Bolt out of the Blue 5.3

[Aaron]

On the SSMs, I assume this means they now can be used like super long ranged artillery? Not having seen the values, can't fully comment but just curious - why the change?

If they have decent HA and SA values this may be a pretty big deal.

During my studys of WP war org and tactics they yes would have been used as deep strike, 4500kg HE SS-23, off the top of my head, 4700kg on the SS-21. Of course early on would most likely be used on airfields and communications but in the end they would have been used on the front, thats the reason every WP division had a Bn of 4 assigned to the division. Of course 4 is to small following my law of 8 and 4 would not do a whole lot of damage but i did add ALL Army and Front level Bdes.

Scud, HA 6 SA 9
SS-21 and SS-23 15 HA 18 SA

will not make a big difference in the game as half are scuds with a slow fire rate and inaccurate.

The biggest changes are the finishing of WP war org and Spetsnaz making things uneasy for the Nato player in the rear plus the addition of the Soviet airborne supply hexs will let more divisions drop on first turn to add to the chaos.

Some further thoughts:

1. Had you given any weight to an Explicit Supply version of Bolt? The reason I ask is that airborne supply works more elegantly with explicit supply. The permanent supply hexes help with initial drops, but can become somewhat peculiar later on, acting as potential "islands" where surrounding forces can avoid isolation. Of course, the permanent supply points NATO has in many cities do the same thing, but generally that is considered a necessary trade-off. Explicit supply is a bunch more units, granted...

No, alot of work on my end to just make that happen and then ur adding all those units to the oob which adds even more time to the turns, instead of taking 3 hours to take your turn ull be taking 4 because u gotta move your suppy units. Just think of those supply hexs as aerial resupply either by plane or helo

2. Given the idea of creating havoc in the NATO rear, I am wondering if the NATO interior ministry and police units need further representation. The reason I ask is that presently a Pact 100 man Spetznaz unit can take over a major West German city in many places without opposition unless a regular army unit is sent that way. These tiny units running rampant can play even more havoc now with the SSM fire they can bring to bear...

Problem here is if you add them then u gotta add there EGerman counterpart and what are you really getting out of adding 200 units to the map on top of grid lock it will cause. In the case of SF units overall its hard to portray them in this game besides deploying them into deception mode. Most would have operated in small 4 to 15 man units and we cant do that just because of the amount of units it would add so we have company sized units that portray there operational area which is its deception range of 4 hexs. On top of that ive added some various other types off Spetsnaz to try to show what they could do within the game mechanics but the biggest problem is there to easy to kill, there only way of escape is to go into deception mode and it real life they wouldnt have been so easy to kill but here we can corner a whole company and wipe them out and that just wouldnt have happened IRL so by adding more units to stop them i dont think it would be fair to these units who are already handicapped. When they take a VP hex in a city i really dont see them as capturing the city just a city block as they really do not control anything and there easy to get rid of.

3. Speaking further of SSM's, wouldn't their entry into conventional combat calculations also implicate other assets tasked to their destruction, such as medium range NATO fighter bombers like the F111 and even heavier aircraft like the B52?

i mentioned above theres not many of these units and because they are units of 8 and 12 also takes away from the damage they do because they are not units of 18 or 24. As far as more assets, B52 is a strategic weapon and F111 more on the interdiction side of things which even though there isnt a F111 unit they are still in the game as interdiction happens and if they interdict a SSM unit well we all know what happens to light MOT vehicles plus now that SSMs can fire conventionally theres that small chance they can be spotted and fired opon themselves.

I realize this is the ultimate update, so these questions are more for historical value. There are so many imponderables about how this war would have played out that we will never have a final answer.

i myself dont think Nato airforces would have played a major roll on the frontlines, they would have had there handsfull just trying to get air superiority and interdiction when they can. The shear numbers of Pact aircraft even in alot of cases inferior it comes down to do would you what 24 F15s or 72 Mig21s.

Thanks again for a great mod.

[/b]Sorry if my reply seems chopped up its been written in 8 different phases now and i cant even remember whats at the top[b]