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Nato Warsaw - 8/28/2006 3:27:34 AM   
Chad44

 

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Status: offline 		what the best east vs west Scen
Post #: 1
RE: Nato Warsaw - 8/28/2006 3:33:18 AM   
Chuck2


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Status: offline 		My vote goes to The Next War 1979.

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RE: Nato Warsaw - 8/28/2006 5:10:40 AM   
Okimaw


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Chuck2

My vote goes to The Next War 1979.


I second that, no question

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Post #: 3
A third vote - 8/28/2006 2:20:08 PM   
Sandrik

 

Posts: 31
Joined: 7/29/2006
Status: offline 		Next War with out a doubt.  I loved it when it was an SPI game and its great on TOAW.

One thing about the NATO-Warsaw Pact thing is since the fall of the USSR the documents recovered from East Germany indicate that the WP was going to use 300 to 400 Tac Nukes in a first strike.  I wondered about trying a scenario were there wasn't a strategic exchange and to see what would have happened if the WP did this and NATO responded with their remaining tac nukes in Europe, I guess 50 to 100(?). Two things have stopped me...

1. I just can't see this situation not having resulted in a stratigic exchange, and in fact I think the USSR would have realized they had to go all the way from the get-go.  I suspect this is one major reason why this war (thank God) did not happen.

2. TOAW's nuke routines just went crazy when I tried it using Next War or Trey Marshall's WWIII (I forget which) to try it out and I realized the program couldn't handle it. I'm not sure the old routines could even handle a limited 1-10 tac nuke strike well let alone 300 to 400 tac nuke first strike.

Al

< Message edited by Sandrik -- 8/28/2006 2:24:10 PM >

(in reply to Okimaw)
Post #: 4
RE: A third vote - 8/28/2006 3:49:20 PM   
sstevens06


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Sandrik

Next War with out a doubt.  I loved it when it was an SPI game and its great on TOAW.

One thing about the NATO-Warsaw Pact thing is since the fall of the USSR the documents recovered from East Germany indicate that the WP was going to use 300 to 400 Tac Nukes in a first strike.  I wondered about trying a scenario were there wasn't a strategic exchange and to see what would have happened if the WP did this and NATO responded with their remaining tac nukes in Europe, I guess 50 to 100(?). Two things have stopped me...

1. I just can't see this situation not having resulted in a stratigic exchange, and in fact I think the USSR would have realized they had to go all the way from the get-go.  I suspect this is one major reason why this war (thank God) did not happen.

2. TOAW's nuke routines just went crazy when I tried it using Next War or Trey Marshall's WWIII (I forget which) to try it out and I realized the program couldn't handle it. I'm not sure the old routines could even handle a limited 1-10 tac nuke strike well let alone 300 to 400 tac nuke first strike.

Al



I tried simulating a full-scale battlefield exchange of nuclear weapons in my Berlin Crisis 1961 scenario. One of the main reasons I chose this crisis as the trigger for a NATO-WP war was that it occurred during a time when strategic nuclear capabilities on both sides were still in their infancy. Granted the US Strategic Air Command (SAC) had a large contingent of nuclear-capable long-range bombers - it was still theoretically possible to fight a nuclear war largely in central Europe without completely incinerating both superpowers' own homelands.

The main problem with this scenario - which necessitated lots of modifications with BioEd - was a serious bug in the way ACoW calculated nuclear weapons effects. This bug, which Ralph Trickey fixed in TOAW3, resulted in the contamination and blast effects of nuclear weapons being systematically overstated at map scales larger than 5km/hex (Berlin Crisis is at 15km/hex).

You can learn more about this bug (discovered by Ben Turner) at:

http://www.tdg.nu/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1057410663/75


I'm waiting for an equipment database editor for TOAW3 before updating this scenario, because many of the important early tactical and operational nuclear platforms are either poorly or not represented in stock TOAW3 database.

As for ACoW's nuclear attack management capabilities, the major limitation I encountered was the upper limit of 99 nuclear attacks per side per turn (not sure if Ralph upped that limit). There was also a bug (fixed in TOAW3 I believe) in revoking nuclear attack authorization - i.e., re-setting nuclear attacks to zero once they had been set to a value greater than zero - which we found a workaround for.

One additional thought: I used events (reductions in supply, replacements, theater recon, negative shock penalties, pestilence, etc.) to simulate the side-effects of strategic nuclear strikes by both sides. While somewhat abstract, it was probably a suitable mechanism for representing the impact of a full-scale (in 1961) strategic nuclear exchange on the central European battlefield.

