Central Europe 2016 - NATO vs Russia

[jezqus]

Hello!

I've created scenario placed in Central Europe in 2016. This is conventional conflict against Poland and Baltic states against Belarus and Russia.

Map is based on Fall Weiss 1939 with modifications.

OOB was made by me. I've spend a lot of time on it and Polish OOB should be quite good. For Baltic states should be ok too. For Russia and Belarus is based on some articles about Russian forces structure and reports from Ukraine.

Can be played as PBEM or as NATO side.

Scenario attached.

Have fun! If you found bugs or sth please let me know - I will try to fix it Smile

Regards
Jez

[josant]

Interesting scenario, thanks.

[smiley69]

Thanks for the scenario jezqus - looking forward to trying it out.

[Pantera]

There is 350 units on the NATO site, and no air help from West at all:( What I see from the strategig view is that I don't have to evacuate in case of war in the first week or two. Nice:)

[jezqus]

Unfortunately this is quite real situation. I've created this scenario based on idea that UE and NATO will need at least few days to react. I believe that EU and NATO are not able to enter into open conflict with RF so they wait and watching situation.

From other hand as a NATO player you have reinforcement rate (some Leopards, F16 etc.) - in real world there are no more F16 and Leos in Poland so this is help from NATO countries. Additionally you have Baltic Policing and US Air Wing in total about 24 great jets to maintain air superiority. There is one US Forces battle group which represents NATO fast reaction forces which will be deployed in Poland or Baltic States. From strategic point of view(in scenario) your objective is to survive about 3 weeks and do not lost everything - then NATO and EU forces probably will help you! You must remember that you're not an offensive side so use terrain, defend cities and river lines, destroy bridges to stop aggressors. According to Air Forces - the main objective is to avoid destruction and maitain air superiority as long as possible(and it is possible[:)]) From my expirience, I've played NATO twice against computer and result was 1:1. The key is to mobilize all forces(especially Polish leopard brigades, Estinians and "Iron Wolf" brigade) and use them on "hot" directions.

For the end, I'm planning to make some changes and fixes in near future. I'm also thinking about adding some small air component and special forces to NATO [:)]

Regards
Jez

[NikolaiEzhov]

Very strange with the TO&E of that "US Defense Group"
12 M1A2 Abrams with 54 M2 Bradrey?
Should one US Army Combined Arms Battalion has 29 Abrams and 29 Bradrey IFVs?
p.s. How are the armed forces of Baltic countries organized? Interesting...

[spec111]

Very nice idea but very stupid, useless detailed, OOB that definitely "not fit", pretty hard to control and kills scenario itself. (Small units TOE is not good too - where is mortars, engineers, recons, heavy infantry weapons, etc?)

I need to explain, that administrative TOE that is not like units and armies actually fights, both east and west. All armies for last 70 years prefers to form some combined arms kampfgruppes for german, Task Forces for NATO, and tactical\artillery groups for soviets. Soviets and russians are forming company\bn\regimental\brigade tactical groups based on appropriative formations and names it RTG(rotnaya takticheskaya gruppa, BTG (batalionnaya takticheskaya gruppa), PTG (polkovaya takticheskaya gruppa), BrTG (brigadnaya takticheskaya gruppa). Same idea for arty - there are regimental, divisional, corps, army, front artillery groups. This groups is something like general support artillery groups in NATO therms.

So in fact to model some formation, like division, you dont need to create 12-15 units uncontrolable monster. Just 3-4 task forces based on line mech\tanks units, recon unit and arty unit. Thats all. 6 units vs 15! In fact you dont need so much HQs too. If we are talking about BN scale scenario it is not good to make rgt\bde HQ, and HQ will start only from div or corps level. Let ai units commanders to place they HQ at they own. "Make it fit!" (c) Original TOAW manual.

Please note that TOAW is game from late 90's with some time very stupid and not pleasure interface, so scenario designer must use special measures to not overload they players more and more. Especially in case of very big, long and detailed scenarios.

