Oh, in other news: It looks as though buying Danube '85 gives you the entire German front... It is also editable so you can move it back in time a bit etc etc.
I'll order it ( and the Middle Eastern and Korean versions ) and see how that all pans out. I'll report back once I find out if Danube '85 gives the entire theatre.
Have you played other John Tiller games before? I've got various of the Napoleonic and American Civil War games. Some people dislike the interfaces and/or gameplay model. You might want to get just one and try it out first before getting a bunch of them.
A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup and mustard.
Of course the problem with such extensive decentralisation was that it could lead to each sub-element finding its own "best position" and actually inadvertently leaving the sorts of gaps in the front which the Soviets were trying to plug. I think that with sub-elements manoeuvring for their own best positions it would have taken only very minor errors before some Bns somewhere ended up getting split sufficiently far apart that the Soviets identified a sufficiently large gap to introduce the Motor Rifle Division's Tank Regiment.
.....................
I think that happend at Gettysburg with some guy named Sickles [;)] The good news is that the foward postion gave time to plug the gaps with reserves but it was quite touch and go until the brave boys from Minn showed up ...
"What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so"
Graymane,
Yup, I've played the ACW Battleground ones. Even AARed a Gettysburg game against John3rd many moons ago. Didn't know how to handle cavalry initially so lost them early on ('twas my first game and I hadn't realised how the movement and combat rules synchronised ) but nicely sucked the Rebels in to an ambush and anihilated several Confederate divisions ( and their leadership ) in a counter-attack before the end of Day 1.
Crackaces,
True, true [8D]. The problem was there weren't additional echelons to back up the Confederates vs Sickles. Hell, they also just didn't shift to the right with the 1st echelon's reserve ( which was Soviet doctrine ).
John Dillworth: "I had GreyJoy check my spelling and he said it was fine."
Well, that's that settled then.
Yes, but the ACW isn't exactly the model for a highly professional, well-trained army executing mission-oriented operations by commanders that have been trained to use their initiative from day one.
I often thought that the Western view of the Soviets and their doctrine was off in their perceptions. They are like robots, display no initiative at lower levels and would not be able to react quickly to changing conditions in the operations. I thought that was dangerous thinking. On the other hand, I'm not sure those perceptions didn't cut both ways in assuming Western commanders would willy-nilly just optimize locally.
The Western Way (is that even a thing?) I think also has a point. From all accounts, the battlefield is an extremely chaotic place. It seems the Soviets took one tact: less initiative more structured orders/planning at least as understood by the west, and the West took another tact: initiative to respond to changing conditions.
The Western literature I read during my service always seem to make a big deal about mission-oriented operations versus how the Soviets planned. Missions must be simple and be able to be verbally communicated to subordinates. Subordinates must understand the commander's intent. To sum it up, Western commanders would give you a mission and expect you to plan and execute it within a set of parameters while Soviet commanders would micromanage the details for you. I'm not sure if that is a fair characterization, but I think it is certainly what we thought of them at the time.
One thing this thread has made me do is go back and read a bunch of articles I had back then with the lens of Nemo's Soviet perspective and it is quite interesting reading how Western authors describe Air/Land Battle and how many ideas and thoughts of it seem to be directly taken from Soviet Deep Battle. Reading these articles it is clear that many of them I think get Soviet Deep Battle wrong, from at least how Nemo describes it. So I begin to wonder just how wrong the Soviets got how we would fight?
A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup and mustard.
I don't have time for a proper reply now but I'd like to offer a slightly cheeky one to the question, "I begin to wonder just how wrong the Soviets got how we would fight?" I doubt they got it very wrong at all, after all they had fought and beaten the German Army in WW2 [8D].
It sounds like a joke but I'd ask you think of it a bit more carefully.
WW2: An army which practiced auftragstaktiken, low-level exercise of initiative and had smaller numbers of individually superior units ( technically at least ) but which was fettered by a High Command which usually demanded a forward defence without the benefits which would accrue from more elastic dispositions. This army was organised so as to keep individual formations in the field indefinitely ( Regimental and divisional repair workshops and a replacement system formatted accordingly etc ) faced the Soviets.
