are soviet units overrated ?

[DukeBannon]

I've had similar thoughts myself but then I remind myself of the setting for this game (i.e., mid-80s) when the Soviet Union still existed and Russia in particular was bankrupting its country by spending a significant portion of their GDP building and maintaining their huge military. What we are seeing today in Ukraine is the result of 30+ years of shrinking military budgets and rampant corruption.

I do get your point though because like I said, I've had similar musings myself. If you think the Sovs are too powerful in this game, drop some smoke in front of them which will make most of their units blind as bats with minimal impact to the thermal equiped NATO units.

[IronMikeGolf]

I think we're all missing a rather large part of the discussion, which is that the devs chose to model the Soviet Army as it was feared by western analysts at the time, not as it was. You aren't commanding or fighting against a "realistic" Soviet Army, but rather what NATO thought it would actually have to face in a coming war. At least that's my interpretation of why things like technical performance are over modeled and many factors like troop quality, employment context, and doctrine are minimized. It's all in the name of good fun, and its best to enjoy it as such.

A few examples:

Contextual Use: Ah, the hated Reflex missile. Now, we all know - now- you wouldn't battle carry this. The choice to employ it would be a deliberate one, clearing your tube, deliberately selecting the munition, uploading it, and then preparing to fire it. After firing it you know you are going to have a dozen seconds or more tracking the missile to target using SACLOS, making shooting on the move...difficult...and that's assuming your target doesn't back down or leave LOS. So that "offensive engagement" in FCSS is really a short halt, a deliberate upload, re-acquire a target, then track the missile on. The western side would get a few free shots before the unit "fired", including very potentially one while the missile was en route, with western gunnery doctrine meaning the halted missile tank was prioritized (stationary before moving, front before flanks, etc...). And you the player would be silently cursing your men as idiots for trying while the little explosions ticked off. Whoever survived would then forever more say "no, we aren't trying that."

It would be a very different scenario if the T80s were waiting in hide, knowing they were looking down a few KM of bowling alley. But NATO didn't know that, or didn't act like it. The missile really can work under the right conditions...NATO acted and trained like you could actually have it to hand in a jiffy and fire accurately on the move at extreme range. So that's what the devs put in game. The unknown terror that your range advantage was going to be erased by a wonder weapon, or the desperate hope that at least your best formations could fight back at range. Because it isn't about realism, its about "real-ish" fun.

Minimize the Differences: One of the unspoken truths about high technology is that it requires a commensurate investment in people to do what it says on the tin. You only need to look at one of Russia's famous tank biathlons to realize that even a notionally good fire control can miss a ton with a poor crew. We, just like the western analysts of the 1980s, routinely imagine the baseline as far higher than it is, and then apply it to our opponents - something the devs did very well in building the notional soviet army for the game.

I got a recent reminder of this via a war story or two about master gunners training Ukranian tankers pre-invasion. The Ukranians still in effect used the soviet model of gunnery training. They would roll up to their range position, fire at an assortment of targets, hit some, miss some and be generally pleased that they now knew how to shoot - at which point they'd be out of training ammo. In fairness, their T64s were by any mid cold war standard shooting quite lethally, a definite mark up from WWII gunnery, but just as definitely not the "75+% hit rate on the move!" the technology should have been able to do.

By western standards, their performance would be appalling. A western crew under range conditions does not miss; virtually ever. They race the clock to see if they can kill targets fast enough to reduce each threat before a very good enemy could acquire them and shoot back, in a wide array of situations. They fire more ammo, have more reps, and do loads of simulator work before that - and the chances are if they are too slow too often, let alone missing shorts, they get disqualified and have to try to qual again.

The difference that dedicated crew-tech fusion provides vs "good enough" and new tech is so gapingly astronomical that it boggles any of our conceptions of the classic wargaming parameters of "green, regular, veteran, elite" with some bonuses/maluses off a basic core of performance.

But again, NATO didn't know that. They assumed they were good, but that the Russians would be nipping at their heels. They treated them that way in modelling, giving them the benefit of the doubt for claimed capabilities, seemingly reinforced as other NATO crews played OPFOR. So the devs modeled that to reflect the feeling of the age - and they got it very right "man, stay up a second too long, they'll put one through your turret ring" or the Russian "fine, we'll lose the first volley then win the second" mentality. We all know that's not true - a company in road column at 2500m has about thirty seconds to live after a platoon top hats order - but damned if they didn't get that feeling right.

