What were the Marines up to? [backstory]

[Adm.Lee]

I have a glimmer of hope that I might get to run a short FtF game of T2k next year. (my groups have a DM/game rotation) I had an idea to set the PCs up as a Marine recon team on the Baltic coast, before the main landings as part of the 2000 final offensive.

I wandered through the v1 and v2 history, and then the v1 US and NATO vehicle guides. I noticed something odd. The US 2nd Marine Division sent its regiments their separate ways in 1996, and the division reassembled in Germany in the winter of '97-98. The oddity was that they were not listed as participating in the '98 Soviet offensive or the NATO counter offensive in southeastern and central Germany. From my reading, NATO seemed pretty desperate in that, yet they kept out a big US division?

On the face of it, one can see that the Marines, with their relative lack of APCs/IFVs and MBTs, would be not that useful in a mechanized campaign. They'd be better off defending a fixed position, perhaps. Were they the American last stand at the port of Bremerhaven (or other suitable port)? Were they backstopping the Dutch when the French moved up to the Rhine? For that matter, were they watching the French from across the Rhine in Germany? On top of that, I'd bet the raiding elements (divisional recon battalion, attached Force Recon and SEAL teams) would be roaming the Baltic and/or Norwegian coasts, wreaking some havoc.

These all make sense to me, how about you?

[Adm.Lee]

I'm also looking at where the Marines land in the 2000 offensive-- do we have a clear picture of that? (I can't find my Death of a division now.)

I've seen posted a TF Inchon going for Elblag to control the eastern Vistula crossings.

It would seem to me that control of the Bay of Danzig would be a worthy operational goal.
- the harbor(s) would ease ocean resupply of the forces on the coast.
- control of the mouth of the Vistula could develop into projection of riverine forces up that river. Control of the upper river would threaten lines of communication of the Soviet forces on the Oder.
-there is the potential for contacting friendly forces nearby: the Polish Free Legion inland and the 10th GTD upriver near Warsaw. (And, if we accept my ideas about a Polish Free Congress conspiracy among the Polish army leadership, that would certainly be supported).

[Raellus]

Canon suggests fairly dispersed landings on both side of the Vistula estuary. I don't have my materials at the moment so I can't provide a quote. In my mind, there's no reason that the 2nd MarDiv couldn't have been tasked with both missions (yours and mine). It makes sense given the descriptions of the overall NATO offensive in canon and the strategic picture on the ground in N.W. Poland in the summer of 2000.

I had a reinforced battalion seize Elblag to both secure the river crossings for the 8th ID's drive towards Kaliningrad and to secure the rest of 2 MarDiv's left flank. I had the bulk of the division participating in the capture of Gdansk for the same trategic and operational reasons that you've cited. From its landing sites just east of Gdansk, the bulk of 2MarDiv would drive west to complete the encirclement of Polish 1st Army.

http://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.p...k+force+inchon

[Legbreaker]

To answer the first question, I agree, it's a bit of a mystery. But the same can be said for the majority of units.
My guess is they were involved in the fighting, but only on the fringes, out of the direct line of advance of the Soviets. Alternatively, as you've already hinted, they could have been held back in reserve or assigned to rear area security (and we know how the Soviets love their Spetznaz deep penetration raids!

As for their Summer 2000 activities, there's a lot more information both canon and extraolated from canon. This thread is a good summary http://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.php?t=2479

[Adm.Lee]

Raellus, your TF Inchon thread was one thing I was working from.

Legbreaker, I read through that thread before posting, but somehow the "Gdansk to Elblag" line slipped past my poor eyes!

Thanks for the counter-Spetsnaz idea, I hadn't thought of that one. TO expand on that, if I were a NATO commander, I'd be keeping a quality reserve just to meet the desant boys whenever they decide to make an appearance. So, maybe they did have a role in the '98 campaign-- I'm going to add that to my player briefing.

[Legbreaker]

It could be the Marines were towards the front lines early on too and took a bit of a pounding in the initial (slightly pre nuke) stages of the 1997 Pact counter attack. Suffering the greatest casualty rate of any US force to date (something like 20%) they were withdrawn to Germany to absorb replacements and provide rear area security against Pact deep penetration raids and saboteurs.
Have to check the books to be sure, but something like that I'd say is at least plausible.

