Welcome to Cold War Gamer, a blog I am using to record my Cold War wargaming projects. These range from fictitious Cold War hot projects to historical conflicts that took place around the globe throughout the Cold War era, all modelled and gamed in 20mm. The blog includes links to various resources useful to the Cold War Gamer.

My current projects include: Central Front; British & Soviet. South African Border War; Angolans and South Africans. Soviet Afghan War; Soviets and Afghans

Friday 28 August 2015

Review - Magazine Wargames Illustrated 335 September 2015

In my youth I was always a great fan of Wargames Illustrated enjoying the pictures as much as the articles.  Having supplied some pictures for a Cold War article in this months issue which takes as its theme the concept of  "What If" games they kindly sent me a copy.  



This months issue builds to an extent on Issue 324s Cold War theme but with a slightly different take hopefully this will be but part of an increased level of coverage of the post war modern period generally and more specificaly the Cold War.  Cold War as a period has been slowly gaining in popularity in both 15mm and 20mm with an expanding range of figures and models from a range of manufacturers and a widening range of rules suitable for gaming the period including such titles as Force on Force, Fist Full of Tows (2 or 3),  Battlegroup and Cold War Commander amongst others, these provide focus across the scales from the more traditional Modern gaming scale of 6mm to 15mm, 20mm and 28mm.


The imminent entry of Flames of War into the 15mm Cold War Gameing arena with it's Team Yankee rule set and a developing line of miniatures is inevitably driving an increased amount of interest in the period and with new sets of rules in the pipeline from TFL, Iron Fist publications and Third Generation Warfare  the heat is seriously being turned up on the Cold War.  The Flames of War gang have already published a range of images on their impending offerings covered on the Breakthrough Assault Blog and the release rate from other 15mm manufacturers seems to be cranking up to meet the inevitable demand.



This months WI issue contains three articles focused on Cold War Conflict two fitting in with the "What If" theme and one on the design of the Third Generation Warfare rule set by Nick Ayres that underpined the Leicester Phat Cats Salute demonstration and is accompanied by some pics of that game.



The other two articles are focused on the magazines What If theme one looks at Soviet Regimental Cold War Tactics the other is an excellent look at Opperation Mikado the proposed SAS raid onto the Argentinian Mainland in the flaklands war.

The Cold War article penned by Jeremy Richardson has a focus on the Advanced Guard, and scenario development from that as well as covering the sequencing of assault river crossings and Air Assault.  It talks through the Joy of 3mm gaming and takes a look at Cold War Commanders mechanisms for simulating the friction of war (one of the great features in that set of rules). It  closes around a look at model availability from 3mm - 20mm and approaches to dealing with the larger scales all up an eminiently readible and useful article with some great eye candy.



The second article is written by Roger Gerrish with contributions on the modelling front by Phil Lewis.  The article covers in a degree of detail the historical background to the proposed SAS raid on mainland Argentina during the Falklands war, the historical content being quite fascinating of itself.  It then looks at scenario development and forces for both sides for a series of Force on Force games looking at differnt aspects of the plan and rounds out with a look at terrain and creating the Pink Panthers or Green Hornets of the SAS all up a very enjoyable read.



The ideas from this article will readily translate to a few central front games I am contemplating as I have recently been looking at strategic Desant operations including Spetznaz deployments and airfield siezures in Northern Germany to which many of the ideas presented by Roger readily map. I might need to swap the Herc for an AN 24 and the Green Hornet landrovers for some Lu-947 weapon carriers, however the concepts presented for terrain and scenario generation would work well in creating a series of skirmish games around the initial airfield seizure befor I air land the air mechanised VDV regiment and conduct some subsequent operations, which is more the scale I like to play at.

All up an excellent edition building on the October 2014 Cold War issue reviewed by Richard C over at Cold War Hot Hot Hot. The WI Issues with Modern Themes are:




Sunday 2 August 2015

Review - Web Resources, Soviet Armed Forces 1945 - 1991


The Web site, Soviet Armed Forces 1945 - 1991 offers a view of the Soviet Armed Forces from 1945 to 1991 for a range of Soviet Armed Forces.  Under each of the force areas it organises its data to look at the various sub components and provide an overview of the source material used, most of this would appear to be Russian.  The principal areas of the armed forces covered are:
So under Air Force it lists all the Soviet Air Armies and under each lists the units under command and their locations.  Likewise for the Army it lists the Armies although organisational information is not currently available for all, it is for a majority. The information is organised from a number of perspectives  and the site provides a number of ways to traverse the data and find the information being sought. Views are provided for each of the principal arms of service so you can also review by Tank Divisions, Motor Rifle Division, Fortified Areas orArtillery Divisions amongst others or you can drill down through the isted armies.  

For the Army a range of sources are quoted the site data seems heavily underpinned by a number of Feskovs works and CFE data.  Information provided includes activation and deactivation dates, base locations and major equipments where available.  Much of this is CFE data so drawn from the back end of the Cold War. The more traditional Orbat,  which units belonged to which divisions covers the whole of the period specified, at least for the Army. The Site scope is broad and  is still a work in progress.

Having tried to translate with google a number of the reference documents some one trying too publish this data in english is a bit of a godsend. It will be interesting to see how the site develops but it is already looking like a bit of a treasure trove.



Related Web Resources:

Review-Web Resources, Voroshilov Academy Lectures
Review-Web Resources, The Essentials of Cold War Soviet Doctrine and Organisation for Free