During and after WW2 a lot of what became NATO gospel was taken wholesale from German doctrine.
1985 in Europe: Modern western armies which practiced objective-oriented taskings, combined arms with low-level exercise of initiative and had fewer but higher quality units fettered by a High Command which demanded a forward defence and organised in such a manner that they had a huge, vulnerable logistics tail ( vulnerable to deep penetrations at least ) faced the Soviets.
I don't say that the Soviets were 10 feet tall and so on and so forth. We have to be realistic. I do, however, think that NATO's way of waging war wouldn't have been entirely unfamiliar to the Soviets. It was, in fact, strategically exactly the sort of force Deep Battle was designed to defeat. At any point of contact I think NATO forces would have destroyed many multiples of the force they lost but when you have an entire Division supported by a Regiment of attack helicopters and a couple of regiments of MLRS-equivalents attacking on a frontage defended by a reinforced Nato cross-attached Bn sheer weight of fire and numbers will get breakthroughs.
I'm assuming a Soviet Motor Rifle Division attacking with 2 MR Regts up and 1 back with the Tank Regiment in Reserve. In some sectors the frontage of this sort of divisional attack - when it was designed to break through and not just pin the enemy - would have been 4 kilometres ( 1km frontage per front-line Bn ( 2 regiments of 3 Bns each attacking 2 up, 1 back ). Assume an Allied frontage of 1 Company Team per Km ( not at all unreasonable although, obviously sometimes there may well have been more ) and that yields a Soviet MRD attacking vs 4 Company Teams
In such situations sheer weight of numbes would tell. Even if 3 of the 4 Company teams repulsed the attacks the Soviet Regiment facing the 4th Company Team would commit its own reserve Bn to breach that front while the Divisional commander would be commiting the reserve MR Regiment into the area held by that 4th Company team and getting the Tank Regiment moving for that same spot. Meanwhile once the Army CO heard about the success he'd get his Tank Division moving for that spot while notifying the Front Commander who would get his Tank Army ( multiple tank divisions ) moving in order to turn the operational breakthrough achieved by the All Arms Army ( operational objectives achieved by the Army's Tank Division ) into a Strategically important one ( achieved by the Tank Army that Front would be passing through ). Lastly but not leastly if this was occuring in Western Germany the Commander of the Western Strategic Direction would be informed and have to decide whether or not this breach held the opportunity of reaching the Rhine. If it did he could commit his TWO reserve Tank Armies.
At this point in time the first echelon would be fully committed and wherever it got stopped would mark the culmination of this phase of the offensive. At this point the Soviets would wait for their 2nd echelon reserves to come in from the Ukraine, Byelorussia etc in order to continue the drive forward etc etc etc.
It isn't subtle but I just have difficulty seeing the Western Allies managing to hold the line everywhere when faced with such a numerical swamping along small portions of the line and force on force and maskirovka-based pinning actions elsewhere.
Would anyone be interested in a description of a hypothetical breaching and exploitation action being outlined phase by phase vs NATO force of the '85 vintage? If we crystallise the scenario a little it might aid the discussion and ensure we're all on the same page.
As regards the Soviets being automatons with no initiative and no ability to call on higher level fires...
Let me give you an example which I think illustrates a flaw in that thinking: NATO had a doctrine whereby company level ( and sometimes lower ) officers could call fires down. The Divisional and regimental commanders supported elements of their force by assigning those forces to manoeuvre elements before and during the battle.
The Soviets have the reputation of concentrating all their artillery at the divisional level with the end result that individual company commanders have almost no artillery on call. At least if you listen to some people that's the view you'd get. This is then used as one of the examples of inability to adapt we always get. Yes, people say, whatever gets designated by the Divisional CO as a target will get plastered but the companies and manoeuvre Bns don't get fire support.
