Red Storm - The Cold War Gets Hot (scenario development)

[GhostOfDisco]

Another issue: The Middle East. Why do I mention this? Because it's on the map. :P My current plan has been to have three specifically Middle Eastern Civs: Israel, Ba'ath (comprising Iraq and Syria) and Iran (Iran may or may not be fighting the Ba'ath, as I'm not that clear on just when the Iraq-Iran war ended.) Egypt, Kuwait and Morocco would belong to the "Neutrals" (barbs hex-edited to be allied with everyone) and Libya (and maybe Algeria) would belong to the "Other Communist" civ (non-WarPac commies, which includes Yugoslavia and Albania.) Now I'm wondering if I can/should eliminate the lower Mediterranean coast and place all those cities under a "Neutral" Civ...

[Case]

It takes at least 12 months to train and equip a western-type military unit from scratch (which was about the standard for World War II). In the event of a major war in Europe both NATO and the Warsaw Pact would have received substantial reinforcements from US units based in the United States and Soviet Units in the central USSR though. Any reserve personnel not organised into units would have been used to reinforce other units as they suffered casualties (which were expected to be very heavy).

[bc1871]

It takes at least 12 months to train and equip a western-type military unit from scratch (which was about the standard for World War II). In the event of a major war in Europe both NATO and the Warsaw Pact would have received substantial reinforcements from US units based in the United States and Soviet Units in the central USSR though. Any reserve personnel not organised into units would have been used to reinforce other units as they suffered casualties (which were expected to be very heavy).

Now your talking at the Brigade level? Since it is "possible" establish a whole volunteer/conscript division in around 8 months(mind you the quality is questionable).

[GhostOfDisco]

Well, each unit is roughly equivalent to a regiment/brigade unit (2 units will represent a division so that the game won't be too cluttered with units), so I think 4 months )16 turns) to train a mechanized unit shouldn't be to much a stress of reality.

Also, does anyone have any advice on the whole Middle East thing?

[Harry Tuttle]

Another issue: The Middle East. Why do I mention this? Because it's on the map. :P My current plan has been to have three specifically Middle Eastern Civs: Israel, Ba'ath (comprising Iraq and Syria) and Iran (Iran may or may not be fighting the Ba'ath, as I'm not that clear on just when the Iraq-Iran war ended.) Egypt, Kuwait and Morocco would belong to the "Neutrals" (barbs hex-edited to be allied with everyone) and Libya (and maybe Algeria) would belong to the "Other Communist" civ (non-WarPac commies, which includes Yugoslavia and Albania.) Now I'm wondering if I can/should eliminate the lower Mediterranean coast and place all those cities under a "Neutral" Civ...

Well, considering the big show is really between NATO and the Warsaw Pact I don't think you really need to get detailed with the Middle East.

At the time period you've specified, late eighties last time I checked, Iran and Iraq have beaten eachother to a bloody pulp and rely heavily on outside military aid. If things were going to get hot in Europe I doubt either the Western countries or the Soviets would be shipping much of anything to the Middle East. So, the stalemate of the Iran/Iraq war would have continued, perhaps with less action, and may have not stopped until the 1990s as the UN Security council, who brokered the peace treaty, would have been tied up or nonexistent.

The other countries in the Middle East, specifically the important ones, would have been heavily outmatched against Israel. Egypt was not about to take on Israel again and Syria/Lebanon would have lost big time.

Of course, given that the Americans would be tied up in Europe, Israel may have to fight a war, but only against a rather beligerant opponent.

So really, I would keep the Middle East simple. Any type of war would be minor compared to Europe and would probably detract from the big show for the scenario player.

[bc1871]

Well if you want to have combat in the Middle East, the US Rapid Deployment Force could fight a pitched battle against the Soviet VDV in Saudi Arabia.

[GhostOfDisco]

Well, yes, any Mideast conflict would be a sideshow to the main European slugfest. I was just wondering whether Israel and/or Iraq/Syria and Iran should be included as unique Civs...

Anyway, I've been going through the NATO and WARPAC OOBs. I've been grouping fighter/bomber units according to wings/regiments, trying to reduce each division to two units, etc. Anyway, I've run into some problems. There's some units that have different types of OOB - Guards units using T-64s (as opposed to regular T-64 units), UK Mech Inf using Warriors, Canadian mech inf with Grizzlies, and so on. (Also, a lot of FRG reserve units seem to be "Motorized Infantry"- could I lump them in as M113 mech inf units?) Should I try to lump them with existing units, or reserve unit slots for them?

In any case, here's the current unit pic. What do you think?

[bc1871]

A large unit variety is always better, though one question why is Upper Volta represented in the units?

[GhostOfDisco]

Upper Volta? I take it you mean the decolored blue of the flag in the Mirage F-1 pic? Well, since Iraq uses the plane, I thought of making it a sprite - showing the tricolor when in NATO hands, and a rotated Syria/Iraq "Ba'ath" flag when flown by the Ba'ath civ.

However, since Spain as well as Iraq uses the F-1 (and the French AMX-30 tank and maybe AMX-10 APC, IIRC) I'm wondering what I should do with those units (AMX-10, AMX-30, Mirage F1) - should they still wave the tricolor, or should I replace it with the NATO symbol?

And I do like a wide variety of units; however, I am hampered by the limited number of unit slots available, and so must figure out the best way of using said slots...

[McMonkey]

I take it you are going to use the 10 free slots too?

And while we are pointing out oddities, has the Arab Infantryman at the bottom right just let out a massive fart? WMD!

Detail in the unit selection is good but I can't see any harm in bending reality a little to fit the game. For example the Spanish could probably fly F-16s instead of Mirage without anyone but the most fanatical cold war student minding/noticing! I can't see any harm in making a generic M113 unit to represent the many different types of Mechanized Infantry units. As long as the stats are right it won't detract from the realism. Is it really worth taking up multiple slots for units that have identical capabilities and stats when a decent generic one can represent them all?

EDIT: That said, I do love the Swedish S-Tank!

[GhostOfDisco]

I take it you are going to use the 10 free slots too?

Yes.
And while we are pointing out oddities, has the Arab Infantryman at the bottom right just let out a massive fart? WMD!! [/QUOTE]
Well, I did notice after uploading that some of the background was the wrong shad of pink, but I certainly didn't think it was that!

[McMonkey]

Perhaps he's being chased by a giant ball of candy floss then

[bc1871]

[QUOTE=McMonkey;5739531]
the most fanatical cold war student minding/noticing!
QUOTE]

Well being a Cold War fanatic, I still do think that it would be better to have multiple units!

Ghost of Disco: Thanks for the clarification on the "Upper Volta" unit(turns out it was your Ba'ath Party member). Though Upper Volta Infantry would also make a great gag unit to add in, after all during the 80's West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt often times refered to the USSR as "Upper Volta with missiles".

Flag of Upper Volta:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Upper_Volta.svg

[GhostOfDisco]

[QUOTE=bc1871;5739841]

the most fanatical cold war student minding/noticing!
QUOTE]Well being a Cold War fanatic, I still do think that it would be better to have multiple units!

I agree with you (as you can see in my first post where all the NATO and WarPac countries have their own infantry units) but, as I said before, I've noly got so many unit slots. So I'm forced to economize and merge some units into one general unit. The only concern is what units to economize...

[McMonkey]

As I suggested before, why not use the mini units to create generic Infantry units and therefore free up more space. They would also match up with the mini Mech Infantry units you already have.