Anyone Want To Buy Some Poo?

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Cold War, Dosotoyevsky, plutonium, poo, Pu-239, Russian

Is it a black comedy, or is it a tragedy?

Perhaps it is a sign of its quality that one can’t really tell.

Pu-239 was released in 2006. The film was based on a 1999 short story, and was originally shown in the Toronto International Film Festival as The Half Life of Timofey Berezin. Following its positive reception there, HBO picked it up the following year and released it under the films working title, also the title of the short story.

The film follows two characters. One is a technician in a nuclear processing facility who, through the incompetence and malfeasance of the operators of the facility is severely contaminated by a nuclear mishap. The second is a low-level gangster on the streets of Moscow who, through the ignorance of his comrades, takes on a debt to the local crime lord which he is unable to pay. When the two meet, they appear to be perhaps the only way out of each other’s crisis.

The movie gets into the physics of nuclear radiation, and as far as I could tell does so accurately, but it is not a scientific movie. The descriptions of atomic particles are more metaphorical, drawing parallels with the human drama which is occurring. One assumes (again, I haven’t read the short story) that this much was taking from the literary source when the film was created. Likewise, the portrayal of the post-Soviet-collapse Russian society seems pretty spot on, as far as I could tell. But, once again, the focus is not on trying to paint a picture of the time and place.

The story is very vaguely based on actual incidents. The story was set in 1995, and at that time there were several cases of stolen nuclear material from ex-Soviet facilities. Some of the cases were disgruntled workers, and other were just citizens finding themselves in a newly- “captitalist” society and trying to make their fortune (both of which ARE themes of the film). In one incident, some stolen Plutonium was traced to a facility called Arzamas-16 during the Cold War. The town, which did not exist on any map, was the location of a nuclear weapons design facility. Arzamas-16, or sometimes Kremlyov, was renamed Sarov in 1995. As far as I know, the details of the theft were never discovered. The Plutonium was recovered in Munich during attempted sale and was traced back to the Russian facility through its radiological signature.

The city in the movie is called Skotoprigonyevsk-16, which is not a real location. In fact, Skotoprigonyevsk itself is taken from The Brothers Karmazov, where it is revealed (at the very end of the novel) to be the location of “our town.” The name was probably intended to sound “made up” in the Dosotoyevsky and certainly intended to evoke a place apart from the big city (Dosotoyevsky’s St. Petersburg or Pu-239‘s Moscow) – remote, rural, and culturally disconnected. In 1995, the cultural disconnect was between the Soviet hierarchy where scientists and their military research commanded respected and status, and the “New Russian” mobsters who grew instantly rich and became to dominate and, indeed, define modern Russia.

Unlike some of my other recent reviews, this is not a foreign-language production. See the trailer and cover-art, I actually assumed that it was. Although I should have known, the “translated” title is Ru-239 using Cyrillic characters, one of those Hollywood devices that really gets me spun up, although for most of the movie the Russian translations (and the non-Russian actors’ Russian accents) seem quite a bit more authentic. While filmed in Romania, it was obviously intended for the English-speaking consumer. Nonetheless, it is a independent film that, despite critical attention and the backing of HBO (Time Warner), seemed to have mostly slid under the radar.

It’s a shame. This is a fine little story that translates well to the screen. For those that would appreciate it (and it’s not going to appeal to the masses), it will be unfortunately if they never know what they are missing. Even if I don’t know what to call it.

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He Told Us Where We Stand

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Cold War, Farewell to the Master, science fiction, social contract, The Day the Earth Stood Still, UN

The Day the Earth Stood Still came out in 1951, just as the Korean War was grinding to a stalemate. Korea is never mentioned in the movie, although the film’s Washington DC certainly has a very high military presence that indicates this is a “wartime” setting.

As seems to be popular with movies of the era, the film has plenty of famous locations shown. The monuments and sights of Washington DC are featured prominently, even though the actual filming took place elsewhere. Similarly, the reaction of “the World” to events is show by flashing people in London, Paris, etc., set against some landmark scenery from each location. At least, all of the place except one. The shot of Moscow is an obvious fake, for obvious reasons.

In general, the cinematography is a mixed bag. Along the same lines as above, the film opening shot is a descent from outer space. It’s meant to, I’m sure, dazzle the film-goer with sights he’s probably never seen outside of the theater. Today, the “special effects” shot from space looks pretty hokey. Once actual footage from aircraft is mixed in, it begins to look a lot better. From a technical standpoint, that pretty much sets the stage for the whole film. The special effects are frightfully bad.  The shots of regular people look considerable better. Particularly closeups stood out with that genuine style that seems unique to the black-and-white medium.

The film’s story also improves once in moves away from the space man and laser beams of the opening. I initially found the alien pretty annoying as he smirked at the petty humans around him, but once he decides to hide himself among the hoi polloi, the character and the story improve.

I’m quite sure I watched this at least once as a kid, but I honestly didn’t remember anything except the space man and laser beams. If you also don’t remember the story, I’m going to go ahead a ruin it for you. He dies.