In reality a Soviet Motor Rifle Division in '85 had 28 motor rifle companies ( 9 per motor rifle regiment and 1 in the tank regiment ), 21 tank companies ( 9 in the 3 motor rifle regiments, 9 in the tank regiment and 3 ( or 4 ) in the Divisional CO's Independent Tank Bn ) and 67 artillery batteries.
Each Motor Rifle Bn has an automatic mortar battery organic to it. Each Company has access to AGS-17s ( in the BTR/MTLB units ) and BMP main gun support in the BMP unit.
Each Motor Rifle Regiment has, in addition to the mortars organic to the rifle Bns, a minimum of 4 artillery batteries ( 3 self-propelled artillery and 1 battery of Grads )
Each Motor Rifle Division CO has, under his direct command, about 54 SP artillery pieces 122mm and 152mm pieces and 36 rocket launchers.
The MR Regiments preferentially received 122mm arty and the Motor Rifle Division Artillery Regiment got the 152mm pieces. The goal was, again, to give the heavier artillery to the divisional CO.
So, while the Divisional CO definitely retained the lion's share of the artillery and was supposed to ONLY commit this to support his most successful company or Bn it is clear that individual company, Bn and Regimental COs all had access to organic indirect fire support ( platoon and company-based automatic mortars for the Bn, SP arty for the Regiment ). So, the Soviets compensated for their doctrine of concentrating all divisional indirect fire along a single axis by ensuring other regiments and Bns all had organic indirect fire support which couldn't be taken away.
Was the divisional CO's artillery flexible and available to everyone? No. Did that mean lower echelons had no access to arty? No. They compensated for their artillery doctrine by creating organic artillery sections, batteries and Bns at each sub-level of their formations so that even COs who weren't along the main axis could rely on some support - that of their own artillery section, battery or Bn ).
This was much the same thinking which went on for manoeuvre elements and led to the godawful number of "Independent" companies, Bns and Brigades scattered throughout the Soviet Army.
Their solution was structurally very different ( and profligate in terms of tubes needed ) than occured in Western armies where task forces, cross-attachment and mission-limited assignments were used but it achieved much of the same effect in terms of ensuring lower level commanders had access to artillery ( in the west it was on call, in the east it was organic ) whilst, in the minds of the Soviets, giving a better chance that the Divisional CO's artillery reserve would remain uncommitted at the decisive point in time and available for the divisional CO to commit en masse in support of whichever one of his Bns had happened upon a weak spot in the enemy line. That weak spot would then find itself pounded not only by that attacking Bn's automatic mortars but also the Regiment's 122mm SP Bn and Grad Battery as well as the 54 x 152mm guns and 36 rocket launchers of the divisional commander's artillery reserve.
Obviously that's theory in reality losses, bad luck etc would intervene. It does, I think, though illustrate that some of the myths weren't, perhaps, as accurate as we might think. Below Bn level there wasn't much initiative, just action drills in response to enemy action. Then again the job of Soviet Bns wasn't to manoeuvre it was to either smash what was in front of them until there was an area of land with nothing but dead enemies ( a breach ) or to keep going in the direction the regimental CO told them irrespective of cost ( the exploitation phase ). With either of these roles initiative was actually something which could harm the achievement of the task. That was, I believe, from my reading, their view.
I'm interested to see if Danube '85 allows these doctrinal differences to be shown. The scale is Bn level for WarPac forces and Company/Team level for NATO forces so it may well allow this to be modelled appropriately.
John Dillworth: "I had GreyJoy check my spelling and he said it was fine."
Well, that's that settled then.
I also don't mean to imply that I think the NATO approach would have worked, I'm just trying to work through the doctrines of what they thought would work and how things would play out. As someone in the thread previously stated, I don't think anyone below the rank of major thought we were going to fare all that well -) I can't see how we would have ever gotten enough troops over to Europe in a short amount of time before the Soviets were all the way through Germany. I think a lot of faith was placed in technology, especially air power.
I don't really want to derail the thread from a conversation about Deep Battle as it applies to witpae, however. So if we think it is getting too far afield, I've got plenty of more questions about its application in a WW2 setting.