[Adm.Lee]

In '97, IIRC, the Pact counterattack started in July or August, and the Marine division isn't assembled yet. One regiment is somewhere in the Baltic, so that one could get messed up by the Sovs. One brigade is still in Norway, and one regiment in the Med.

[Legbreaker]

Ah of course.
The 1998 actions revolved mainly around the southern parts of Germany. Given the naval aspect of the Marines, it seems therefore appropriate they were kept back in the north as a possible counter to any Pact action near the coast.

[kota1342000]

This was actually the second set of campaigns I ran years ago after we got tired of Death of a Division. I just looked in my electronic stuff for the campaigns and maps and all kinds of stuff, not to be found. Its all in a huge pile of past campaign stuff stacked in storage somewhere. But youre making me think back on some gaming that we did in high school.

From memory, we did the same as what you are all saying, amphibious operations centered on the Gdynia/Gdansk/Elbag line, with a push further inland towards Malbork. The intent was to secure the fishing areas around the mouth of the Wisla river, and hold what port facilities remained in Elbag (which turned out to be the center of the tactical nuclear weapons detonated on Elbag).

From here we branched out a little bit. Taking my cue from XI Corps order of battle, we did a little bit of work with the 50th AD as well, and I remember reading through the canon and thinking "Latvia????? How did the 8th ID get way out there??"
At the end of July, I could just see CG XI Corps saying "WTF just happened??"

The Player group that made the landings at Gdynia (much harder of a target as it had not been hit with any nuclear weapons) were then tasked with performing a long range recon to find out what had happened to and to re-establish contact with the 5th ID. The Players were playing a squad from 2nd Recon Battalion so it worked out fine. Yes...a little bit of meta-gaming as these Players already had played Death of a Division...

The second Player group for this was actually when I was in the military, and was made up of a light mechanized group built around 2nd Bn 8th Marines. The mission, using what the first group had learned, was to force their way south, bypassing heavy concentrations of forces, and rescue anyone from the 5th that could be found.
As you might expect, this wasnt a milk run, and TF 2/8 never did make it close to Kalisz, but did find out why the Soviets had been able to move so many divisions so fast, and raided a supply dump full of the diesel they were using. The mission failed, but was unbelievable entertaining, including running engagements between the group's LAV-25 platoon and a company of Soviet Infantry mounted in BTR-60s and trucks. The pair of M60A3s couldn't keep up, so it turned into an 8-wheel free-for-all, including one LAV ending up going off a bridge, a call for mortar fire just a little too close (forgot to call "danger close"), the Amtracks and Hummers trying to figure out where to jump in, a running autocannon fight, and culminating in a Sniper and two Grunts having "had enough of this s**t!" and jumping out at a stopping point and grounding the battle on the far side of the river bridge where things got REALLY interesting.

[Legbreaker]

The real problem I see (which has been discussed at length in other threads) is a lack of understanding of the overall picture. There's no way the 8th could possibly have moved so far east without specific orders to that end. Given that, and the knowledge the Marines made amphibious landings across northern Poland, the actions of the component units makes sense.
Essentially the 8th were the spearhead and crossed the estuaries of northern Poland across the "carpet" laid by the landings of the Marines.
The 5th ID had flank protection, and the rest of the XI Corps were to follow after those three units.

Behind XI Corps you have the rest of the III German Army who were supposed to push up behind XI Corps, and possibly leapfrog them at some point. Meanwhile the British and other units left in the Germany/Poland frontier were to shift around to cover the gaps the assaulting units left.

Unfortunately, only XI Corps had made any headway before the Pact launched their own summer offensive and with the two sides essentially bashing into each other head on, the result was almost inevitable.

It's likely that if one side had chosen to stay on the defensive, and had managed to hold the other, the war could well have dragged on for at least another year (probably two since it took them both that long to prepare for the 2000 offensives). As time dragged on though each side would have become progressively weaker due to wearing out machines and consumed ammunition while the stalemate was maintained. Eventually the front would have become so porous that it couldn't even be called a front anymore.

The end was virtually inevitable, the timing was really the only question.