Cold War turns hot in 1989?

[Feanor]

The game is certainly spectacular, but lacks realism in a number of critical areas.

[TopHatter]

I wonder what Russians who'd seen that movie (Red Dawn) back in 1984 or even now for that matter have thought about it.

[wkllaw]

I just checked the game, its interesting to note how 2 decades back it was all practically stick figures.

[Stan187]

World in Conflict's mainland invasion scenario is outlandish from the start. As if the Soviet Union could get together a huge force in a giant unmarked merchant navy and stealthily move it across the Pacific and Atlantic to launch and supply an invasion... However, it's justified by artistic licence because, let's face it, when's the last time you saw such a jaw-droppingly spectacular RTS? (I've been playing the demo.)

When Sudden Strike came out

[Stan187]

I wonder what Russians who'd seen that movie (Red Dawn) back in 1984 or even now for that matter have thought about it.

Remember when the Soviet officer on the mountain gets shot and takes like 2 seconds to react and start yelling? Classic acting! That movie was half comedy I swear. It's one of my cult favorites.

[Officer of Engineers]

OoE, thats just the intial waves, the numbe rof untis grows as you head east. Thats one reason NATO develope dthe ALB doctrine, to cut the rail links as efectively as the Soviets wished to cut the sea bridge from the US.

vs the BOAR the only real contenders were the Brits and Germans, the danes and Dutch (until they got leo 2's) could not really be counted on and France was always iffy. In Northern germany they didn't ahv eto face Apaches and Cobras as well as A-10s and had better room to manuver as well.

Would you mind flushing this out?

North Group only got 20th Tank Division and 6th Guards Motorized Rifle Division
Central Group got the 4th Guards Army. Which Armies are you expecting to lure and trap CENTAG and which ones are going for NORTHAG?

[zraver]

Would you mind flushing this out?

North Group only got 20th Tank Division and 6th Guards Motorized Rifle Division
Central Group got the 4th Guards Army. Which Armies are you expecting to lure and trap CENTAG and which ones are going for NORTHAG?

1st GTA Dresden 2TD 1 MRD North of the Check border
2GTA Furstenburg 1TD 3MRD just southeast of Berlin
3rd CA Magdeburg 3TD Nearly due east of Hannover
8th GA Nohra 1TD 3MRD West of Leipzig
20th CA Eberswalde 1TD 1MRD 1MRB just northeast of Berlin

Group of Soviet Forces in Germany Order of Battle
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/atlas...ermany-map.jpg

at the bottom of the first link there is a map with the division cantons, the American Sector is only fronted with 5 divisions with 1 more division fronting the inter allied army border. North of this is the same number of units, but the reserves are clustered for a drive east not south. The American sector all but assures they have to come through the gap which funnels them towards either the Chzeck border or Bavaria and not towards the vital industrial regions of the Rhur, Rhine and Saar and offers no hope of cutting NATO off. The North German plain offers the best route for rapid movement plus allows the Soviets to fracture NATO by isolating Denmark and putitgn pressure on Holland and Belgium.

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/atlas...ermany-map.jpg

[Officer of Engineers]

It's from Margolis - take it for what it's worth

September 16, 2007
Secret tales from Vienna
At the height of the Cold War, plans for an invasion had spies and soldiers on edge
By ERIC MARGOLIS

VIENNA -- Memories of past glories still haunt this majestic imperial capitol of the now sadly vanished Austro-Hungarian Empire.

There are also fresher memories of the post-war era when the Soviets shared control of Vienna with Britain, France and the United States. A large, freshly gilded Soviet war memorial still looms over the city.

The old, sinister days of spying, kidnapping and black marketeering were captured here by Carol Reed's magnificent film, The Third Man, starring Orson Wells as the charming thug, Harry Lime.

My father used to produce plays with Wells, and the actor often regaled us with amusing tales about making this film in the ruins of Vienna under the baleful eyes of the KGB.

Half a century later, Wells' presence still haunts Vienna. I half imagine seeing him in the twilight, dressed in a long, black great coat and fedora, slipping around a corner into the dusk.

Vienna also has another fascinating secret.

Back in the 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, I was studying international law at a Swiss university.

A group of Swiss Army officers in mufti (civilian dress) were arrested by Austria for spying on its modest fortifications on its Czech border.

