Saturday, May 24, 2014

First thoughts on gaming World War III

The reality of the long holiday weekend has of course defied my well-laid plans to get a lot of painting done. But I have gotten quite a bit of thinking done. 

I don't know about other wargamers, but I'm more of a campaigner than an impromptu, off-the-cuff battle sort of guy. For me, it's the back story that makes the game. I'm very much a detail-oriented person (German, a Virgo, and an academic - could it be any worse?) and this is reflected in my gaming. To me, it's much less entertaining if you just dump two forces on opposite sides of a bridge or a valley and say "fight it out". I love the contextual stuff. How did these two forces happen to meet here? What is the story of the wider conflict and where does this battle fit into it? How does this battle serve each side's strategic objectives?

So, I've begun to think about the mechanics of my 1981 LANDJUT campaign, Not only from a wargaming perspective, but also as a strategic operation in reality. The first thing that occurs to me is that if I wargame WWIII adhering strictly to what reality would have been, had it really happened, the game will be about 5 mins long. There'll be LOADS of:
and Western Europe will be a glowing, molten, slag heap by the end of the second turn. Game over. Not much fun there. So I have to find a historically plausible way for there to be no nukes. 

The following premises seem reasonable to me:
1. NATO is highly unlikely to initiate the conflict.
2. The Soviets wouldn't initiate a war they felt they had zero chance of winning. 
3. IF they were the victors, the Soviets would've wanted to be able to make use of any territory won. 
4. The Soviets knew full well that even a limited nuclear exchange would render Europe unlivable and thus worthless to them. 
5. The Soviets were keenly aware that any nuclear exchange was extremely unlikely to be or remain "limited". 

Whatever else the Soviets were, they were pragmatists. Limiting a WarPac v. NATO conflict to conventional weapons was in their best interest. Provided NATO didn't go nuclear as a first strike, I doubt the Soviets would've either, at least in my world. WarPac forces had an approximately 3:1 numerical superiority in armored vehicles over NATO and they set great store by that. Rightly or wrongly, the Eastern Bloc planners felt that quantity would win out over quality. Luckily we will never know if they were right.

Likewise, NATO felt that their qualitative superiority more than made up for their lack of numbers. Western Europe was NATO's home (overlooking the US and Canada), so a nuclear first strike by them in the midst of their own countries seems highly unlikely. Again, I feel that provided the Soviets didn't go nuke first, NATO would've fought it out conventionally and relied on their superior technology to win. I feel this same "I won't if you won't" principle would also apply equally to strategic bombing by either side. 

So this will be the foundation of my campaign. Neither side gains by obliterating Europe, nor does either side want to risk a limited nuclear exchange escalating very rapidly into a global thermonuclear war. 

Next time, thoughts on how the two sides line up. 




12 comments:

  1. Just found your blog, very cool

    Ian

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    1. Thank you very much Ian. I do appreciate it.

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  2. Interesting posts (Thanks to Ian just found your blog)

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  3. Just joined up as well, thanks to Ian above!!

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  4. Thank you Simillie and Ray. I appreciate all the followers I can get

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    1. You deserve them, can't understand how you have not been found before given how much you have wrote and the quality of it

      Ian

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    2. It's much easier than a PhD dissertation!!

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  5. I try to be very diligent about publishing something new every week, so check back.

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  6. I can't believe I am only finding this blog now. Outstanding resource. I am intrigued to see how you develop your campaign. Are you using Hackett's "The Third World War?" Finally, how do you plan to model Chemical Weapons?

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    1. My only "resource" is my memory from being in the Army in the 80's and having taught a course, "The Cold War", for a number of years. As for chemical weapons, I'll use smoke screen markers from 1/2400 naval games that I'll shade an off pastel green to differentiate it from real smoke markers

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    2. I was more interested in how you plan to model the effects of CW in your games. While I agree on your overall assessment on Nukes (if only to keep it playable), we always just assumed we would get slimed off the bat. (I'm from the army of the 90's...) Also, I have really enjoyed reading through your archives. I nominated you for a Leibster http://dartfrog06mm.blogspot.com/2014/05/thanks.html

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    3. Well, thank you very much. Even though I was a Cold Warrior, I was a "REP" (rear echelon puke) so I never gave much thought to to chemical warfare in those days. As I'm relatively new to Cold War gaming, this is all still an evolving plan. I've sort of settled on FFT3 as the rules I'll use, so I'll see how they deal with chemical warfare. Suggestions?

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