Scenario Builders: How will the Ukraine War affect future scenarios?

[HalfLifeExpert]

I've thought a little about this over the past couple days.

Given the quite surprising underperformance of Russian Military Forces in this last critical week of the Ukraine Invasion, I wanted to ask:

How will this lackluster performance affect future scenarios depicting the (Modern) Russians from a designer's perspective?

[Sardaukar]

Do we need new proficiency setting?

I think designers could just lower that a bit.

[tiag]

I've thought a little about this over the past couple days.

Given the quite surprising underperformance of Russian Military Forces in this last critical week of the Ukraine Invasion, I wanted to ask:

How will this lackluster performance affect future scenarios depicting the (Modern) Russians from a designer's perspective?

Can you please share what was your expectation in terms of terrain gain, losses, cities taken, K/D ratios, weapons performance, etc here (per day, per week)?
Can you please share also how many Ukranian systems, vehicles, forces were lost? I find hard to find any information on that.

And, finally, if it is not too much to ask, please compare that to similar historical combats in similar terrain/weather.

I would be genuinely very interested to understand the background of your professional statement.

Best regards

[Gunner98]

Well first and foremost, a scenario has to be fun and challenging. If you nerf one side or another it's just not fun.

But, I am not sure we can make any wide sweeping comparisons at this stage. The rate of advance in the south, out of Crimea isn't (or at least wasn't initially) that far off of Gulf War I or II, and in the north where the terrain is the pits, we don't have a modern comparator, Kosovo perhaps and we know how unsuccessful that air campaign was. The 'convoy' in the north looks very similar to the highway to Baghdad in 2003 except there aren't as many vehicles.

What is puzzling is the air war. I thought the initial SEAD/DEAD campaign would be much closer to what we are used to. This is probably a policy not a performance issue

Maybe it is as simple as measuring Russian doctrine/tactics and performance against what the US/NATO would do. I just hesitate to jump to conclusions.

B

[BDukes]

I think its wise as Gunner posted to wait and see. We just don't have the clarity to really know what's going on at this point and are just putting things together from what see through the lens of social media, propaganda, etc. etc.

In terms of the scenario design my impression are:

Confirmation that game environments are generally too perfect. CMO does much of the tech right but kill chain too efficient. That being said, as a scenario designer I've got to balance the fixes for that with providing fun.

Anybody notice they're not shooting massive salvos at anything? None of our 20 Iskander salutes! Need more info as to why this is. Could be they don't have as many PGM and Iskanders in inventory or they are conserving them for some reason. Could be their kill chain is slow to process and assign targets.

Jury is hung on operating altitudes of Russian aircraft. Lot of shoot downs and photos but also a ton of cell phones pointed at the sky. That one will have to wait I think.

CMO does model the vastness of airbases as targets well. Vast Soviet era infrastructure has likely contributed to the the Ukrainian airforce staying alive for so long. They're definitely moving aircraft around. Combine with PGM issue above.

Assumptions about some NATO recon sensors are probably ok. The ranges and orbits seem to correlate.

Pantsir upgrades may not have worked. Bayraktars are still working.

Its harder to draw the mental line between game world with such horrible szhit going on in reality. This hits harder for me as I'm a US Uke. Reality is not a f'n game.

Slava Ukraini!

Mike

[thewood1]

A good chance weather is playing a significant role in PGM usage. This time of year Ukraine has a lot of low cloud cover, snow, or cold rain in a large part of the country. And with the ground AA environment being more conflicted than expected, its putting low level attacks at risk.

Also, Russian defense budgets have not allowed them to build large stocks of PGMs. In Syria, Russian planes were dropping a lot of WW2 era dumb bombs. As I have said since CMO came out, modern air campaigns are driven by missile production, inventory, and logistics. The mini kill chain of all of the programming and electronics from development to actual combat delivery is very sensitive to disruption. Its also very expensive to maintain.

[BDukes]

A good chance weather is playing a significant role in PGM usage. This time of year Ukraine has a lot of low cloud cover, snow, or cold rain in a large part of the country. And with the ground AA environment being more conflicted than expected, its putting low level attacks at risk.

Good point!

