ChalkLine's Desiderata

[ChalkLine]

Lublin and the Warsaw Pact in the Central Polish Corridor. The WarPact MSR.

Way over near the Ukrainian/Belarusian border of Poland is the large town of Lublin, seat of the Reserve Front Head Quarters.
Oddly enough most of the headquarters' actual units seem to be at least about two hundred and thirty kilometres west, the nearest being at Piotrków Trybunalski which is the base for the Fourth Soviet Guards Tank Army.
This implies there's an MSR (Main Supply Route) connecting the two. Now, it will probably eventually fail but when the 5th Infantry Division (US) gets nailed at Kalisz it's definitely still in operation.

The route crosses the Vistula/Wisła river at Pulawy, then heads due west to Piotrków Trybunalski and then heads north west to Łódź itself.
Now, it's written in the various sources that the Polish government and the Warsaw Pact command is having trouble with bandits in this area, so you can expect heavy contingents of anti-partisan elements from both Reserve Front HQ and its security elements in Lublin, the formidable Soviet 20th Tank Division and the 6th WOP Brygada (BGB) from Łódź and the nearby 11th WOP Brygada (BGB) from Lask. Not listed will be the various OTK local defence units, formations not to be discounted.

While the 11th are cavalry you can expect the 6th to be mounted in light vehicles with possible guntrucks, UAZ-469 and Tarpan Honker technicals if they send a rapid reaction force. The 20th Guards Tank Division however is a different proposition. They can send actual APCs, IFVs backed by their 8 remaining MBTs along the route and won't hesitate to do so. Players running into a patrol should think carefully about attacking as the situation will simply escalate until the 20th take a serious interest in eliminating the threat to its rear areas. Note that as these are all experienced Warsaw Pact units they won't be mindlessly attacking from the front but will hit hard and fast from all directions.

Along the MSR you'll find a series of fortified checkpoints possibly stiffened by dug-in light and heavy armour. It would not be unreasonable to find these checkpoints using hardened concrete bunkers and even with things like IFV or MBT turrets installed. At this point the supply routes are actually more important than combat capacity.
The checkpoints will send out patrols to dominate the area and fly the flag. Apart from fighting marauders and bouncing player characters they'll also do things like gather up Displaced Persons and then send them towards collection points and relief camps. They might reconnoitre interesting sites for salvage and collect intelligence on things too large to handle themselves.
Support for these units will be at a premium so they can't expect much, but they definitely will be able to call on mortar support if they're close to their base.


As movement is often restricted to infantry endurance there are large checkpoint/bases for platoon sized elements at Zwolen, on the outskirts of Radom, the Pillica river bridge at Inowłódz and at Tomaszow Mazowiecki (all available on Google Maps)

[ChalkLine]

Self Propelled Guns and why every party should have one.

Twilight 2000 is not actually a modern warfare game but a distinctly different creature, and in the context of the game vehicles often change roles and capabilities and there's no better example of this than SPGs.

Most of the game involves long distance slow movement using limited fuel. Combat is often meeting engagements involving lightly armed and unsupported infantry in a wide variety of situations. While the premier infantry support vehicle, the IFV, is capable in many regards the one thing it lacks is heavy payload direct fire high explosive capability.

There are two stand-out vehicles that vie for supremacy here and they are the British FV433 Abbot and the Soviet 2S1 Gvozdika (SO-122 in T2K terms). Both these vehicles are to be preferred over their heavier 150mm+ counterparts because they are much faster firing, have smaller crews, are amphibious (although this might well change, see the close support package below), carry more ammunition onboard, use less fuel and are more nimble vehicles.

However as standard they are not suitable. Their extremely light armour, just 12mm for the Abbot and 20mm for the Gvozdika, makes them vulnerable to even 12.7mm AP rounds [Edit: Gvoszdika is frontally proof against 12.7 SLAP it seems because like most Soviet light vehicles it has HHA composition steel for its armour] and HEDP rounds from the various grenade launchers commonly encountered in Twilight 2000 engagements. Of course dedicated anti-armour weapons are a threat unable to be countered.

A close support combat package is thus required, being:
- Applique armour to bring the vehicles up to 25mm to 30mm armour levels.
- Bar armour where possible.
- Close defence machineguns. A HMG/Grenade Launcher and and at least one GPMG.
- ERA if possible.
- Possibly even Shtora anti-ATGM dazzlers if these systems are able to be salvaged from BMP-3M, T-80 or T-90 vehicles.

It is unlikely that a vehicle would have all these upgrades. Bar armour tends to be destroyed by ERA detonation. ERA is heavy, reduces mobility, increases fuel consumption and is a danger to accompanying infantry.

Both vehicles have an onboard crew of four.

Finally the two vehicles each have an ammunition variant that the other does not have. The Abbot can fire the bunker-busting L42 Shell 105mm Field, HESH round that has a myriad of applications and is a good HE weapon as well. The Gvozdika has the SH-1 AP Flechette infantry killer as well as some dedicated HEAT rounds (BK-6M and BK-13). The Abbot is faster firing but the Gvozdika has a much larger payload.

