ORBAT - NATO's Northern Army Group, 1 BR Corps Deployment

The 1 Br Corps deployment zone sits between Hanover in the North to Einbeck in the South. Deployed to the North is 1 GE Corps and to the South covering the more broken terrain of the Harz Mountains and the Saurland is 1 Be Corps.  The detail of NORTHAGs deployment was previously covered here.

The Corps area is dissected by the Rivers Weser and Leine and has the Harz mountains on its Southern boundary and the Teutoburger Wald to its rear.  The city of Hieldesheim sits in the center of the Corps area of responsibility with the ground to the south of Hieldesheim being more broken and to the North more open.  The Corps sits astride an Axis of Advance to the Ruhr industrial conurbation.

The Corps concept of operations saw a covering force fighting a delaying action from the Inner German Border back to a Main Defensive Position that sat forward of the River Weser and across the River Leine.  The covering force battle would buy time for the preparation of the MDP and potentially the deployment of units from the UK if this had not happened in transition to war.  To the rear was the reserve Division with the primary task of launching a counterstroke into the advancing Soviet Armies once the main axis of advance had been identified and this would create the conditions for a counter offensive by the NORTHAG reserve to restore the Inner German Border.

• The Covering Force was provided by 2 Armoured Reconnaissance Regiments from 1 and 4 Divisions together with 644 Squadron AAC.  The Recce Regiments at this time were 1st The Queens Dragoon Guards and The 16/5th Queens Royal Lancers. They were effectivly under command 1 Br Corps in this phase.
• The Northern MDP Division was provided by 1st Armoured Division covering the more open ground South of Hanover and North of Hildershiem.
• The Southern MDP Division was provided by 4th Armoured Division deployed in the Southern part of the corps area covering the more broken around the Sibbessa gap.  
• The Parachute Regiment Group deployed to Hildershiem in the centre of the area and I would imagine they intended to stay put regardless of the developing situation.  Hildersheim and the Parachute Regiment Group came under command of 1st Armoured Division.
• Corps Reserve was provided by 3rd Armoured Division. The corps reserve supplied its reserve Brigade to enable the withdrawal of the covering force through the main defensive position by securing crossing points over the Rivers forward of the Leine.  Once the covering force had withdrawn 3rd Division's reserve Brigade would join the rest of the Division West of the Weser and launch its counter stroke.
• The Corps Rear area was secured by 2nd Infantry Division, which also included 24 Airmobile Brigade which would primarily be used for counter penetration tasks into the forward areas and could be deployed in support of either the MDP or Covering Force Battle. Of Interest during Ex Lionheart in 1984, the German 53 Heimatschutz Brigade reinforced 2nd Division and 24 Brigade (at the time a Mech (W) Brigade) was released for deployment else where.
• The Rear Combat Zone and Communication Zone sat behind the Corps rear boundary.

Behind the forward deployed Corps of NORTHAG sat III US Corps, once it had completed its deployment from the US it would conduct subsequent operations to restore the line of the Inner German Border.

By the close of the Cold War NORTHAG reserve included a multinational Airmobile division that included:

• UK 24 Airmobile Brigade
• Ge 255 Luftlande Brigade
• Be Para Commando Regiment

Over the duration of the Cold War I suspect this plan changed a number of times but this is what I intend to use as the operational context for games involving my British forces.

The Essentials of the 1 BR Corps plan were therefore:

• Covering Force - Recce and 644 Squadron AAC Forward
• Main Defensive Position Battle including Divisional Covering Force and Divisional counter attacks/penetration.
• Counter Penetration by 24 Brigade (88/89) after formation of Brigade and prior to move to multinational Airmobile Division.
• Counter Stroke - 7 Panzer Division & 3rd Armoured Division

The unifying purpose being to achieve the destruction of the first operational echelon between the R Weser and the R Leine.

UK based components would deploy during transition to war or in the opening stages of the conflict, these included.

