plane, and attack-helicopter forces should be made on the enemy. Air assault and airborne units would have been dropped into assigned areas and sections to tie down the enemy and favor the OMG advance. Soviet military officials also envisioned the use of OMG in the defensive operation. In this, it would have been used to develop the counterattack, the rapid advance into the flank and rear of the enemy attack grouping. Consequently, characteristic of the planned operations of the 1980s were high dynamics and the rapid course of combat action to respond to frequent, rapid and often unpredictable changes in the situation.

By the mid-1980s, the importance of defense in strategic conception was growing. The change in the balance of power led to a correction in the assessment of frontline and army operations. In view of the expected devastating consequences of war, its prevention increasingly came to the forefront of political and military considerations. The absurdity and illogic of nuclear war began to be acknowledged even by those who had previously considered it waged and winnable. Soviet military strategists broke with their previous options. They no longer identified the protection of the Warsaw Treaty Order in the event of aggression with the unconditional crushing of enemy force groupings on its territory and in its entire strategic depth. This is evidenced by the operational planning of the 1st Front of 1985, which was a strategic defensive planning to be conducted initially by conventional means, not excluding the use of nuclear weapons. 

Warsaw Pact Military doctrine as of May 1987 was defensive not only in intent but also in strategic operational implementation.

NATO planned to use tactical nuclear weapons when the frontline reached the Rootharr Mountains.

 

Edited December 25, 2021 by sawomi

[The_Capt]

6 minutes ago, sawomi said:

From 1960 till 1985 Cold War "gone hot" would have been nuclear right from the start. Warsaw Pact military strategic operational concepts in the Cold War went through four phases until 1991.

I never really bought into this to be honest.  I mean I am sure, like NATO, some hawks in the Soviet machine thought a limited nuclear war was possible or somehow tac nukes, which were definitely part of the plan, would blow the holes they needed and somehow not trigger an escalation.  However, I find it difficult to believe the political grown ups believed for a second that once someone started throwing nukes around, the entire game would not be up.  Maybe in the 60s but by the late 70s the nuclear triad was in full force and the simulations all showed the same outcomes.  

Regardless, at the tactical level the observation stands even with nukes…a whole lotta hope as the primary course of action at many levels with respect to a Soviet attack.  A NATO attack, while I am sure some hawks again believed it, trying to get NATO onside with offensive action was a fever nightmare.  Even Cold War NATO was like herding cats and trying to get an agreement for offensive action, for a force not even built for it, without some extreme forcing function (like a violent fall of the Soviet Union) makes about as much sense as that 2012 Red Dawn when NK invades the US (poor Chris H).

[sawomi]

5 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

I never really bought into this to be honest.  I mean I am sure, like NATO, some hawks in the Soviet machine thought a limited nuclear war was possible or somehow tac nukes, which were definitely part of the plan, would blow the holes they needed and somehow not trigger an escalation.  However, I find it difficult to believe the political grown ups believed for a second that once someone started throwing nukes around, the entire game would not be up.  Maybe in the 60s but by the late 70s the nuclear triad was in full force and the simulations all showed the same outcomes.  

The plans for attacking NATO territory with tactical nuclear weapons were seriously questioned only after Chernobyl. Before that, nobody dared to do so.

[sawomi]

21 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

A NATO attack, while I am sure some hawks again believed it, trying to get NATO onside with offensive action was a fever nightmare.  Even Cold War NATO was like herding cats and trying to get an agreement for offensive action, for a force not even built for it, without some extreme forcing function (like a violent fall of the Soviet Union) makes about as much sense as that 2012 Red Dawn when NK invades the US (poor Chris H).

The best argument against a NATO attack is that, if successful, it would have led to German reunification. That was not in the Anglo-American interest.

[The_Capt]

28 minutes ago, sawomi said:

The plans for attacking NATO territory with tactical nuclear weapons were seriously questioned only after Chernobyl. Before that, nobody dared to do so.

Well if that is true - and the collective ability for humans to believe pure fiction is well established - then we were probably closer to the end than we gave ourselves credit for.  In CMCW we took nukes off the table in order to avoid the Deus Ex Machina of tac nukes (and the game does not model them beyond unplugging your PC).  Maybe Soviet tactics make sense if all one has to do is drive over blasted ground all the way to Paris but then why have so much mass?  Unless they were thinking counter tac nukes (freakin madness), either way pulling this back to OP all I think CMCW is doing is demonstrating the weaknesses in Soviet tactical doctrine.  
 