Of course these are not main battle tanks or even assault guns, their armour is far too light on a battlefield where the RPG-7V and the AT-4 are common. The infantry has to first go in and clear out opposing infantry, then suppress anti-tank positions so the SPG can manoeuvre in to a firing position and destroy its target. At this point the vehicle should immediately retire. These vehicles are even capable of destroying dug-in or otherwise immobilised MBTs if handled well, although such missions might be considered "high risk" to say the least. Like SPAAGs the SPGs have high angle firing arcs and can engage enemies in elevated positions and this makes them suitable for urban combat.

One of the big drawbacks, and it's a huge one, is that these vehicles have terrible gun depression. The Abbot has an awful -5º depression and the Gvozdika has an abysmal -3º depression. This means the weapons have difficulty engaging close, low targets and can't fire from hull-down positions. While the Soviet vehicles always had the terrible gun depression, the T-72 had only a -5º and the early PT-76 couldn't depress its gun at all, this sort of drawback in Twilight 2000 is significant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FV433_Abbot_SPG
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2S1_Gvozdika
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/122_mm...zer_2A18_(D-30)

[ChalkLine]

A few thoughts on adding the Gulf War to the game history.

Most people include the Soviet-Afghanistan War in their campaigns. However doing so means there's going to be some very skilled veteran Russian officers and senior NCOs getting around when the Twilight War starts. The same goes for the 1st Russian-Chechen War but for more ranks.

In a similar fashion people might be thinking of introducing the 1990–1991 Gulf War which also would be good experience for western troops. If you do so you should understand the massive influence this war had on Russian warfare concepts. According to a report for the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College "The Soviet Military Views Operation Desert Storm: A Preliminary Assessment" there was a lot of consternation about the outcome of this war and it's not an overstatement to say that this caused a revolution in Russian warfare so that the warfighting in the Twilight War would be significantly different.

The Russians deemed that their level of training was insufficient to deal with western armies and that the system for training conscripts would have to incorporate a new full time army of professional troops capable of being rapidly expanded. A quote from a Russian source is:
"It's simply impossible to continue to reject the idea of deep military reform from bottom to top. (The Gulf War) plays in our favor because it's absolutely clear that these sophisticated weapons can't be used with high efficiency without an adequate level of preparation of personnel, and also demand a new kind of commander."

They fully understood the difference of Iraq's rather unskilled (at all levels from trooper to generals), unmotivated and poorly/unevenly equipped army compared to theirs but also understood the West had actually only conservatively exerted themselves to deal with Saddam's forces compared to the level of exertion a war with Russia would involve. The major levels of concern were precision weapons, interconnectivity (the Interconnectivity Revolution was only just underway), and the acknowledged technology gap in some areas that had developed. Principle among these were computing power and night vision/sensing, not only in its capabilities but in its level of deployment through the forces. One level of concern was the way the West had deployed force with precision over mass, meaning that even though they 200,000 troops in-theatre they hadn't required that number to force a resolution. This implied that heavy blows could come from all directions, even from comparatively small and seemingly poorly-supported forces such as airborne or marine troops.

"Volouev asserts that the U.S. Army expects that confrontations in a TVD (the Theater of Strategic Military operations-a purely Soviet concept telling the reader that the argument also applies to the Soviet Army) will be highly mobile and aggressive. The front will be fragmented. Operations will occur along isolated, separate gaps in formations. PGMs will give combat operations the quality of tactical and operational focus that blurs distinctions between offense and defense, the front, flanks, and rear. Combat operations will become three-dimensional with width, depth, and height parameters. Strategic systems will perform tactical missions-something the VVS has been particularly keen on. Army aviation helicopters will repeatedly reduce by a factor of 8-10 the time needed to maneuver forces and assets on the battlefield. Air/Land Battle will become a means of destroying and defeating larger enemy formations in depth."

Note that the Russians and the Soviets before them weren't blind to these concepts, they fully understood the West had been developing them. However they were concerned at not only how pervasive the systems were but how quickly they had been developed. A lot of the Soviet planning had been not only out-fighting but also out-staying the enemy.
As can be understood this sort of thinking led to rapid and frank re-evaluation of how the whole concept of warfare was to be undertaken, and what strengths could be called upon and which strengths needed to be rapidly developed. The Russians had already moved away strongly from the early-mid Cold War thinking of costly breakthroughs that were designed to save lives in the long run after the Soviet-Afghanistan War. In that war they had met an enemy that could outstay even the Red Army, causing a revision of systems towards survivability that arguably has produced things like the T-14 Armata family and the crash program in body armour of the 1990s. Now the Russians were thinking along the lines of integrated systems that would produce the S-300/S-400 integrated air defence network and similar concepts, precision weapons and other concepts faster than the canonical campaign allows for.

In summary integrating the Gulf War into the campaign brings these things closer.