A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup and mustard.
Next: The importance of echeloning and the myth of the absence of reserves in deep battle.
Can you elaborate more? I know you discussed it a bit in #75 with respect to why you would do echeloning at a high level. You've also discussed a bit about composition of the forces in each. It would be interesting do delve into a bit more detail about the "technical" aspects of creating an echelon at each level as well as an OMG. How do you keep them supplied in a witpae setting, etc. How are they constructed differently for a 1st echelon as opposed to follow on echelons as opposed to an OMG.
A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup and mustard.
This thread fascinates me even if I lack the in depth knowledge that others possess.
Regarding the Central Front Scenario
Certainly this is a scenario that has fascinated military strategists and wargamers for over 50 years now. Even now more than twenty years after the Berlin Wall fell we are still discussing it. What we as wargamers can do is discuss the concepts independent of the politcal and diplomatic niceties that would have have surrounded a real "hot" war. In spite of what Ronald Reagan would have us beleive, I don't think the Sovs ever seriously thought about invading Western Europe. Even though the structure of their forces could be implied that they intended offensive action, the underlying theory was defensive not offensive. It was the conventional weapons equivalent of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). By that I mean that the Sovs adopted a strategy of hitting the other guy before he could hit them. As I said before, this stemmed from their WWII experiences.
As much as wargamers are fascinated with the Strategic Surprise Scenario, I think that is the one that was least likely. It assumes that for some unnamed reason the Sovs just decided to start a war with NATO without provocation or forewarning. Perhaps when Kruschev was still in power that would have been possible but even then I think it unlikely. A more reasonable scenario would be one where some international incident escalated beyond the point where calmer minds could diffuse it. It would have likely consited of diplomatic brinksmanship where both sides kept raising the level of alertness of their forces to the point where it reached critical mass. The Cuban Missile Crisis would be the best example of such an event. The world came dangerous close turning the Cold War "hot" at that point. Numerous other events come to mind such as the downing of KAL 007.
That said, I think the Deep Battle theories envoked by the Sovs and their Allies played better to the likely evolving diplomatic environment that likely would have been developing during a hot war in Europe. Even outside of a hot war, NATO had it's problems holding itself together. What role if any would the French have played? How much assistance could/would the southern members of NATO provide if the war was not active in that region? So in a Deep Battle scenario, the Sovs could push into the NATO rear threatening the political seats of power without actually destroying the bulk of the fighting force. Deep Battle was as much a political strategy as it was a military one at least in the Central Front Scenario
Regarding Echelons
While Nemo lays out in an excellant fashion how the use of echelons would have worked if employed by the Sovs, I feel he failed to touch on an important point. That being that the Sovs really needed for their initial thrusts to work because even though the Red Army was impressive on paper, there was a huge difference between A,B, & C divisions. These differences were not only in quality of equipment but also in the level of training and leadership the second and third tier divisions would have had available to them. While the "A" divisions were standing army with the best TO&E, there was significant fall off after that. In the '80's the "A" divisions had T-80 and BMP, the "B" divisions T-62 and BTR-70, while the "C" divisions had T-55 and BTR-60. A smiliar train occured in ATGM, AAA, and artillery. I think a point could also be made that the terain was not exactly condusive to rapid maneuver by large forces which would act as a detriment to getting the second echelon forces through the gap before it closed.
The Scary Part
As has been pointed out, NATO strategy was highly reliant on tactical nukes if things went badly. One has to marvel at the thinking that one side could start lobbing nukes at the other without retaliation in kind. Even further is the madness that such an exchange could some how be "contained" to the local battlefield. While it is an interesting mental exercise to consider the hypothetical battlefield, the cold realities of how such a conflict might have actually progressed are chilling even now.
"We have met the enemy and they are ours" - Commodore O.H. Perry
I don't have time for a proper reply now but I'd like to offer a slightly cheeky one to the question, "I begin to wonder just how wrong the Soviets got how we would fight?" I doubt they got it very wrong at all, after all they had fought and beaten the German Army in WW2 [8D].