• 3rd Armoured Divisions Recce Regiment
• 4th Armoured Divisions 19 Infantry Bde
• 665 Sqn AAC
• 2nd Infantry Division

My intent is to set a number of Scenarios within the 4th Armoured Divisions area of responsibility primarily as it had a slightly more diverse force structure than 1 Armoured Division deployed in the more open ground to the North and therefore holds a little more variety in the type of actions and forces that can be used.  19 Brigades deployment area around Bockenem is shown on the map below.

The Divisions were tailored in their task organisation to their areas of responsibility. The 4th Armoured Division included 2 Armoured Brigades and an Infantry Brigade.  The table below outlines exactly what this meant in terms of the detailed composition of the different divisions in 1 Br Corps.

So essentially the 4th Armoured Division was a Mechanised Division with 1 Mech (T) Brigade, 1 Mech (W) Brigade and an Armoured Brigade.  The organisation of the 4th Armoured Division was as follows:

The Unit composition and equipment distribution of the Combat and Combat Support units around 1988/89 were as follows:

16/5th Queens Royal Lancers, Divisional Recce Regiment (CVR(T))

4 Regiment Army Air Corps (Lynx/Gazelle)

45 Field Regiment RA (FH70) 19 Bde (Assumed)

26 Field Regiment RA (M109/Javelin) 11 Bde

49 Field Regiment RA (M109) 20 Bde

35 Regiment Royal Engineers (FV 432)

11 Armoured Brigade; 

5th Inniskilling Dragoon Guards (Chieftain) 

3 Royal Anglian (FV 432)

2 Queens (FV 432)

20 Armoured Brigade; 

15/19 Hussars (Challenger)

4/7th Royal Dragoon Guards (Challenger)

1 Royal Regiment of Wales (FV 432) replaced by 1 RIRISH in 1990 (Warrior)

19 Armoured Brigade; 

1 Kings Own Scottish Borderers, (Saxon)

2 Royal Anglian, (Saxon)

1 Staffords, (Saxon) 

Royal Hussars (Chieftain, Less 1 Sqn to UKMF)

Engineers and artillery would tend to be attached to the brigades, recce squadrons could be attached to brigades but tended to operate as a divisional asset along with the AAC Regiment. Additionally the division would have a squadron from 32 Armoured Engineer Regiment with troops being attached to brigades as required.

The Divisions operational concept had the Armoured Brigade and the Armoured Recce Regiment deployed forward as a covering force. The Armoured Recce Regiment being initially under command of 1 Br Corps as a component of the Corps covering force.  The 2 Mechanised Brigades then developed and manned the Main Defensive Position with the covering force withdrawing back into reserve where it would be reconstituted by replacement crews and vehicles from the Armoured Delivery Regiment. The AAC regiment would take a very active role in counter penetration as the ground lent itself well to HELARM anti tank ambushes. I expect it would have been active in both the divisions covering force battle and the MDP battles.

19 Brigade the Mech (W) Brigade would deploy in the North of the area around the Bockenem bowel at the entrance to the Sibbessa gap and 11 Brigade, the Mech (T) Brigade to the South around Bad Gandershiem and Seesen. 20 Brigade would provide both the covering force and the reserve.  

References:

Web:

M136 Exercise Picture Archive
British Army Units since 1945
Fire and Furry Cold War Orbats and Modern Resources
Staff Rides 1Br Corps Material and Maps

Books:

Confrontation, The Strategic Geography of NATO and the Warsaw Pact

Armies of NATO's Central Front

The Royal Armoured Corps in The Cold War

Encyclopedia of the Modern British Army

The British Army in Germany, an Organisational History 1947 - 20
British Army of the Rhine,  TJ Gander
The Royal Engineers, TJ Gander

Iron Division, The History of the 3rd Division 1809-1989

Other Posts of Interest:

ORBAT 1980s British Battle Group, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7
ORBAT - 1980's British, Army Air Corps Aviation Regiment
ORBAT - The RAF in Germany in the 1980s
ORBAT - 1980's British BG, NATO and BAOR Reinforcement, Part 1 General
ORBAT - 1980's British BG, NATO and BAOR Reinforcement, Part 2 The Infantry Brigades
ORBAT - Soviet Task Org, Fronts against NORTHAG

