The Commander Series Forum

We've played a few games now with a "Team Yankee" force versus a horde of T-72's. And the Soviets always completely dominate the battle.

Granted, the Team Yankee is a small force, but in game terms we've made the force lists fit the "breakthrough" scenario - attacked is 2x the defender. I think it was about 2500 points for NATO and 4500 for Soviets.

We are thinking up house rules to level the playing field:

1) Stabilizers on the T-72 should be closer to S3 or S4.
2) Soviet HQ command value should be lower AND lose the +1 bonus for RIGID doctrine
3) Fewer hits for the T-72's


Anyone tried any of this?

I also ask because in a few weeks we are going to try a big Yom Kimpur War game for largely newb players and want to make it fair and fun. So Egyptians steamrolling the field won't go over well

I have always thought the Soviet tank number of hits is too high. I use 1 stand for every 5 tanks, so 2 stands per Soviet company. Early generation stabilizers will keep the gun pointed generally in the right direction, but are crap for accurate shooting above 3-5 mph, so feel free to downgrade them. Do the same for NATO tanks. The M1 was the first truly stabilized shoot-on-the-move system.

Shape the battlefield. There is a reason NATO armies have lots of engineers. Dig in at carefully chosen positions. Buy additional dug in positions to maneuver between. Mine fields and AT ditches properly cited at just the right ranges are a wonderful force multiplier. Make them stop at the AT ditch just inside the defender's close range, then have a mine field just past the ditch. Of course, there is also a reason the Soviets had engineers with obstacle clearing equipment at regimental level, so make them a priority target. Integrate your pre-planned fire with the obstacles.

But remember, a Soviet tank regiment is an instrument of blunt force trauma. It is supposed to be a steam roller. No one expects to stop one head-on. Defense in depth is the key, so you should have a longer table than normal. Hit them as they close the range, then maneuver to the flanks. Use obstacles to channel them into preplanned kill zones where they get shot at from several directions at once. Leave a nimble force in front to delay them, but most of the defender's shooting should be from their flanks as they go by. A well-timed counterattack that overruns an exposed HQ and lighter assets can really screw them up.

Totally disagree with lowering the soviet HQ's CV. They had a different way of thinking, but they were not better/worst than their western counterparts. Just different priorities, and an "eastern point of view" -which is covered well by the rigid tactical doctrine (no true care about the losses, etc).

They had their own academies, war colleges (and had their own war experiences from the local wars) , etc -so a soviet officer was not less educated than any NATO officers -just had a bit shittier equipment -radios for example (which is represented by their already lovered CV next to western HQ's) -and of course the alcohol was also a serious problem for them..

Soviet style armies were all trained to breakthrough, they had a lot of engineering equipment, not just at regimental level -battalions, but even companies had their own engineering elements -mine rollers for tanks, and obstacle clearing packages for the infantry elements. Seriously, they all were trained for that, not just the engineers. And the artillery was also prepared to clear the routes for them (thermobaric ammunitions, and even HE ammunition is capable of destroying minefields -with good timing).

T-72 and T-64 variants from the 80's were also upgraded, rangefinding equipment and stabilization was also updated.

Quick thoughts -

Never had a problem playing as the Yanks. Takes so many dice to kill an Abrams that in any kind of cover they become virtually invulnerable. Only found them easy to shift by using napalm/chemicals etc. Direct fire just doesn't do it, as they pop you off quicker than stink. Which ties into -

T-54's work better than later Sov tanks. Later Sov tanks are good enough to be too costly to get weight of numbers and fire, and die almost as easily. You might stand a chance with a shed load of cheaper tanks and hope to get on flanks and at point blank range and have enough left unsuppressed to panel Abrams.

Command values - Nato's high CVs and Flexible doctrine mean lots of orders and even if a HQ fails, it's dead easy to motivate everyone anyway. Compared to the Soviets on Rigid where a HQ can only command the troops assigned at game start, and only give the entire lot one type of order with all doing to get the bonus. And if you fail, you're stuffed.

