Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => The Conflicts that came in from the Cold => Topic started by: MajorTalon on July 30, 2015, 10:41:34 AM
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So this may or may not get me back into Flames of War. lol
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vAiE0H1bn5Y/Vbb7R5pd5YI/AAAAAAAAJy0/0ciUZ7RFt4c/s1600/Team%2BYankee%2BCover.jpg)
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Supposed to be released late this year!
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I am down with this.
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Well, I will continue to play better rulesets, but I am looking forward to the models.
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Well, I will continue to play better rulesets, but I am looking forward to the models.
this :D
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Well, the cover looks pretty ridiculous (as usual ;) ) but I think they might find a niche there, after the doomed Mongoose game that came out(-ish) a few years ago.
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Dat cover art...... oh dear.
I used to play FoW, and thoroughly enjoyed it too; I now do Cold War in 20mm, but can't say I'm tempted back to the fold...
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I think their standard cover have always a similar theme, stupid one if you ask (I think Desert Rats and Desert Fox eons ago were good, the Rats cover was really nice and the style was different). Nowadays they always put everything in close combat. Probably it is for drama and to explain both sides are covered in the book, but it looks silly... on the other hand it also show the typical game ranges...
Arrigo (or, as Lieutenant Li say.. Arrigo the Evil)
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I thought it was a fair representation of on-table distances. ;)
Let's face it, anything that Battlefront champions leads to some great 15mm models and figures (YMMV) and generally has some fallout that prompts products in the same genre... although I'm still waiting to see 28mm Arab-Israeli figures appear. Either way it promotes 'Cold War' gaming, so that's a plus to me... good luck to them!
:)
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Worst Battlefront cover art ever!
Will they be paying Harold Coyle royalties for using his book title?
I'll definitely be giving this a go in 6mm though - mech inf units are just too pricey for me in 15mm!
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Cover art discussions aside - I've been hoping for something like this since it was rumoured a few years back.
Anything that makes '80's hypothetical wars more common on the tabletop is gold to me - plus this makes Twilight 2000 gaming at the reinforced platoon/company scale easy :)
Here's hoping for plastic M1's, Bradleys, T72/80's and BMPs!
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Cover art discussions aside - I've been hoping for something like this since it was rumoured a few years back.
Anything that makes '80's hypothetical wars more common on the tabletop is gold to me - plus this makes Twilight 2000 gaming at the reinforced platoon/company scale easy :)
Here's hoping for plastic M1's, Bradleys, T72/80's and BMPs!
Which, with the exception of the BMPs, already exist. See Zvezda. They also do BTR-80s and M-24 Hinds. Their Abrams got some pretty mixed reviews, although it can be detailed but the rest of the range is meant to be very good. I doubt BMPs will be far off in their release schedule.
No addition of toys can be a bad thing but it wouldn't hurt them to get the most common tank types for the GSFG right. That would be T-64s, followed a long way behind with T-80s. They aren't cheap but then I suspect they will still be cheaper than anything Secnd Mortgage Front releases. No doubt BF will be releasing their lovingly crafted range of gnomes this time in a 1980s theme. The upside is this may prompt manufacturers with access to decent sculptors, like Khurasan to seize an opportunity.
As for Mr Coyle, I doubt he has much claim on the words 'team' and a letter from the phonetic alphabet.
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I hope they will have plenty of material for the early to mid cold war period, till about 1980, when Soviet armor was still a match for NATO, sometimes considerably more so. These kinds of battles are more interesting in my opinion, when the Reds don't have to rely on masses of T72s to have a chance of defeating a single M1 tank platoon.
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Will it include tactical nukes?
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Will it include tactical nukes?
To quote the rulebook of the World War III boardgame "NATO" (70s or 80s):
"To simulate the battlefield use of strategic nuclear weapons, simply soak the map in lighter fluid and apply a flame."
Pure genius. And no, this is an actual (tongue-in-cheek) rule.
(Source: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WorldWarIII)
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I hope they will have plenty of material for the early to mid cold war period, till about 1980, when Soviet armor was still a match for NATO, sometimes considerably more so. These kinds of battles are more interesting in my opinion, when the Reds don't have to rely on masses of T72s to have a chance of defeating a single M1 tank platoon.
This is largely why I avoid anything after around 1970... things are far more balanced for gaming. Once you start including Abrams and Challengers and all the technology, the Warpac player becomes the equivalent of the Zulus in colonial gaming.
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As for Mr Coyle, I doubt he has much claim on the words 'team' and a letter from the phonetic alphabet.
Except they use his name when discussing the game/title:
Flames of War World War Three is based on the novel by Harold Coyle of the same name.
http://www.breakthroughassault.co.uk/2015/07/flames-of-war-world-war-iii-team-yankee.html
So, we'll see. I know Coyle did allow a Team Yankee board game a while back.