(in reply to Sandrik)
Post #: 5
RE: A third vote - 8/29/2006 1:47:00 AM   
golden delicious


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quote:

ORIGINAL: sstevens06

(discovered by Ben Turner)


Well, sort of. I just got a little alarmed when the whole of Germany was turned to radioactive dust on the first turn of nuclear release.

Good scenario, that. Very likely the most realistic for the period.

_____________________________

"What did you read at university?"
"War Studies"
"War? Huh. What is it good for?"
"Absolutely nothing."

(in reply to sstevens06)
Post #: 6
RE: belin crisis '61 - 8/29/2006 6:59:55 AM   
L`zard


Posts: 362
Joined: 6/3/2005
From: Oregon, USA
Status: offline 		Wow!

This stuff really is scary looking!

Personally, this looks like a 'real to facts at the time' rendition, eh? Unless I'm really off-base, all nukes in question were ground-burst, and would be severely 'dirty'.

The logs I've viewed show some small hits, but after a point, one is looking at a 'down-wind dispersion', eh?

While ToaW may not have had a very good 'scaling model' for nukes, wtf, anyone downwind was screwed one way or the other, hence the 'very large' template for nuke-centers.

I'm not that educated concerning nuke warfare, but this 'REALLY looks like what they taught us kids in high-school, eh?

Anyone got an 'running AAR' on Belin Crisis/ Next War? Possibly some of you designers .sal saves during debug?

< Message edited by L`zard -- 8/31/2006 11:52:03 AM >

_____________________________

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Post #: 7
RE: belin crisis '61 - 8/31/2006 7:01:01 PM   
Anthropoid


Posts: 3107
Joined: 2/22/2005
From: Secret Underground Lair
Status: offline 		Okimaw and I played Next War 1979 (him allies me Soviets) and it was quite interesting. I'm now playing another fellow (whom I cannot name, as I do not remember his avatar, and do not want to state his real name) with me as allies and him as Soviet.

It really is a fine scenario. While a scenario that included strategic nukes would be cool, the best part is that this one nicely sidesteps this issue; the point being, for whatever reason, the determining factor of the ICBMs is moot for the purposes of this scenario, but the tactical nukes ARE potentially quite a force multiplier.

(in reply to L`zard)
Post #: 8
RE: belin crisis '61 - 9/1/2006 2:34:50 AM   
sstevens06


Posts: 276
Joined: 10/9/2005
From: USA
Status: offline 		L'zard,

Thank you for your interest. Please see below for my responses:


quote:

ORIGINAL: L`zard

Wow!

This stuff really is scary looking!

Personally, this looks like a 'real to facts at the time' rendition, eh? Unless I'm really off-base, all nukes in question were ground-burst, and would be severely 'dirty'.


As you can see from the references section, much of the information which went into this scenario design came from declassified official documents on both sides.

You are correct in assuming nuclear weapons of the early 1960's were dirtier than more contemporary models, but it is not clear that they would have been delivered as ground bursts exclusively. US nukes were certainly capable of being detonated at a variety of altitudes (remember both Hiroshima & Nagasaki were air bursts); there's no reason to believe the Soviets didn't have analogous capabilities. As you rightly point out ground bursts are far dirtier than air bursts, but there are a number of reasons why air bursts are preferable, particularly for the side which is on the offensive.

The ability to select between ground and air burst when launching nuclear attacks would be an excellent enhancement for a future version of TOAW!


quote:



The logs I've viewed show some small hits, but after a point, one is looking at a 'down-wind dispersion', eh?

While ToaW may not have had a very good 'scaling model' for nukes, wtf, anyone downwind was screwed one way or the other, hence the 'very large' template for nuke-centers.




No, it's a bug - the behavior was clearly inconsistent with emprical evidence. Ralph fixed it in TOAW3.


quote:


I'm not that educated concerning nuke warfare, but this 'REALLY looks like what they taught us kids in high-school, eh?

Anyone got an 'running AAR' on Belin Crisis/ Next War? Possibly some of you designers .sal saves during debug?



I think I still have a zipped file full of saves from some playtests on my other computer somewhere. To tell you the truth no matter how much I tweaked the scenario, the nuclear attack scaling bug had such a significant effect at 15km/hex, the outcomes were never quite satisfactory. I have high hopes for TOAW3 since Ralph fixed the bug - as I stated above once an equipment database editor becomes available I will start migrating the scenario.

Then we will finally see who would have emerged victorious from full-scale nuclear combat in Central Europe...

