NATO, WAPA and the indefensibility of LandJut in NGP and D85

[JDR Dragoon]

First playtest finished:

A bit of a kerfuffle: NATO forces were virtually wiped out by the end, but they managed to claw a big chunk out of their WAPA opposites. Still, a comfortable "Major Victory" to WAPA with a margin af over 200 points (would have been more if I hadn´t asked the WAPA player to refrain from moving units off-board so I could assess damage after the battle).

-The theme of the scenario ended up being one of NATO forces being defeated in detail. WAPA spent the first 48 hours eating the german 6th PzG at odds warying starting at 3:1 and ending at 6:1 , then fights and wins a meeting engagement with the Jutland Division near the Kieler Canal and spends the rest of the scenario hunting the sorry remnants of both formations to the north. The arrival of the Jutland battlegroup and the UKMF allows NATO to hold out for a ½ day on a line running from Flensburg to the North Sea where the penisula is at its narrowest. After then it was game over.

-Another theme was a WAPA supply crunch during the last 48 hours, stemming from the fact that about 1/3rd of the supply trucks they receive arrive so late and so far away that they have no influence on the scenario. This will of course also have to be rectified.

I can see 4 possible ways to balance this scenario out:

-One variant would look pretty close to the one we are playing now (essentially the stock DF 85 AFNORTH scenario with some more danes thrown in). It should only be played on the premasis that the optional rules for "Explicit Supply" and "Artillery Setup" is in effect. The belgians make a return (mostly to provide NATO with "Deception" capable units and because it is a part of the DF85 timeline). WAPA supply trucks arriving as reinforcements will be spawned at the on-map supply depots instead of at the eastern map edge and their arrival schedule will be sped up a notch

-Variant two is like variant one but also features the german Territorial forces in the area (2 weak infantry brigades and a semi-armoured infantry brigade plus some extra engineers and artillery). This one should be playable without "Artillery Setup" and "Explicit Supply" as madndatory optional rules

-Variant three will be like variant one, but with less WAPA forces (Strike one polish Mech Division, one polish artillery Brigade, the polish airborne and Marine units, one East German Motorrifle Regiment plus sundry army level troops from the WAPA OOB. These forces would have gone to invade the danish isles east of the Great Belt). The area of Hamburg will be greyed out of the playing map as well (it is not the players responsibility as LandJut commander to defend the city). This one should also be playable without "Artillery Setup" and "Explicit Supply" as mandatory

-Variant four will be exactly like variant one, only with NATO forces being given 72-96 hours of warning instead of less than 24 (a "prepared" variant if you will). This will allow more forces to have reached the area of operations before the war breaks out. This one should also be playable without Explicit supply or artillery setup.

I am also toying with the idea of making another scenario that is not based on the DF 85 timeline:

-"LandJut: The likely reality 1985". This one would feature slightly longer warning time for NATO (72-96 hours instead of the less than 24 that the stock DF 85 scenarios are based on). This would mean that more troops will be able to reach their planned defensive positions before war breaks out. On the flip side the Warsaw Pact also gets stronger (WAPA forces and their planned uses will be based on the plan complex used in the two Warsaw Pact exercises "Val 1977" and "Soyuz 1983" found in the former East German archives) and the scenario will be heavy on Nukes which both players will be able to use at will (whether they actually do so is of course up to the players). This scenario is meant to reflect the likely reality of a 1985 conflict to as large a degree as the game allows. I am not sure it will be very fun to play since it is mostly meant as a "recreation" of history (albeit a history that never happened), but I suppose there will be some players to whom the idea of a nuclear fuelled slugfest will be appealing ;).