Also, Russian defense budgets have not allowed them to build large stocks of PGMs. In Syria, Russian planes were dropping a lot of WW2 era dumb bombs.

Saw this somewhere not too long ago. Somebody brought up that due to Israeli strikes on Syrian bunkers the Russians tended to haul the expensive stuff in just-in-time with Ferry flights when needed rather them store them locally. Not sure if either narrative has been backed up by data. Does Russia do any sort of purchase reporting to international agencies (likely no but worth asking)?

As I have said since CMO came out, modern air campaigns are driven by missile production, inventory, and logistics. The mini kill chain of all of the programming and electronics from development to actual combat delivery is very sensitive to disruption. Its also very expensive to maintain.

Good points.

Mike

[Rob322]

Anybody notice they're not shooting massive salvos at anything? None of our 20 Iskander salutes! Need more info as to why this is. Could be they don't have as many PGM and Iskanders in inventory or they are conserving them for some reason. Could be their kill chain is slow to process and assign targets.
Mike

This. Players often want to maximize whatever the scenario designer gives them but then players also aren't really doing anything "real." It's a game and when they're done, they're done. In reality, the Russians may not have as many Iskander missiles as we estimate, or they may wish to hold them back in case NATO attacks (I know this sounds absurd to all the westerners on here (myself included) but the Russians might be paranoid) or any old reason. Maybe the missiles are just too expensive for the Russians to use on just any old target. Gamers might think differently if we had to submit a budget request during play!

I think the question as to whether what we're seeing represents that the game has the quality or Russian weapons rated too high or not will have to wait for later analysis but perhaps some scenarios give the players more toys than would be realistic, particularly of higher end ALCM's, PGM's and advanced AAM's. Not trying to call anyone out (and the designer wants it to be fun), just food for thought.

[thewood1]

Real missiles cost real money. Just like WW1 artillery ammunition, there are limited quantities built in peace time and the mad scramble will be trying to build replacement inventories. The estimate I saw on missile forecasting and marketshare showed that Russia had built less than 200 Iskanders by 2021. There is growing belief that Russia used mostly the Tochka old SRBMs that were supposed to be scrapped. These are less accurate and have much shorter ranges. The Isanders were targeted at "precision" targets where the estimated 50-100m CEP would be needed.

There is also the feeling that the more general bombardment we are seeing now is being populated with older SRBMs, vs. expensive Iskanders.

[BeirutDude]

I've thought a little about this over the past couple days.

Given the quite surprising underperformance of Russian Military Forces in this last critical week of the Ukraine Invasion, I wanted to ask:

How will this lackluster performance affect future scenarios depicting the (Modern) Russians from a designer's perspective?

1. Personally, I never had a good impression of them, except in certain areas where they excel, such as SAMs and Spetsnaz. If you ever look closely at my scenarios I generally give every unit a proficiency and normally I will have the Russians one level below a proficient Western force (US, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Japan, ROK, Norway). I've never had much respect for their army and especially logistics. Now I did think they would do better than this when I designed Mariupol, 2022.

2. It reinforces my general "No Nukes" policy, unless nukes are important to the scenario subject. With how much everyone is really trying to deconflict it makes me feel I'm on the right track there. However, I do also feel comfortable with my general policy of if nukes are going to be used it will be the Russians (PRC, NKPA or Iran) that used them first. I really don't see NATO using them first especially with the amount of ground they have to fall back in now, as apposed to 1985 in West Germany.

3. I also feel comfortable with my general view that Russia (or the PRC, or NKPA) will be the aggressor in almost all situations I can see first strikes against Iran by the West, but even there that would be the exception IMHO, rather than the rule.

[BDukes]

Anybody notice they're not shooting massive salvos at anything? None of our 20 Iskander salutes! Need more info as to why this is. Could be they don't have as many PGM and Iskanders in inventory or they are conserving them for some reason. Could be their kill chain is slow to process and assign targets.
Mike

This. Players often want to maximize whatever the scenario designer gives them but then players also aren't really doing anything "real." It's a game and when they're done, they're done. In reality, the Russians may not have as many Iskander missiles as we estimate, or they may wish to hold them back in case NATO attacks (I know this sounds absurd to all the westerners on here (myself included) but the Russians might be paranoid) or any old reason. Maybe the missiles are just too expensive for the Russians to use on just any old target. Gamers might think differently if we had to submit a budget request during play!