Review Book - Abel Archer, Modern Rapid Fire Rules

Well it's been a while since I posted. A busy period for family and work - however I was asked a question about the rules I use, and it's a fairly frequent question so I thought I would knock out a quick post on the subject.  I got hooked on Modern gaming after joining the Guild forum in around 2008.  I was familiar with RF through WW2 gaming and when the Guild held a big game in 2010 I soon volunteered. The first game was held in Ireland and used Rapid Fire adaptations produced by Piers Brand. In the subsequent two Cold War big games they were adapted in a number of areas by John Dowman and Rob Rowell.

Tim's picked these up and done an excellent job of enhancing what were a fairly loose collection of ideas and turning them into a coherent set of rule additions making them a lot more attractive and digestible.  They are designed to be used in conjunction with Richard Marsh and Colin Rumford's Rapid Fire Rules which can be purchased in paper or electronic format from the Rapid Fire Website.

The focus for the rule set is the early 80's the period of the first game and Tims area of interest. They contain vehicle stats for the period Orbats and Scenario ideas to get you started.  The Orbats covered are:

NATO

• British Battle Group
• Danish Battle Group
• Dutch Battle Group
• US Armoured Cavalry Sqn
• US Battle Group
• NATO Divisional and Corp Assets

Warsaw Pact

• MRR Advance Guard and Main Body
• TR Advance Guard and Main Body
• Divisional Assets.

The rules adapt easily enough for the late 1980's period and can be used for Ultra Modern and near future with a little thought.

They include a range of rule mechanisms adopting the original set to the modern period and accommodating the evolution of fire power, observation systems, gunnery systems, armour and aircraft. They sit firmly in the world of Rapid Fire which was always a simple abstracted game system, but one that played fast.

What I have always loved about Rapid Fire is the way the units are abstracted allowing battle groups to be reasonably represented by 10-15 models, this allows you to game in 20mm on a table top at battle group level with ease and with thought to extend into the operational level.

I suppose a number of things that I like best about Cold War gaming are enabled by these rules:

• 20mm is a great scale for armour modeling with vehicles and figures sufficiently large to look great when done.
• The models and figures can easily be adapted and enhanced
• The extensive ranges of plastic models and resin kits mean most of the armies can be pulled together, and they look great.  
• The Orbat abstractions enable a reasonable game to be played out at battle group level on a 6 foot by 4 foot table without it all looking too daft.
• The rules are simple and straight forward to learn and enable games to be completed relatively quickly.
• With a bit of thought and a lot of really useful plastic boxes you can store it all in a reasonably big cupboard.
• You can with the aid of a small hall some friends and a pile of scenery pull it all up to the operational level which is really where the action was going to happen in the Cold War and where the odds evened up between the Warsaw Pact and NATO armies.

All up a great contribution from Tim to the Cold War gaming community, Tim's Abel Archer rule adaptations are free, available for download and come in PDF format.

Tims Abel Archer Rules

Other Book Reviews:

The Race to the Swift

Soviet/Russian Armour and Artillery Design Practices
Modern African Wars (3) South West Africa
Red God of War, Soviet Artillery and Rocket Forces
Iron Division, The History of the 3rd Division 1809-1989
Jane's Armour and Artillery 2002/2003

Rats Tales and Royal Scots in The Gulf

Warpaint, Colours and Markings of British Army Vehicles 1903-2003, Volumes 1-4

Air Battle Central Europe, Alfred Price

Confrontation, The Strategic Geography of NATO and the Warsaw Pact

Mil Mi 8/Mi - 17 Rotary Wing Work Horse and War Horse

A History of Soviet Airborne Forces 

Soviet Tactical Aviation

A History of Soviet Airborne Forces

Soviet Tactical Aviation

Armies of NATO's Central Front

Red Thrust, Central Front

The Soviet Afghan War, How a Super Power Fought and Lost

Weapons and Tactics of the Soviet Army

Soviet Air Land Battle Tactics

The Military Balance

Encyclopaedia of the Modern British Army

The Soviet Conduct of Tactical Manoeuvre

First Clash

The Third World War

The British Army in Germany

The Cold War Bookstore contains links to over 60 Cold War titles covered in my book list

