Quote:
Originally Posted by Legbreaker
While that state of very poor affairs was true IRL, T2K is a game based on "what if".
In the alternate reality that is T2K, the Soviets were competent, dangerous and not crippled by regular political purges of their best and brightest. Their military actually got paid on time, trained to a decent standard and their equipment was maintained according to the manufacturers recommendations.
It's this "what if" factor that seems to be missing in a lot of peoples posts. Reality is great, but it can only go so far in producing a world ripe for roleplaying as we know it.
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But isn't a knowledgeable GM a boon to the game? Sure the Soviets tanks were crap when taken on an individual basis, but it wasn't going to be one-on-one engagements was it?
US battalion exercises of the period always started with the assumption that it would be taking on at least a Soviet Regiment. Troops in the Fulda and Hof Gaps could look over the Iron Curtin and see the division that was going to assault through the gap. NATO in the '70s and '80s was not in a good position, the US troops had the most supplies (30 days) and there were grave doubts about how heavy the usage for the supplies (above all ammo) would be. Some of the NATO partners had supplies for as little as 7 days. This was part of the reason that tactical nuclear weapons were always such a part of NATO pre-war planning.
BUT, it all boils down to two massive militaries going ball out for each other. And on the scale of the fighting...no matter how compentent or not the militaries were, it was going to be a blood-letting on a massive scale.