The Fulda Gap (OOC) War Game

[Gunther]

The Fulda Gap
1 April 1985




In Character thread
Turn Rotation: Hotshot

In Character (Situation)
On March 8th, 1983 President Ronal Reagan referred to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as "the Evil Empire" during a speech at the annual convention of the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida. The US increased its military strength in Europe in the early 1980s and came close to causing World War III by conducting a military exercise near the Soviet Union while forgetting to inform the Soviets that they were conducting a military exercise.

By 1984, talks between the US and USSR had broken down. President Reagan continued to blame the Soviet Union for the world's problems. Mikhael Gorbachev made efforts to increase Soviet military strength facing NATO. By 1985, it appeared there would be no coming back from the brink of war.

In February 1985, Reagan and Gorbachev met in West Berlin at a secret conference to discuss the world situation. The possibility for peace was hopeful and many people across the world anticipated an easing of the tension between the two world super powers. The results of the meeting were such, that at the end of March, 1985 the USSR declared war on the US and her NATO allies. On 1 April the US 7th Army in Europe deployed to their General Deployment positions with the 1st Battalion, 33rd Armor, 3rd Armor Division being deployed to defend the Fulda Gap.

Out of Character (Rules)
Consider this Role Play more a game than an RP, but Wargaming is just another form of Roleplay. You, the contributor are roleplaying a military commander. There is no requirement for a character sheet and you will be provided an array of forces representing soldiers and equipment from either the United States of America or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

Your contribution to the thread will be that of a decision maker. This is one of the principle duties of all military leaders at every level. Some leaders are bold and audacious desiring to remain on the attack, to maintain the momentum and keep your opponent off balance. Some leaders are more comfortable with a pragmatic approach, insuring all of their assets are available and bringing their combined combat power to bear upon the enemy at the decisive point and time on the battle area.

There is no requirement to RP your decisions, but I encourage you to integrate some form of creative dialogue in your decisions. Create characters in your company, state strengths and weaknesses in context. If you are playing a Soviet commander, you may want to coordinate your attacks with the other Commanders. If there is a Soviet Battalion Commander, he may want to provide guidance to the company commanders to insure this happens.

My contribution to the thread will be to create the environment that you will operate in, but primarily to resolve engagements between opposing forces. I will use a war game called Assault: Tactical Combat in Europe 1985. This game was created in 1983. Since the M1 Abrams wasn't proven in combat until Operation Desert Storm in 1991, no one really knew how it would perform against Soviet built tanks. The designers of the game system may have skewed the rules in order to make the game more enjoyable rather than making it realistic. What I am saying is, the M1 Abrams may not be as effective in game as we know it was in actual historical combat situations. The rules give a chance to the Soviet player so that it is not a one-sided affair.

There will be a posting order. Obviously, I will start the IC thread with the setting, a map and the order of battle for both sides as well as their Mission Essential Tasks and Conditions as defined by their higher headquarters. Once you have chosen a side and I have acknoweldged your commitment by placing your name adjacent to the position in this post below, then you can make a post in the IC thread. Soviet players would do well in coordinating their attack together.

The US player will post first after my initial post as he is on the defense. This engagement simulates the theoretical invasion of West Germany by the former Soviet Union in 1985. The US Player will have 72 hours in game time to create a defense he deems sufficient to perform his mission. He may request 500 square miles of minefields, but will most likely get a minefield significantly less than that as the Division Engineers and his own Armor and Infantry troops are building the obstacles he is requesting.

Once the US Player has completed his post, the Soviet player(s) may make their posts. There are several items I specifically request players include in each post, except the first US player's post. Here are the items I will need to resolve situations as they occur in the game.

1. Route. State any and all units that are going to move. What direction are they traveling and along what routes. We will use Google maps to determine locations. Feel free to identify locations, however you feel comfortable with, whether you state the road name or use Lat/Long coordinates by right clicking on Google maps.
2. Distance. How far will your units move? Each game round will reflect 15 minute in game time. Don't worry about judging how far your units will move in 15 minutes. I will take care of that. Just because your tank has a maximum speed of 45 MPH, does not mean it is actually traveling at 45 MPH. The game system will restrict speed depending upon the terrain type your vehicles are moving along. What I am looking for is, if your units could move as far as you would like them to go, state that. This way, in the absence of guidance, I will continue to move them along the path and distance you have requested.
3. Actions on Contact. When your units spot the enemy or opposition units spot your units, contact is established. State your intention prior to contact so I know what to do when contact happens. I will ask you for random number generations that I will use to help resolve contact. I am looking for a plan for Actions on Contact. What do your tanks do? What do your ATGM systems do? What do your mounted and dismounted infantry units do?
4. Ammunition Type. Please state what type of ammunition your units will use when contact is established. This is a list of the various types of ammunition available:
A. Anti-Armor Rounds

1. AP: The main Armor Piercing rounds for both sides is the hyper velocity, armor piercing fin stabilized, discarding sabot (HVAPFSDS) round.