Review - Book, The Race to The Swift, R Simpkin 1985

The Race to the Swift by Brigadier R Simpkin recieved rave reviews across a range of professional military journals in America and Britain, for good reason, its an excellent treatise on manouvre warfare, focusing more on the operational rather than the tactical it articulated how to do manoeuvre warfare as tought by its three major exponents the Germans, Russians and Israelis.  

His previous explorations of military theory include Red Armour and Deep Battle, the brainchild of Marshal Tukachevski these are both on the wish list and both out of print and commanding high prices this book pulls together a lot of his thinking on Manouver warfare and is generally more accesibly priced having been through a number of reprints.

Part 1 looks at the development of both Blitzkrieg by the Germans and Deep battle by the Soviets with the chapter on the Deep Battle presenting an illuminating view of Soviet Operational theory and its evolution in the post nuclear aeromechanised world.  It also alludes to the limiting factors of the Soviet Army to deliver against the genius of the vision. Read in the context of a world that has seen the exposition of some of these visions in elements of the operations of the second Gulf War it underlines the writers gift for understanding where the world was going 15 years before it got there.

Part 2 really gets into the detail and theory of manouver warfare and the concepts that underpin it, central to all this are a number of key elements of the Soviet Deep Battle theory.  The author does this through examination of the physics and mathematics of war and explains the detail of how the deep battle would be fought gettng under the skin of the impact of heliborne assault and the fundamental differences between airmobile and parachute delivered forces together with an exposition of why the Soviets identified the need for and delivered a highly mechanised airborne force which fundamentally set about to address the key mathmatical limitations of airborne warfare so often borne out in History.

He looks at the impact of manoeuvre theory and the effect that it had on force levels that explains the Soviets love affair with deep operations and the encounter battle, theorising on the effectiveness of different types of forces in different roles and the effectiveness of lighter more manouverable elements if their force can be brought to bear via flanking manouvers and envelopment, the concepts that underpined Soviet mobile groups and the later development and evolution of the Operational Manouvre Group.  He provides good explanations of complex Soviet military concepts such as simultainaity and the interchangeabiity of firestrikes with physical strikes brought about by the increasing destructiveness of modern indirect fire technologies such as precision guidance and ICMs and the impact of this and developments in communications on future operations.

The Book contains a large number of complex ideas and is not a free ride for the reader with a number of the the concepts requiering a deal of thought by the reader to set them in the context of a particular force or even develop a decent understanding of what is being discused.  Their are many books that explain the broad tennants of the Soviet way of doing battle to many describe an overly simplistic view of the tactical with no real appreciation for what goes on at the operational level, which is frankly where the Soviets excel.  This book focuses exactly on that spot and, in my mind at  least, articulates a significant number of ideas that I would love to play out on the table top. How to do that in 20mm in an opperational context is something that could keep me ammused for years.

The purpose of the book is to look at the evolution of future force structures and capability, however in doing this it provides an excellent discusion of both manouver warfare and the Soviet doctrines and force compositions that would be used to deliver there version of it which was probably the best developed theory of manouver warfare when the book was written in 1985 at the backend of the Cold War.  This is definately a book thats worth reading and Brigadier Simpkins conversational style conveys some very dry topics in a very consumable way, but the reader still has to work hard to extract the full value and meaning from some complex theoretical military concepts, frankly I think this is one of the must haves and  a brilliant book, but perhaps not to everyones taste.

