Nostalgia for the cold war

[SSgtBuck]

Does anyone else miss the Cold War? You knew your enemies then, and they usually had masses of tanks. You could wargame tank battles on the plains of Northern Gemany or Korea all day long.

[modwar64]

Hi Ssgtbuck,

Yes, I too long for the days of the coldwar.

The forces of the "evil empire" where just across the inter-German border waiting to pounce. Or maybe go try to seize the oil fields in the Gulf or both.

Thankfully there is what I like to call "Historical Modern" wargaming. I consider this period from the end of World War Two until the day before yesterday. Planning and running games set in the 1980's are especially interesting to me. Everything is more or less set in stone. You know the early 80's when the M1 was the "new" tank on the battle field and the "mysterious" T-80 was though to be lurking about on the Russian...I mean Soviet side.

Enough rambling this is my two cents.

Have fun and Keep gaming.

Tony

[jb]

Hi Fellas,
Yes, your talk reminds me of a game we did last year in October. West Germany 1973. The area was Lichtenfels or just east of Bamberg. The US force ( a Brigade from the 3rd ID) was defending. The main force of this Brigade was pinned in combat. As this battle was going on they got outmaneuvered by a couple of companies of T-62s and a Mech rifle company of BMP-1s.
Overall it was great. We had M-60A1s,M113s,T-62s,BMP-1s,etc.
Geeze,I think we need to do that period again...

[Extra Crispy]

I grew up during the cold war in a military family and, no, thank you, the threat of the total destruction of the planet and all the people on it is not something that keeps me warm at night. Til now the terrorists can only destroy it one building at a time - here's hoping it stays that way.

I have a 5 year old and I'm so happy I'll never have to face explaining the end of the world to her....

[Timothy OConnor]

Crispy...I think the thread is a bit in jest...besides, those warm fuzzies you have now are probably not well founded. I lived in DC and had staff at a building targeted on 9/11, lived through the anthrax and sniper attacks in DC and found all of that a lot more scary (and more tangible) than the cold war. When pumping gas and getting the mail become potential (although VERY low probability) encounters with bad things you certainly have a problem! Then again, having grown up in Chicago there were certainly areas there that posed a far greater threat than the Russians! But I also understand your point since I had friends who sat in Korea on the DMZ, in Germany on the border, and in an ICBM silo in the mid west. For those who lived with the real world nastiness such feelings are very understandable.



Back to the topic, purely from a wargame scenario perspective I actually don't miss the standard Fulda Gap scenario of Cold War gaming. Russian horde tries to over run small but superior American force...over, and over again...yawn! (imo)

Historical Post-War (eg Angola, Vietnam, Middle East, Soviet Afghanistan, etc.) and hypothetical near-future gaming is far more interesting to me (YMMV) since it's usually asymetrical but can also include elements of conventional (and unconventional!) forces on both sides. There's a huge variety of actions often involving mutliple sides and certainly disparate unit types. Far more intricate scenarios than the standard "Team Yankee" game (and yes, I enjoyed both the book and game series way back then...) Objectives in such scenarios can go far beyond the Fulda Gap breakthrough vs hold the line objectives.

Tim

[Extra Crispy]

Okay I overreacted. But when you have listened to the news to find out whether the Lt Colonel killed in Korea was your father; when you've watched the news about Vietnam hoping to see him and hoping not, well it was never all that cold a war to me.

To the point. Yes, big, obvious, out in the open enemies invite a different kind of game. The war on terror makes it sound like one big war, when in fact its hundreds of skirmishers all rolled up together. So the 80s do offer a very different kind of possible scenario.

[WHM]

I'll throw my 2cents in.

Regarding wargames, yeah, I miss the Cold War. The idea of a large force of manuvering tanks sounds cool to me. Terrorists vs the good guys does not.

I still subscribe to Armor and most of the articles reflect "dismounted" tankers in Iraq and Afghanistan. From a professional point of view it isn't hard to see why. To publish Fuda Gap stories would deny the present.

Extra Crispy is right of course, but need to keep in mind the "GAME" in wargame. I understand his feelings. If one was alive today a Civil War veteran may not see the fun of gaming Gettysburg. When you get down to it wargaming is really fantasy.

Frankly the bore factor regarding Fulda Gap can be said about WWII. The impression I get is most people on this forum try for accuracy in their games. There are no Panzer Divisions of Tiger IIs.

It would be fun to see more games of wars that did not happen, or might be.

For example, Germany invades Poland 1999 (we want our 1914 borders, China invades Russia or visa versa, How about NATO invades the USSR?

[chrisswim]

In cold war?nuclear war, less likely to happen, but much more sevre if it did happen. Death would have been much more significant. Terrorism is more likely to happen, but not as significant, typically speaking. Israel has experienced terrorism for decades, individual to dozens die, with much more wounded. If nuclear war occur (probability is lower), would kill so many more. Large conventional war with Russian would take many more lives, forunately less probable.
Chris

[jb]

I'll throw my 2cents in.

... The impression I get is most people on this forum try for accuracy in their games.

It would be fun to see more games of wars that did not happen, or might be.

For example, Germany invades Poland 1999 (we want our 1914 borders, China invades Russia or visa versa, How about NATO invades the USSR?

