Soviet Presence in Germany/Poland after OpOmega

[Raellus]

Going Home has several status blurbs for Soviet units listed as being located in Poland. I don't have the module in front of me but the gist of one of them is "loyal but not responding to orders from higher HQ". Others are listed simply as "not responding to higher HQ". Still others have gone rogue and are setting up shop as the local government in whatever town or village near where they happened to start the Polish winter. And, of course, you have your mutinous units that simply splinter into various marauder bands.

So, in my view, a lot of it comes down to the unit commander. It boils down to two essential questions: Is he effective enough to maintain unit morale and cohesion? And, is he loyal to the remaining Soviet hierarchy? Some of them would probably try to carve out their own little fiefdom on Polish soil. Others might simply try to get their men home. Others may continue to follow the directives of the government/military hierarchy. In many cases, mutinies or unit coups would have rendered unit commanders either spectators or corpses.

At a higher level, I think the Soviet government would try to maintain a military presence in Poland until they could be relatively certain that the German military was in no position to mount offensive operations outside of its own borders. With German non-aggression likely, the Soviets would probably recall units to put down the rebellions in its break-away western "republics".

[Targan]

In my campaign as the PC party travelled west through Poland to get to Bremerhaven for Op Omega they encountered several stand-offs and even battles between Soviet units who had been grabbed by the KGB and the GRU. The tensions between the two services finally got too much. Different KGB and GRU commanders had varying agendas but broadly speaking the GRU wanted to keep prosecuting the war against NATO and the KGB wanted to consolidate Soviet forces in preparation for putting down rebellions in WarPac and western Soviet territories. Of course most Soviet units were not controlled by either the KGB or the GRU and their commanders also had a variety of agendas. Some kept following their last orders or sought orders from higher command, others settled down in more or les permanent cantonments, still others went completely rogue and started marauding or carving out feudal satrapies.

[Legbreaker]

What a lot of people tend to forget is that it's not just the soviets and their allies who are in disarray - NATO forces, that is, Germans, British, Canadian, Norwegian AND American units aren't exactly in good shape, and in fact some may well be in conflict with technical allies.
There are hints throughout the published material that raids on neighbouring units are commonplace although these are primarily aimed at the enemy, it's not unknown for them to be aimed at "friendlies" if said friendly units have items that are needed.
Although the units involved escape me at the moment (away from books) I believe there is at least one German unit which has turned maurauder, and I think Going Home refers to an American unit or two which has gone the same way.

One of the only advantages the Nato unit commanders have in keeping their units together is proximity to friendly countries - they're almost all within or close to Germany. Another advantage for the British, Canadian and US is they're overseas - the troops have no hope of returning home on their own, any chance of repatriation relies on the military.

[HorseSoldier]

Circa 2000 the dividing line between marauders and military units is probably defined, at least in part, by how predatory they are, not whether they are or are not predatory. Depending on the command environment and such, I'd think that some units loyal to higher headquarters are just as bad when they roll into town as marauders -- worse, probably, since most marauder bands aren't as big and well armed as military units.

There's probably a pretty good suspense/conspiracy/action sort of gaming scenario in there with something like some mostly independent brigade or division commander on the NATO side running his own marauder outfit on the side and knocking off the occasional supply convoy for other NATO units, trader convoys, robbing refugees, etc.

[Legbreaker]

It could well be that the Divisional commander has no idea where the supplies are really coming from. His supply unit might actually be the local maurauders his troops have been so desperately trying to find. Of course the "maurauders" know every move in advance of the troops who have been tasked to stop them. The pursuit force may even be in on it as tehy're the ones who stand to gain in the long run.