Friday 27 May 2022

Die Festung Hamburg - NATO OOB, Samples and Notes

The NATO OOB for the next C3 Module Die Festung Hamburg is almost complete. The area covered is the Northern Sector of NORTHAG, defended by a true multinational force including Denmark, The Netherlands, West Germany, United Kingdom and United States.

Here's some notes on the various nationalities, each one with sample units.

Denmark

The main Danish contribution to the defense of the Schleswig-Holstein sector is the Jutland Division. Unfortunately, as written by David Isby in Armies of NATO's Central Front, "Jutland Division certainly lies at the lower end of the spectrum among NATO's mechanized divisions."

The wartime tactical organization was the well-known Combined Arms battalions equipped with Leopard 1A3, M113 and some (few) anti-tank and combat support equipment.

The division was manned only at 20% during peacetime, and shared the same problems plaguing the rest of the Danish Army: low funding, insufficient training and low ammunition stockpiles. Moreover, the time needed to mobilise the missing 80% personnel could have been significantly long.


West Germany

The Bundeswehr has the Northern slice of WG I Corps, the combined WG/NL I Corps and the LANDJUT Corps represented. The total forces were approximately two PanzerGrenadier and one Panzer divisions, reinforced by some Heimatschutzbrigade and Heimatschutzregiment from the territorial army. 

An additional Panzer division - the NORTHAG strategic reserve - was also available, but of course committing it would have been a quite drastic decision.


The Netherlands

Dutch Army added a whole Corps to NORTHAG defense...In theory. In reality, only a single brigade plus some combat support were near the FEBA, with everything else stationed in the Netherlands 300 km to the west. Moreover, the very complicated Dutch mobilisation system needed time to bring the manoeuvre units to operational status.

On the positive side, the Dutch units were among the heaviest in the NATO arsenal, with up to 20 MBTs, 40 APCs and 12 combat support AFVs for each mechanized battalion.

The tactical organisation and combat values of the Dutch units gave life to one of the most heated discussions in the development team thus far. A detailed explanation of the different points of view will be probably available in the Designers' Notes :)


United Kingdom

In a war against Warsaw Pact, the UK Mobile Force Brigade would have moved by sealift to one of the following areas of deployment:

  1. Schleswig-Holstein, to reinforce LANDJUT Corps
  2. Northern or Insular Denmark, to reinforce COMBALTAP

UK Mobile Force is also Tony Morphet's Secret Love, as he was heavily involved with this formation during his years of active service :)

In the end, it will be up to NATO Commander to decide where to commit the brigade, with each choice having its pros and cons.


United States

In 1985, the 3rd Brigade of 2nd Armoured Division was stationed near Bremen, acting as the forward element of US III Corps.

The brigade would have probably remained under strict US control and was missing most of its support assets (Trucks, fuel tankers, maintenance, medical services). Consequently, the combat value for its battalions is lower than other similar US units.

EDIT 20220827: After considerable additional research and help from several veterans who served in the brigade, we determined our first evaluation was vastly wrong! 2AD (Fwd) could actually act as NL I Corps covering force in case of need, and also had additional logistic support allowing independent operations for a limited time. The latest OOB version reflects these changes.


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16 comments:

  1. Nice. Itbis coming together. It might bij nice to add the Parent Regiment Abbreviations to the Dutch battalions. The are available on Wikipedia Northag 1989 order of battle.

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  2. Hey, per the US Army Fiscal history for 1985, 2nd Armored was one of the units to get the Bradley by the game’s date. Does 3rd brigade not have them? Or is that a discrepancy?

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    1. Yes, that's a legitimate question.
      - The DOA Fiscal Year 1985 states that 3ID, 2AD and "one NG Bn" have Bradleys don't tell if the whole formation has them, and has no exact publishing date.
      - Isby's "Armies of NATO's Central Front" (July 1985) states that 3ID and 1CavD are equipped with Bradleys.
      - the DoD Appropriation for 1985 states that the 2AD at Fort Hood and "one battalion in Europe" has Bradley fielded, but tells nothing about 2AD (Fwd) in Europe.
      So, we are in a grey area. Any additional source is welcome :)

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    2. Also:
      - the official 2AD history page states that "In 1985, 3–41st IN and 4–41st IN transitioned to the M2 Bradley", with no exact date specified. As our scenario is in July 1985, we have 50% possibility :D

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    3. The sources state "by the end of the year" including the doc you cite unless I have misread it. The game is set at the 8-9 month point! We have not made a final decision as we are still actively seeking the grail of an actual issue programme. However to be able to use the kit they will need to have had training on it as well. Sop the issue programme needs to tell us if the issue is at the beginning or end of the training package. We try hard to get it right - so as yet no final decision. Tony Morphet Game Developer.

