Gotland 2025 I & II - Two variants of one scenario ready for testing

[Lakeend]

Hello world.
I´m quite new to CMO on this is my first scenario, or rather two faces of one scenario.
These are two alternative ways (of probably many more) that invasion of Gotland could take place. "The Surge" is scenario where brute force is used but it is also met with alerted Sweden (and Finland). On the other hand "Coup de main" explores using deception and managing to attack when not expected, thus having to fight a less prepared foe.

I appreciate any feedback.

Scenarios :
Gotland 2025 I - The Surge
Gotland 2025 II - Coup de main

Here is the blurb

These two scenarios explore the invasion of Gotland by Russian Navy assets in Kaliningrad. This scenario takes Place in 'near future', Sweden is already a member of NATO and maybe the War in Ukraine has either ceased or become totally static.

First scenario envisions an operation where Russia tries to take Gotland by overwhelming force, amassing all its might and thus giving NATO plenty of warning that something might happen. Second scenario sees Russians relying on guile and deception, where in cover of the night surface units set sail possibly towards St. Petersburg or maybe Gotland?

First scenario sees Sweden making additional preparations for the island's defence, sending SAM and coastal missile batteries to defend it with a squadron of Gripens.

Second scenario sees Sweden more unprepared and having to quickly scramble its navy and air force, most of it not even able to reach Gotland AoO before the Russian ships.

Only playable for NATO side.

Known issues
Gabriel V missiles on Hamina-class ships are bugged, they have range of 108nm but always "peter out" after 30nm or so. Ill try to seek help from Tech Support subforum.

Gotland 2025_v1.zip

Two scenarios

(901.76 KiB) Downloaded 33 times

[TBLackey]

Looks interesting, I'll have a go and give you some feedback.

[TBLackey]

1: the entirety of the Russian armed forces in Kaliningrad seems to be attacking Gotland. This is not realistic. Assume 30 - 50% of the forces there are available for combat, maximum.

2: why aren't other NATO countries, say Germany and Poland, helping out?

3. Russia attacks straight away, giving the player no chance at all to set up a defence. I assume intelligence would be sufficient for say at least three hours grace.

4. All the Russian airfields are single-unit. Could you make them into proper airfields, so that the player has the opportunity for OCA strikes?

[Lakeend]

1: the entirety of the Russian armed forces in Kaliningrad seems to be attacking Gotland. This is not realistic. Assume 30 - 50% of the forces there are available for combat, maximum.

2: why aren't other NATO countries, say Germany and Poland, helping out?

3. Russia attacks straight away, giving the player no chance at all to set up a defence. I assume intelligence would be sufficient for say at least three hours grace.

4. All the Russian airfields are single-unit. Could you make them into proper airfields, so that the player has the opportunity for OCA strikes?

Hi and thanks for the feedback.

1: The side briefing tries to explain this away, for the scenario called The Surge the Russian have spent months running extensive maintenance and supply operations for their fleet and air and have almost everything ready to go. This also has given SWE ample time to reinforce Gotland and getting its own Navy and Air ready. (I know this still isnt super realistic, but the amount of ships available for both sides after gutting them by 50% would not be super interesting, besides thats what the other scenario Coup de Main does.) So if you want bit less forces being available for both sides, check the other scenario in the zip.

2: They were at first, but I had to draw the line somewhere or else this would escalate to really large and complex scenario. Also we can think maybe the other NATO countries have other things to worry, attack on Gotland would not happen in vacuum. I was thinking making a larger scenario that focuses war on nordics on larger scale including Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, Poland and the Baltic states, but that will be massive undertaking.

3: Yeah I guess its quite fast, I had no trouble setting up CAPs and getting them ready personally but this is something to be looked at for sure. The two scenarios differ in this, The Surge scenario starts with RUS already hostile from the get go, while NATO does not know this.

For the Coup de Main scenario both start as unfriendly and after 1 hour give or take Russian initiates hostilities, so I feel there is plenty time there.

4: Yeah you are correct, I was lazy and also I dont really have experience setting them up. Even if I set them up I feel you wont have the required tools for the job, SWE really does not have required munitions in this scenario and FIN has 6 Hornets and couple JDAMS available. But if you think you can do something with these existing assets I guess I should set them up properly to give you opportunity.

Feedback much appreciated, Ill write these down and make changes for next version, thank you for taking the time.

PS. Test the other scenario, it sounds like it might be more to your liking. Also read the Side Briefings, although I know they are bit long.

EDIT: Im also thinking of reducing the scenario length from 1d6h to something like 18h or less. This would better reflect how fast all of this would happen, it doesnt take long to sail from Kaliningrad to Gotland. Also I feel these scenarios get resolved within first 12h at latest.

[Nikel]

Regarding NATO intervention or lack of it, this 2025 may well be hypothetical, I mean Sweden is not still a member of NATO, Turkey, etc and is alone in the dark vs Russia.

Is it more realistic even though hypothetical?

The devs do not recommend to have active the advanced Effects of terrain type because it slows down the performance of the simulation, is it essential for your scenarios?

[TBLackey]

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news ... %20members.

[Nikel]

Yes, Sweden is a member of NATO since this year.

This is why I wrote a hypothetical 2025 scenario in which Turkey did not authorize it yet (or whatever other reason) and Sweden is alone.

[Schr75]

The Swedish plane destroyed trigger is set to the Russian side.
So every Russian plane shot down detracts points from the player.

Søren

[Lakeend]

Regarding NATO intervention or lack of it, this 2025 may well be hypothetical, I mean Sweden is not still a member of NATO, Turkey, etc and is alone in the dark vs Russia.

Is it more realistic even though hypothetical?

The devs do not recommend to have active the advanced Effects of terrain type because it slows down the performance of the simulation, is it essential for your scenarios?

Interesting idea for sure.

Also thank you about Adv. Terrain Effects. I was hoping it keeping the small missile boats safer behind the islands, but it doesnt really seem to help with that at all, so I might aswell disable it.

[Lakeend]

The Swedish plane destroyed trigger is set to the Russian side.
So every Russian plane shot down detracts points from the player.

Søren

Yikes, thanks for reporting. Ill fix this and check the other triggers aswell.