Nemo,
Forgive me, but I feel you left out a key point that is relevant in the discussion about NATO versus WP and the application of Soviet theory to WITP-AE.
I would rewrite you last sentence as, "I doubt they got it very wrong at all, after all they had fought and beaten the German Air Force and Army in WW2." I believe it is hard to underestimate the importance to German tactics and operations of losing air superiority on the Eastern Front. Late war Soviet tactics would not have been possible without air superiority.
Although I realize the discussion has moved on to focus on war in Europe in the Soviet twilight, I wanted to take a stab at dragging us back to WW2.
A couple of other points come to mind as I have been rereading Simpkin and Glantz:
If we were to be fair to the era of WiTP-AE, the doctrine of Deep Battle did not exist as part of the Soviet military vernacular during the period of WW2. It was tainted as the intellectual thought of enemies of the state.
The dramatic echeloning of forces in Soviet tactics and operations is a construct of late 60s and 70s military science. Indeed, STAVKA field order 306, issued in October 1942, based on analysis of the disastrous first year of the war with Germany, directed the use of only single echelon-formations to “bring maximum force to bear on the German defenses”
Writing at the end of the war, Zlobin said about front operations (again, Deep Battle was not a term used during this era under Stalin), “…split the operational structure of the enemy along the front and in depth into separate isolated pockets and destroy them one by one.” This suggest that while tactical objectives and some operational objectives were terrain oriented in order to split the the enemy in depth, the forces available must be capable of isolating those pockets and eventually reducing them. The Soviets were very patient in reducing the isolated pockets as are many Japanese players once they have isolated the Philippines.
As much as wargamers are fascinated with the Strategic Surprise Scenario, I think that is the one that was least likely. It assumes that for some unnamed reason the Sovs just decided to start a war with NATO without provocation or forewarning. Perhaps when Kruschev was still in power that would have been possible but even then I think it unlikely. A more reasonable scenario would be one where some international incident escalated beyond the point where calmer minds could diffuse it. It would have likely consited of diplomatic brinksmanship where both sides kept raising the level of alertness of their forces to the point where it reached critical mass. The Cuban Missile Crisis would be the best example of such an event. The world came dangerous close turning the Cold War "hot" at that point. Numerous other events come to mind such as the downing of KAL 007.
During the Andropov Era this possibility became very very close ...If I could set the tone 1980 this President Reagan guy starting a US military building program, particually the Navy but almost in every dimension threatened the USSR. Should we wait for US supremacy or strike now? Two good things happened to save the world .. one of which is Andropov delveloped "sudden kidney" problems .. the second thing .. the Russian's love thier children too ..
I think this is where the docterine meets reality .. For example, it was the Russian Mothers refusing to send their children into the "..Stans" that ended their Afghanistan conflict . that and modern MIC/HIC is very very expensive for superpowers ..
"What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so"
For those of us who are Acronym-Challenged: what is MIC/HIC?
I apologize [:(]
Just sort of throwing out terms off the top of my head from experince I look at these terms to mean:
LIC == Light Intensity Conflcit that ranges from diplomatic challanges to teerrorism. The key is plausiable deniability of all direct actions. Once you lose plausiable deniability you esacate the affair to the very low ends of MIC or Medium Intensity Combat.
MIC == Overt assasniation on the bottom end [read this as recent news of Irans foray] all the way to overt direct action ..
HIC== High Intensity Conflcit. The defintion is kind of fuzzy to me. You can read about the projection of overt military power deep into the industrial and manpower spaces. Sometimes it splits hairs . like if I use 122 mm to bombard a city [a la Seoul] is that a HIC? A HIC might be like porn .. you know it when you see it .. but .. The Christmas Bombing of 1972 is talked about in the light .. the high end of a HIC is the overt use of WMD ...the highest end is the use of nuclear weapons to destroy an enemies industrial complex.
