[mpipes]

Originally Posted by Ewan

As for "Operation Sealionski" (I like that name) if anyone thinks that the Royal Air Force or Royal Navy would let a Soviet invasion get near the UK before nuking them till they glow is very much mistaken. To quote from the Players Manual "1998 saw the nukes, leaving 25 million dead, before the Soviet invasion."- so half the country is dead and HMG is not going to fire off what remaining strategic and tactical nukes they have at the invasion fleet while it's still in the North Sea before the land - yeah right.

Also the 7th Guards Air Assault Division is going to fly across a good number of countries before it gets to the UK and depending on the route taken would have to run the gauntlet of the Royal Norwegian Air Force, Royal Danish Air Force, Royal Swedish Air Force, Luftwaffe and potentially the Polish Air Force. Now where is the Soviet Air Force going to get all the fighters to escort the transport across to the UK.

I'm sure that the Soviet high command could have a better use for the 7th Guards Air Assault Division on mainland Europe.

I can see a Soviet invasion pre-nuke being done as a "super" Dieppe Raid to hopefully get the Brits to recall a Corps from the main front, but that would be pointless after the nukes fly. There seems to be no point to it other than putting Russians into the UK for game purposes.

Looking at the backstory again, it mostly seems ok - right up to when the US sends the USS Truman into the Baltic. That would NEVER have happened. The Baltic is just too confined for general carrier ops, and while the US might send a carrier into the Baltic to support combat ops by the Marines, it just would not be done to send a statement. For a start, the US Navy largely regards the Baltic as a "lake" that "belongs" to Europe; its not part of the traditional "blue waters" that the US Navy operates in. Maybe a battleship SAG would have been sent, but not a carrier and certainly NOT a brand new nuclear carrier.

Then it appears that only the US reacts to the Polish invasion. ARE THESE DESIGNERS NUTS!!!! NATO would be up in arms immediately demanding a withdrawal. You just had the Baltic States re-annexed and now the Soviets are driving toward Germany, and it is only the US responding!!!! And then they fabricate a US invasion of PRO-NATO Sweden!! Correct me if I am wrong, but Swedish and NATO planning presumed that Soviet territorial violations would likely force Sweden into a NATO-PACT war as a NATO ally....so exactly why would the US invade? And apparently it is only the Royal Navy fighting the Northern Banner Fleet; don't the designers know that the US Navy's entire doctrine for a NATO war was aimed at engaging and neutralizing the Northern Fleet! And this is just through 1997.

US draft not implemented till 1998. Manpower concerns only arise in 1998!!
Do the guys not realize what the casualty rates of modern combat look like? And apparently they don't know that a Soviet juggernaut hitting Poland would reach into Germany well within a year. If the Soviet Army is still stuck in Poland after six-months, then they have lost or are losing and need to either use nukes to open up exploitable gaps in the front lines (Soviet doctrine) or negotiate to get what they want. The US simply would not, under any circumstances, use nukes if NATO had the Soviets bottled up in Sweden and Poland. US doctrine and planning, not to mention NATO, was solid on that point. Only if the Soviets were advancing and well into Germany would nukes be authorized, and then the targets would be on PACT (well USSR) territory targeting logistics and troop concentrations (at least initially). And oh yea, the entire Eastern Europe would be at war from 1997...not just getting around to everyone joining in in 1998.

And these guys are obviously clueless as to the physics of EMP....you don't get that with tactical nukes at low altitudes. It takes the big freaking warheads at high altitudes. I've always felt that the GDW versions overplayed the effects of EMP somewhat. There are going to be effects, but will the whole electrical grid of the world get toasted...maybe and maybe not. But tac nukes can't do the trick.

A quarter of the French population dead, Moscow was "only" targeting American troops, and France DOES NOT retaliate with ALL its nuclear forces. Yea.... right....can I interest anyone here in prime beach property in Alaska or Iceland??

The UK invasion....really DOES ANYONE think that after a year of war with at least four US carrier battlegroups plus three UK carriers and at least one French (and maybe even a Spanish) carrier there would be anything left afloat of the Soviet Northern Fleet bigger than a missile boat by 1998? Or an un-nuked Central London? Enough said.

America. Not sure I'ld quibble with that write-up that much.

Curious about Ukraine. They would have gotten independence. And maybe Belarus.

Overall, the background reads a bit like a left of center European guy-on-the street's view of a European War, who really does not know much about the doctrines or plans that would have been at play in a NATO war or even the politico-military underpinnings of the alliance. They certainly have not presented anything plausible for a NATO-USSR conflict in the 1990s. Maybe that is by design to a point, as they just wanted to have SOMETHING to explain a war, but the consensus here on the forum will most likely be that they BADLY missed the mark. I understand the designer's desire to have Sweden playing a role, but an invasion by the US is simply not possible. Too many NATO allies would be up in arms over that. Now the Soviets invading to secure an airbase for supporting the Baltic Fleet and an invasion of Poland, Germany, or Denmark...yea that is within possibility. But you can't have the Russians bottled up in Sweden or Poland and then have NATO using nukes (and rest assured there would have had to be NATO consensus to use nukes in Europe - there just would - no matter who was President). Also, Russia is not going to take on NATO without allies; they just won't. If they can peel off a few NATO allies like what GDW did, then yes, but solo Russia starting a war against a united NATO; NEVER. Keep in mind, Russia never wanted to use nuclear weapons. However, their doctrine called on using tactical nukes to win a war if things were stalemated. The Soviets always knew that a solo war against NATO would likely lead to a stalemate REQUIRING them to use tactical nukes. They may be aggressive, but they are not dumb or crazy. You just cannot have a united NATO and a solo USSR going to war; not unless it is life or death for Russia (and I say Russia deliberately because it was and is all about Mother Russia - the Republics were buffers to protect the Motherland). So for a solo Russia-NATO war; NATO has got to start it - period.

I really had high hopes for the game, but this drivel from the clunky game mechanics to the misfired background may be too much for veteran TW2000 players to swallow. At the end of the day, this background somehow makes the Soviets largely sound the most reasonable and aggrieved - and that is after invading the Baltic States and Poland. That may be an unfair "feeling," but in what universe do you use tactical nuclear weapons on a large scale on a nuclear armed foe that appears to be losing? The background glosses over it, but the Soviet fleets would be decimated. If all the Soviets have after a year of warfare is part of Sweden and Poland, and a decimated navy, it can hardly be said that NATO is losing. So why the nukes? I can't get that out of my head.

I shudder to think what the 1st draft looked like with its "political" overtones. This is just poor fiction utterly devoid of any consideration as to what the actual war would have looked like. All that said, parts of it actually sound good, but the good stuff is really overshadowed by the bad.