Now if Team Yankee is primarily composed of Bradleys and dismounted infantry then it's a shed load easier for the Sovs - they're imminently squishable even with normal off table arty, they'll suck up the points from buying Abrams and provide easy kills to hit the US break point quickly without even needing to engage the Abrams.

For the US you need to trade down the vulnerable parts of your force, so up the Abrams and down the infantry (sadly, it's easy for CWC to drive you to "MOAR biggest, baddest tank pls" over combined arms), air is handy but there's probably enough Sov HQs and AA to make it chancy, arty is great - will pop Sov BTR/BMPs easily, taking them AND the infantry out, can even be nasty versus tanks, even just with smoke - screen off the bulk of the Soviet horde, panel the remainder with those big guns on the Abrams, rinse, repeat.

Engineering is also king - minefields are excellent and cheap, FASCAM can drop them into very unexpected and unhelpful places and thermobarics will stop anyone dead in their tracks.

Ditch the ATGW - one shot per turn will stop nada. More gun tubes.

Cover, cover, cover. Use woods and BUAs and prepared positions to turn the Abrams into an impregnable pill box. Actually, with their big hits and excellent save value even the humble M60 is really hard to shift or even suppress!

TBH I rarely play "top tier" NATO versus Sovs these days - Challenger or M1 or Leo2 are just appallingly hard to shift. M60 and Chieftain are not much easier! But lower equipped Leo1 forces or M48 or AMX's are a much more fluid game, in general that doesn't feel like a "NATO shooting gallery"...

I have found that the the battles are best fought above 3 or 4 k points for the defender. Anything less and they have no staying power.

One item to keep in mind when developing scenarios: too many gamers focus on the glamor. In the original post, the focus is on M1 vs T-72. In 1984, both tanks were all the rage, but the most common tank in the US Army at that time was the M60A1, even in the POMCUS sites, and the T-64 for the GSFG. Quite a number of Soviet tank regiments still had the T-62. Yes, as Pat points out, models were upgraded, but that didn't happen overnight and many of the "up grades" weren't much better. New designs take years to work out the bugs. At Ft Knox in 83, the most common M1 sighting was being towed back to the motor pool by an M88. 3 years after it entered mass production, it was still breaking down after only 50-60 hours of operation. We thought the T-64 was such a great design, the Soviets didn't sell it to their allies to keep it secret. We didn't find out until much later it was actually because the T-64 performed so poorly. It had a service life of about 600 hours of operation, then another 350 hours after a depot rebuild. Most T-72 regiments were stationed near the factories to make it easier to fix all the problems, while NATO thought they were doing it for security reasons. Try running games with the units still awaiting upgrades.

Also, have a random reduction on unit availability just before the battle starts. Even in peacetime, no one had all their heavy equipment operational. I reported my company 100% operational ONE time in 2 tours of command. The IG showed up the next morning to verify my report because no one believed it. Soviet units would be seriously depleted after road marching 100-150 km, loosing as much as 50% of their tanks along the way.

Some points to correct

T-64 was their most advanced one (until the T-80), so everything new was tested in a T-64. Of course it was more sensitive, with the most "cutting edge soviet equipment"

Soviet tank engines are called a bit underpowered by a lot of people -it's just because they want to increase their sevice time in some way -and they were operational with everything, not just a specific fuel.

The soviets kept them ready to start in minutes (talking about a battalion), it's a myth that they were that bad. The soviet mobilisiation system was built to first echelon units -they should be 100% ready to move, no matter when. Every other case was similar as a shot in the head for the unit commander.. So the discipline was a result of the fear of some phisical beating, prison, etc -And belive me, the first echelon units (especially the ones called Guard, Red Banner, some Order, etc) were almost 100% ready to deploy -and why do they need engines with more than 600 H lifetime? In the scenarios, they died in the first ours..

So this is the soviet way of thinking about casualties, tanks design, etc. Keep them cheap, easily crewed -> they won't survive long anyway! Just compare the number of the maintenace guys in a US tank division with a soviet one.. it's something like 25-33% of it! Just enough to get the tanks into the fray at the first order, and then let them there to rust after that..