Rolling through the Fulda Gap might start as the high end of a MIC but ....escalates in the gaming world to a HIC pretty rapidly...[;)]
One thing you hear about is "asymetrical warfare" that is when one side is fighting a LIC but the other side is fighting a MIC or even a HIC. LIC pays X costs . MIC pays 4 - 8 X costs ... you get the picture ..
"What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so"
I'm not exactly qualified to talk about this topic. I've never played a pbem game and am still pretty much an ae noob (though I've read some threads and played the ai some). I have absolutely no background in the military and strategy and my military history is miniscule compared to others on this forum. I'm not familiar with Clausewitz and the development of military doctrine (Soviet, western, or anyone else at all), but this topic does intrigue me so I have a few questions for the thread.
First: recon. Nemo, would it be fair to say you've characterized deep battle being correlated with the effectiveness of recon? The better the recon, the more accurately your echelons can theoretically deal with the strategic reserves and neutralize operational threats? This especially intrigues me with respect to the possible invasion of Germany. From my (uninformed) perspective it would seem that recon itself is worth some extended discussion for my understanding of the concepts of deep battle. To me it seems obvious that that recon in the pre-tactical phase of deep battle has significant differences from recon once the tactical breakthrough has begun. To take the extreme example, I would imagine the Soviets would have been hesitant to send too many recon aircraft over the border before beginning a push through the lines. For one thing, that might incite hostilities and activate the allied strategic reserves and political process before the tactical divisions were pushing cutting into the margin to achieve the strategic breakthrough. The example of this in witp:ae would seem to be the way both sides track recon to anticipate possible avenues of attack and preparedness. This could end up becoming a feint, of course, but some level of recon is necessary and subtler, long-term recon has consequences too (both as a gauge and a potential site of maskirovka). It seems to me that methods of recon are a limited subset during the pre-hostility period if surprise is to be maintained. Of course intelligence assets and analysts would be used to try to identify the locations of strategic reserves (like the tank depots mentioned in the thread) and logistical lines and there are still some methods of recon available (spotters, high altitude spy planes, satellite cameras, etc.), but such methods are still more limited than the options available after hostilities have begun.
As an aside, I have to wonder if, to some degree, this might have influenced Soviet strategists focus on strategic geography. No matter how cleverly the opponent might run their logistical lines and how decentralized command and control might be at any given point, if you take the bridges across the Rhine, for example, that option is gone. Major bridges, rail centers, ports, etc. cannot be disguised in the same way a battalion level logistical line might be concealed (with potential redundancies). In this sense, the geography provides strategic options and opportunities that are somewhat separate from other, more socially constructed objectives. Even if the enemy logistics and communications net does not require whatever specific geographical objectives you prioritize, it seems to me that the opportunity cost of not having those objectives intact would provide strategic value in itself.
So I have multiple questions with regard to recon and deep battle.
First: how did Soviet planners regard and plan for the differences between recon before and after the commitment of forces? Presumably tactical level recon (which I presume would be the eyes of forces on the ground + specialized recon vehicles and aircraft + 5th columnist spotters and whatever else would not be able to properly absorb and communicate tactical level information in a useful time table before the commitment of forces without risking premature escalation) would be mostly off the table beforehand, though it would be most critical and fully operational during and after the breakthrough phase. Operational level recon (I would lump more generalized recon assets that might be inserted into the operational depth to monitor targets and movements in preparation for the breakthrough echelons) would probably be active to some degree, but limited before hostilities (monitoring communications is one thing, but inserting active recon behind enemy lines is more complicated and would not be done on the same scale (at least in terms of rapid communication) until hostilities were opened for the same reasons). Strategic level recon (intelligence assets and analysis, satellites, etc) would seem, at least to me, to be the primary means of gathering the necessary information for planning.
b) Were the soviets concerned about operational level maskirovkas in the (relative) absence of operational recon, or am I reading the operational level recon incorrectly, or did they rely on allied passivity to some degree in the case of pre-hostility (such that strategic level recon and the slower pace of operational level recon would be able to keep accurate enough information until all recon could be unleashed)?
