Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: mikeCK

“Encouraging it’s leaders to exercise initiative” is NOT the same as being able to do it. You can say “Mike, I expect you to fix this car yourself”; but if you don’t train me how to do it, it’s not gonna happen.

It doesn’t matter what the Soviet army WANTED their junior officers to do. Doctrine reflects reality. In Afghanistan, Soviet pilots would overfly troops in need of air support to deliver their bombs to a location provided to them previously. Didnt matter if the bombs were no longer needed there. They would fly to the ordered target and drop bombs even if no one was there. Part of an after action review I no longer have access to.

You can’t just claim “well, now we expect our junior officers to exercise initiative....that takes a decade or more of transformation and requires extensive training . You simply can’t provide the training needed at the NCO level (and frankly, at the E-1-E-4 level) necessary to truly exercise initiative when you have soldiers conscripted for 2 years. The Soviet Army simply didn’t provide the training schools and programs to its junior offices and NCOs to enable the ability to exercise initiative.

It took the US 10 years to fundamentally change the doctrine in this regard.

In The 1994 Chechnya war, this issue was evident. Russian troops failed to adapt quickly to combat conditions. NCOs and officers lacked training to carry out complex operations without upper level staff work. I’m not just making this up....The reason the Russian army is moving to a volunteer professional army is because of these deficiencies.

So any article can claim: “oh, we aren’t like that anymore” but the fact that you say it doesn’t make it true. What evidence of fundamental change was there in the Soviet Army in the 1970’s or 80’s would indicate that they are expecting junior officers to make major decisions and operate without guidance. You don’t do that merely by declaring it.

I do disagree with the premise in the article that the “old way” of junior officers requiring specific direction was related to Communism. I don’t believe it was. It was related to the fact the the Soviet Union had to maintain an extremely large military of conscripts and it had neither the time nor money to provide all that is needed for a professional NCO and junior officer Corp

There is also something to be said for the general Soviet Philosophy that modern wars are so deadly that one is better off haveinh large numbers of troops instead of fewer with better Training. Same concept in armor. Why invest in Tank Recover and repair as well as large logistical capabilities and parts of Tanks are going to be destroyed by the 100’s every week? A really good tank can be destroyed by an average tank so better to have 4 average tanks than 1 good one. I’m not sure they were wrong.

So I’m not saying the Soviet Army wasn’t good...not at all. They were very capable and I have no doubt that until about 1983-4 or so, they would have steamrolled NATO in a conventional conflict. But the fact remains that in operation, the Soviets simply lacked the capacity to have their junior officers and NCOs excercise true battlefield initiative even had they wanted to.

Or maybe the entire US military was wrong for 45 years. I served in the US army, not Soviet. I just don’t see how a conscript force does th.

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ORIGINAL: mikeCK

But as far as what their junior leaders could do, I’m not sure there is a difference between 1989 and 1994. I guess my point is that expecting your officers to exercise discretion AND make the right choices requires professional schooling. The type of training that US (and many NATO) junior officers and NCOs received simply didn’t occur in the Soviet Army. That’s not to say that they weren’t well trained....the were! Just not in the same areas as their western counterparts

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and NATO style is more about small operations with limited resources,

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ORIGINAL: kevinkin

NATO, that is the US for the most part, has practiced "strike warfare" since the fall of the Soviet Union and decline of their military. Strike warfare is about small operations with overwhelming resources compared to the foes they are striking. While not strike warfare, Iraq and and Afghanistan are COIN and definitely require advanced training as a cost of entry.

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ORIGINAL: Blond_Knight

Well, although their training has come a long way, you have to admit that historically the Soviets havent been concerned about casualties, only the objective. And its within the memories or some veterans that Commissars forced groups of untrained, and sometimes unequipped men into human wave attacks against German units.

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It would be interesting to follow the Soviet theories of the time to the letter and see how things play out. Would be perfect for multiplayer, but guessing the AI's tactics would still be better than what the WP was straddled with at the time.

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ORIGINAL: Mark Florio

1). The game mechanics and how the weapons are modeled is excellent. But would love to see more independent movement of troops when they come under fire. Too often I see troops in the open not using smoke and not maneuvering well enough? They should break contact when hit but in this game they dont seem to do that as much?

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2). The artillery looks too much like direct fire animations... Howitzers shells came in usually at steep angles. You should allow for more mission types to include Rocket munitions and time to target missions. The explosion animations could be boosted a bit... a 155mm shell will create a lot of smoke and debris upon impact.

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3). It would be nice to know the effects of night vision. The US forces operated commonly at night and our training included thermal vision gunnery under all weather conditions. The soviets had very little if any night fighting capabilities by the way. The exception was their recon and rotary wing.

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4). AI behavior. The soviet doctrine at the time was pretty rigid. Not every tank had radios and those that did were basically following a scripted attack. Jr leaders had very little tactical flexibility. The result was often, at least in their training an aggressive push by increasingly more powerful forces once the vanguard found a weakpoint. But their ability to react mid battle was always predicted to be limited.

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5). AI behavior for NATO: I havent played yet against the NATO troops but the strategy should be a mobile defense with local counter attacks by Mech forces. Lots of air power and artillery to slow the wave until the REFORGER forces mobilized.

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6). I dont see NBC modeled in AB yet or might not have seen it yet?

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7) would like to see rotary wing have more independence. They tend to stay in one spot instead of hopping around behind tree lines and ridgelines?

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8) resupply. Mech forces usually did a full top off before action but it wouldnt be unusual for ammo and fuel to be pushed forward.Refueling an Abrams took about 5 minutes. Reloading took about 2 minutes a round if the crew hustled and was not in MOPP.