Doctrine An artillery example. We know that Soviet artillery doctrine, particularly for the RAGs that make up so much of the support in game, was fairly rigid. The RAG commander and a small staff rode near or with the Regimental commander and primarily designed his fire plan in support of that commander. He was chief of staff, fire control center, and unit commander all in one. He would stay in contact with the CRTA, but his guns really weren't a universal asset. Something like being instantly linkable to a higher-level recon fire complex to provide counterbattrey for the division or army at will, then transition back down into supporting his formation, then send a fire mission to help out a sister regiment to the south...it just wasn't in the cards. The C2 links weren't there.

Coming up from below, we know that calling for fire was strictly controlled by deliberate observation posts and commanders. A soviet sub-unit did not just "hop on fires net" and get support. And for good reason; not only wasn't that their job in soviet doctrine, but trying to call in accurate fire mission from a moving non-GPS'd tank against a target you might not even have a map open for, to guns that very well may not have had time to register and will need some kentucky windage for their own location...well, suffice to say you could miss by hexes in game.

But..one more time...NATO didn't treat it that way. They may have known down to the round what soviet doctrine said would happen, but invariably when they wargamed it they gave it a degree of flexibility and agility far above what it had. Breathless observers talked about the lethality of the "recon fires complex" without realizing it just meant some small part of the Soviet artillery might be able to do what was the standard for NATO artillery, and rather was an unstoppable killing machine sending back precise targetting data to waiting batteries in moments.

And the devs have worked hard to replicate that feeling, not that Soviet artillery is a very direct support centric item, but that to NATO's eyes they would be facing guns everywhere, with artillery pounding them from every direction at every step, from a fire control apparatus like their own only slightly worse. And man, did they nail it. Realistic? Of course not. But does it get the Cold War atmosphere they were aiming for? Absolutely.

So - yes, of course the soviets are over modeled. Because the game isn't about realism, it's about the NATO nightmare, and what they thought realism might be before everyone pulled back the curtain.

Let me echo some of this with a little different viewpoint. How do you train to defeat your adversary? You absolutely have to take what's on your adversary's tin as truth. So, way back when, one of the goals was to break the WP template. For example: WP Regt advancing to contact. We'd stress killing the Regt Recon, Advance Guard's Combat Recon Patrol and Forward Security Element in minimal engagements before any of these made contact with the friendly main body. Do that and it breaks the template. It puts the WP commander in a dilemma - do I reconstitute my ground recon or proceed blind? Note that this is echelons above crew/platoon/company execution of WP doctrine. US crews/platoons/companies were thinking in these terms.

Fast forward to 1990. Several US heavy divisions are in the sandbox. What do they do? Train. Train. Train. Battalions built their own ranges. And this was kind of a perfect storm for training. no turbulence (almost none, people did get hurt and evac'ed). OR studies of US and German tank crews post WW II showed the greatest differentiator among crews was the time they were together. My personal anecdata as a Bradley master Gunner at battalion level bear this out. My figure of merit is 90 days before skill decay sets in for an intact crew.

Remembering looking back at gunnery data from the Iran-Iraq war, the thing that stood out was that the vast majority of hit by tanks occurred at ballistic battlesight range or less. Which means the gunner didn't have to manipulate his fire control system. You boresight, then aim center mass. If it's about 1500 m or less, you hit.

So, are the Soviets overrated? That isn't a question of fact and you can argue it's irrelevant for a commercial game. Human vs Human, the WP has to have a shot at winning, yes?

Now, that snark aside, Russian military thought has never been lacking, really. We don't implement everything they published either. An example of the Reconnaissance Fire Complex. This is a very short kill chain from deep recon assets to fire support assets and when first dreamt up, did not use digital links nor GPS. The idea was to shorten request for fire to pulling the howitzer lanyard to one minute. The purpose was to partition the battlefield and prevent reinforcement by NATO units. This doctrine persists today. It's not in the game because we can find no evidence that it was ever implemented even in training.