c) Would an increased insertion of 5th columnist style recon operatives have likely preceded such an attack? If so, is there some strategic level method that would have likely been employed to disguise such moves? (I'm thinking partially of ways to utilize recon in ae here, especially with regards to Japan and submarine based glens, which I would consider roughly equivalent to an operational level recon asset in this context).
d) It seems to me that the technical-tactical capabilities of recon have increased so drastically since the formation of deep battle doctrine as to, perhaps, fundamentally alter the viability of the doctrine. I'm thinking for example of predator style drones. They can be, potentially, operated out of the strategic depth but be used to deliver significant disruption of (at least mobile) c&c at the operational level, potentially offer tactical level close support, and offer a platform that can potentially be a form of strategic reserve against a breakthrough. Plus something like such drones can be (to a much larger degree than older technical-tactical systems) be immune to pre-hostile recon and decentralized enough to provide some immunity to strategic level threats. If we were to view such a development as simultaneous reserve, recon, and counter-recon that can be deployed faster than any (currently) theoretical ground forces, is the same kind of breakthrough that secures the tactical, then operational sloc still viable? Such a reserve could only really be pinned (if at all) with assets of similar speed which, at least for now, presumably could not displace ground forces quickly enough for a strategic breakthrough with ground-secured slocs, at least to me. Is this a problem that could, potentially, be overcome by some new technical-tactical innovation or has the concept of reserves and recon been shifted enough to make the concept problematic at best now?
e) Because the Soviet model was so fundamentally... materialist, do you think it would have been possible to use the Soviet preoccupation with material against them (that is, using the local centers of means of production and transportation in western Europe as a strategic layer maskriovka). Were the theoreticians (early, post 1943, early Cold War Era, late Cold War period) sufficiently distanced from the Marxist theory that seeped their culture to see past that social construct if it had been used as such?
Second: geo-political developments and deep battle.
I presume (though with very limited knowledge) that the original theoreticians of deep battle still believed in the Marxist Revolution sparking in the nations they would be fighting, possibly in response to such an attack. Obviously the early theoreticians would have had plans to use such an uprising (both for recon purposes and manpower), but were such events sine qua non to the strategic success of deep battle in the early days of the Soviet Union? Presumably in the later Cold War period agents could be inserted reasonably easily into Western Europe for the kind of limited pre-hostility operational recon I imagined, but was that a factor of the specific geopolitical nature of the so-called First World nations? If, say, China had proven to be a genuine enemy, would Soviet Doctrine have been any advantage? I have absolutely no historical knowledge, but I have read say Bertolt Brecht's plays about Russian agents in China in the pre-revolutionary days, and that was apparently a non-trivial process to find any acceptance locally. Would inserting operational level recon operatives have been feasible in a theoretical Sino-Russian theater as in the West? Would the system of echelons have been effective against an opponent to whom losing geography is somewhat more trivial with greater manpower for the attrition grinder? Now I would think Russia clearly had many more strategic options than China during the Cold War period, but would the doctrine have been likely to be effective? What kind of doctrine did Russia have in that regard, or did they presume the Marxist nature of the Chinese government would prevent that level of conflict?
Others in the thread have mentioned that the Western Allies had prepared (with all their own attendant illusions) for Soviet doctrine, but were the leaders of the late Cold War flexible enough to have substantially changed it? Nemo seemed to imply that the doctrine derived very deeply from the Marxist social construct, and given the relative rigidity of the education required to maintain that construct, was a substantial change in doctrine feasible to have been developed without adequate notice? Can we imagine the broad outline of a complementary doctrine to take advantage of the counter-planning to deep battle (slowing rear echelons to have time to destroy them piecemeal, etc)? I'm thinking, perhaps, of Nemo's Downfall game where he invaded Okinawa to push back the fighter bases. Presuming he knew the allies had planned on echelons attacking the one geographic point in fighter range of the homeland and mobilized the appropriate reserves to reinforce and obliterate each echelon in turn, what would be ways to take advantage of such a move knowing that the original plan would (presumably) be much less likely to result in positive attritional exchange. Of course the options might be limited because of the massive material superiority of the allies at that stage and relatively limited capabilities of the Japanese technical-tactical arsenal.
