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Cold War wargame- OOB question?
I seem to recall that by the mid-80s, French divisions were much smaller than their NATO counterparts. They might have 3 regiments, but those "regiments" were battalion-sized by anyone else's standards.
A. Am I correct in remembering this? B. When did they downsize their divisions & regiments? I ask because I've picked up Compass Games' "Brezhnev's War", and in there, the French divisions rate equally to the West Germans. The game is a little unusual, since it's intended to cover the 1975-1980 time period, rather than the 1983-88 that my other favorite WW3 games cover. IMO, it plays fast & loose with some details, so it's a simplified game from what I'm used to. The rules have some interesting mechanisms inside. I figured if anyone could give me a quick answer on French OBs in the 70s, it would be on this board.
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My Twilight claim to fame: I ran "Allegheny Uprising" at Allegheny College, spring of 1988. |
#2
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At most, the French divisions of that period were brigade-sized, averaging from 2-4 line battalions and a support group. The larger units were the active duty ones, the smaller were their equivalent of the National Guard.
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The reason that the American Army does so well in wartime, is that war is chaos, and the American Army practices chaos on a daily basis. |
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Most of what I have is circa 1989. I will post a NATO OB Word document that someone on the Net created a while back.
The 1989 Osprey book Tank War Central Front NATO vs. Warsaw Pact has the following entry for France: The French Army is potentially one of the larger contributors to NATO defence of the Central Front, but its semi-independent posture has meant that its forces are not as well integrated into NATO as other armies. The French Army currently fields 16 medium tank regiments, equipped with various models of the AMX-30 tank; these regiments are about the same size as an American tank battalion. Tanks are also integrated into mechanized infantry and cavalry units. |
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How do the Franco-German Brigade and The European Corps (Eurocorps) factor in? Especially since France does not go to war?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-German_Brigade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurocorps
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I will not hide. I will not be deterred nor will I be intimidated from my performing my duty, I am a Canadian Soldier. |
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But nothing on the late '70s, as yet?
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My Twilight claim to fame: I ran "Allegheny Uprising" at Allegheny College, spring of 1988. |
#7
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In the V1 timeline, one can make a case that since the iron curtain is a strong divider and that NATO's national armies are still massive, active, and integrated, there is no perceived political need for for these units. Active involvement (troop deployment) in the Balkans for say a Yugoslav breakup, would be perceived as a threat by the Soviet Union; such a deployment decision would not be undertaken by a (non-NATO) body of Western European nations without a consulting NATO. Remember that at this time (ca. 1990) there are no non-western EU members except Ireland and Greece - who is part of NATO (Austria and Sweden join Jan 1995). V2 and V2.2 timelines are a different story, depending on how far you follow actual history before splitting them off into gameland. But certainly, these Euro units would break up within days if not hours of France pulling out of NATO, demanding that the German units saddle up and march across the bridge in Strassbourg onto German soil, and withdrawing their units out of Germany. One can almost hear the sniff at the end of the official stiffly-worded request. You can probably play with various headscratching about what happens to the EU, its agencies, trade agreeements, and border arrangements as western Europe fragments. But that is another story... Uncle Ted |
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See this thread... http://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.p...=division+size |
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