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There was a Team Yankee based board game put out by GDW (the "Traveller" guys) back in the late '80s. It was a very fun semi-lite chit-n-hex game.
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I hope they will have plenty of material for the early to mid cold war period, till about 1980, when Soviet armor was still a match for NATO, sometimes considerably more so. These kinds of battles are more interesting in my opinion, when the Reds don't have to rely on masses of T72s to have a chance of defeating a single M1 tank platoon.
well the game is aimed at 1985... thus sorry you are out of their league lol Anyway early cold war is usually covered with WW2 leftover wit some additions like M46/M48 on the US side and T-54/55 and IS-3 T-10 on the soviet sides plus Centurioans and AMX-13 (oh well I think we are covered already). Mid Cold was you need chieftains and M60 so probably you can (hopefully) get your hitch satisfied, at worst raid Vietnam catalogues...
To be quite honest I prefer they concentrat on a period, do it, and then move to other things...
well quoting SPI NATO on tactical nukes is disingenuous (It was considered a bad rule and more or less ignorance on the part of the designers at the time and it is a strategic exchange and even if you do a strategic exchange how many warheads will be used in Germany?) . There are games with much more nuanced and 'realistic' approaches.
but look... what is the point to have a tactical nuke on a company level game? Even with BF's own idea of distances it is a tad too much.
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but look... what is the point to have a tactical nuke on a company level game? Even with BF's own idea of distances it is a tad too much.
BF idea of differences includes on-table artillery batteries. Weapons like the Davy Crockett had a much shorter range (indeed its effects exceeded its range). If not to plug gaps created by a withdrawal of friendly forces, or to deny such an area for the enemy to advance through, what would they be used for (outside of hitting movement choke points)?
I'm not suggesting they should be included in the rules by any means, but preventing an enemy breakthrough on a company front is indeed just the eventuality that would force their deployment, if conventional resources were too stretched to respond.
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Mhmm,
using a Davy Crockett... I do not want to be the poor chap firing it... o_o
I always got the impression the DC was more a political weapon to prove the Army has tactical nuclear capability and was in the 'Nuclear Battlefield' business rather than something fitting a proper doctrine. Yes the DC was supposed to cover gap in the Pentomic battlegroups deployment (the idea was to use the 5 battlegroups as independent defensive islands) with the DC teams covering the gaps (in forlorn hope missions it appears). But from my research the actual tactical doctrine was vague. The DC was probably a silly weapon after all. 155mm and 203mm nuclear shells on the other hand... but we are talking about interdiction and area denial munitions.
But on the other hand... look you were the company CO you got smashed. Maybe the Division HQ authorize the use of a Davy Crockett RCL... but probably you have already lost the game (plus by 1985 it was already out).
BF puts artillery on the table (warping distances) to sell models. It is not that you cannot have arty support in a company game, but it is usually off map. The big geniuses at BFHQ have realized that if you put it onto the table chaps have to buy the models... but still there is some logic in it (view the edge of the table as an off map holding area). We will see what will happen... actualyl I expect rules for MOPP Gear and chemical shells before nukes... but who know with BFHQ?
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Of course... fighting in a pre-existing chemical or nuclear environment I would imagine be part and parcel of it, as opposed to being able to 'nuke' your opponent.
Being able to employ the weapons themselves though does not sound like a lot of fun. Or for me desirable, I'm of an age where I can sympathise with JFK, who apparently once said off tape "I'd rather my kids be Red than dead", following a particularly fraught meeting with his JCS.
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Most of the big battles for this era to now I tend towards doing it in 6mm.
I really do like 15mm though, so will probably get in on it at a skirmish level.
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Kennedy words' seems a bit of a late invention, especially considering he personally selected his JCS (Taylor was recalled into active duty by him) and often seems to have worked with the JCS by-passing McNamara. A lot of the controversies between Kennedy and the JCS seems to have been artfully created by his brother and McNamara who had often a lot of trouble with them (more often than not because he was an idiot and leaning more on the advice of his own whiz kids rather than professional military advice).
The history of Kennedy and his JCS is in dire need of some better work. IMHO McMaster's works is awful... it appears that my opinion is shared by one of his fellow troop leaders at 73 Easting...