I think the question as to whether what we're seeing represents that the game has the quality or Russian weapons rated too high or not will have to wait for later analysis but perhaps some scenarios give the players more toys than would be realistic, particularly of higher end ALCM's, PGM's and advanced AAM's. Not trying to call anyone out (and the designer wants it to be fun), just food for thought.

Yeah and twitter OSINT is a mixed bag. They are absolute saints for their reporting but need to steer clear of the analysis.

Nice post Rob. Lots to think about.

MIke

[Rob322]

I've thought a little about this over the past couple days.

Given the quite surprising underperformance of Russian Military Forces in this last critical week of the Ukraine Invasion, I wanted to ask:

How will this lackluster performance affect future scenarios depicting the (Modern) Russians from a designer's perspective?

2. It reinforces my general "No Nukes" policy, unless nukes are important to the scenario subject. With how much everyone is really trying to deconflict it makes me feel I'm on the right track there. However, I do also feel comfortable with my general policy of if nukes are going to be used it will be the Russians (PRC, NKPA or Iran) that used them first. I really don't see NATO using them first especially with the amount of ground they have to fall back in now, as apposed to 1985 in West Germany.

One of the things that I have found in looking up old Cold War docs from the 1980's (as well as what's leaked out) is the Soviets were contemplating opening any general war in Western Europe with a 2-400 nuke bombardment of forces in Germany, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, etc. simply because they feared they'd fallen too far behind with the quality of their conventional forces. Sure, they had tons of equipment but they were very concerned that western tech would totally debilitate them even then. I know a lot of the popular fiction and games back then (which I still have for the most part) tended to assume everything would at least start off conventional, but some of that may have been a combo of hope/optimism on western parts and just the fact that nukes tend to make the story or game less fun.

[AndrewJ]

If nothing else, the conflict certainly reinforces the lesson to stay the heck out of the low-level air defence environment.



When any bush could hold an angry guy with a MANPADS, taking your aircraft in with unguided short-range weapons can be very costly.

[HalfLifeExpert]

Thank you for your detailed replies!

I've thought a little about this over the past couple days.

Given the quite surprising underperformance of Russian Military Forces in this last critical week of the Ukraine Invasion, I wanted to ask:

How will this lackluster performance affect future scenarios depicting the (Modern) Russians from a designer's perspective?

Can you please share what was your expectation in terms of terrain gain, losses, cities taken, K/D ratios, weapons performance, etc here (per day, per week)?
Can you please share also how many Ukranian systems, vehicles, forces were lost? I find hard to find any information on that.

And, finally, if it is not too much to ask, please compare that to similar historical combats in similar terrain/weather.

I would be genuinely very interested to understand the background of your professional statement.

Best regards

While it is certainly impossible to know anything with 100% certainty until after the conflict has concluded, nearly all sources I have seen (ranging from Mainstream Media to more Professional press statements to informed amateur sources) seem to agree that this past week or so of Combat has shown Russian forces noticeably underperforming all pre-war estimates, some going as far as saying they're doing abysmally.

If the reporting is that widespread, there has to be at least a decent amount of truth to it.

Reports of numerous tactical and operational failings against theoretically inferior forces immediately brought to mind the 1st Chechen War (1994-95) where the immediate Post-Soviet forces were chewed up pretty badly by Chechen Resistance, particularly in Grozny. To a lesser extent, I also thought of the Winter War in 1939-40. Ultimately the Soviets 'won' the war, but they suffered humiliating defeats against the, again, supposedly inferior Finnish forces.

The key difference here being that the Russians had an abundance of time to iron out issues and train their troops, as well as learn from previous conflicts. Ukraine fully entered Russia's sights at the end of 2013, and certainly after the fall of Crimea in Feb 2014. It's early 2022 now.

That's almost nine years to fine tune any invasion plan. To prepare operations plans. Everything. To have all that time largely uninhibited and still make all those mistakes points to a serious problem with Russian military forces.

As for Command specifically. I have great respect for how much time, research and effort is often put into scenarios, Official and Community.