(in reply to L`zard)
Post #: 9
RE: belin crisis '61 - 9/1/2006 3:12:15 AM   
golden delicious


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From: London, Surrey, United Kingdom
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quote:

ORIGINAL: sstevens06

Then we will finally see who would have emerged victorious from full-scale nuclear combat in Central Europe...


At a guess, it would be whoever could figure out how to get results on a nuclear battlefield. As in previous wars, it wasn't so much material resources which decided the matter in unfamiliar conditions, but rather which force was able to adapt first to the new situation. I think both sides would have had nasty shocks in the opening stages as Second World War mentalities would have been made completely obsolete by tactical nuclear weapons.

_____________________________

"What did you read at university?"
"War Studies"
"War? Huh. What is it good for?"
"Absolutely nothing."

(in reply to sstevens06)
Post #: 10
RE: belin crisis '61 - 9/1/2006 3:25:54 AM   
sstevens06


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From: USA
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quote:

ORIGINAL: golden delicious


quote:

ORIGINAL: sstevens06

Then we will finally see who would have emerged victorious from full-scale nuclear combat in Central Europe...


At a guess, it would be whoever could figure out how to get results on a nuclear battlefield. As in previous wars, it wasn't so much material resources which decided the matter in unfamiliar conditions, but rather which force was able to adapt first to the new situation. I think both sides would have had nasty shocks in the opening stages as Second World War mentalities would have been made completely obsolete by tactical nuclear weapons.


Very sound points.

What's really interesting about this time period (early 1960's) is that it coincides with the beginnings of an 'RMA' (revolution in military affairs) in the Soviet Union. Stalin died in 1953, and the Zhukov re-organizations of the Soviet Army, begun in 1957 specifically to change Soviet force structure in response to the new realities of battlefield nuclear weapons, were largely complete. The US was also experimenting with novel force structures (e.g., 'Pentomic' divisions) at the time, for many of the same reasons. What's clear is that both sides were quite consciously preparing for operations on a fully nuclear battlefield, frightening as that may sound today.

(in reply to golden delicious)
Post #: 11
RE: belin crisis '61 - 9/1/2006 6:35:24 AM   
L`zard


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From: Oregon, USA
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I'll be looking forward to this scenario as a ToaW3 version then.

I've been doing 'fast runs' where the computer po does most of the work, and I only step in at 'crisis' points, ........

Anyway I've tried it, Europe isn't a happy place to be anymore. A Russian 'nuke stock-pile' of 99 really seems to make some serious choke-points, especially with the 'down wind drift' scaling factor.

Neat Scenario, sstevens, reminds me of the monday at noon 'duck and cover' drill in the late '50's' , which in Portland, OR, started with the sirens going off all over town. Bad thing to do to children, eh? I still have bad dreams about that sh*t, Tho I suppose watching 'The Day After' too many times doesn't help,

Good Work, that Man!



_____________________________

"I have the brain of a genius, and the heart of a little child! I keep them in a jar under my bed."


(in reply to sstevens06)
Post #: 12
RE: belin crisis '61 - 9/1/2006 8:06:44 AM   
Anthropoid


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quote:

ORIGINAL: sstevens06 . . . . I have high hopes for TOAW3 since Ralph fixed the bug - as I stated above once an equipment database editor becomes available I will start migrating the scenario.

Then we will finally see who would have emerged victorious from full-scale nuclear combat in Central Europe...


That sounds like fun! I look forward to it!

. . . I like playing with nukes . . .

(in reply to sstevens06)
Post #: 13
RE: A third vote - 9/1/2006 8:27:53 AM   
Anthropoid


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From: Secret Underground Lair
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quote:

One thing about the NATO-Warsaw Pact thing is since the fall of the USSR the documents recovered from East Germany indicate that the WP was going to use 300 to 400 Tac Nukes in a first strike.  I wondered about trying a scenario were there wasn't a strategic exchange and to see what would have happened if the WP did this and NATO responded with their remaining tac nukes in Europe, I guess 50 to 100(?). Two things have stopped me...


Hmmm. 300 to 400, does that mean warheads, or does it mean delivery components? In the Next War scenario, the Soviets have something like 22 or 24 SSM _units_ each of which has something like 15 to 30 "squads" (which I guess probably means launchers for this sort of weapons system). I'm guessing one launcher might have two or maybe only one missile onboard? So just with the Next War scenario, you're talking about 15 x 22 missiles being launchable in a first strikes (rummages around for calculator) . . . lessee, I'm a social scientist not a physicist, but my my calculation that comes to 330 nuklar weapons deliverable using ONLY the SSMS, i.e., excluding the bombers. I'm guessing that each bomber wing might have, what 6 to 12 planes? So I'll just guesstimate 8. Never counted 'em up but there must be at least 8 nuclear capable bombers in the Soviet OOB in that scenario. If each bomber only carried one bomb, that would come to 16 more "weapons."