What is hilarious is we get nearly as many complaints that the US is at too much disadvantage, which maybe is pointing at some holes in western doctrine as well.  And I have no doubt there are abstractions in the game engine that wander from RL, every game in existence does.  So the truth probably lies somewhere in between but as @Probus aptly demonstrates in his recent Chaos thread, it is a helluva lot of fun trying to find it.

[MikeyD]

Playing the game you will find Soviet tactics on favorable terrain are VERY difficult to stop, especially before the arrival of American DU penetrators and thermal optics. The Soviet strategy was not to win every battle but to reinforce success where it occurs. That means you in your little valley may be able to blunt an enemy thrust but you're likely to afterward find the enemy on your flanks and to your rear. A young corporal during the Vistula Oder offensive would be a three star general in our timeframe. The Russians still retained a late WWII frame of reference. NATO, in our timeframe, was post 'Nuclear Tripwire' but pre-'Airland Battle' in both doctrine and capabilities. Some contemporary Pentagon strategists derided NATO strategy as 'don't lose' and pushed alternate strategies that were heavy on the bravado while being light on the chance of success.

[chuckdyke]

Soviets never planned an invasion they expected a Barbarossa type of invasion. To be met with massive nuclear retaliation. The West with the undertaking not to be the first to use nuclear weapons expected a Soviet invasion. This is an enjoyable game it is not even a hypothesis of WW3. It all came to an end when the Berlin wall came tumbling down.   

[Halmbarte]

9 minutes ago, MikeyD said:

Playing the game you will find Soviet tactics on favorable terrain are VERY difficult to stop, especially before the arrival of American DU penetrators and thermal optics. The Soviet strategy was not to win every battle but to reinforce success where it occurs. That means you in your little valley may be able to blunt an enemy thrust but you're likely to afterward find the enemy on your flanks and to your rear. A young corporal during the Vistula Oder offensive would be a three star general in our timeframe. The Russians still retained a late WWII frame of reference. NATO, in our timeframe, was post 'Nuclear Tripwire' but pre-'Airland Battle' in both doctrine and capabilities. Some contemporary Pentagon strategists derided NATO strategy as 'don't lose' and pushed alternate strategies that were heavy on the bravado while being light on the chance of success.

Yes, this. The early period Sov has a large advantages of having mass and better tanks and actual IFVs. The US is stuck with tanks with RHA, tanks cannons that aren't really up to the task of defeating T64/T72 armor, and facing a whole lot of Sov ATGMs. 

And even if you manage to defeat the forces that attacked you the 2nd echelon will be coming. 

H

[sawomi]

43 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

Well if that is true - and the collective ability for humans to believe pure fiction is well established - then we were probably closer to the end than we gave ourselves credit for.

That is certainly correct. To quote again from "Fulda Gap: Battlefield of the Cold War Alliances":

Quote

Taken as a whole, the "operational preparation of the GDR as part of the theater of war" demanded by the Soviet Union made the territory the largest deployment, assembly and concentration area for troops, military logistics and military equipment since World War II.

Obviously, at the same time, the impact of a war on the GDR, the population and the troops was deliberately downplayed.

It may be perplexing how simplistic the Soviet war picture appears in the exercises. The push to the Atlantic alone, in up to 15 days, seems more like a marching exercise than a war between the world's two most powerful military coalitions under nuclear weapons effects. It should be mentioned that delayed combat operations with corps retreating to defensive positions, as NATO planned up to the Weser, played no role in the exercises studied. Quite obviously, conventional Soviet warfare was shaped by the experience of World War II. Although the existence of nuclear weapons was acknowledged, the effect of their use, including the physical-psychological impact on the troops, was suppressed. There is a remarkable gap between the assessment of the impact of own nuclear strikes and that of NATO. Whereas own nuclear weapons destroyed entire units, NATO strikes had little effect on troop deployment and attack. In the 1961 "Burja" war game, NATO nuclear strikes on the entire front resulted in the loss of only 7 companies, 40 tanks and one missile launching pad. Marshal Sakharov had actually stressed in 1964 that precisely low-contaminated areas were suitable for the attack, because no second strike could be expected here. The Soviet offensive concept was in no way to be questioned.

