ChalkLine's Desiderata

[ChalkLine]

Remember the "Giraffe" Abrams? 🙂

If you like things like that there was also a slew of oddities on the other side, probably the closest that came to fruition was Obyekt 195 "T-95", a truly frightening monster of an MBT mounting a 152mm smoothbore gun and featuring many of the aspects that would come to pass on the T-14 "Armata" such as the turbocharged diesel engine and remote turret.

While it seemed fairly unlikely at the time it was a possible rare tank that might have been fielded in small numbers. It's unknown if it was to have the same heavy IFV and APC versions that the T-14 has it but would definitely work in close coordination with the most up to date Soviet versions.

It would have featured either a prototype Relikt ERA or the existing Kontakt-5 ERA. It had a funky 30mm co-axial automatic cannon, Shtora-1 laser jammer and Drozd active counter measures as well as the first Russian thermographic system.

Its backbone is the 152 mm 2A83 smoothbore gun, now awaiting further development. This is no low velocity gun but a special system with a long-throw autoloader so it could fire very long-rod APFSDS rounds, heavy ATGMs equal to Hellfire or TOW and honking great HE or HEAT rounds.

All in all it would have been a bad thing to have on the other side. In real life it was deferred as too many parts were sourced from successor states so a total redesign was done that put it back until now.

(Note that Paul Mulcahy's site has old data but the armour should be right)

[ChalkLine]

Q: What sort of tents did the Soviets use?
A: None.

Actually, that's a lie. The Soviet army did use tents but they were mandated for use only in night marches.

Instead they used Dugouts.

(Note these are not fortifications but accommodation even though they do allow some protection from fragments.)

Each Motor Rifle Section would prepare a dugout and it should be able to be completed within 24 hours while still standing watches etc. It requires a total of 100 man hours work using the following components:

12 x 2.5 m poles (sourced locally)
70 x 6.0 m poles (sourced locally)
120 x 5.5 m planks (sourced locally)
12 x 2.0m poles (sourced locally)
5m³ spruce branches (sourced locally)
8 kg wire
2 x roofing iron
1 x field oven
1 x door
1 x window

These 1 metre-deep positions had a triangular roof made of 3cm to 5cm round logs laid over 5cm to 11cm supports and then covered by a layer of clay 15cm to 25cm thick and then covered by turf. The supports would be either nailed or wired together.

A normal individual can stand upright inside the dugout and each bed is 30cm to 60cm wide and 1.8m long. Duffel bags are placed at the head of the bed.

Winterisation is achieved by the application of more clay on the end walls and drainage ditches around the position. Many dugouts had electrical power sourced form a generator position.

While this dugout was standard other sizes existed, some capable of housing a motorised rifle platoon.

[ChalkLine]

The Vistula to Warta water route.

Next time your PCs are playing through Pirates of the Vistula they might want to know that at Bydgoszcz on the Vistula there's a canal that runs in a dead straight east-west line towards the Notec River. The Notec is a tributary of the Warta which is a tributary of the Oder and at that point they're back in friendly lines (or so they think).

Now, this isn't going to be easy. For a start this looks like a really good supply line for Warsaw Pact units. Bydgoszcz is listed as a devastated ruin (nearly always a campaign in their own right) and is 50km downriver from (ie: they have to go past) the Soviet 22nd Cavalry Army HQ at Torun along with the Soviet 96th Cav. If they somehow get past this impressive force and its widespread reinforcements then they can sneak into Bydgoszcz and see if the canal is still open. Now, Bydgoszcz and the canal is where the Soviet 207th Motorized Rifle Division fell to bits. According to the rules only a few of the components became marauders and the rest seem to have realised the realities of the situation and have just became locals. This makes a good place to transit.

The river continues on east through wild country and then suddenly heads south. During this phase you start to meet Polish units. Now, as there's Polish Free legion activity in this area it might be pretty hostile to say the least as these two powers vie for control with the balance of power being on the Polish People's Army's side. Unfortunately the Notec runs right past Czarnkow where it heads west again and under a town bridge, Czarnkow being the home turf of the 2nd Polish Army HQ! (I told you this might be a supply line . . . ) The 2nd Poles have only their own security units with them but the surrounding region is soaked with Polish units. This might still be doable if the players have evaded any previous pursuit, kept a low profile recently and go hard and don't stop until they're out of the location. However the Poles certainly aren't stupid and if the players are detected at all they'll know a boat can't get off the river and they will go looking for them. However the Notec often has little parallel courses running alongside it on Google Maps and the players can pull some cool cat and mouse stuff here. If they are detected though they're going through the AO of the Polish 17th Cav who will not be happy to see them. However the 17th are light on heavy units and spread thin so once again not getting bogged down might work here.