Read a book a year or so ago by a Gwynne Dyer called "War." It was a very sweeping historical view of the whole topic, but he paid considerable attention to the nuclear standoff phase, and what he argued was that the destructive capabilities that both sides had in hand by the mid to late 1960s were absolutely ridiculous, as in: go tactical nuke, and within a day or so, both sides would have very little functioning military left anywhere in the theatre. Sounds like ssteven06's scenario reflects this reality. The sheer ridiculousity of the whole thing to me is demonstrated in the fact that, by the late 1960s or early 1970s (anyone know for sure?) they were packaging nukes into fricking artillery shells! Imagine what a big cannon with a 2 or 3 kiloton bomb in it would do in a tactical situation!?! Add to this, that many fighter-bombers, missiles, etc., could handle nuke payloads . . . quite a disturbing development. Almost seems to have made war obsolete when it comes to northern hemisphere societies view on it.

This page is neat . . . it just boggles the fricking mind is what it does . . .

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Russia/TsarBomba.html

(in reply to Sandrik)
Post #: 14
RE: belin crisis '61 - 9/1/2006 1:13:08 PM   
golden delicious


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From: London, Surrey, United Kingdom
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quote:

ORIGINAL: L`zard

Neat Scenario, sstevens, reminds me of the monday at noon 'duck and cover' drill in the late '50's' , which in Portland, OR, started with the sirens going off all over town. Bad thing to do to children, eh?


Well, if they were outside a certain radius, you won't be incinerated by the blast, but the flash of light could cause your clothes and skin to ignite. So duck and cover is the best thing to do if you only have a short warning.

Also: remember to whitewash those windows on the outside. That's going to catch light too.

_____________________________

"What did you read at university?"
"War Studies"
"War? Huh. What is it good for?"
"Absolutely nothing."

(in reply to L`zard)
Post #: 15
RE: A third vote - 9/1/2006 1:16:00 PM   
golden delicious


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

The sheer ridiculousity of the whole thing to me is demonstrated in the fact that, by the late 1960s or early 1970s (anyone know for sure?) they were packaging nukes into fricking artillery shells! Imagine what a big cannon with a 2 or 3 kiloton bomb in it would do in a tactical situation!?!


These crop up a bit in Berlin Crisis. What's really fun is the nuclear-armed recoilless rifle. Blast radius was greater than the range.

_____________________________

"What did you read at university?"
"War Studies"
"War? Huh. What is it good for?"
"Absolutely nothing."

(in reply to Anthropoid)
Post #: 16
RE: A third vote - 9/1/2006 3:45:11 PM   
sstevens06


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From: USA
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quote:

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

...
What's really fun is the nuclear-armed recoilless rifle. Blast radius was greater than the range.




You think that's bad. Atomic Demolition Munitions ('suitcase nukes' in common parlance) were so 'hot' that the Special Forces operators who would have delivered them (presumably in front of advancing Soviet columns, or behind their lines) would have received lethal doses of radiation and been dead within a week or two. The ultimate 'suicide bomber'...

(in reply to golden delicious)
Post #: 17
RE: A third vote - 9/2/2006 1:14:24 AM   
JoeRockhead


Posts: 38
Joined: 7/26/2004
Status: offline 		I was in an artillery unit in the early 90's, and we simulated using Nuke shells and
getting hit by them as well. It was an M110 8" self propelled Howitzer unit.

(in reply to sstevens06)
Post #: 18
RE: belin crisis '61 - 9/2/2006 8:16:31 AM   
L`zard


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From: Oregon, USA
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quote:

ORIGINAL: golden delicious


quote:

ORIGINAL: L`zard

Neat Scenario, sstevens, reminds me of the monday at noon 'duck and cover' drill in the late '50's' , which in Portland, OR, started with the sirens going off all over town. Bad thing to do to children, eh?


Well, if they were outside a certain radius, you won't be incinerated by the blast, but the flash of light could cause your clothes and skin to ignite. So duck and cover is the best thing to do if you only have a short warning.

Also: remember to whitewash those windows on the outside. That's going to catch light too.


Sorry, Ben; I'm of the thinking that the BEST thing to do is become quickly intoxicated and stand around to watch all the 'pretty fireworks', LOL. I presently live about 40 miles outside of Portland, Oregon, and if I need to worry about 'flash-burns', methinx I've got a rather more important issue to mind, eh?