In the course of the rethinking that began in the mid-1980s, the military began to deal more realistically with the consequences of a nuclear war, also in view of the Chernobyl reactor disaster. The arms race aimed at winning a nuclear war, or at least at preparing for a possible war in the best possible way, had placed a heavy economic burden not only on Moscow's allies, but especially on the Soviet Union itself. Moscow took this into account with its new view of a future war.

With the new military doctrine of 1987, the pact focused on a defense strategy with sufficient forces and means, deterred by a possible use of nuclear weapons. From now on, the frontline defense operation was at the center of the pact's strategy.

The situation of the GDR improved only marginally, however, because its territory now mutated from an operational and transit area to a direct battlefield and war zone. 

 

[ZPB II]

Took this quick video while testing some stuff some time ago. Heavier formations can be deleted similarly, don't have a video of one of those tests.

It's certainly possible to grind map grids with artillery. There may be a few more tubes involved than a balanced battle would have, so you just gotta pump up those numbers. 

Edited December 26, 2021 by Zeb II

[Artkin]

6 minutes ago, Zeb II said:

 

Took this quick video while testing some stuff some time ago. Heavier formations can be deleted similarly, don't have a video of one of those tests.

It's certainly possible to grind map grids with artillery. There may be a few more tubes involved than a balanced battle would have, so you just gotta pump up those numbers. 

As you said, the density of fire doesnt match what would be normal in a PBEM. This is a lot more than a few tubes. 

Artillery can kill soft skinned vehicles, but not as easily as it should. And tanks are pretty much immune. Which was pretty much the point of the OP's post. 

There was a highly referenced post on these forums of an abrams taking numerous precision artillery rounds and surviving. 

[Halmbarte]

7 minutes ago, Zeb II said:

 

Took this quick video while testing some stuff some time ago. A battalion gets deleted. Heavier formations can be blown up similarly, don't have a video of one of those tests.

It's certainly possible to remove entire map grids with artillery. There may be a few more tubes involved than a balanced battle would have, so you just gotta pump up those numbers. 

What kind of area was that battalion stuffed into? A normal Sov battalion would have a frontage of ~1-2km and should be much better dispersed to prevent exactly the kind of concentrated air/artillery attack from being do effective. 

My normal SOP when playing the Sov is to assume that the US has observers everywhere and unlimited air/artillery with cluster bombs & ICM. I try to stay under tree cover when've I can, disperse vehicles by at least 50m, and move frequently. I can't always adhere to those norms but trying to decreases vulnerability. 

H

[MikeyD]

Watching Russian tanks roll into Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 did not exactly incline the West to believe Soviet protestations of benign intent. Russian claims of a NATO offensive threat were as much as straw man back then as they are now. You look at how the Russians currently covet the Ukrainian coastline along the Sea of Azov, one can imagine them thinking that 'reuniting' the German coast from Flensburg to the Oder with East Germany would turn the Baltic into a Russian lake. Would the US doom the world to destruction over some 2-300 miles of German coastline?

[Codreanu]

Can't say anything about how it works in Quick Battles but I've done two PBEMs, one on Rumpenheim Rumpus where my Soviet opponent used mass artillery and focused all his troops at one weak point in my line and totally rolled me over, and another on on Brauersdorf where I played the Soviets and did the same to my opponent, minus the artillery as there was only a section of off-map mortars. In both scenarios I think the Soviets would have lost if they didn't use a rapid, concentrated assault to force a breakthrough. I would not be relying on artillery to take out tanks in any CM game either unless you're playing SF2 or Black Sea, It does a good enough job at killing and suppressing infantry and lightly skinned vehicles and creating obscuration through dust clouds. Once you've taken care of the American's dismounts and jeep/M113 TOW vehicles, what exactly are M60s going to be able to do to you if you're concentrating your forces against them?

[ZPB II]

It's just messing around.  There were other battalions on the map that were more spread out and they were also eliminated. This happened to be the most clustered one.

They were just tests to see whether even heavy armor can be removed from the map using nothing but artillery and aviation. And it can be done, in practice, although the conditions are theoretical. It didn't matter if it was 3 battalions of T-80s spread out all over the map, put enough tubes in action and they would be deleted.

It might not happen as often as one might expect, but the whole point was to see whether it can be done at all or not.

 

Edited December 26, 2021 by Zeb II