Well we do quite a bit of the stuff that is not historical here.For instance right now I'm in the works of doing the Wisconsin/Illinois border conflict. As a matter of fact we will going down to Streator,Il this Saturday. The Illinois "army" has all IDF and the Wisconsin "army" is armed with Die Bundeswher equipment. we will see Mekava IVs going against LeoIIA6s with some Achzarats thrown in. Oh did I mention Eurocopters ( a different kind of tiger)?
We have also done 1944 US vs German using the topo maps of are area here,very interesting...
I still love those Historical battles though.
As for the "cold War" period,yeah been there done that. As a matter of fact I really didn't worry about a "nuke" atack. I was more concentrated on the fact of fighting against 3:1+ odds of T-62s...I was younger then,and I was ready and so was my tank...

[DrBig]

Oh yeah I miss it. I got to play around with 1:1 scale tanks that moved. I miss it even more now that we know that the USSR never really posed a serious threat. Those guys were all talk. And shoe banging. They always backed down. Berlin, Korea, Berlin again, Cuba, Yom Kippur, etc.

[SSgtBuck]

Certainly no one in their right mind would want a return to a time of conflict. Sure, there are great wargame scenarios from WWII, but we really don't want to actually be fighting WWII again, the same would have to be said for the cold war and M.A.D. That being said, however, anyone who believes that the world is a "safer" place now than in the 70s and 80s would be seriously mistaken.
The enemy we face now will use ANY weapon at his disposal to strike us at any place he can reach us, whether it is in our own hometown or at any place on the globe. He has shown a willingness, even a desire, to take his own life just kill us as well. . The only reason we haven't had a WMD used against us is that the enemy either has not aquired them or has not found a viable delivery system. Do not make the mistake of thinking that the enemy has any moral compunction against using a WMD against us.
That is just terrorism, which is only one facet of why the world is more dangerous now. Nuclear proliferation is another, does the world really want Iran to have a nuclear weapon?
There's more too, but not for here, and this forum. I'm going to go paint some Chieftans for and Iran-Iraq war scenario.

[DrBig]

Absolutely. Nukes are with us for good. And there is more danger now than ever...which is precisely why the US is never going to leave Iraq, no matter who you vote for. This Domino Effect is for real. Iraq, Pakistan & Saudi Arabia are the watch towers for Israel. Lose one of those three like we did Iran, & the threat of Tel Aviv going up in smoke jumps several orders of magnitude. Then sit back & watch the poopy fly. In the Cold War, everyone knew that at least at the end of the day, the US & USSR would sit down & resolve. HO HO HO, not so anymore.

Getting back to fighting a more conventional conflict, look at Live Oak scenarios. These were plans to use conventional forces in the early 60's to force open a supply corridor to Berlin along an autobahn. The theory was that the Soviets would either back down or use limited means of opposition given the US superiority in nukes...each side would bloody their nose for a few days & then settle. And from what we know now, the Soviets really didn't want a general war. They would have shot up the convoy, stopped, bragged to their population as to how they repelled western aggression, and agreed to guarantee land access for the pathetic paranoid westernites out of sympathy.

All the Soviets wanted were 1) Allies to leave Berlin, 2) West Germany not to acquire nukes, 3) West Germany not to push for reunification & return of Prussia & Silesia; they wanted security. However their big mouths were their own worst enemy, but at least the Kennedy Admin. knew that.

[voltigeur]

I for one miss the days of the Cold War if not the Cold War itself. First our potential enemy was a "potential" enemy not a shooting one, and they were SANE! Maybe I'm nuts but the prospect of nuclear war didn't scare me in those days. Mainly becasue I was in the military and knew I wasn't likely to survive and survival in the "Days After" was wholy over rated. Plus I really didn't believe at the time either side was stupid enough to press the button. I simply accepted I had no control over that issue so didn't worry about it.

From a wargaming view point if you were bored with the Fulda Gap scenario you didn't game all that the cold war had to offer. I played Marines quite a bit and never tired of potential scenarios. US intervention in Angola against the Cubans, Hostage rescue in the Pacific (Cambodia and Phillippienes). {At work can't spell check just yet} Turkey vs. Russian. I made friends with an S-2 NCO there were lots of potential scenarios. In the Army there were so many variations on the NATO vs Soviet arena that yoru scenario selection was limited only by your collection.

From a gamer's perspective I have thought the European Cold War was the perfect historical period to game. You had all the organisations, docrtine was well documented and as soon as you cross the border (either way) you were in alternate history with out being in a dream world of fantasy. A real world war was set up and was never fought. As a game who could ask for more?

[Rolando]

I grew in the cold war

I live in Panama in Central America and all the politicall stuff of the cold war was in home, the Panama ** CENSORED ** and the Southern Comand bases et all...

I saw the news when Omar Torrijos died in his exploding airplane and everibody said it was the CIA...

The cold war has lots of oportunities, you may make almost any scale (25mm comando or gerrilla action in the jungles of around the world or the cities), microarmor in Central America (lots of infantry), Africa, Europe... The Fulda scenarios are just the begining remember, if the Warsaw Pact crossed there came the interesting part, and if not the NATO could make a counter attack...

Is a game and you make the interesting situations, specially in an alternate history or "what if"...

[skypig53]

I guess you could call me anti-tank. I personally find it more interesting now a days sending LAV's and troops on foot down city streets in search of the enemy. I guess I'm just dating myself.

Of course in the real world this is only cool in movies and not so cool when real people have to kick the door down and wonder whats on the other side. I would certainly prefer masses of tanks pointed at eachother yet doing nothing.

On the table top its all about speed, shock and awe, firepower and out-manuevering the enemy but not neccessarily with a huge force. Combined arms is where its at. Boots on the ground, close air support, helicopter assault support.

BY GOD SEND IN THE MARINES!!!