Just one more thing! The soviet tank design concept is something like a crazy/paranoid competetion (genearted by the Politbureau) between the 2 big industrial giants, the Harkov tank factory (T-64, T-80) and the Uralvagonzavod (T-72). They were something like "opponents" in winning a state order, international order, etc..

So, sometimes it was the First Secretary's decision, which one was the favored factory (Hruscsov was ukranian, so Harkov was favoured, etc).

Some of the soviet paranoid way of thinking was about the "competition" was good, as the best could won. The result was a hastily designed tank, with a lot of updates -some updates arrived before the first tank waves rolled out the factory

I agree the Soviets had a different way of thinking than the West and their tanks were designed to fit that philosophy. But the Soviet economy also needed hard currency. They sold someone every type of tank they produced, except the T-64. The quickest was to kill any sales effort is to sell a lemon. The former Soviet officers I talked to despised the T-64 as unreliable, under powered, and inaccurate. They preferred the T-55 over the T-64. The T-72 was another problem for their foreign sales. It did not perform in the Beka'a Valley anywhere near what was promised, but since none were captured by the Israelis, that information didn't get out. When the world saw the tank's performance in GW1, sales almost stopped. The Russians launched a campaign of a few minor upgrades and rebranded it as the T-80.

Yes, Soviet paranoia yielded unusual results in just about everything they did. Competing designs for tanks, air craft, and just about everything else. And just like the US political connection-based development programs, winning the competition was more important than producing the best possible for the troops. Who cares if it doesn't work on the production model? We will fix it later and make even more money in the process.

Soviet paranoia was a 2 edge sword. It created the most effective espionage system in history, then refused to believe what that system told them because it was too good.

The T_72's first sold to foreign countries were not made in Russia -but made in Belarus, (maybe) Poland, Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, so were somehow inferior than the Russian made ones. I can't explain what was the reason of that, but it was true. The armor of the Russian made ones was somehow superior in quality -and it's true for their rangefinding/night vision equipment also. It's not a big difference, just enough to triple the price of a russian made T-72 next to a belarus one -if they want to sell it

GW1 is a different story. The T-72 was vulnerable at night because of the TI of the western vehicles (see above) -and by that time, the Iraqi vehicles were outdated -next to the M1A1 fo example. And the REAL reason why the iraqi army lost THAT much tanks -was the Apache helicopter

I don't want to defend the reasons/vehicles, etc of the soviets, just want to point out a few things. They had a different (now almost unimaginable) way of life/thinking, and a system that was planned to win a war with overwhelming numbers, firepower in a very short period of time -to hide their economic problems.

Discussions with (former) soviet officers are always interesting -their opinion is significantly different, depending on the "soviet republic" they came from -for example someone from the (former) Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic is possibly not the guy who will have a good opinion about anything "soviet"..

Having had translated maintenance returns from a different forum (Spearhead list, courtesy of Vasiliy if anyone remembers him? Very handy!), the Soviet doctrine might have hoped for 100% runners, immediate go but it didn't happen - the low levels of maintenance crew and poor supply and overly complex gear mean they were significantly degraded compared to NATO units. And that's peacetime - with everything allegedly tickety-boo and sorted out!

Although the worst offender was the BTR series iirc - two engines means double the trouble, seemingly. About the only comparable unit on NATO returns is the M60 Starship. I think some one recently commented on that who serve in a Starship unit? The worst of their comments on reliability are akin to the politer end of the Soviet spectrum...

I think you might want to take into account the fact that no soldier, ever, in the history of anything, thinks his kit is the best he could have if only X, Y or Z applied.(perhaps the M1 and Challenger are exceptions - although Challenger 1 had its critics)
Talk to Brits about the maintenance and readiness of Chieftains.
T-72 weren't really Soviet front line tanks, but they weren't that bad.
In any case extrapolation of results in the Gulf when the Iraqis had sent their airforce away, had dodgy ammo, couldn't follow doctrine and had Iraqi officers may not be the most reliable guide to Soviet performance if the Cold War had ever gone hot. Besides Soviet doctrine stressed the tactical offensive (as a strategic defence against Western aggression of course)whereas the Iraqis didn't.

