Recommendations for a small, modern, cold war inspiration?

[brasidas19004]

I'd also reccomend looking at the El Salvador Civil War. It's like a somewhat lower tech, small scale Vietnam. Battalion sized sweeps by the government forces were the standard approach but on occasion there would be similarly sized groupings of the insurgents. It's a fascinating struggle replete with battles in the hills and mountains as well as instances of large scale urban warfare.

There's a good study of the war available (or at least was, it was a print on demand type affair) and it covers guerilla organisation and tactics with illustrative examples of a range of operations:

Strategy and Tactics of the FMLN Guerillas, Last Battle of the Cold War, Blueprint for Future Conflicts;  Jose Angel Moroni Bracamonte and David E. Spencer. Tends to side with/ provides an apologia for the government forces but a very useful tome.

Th natural counterpoint is to read Mark Danner's Massacre at El Mozote A Parable of the Cold War. It says what it is on the tin.

Probably a book or two in Helion's line of books on Latin American Conflicts as well.

Yeah, I was looking at El Salvador, but it seemed even uglier than most of these bash-ups.  I'll look for the books, however.

[carlos marighela]

Yes, no doubt El Salvador was more brutal than usual. The people on the government side were fucking horrible. El Mozote has direct parrallels to what the Nazis did in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. The cover up by the Reagan administration was obscene.

Still, if you can somehow gloss over the frequent atrocities and you aren't going to game death squads and the like. then it's an interesting conflict. The guerillas did come close on a couple of occasions, you can reutilise a certain amount of Vietnam era kit as well as adding exotica like Panhard armoured cars and home-made armoured trucks.

There was even an intersting FMLN raid on a US training base which saw the nominally unarmed USSF training team manning the defences and getting involved.

[brasidas19004]

Well, I have had some time to check into things, and it's all full of atrocities. Hispanic culture seems to green light this behavior, for whatever reason, and Africa is the same or worse [can it be worse???].
Mystery to me.  FMLN is and has been quietly eliminating people they don't like, appear to still be doing it to this day.

However, as a blueprint, rendered more palatable for wargamers, Nicaragua seems like a winner, and my library even found a copy of the book you recommended on El Salvador, so may combo the two [which are inter-related anyway].  Also, Helion has two booklets [80p] on each conflict.

So, I think they will be fine, humanized for the Empire, which I *hope* would step in if things got this bad [which is also very bad for the economy, which is a T1e Imperial intervention trigger - fine with me!]

Great suggestions, very helpful.

Yes, no doubt El Salvador was more brutal than usual. The people on the government side were fucking horrible. El Mozote has direct parrallels to what the Nazis did in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. The cover up by the Reagan administration was obscene.

Still, if you can somehow gloss over the frequent atrocities and you aren't going to game death squads and the like. then it's an interesting conflict. The guerillas did come close on a couple of occasions, you can reutilise a certain amount of Vietnam era kit as well as adding exotica like Panhard armoured cars and home-made armoured trucks.

There was even an intersting FMLN raid on a US training base which saw the nominally unarmed USSF training team manning the defences and getting involved.

[carlos marighela]

There's another couple of options if you turn your attention to Indonesia.

Konfrontasi is the early 1960s saw sizeable Indonesian incursions into both Borneo and the Malayan peninsula. The Indonesians dropped a battalions worth of paras into Malaysia who were progesssively hunted down by Commonwealth forces. They also lost a Hercules in the process when it crashed evading an RAF Javelin. You also had Commonwealth forces launching pre-emptive incursions into Indonesain territory as part of Operation Claret.

As Indonesia was effectively Soviet backed or at least Soviet armed under Sukarno, there are a lot of what-if options.

Move on a decade or so and you have the Indonesian invasion of Timor L'este. The Portuguese had gone but the local forces remained. The US and Australia basically gave a nod and a wink to the invasion but it ran very heavily against popular opinion in Australia, particularly after the Indonesians murdered a group of Australian journalists.  There has been a long standing affection for the Timorese lasting bac to their support of cut off Australian forces in WW2. Again some what ifs are available. Whitlam was the leader of a progessive government and you could posit a circumstance where Australian involvement takes place in part as a distraction from domestic political issues.

As for Latin Americans being more brutal, I wouldn't rush to judge or form an opinon based on cultural tropes. Britain did some pretty nasty stuff in Kenya, the French did the same or worse in Algeria and the US in Vietnam. I have visited the torture centres established in several South American countries and they are deeply moving. A question that's better posed is where did they learn their craft. Uncomfortably for the US, the answer is the US Army's School of the Americas in Panama.

[SJWi]

I would throw into the mix the co-called "Indonesian Confrontation" and "Malayan Emergency", lots of small unit actions there plus troops of various nationalities, infantry, some armour and airpower. The Portuguese wars in Africa ( Angola and Mozambique) are pretty exotic. Helion and company has lots of books in their various series which give a fair amount of detail even if they can be pretty expensive.   

[brasidas19004]

Yes, I've heard about the British success in Malaysia - I haven't researched it, but it sounds like a pretty straight up border war.

Indonesian invasion of Timor I had never heard about.  Quick look shows its a very complex post-colonial ideological mess. Uncertain if it is tactically interesting or not, it certainly appears to be interesting at the operational and strategic levels. 


As for the moral relativism comments, I think they're off-topic and "inciteful" rather than insightful, which is what I'm looking for here.

There's another couple of options if you turn your attention to Indonesia.