@Anthropoid:

quote: This page is neat . . . it just boggles the fricking mind is what it does . . .

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Russia/TsarBomba.html

Boggles, yeah, that's the word!

@All : go thru the entirety of this site, and you'll find some 'interesting bits concerning current capabilities. That should help your sleep!

Sorry for temporarily hi-jacking the thread, eh?




< Message edited by L`zard -- 9/2/2006 8:19:53 AM >

(in reply to golden delicious)
Post #: 19
RE: belin crisis '61 - 9/2/2006 9:54:06 AM   
L`zard


Posts: 362
Joined: 6/3/2005
From: Oregon, USA
Status: offline
quote:



The logs I've viewed show some small hits, but after a point, one is looking at a 'down-wind dispersion', eh?

While ToaW may not have had a very good 'scaling model' for nukes, wtf, anyone downwind was screwed one way or the other, hence the 'very large' template for nuke-centers.


No, it's a bug - the behavior was clearly inconsistent with emprical evidence. Ralph fixed it in TOAW3.



A quote vis 'nukes' from the help file:

"After a nuclear attack, the target and nearby locations may become contaminated. The path of contamination
outside the target is somewhat randomized, but can extend up to three times the attack radius from the actual
attack location - generally to the east. Once contaminated, locations remain contaminated for the remainder of the
scenario. Units in contaminated locations will suffer reductions in readiness every turn."

@sstevens;

If it's a bug, it really doesn't break the game for me. In fact, I've tried to max impact points just to achieve down-wind as the Nato player, and avoid same as the WP in a hot-seat game.

As the Nato player, it seems but may not be true that hitting some 'nuked hexes' repetitively increased contamination. Somewhat hard to tell at the moment, as I'm still exploring exactly how much damage is created nuke-wise, and getting used to 'finding' all the nuke capable units in a given turn.

I used to spend all my time trying to max-out my armor/mech, for the last run-throughs of 'Berlin Crisis' I've been trying to max 'nuclear holocaust' just to see how bad it could get. The two PO's are still better at destroying Europe than I am, so I guess I'm not 'Dr. Stangelove' yet,

But I'm trying, LOL, even tho using up all the available strikes is the worst form of micro-management ( the PO doesn't seem to find a stack of 'nuke-cap' unless it's based on air-resources, but 'Stikes' any airbase with more than 1 unit almost as a SOP.

This really reads just like ' Team Yankee by Harold Coyle. IE: the air war is extremely punitive. Players should really try to save air assets for this scen, lol.

Damn good game, my man, tho I expect only 'Moderns' masters to be able to pbem this without taking a year out of thier lives, lol!

I'll have to start some 'next war' sce's as a test befor answering the original question, eh?


< Message edited by L`zard -- 9/2/2006 10:23:44 AM >

(in reply to sstevens06)
Post #: 20
RE: belin crisis '61 - 9/2/2006 1:41:08 PM   
golden delicious


Posts: 5575
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From: London, Surrey, United Kingdom
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quote:

ORIGINAL: L`zard

Sorry, Ben; I'm of the thinking that the BEST thing to do is become quickly intoxicated and stand around to watch all the 'pretty fireworks',


Weren't we talking about children?

btw, you seem to be having trouble with some of the HTML tags. You need to place the text (and any additional tags) between [ b] and [ /b] rather than after them. So;

[ b]BEST[ /b] becomes BEST

_____________________________

"What did you read at university?"
"War Studies"
"War? Huh. What is it good for?"
"Absolutely nothing."

(in reply to L`zard)
Post #: 21
RE: belin crisis '61 - 9/3/2006 5:55:09 AM   
L`zard


Posts: 362
Joined: 6/3/2005
From: Oregon, USA
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

quote:

ORIGINAL: L`zard

Sorry, Ben; I'm of the thinking that the BEST thing to do is become quickly intoxicated and stand around to watch all the 'pretty fireworks',


Weren't we talking about children?

btw, you seem to be having trouble with some of the HTML tags. You need to place the text (and any additional tags) between [ b] and [ /b] rather than after them. So;

[ b]BEST[ /b] becomes BEST


We should probably leave the children out of this, the only effective one around here being myself, lol!

Thanks for the nudge, I might have noticed that befor the fourth pint,


_____________________________

"I have the brain of a genius, and the heart of a little child! I keep them in a jar under my bed."


(in reply to golden delicious)
Post #: 22
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