Opinions expressed here are personal views of contributors and do not necessarily represent the companies, organizations or governments they work for. Nor do they necessarily represent those of the Board Administration.
I just realized that the concept of using cargo planes to launch palletized ALCMs has matured to the point it can and will be used in @...of course the USAF brass gave it a heroic name - Rapid Dragon
With an increasing dearth of precision munitions, I doubt we will see much more of it in TLW, but I like it anyway. Imagine the Battle of the Norwegian Sea or its counterpart off Sakhalin with two or three C17s dropping dozens of ASMs safely out of range of REDFLT aviation and SAMs.
Where exactly was the boundary between I (GE) and I (BR) Corps on the IGB? North or south of Helmstedt? I drove along the A2 eastwards yesterday, and thought that Marienborn - which was an area of 35 hectares size - would have been teeming with armored vehicles on D-Day. The areas immediately to the north and south of the A2 were only of limited use for an armored assault.
Wouldn‘t Marienborn have been a nice, juicy target for a combined artillery (tube and rocket) and air steike practically one second right on D plus one second? And would the artillery strike have been the responsibility of the respective corps, or would it have entailed a multinational effort of a few Brit, US and West German (line and territorial) battalions?
I may have an idea for another vignette dealing with the immediate initiation of hostilities.
Done. Thanks a lot, I (BR) Corps it is.
I had only turned up imprecise maps during a quick google search. Being on my phone didn‘t help.
I also drove across the Hohenwarthe autobahn bridge. Thanks to TLW, i can‘t drive through Germany without having war on my mind
This little monograph was linked in another thread about the Russo-Ukrainian War a little earlier and got me to thinking on a few things:
- What type of stockpile would the US have as of 2005?
- What would their productive capacity and that of key Western European NATO powers be?
- With the greatly increased usage of ammunition in WW3 thus far, are logistical limitations starting to bleed into strategy for SACEUR and his subordinates?
- Will a "Oh Sugar, its the Dang 1915 Shell Crisis Again' moment occur?
This little monograph was linked in another thread about the Russo-Ukrainian War a little earlier and got me to thinking on a few things:
- What type of stockpile would the US have as of 2005?
- What would their productive capacity and that of key Western European NATO powers be?
- With the greatly increased usage of ammunition in WW3 thus far, are logistical limitations starting to bleed into strategy for SACEUR and his subordinates?
- Will a "Oh Sugar, its the Dang 1915 Shell Crisis Again' moment occur?
It is not just the USA. What about the rest of NATO? Maybe the abolition of tactical nukes gives an impulse to increase production?
Or the (short) factual departure of West Germany from European and NATO defence procurement. That one would tear quite a hole, albeit temporarily, and might jolt the other nations into forming some kind of transnational ammunition co-operative…which West Germany joins after ousting Lafontaine, and out of shame builds up her ammunition production facilities.
Regarding the tac nukes abolition, that might affect a few countries, but, applying the logic used by James1978 in the Canadian thread, it might not be across the board.
Any type of improvement in any of the states would be most welcome, with West Germany in particular having a view more measured by their proximity. In @, many states really cut back their conventional warfighting stocks in the 1970s (the British numbers or links to them did crop up in an earlier iteration of the board in the context of AAMs, if my memory serves me right) and even quite noticeable improvements will simply make up for this policy driven decision, rather than give greater staying power.
For example, the BAOR alone has 15 AS-90 self propelled regiments, 7 MLRS, 3 FH-70 towed regiments and 1 M110 regiment. At 288 x 155mm guns, even two weeks worth of 50 rounds per day is over 200,000 shells; a Van Fleet Load (five times the norm) takes that up into rather challenging territory to sustain without a concomitant defence industrial production base. The Ukrainians are going through 110,000 shells per month, which is semi relevant, with Western doctrine being a bit different. Even if Britain was going at 20,000 a month (a lot more than present, but details are rightly hush hush) and the Americans at 100,000-125,000 a month, which wouldn't be entirely unreasonable, there is still going to be a point where the bottlenecks start to bite.
Okay, as a figure from present day @, Rheinmetall is planning to ramp up production of 155mm Artillery shells to 600,000 per year. If I read and understood the various articles correctly, production numbers were roughly similar in the later years of "our" Cold War.
I do not see why "Vater Staat" could not invest in a new plant or two, comfortably away from the IGB, to increase that number significantly, and why the various arms suppliers in NATO could not get government grants to do the same all over western Europe.
Quick review of the timeline: 9 November 1989: POD - Soviet crackdown domestically and across the Warsaw Pact. 24 March 1990: USSR withdraws from negotiations for Treaty on Open Skies and Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. Warsaw Pact states affirm. 31 July 1991: The United States and USSR sign the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I). 1 August 1991: Mikhail Gorbachev removed as Soviet Premier. Replaced by Andrei Yakolev. To save money, Yakolev withdrew most Soviet economic and military aid to allies in the developing world. He also continued Gorbachev’s policy of détente towards the West. 5 September 1992: The Foregin Ministers of the USSR and every Warsaw Pact member issue a joint statement that none of their states will sign the Chemical Weapons Convention. 3 January 1993: The United States and USSR sign the START II treaty. The treaty will never take effect and is superseded by START III. 5 January 1993: The United States announces that it will not sign the Chemical Weapons Convention. Every NATO member joins with the United States. 1 May 1996: Following strong Soviet “diplomacy”, Iraq reaches an agreement with Kuwait to pay reparations to the latter. 13 November 1996: The United States and Soviet Union sign START III treaty. The United States, United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union sign the Theatre Weapons Treaty, which eliminates all remaining tactical and intermediate range nuclear weapons. 20 January 1997: William J. Clinton, is sworn in as the 42nd President of the United States. February 1998: Andrei Yakolev steps down as Soviet Premier. Replaced by Arkady Renko, a a Communist hardliner and true believer.
