New from Battlefront: TEAM YANKEE

[Arlequín]

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.

[CptJake]

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.

[sasori]

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.

[Arrigo]

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  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.

[Arlequín]

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.

[Arrigo]

Mhmm,

using a Davy Crockett... I do not want to be the poor chap firing it... 

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?

[Arlequín]

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.

[Brummie]

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.

[Arrigo]

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!

[carlos marighela]

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.

[julesav]

All those mini-nucs are 'safe' for the user if you lob them over a ridgeline at someone the other side.

[Arlequín]

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.

[Cypher226]

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.....

[Arrigo]

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...   

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... 

One of the facebook commenters asked to be an air centric game, because airpower has to be central to the game... 

I am just interested in decent M1 and M1A1 and BMP for the start...

[Arlequín]

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.