27 March 2019

Cold War Projects 2017




Last year was largely a year off from gaming and related activities hopefully this year will see a little more activity on the modelling writing and gaming fronts.  This post really sets out to explain the different projects I am working on and how they might progress this year.  All of them are fairly large multi year undertakings some of which have been running since I started this blog



I suspect the primary focus will remain the Soviet Armed forces as I have a number of fairly large projects in progress that I am keen to try and close out on or move forward depending on their current stage of development.  For those of you who have not had the time to fight their way through the amount of material in the blog these are:

  • Forward Detachments
  • Breakthrough Battle
  • Deep Battle

Forward Detachment




The forward detachment project seems to be completing. The main components of the project are:
  • BMP Motor Rifle Regiment that can be fought as an early 80s or late 80's force
  • Divisional Anti Tank Regiment
  • DShV Bn and Associated Airlift and Support
  • Frontal Aviation Ground attack assets
whilst the topic has been fairly well covered there are a number of areas I have yet to explore in detail around the various force components of the BMP MRR and how they might be organised and deployed by the MRR commander and these have quite a bit of potential to spin out into a number of smaller scenarios around their use.



Principal Posts


Wargames Unit - Soviet Late 80's MRB
Wargames Unit - Soviet MRR, Anti Tank Reserve
Wargames Unit - Soviet MRD, Anti Tank Battalion
Wargames Unit-Soviet Late 80's, 2S1 Battalion
Wargames Unit - 468 MSB, Divisional Forward Detachment at Waidhause
Wargames Unit -Soviet, Combat Helicopter Regiment, Assault Helicopter Squadron
Wargames Unit - Soviet, Combat Helicopter Regiment, Attack Helicopter Squadron
Wargames Unit - Soviet Late 80's Independent DShV Battalion

Breakthrough Battle



The Breakthrough Battle project has largely been researched and written up,  much of the required equipment has been bought although there is still a fair amount to go.  Currently the scope of the project  includes:
  • BTR Motor Rifle Regiment
  • Divisional Artillery Regiment
  • Army & Front  Artillery reinforcing units
  • Divisional, Army & Front Air Defence Assets
  • Frontal Aviation Ground attack assets

This project should provide a number of posts around:
  •  reviews of models, 
  • ORBAT posts around the specific force components not yet covered, 
  • Wargames units as I finish them 
  • Possibly the odd scenario although in truth there is a lot of work here to do on building the force and a viable opposition before any gaming can really take place.

Principal Posts

ORBAT - Soviet Late 80's Breakthrough Capability, Part 1 overview
ORBAT-Soviet Late 80's Breakthrough Capability, Part 2 Army Independent Flamethrower Battalions
ORBAT-Soviet Late 80's Breakthrough Capability, Part 3 Non Divisional Artillery Assets
ORBAT-Soviet Late 80's Breakthrough Capability, Part 4 Frontal Aviation
Wargames Unit - Soviet Late 80's, Flame Thrower Company Group

Deep Battle

I started researching Deep battle in 2015 and have yet to start to write the material up currently I think there will be a number of major operational elements:

  • Exploitation and Pursuit forces, Tank Regiment & Army and Front River Crossing assets
  • Strategic Desante, Spetznaz, VDV Regiment and Naval Infantry Battalion
  • Deep Fires, Air, Rocket and Artillery, I think there might be the odd Scud Brigade in here


I hope to be blogging around each of these project areas over the next 12 months and probably over the next few years as these projects always take a long time to mature both from the perspective of developing an understanding of the subject and building up the requisite forces to fight the battles.

As this project has yet to get past the research stage I have yet to write anything significant, and like the Breakthrough project its a fairly large and complex and because of the distances and forces involved challenging to translate to the table top in 20mm.

I have bought the odd model and have some force elements already covered in a limited fashion, primarily the VDV and elements of the exploitation and pursuit forces which fall out of the Forward Detachment project.

Context

As well as the posts relating to the three main projects their is also a lot of material on the operational and organisational context to battles in the late Cold War period.



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