I'm genuinely curious and clueless as to whether deep battle is something uniquely suited to counter western Europe and the capitalist democracies located there. Is there a way to imagine it to be effective against LIC assymetrical warfare, against more strictly controlled governments like modern China, against, say England if the Fulda gap (almost all I know about it is from this thread) had been breached, Germany conquered, and France politically neutralized? It seems that there are certain limitations to what is possible in a technical-tactical environment and the presumably more limited speed of movement of reinforcements by sea and greater gap before reaching even the tactical depth would make echeloning much harder to pull off cleanly (this might also apply to limitations to the doctrine in the island-hopping Pacific. I'm thinking of some of the (partially) self-sustaining nature of the Festung Palembang strategy in ae and its resistance to being completely isolated even given strategic breakthroughs nearby in Malaya and Java and the possibility of rehabilitating some bypassed islands as Japan through sst or other clandestine supply operations, as well as naval raids if recon superiority can be appropriately challenged through combat or maskirovka).
I'm sure I've got plenty of other questions, but that covers some of my main curiosities and this post is long enough already.
ORIGINAL: Schlemiel
It seems to me that methods of recon are a limited subset during the pre-hostility period if surprise is to be maintained. Of course intelligence assets and analysts would be used to try to identify the locations of strategic reserves (like the tank depots mentioned in the thread) and logistical lines and there are still some methods of recon available (spotters, high altitude spy planes, satellite cameras, etc.), but such methods are still more limited than the options available after hostilities have begun.
I think what you are calling recon is too limiting. Intel uses lots of different resources and assets to develop a picture at not just a national and strategic depth but all the way down to the tactical areas as well. Units from Battalions up and have various organic intel capabilities as well as recon units depending on the branch and nation. Combat-oriented recon units are only one part of the picture.
I think you are also mistaken in thinking that options are more free after hostilities begin. In some cases, it becomes more difficult. You simply have different asset usage and missions. Security tightens up a lot more after hostilities break out, for example. This can make many intel gathering exercises a lot more painful.
A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup and mustard.
ORIGINAL: Schlemiel
It seems to me that methods of recon are a limited subset during the pre-hostility period if surprise is to be maintained. Of course intelligence assets and analysts would be used to try to identify the locations of strategic reserves (like the tank depots mentioned in the thread) and logistical lines and there are still some methods of recon available (spotters, high altitude spy planes, satellite cameras, etc.), but such methods are still more limited than the options available after hostilities have begun.
I think what you are calling recon is too limiting. Intel uses lots of different resources and assets to develop a picture at not just a national and strategic depth but all the way down to the tactical areas as well. Units from Battalions up and have various organic intel capabilities as well as recon units depending on the branch and nation. Combat-oriented recon units are only one part of the picture.
I think you are also mistaken in thinking that options are more free after hostilities begin. In some cases, it becomes more difficult. You simply have different asset usage and missions. Security tightens up a lot more after hostilities break out, for example. This can make many intel gathering exercises a lot more painful.
They could be quite interesting in peacetime, too, if you were playing with the Soviets.
Harry Erwin
"For a number to make sense in the game, someone has to calibrate it and program code. There are too many significant numbers that behave non-linearly to expect that. It's just a game. Enjoy it." herwin@btinternet.com
This is the first time that I have seen that a westerner understands 'glubokiy boy'.
I think our friend Nemo has worked as a psychologist for the western military to understand their enemy's psyche, OODA loop, reactions and how to predict their actions, and did not just work with PTSD soldiers.
Must have been an interesting career. Also I assume everything is classified.
Am reading his AAR's now, and who knew that concentration of force at the schwerpunkt, and also that having an overall (strategic) plan and sticking to it wins you wars, eh?
To be fair, I can see how in WITPAE (and in war) the mundane, day to day issues and threats can obscure and the overall picture.
So many clicks (both in WITPAE and in real war, computers are here for every military service [:D])