Race to the Swift: Thoughts on Twenty-first Century Warfare @ Amazon

Other Book Reviews:

Soviet/Russian Armour and Artillery Design Practices
Modern African Wars (3) South West Africa
Red God of War, Soviet Artillery and Rocket Forces
Iron Division, The History of the 3rd Division 1809-1989
Jane's Armour and Artillery 2002/2003

Rats Tales and Royal Scots in The Gulf

Warpaint, Colours and Markings of British Army Vehicles 1903-2003, Volumes 1-4

Air Battle Central Europe, Alfred Price

Confrontation, The Strategic Geography of NATO and the Warsaw Pact

Mil Mi 8/Mi - 17 Rotary Wing Work Horse and War Horse

A History of Soviet Airborne Forces 

Soviet Tactical Aviation

A History of Soviet Airborne Forces

Soviet Tactical Aviation

Armies of NATO's Central Front

Red Thrust, Central Front

The Soviet Afghan War, How a Super Power Fought and Lost

Weapons and Tactics of the Soviet Army

Soviet Air Land Battle Tactics

The Military Balance

Encyclopaedia of the Modern British Army

The Soviet Conduct of Tactical Manoeuvre

First Clash

The Third World War

The British Army in Germany

The Cold War Bookstore contains links to over 60 Cold War titles covered in my book list

Posted with Blogsy

Cold War Gamer Hobby News - Autumn 2014

As the blog has recently recieved its 300,000th hit,  the first thing to say is thankyou to all who continue to read it and particularly those who take the time to comment as its always useful to get feedback on content.  The Autumn Magazine ended up with a lot more emphasis on the Soviet breakthrough operations and Soviet capability rather than British which are my intended target for that opperation. 

To my mind the big news over the last quarter has been the increasing credibility of a US cold war Army in 20mm for either the late 70's or any time during the 80's with Elhiem figures releasing a range of products that cover some key gaps in the market along with releases earlier in the year from S&S and Italiera it's begining to look like a very feasible project.  The US Army is I must admit one of the few that could draw me into a late 70's early 80's game providing as it does the opportunity to:

• Paint vehicles in MERDEC
• Deploy Sheridans
• Deploy M60A2s
• field troops in M1 helmets and a range of modern weapons

Matt has said he is doing the M1 helmeted troops next so hopefully we will see a Dragon Gunner with an M1 helmet materialise over the winter, great for US or Dutch.  The Autumn period has not been as prolofic for releases as the summer but their has still been an interesting amount of news

Hobby Den

Brian has been very busy over at the Hobby den building out the range of models stocked as well as making some fairly serious purchases including the BW Models range.  Personally having only just discovered the BW range I was sad to see it go but it now looks like Hobby den will be resurrecting a number of its models.

Brian has also become the European distributor for the modelcollect range which has got to be a good thing as they clearly are offering a very useful set of tank models which is rapidly becoming the definitive collection of Soviet Cold era tanks.

In addition a number World of War 1/72 Building Sets are now available from the shop covering a range of European town buildings and an impresivly large bridge.

Eagle Moss

Eagle Moss have produced a 2S4 which looks to be fairly basic from the imagery but very handy for a late 80's Soviet Break through capability.  Having now received two I can state that the hull is pretty weak in terms of detail but the mortar itself not only looks good but is detachable so easily married up with a different hull and great for setting up as deployed and ready to fire.  So a couple of conversions I'll be trying in the near future.

Elhiem

Matt @ Elhiem Figures has been working quite a major expansion of his cold war range adding seated and skirmishing Brits together with an extension of his Cold War US range that is producing  a much needed Dragon gunner, along with most everything else for late cold war US you will need and a promise of similar coverage in M1 helmets.  He has also extended his Israelis and produced some very handy RUC figures.

Cold War Brits Seated Drivers and Crew

A much needed 105mm Light Gun Crew good for Falklands or NATO flanks work.

Matts MPs would be equally useful for Northern Ireland or Winter of 79 Scenarios.

Cold War US

More RUC this time including a WPC, whilst these are marketed as RUC they clearly could represent armed police from the mainland as well, and would probably look good in some Winter of 79 scenarios.

Underfire

Underfire have been a little less prolific but have recently extended the RAR range.