Pre-1982-ish Team Yankee getting steamrollered is spot on. It started to change thereafter and by 1987 the window of opportunity for the Sovs was shut thanks to the Reagan/Thatcher re-equipping of NATO's front line defence - hence, partly, the end of the USSR.

RE GW1 - it is perhaps instructive to note that USMC M60s fared just as well as M1s against Iraqi tanks.

The point being that the Iraqi tankers truely were "the gang that couldn't shoot straight". Frankly, it is absurd to use GW1 as a test case for anything but the reliability of Western tanks driving long distances (and even there some issues - Brits stripped Europe of every spare part to keep a short division in the field).

Did it really matter which part of the Soviet Union and it's satellite states the T72s were made?

I agree with all the comments about the Iraqi use of tanks. The point I am making is the bad press from the conflict killed the foreign sales of the T-72, forcing the Russians to rebrand it into the T-80.

Are you certain the T-80 is a rebrand of the T-72?
Long time since I looked at this in earnest but my memory was that it was a different strand entirely - despite some early misidents (H&R followed this for a while I think after some confusion in Jane's amongst other analysts).
Could be wrong, but I'd have another look at the design bureaus for a start, and the production dates - pretty sure the T-80 appeared long before the GW and even the Bekaa valley battles, presuming you're talking about the 82 conflict.

I may have the designation wrong. It has been a while since I had to stay current on Soviet designs. Even the Russians can't keep them straight. The point is GW1 killed the reputation and foreign sales of the T-72.

Fair enough, it certainly didn't help

T-80 is a different tank to the T-72. It's the third one in the "competition" that produced T-64 & T-72. T-90 is the "updated" T-72. However, the T-80 was also a development of T-64, much as the T-90 was a revamp of T-72 incorporating features from the T-80. Confused yet?! Now add in a continual rain of updates and sub models from minor field tweaks to total depot refit or factory new/rebuilds and you'll see why Russian tankers rather preferred the T-55

The Iraqi T-72's were "monkey-models", lacking the updated armour and composite/laminate turrets that scared the Yanks & Germans SH!tless when they picked up a couple in the late 90's. Like collins355 says - GW1 tells us nowt about the technical performance or doctrine of Soviet forces in Central Europe.

I suspect the maintenance comment is more significant. If a top flight NATO army could only just keep a short division running when everything is already on their side, then what would the Soviets have been like with such short combat and maintenance support staffs and abilities? Even you take the view that even their major formations were fire off and die, i suspect they'd have not made the Rhine even in peacetime...

Just keep in mind, that the GSFG's main task was to break through NATO's first & second line (not more than the AO of the corps deployed -don't know how much is that? 100-150km in depth?) -for the Rhein, they have the second wave

I feel that the maintenance problem of the soviet vehicles is a bit exaggerated! They were not that bad -especially in the hands of an experienced, well trained crew!

They have their bloody experiences from the WW2, and the real tank battles happened on the eastern front..

This site has some interesting info on defences for the Cold War era:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/5-102/Ch6.htm

The problem on maintenance and supply isn't exaggerated. The Soviets had real trouble even In peace time with all their stuff in order and properly set up... They'd set up a hollow shell in many ways - rather repeating 1940 instead of '45. That might have worked - we just don't know, fortunately. But we do know that even relatively minor exercises were crippling to their supply base and units concerned, that actual combat was even worse and that whilst short sharp efforts were doable they came at huge cost.

Would they have been able to sustain an attack against NATO, or would they have lurched up then fallen apart whilst better supplied, equipped and reliable western forces with their focus on quality training and resilience have slowed them and stopped them until they literally fell apart? I suspect they'd fold. Hard and painfully, and with Western Europe in tatters, but they'd lose. That the conclusion even the Dutch came to in the '70s, even before all the shiny new kit appeared, which is interesting - the smaller Pact nations were in no way so confident.

The experience from WW2 may not have been relevant, especially given the huge purges that hollowed out the army post war.