While it is indeed too early to be sure, I was interested in the honest opinions of the scenario designers, especially since some of them have a Professional Military background.

I have no such background. I've never served in any nation's armed forces or worked in any defense industry. I am very much an amateur in this regard, but I like to think I am capable of understanding military matters as much as any non-professional.

I'll reply to some other comments in subsequent posts.

[HalfLifeExpert]

Anybody notice they're not shooting massive salvos at anything? None of our 20 Iskander salutes! Need more info as to why this is. Could be they don't have as many PGM and Iskanders in inventory or they are conserving them for some reason. Could be their kill chain is slow to process and assign targets.

I do find the apparent lack of mass strike salvos (so far at least) surprising. The reasons could be numerous.
Ultimately I do feel that the Russian's progress without their massed (albiet largely non-smart) firepower is indicative that they may be too dependent on them operationally and tactically to be an effective modern fighting force.

In theory the Russians claim to be "Liberating" Ukraine. While it hasn't worked out anyway, they may have believed that by restraining their massed firepower and trying a more Western style assault would have worked in their favor with regard to the Ukrainian populace. Maybe the Russian command was genuinely under the spell of the Putin propaganda in that regard.

If this proves true, than the current Russian forces may be in a no win situation in terms of Modern Highly Political Warfare.
Ether they:
A) Use their massed firepower and face far more global condemnation than they are getting now.
or B) Try for a restrained firepower campaign and have the high chance of thier assault forces taking much higher casualties.

Its harder to draw the mental line between game world with such horrible szhit going on in reality. This hits harder for me as I'm a US Uke. Reality is not a f'n game.

Slava Ukraini!

Mike

Yes of course. None of these discussions shall ever be meant to trivialize or minimize what is going on. War is hell. However, gaming software like Command allow non-professionals to better understand what is going on in a somewhat independent fashion.

I've got maternal ancestry from Eastern Europe, particularly the Jewish peoples who suffered from Pogroms in Poland and Western Russia. Most of my surviving ancestors made it to the US before WWII. There's even an extended family line on my Father's side that I believe suffered under the Holodomor.

I feel great sorrow for those suffering and great anger at those responsible for that suffering.

Slava Ukraini indeed. Large Scale War was returned to Europe without any justification. I do hope any relatives you still have in Ukraine are alright and able to make it out if they can. If any are in combat, I wish them the best of luck.

[HalfLifeExpert]

A good chance weather is playing a significant role in PGM usage. This time of year Ukraine has a lot of low cloud cover, snow, or cold rain in a large part of the country. And with the ground AA environment being more conflicted than expected, its putting low level attacks at risk.

Also, Russian defense budgets have not allowed them to build large stocks of PGMs. In Syria, Russian planes were dropping a lot of WW2 era dumb bombs. As I have said since CMO came out, modern air campaigns are driven by missile production, inventory, and logistics. The mini kill chain of all of the programming and electronics from development to actual combat delivery is very sensitive to disruption. Its also very expensive to maintain.

I have heard that Russians, possibly for financial reasons, don't a have a large stockpile of PGMs like the West does, or even if they do, a limited amount of aircraft that have the proper systems to use them effectively.

This goes back to the point I made in my previous comment, in that the Russian inability to pull of a Western style-low collateral damage campaign could severly handicap the effectiveness of their ground forces.

Thus, being forced to chose between their usual Sledgehammer, (and lose the political fight), or use that sledgehammer lightly and limitedly, preventing them from achieving battlefield superiority.


Weather may also be playing a much wider role. Given that the Russians had total freedom of initiative for attack, I can't help but wonder why they didn't wait until after the spring thaw before attacking, especially since one of their main thrusts seems to make them force to interact with the Pripet Marshes north of Kyiv.

[thewood1]

"If the reporting is that widespread, there has to be at least a decent amount of truth to it."

There is such heavy institutional bias in almost all aspects of the media and social media, its hard to say what is real. Its fine as opinion pieces, but straight up news organizations are taking almost every rumor as based in fact. You'll note the very limited pictures of destroyed Ukrainian equipment. I don't think thats because the Ukrainians aren't taking losses.

