Soviet OOB's/TOE's

[Sabre21]

I would be interested to see the sources you guys used for the Soviet OOB's and TOE's.

By the way, I just downloaded the game

[Mad Russian]

Welcome to the insanity.

Literature on tactics:
"Weapons and Tactics of the Soviet Army" by David C. Isby
"Soviet Airland Battle Tactics" by William P. Baxter
"The Threat: Organization, Tactics and Equipment" Department of the Army TC6-4-2
"Employment of Warsaw Pact Forces Against NATO" Director of Central Intelligence
"The Soviet Army: Operations and Tactics" Department of the Army FM 100-2-1

Literature on OOB:
Group of Soviet Forces Germany 1988
Cold War BMP or BTR equipped Soviet Battalions
Central Group of Forces 1988
Soviet Armored Divisions Late 1960's
Soviet Order of Battle and Doctrine
Reorganization of the Soviet Forces 1984


Just to name a few.

Good Hunting.

MR

[Sabre21]

Did you use the FM 100-2-3? That one gets into very explicit detail down to the number of pistols and radios per unit.

[CapnDarwin]

We also use Micromark OOBs, yes, that FM, and anything else that covers the 80s we can find. It may not be perfect, but that's why we have User data files you can modify. Plus we are happy to fix typos and errors. [:)]

[Sabre21]

I've got a few questions and I'm sure I'll have more as I get into the game. I hope you don't mind.

1. I noticed you included the TOS-1 as part of the Soviet inventory. That weapon system was in development and testing in the late 80's and was never deployed to GSFG. Did you guys add it in just for fun? It was a very short range rocket system designed to be used against well fortified positions. As for rockets, the BM-21 was still the primary counter battery system at division level in 1989. The RM-70 was used by the E Germans and Czechs.

2.You guys use the term readiness in reference to each unit. Normally this is used to determine how many primary systems are available at a given time. So if a tank commander reports 90% readiness, you can expect 9 out of 10 tanks are available for combat duty. How is it used in game? I don't see any changes in TO&E by looking at varying readiness levels.

3. I didn't see any snow weather conditions in the rulebook. Is that to be added later?

4. As for visibility, usually a good day in Germany you could have 7 miles vis (11k) but rarely did we have many days like that over there. Fog could easily last all day long at times over wide areas. I have been grounded before for a week due to thick fog with vis no more than 200 meters. Weather in Germany just really sucked bad in the winter and early spring.

5. Are there any cobras (AH-1's) in any of the scenarios. So far I haven't seen any. All the US divisional Cavalry had them as well as the 3 air cav troops in the ACR's. The OH 58's that were used were the OH-58c models. The A models had all been replaced pretty much by 86.

6. I forgot to add night vis too. I see it is limited to 1500m which is just under a mile. You know AH-64's can engage targets (at that time) out to 8000m using hellfires. Their thermals were very good for targeting.

[Tazak]

The readiness is related to the units fatigue and general combat readiness, as to the numbers of 'runners' the scenario designer can deleted/falled out/destroyed single subunits

[CapnDarwin]

Answers below.

ORIGINAL: Sabre21

I've got a few questions and I'm sure I'll have more as I get into the game. I hope you don't mind.

1. I noticed you included the TOS-1 as part of the Soviet inventory. That weapon system was in development and testing in the late 80's and was never deployed to GSFG. Did you guys add it in just for fun? It was a very short range rocket system designed to be used against well fortified positions. As for rockets, the BM-21 was still the primary counter battery system at division level in 1989. The RM-70 was used by the E Germans and Czechs.
a1. Yes it is one of those odd fringe units we included. The funnier thing about it was the fact it was a decoy for the version that carriers a laser array in a similar looking turret. We give the scenario designers a chance to through some odd stuff on the battlefield.

2.You guys use the term readiness in reference to each unit. Normally this is used to determine how many primary systems are available at a given time. So if a tank commander reports 90% readiness, you can expect 9 out of 10 tanks are available for combat duty. How is it used in game? I don't see any changes in TO&E by looking at varying readiness levels.
a2. Readiness in the game is a measure of how well the unit is doing in terms of fatigue and cohesion. Not a runner available. Sorry for the confusion.

3. I didn't see any snow weather conditions in the rulebook. Is that to be added later?
a3. No snow just yet. We had enough fun just getting 30 odd maps with a spring/summer look going. We do plan to add snow and it is already in the code waiting turn on down the road.

4. As for visibility, usually a good day in Germany you could have 7 miles vis (11k) but rarely did we have many days like that over there. Fog could easily last all day long at times over wide areas. I have been grounded before for a week due to thick fog with vis no more than 200 meters. Weather in Germany just really sucked bad in the winter and early spring.
a4. We have average visibility at 5k. In some cases up to 10k. Fog cuts it to 1500m. Rain even less. We will be adding more dynamics to the weather model in the future and hence the visibility will ebb and flow with that.