Konfrontasi is the early 1960s saw sizeable Indonesian incursions into both Borneo and the Malayan peninsula. The Indonesians dropped a battalions worth of paras into Malaysia who were progesssively hunted down by Commonwealth forces. They also lost a Hercules in the process when it crashed evading an RAF Javelin. You also had Commonwealth forces launching pre-emptive incursions into Indonesain territory as part of Operation Claret.

As Indonesia was effectively Soviet backed or at least Soviet armed under Sukarno, there are a lot of what-if options.

Move on a decade or so and you have the Indonesian invasion of Timor L'este. The Portuguese had gone but the local forces remained. The US and Australia basically gave a nod and a wink to the invasion but it ran very heavily against popular opinion in Australia, particularly after the Indonesians murdered a group of Australian journalists.  There has been a long standing affection for the Timorese lasting bac to their support of cut off Australian forces in WW2. Again some what ifs are available. Whitlam was the leader of a progessive government and you could posit a circumstance where Australian involvement takes place in part as a distraction from domestic political issues.

[mellis1644]

The British in Malaysia is more of a guerrilla war than a boarder one. The wiki is not bad on this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayan_Emergency

It's a smaller somewhat more contained version of vietnam conflict - which the government side won in the end. Still a nasty little conflict generally (which ones are not really) with both sides doing lots of nasty stuff.

[carlos marighela]

Not moral relativism. Merely pointing out that no particular race or nationality has an exclusive preserve on brutality. It's a continuam between targeted assasinations in Vietnam, concentration camps in Kenya,  torture in Abu-Ghraib and what happened in ESMA, Vila Grimaldi or the DEOPs and DOI-CODI centres in Brazil. Similar shit goes on around the world to this day.

[brasidas19004]

The British in Malaysia is more of a guerrilla war than a boarder one. The wiki is not bad on this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayan_Emergency
It's a smaller somewhat more contained version of vietnam conflict - which the government side won in the end.

The second phase of the conflict actually may be more interesting than the first:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_insurgency_in_Malaysia_(1968%E2%80%931989)
I'm trying to find more info on the military side of the house, but appears to be lots of small actions. 
One paper here: https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA505882.pdf that is free and looks of interest.

[Westfalia Chris]

Not moral relativism. Merely pointing out that no particular race or nationality has an exclusive preserve on brutality. It's a continuam between targeted assasinations in Vietnam, concentration camps in Kenya,  torture in Abu-Ghraib and what happened in ESMA, Vila Grimaldi or the DEOPs and DOI-CODI centres in Brazil. Similar shit goes on around the world to this day.

Quite true, but now that you have said your piece, Carlos, please leave it at that.

[traveller]

Mau-Mau Rebellion 1952-1960
Hungary 1956
Forest Brothers in the Baltics 1945-1956 (Guerilla war against the Soviets)

[Rick]

Two others spring to mind - the first would be a raid scenario - short duration, limited forces on both sides and clear objectives - the raid on Entebbe? The second is of longer duration, small initial forces that could be ramped up by pushing in mobile reserves and of distinctly more vague objectives - the Dhofar Rebellion. Both are similar in that they are asymmetric, smaller units of highly trained professionals outnumbered by less well trained opponents, the Dhofar Rebellion also having locally trained forces to back up the SAS cadres against the Communist backed rebels.

[carlos marighela]

Of course there's always the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. Amphibious landings, paradrops in battalion strength, heli-borne airlanding. Lots of mix and match kit, including T-34s on the Cypriot side. There's also the slight chance of UK intervention as the Turks encroach upon the British SBAs. It got quite hairy for a while.

There's also quite a bit of gaming fun to be had into the two Indo-Pakistani Wars. If you want to spin things out of control, you have the historical fact of a US Navy Carrier Task Group crusing in the area with a watching brief and Soviet naval units deployed to watch the US.

Perfect battalion scale action is the Mayaguez Incident and the USMC landings on Koh Tang Island that proved to be quite bloody. It's a bit of a cluster fuck for the US but woud make for a fun game and potentially the start of a limited mini campaign. There's a whole Osprey in the Raid series devoted to it and it's actually one of their better tomes.

My favourite what-if, possibly of all time, is Operaci?n Sobrerania in late 1978. Argentina came within hours of launching a full on invasion of Chile. Only bad weather cruelled the op before the Pope and coller heads intervened. It had the potential to draw in a number of the neighbours. Peru was quite likley to have intervened if things went well for the Argentines (ask any peruano how they view chilenos). Brazil even mobilised along its south western border, in response to Argentine mobilisation.

The world really is your oyster.

[brasidas19004]

Two others spring to mind - the first would be a raid scenario - short duration, limited forces on both sides and clear objectives - the raid on Entebbe? The second is of longer duration, small initial forces that could be ramped up by pushing in mobile reserves and of distinctly more vague objectives - the Dhofar Rebellion. Both are similar in that they are asymmetric, smaller units of highly trained professionals outnumbered by less well trained opponents, the Dhofar Rebellion also having locally trained forces to back up the SAS cadres against the Communist backed rebels.

Entebbe was suggested previously by its codename, Operation Thunderbolt.

The Dhofar Rebellion is actually very interesting - I have done a bit of preliminary reading, and it looks very promising!  More to follow...I've ordered this book: "SAS Storm Front: the Regiment's Greatest Battle" by Rowland White

[Rick]

Heh - I also found the Dhofar Rebellion quite interesting, but I found out about it by a more roundabout route - I had a dvd of 'Killer Elite' which is loosely based on Ranulph Ffiennes book 'The Feather Men' which has some interesting bits on the conflict but the plot should be treated as fiction rather than believing everything the author stated!