So what about '99?

[Adm.Lee]

I was thinking about at least one of the battles run at past Origins conventions were set in 1999 (or 1998). This triggered the thought in my head about running a game set earlier in the timeline than the summer of 2000. (For the record, I'm also plotting a spring 2000 game, towards the early stages of the NATO last gasp.)

v1: "In Europe, the fronts were static for most of the year. Low troop desnities meant that infiltration raids became the most common form of warfare. The 'front' ceased to be a line and became a deep occupied zone, as troops settled into areas and began farming and small-scale manufacturing to meet their supply requirements." And some more about marauders, desertions, and so on. This would be the time that some (most?) of the unit defections that became the marauder or free-city forces described in the Poland intel summaries developed.

It sounds to me like a game could be made out of these conditions. Tell the PCs they're in a special-ops team, or rangers, or similar scout forces. The PC group would still be in a command structure, but once they are beyond the wire, they are effectively on their own. Not as deep in it as the 5th Mech's survivors, but still pretty deep.
Such a team might be used by the spooks to make contact with deserting or wavering units on the other side, leading to even more fun.

Opinions?

[Medic]

Sounds pretty good, really. Not much more to say...

[Webstral]

There’s an interesting dynamic occurring in 1999. 1998 will have been by far the worst year. In some ways, the worst is over. Obviously, there’s a good deal more winding down as the surviving base of machinery and infrastructure wears out. However, by the time the snow breaks in 1999, the survivors largely are eating food grown or hunted over the past year. Some pre-war stocks remain, of course; but they are neither plentiful nor evenly distributed. Neither NATO nor the Pact can resume mechanized warfare, though both sides probably have in mind resuming some sort of action before things settle into an equilibrium that no longer supports mechanized warfare.

The deep penetration raids are an effort to keep one’s hand in the fight. I’m recalled to trench raiding in WW1. The officers were aghast at the live-and-let-live attitudes that were spreading in 1915. Trench raids were as much a means of fostering the proper martial spirit as they were means of causing casualties and gathering intelligence. The Pact offensive in 1998 almost certainly came as a very rude shock to NATO. The troops may very well have shifted gears into civil defense mode under the assumption that there was no way the Pact would start fighting again—not after both superpower homelands were hit and the industrial economy practically destroyed. Doubtless, the Pact played on this assumption. In the aftermath of the 1998 fighting, NATO leadership would have prosecuted ongoing light infantry action as vigorously as possible. Raids would have killed enemy troops, destroyed enemy materiel, gathered intelligence, and kept friendly troops from relaxing too much. There would have been a very strong desire on NATO’s part not to be caught unawares by a second Pact offensive.

I wonder if the Pact, knowing that a large force using alcohol would have to be based near the front and would be detected by NATO deep raids. Perhaps the decision was made to give gasoline to Fourth Guards Tank Army to give a modest force sufficient mobility to avoid detection until the force was ready to hit the front.

Anyway, in terms of running a campaign, raiding characters need not be all infantry. Since part of the goal of long-range penetration raids will be to gather intelligence, subject matter experts in every area will have to accompany the raiders. Engineers (combat and non-combat), medical types, folks with knowledge of manufacturing, agricultural experts, veterinarians, and many more specialists will need to be trained to infiltrate and survive long enough to assess the conditions in the enemy’s rear. This might be an excellent chance for some of the Pact types who are with the 5th ID in mid-2000 to join NATO.

[Tombot]

Since the "powers to be" are digging in (building their cantonments), it could be about civilian scouts, too.
Local people, like hunters. They know the sorroundings and could be excellent scouts and spys.

Scenarios like in "Ride with the devil" (Ang Lees western about a group of Missouri bushwhackers) come to my mind.
The situation there had something in common with europe in 1999; the big battles occured somewhere else (or are over); and militias are fighting skirmishes and hit-and-run-raids, while the army is dug in somewhere.

[Adm.Lee]

Thank you, Webstral, I think trench-raiding was the kind of thing I was thinking of. Stuff to keep one's one side informed while keeping the enemy off-balance.

[Webstral]

Glad to help. At the risk of continually referring to my own work, much of the campaigning in the American Southwest in 1999 is of this nature. The big action occurs in Texas, and there is a sideshow in Arizona. However, for most of the year the action the Southwest resembles the fighting in Europe, of on a much larger scale.

Tangent warning:

Sonora Army, which was established to create a separate command from Second Mexican Army, spends 1999 conducting raids against SAMAD. These raids are intended to inflict damage to property, kill some people, destroy morale among the Americans, and supplement the intelligence coming from the rather effective network operating inside SAMAD. One of the reasons so much of southern Arizona is deserted is that throughout late 1998 and the first half of 1999, Mexican raiders cross the border west of Nogales virtually at will for the purpose of killing and destroying. The small city of Ajo is wiped out and burned to the ground in one of these raids. The Tonoho O’Odham are subjected to repeated raids until most of the survivors flee east to areas under more direct control of SAMAD forces. During this time, infiltrators set numerous fires in SAMAD territory, causing major damage to homes and infrastructure as well as significant losses in life and livestock.

CINC Sonora Army, who has been given the order to make the Americans bleed in advance of the 1999 effort to finish off SAMAD, forms a special unit that assumes the moniker Chupacabras—a term that came into being around the beginning of the Sino-Soviet War to describe a blood-sucking monster. The Chupacabras specialize in setting fires and slitting throats. When regular units of Sonora Army capture Ajo, it’s the Chupacabras who rape, torture, and kill.

All of this is supposed to weaken the Americans in Arizona in preparation for the final assault in mid-1999. The Mexican Army intends to move five brigades from the interior to reinforce Sonora Army. Once the irritant based at Fort Huachuca has been destroyed, the force from the interior will reinforce Second Mexican Army and drive into the Central Valley with the intent of inflicting a decisive defeat on Sixth US Army. This, the Mexican leadership believes, will force the Americans to the bargaining table on Mexican terms. Unfortunately for the Mexicans, Fifth US Army launches its counteroffensive in Texas before the planned Mexican offensive in Arizona can begin.

Getting back to the raiding, with the exception of a set-piece battle in which Sonora Army attempts to capture SAMAD without the planned reinforcements, the fighting along the border is virtually all based on raiding. Much of the action is small unit fighting. The Americans develop a counter-raiding system based on LP/OP, main defensive bastions, tracking patrols on horseback, and quick response teams with overwhelming firepower. Loss of life is high on both sides, but the Americans get the best of it because once a Mexican raiding party is pinned down on the American side of the border, they’re done. The sheer distances involved make it difficult for the Mexican raiders to get in and get out on foot in a single night, though they don’t give up trying until Sonora Army withdraws from the border following the outbreak of the Second Mexican Civil War.