S&S

Over at S&S Shauns focus has largely been on WW2 conversion kits but he has found time to squeeze in a bunch of Cold War goodies in the form of a T-55 BREM and a very attractive Marder with Roland, allegedly in the works is an ACRV.  As well as these pictures have popped out of what looks like a very early Unimog and a conversion kit for a short wheel base series 2 land rover.  The other hot  rumour is that he maybe working with troop of Shewe on a 15mm MT-55 which will hopefully get released.  None of these have yet to appear on the shop

T-55 BREM

Marder Roland

15mm MT-55

An early Unimog (I think) suitable for various  African as well as central European scenarios

and a conversion kit for a die cast series 1 or 2 land rover for a bit of 50's para action suitable for suez I would have thought.

Wargames Illustrated

The Cold War Hot version of war-games illustrated provided some interesting coverage of Cold War and Modern gaming which hopefully will be the start of an increasing amount of coverage of the Post War Modern period in the mainstream War Games press.

As far as models and figures go we now have good coverage of the period in 6mm, 15mm, 20mm, and 28mm with growing amounts of ultra modern and near future starting to feature within the manufacturing base.  The recent run of kits out of china from both model collect and S Models has started to fill the major gaps in the 20mm Cold War Soviet inventory which together with the improvements in ACE kits means that much of whats needed is easily obtained and built, as ever the stalwarts of the resin manufactures continue to fill the gaps. Is it a little early to speculate that Flames of War might kick off something for the Cold War, I would imagine that will provide a fairly significant boost to interest in the period and production of 15mm models.  All this coupled with  the number of new rule sets being released covering the Cold War and Modern period are all signs of growing interest and point to a good year for the period in 2015. As a complete Cold War aholic I can only say its good to see.

Wargames Ilustarated Cold War Hot overview of content

Model Collect

From their face book posts modelcollect seem to have both a Scud, a T80B and a BMP 3 in the planning pipeline all of which look like great additions to their range. The box art work for the T-64BV has also appeared which is at the top of my must have list so one I am looking forward to seeing land.  To be fair I have my eye on a scud as well.

Web

Red Star Militaria I found the Red Star Militaria site a month or so ago whilst looking for some reference material around Sun Bunnies and the Soviet Jack Boot. This is a very handy re-enactment site with a lot of useful and detailed information around a variety of Soviet Cold War Weapons and equipment.  It looks like the web site might be undergoing reconstruction at the moment, but when back in action a very useful site.

Books

If you have not seen it South Africas Border War by Willem Steenkamp has just been re pubished and there are some reasonable deals on Amazon at the moment, I picked up a copy for £15 new which is a steel for a book that has been out of print for a number of years and was selling for £275 a copy.  Its a great book on the border war and covers the conflict from 1966 -1989 well worth a look.

South Africa's Border War 1966-89 @ Amazon

Winter Magazine

So what will be appearing in Cold War Gamer over the next quarter, The bulk of the research work on Soviet Breakthrough is completed written up and posted and the force is getting to a point where it could do with an outing so task one for the new year will probably be a game with attendant AARs and Scenarios. That of course means moving the British forward.

I have yet to really settle on the main theme for next years efforts so will be giving that some thought over the next few months.  The biggest component on the Soviet side will probably be turning out a BTR regiment along with some divisional Air Defence and some Non Divisional engineering assets that would enable a reasonably serious river crossing exercise to be conducted.

That operation would pretty much pull together elements of Air Assault, Forward Detachments and Breakthrough.  On the NATO side I think the time has come to move the Canadians forward and I have pretty much got all the bits for the first of the Company Groups the other option is 6 or 24 Air Mobile Brigade which would follow on in the series on NATO Reinforcement Units and then there are the Americans but that I suspect will require a deal of reasarch, reading and purchasing before anything material pops out.

Whilst its a little Early for Christmas this is the last news post before the great event so here's wishing you all a dark and productive winter period along with a great mid winter festival of what ever type best suits your religious persuasion.