2. APDU: Armor Piercing, Depleted Uranium ammunition is similar to AP with a special penetrator core made from uranium.

3. HEAT: High Explosive Anti Tank

4. Msl: Anti Tank Guided Missiles (ATGM) are extremely accurate AT weapons with HEAT warheads.

5. SCAP: Small Caliber Armor Piercing rounds are fired by Heavy Machineguns and small cannons.

B. Conventional Rounds

1. HE: High Explosive (artillery & mortars)

2. SCHE: Small Caliber High Explosive. (grenade launchers)

3. SA: Small Arms (machine guns and rifles)

4. APERS: The Anti Personnel round fired by US tanks consists of a round, which is packed with thousands of flechettes. The gunner selects a range (up to 1500 meters) at which the round will detonate. When it detonates, the flechettes are released as a cloud of lethal projectiles still traveling at high velocities along the ballistic path of the round with devastating effect on non-armored targets.

5. IS/WP: Incendiary Smoke rounds are filled with White Phosphorus which not only creates a good deal of smoke but also burns at extremely high temperatures. An exploding WP round thus is an extremely deadly weapon against non-armored targets.

5. Call for Fire. Your company has Indirect Fire and Close Air Support assets available. Only US Company HQs which contains the Fire Support Team (FIST), US Reconnaissance, USSR Battalion HQs, USSR Reconnaissance and USSR Observation Post (OP) units may call in indirect fire and/or close air Support. I will state in the beginning what Air assets are available in your Area of Operations and what Indirect Fire assets are available. Note: any IF or CAS missions requested in the current round will arrive in the next round. There is a chance that a moving target will move before your IF or CAS mission arrives.

When requesting Indirect Fire, please state requesting unit, firing unit, target location (spot on the ground), ammunition type and enemy contents of target location.

When requesting CAS, please state requesting unit, air unit type, target location (spot on the ground) and enemy contents of target location. The pilot of an air unit will have a little leeway to adjust onto a moving target; which makes a CAS mission more desirable over an IF mission. However, the air units in your AO are covering a division or corps frontage and my or may not be available when you make your request. Artillery and mortars are much more reponsive to calls for fire because they belong to you.

6. Miscellaneous. Please state any other actions your unit(s) would perform this round if you find them to be relevant. This could involve attempting to rally broken units or repair malfunctioned equipment.

7. Random Number Generation. Please visit Random.org/integers and enter the following numbers into the boxes provided. Generate 30 random integers. Each integer should have a value between 0 and 9. Format in 5 columns. After hitting the Get Numbers button, you should see 30 random numbers between 0 and 9 in five columns. Copy the numbers into a hider tag at the bottom of your post. I will use these numbers to resolve combat. Some numbers will be used together to form a percentile and some will be used in consulting a combat results chart to determine outcomes. The Number 0 will be either used to represent the number 0 in the case of percentiles and the number 10 when used to consult the combat resolution chart.

Example of setting up the hider tag as follows:

[ hider = Random numbers] 3	7	2	7	9
1	0	8	2	0
5	4	9	9	2
2	2	9	7	1
0	3	7	5	0
6	6	0	1	0[ / hider ]

(Remove the spaces from the hider tag above)
This is what it looks like when you get it right:

3 7 2 7 9
1 0 8 2 0
5 4 9 9 2
2 2 9 7 1
0 3 7 5 0
6 6 0 1 0

Positions available
US Company Commander - Hotshot
Soviet Company Commander - CommunistZed
Soviet Company Commander - Ragnarok
Soviet Company Commander - JarlWolf
Soviet Recon Company Commander - Red Beret
Soviet Battalion Commander - TBD (May cover this and another Soviet position.)


