Operation Advent Crown

[Jason Weiser]

There's also when you think about it, the nature of what the nuclear targets are? Chico and I looked and discovered that they calculated that it took 5-6 5kt tactical devices to do acceptable damage to a single tank battalion. It takes a lot less, and does more long term damage if you go after the rear area services, so it may be a case of more warheads are being flung at the Pact and NATO rear areas. This has the effect of slowing down the Pact advance to a pace that NATO is somehow managing to retreat faster than the Pact can catch them. (though the fact that it still takes the Pact 2 MONTHS to relieve Warsaw does call that into question?).

Viewed in this lens, the NATO retreat makes a LOT of sense, as if you're losing your tactical/operational supply net in the field, it makes sense to retreat to where it's intact, Germany. And the pace of the Pact advance makes sense. Look at the pattern of Soviet advances in WWII, they'd advance for a bit, make great gains, and then peter out when they outran their supply infrastructure (Now yes, this doesn't account for nukes, modern smart munitions, and the fact they're advancing over an atrocious Polish road net that's been fought over twice and now nuked once?) Maybe it's just that simple, the road net is such a mess, it cannot support either army very well?

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I'll add my voice to the section about the road network.
The quality of any roads in different areas of Poland can vary from average to well below poor.
Drivers in northern Poland generally avoid puddles on the road when they see them, the attitude is that you never know how deep or wide the pothole is, so you go around it to avoid damaging your vehicle.
I saw potholes repaired by simply dumping rubble in them and then covering them over with asphalt. In other places they were repaired by pouring concrete into the hole or by using paving bricks. Over time the area around the repaired section degraded to the point where you no longer had a hole in the road but a higher section that was effectively now a speedbump (or sump remover depending on how low the vehicle was!)

So it's not just the quality but also the consistency of the roads that you have to worry about. Saying that some road repairs were 'slapdash' is probably being kind.
The road quality & consistency did appear to improve the further south I went, I vaguely remember the roads in Krakow where decent, far better than many of the roads I saw in Warsaw and further north.
With several months of heavy traffic I believe most of the roads useful for the military will be severely degraded and only off-road capable vehicles will be able to use them.

[stilleto69]

Again Chico, let me applaud your work. And thanks for the little pieces of info regarding the Air War, it's been a great help to me in "fleshing out" my version of the US Military Vehicle Guide for the USAF & US Navy & Marine Corps Aviation units involved in the war.

One quick question to anyone: "What happened to II US Corps?" I know canon has them in Korea (which should have been I US Corps), but realistically I think they would have been deployed to Europe, like they were in WW II. JMHO.

Again, great work. One day I should hopefully be able to publish my vehicle guides.

[chico20854]

Originally Posted by stilleto69

One quick question to anyone: "What happened to II US Corps?" I know canon has them in Korea (which should have been I US Corps), but realistically I think they would have been deployed to Europe, like they were in WW II. JMHO.

Thank you!

I have II Corps HQ formed in Alabama, deployed by rail to California and awaiting overseas transport when the nukes fly. It gets tasked on disaster relief and internal security duties and once the Mexican invasion starts they are on the eastern flank of the California front, with units from Ft Irwin under command. I'm still fleshing out details.

[chico20854]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

I'll add my voice to the section about the road network.
The quality of any roads in different areas of Poland can vary from average to well below poor.
Drivers in northern Poland generally avoid puddles on the road when they see them, the attitude is that you never know how deep or wide the pothole is, so you go around it to avoid damaging your vehicle.
I saw potholes repaired by simply dumping rubble in them and then covering them over with asphalt. In other places they were repaired by pouring concrete into the hole or by using paving bricks. Over time the area around the repaired section degraded to the point where you no longer had a hole in the road but a higher section that was effectively now a speedbump (or sump remover depending on how low the vehicle was!)

So it's not just the quality but also the consistency of the roads that you have to worry about. Saying that some road repairs were 'slapdash' is probably being kind.
The road quality & consistency did appear to improve the further south I went, I vaguely remember the roads in Krakow where decent, far better than many of the roads I saw in Warsaw and further north.
With several months of heavy traffic I believe most of the roads useful for the military will be severely degraded and only off-road capable vehicles will be able to use them.

About all I remember from the major roads in Poland when I was there was under construction. A lot of EU money going in there. I don't want to think what they were like in communist times! Postwar Bosnian roads were no joke either, and they did support heavy wheeled military traffic on a continuous basis.

The rail network was reasonably intact according to Going Home, but NATO, as mentioned in the document, wasn't set up to use rail in an offensive manner. Very few or no rail repair or operating units, no locomotives or rolling stock, no cargo handling units...

[Benjamin]

Great stuff Chico. My alternate T2K has NATO halting about 25km from the Russian border after the Soviet leader calls the US President on the Red Phone and gives him an ultimatum. “Get too close to the Motherland and we will nuke you!” They pause to consider their options just as Italy enters the war. NATO decides on a limited withdrawal about to the Vistula and fighting shifts to the Balkans.

Anywho, awesome background material you have produced. Thanks.

[Matt Wiser]

I'll second what Jason has said, and add this: both sides would try and maintain troops in contact with the enemy, even though their forces on the front lines are dispersed as to not present nuclear targets. It's not a good idea to fire a nuke-even a low-yield weapon like a 155-mm shell if the enemy unit across from you is within rifle range, because blast, heat, and thermal radiation do not respect unit boundaries! They'll be hitting rear-area targets instead of forces in the field, unless a battlefield situation presents itself that using an SS-21 or a Lance (or Lance successor) is necessary.

[Jason Weiser]

Hey all, been working on (with the little free time I have these days, new job...) on doing a blog post on this article for "500 Miles..." and yeah, I plan on doing this as a module suitability review article. There's so much wargaming potential here.

[Benjamin]

So I have a couple of questions of where the front lines are at two specific dates...

On or about May 24, 1997 where would the Battle front run through Poland?

Also does anyone remember the exact date that Italy declared war on NATO? Is it prior to the use of tactical nuclear weapons? I’m still interested in doing an alternate version where the war stays conventional much longer. Essentially saner heads prevail and NATO calls a halt well away from the Soviet border so as to not provoke a nuclear response. To me as tensions increase in the Med this seems a very reasonable course of action.

Thanks.
Benjamin