<warning digression>
Ok while we are talking cold war I think this anecdote is worth telling. Several years ago I was attending a naval history day conference at King's. More or less an internal event with PhD candidates listening to some lectures, but it was nice. I started to talk with another student and we discovered we shared supervisor and both of US were doing military history. Then we started to talk about several things and I ended up telling him I was a cavalry officer candidate in the Italian Army. 'Oh well I am Cavalry too.' We started discuss armor and ended up talking about Desert Storm. He said something about 'H.R.'... well my colleague was commanding the troop on McMaster flank (I do not recall if right or left) at 73 easting... ended up discussing the engagement and a bit of H.R. McMaster and his book Dereliction of duty and he agreed McMaster took his idea a tad too far as history was concerned. Oh well he had an interesting array of colleagues... including Colonel McGregor (another vocal supporter of some extreme ideas!). This make the pair with the day Professor Sabin introduced me to one of his friends, Adrian (Goldsworthy) or when I was chatting with Admiral Tim Lawrence without realizing he was the husband of Princess Anne. Or meeting Karl Heinz Frieser on a train...
<digression ended>
Hopefully the new endeavor will give us some nice plastic M1 and M1A1 (the zvezda one is bad, they put into press the prototype and not the finished version!). And BMP-1/2. I am also hoping for M60... let's see what they will unveil!
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Didn't know they indebted to Mr Coyle for more than the title. Makes sense, it was a fairly ho-hum airport book shop pot boiler novel from memory. I preferred Hackett's book meself.
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All those mini-nucs are 'safe' for the user if you lob them over a ridgeline at someone the other side.
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Indeed using cover to protect your own men was a must, even if it involved cowering as low as you could in your foxholes and slit trenches... as a number of filmed above ground tests show. Oddly the West German premier of the time was most enthusiastic about them, despite the likelihood that West Germany would be the real estate they were used on.
As Arrigo says though, it was a weapon out of place in this era. Nevertheless the ability to advance into and operate within a 'hot zone', however temporarily, was part of the doctrine of both sides.
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Having re-read the book yesterday (long train journey), I have to say the cover actually looks an awful lot like the description of the second to last battle, where the tanks are described as so close to the Soviet vehicles their gun barrels are practically touching the hulls of the soviet tanks.....
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Being me the usual devilish person... I have looked at the BF facebook post on this new endeavour...
well it seems that while here we spotted the 'literary' connection immediately... few on facebook did. Someone call hit biased, someone asked for Tea Russia or Team Warpac and accused BF to have only catered to the US market. Some said that the 'majority' of players want to be the soviets... :o
anyway I see that the majority of people is not concerned with little details as: what kind of stuff will be released? It is like... they hinted that initially only US and Soviet models will be relased and people had already said they will do the Germans or the BAOR... ohh... :o
One of the facebook commenters asked to be an air centric game, because airpower has to be central to the game... o_o
I am just interested in decent M1 and M1A1 and BMP for the start...
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I suspect much of that is because;
a) A large proportion of FoW Players have little interest in history*.
b) An equivalent number were probably not old enough to read adult fiction in 1987.
c) A lot of people nowadays are too quick to jump on the 'political correctness' band wagon over a perceived slight, or they just rev-up their mouths without putting their brains in gear regardless.
* I don't mean to be disparaging here... there are a good many 'historical wargamers' who just want to pick up figures and rules, and play games with them... hence the moans and groans about 'too much history' in hobby magazines, they want rules, scenarios and things like that.
:)
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For what it's worth in the book Team Yankee is composed as follows:
CHQ: 2x M1 Abrams and a 'command track' - not clear whether this is an M113 or an M577.
2x Tank platoons: each with 4x M1 Abrams.
1x Mech Infantry platoon: 4x M113s, each dismounts a team of 4-5 blokes with an M60, and a team of 2 blokes with a Dragon ATGW system.
1x Anti-tank section: 2x M901 ITOW missile launchers.
In the course of the book they lose the ITOW attachment, gain an artillery observer in the FISTV variant of M901, have elements of the 'scout platoon' attached in M3 Cavalry fighting vehicles, are supported by 155mm artillery (presumably M109s) and a single M163 Vulcan air defence vehicle. They receive air support from AH-1 Cobra gunships and A-10 aircraft.
Scout platoon TO&E appears to be: 1x M3CFV platoon hq vehicle. 2 or 3 sections each with 2x M3 CFVs. In the book the PHQ vehicle has become a casualty before they are briefly attached to the team.
The book is set in 1985 in the middle of the US Army's transition into the Div'86 TO&Es. M2 Bradleys are in slow production so the Mech platoon is still in M113s. Scout platoon got M3 cavalry variant of Bradley as a 'priority'. Missing from a typical 'Team' TO&E are SP mortars of either M125 81mm type and M106 4.2" type.
Russian kit is limited to T-72s, BMPs (variants not specified), BTR60s and T-62s. MilMi-24 Hinds make a brief appearance netting one Abrams for loss of one Hind! The only air to air combat mentioned is when the afore-mentioned Hind is 'splashed' by a Cobra! Historically speaking 'Russians' in Group of Soviet Forces West Germany would have T-64s or possibly T-80s, probably BTR70 variants and both BMP-1 and BMP-2s. Polish T-55s also appear briefly as targets for the team. West Germans appear briefly, but with so little detail mentioned that you cannot identify a unit type from which they come.
