[chico20854]

Originally Posted by Targan

My only concerns are that rather than changing events to match the outcome they might end up with US and other NATO forces much more powerful by 2000 that what canon says. Logically that would than change the nature of the environment in which the original Twilight was meant to be played. Instead of there being just one US submarine left by 2000 there will be a bunch of them, and other US military assets will also be far more plentiful than in canon. That is where my concerns lie.

I think that with hindsight and due to pride in US military might the DC Working Group might be greatly downplaying the abilities of the Warsaw Pact. We seem to forget how worried everyone was about the power of the Warsaw Pact back during the Cold War. Surely if NATO had as many combat assets by 2000 as the DC Working Group is suggesting it would have, how is it a stalemate like in canon? Seems to me more like NATO would walk right over the Warsaw Pact at the end and that would greatly change the gaming environment IMO.

I'm not meaning to be too critical here, please understand that. I love the Czech Vehicle Guide. I still really look forward to what the DC Working Group comes up with in the end. If pride won't allow us to have the Soviets smash NATO as hard as canon says they did, what about just a few situations where plain old bad luck nailed NATO?

I understand your concern. As far as the relative strengths go, it's actually in favor of the Pact forces - I've been able to dig up a lot more about their reserve and mobilization-only divisions than was known in the 1980s in the West.

A quick count of divisions:
USSR: I've found 279 Soviet divisions; GDW had 185, a 50% increase.
Non-Soviet Pact: I have 45, GDW had 31, a 45% increase.

USA: I have 50 divisions (only 46 of which have equipment); GDW has 46.
Non-US NATO: 54 division-equivalents; GDW has 35; a 54% increase, mostly from the German territorial army (26 regiments and brigades). The German territorials are mentioned in the NATO Vehicle Guide but not detailed.

So I have the Pact armies a total of 50% stronger and NATO 22% stronger.

At sea, we've discussed multiple methods to re-create the 10-foot-tall Russians I was scared of in 184.

The major deviation from canon strength-wise is, as you have noted, the amount of shipping available to NATO in 2000. This IMHO is not such a big deal given the state of the world in 2000. First, most groups of PCs are well inland where the influence of naval forces is minimal. But more importantly, the state of the world limits the utility of having intact hulls - because without fuel, spare parts and crews that have a galley full of food the fact that the ship is afloat and under the control of one authority or another (or none) is pretty irrelevant. Even nuclear attack and missile subs are pretty useless in 2000 - sure, they can travel around without petroleum (except that needed for lubrication, assuming they have enough reactor fuel), but what use are they as warships? What is a boomer going to nuke? (And targeting requires some way to get word to the sub about intact targets, if the sub has crew intact that can enter the coordinates into a missile that has been cut off from full maintenance for 2 years). What ships ply the oceans for attack subs to torpedo? What is the chance of a sub finding one of these ships? As far as being used to transport small parties and quantities of cargo in 2000, a schooner is much better than a sub (smaller crew, better cargo handling, able to enter more ports). We've discussed amongst ourselves the surviving aircraft carriers, and come to the conclusion that they are usually tied up to the dock, the crews dispersed ashore and the reactors (if nuke powered) tied into the civil power grid. But they rarely sail, and the are of marginal utility as power-projection platforms - the aviators don't have fuel and are out of practice doing carrier landings, the aircraft lack spares and the crews are much more valuable fixing things or farming ashore (6000 mouths are a lot to feed to have a carrier patrolling damn-near empty oceans on the off chance that the Russians are going to suddenly get re-interested in invading the US mainland...)

As far as more troops available changing the duration of the war, I honestly don't know. Many of the "new" Soviet divisions (it's impossible to compare directly the units I have and the ones GDW had - the ID's just don't match) are in the Far East, Strategic Reserve or Caucasus. The wargaming rules we are using - GDW's Third World War - are pretty drastic about combat rapidly grinding to a halt after a nuclear exchange, especially a strategic exchange with strikes on the Soviet and US homelands. For example, no reinforcements are allowed after a strategic exchange, yet the Soviet Vehicle Guide lists numerous units being mobilized in 1998 and 1999. So we'll likely wargame out to the TDM and then go by canon, as much as it may pain us to do so. (For example, we are keeping the Mexican and Alaska invasions, even though looking at them with a realistic view both would have a very slim chance of success).

So I hope we can allay some of your fears. We will try to overrun pride with pure brutality. (Maybe I'll put my 2001 US population figures up - 55% casualties - over 155 million, broken down by state, age & gender...).