One of you is Company Commander, B company, 1-33 AR, 3AD (US) and tasked with defending the Fulda Gap depicted on the map below. Your Company consists of 14x M1 Abrams MBTs, 4x M901 improved tow vehicles (ITV), 4x M2 infantry fighting vehicles (IFV) with 24 dismounts, and 2x M3 cavalry fighting vehicles (CFV). The company will have one battery of M109 155mm SP artillery in direct support (DS). The Armor Company Team is organized into one company headquarters section (2 M1 MBTs), three armor platoons, one mechanized infantry platoon, two ITV sections, and one scout section. Potential air units available in your Area of Operations (AO) include F-16s, A-10s, F-15s, F-104s and Panavia Tornados.

The rest will be a Soviet Company Commander, commanding one of three Tank Companies or a Reconnaissance Company. The tank companies consist of 10x T-80 MBTs and 3x BMP-B & 21 dismounts. These companies are organized into one company headquarters section (1 T-80 MBT), three tank platoons and one mechanized infantry platoon.

The Soviet Recon company consists of 4x BMP-Bs and 4x BRDM-2s organized into four recon sections with 2 BMPs in each of two sections and two BRDMs in each of the other two sections.

If someone wishes to RP as the Soviet Battalion Commander, he will have authority over the three tank companies and one Recon company as well as a battery of 122mm (SP) howitzers and an OP Section that can provide Indirect fire and CAS support if needed. Potential air units available in your Area of Operations (AO) include Su-25s, MiG-25s and MiG-27s. Air Defense Artillery (ADA) assets are under Brigade Combat Team (BCT) and Division control.

Bad Hersfeld, Germany (50.864695,9.699841)

US/USSR Weapon System Range Data

[Hotshot]

Woot. That is all, gentlemen.

[Gunther]

Communist zed wants in. I'll reserve a tank company for him.

[Ragnarok]

This looks incredably unique, I'd definately be interested in trying my hand as a Soviet Company Commander.

[Gunther]

2 slots left.

[Red Beret]

Still a bit tentative, but consider me in. Soviet Company Commander, though I'm willing to take on Recon if someone else doesn't want it.

[JarlWolf]

I am certainly interested in this. This seems like a fun game, and I both would like to meet you Gunther, and I would like to get re acquainted with you Ragnarok. It's been a while. Not only that, Fulda Gap is probably one of the more debated Cold War scenario's out there.

My only concern is that due to medical appointments later this month, I would be unresponsive for a week and some days.


Ragnarok, if you need to contact me, my Skype name is the same as my username here.



I would wish to sign up for a Soviet Commander. I have yet to decide if I will take a company, Tank Battalion or Recon.
Let me know what your stance is on me joining Gunther. If you feel that my absence later on would be too much a strain, I'll happily just watch this. This has piqued my interest.

[Gunther]

The remaining Tank Company will consist of 3 Tank platoons of 3 tanks per platoon, one company HQs, which consists of one tank (the CO), and a Mech Platoon consisting of 3 BMPs and 21 dismounted infantry, 7 soldiers per vehicle. The Recon company consists of four recce sections with two vehicles per. According to normal Soviet doctrine, the Recon Company would approach Bad Hersfeld from the two different routes given on the map. the tanks would approach behind them, not right on their tails, but at a distance so they can react to whatever the recce sections find. It is in my expectation that the recce sections would be slaughtered, but there is a chance tehy may get through undetected. regardless, the Recon Company mission is up front and often times over before the rest of the battalion established contact.

Is there one of you who would like to be the overall Battalion commander?

- - - Updated - - -

While CommunistZed, Ragnarok, Red Beret and JarlWolf discuss who will take on the responsibilities of the Battalion Commander, I'll put an IC thread together. Other than coming up with an overall plan for the team the Battalion commander gets an Artillery OP unit to control. This unit is capable of calling in Indirect Fire and CAS missions (Su-25 Frogfoot).

[Red Beret]

I suppose it's really a matter of who wants it, first. If we manage to establish that no one actually wants the position, we can move on to who's willing to take it, haha. I don't really fancy the position myself, but I'll take it if need be. For the good of the Motherland.

[CommunistZed]

I suppose it's really a matter of who wants it, first. If we manage to establish that no one actually wants the position, we can move on to who's willing to take it, haha. I don't really fancy the position myself, but I'll take it if need be. For the good of the Motherland.

This, though I sorta fancy the position a little bit.