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    4. In the Fiscal Year 1983 document, it says "This fiscal year the Army awarded a procurement contract for 600 Bradley fighting vehicles. Deliveries, during the year, from contracts made in previous fiscal year totaled 569. The Army furnished these vehicles to service schools for development of logistics support and to the 2d Armored Division at Fort Hood, Texas, and the 3d Infantry Division in Germany." So, I think Isby was wrong about 1st Cav being the ones to get them in CONUS.

      The Army Fiscal Year 1984 states that, by the end of FY 1984, the army had procured 1336 Bradleys (Including both M2 and M3). I may be mistaken because the Cav units change a lot, but pre-1987, I think there would be 105 M3s per Div Cav Squadron (This assumes it's the x12 tank x11 M3 company structure). So, assuming that the Div Cav for both 3rd ID and 2nd AD got M3s, that would mean 1126 M2s.

      I believe Bradley equipped infantry battalions had x3 companies of 44 M2s with 2 Command vehicles for a total of 134 M2s per battalion. So, if you divide 1126 by 134, you get about 8 and a half battalion sets. 3rd Infantry had 5 Infantry Battalions, 2nd armored had 4, and there was 1 national guard battalion that got them (For a total of 10 to equip them all). I think that it is fine to assume that the 3rd ID and the state side 2nd AD units got them first. This leaves them with 1 and a half extra battalion's worth for the 2 Forward deployed 2nd AD btns and the NG unit by the end of 1984.

      If you can find which NG unit it was and what month, I think you may be able to figure out if that equipment was available for 3/2 AD at the start of 1985

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    5. It's all theory, and it brings to the conclusion that 2AD completed the transitioned to Bradley in 1984. In reality, 3-41INF and 4-41INF battalions from 2AD transitioned in 1985. Also, both INF and ARM battalions in the division '86 structure had 4 companies.

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    6. What we really need is a source stating unequivocally "2AD (Forward) transitioned to M2 Bradley at mm/yy".....I doubt we'll find it :)

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    7. My only addition to Fab is that even were we take your manipulation of the figures the 1 1/2 battalion's worth left over are probably in the training organisation in CONUS and that is not just the Infantry school but everywhere from the mechanics who have to learn how to recover and repair, and the signallers who need to understand wiring looms and set installations etc. My view is that your work tends to confirm M113 still in 2 US AD (FWD) unless/until we find a doc that has the actual issue programme.

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  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  4. I will check with the members of the 2AD FWD Association, I did not arrive to Germany until MAY 1987 and by then they already had M2/M3 Bradleys in the two Infantry Battalions (1-41 & 4-41). Each Infantry Battalion had 4 line Bradley (A-D) Companies and 1 legacy "Echo" Company with Improved TOW Vehicles (M113 Chassis). Being an ALO1 forward deployed Brigade - 2AD FWD would have received the Bradleys ahead of the Division (-) back at Fort Hood.

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  5. The NATO OOB looks like a nice little ragtag bunch! I'm interested to see how they'll do.

    You obliquely mentioned that there would be a choice as to where to deploy the British in FH, either in S-H or in Denmark itself as a part of BALTAP. I was curious, will there be future C3I games detailing a WP offensive into Denmark during the first days of the war? I know that's looking *very* far down the line but the idea intrigues me a goodly bit!

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    1. Yep, the NATO OOB is quite interesting, and once you place the units on the map and start moving you understand why everybody at NATO was worried about sending reinforcements in the S-H area!
      The C3 system can handle amphibious / naval operations only marginally, so a Denmark (Sjaelland) invasion scenario would require a major overhaul!

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  6. Hey, I just noticed - the Dutch 42nd Mech Infantry battalion (41st PzBde) has what looks like a Leopard 2 as its representative silhouette - is that correct?

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    1. Sorry for the late answer!
      Yep, after the wartime combined arms battalions are formed, 42 PantserInfanterie should have 34x Leo 2A3, 26x YPR765 APC with 25mm canon, 4x YPR765 with TOW. Hence the Leopard 2 silhouette.

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