But please dont consider this gamers (and oob\toe designer) long time pains and criticism to your scenario idea and personally to you. No. I definitely likes your idea, it is very actual, and i respect you bravery to dream and express your feels and thoughts in this manner. So if one of our arts and creative weapons is TOAW, so let it be. Thx for your time and energy that you put in this scenario. [;)]

[spec111]

And yeah, OOB has some mistakes itself. Poland has 600+ "regular" T-72 (not Twardy) in active service, but there is only 120+ T-72 in scen. Numbers of other military vehicles and equipment is undervalued too. TOE is crazy and leads to problems. My be it is some bug, but in my TOAW many equipment is showed as 0/0 *name of equipment*. I meet such thing in TOAW for first time.

Russian OOB and TOE is very crappy too. Huge number of mistakes in TOE, wrong numeration of units\formations and its locations. Combat TF is not formed. Etc... Yeah, Russian has major military reform that last near 7-8 years, with huge senior commanders reshuffle, trials, media wars and other things, but this dont need to lead to such mistakes in scenario. Even, and especially, if you make nice "what if".

NATO reinforcement time and scale of this reinforcement is largely not correct too. First of all NATO maintain strong immediate and rapid reaction forces. Secondary, there is Germany with its Wermacht... Lol, with its small Merkelwehr. [:'(] But this is 3 divs with 350-400 Leopards with not so weak Airforces and participation in THREE international Corps and French-Germany brigade. Third, there is Czech and Slovaks. So it is logical to guess that first NATO units will come to scene in 7-10 day maximum. Not three weeks! [:D]

But as i sad, i LOVE idea of this scenario. I just created my own ultimate version of it with fully mobilized Batjka Belarus with all its 1800 T-72s. And yeah, Poland with Germany has a chance. =)

[jezqus]

Hello Guys!

NikolaiEzhov - "US Defense Group" it is combined tank company and mechanized battalion. Currently there are no US forces in Poland or in Baltic states, there is a plan to deploy something like international battalion battle group here and that unit represents this formation. According to OOB of Baltic states, it was based on wikipedia and one Polish article. Basically all those countries have similar structure, it is divided on two components regular and teritorial. I know that my OOB in this point is not fully correct but somehow represents those countries - especially regulars.

spec111 - thanks for comment! According to OOB structure, currently in Poland we have strange structure it is based on eastern block but in size of western armies(small). Additionally, currently there are no plan of creating battalion battle groups or something(but it will be changed in near future - as far as I know land forces doctrine is changing). So, I've created all units to have possibility to create (as a player) my own battle groups or altilerry support groups or anything what I want where I want:)

According to mistakes in Polish OOB, I've started creating simple scenarios Poland vs Somebody after Russia vs Georgia war - it was in 2009. Since then Polish army were restructurized several times but always I had a problem with tanks. Based on official OOB and docs from Military school from Wroclaw I had always number of tanks 500 to 600 but official statistic said that we have over 900. I've found answer in presentation prepared by Polish military hobbist - inline we have about 250 Leopard 2, 230 Polish PT-91 and 160 improved T-72 ... in statistic there are still about 600 of T-72 but most of them are not able to be used(olny as a part donnors "379 T-72 tanks will be stored and kept operational until 2018. Only 159 T-72s are operational."). But from other hand I've consider those T-72s in replacment rate

According Russia OOB - yes, I've tried to build it based on information from Ossetya and Ukrainian war but without good sources it is almost impossible. I've decided to create something which will fits possible organization - battalion battle groups in first line(structure based on Polish article), regular structure in second line forces(to give possibility to create your own groups). I hope this somehow represents structure of current Russian Army.

According NATO help, me and much of Poles don't believe in NATO help now. I've read a lot of articles in Polish, German and even US magazines/services - most of them saying there is not possible to help Poland or Baltic states if real conflict will started. I've confirmed it with some analitics opinios - they are similar and this is the point of the scenario ... and from other hand I will spend rest of my life creating NATO OOB

BTW. Please publish your version of this scenario - I am very interested

Regards
Jez