So, back to the OT: are the Soviets overrated? I am happy to entrain the question, but I do want understand the reasoning behind that as well as the work to back it up.

[byzantine1990]

I think we're all missing a rather large part of the discussion, which is that the devs chose to model the Soviet Army as it was feared by western analysts at the time, not as it was. You aren't commanding or fighting against a "realistic" Soviet Army, but rather what NATO thought it would actually have to face in a coming war. At least that's my interpretation of why things like technical performance are over modeled and many factors like troop quality, employment context, and doctrine are minimized. It's all in the name of good fun, and its best to enjoy it as such.

A few examples:

Contextual Use: Ah, the hated Reflex missile. Now, we all know - now- you wouldn't battle carry this. The choice to employ it would be a deliberate one, clearing your tube, deliberately selecting the munition, uploading it, and then preparing to fire it. After firing it you know you are going to have a dozen seconds or more tracking the missile to target using SACLOS, making shooting on the move...difficult...and that's assuming your target doesn't back down or leave LOS. So that "offensive engagement" in FCSS is really a short halt, a deliberate upload, re-acquire a target, then track the missile on. The western side would get a few free shots before the unit "fired", including very potentially one while the missile was en route, with western gunnery doctrine meaning the halted missile tank was prioritized (stationary before moving, front before flanks, etc...). And you the player would be silently cursing your men as idiots for trying while the little explosions ticked off. Whoever survived would then forever more say "no, we aren't trying that."

It would be a very different scenario if the T80s were waiting in hide, knowing they were looking down a few KM of bowling alley. But NATO didn't know that, or didn't act like it. The missile really can work under the right conditions...NATO acted and trained like you could actually have it to hand in a jiffy and fire accurately on the move at extreme range. So that's what the devs put in game. The unknown terror that your range advantage was going to be erased by a wonder weapon, or the desperate hope that at least your best formations could fight back at range. Because it isn't about realism, its about "real-ish" fun.

Minimize the Differences: One of the unspoken truths about high technology is that it requires a commensurate investment in people to do what it says on the tin. You only need to look at one of Russia's famous tank biathlons to realize that even a notionally good fire control can miss a ton with a poor crew. We, just like the western analysts of the 1980s, routinely imagine the baseline as far higher than it is, and then apply it to our opponents - something the devs did very well in building the notional soviet army for the game.

I got a recent reminder of this via a war story or two about master gunners training Ukranian tankers pre-invasion. The Ukranians still in effect used the soviet model of gunnery training. They would roll up to their range position, fire at an assortment of targets, hit some, miss some and be generally pleased that they now knew how to shoot - at which point they'd be out of training ammo. In fairness, their T64s were by any mid cold war standard shooting quite lethally, a definite mark up from WWII gunnery, but just as definitely not the "75+% hit rate on the move!" the technology should have been able to do.

By western standards, their performance would be appalling. A western crew under range conditions does not miss; virtually ever. They race the clock to see if they can kill targets fast enough to reduce each threat before a very good enemy could acquire them and shoot back, in a wide array of situations. They fire more ammo, have more reps, and do loads of simulator work before that - and the chances are if they are too slow too often, let alone missing shorts, they get disqualified and have to try to qual again.

The difference that dedicated crew-tech fusion provides vs "good enough" and new tech is so gapingly astronomical that it boggles any of our conceptions of the classic wargaming parameters of "green, regular, veteran, elite" with some bonuses/maluses off a basic core of performance.

But again, NATO didn't know that. They assumed they were good, but that the Russians would be nipping at their heels. They treated them that way in modelling, giving them the benefit of the doubt for claimed capabilities, seemingly reinforced as other NATO crews played OPFOR. So the devs modeled that to reflect the feeling of the age - and they got it very right "man, stay up a second too long, they'll put one through your turret ring" or the Russian "fine, we'll lose the first volley then win the second" mentality. We all know that's not true - a company in road column at 2500m has about thirty seconds to live after a platoon top hats order - but damned if they didn't get that feeling right.