5. Are there any cobras (AH-1's) in any of the scenarios. So far I haven't seen any. All the US divisional Cavalry had them as well as the 3 air cav troops in the ACR's. The OH 58's that were used were the OH-58c models. The A models had all been replaced pretty much by 86.
a5. I believe so. Steve would know better off the top of his head. We also have something in the works that I know has AH1s in it, but I can't say anything right now. [:D]

6. I forgot to add night vis too. I see it is limited to 1500m which is just under a mile. You know AH-64's can engage targets (at that time) out to 8000m using hellfires. Their thermals were very good for targeting.
a6. That is broken and fixed in 2.03 to 500m. IR sight and Thermals can of course see further depending on weather. Thermals also suffer from thermal inversion at dawn and dusk.

Hope that covers things. [8D]

[Sabre21]

ORIGINAL: Capn Darwin

Answers below.

ORIGINAL: Sabre21

I've got a few questions and I'm sure I'll have more as I get into the game. I hope you don't mind.

1. I noticed you included the TOS-1 as part of the Soviet inventory. That weapon system was in development and testing in the late 80's and was never deployed to GSFG. Did you guys add it in just for fun? It was a very short range rocket system designed to be used against well fortified positions. As for rockets, the BM-21 was still the primary counter battery system at division level in 1989. The RM-70 was used by the E Germans and Czechs.
a1. Yes it is one of those odd fringe units we included. The funnier thing about it was the fact it was a decoy for the version that carriers a laser array in a similar looking turret. We give the scenario designers a chance to through some odd stuff on the battlefield.

2.You guys use the term readiness in reference to each unit. Normally this is used to determine how many primary systems are available at a given time. So if a tank commander reports 90% readiness, you can expect 9 out of 10 tanks are available for combat duty. How is it used in game? I don't see any changes in TO&E by looking at varying readiness levels.
a2. Readiness in the game is a measure of how well the unit is doing in terms of fatigue and cohesion. Not a runner available. Sorry for the confusion.

3. I didn't see any snow weather conditions in the rulebook. Is that to be added later?
a3. No snow just yet. We had enough fun just getting 30 odd maps with a spring/summer look going. We do plan to add snow and it is already in the code waiting turn on down the road.

4. As for visibility, usually a good day in Germany you could have 7 miles vis (11k) but rarely did we have many days like that over there. Fog could easily last all day long at times over wide areas. I have been grounded before for a week due to thick fog with vis no more than 200 meters. Weather in Germany just really sucked bad in the winter and early spring.
a4. We have average visibility at 5k. In some cases up to 10k. Fog cuts it to 1500m. Rain even less. We will be adding more dynamics to the weather model in the future and hence the visibility will ebb and flow with that.

5. Are there any cobras (AH-1's) in any of the scenarios. So far I haven't seen any. All the US divisional Cavalry had them as well as the 3 air cav troops in the ACR's. The OH 58's that were used were the OH-58c models. The A models had all been replaced pretty much by 86.
a5. I believe so. Steve would know better off the top of his head. We also have something in the works that I know has AH1s in it, but I can't say anything right now. [:D]

6. I forgot to add night vis too. I see it is limited to 1500m which is just under a mile. You know AH-64's can engage targets (at that time) out to 8000m using hellfires. Their thermals were very good for targeting.
a6. That is broken and fixed in 2.03 to 500m. IR sight and Thermals can of course see further depending on weather. Thermals also suffer from thermal inversion at dawn and dusk.

Hope that covers things. [8D]

Thanks for the quick answers. Funny you bring up thermal temp inversions. It was a tough thing on the 1st gen thermals. By 89 the M60A3, M1A1's, M2A2's, and Apaches's had the 2nd gen thermals that didn't have near the problem with that. It can happen really at any time, not just at dawn or dusk. After a long, hard rain or big snowfall when things are really cold soaked. We had 2 crashes in Germany with Apaches when I was there too in 88-89 due to not seeing wires with there NVS. That's when policy changed and the front seater stared flying with NVG's while the back seater used the thermal NVS.

by the way, between 96 and 2000 I worked on the Comanche program and we were using a 3rd gen FLIR that pretty much eliminated that problem.

[CapnDarwin]

Sabre21, Good info on the thermals. Bad weather does knock them down in game and we do hit them at dawn and dusk since that would be the two fairly stable points in time it would happen. Again a number of things we can refine with the advanced weather model in the future.

[Sabre21]

I wanted to add earlier and forgot to when my dogs pretty much pulled me away from the computer, it was dinner time. The thermal inversion was particularly deadly for the Apaches. It wasn't so bad for the ground vehicles since they could stop pretty easily, their biggest concern was fratricide. For the aviators though, I've seen it in Germany were those inversions would be worse in some areas and not so bad in others and sometimes last most of the night mainly due to misty fog that kept the temperatures right in that inversion window. As the fog drifted, so did the inversion danger zones.

Small things like telephone poles became invisible. Aviators know where there are poles there are wires, so when flying night vision googles, poles are readily seen so you know to watch for wires. When flying with thermals during the inversion times, these poles can disappear and the pilots never see the wires until too late. Wires will kill you as dead as a SAM or tank main gun round. We didn't have thermals in cobras, we flew goggles. In the late 80's, the Apaches went thru a steep learning curve and many a pilot died in the process.