Now as far as tactical nuclear weapons, nothing changes until November 1996, with the actual withdrawals happening over 1997/98. Actual dismantling would take years. Now remember, for most of NATO, not much really changes - aside from the US, UK and France - nobody else really had dedicated nuclear systems aside from maybe a handful of old Lance missiles which were scheduled to get replaced anyways. They had nuclear-capable systems - 155mm artillery, 203mm artillery, and tactical aircraft - that all relied on US warheads. For most NATO states, the only major change is that their tactical aircraft train for one less mission now.
I think the analysis of what came next is dual-track - political and military. Political: From POD to early 1998, the USSR was being run by seemingly reasonable people who didn't want to blow the planet up. Sure, they balked at conventional arms reductions, but they were happy to keep reducing nuclear weapons. And after all, weren't the nukes the real danger? During this period, the USSR wasn't trying to export revolution or fiddle around in the third world. I tend to think that at least a few NATO governments tried to be optimistic and held out hope that once everyone cut back their nuke numbers, the USSR would come back to the table on conventional arms reductions. In that light, I think some NATO states paused or at least slowed down modernization during this period, and they certainly weren't growing their force structure. Then comes Arkady Renko. How long will it take for the fact that Renko is not a good guy or someone you can deal with to set in with world governments? Oh, and throw in a dose of Bill Clinton battering his head against the brick wall that is Renko in the hopes of further nuclear reductions to create a legacy. Military - Soviet/WP: At least up to early 1998, I don't know that TLWverse saw major increases in Soviet force structure. Sure, they added some capabilities like CTOL carriers and some big deck amphibious ships, but they were mostly modernizing and replacing old kit with new. Hell, if memory serves, their submarine force actually shrank considerably. Ditto for the Warsaw Pact - modernizing and replacing old kit with new.
After Renko took charge? I'm not sure we've ever really discussed that. Military - NATO: With the experience of Operation Desert Storm, PGMs are the new hotness. They also aren't necessarily inexpensive. But with them, NATO begins to think they can achieve the same effects as tactical nukes. And if one PGM can do what used to take 10 dumb shells/bombs, well then why do we need all this dumb ordnance? And it's not like a modern peer war could last more than a week, two weeks tops. Right? We're on D+27 right now. I don't think stocks of dumb ordnance were cut or sold off or anything like that. But I do think they weren't necessarily expanded as much as one might think. I think everybody bought not enough PGMs, shot most of them off by D+10, and then realized that actual usage far exceeded projected usage for dumb ordnance. We've seen in the story that air delivered PGMs are running low and are being rationed.
Now having said all that, I don't think NATO ammo dumps are empty, especially ones in CONUS. In a world where the Cold War never ended, the US is going to maintain that surge capability. But the US is also supporting three primary fronts (NATO, Korea/Japan, and Kuwait/Middle East, plus a couple of side shows - for four weeks. And we've already seen one case, where an ally (Japan) required US resupply after just a few days due to low war stocks.
Having written all that, I suppose a shorter way to say it all would be to set aside the current Russo-Ukrainian War and its lessons learned. In TLW, the USSR was not on the war path, was not invading neighbors, and wasn't encouraging its surrogates to invade neighbors. Sure, tensions were simmering for a few months, but how many people thought WW3 was really about to break out? Absent a far more aggressive USSR in TLWverse, I'm just not sure I see a driver for significant increases in war stocks such that nobody is feeling the pinch by D+27. I think PGMs were seen as the replacement for tactical nukes and few were seriously considering a conventional war that would last to week four with no end in site.
NATO Stock Planning Guidance …. What NATO thought you needed for a 30 day war
UK Battlefield Attrition Study/ Review of Ammunition Rates and Scales…. based on expenditures during the Yom Kippur War. What the UK thought you needed for 8 days of war at 100% strength and a further 2 days at 40 % strength
I don't know the exact methodology of the NATO SPG but it was to be for 30 days of combat. UK was based on 8 days of combat with everyone being at 100% strength each of those days (so it factored in losses and making good those losses) The last two days it was assumed that attrition would bring all formations to 40% of their authorized strength and there would be enough to sustain them at that strength for two days.......then there was nothing except sunshine.
I just included the above information because I just wanted to show the IRL situation. In TLW universe I assume that Bernard factored in the increase in ammo production/stocks with the expansion of the Armed Forces. I also have the stocks for the RAF & RN.
I just included the above information because I just wanted to show the IRL situation. In TLW universe I assume that Bernard factored in the increase in ammo production/stocks with the expansion of the Armed Forces. I also have the stocks for the RAF & RN.
It's always good to have @/IRL data as a baseline.
To clarify. I expect anyone who didn't meet NATO Stock Planning Guidance, had there arm twisted into doing so in TLWverse.
I'm just wary of letting experience/lessons learned from Russo-Ukrainian War expenditure rates seep in as a driver for large increases in NATO SPG for most of the post-POD period.