[ChalkLine]

Soviet Slat Armour
(You guys must be getting sick of all this Soviet stuff)

During the Soviet-Afghanistan War the threat from captured and Chinese-supplied RPG-7s proliferated and the close combat ranges made this threat a high priority. While the Soviets were looking into the ERA-technology that would emerge as the Kontakt-1 and Kontakt-5 ERA packages there was a protection gap that needed to be filled.

The Soviets had already developed the BDD composite armour turret package (not cast blocks as is listed in T2K) and this added a large amount of protection against both kinetic and chemical jet rounds, but it weighed in at 1.8 tonnes for the turret alone. Now their vehicles were being attacked from all sides and something needed to be done quickly.

The USA had developed slat armour during the American-Vietnam War for a variety of purposes including installations, boats and vehicles. The Soviets quickly developed a slat armour package for their deployed vehicles that covered the hull and turret sides and rear. The package weighed in at 0.55 tonnes and could be fitted at any workshop that had an arc welder (the same as the BDD armour package).

Here's a few images:

[ChalkLine]

M60/AX "Super 60"; the M60A3 for the Twilight War.

The M60A3 in US service was declared surplus to requirements in 1991. A steady wind-down of stocks occurred but by the time hostilities are discernable it's sensible that the Department of Defence would put the brakes on discarding these vehicles.

General Dynamics had put out a serious upgrade package for the M60 in 1985 that was turned down because the US was moving towards M1. However it is to be noted that this package was superior to pretty much every other package available and was a pretty much bolt-on upgrade. I'm just going to cut-and paste the wikipedia entry:

"The tank upgrade is based on the M60A1 RISE hull and the T95E7 turret as used on the M60A1 and A3 variants of the M60 series. Mobility was increased by 20% with a new engine and transmission. It featured the AVCR-1790-1B engine coupled to a Renk RK-304 transmission with 4 forward and 4 reverse gears. The torsion bar suspension system of the M60 was replaced with the National Waterlift hydropneumatic suspension system (HSS).[101] Survivability was enhanced with a layer of Chobham spaced applique armor built around the M60A1 turret, that noticeably changed its appearance. The hull armor is enhanced with a layer of laminated steel armor panels covering the frontal arc of the hull. A pair of steel track skirts were added as well as Kevlar spall liners for the fighting compartment. It has a crew of 4, the commander, loader and gunner are positioned in the turret and the driver in the front of the hull.
The weapons of the M60/AX are similar to those of the M60A3, but different models were used. The main gun is the rifled 105 mm/L55 M68A1E2 with a longer XM24 tube and a thermal sleeve, the same weapon used on the M1 and M1IP versions of the M1 Abrams MBT with 43 rounds.[102] The 7.62 mm M73 coaxial machine gun used on the M60A1 is replaced with a 7.62 mm M240C, with the same number of rounds. The M19 cupola was replaced with a low silhouette model with a pop-up hatch for the commander and a 12.7 mm M2HB machine gun on a pintle mount with 600 rounds. The Fire Control System (FCS) is essentially the same as used on the M60A3TTS consisting of an M21E1 solid-state ballistic computer, Raytheon AN/VSG2 Tank Thermal Sight (TTS) for the gunner, a Raytheon AN/VVS2 flash-lamp pumped ruby-laser based range finder, accurate up to 5000 meters, an M10A2E3 electro-mechanical ballistic drive and solid-state analog data card bus. The prototype built did not have an optical range finder but one could have been easily installed.
As one of the first upgrade packages offered for the M60 series, the M60/AX prototype demonstrated the potential for upgrading the M60A1/A3 and even the M48 series as well. Even though this update package offered M60 users an opportunity to dramatically increase the combat capabilities of their tank fleets, no country ever bought the update, and the program effectively ceased by the end of the Cold War. Only one prototype was built. The overall failure of the Super 60 Program was likely due to the lack of immediate necessity for such a vehicle."

While it's noted that this vehicle became the Israeli "Magach" it was actually a superior vehicle due to General Dynamic's superior manufacturing ability.
Note that the Super M60 as depicted is the "demonstrator model". Super M60s in the Twilight War would probably under go similar modifications the M1A1 underwent such as the TUSK program. Importantly there's no need for any design work to be done, the upgrade is ten years old at the start of the war. The sensors would probably be upgraded to M1A1 standards and incorporate other technology that had arisen during the time of its design and the start of the war.

[ChalkLine]

A bit of a sobering thought:
In 1989 the BMP-2 factory was making 1,800 vehicles a year

[ChalkLine]

One of the few problems I have with Twilight 2000 is the backstory is such a crock of horseshit.

Nearly every NATO nation decides to either stab NATO in the back or stay neutral?! Please, it's not just stupid but it's also offensive.

Every nation's behaviour, both Warsaw Pact and NATO, in the backstory is so incredibly stupid it totally destroys the "willing suspension of disbelief" for me.

Yes, yes, I know GDW was trying to create a world war fought everywhere but what they did make was a good game that is fun despite its backstory and not because of it. If they'd simply had a proper Cold War fight with the proper sides it'd stop punching you clean out of the immersion.

Grumble grumble get off my lawn.