The parallel here is the lead up to the invasion of Iraq. Every media organization was at the forefront of using unnamed sources to disseminate stories about chemical weapons and nuclear ambitions.

I'm not justifying the Russian invasion by any means. Its a terrible act that will have far reaching negative implications for the entire world. But demand for immediate satisfaction for news will lead to a one-sided picture of what is happening.

[FrancoisX5]

It is interesting to see how Russians can be called incompetent, but nobody knows the limitations put on the military (i.e.: ROE's) or objectives. Also, so far, everyone of their moves have been a surprise to everybody. I see so many acts of bravery from the Ukrainians, and so many failures from the Russians, but at the end of the day, the progress is made on the field, isn't it?
Ukrainians are surely winning the media side of the conflict. De-humanizing the enemy, we have seen this in the past.
The worse thing is to underestimate and misunderstand (Dubbya said misunderstimate) one's opponent.

I wonder how many on Tweeter or in the news media understand the geostrategic thinking's and read Mackinder, Spykman, Brzezinski, or the traumas of Russia (invasions by two Western nations in just over a century).
And this without taking any side, just perspectives.
I hate wars like anybody, but are we going to go to war against war, like the famous war on terror? That makes no sense to me.

We may never know what really happened in some areas, don't we blame some people today for stuff that were done centuries ago?

Now, how we implement this in CMO?
Well, it is a game, should it really matter? Is it the goal of CMO?

[Gunner98]

The information war is certainly into overdrive and we are seeing the Ukrainian side almost exclusively. They have reason; it motivates the population, it galvanizes the international community and it creates strong emotional response.

It's also natural that 'the west' is sympathetic to the Ukrainian situation; historical parallels, large expat communities, facing the 'traditional' enemy etc.

However, because of that - I don't pay any attention whatsoever to main stream media and very little to the Twittersphere. Think tanks like ISW https://www.understandingwar.org/ CDA, CNAS etc all have agendas but their reporting seems far more factual.

Some thoughts on the comments above:
[*]Limited PGM & missiles, yeah I think this must be a factor. Although USMC did a wargame a couple weeks before the war and said the number of missile strikes in the first day was almost exactly as they had predicted https://warontherocks.com/2022/03/the-w ... s-ukraine/. Setting up a Soviet/Russian AI in CMO reveals the limited selection, they just don't seem to have many. I've been trying to represent this factor in the later Northern Fury scenarios: http://northernfury.us/blog/post25/ Aim-54 Phoenix is the poster child for this, we use them like crazy but there just weren't that many of them.
[*]Weather - that is probably a big factor. General Mud off WW2 fame is playing a big hand on Russian maneuver and keeping them road-bound. Also how often have we been frustrated using early PGMs with a low cloud base - maybe Russian LGBs are using older technology with those same limitation. I donno
[*]Speed - I tend to get frustrated when I hear pundits saying that the Russians are 'way behind schedule' or 'underperforming'. Who's schedule? Have the Russians given us one? When was the last time we watched a conscript army go to war? Maybe they're doing OK compared to the US Army in Korea and Vietnam - has that comparison been done? When was the last time we saw a war where the enemy fought back effectively? Iran/Iraq war in the 1980s?

Its natural that we try and understand what is going on by measuring against what we know and accept to be true. I think knowledge gained through using CMO is very helpful in this and that's why I think the discussion above has been level and thoughtful compared to what is seen elsewhere.

I was surprised that the Russians started this war, its the wrong time of the year, against the wrong enemy for all the wrong reasons - and I think they are going to regret it. That's just my opinion. But, on the plus side they have gained Air Superiority (by the definition) and don't seem interested or able to gain Air Supremacy. They have complete control of the Black Sea except the area around Odessa. Their ground forces are advancing daily of three or four (depending on how you count) axis.
On the negative side, they have lost the information war anywhere except in Russia proper (and that is questionable), the international community and world opinion is galvanized against them. Strategically they are headed for a few lean years.

In game terms so far I would assess:

• Strategic Level - lost or losing
  Operational level - doing quite well
  Tactical level - depends, its a mixed bag

OK that's enough out of me..

[Randomizer]

Post deleted. Happy now ladies?
-C