To be honest in the book the Soviet kit only exists to be destroyed in relatively vast numbers by our heroes. Although interestingly the major character's M1 is ko'd by T62s! Spoiler alert - he survives!
From Battlefront's point of view this force requires only two new AFV kits, the M1 and the M2/3. They already make M113s so they could add two new turret variants to make assembly of M163 and M901s possible. They already make AH-1 Cobras, so would only need to make a set of TOW weapon pods to update them for post 'Nam Central Front. They'd need to make US infantry but only a platoon pack if they keep to the 'Team Yankee' TO&E from the book.
Models for the 'Russians' are a different matter entirely as currently only T-55s exist in Battlefront's catalogue.
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Well, the T-72 thing is interesting. At the time we were quite confused about the reason why of it. It was before cookie Sewell and Steve Zaloga published their research and started to shed light on the whole tank design controversy. It did not help that the three beasts (-64 -72 -80) shared some similarities, the same gun, and for a while we thought they were sharing the same autoloader. If the DDR was receiving -72 someone assumed also soviet units would have (as seen in the Central Group of Forces). It was a quite interesting intelligence conundrum (ehy... just got the idea to use it as an example of why intelligence can be misleading for my first lecture!!!!! lol).
BMP at the time were often referred as A and B in DoD publications. so some of the error in the book were understandable. Also it is interesting to look at this old thing:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/8833/firefight (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/8833/firefight)
Firefight was a late 70s' design by Jim Dunningan for the army and has a quite interesting view on what the Soviet had at the time.
It is fascinating to look at how distorted was our picture.
Well, what I hope they do is:
T-62, 64, 72. Not overly interested in the -72, I have plenty, but look plastic kits are nice and they promised plastic. BMP in both version.
From the US side I strongly hope in the basic studd, M60A3, M1 and M1A1, M113 I am sure will be recycled, maybe with the external tanks, I owuld like to see BF doing an aeraly mark Bradley, but on the other hand I have aplenty, and already painted. Curious to see their US infantry too. I think the initial book (wild guess based on skimpy intelligence) will have at least US tank and mech infantry companies and probably Tank and MR for the soviets with variations on a theme. considering it is BF... expect M109 and SO-122 in the least... Probably Hinds, possibly Apache...
Arrigo
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I'm looking forward to this, as others have said it will increase the interest in Cold War wargaming. Will most likely use both my 3 & 6mm collections.
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Missing from a typical 'Team' TO&E are SP mortars of either M125 81mm type and M106 4.2" type.
Not really. The Team is based on a tank company (and is a tank heavy team). The organic tank company did not have mortars. In this team the company traded a tank platoon and got a mech infantry platoon. A team based on an infantry company would have had them. Even then it would have been the 81mm, the 4.2" were in a BN mortar platoon (Tank BNs had them too). The BN (or more likely TF) commander would keep those mortars as his only indirect asset he could rely on having/control. Depending on the TF mission they would likely support a counter-recon screen and then the overall TF defense, or be placed to support his main effort in the attack. Often the mortar platoon would split into two sections (each with a FDC) and the sections would 'leap frog' with one moving to a new firing position as the other was set and providing fire support.
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Does anyone know of a good post-cold war analysis of actual soviet planning and capabilties versus western beliefs? I (barely) remember some of the discussion when the Abrams was upgraded to the 120mm, people were arguing that it wasn't needed in Western Europe, now I'm seeing that the 105 wouldn't penetrate frontal armour on the Soviet tanks. (Reading on the internet, so I'm trying to find something substantial. )
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Does anyone know of a good post-cold war analysis of actual soviet planning and capabilties versus western beliefs? I (barely) remember some of the discussion when the Abrams was upgraded to the 120mm, people were arguing that it wasn't needed in Western Europe, now I'm seeing that the 105 wouldn't penetrate frontal armour on the Soviet tanks. (Reading on the internet, so I'm trying to find something substantial. )
There was a test made in the late nineties that was as rigorous as bogus. I can dig the details. Anyway the claimed to have tested Cold War capabilities but then you discovered that used post cold-war rounds and ERA (Kontakt 5) armour. I think Jane's was involved but for all its scientific approach it was kinda skewered. Yes the 105mm would not have penetrated Kontakt 5 but Kontakt 5 was not even around. USMC 105,, had no problem in penetrating T-72G and M1 in Iraqi inventory, and these had better frontal protection than vanilla T-72 and T-72A. On the other hand the frontal armour on the B was better. There is quite a lot of discussion on that on Zaloga M1 vs T-72. At wors I can fire some questions directly to Steve. He usually replies!
Arrigo