"They were not that bad -especially in the hands of an experienced, well trained crew! "

Therein lies the rub: the crews were not experienced and well trained. Every 6 months, every Red Army unit lost their most experienced troops, to be replaced by conscripts with almost no training. I know from experience with the US Army's COHORT experiment that you don't produce well-trained crews from basic trainees in 6 months. Soviet tank crews trained on sub-caliber mockups regularly, but fired only a few real main gun rounds a year. I fired almost 100 main guns rounds 1 day in 1981 (and my ears still ring from it!). There is a big psychological difference between the "pop" of a simulator and the bone-jarring crash of a real round lifting the front of the tank off the ground, then dropping it again, while the breach slams back like a pile driver and the autoloader tries to load the gunner's arm. In Korea, some of our KATUSA conscripts would panic and bail out when they experienced their first real shot; Soviet conscripts were no different, just more afraid of punishment. In the field, Soviet units mostly trained with equipment other than their go-to-war vehicles. Their field training was short, carefully planned, pre-scripted repetitive drills designed to look good for the inspectors. You can't practice maintaining vehicles on a long road march without going on a long road march. Do repetitive drills in garrison, yes, but there is a big difference between replacing a broken track in the motor pool and doing it in the dark in a foot of mud with no recovery vehicle. Developing experienced, well trained crews requires hard, realistic training. That kind of training means mistakes and broken equipment, something no Red Army officer wanted on their record when looking good was sufficient.

Surprisingly, I have totally different experience about the soviet army (first, the duration of the service for a soviet soldier was 2 years, which is enough to train someone!)

They were trained a lot, in differnet enviroment, without pre-planned orders -just after the alarm in the middle of the night, whole battalions left the barracks in less than 1 hour, fully loaded -and with their combat equipment (I even don't know did they have anything else)! If not, there was a "comission" for the bn commander -in Siberia.. There were drivers training with night vision, a lot of FX, and LFX at random shooting ranges -which were not known by the commanders before it happened. I even heard about a BMP equiped battalion that crossed a big river, just for training (fun), without any plan, or special rehersal.

From this, I thought they were ready for every unexpected situation, weather condition, and the soldiers were always in alarm -wonderfully even when they were drunk

And it not happened in the GSFG -which was the main elite unit of the soviet forces..

Its almost impossible to separate fact from propaganda in this respect.

The balance was spun from week to week and from agency to agency at the time, depending what defence review was underway or Treasury crack down in vogue.

You'd think current views of that period would be free of that, but of course the raw material of history is those skewed assessments and not much objective fact.

From the other side, yes, we got access to some (a lot?) of Soviet information after the wall came down, but to assume it is all accurate, that it is every important document, that those who wanted to build a career in Western think tanks didn't say what the new paymaster wanted to hear is naïve.

Moderated through a new fear of the 'Russian Bear' it is unclear what is real and what is smoke and mirrors.
I'm not normally a big fan of a post-modern theory of history but this is one area where anyone's 'discourse' has almost as much validity as anyone else's.

Even 'facts' about tanks are open to myriad interpretations, never mind the 'soft' qualities like command and control and training and doctrine.

Doesn't mean we shouldn't try, but beware of people selling you 'we were puny and they were a steamroller' or 'they were a Potemkin village and we were agile and intelligent.' Somewhere in between lies the truth.

The Soviet armed forces were big and scary, but probably not very flexible, and we were woefully small and over reliant on hi-tech which may or may not have been the 'force multiplier' the arms companies claimed.
We don't know what the real pay off between our elite bijou forces and their hordes of conscripts was. But the bog standard T-34 beat the crap out of the over engineered Tigers and Panthers in 1943-5. Its a big gamble to say it wouldn't have happened again.

Back to VonTed's original post:

I'm stunned. I'd have thought that the M1s would have "walked it"? We regularly game Yom Kippur Golan and we find that the Syrians need 5:1 odds (T55:Centurion) to have a reasonable chance. Better range coupled with higher cv gives the Israelis a real edge. We don't use points. Also, ATGW are very rare on the Golan.

I've spent a lot of time in a T72 turret - and it's SH*T. I'd avoid making it any better.