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Author Topic: The Wargame Before the War  (Read 4624 times)

Tolstoi

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on: March 03, 2022, 09:38:33 AM
War on the Rocks has an article about a wargame conduced by the Marine Corps University before the Russians invaded Ukraine. From a wargaming perspective this is a very interesting read. Here are the first two paragraphs:

Quote
In the two weeks prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Marine Corps University ran a four-day wargame to simulate the first several days of just such an invasion. One of us ran the wargame while the others played the Ukrainian and Russian forces. Despite a few stark differences, the current Russian offensive is playing out in ways eerily similar to that simulation.

By the time the wargame ended, the overall situation appeared very much as it does on the ground in Ukraine, with only two major deviations. First, the Russians have pushed harder out of Belarus to the west of the Dneiper — north of Kyiv — to strike the city from the rear.  And secondly, the Russian assault in Kherson was temporarily  halted, as the axis of advance in the south for a time turned northeast toward Mariupol. Both of these actions were, however, discussed by the players in the wargame.

Link to the full article: The Wargame Before the War: Russia Attacks Ukraine



besilarius

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Reply #1 on: March 06, 2022, 12:57:15 PM

"These things must be done delicately-- or you hurt the spell."  - The Wicked Witch of the West.
"We've got the torpedo damage temporarily shored up, the fires out and soon will have the ship back on an even keel. But I would suggest, sir, that if you have to take any more torpedoes, you take 'em on the starboard side."   Pops Healy, DCA USS Lexington.


besilarius

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Reply #2 on: March 06, 2022, 01:20:06 PM
Just got a bit of a memory.
In about 1976, we had a Intel presentation.  The chief giving this seemed very sharp.
He said, the Soviets weren't capable of driving through Germany to the English Channel.
I read a lot of SPI material on the next war.  Did he think the british, Dutch, and Belgians could stop the Red army?
"The tires on all their trucks are fucking g bald."

"These things must be done delicately-- or you hurt the spell."  - The Wicked Witch of the West.
"We've got the torpedo damage temporarily shored up, the fires out and soon will have the ship back on an even keel. But I would suggest, sir, that if you have to take any more torpedoes, you take 'em on the starboard side."   Pops Healy, DCA USS Lexington.


besilarius

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Reply #3 on: March 06, 2022, 03:13:38 PM
https://m.facebook.com/keksifarm.hayday?fref=nf&rc=p

Tom Cooper on Facebook is posting very detailed info on the conflict.
I honestly haven't figured out who he is.  Davis Isby seems to like his work.

"These things must be done delicately-- or you hurt the spell."  - The Wicked Witch of the West.
"We've got the torpedo damage temporarily shored up, the fires out and soon will have the ship back on an even keel. But I would suggest, sir, that if you have to take any more torpedoes, you take 'em on the starboard side."   Pops Healy, DCA USS Lexington.


bayonetbrant

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Reply #4 on: March 06, 2022, 05:13:36 PM
guys, let's keep this thread focused on wargame-specific info.  We have an opt-in-only channel on on Discord for discussion of the conflict itself.

It's not ideal in that it's a different place than the forums, but it's a lot easier to manage an opt-in categorization of users over there than over here.

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DrCruel

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Reply #5 on: March 13, 2022, 07:53:35 PM
https://m.facebook.com/keksifarm.hayday?fref=nf&rc=p

Tom Cooper on Facebook is posting very detailed info on the conflict.
I honestly haven't figured out who he is.  Davis Isby seems to like his work.

Tom Cooper is an Austrian aerial warfare analyst and historian. Following a career in the worldwide transportation business – during which he established a network of contacts in the Middle East and Africa – he moved into narrow-focus analysis and writing on small, little-known air forces and conflicts, about which he has collected extensive archives. This has resulted in specialisation in Middle Eastern, African and Asian air forces. As well as authoring and co-authoring 560 books and over 1,000 articles, he has co-authored the Arab MiGs book series – a six-volume, in-depth analysis of the Arab air forces at war with Israel, in the 1955–73 period. Cooper has been working as editor of the five @War series since 2017.

He posted who he is here:
https://www.helion.co.uk/people/tom-cooper.php?sid=419b5355bfcadffb398bdf1b6b850639&fbclid=IwAR3Wdm-eVw_65yJCqTT9MhC9h7Pj6RKXTpd_QVzpHoMlSQWZ6MJW-Gsz6-M

The link is accessible from his Facebook page. Find his "Learning from History" cartoon and get to it from there.



Tolstoi

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Reply #6 on: April 09, 2022, 10:00:11 AM
The Marine Corps University's wargame about the Russo-Ukraine war that happened a couple weeks before the shooting started and reported about in War on the Rocks in early March, was reopened by the Marine Corps War College and Brute Krulak Center. They report on the results at the Modern War Institute: Wargaming a Long War: Ukraine Fights On

To game an entire year of the war in a reasonable amount of time they changed the turn scale from one day per turn to three months per turn. This meant a greater amount of abstraction, so I'm curious to see how closely this follows events and decisions political and military leaders make in the future. One of the surprises to me was the comparison to World War I in 1915, because currently, neither side has the forces, nor the supplies, to begin any major attacks.

I'm also not sure how they handled Putin is accurate. I guess only time will tell. If anything, read the Observation section, as that is a good summation of their wargame of the Russo-Ukraine war.