Many jokes about "chocolate spies" were made at the time over this seeming trivial incident. But the Swiss, as always, were deadly serious.

The Swiss officers were monitoring Austria's eastern defenses against the Soviet Warsaw Pact because their intelligence service had uncovered frightfully alarming news.

STATE SECRET

This information still remains a Swiss state secret, but thanks to my contacts with the Swiss military, I can reveal it for the first time.

NATO's defenses were concentrated on the North German Plain -- the hundreds of miles of flat terrain running from the Bavarian Alps up to the North Sea and supplied by the vast Belgian port complex of Antwerp.

This region, and the Fulda Gap to the south, were the Warsaw Pact's expected invasion route into Western Europe. U.S., German, British, Canadian, Dutch and Belgian troops were massed there, awaiting an attack.

However, the Soviet General Staff had developed a brilliant plan to outflank the bulk of NATO forces in north Germany.

It was a variant of the pre-First World War German Schlieffen Plan.

The Soviet version called for a major deception and pinning attacks in the north, while a mass strike force of at least 60 armored and mechanized divisions would sweep west from Czechoslovakia into neutral Austria, cross it, and then erupt into eastern Switzerland.

The Red Army would have to fight its way through the Swiss fortress zone at Sargans, then drive west on an axis: Zurich-Bern-Neuchatel-Lausanne-Geneva.

BOUND FOR PARIS

From Geneva, the Soviet blitz would break out into France's Rhone Valley near Grenoble and Lyon, swing northwest along the Saone River and envelop Paris from the south and west.

This vast enveloping attack, whose northern flank would be in large part protected by the Alps and Vosges, would come up behind NATO forces deployed much further east.

A Soviet column would take Antwerp and Rotterdam, thus cutting off the main supply lines of American, British and Canadian forces, and then attack them from the rear.

Had this plan worked, it would have been more successful than the 1914 Schlieffen Plan and as great a triumph as Germany's 1940 campaign against France.

Like Von Manstein's and Guderian's audacious attack through the Ardennes forest in May, 1940, a Soviet offensive through Austria and Switzerland would have struck the least expected spot -- NATO's underbelly.

Austria lay naked, but Switzerland was ready.

Its 600,000 tough soldiers prepared to fight the Red Army from their mountain fortress redoubts at Sargans, Gothard and St. Maurice in the Valais.

The Swiss would have seriously delayed Soviet attacks, perhaps giving NATO time, were it fleet enough, to withdraw its northern forces eastward, and pull back troops to defend the strategic Rhone Valley.

But it would have been a very, very close run thing.

[Kansas Bear]

Austria lay naked, but Switzerland was ready.

Its 600,000 tough soldiers prepared to fight the Red Army from their mountain fortress redoubts at Sargans, Gothard and St. Maurice in the Valais.

The Swiss would have seriously delayed Soviet attacks, perhaps giving NATO time, were it fleet enough, to withdraw its northern forces eastward, and pull back troops to defend the strategic Rhone Valley.

But it would have been a very, very close run thing.

Sir,

If the Swiss HAD turned themselves into a 'Bastogne', would(IYO) the Soviets have used nuclear weapons on them??

[Officer of Engineers]

This is the 1st time I've heard of this contigency and I've not examine it through. Several problems I've seen right away.

1) Did the Soviets had enough troops? 60 Divisions is a hell of alot and weakens other fronts enough to invite counter-invasion

2) Switzerland is mountain fortress while AT traps already built into roads and bridges already with C4 built into the structures. Way too easy to trap 60 divisions with or without nukes.

[Stan187]

This is the 1st time I've heard of this contigency and I've not examine it through. Several problems I've seen right away.

1) Did the Soviets had enough troops? 60 Divisions is a hell of alot and weakens other fronts enough to invite counter-invasion

2) Switzerland is mountain fortress while AT traps already built into roads and bridges already with C4 built into the structures. Way too easy to trap 60 divisions with or without nukes.

Not to mention the length of the supply chain, and how through what kind of territory supplies would have to pass through. Mountain-convoys getting jumped by AT-armed guerillas.. Afghanistan anyone?

[Shuttlecat]

I'll be interested to know what you guys think of the background for this game. Could this really have happened? Was "Red Dawn" realistic?

Who cares? I just want to have some fun playing it! Sometimes alternate realities are fun, regardless of how crazy they might be. But sometimes they're stupid too, and that makes for a bad game.