Doctrine An artillery example. We know that Soviet artillery doctrine, particularly for the RAGs that make up so much of the support in game, was fairly rigid. The RAG commander and a small staff rode near or with the Regimental commander and primarily designed his fire plan in support of that commander. He was chief of staff, fire control center, and unit commander all in one. He would stay in contact with the CRTA, but his guns really weren't a universal asset. Something like being instantly linkable to a higher-level recon fire complex to provide counterbattrey for the division or army at will, then transition back down into supporting his formation, then send a fire mission to help out a sister regiment to the south...it just wasn't in the cards. The C2 links weren't there.

Coming up from below, we know that calling for fire was strictly controlled by deliberate observation posts and commanders. A soviet sub-unit did not just "hop on fires net" and get support. And for good reason; not only wasn't that their job in soviet doctrine, but trying to call in accurate fire mission from a moving non-GPS'd tank against a target you might not even have a map open for, to guns that very well may not have had time to register and will need some kentucky windage for their own location...well, suffice to say you could miss by hexes in game.

But..one more time...NATO didn't treat it that way. They may have known down to the round what soviet doctrine said would happen, but invariably when they wargamed it they gave it a degree of flexibility and agility far above what it had. Breathless observers talked about the lethality of the "recon fires complex" without realizing it just meant some small part of the Soviet artillery might be able to do what was the standard for NATO artillery, and rather was an unstoppable killing machine sending back precise targetting data to waiting batteries in moments.

And the devs have worked hard to replicate that feeling, not that Soviet artillery is a very direct support centric item, but that to NATO's eyes they would be facing guns everywhere, with artillery pounding them from every direction at every step, from a fire control apparatus like their own only slightly worse. And man, did they nail it. Realistic? Of course not. But does it get the Cold War atmosphere they were aiming for? Absolutely.

So - yes, of course the soviets are over modeled. Because the game isn't about realism, it's about the NATO nightmare, and what they thought realism might be before everyone pulled back the curtain.

Let me echo some of this with a little different viewpoint. How do you train to defeat your adversary? You absolutely have to take what's on your adversary's tin as truth. So, way back when, one of the goals was to break the WP template. For example: WP Regt advancing to contact. We'd stress killing the Regt Recon, Advance Guard's Combat Recon Patrol and Forward Security Element in minimal engagements before any of these made contact with the friendly main body. Do that and it breaks the template. It puts the WP commander in a dilemma - do I reconstitute my ground recon or proceed blind? Note that this is echelons above crew/platoon/company execution of WP doctrine. US crews/platoons/companies were thinking in these terms.

Fast forward to 1990. Several US heavy divisions are in the sandbox. What do they do? Train. Train. Train. Battalions built their own ranges. And this was kind of a perfect storm for training. no turbulence (almost none, people did get hurt and evac'ed). OR studies of US and German tank crews post WW II showed the greatest differentiator among crews was the time they were together. My personal anecdata as a Bradley master Gunner at battalion level bear this out. My figure of merit is 90 days before skill decay sets in for an intact crew.

Remembering looking back at gunnery data from the Iran-Iraq war, the thing that stood out was that the vast majority of hit by tanks occurred at ballistic battlesight range or less. Which means the gunner didn't have to manipulate his fire control system. You boresight, then aim center mass. If it's about 1500 m or less, you hit.

So, are the Soviets overrated? That isn't a question of fact and you can argue it's irrelevant for a commercial game. Human vs Human, the WP has to have a shot at winning, yes?

Now, that snark aside, Russian military thought has never been lacking, really. We don't implement everything they published either. An example of the Reconnaissance Fire Complex. This is a very short kill chain from deep recon assets to fire support assets and when first dreamt up, did not use digital links nor GPS. The idea was to shorten request for fire to pulling the howitzer lanyard to one minute. The purpose was to partition the battlefield and prevent reinforcement by NATO units. This doctrine persists today. It's not in the game because we can find no evidence that it was ever implemented even in training.

So, back to the OT: are the Soviets overrated? I am happy to entrain the question, but I do want understand the reasoning behind that as well as the work to back it up.

I recently read "The Bear Went Over the Mountain" by David Glantz about Soviet tactics in Afghanistan. In that book, Soviets seem to use more western ideas of low level initiative and responsive fire support.

Do you think this was an adaptation in Afghanistan or can we assume this was an army wide development?