However, all good things must pass. After this the river runs a west south west course and runs straight into some of the heavier Soviet units in the barrier positions and almost certainly becomes a supply line if it already isn't. The hard part is done though, once through the Polish 17th Cav the way north west to NATO lines is free of known WarPact units and is only a howling desolation of ruins that is the Oder-Warta Valley.

Now, if this is a supply line as I've been talking about it can still be done. Supply lines are not only goodies going forwards but they are also goodies going back, and these might be NATO equipment both large and small and even NATO POWs. A bit of actual river piracy suits most PCs quite well and lying up before storming WarPact vessels for some gripping boarding actions to get resupply might be fun. Actions do get reactions though and if you want to see quick reactions from a unit just interdict its supply line and see what happens. Even if these lines are only token things they are still vital, I'd say a lot of these units that fragment had supply cut off shortly beforehand.

[ChalkLine]

A universal Player Character Vehicle Table as an alternative to the other excellent one already here

[ChalkLine]

The BTZ-3 Armoured Fuel Tanker

During the little Afghan fiasco the Soviets discovered that getting fuel up to the troops had become somewhat problematic, what with all the bullets flying around. So, in the spirit of "lessons learned" they created the BTZ-3 Armoured Fuel Tanker.

From the outside it looks exactly like a BMP-1 without a turret, all the hatches, firing ports and so on remain the same. Instead of a turret the deck is sealed by a circular plate with an access hatch.

Inside they stripped the hull out, leaving the front two crew positions and installing two 1,500 litre fuel tanks, a single 100 litre oil tank and various pumping gear. Opening the rear hatches allowed access to hoses and the roof "troop compartment" hatches allowed access to machinery.

Of course in the scheme of things 3,000 litres is too little, 5,000 litres is considered minimum - but if a tanker truck can't get up forward its possible one of these might. If nothing else they present a very low target, not something to be ignored.

[ChalkLine]

TKB-0249 "Crossbow" grenade launcher

Introduced in 1998, probably earlier if the USSR doesn't implode in your timeline.

The Soviets really warmed to the grenade launcher idea. Due to having less radios than Western armies there tended to be something of a lag in getting supporting fires. Just speculating, this may be why they started attaching AGS-17s to infantry platoons but they also attached 12.7mm MG guns to that unit so I might be misunderstanding their doctrine.

Anyway, even with the RPG-7V along for the ride they liked the idea of an organic accurate grenade launcher, probably because the RPG-7V's ammo is on the bulky side and also its blast effect is a bit over the top if you're using it in the support role.

So in 1998 they brought out the Crossbow ("arbalet") which sort of doesn't have an analogue in the West. Essentially it's a dirty great big grenade launcher that's used for accurate point firing. Instead of just plastering the area this launcher shoots accurate grenades onto small point targets such as bunker embrasures, weapon pits or windows. They occasionally refer to is as a "sniper grenade launcher" in imperfect translations.

In many ways it seems to be a weapon in search of a role. Troops in battle usually have little compunction against hitting positions with weapons that are way too powerful for the application and most commanders would rather their lads carried stuff with too much destructive capacity rather than too little. Still, you can pack a lot of the ammo.

Anyway, this 10kg beasty is a drum-fed weapon from a bipod utilising 10-round magazines containing the standard 30mm VOG-17M or VOG-30 grenades. It's considered highly accurate as grenade launchers go and evidently has less recoil than an assault rifle. Notably I've never seen it in use anywhere. Maximum range is 1,700m.

[ChalkLine]

M67 Recoilless Rifle
(For that time when you want to be sure)

While everyone loves the Carl Gustaf ("Charlie Guts-Ache" to Australians) the US had a workhorse analogue in the 90mm M67 RR as well. Often thought to have been phased out when the M47 Dragon was introduced it actually soldiered on for niche applications as it's rock-solid in extreme environments when Dragon or TOW might fail.

The Alaskan 6th Division (Light), 502nd Infantry Regiment in Berlin and the Rangers hung onto this monster as long as they could through to the end of the Cold War and its even been reintroduced recently in Afghanistan.

Weighing in at a spine-shortening 17kg with 4kg rounds for HEAT and HE munitions it reproduces everything the Carl Gustaf does in an admittedly heavier package except one; the M67 also had a 3kg canister round loaded with 2,400 steel flechettes that could turn everything to chaff for 300m.

So yeah, this critter goes back into the starting kit options.