But seriously…

The concept is that this man from outer space comes to our planet with a warning. As our warlike species is developing the technology for intergalactic travel, the various aliens in our vicinity who, up to this point have been content to leave us alone, now grow very concerned about our ability to threaten them via nuclear and space technology. They’ve developed a Doomsday Machine, of sorts, that we risk triggering, resulting in the annihilation of our species if we don’t find within us the capacity for peace and love. Or something like that.

The suspension of disbelief for the 1951 audience may have been fairly high when it comes to science fiction. I like my science fiction hard, as I like my… well, never mind that. Point is, I like the “science” to make some sense. This one has a lot of holes, some of which significantly distract from the story. As an example, there are some things the aliens know with perfect knowledge, and other things they don’t understand at all. Is there any possible logic to it except that it made for clever dialog?

Another incongruous detail to my sensibility, likely generational, is the portrayal of the military. First off, there are men in uniform everywhere. Street scenes almost always feature a soldier in uniform as one of the bystanders. This may have been normal and/or expected in post-World War II America, or at this phase of the Korean War. It may even be normal for Washington DC today – I tried to avoid that wretched hive of scum and villainy if at all possible. I was also impressed with the eagerness and rapidity that martial law could be declared and implemented. Furthermore, the portrayal of martial law is as an unequivocal common good. The populous and the audience accepts the quick intervention of the military as the right and proper defense against an unknown threat – this despite the fact that it is ineptitude by members of the same that escalate the crisis in the first place, several times throughout the film shooting alien Klaatu.

By comparison, the source for the story, a magazine published short story “Farewell to the Master” is written (and set) before the U.S.’s entry into the Second World War. In that version, it is a “lunatic” who murders Klaatu. He is killed, in fact, before he can do anything to explain his presence. Thus the message of “Peace and Love or Die!” is not part of the story. Also, the resurrection of Klaatu by the robot, included in both the movie and the book, has a little more SciFi continuity in the book form. In that, the robot simply struggles to recreate Klaatu (from his voice? well, OK) and, ultimately fails to be entirely successful. Klaatu is regenerated, but imperfectly, and quickly dies again. No such explanation, except for some pseudo-spirituality, surrounds the movie Klaatu’s recovery from his second and fatal shooting.

The simultaneous acceptance of martial law and criticism of the military (the shootings plus the failure of the “brass” to appreciate Klaatu’s mission) is in fact in line with the message of the filmmaker. If not already obvious, it is a post-World War II call for increasing the role of the United Nations in world affairs, and the deemphasization, if not elimination, of nationalism.

It also explains what, to me, looks like a contradiction. Even to the most imaginative, it is hard to understand how any process of the United Nations could approach Gort’s Doomsday Machine. The best the U.N. was capable of was (and remains) bringing in a “coalition of the willing” on the side with the casus belli. The more comprehensible analogy is the submission of the individual and his freedom to the power of the State. Thus the State, as just ruler, deserves deference when mobilizing to protect us. It deserves scorn when it acts the self-centered individual, and squabbles with other States.

The filmmaker may or may not have fully thought through this analogy, beyond what was necessary to make his point. The ability of the State to annihilate the individual who breaks his “social contract” is not only valid, but necessary. Without the, as modern parlance would have it, “nuclear option,” there will remain insufficient motivation to accept the social contract except when it is convenient. That may seem extreme, but 65 years of experience with U.N. intervention has not lead to the realization of that ideal, peaceful world. The Superpowers may not (as of yet) started World War III, but it unlikely that the U.N. has been a particular deterrent. Where the U.N. has intervened, questions do arise about the judgment, effectiveness, and motivation of that intervention. Furthermore, wars between minor countries continue, and the major powers continue to bypass the U.N. when global politics make it necessary.

The film may be dated and the sentiment may be naive, but the debate over the benefits of an omnipotent but benevolent overlord continue apace. In the U.S. we continue to fight against the ever-growing power of our government. In places like England, the extent of control that the government exercises over the populace would have been unthinkable in 1951. Similarly, the push towards one-world government and the dissolution of national boarders continues to gain momentum.

Perhaps “Klaatu barada nikto” is the only real answer.

Cold War, Reggae Style

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CMANO, Cold War, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Tropico 3, Trujillo

I continue to toy with the Tropico 3 scenarios, and I’ve yet to crack open Tropico 4.

The latest scenario is based, very loosely, on Jamaica and its independence moves in the late 1950s and final decolonization in 1962. The key, says the scenario description, is to move away from the agricultural and raw materials markets that were controlled by Great Britain and develop a self-sufficient industrial economy. All the while, as is the key to the game, I try to stay in the right place in the middle of the Cold War politics going on around me.

Of course, as the victory conditions point out, my real goal is to stay in office through the duration of the game until 1980.

Trade has picked up and I have plenty of money. Now, if I can just get those construction workers to actually build something.

As the years advance into the 1960s, more of the game’s “color” becomes evident. Through radio broadcasts, I witness the Cuban missile crisis taking place nearby, as well as the crisis in the Dominican Republic. Perhaps because I’m getting a little better with the game, the Superpower interplay was also more evident this time around. Having secured an independence of sorts from the United Kingdom, I began courting the Soviets through my local Communist party. Although at one point I became a little too closely aligned with the Russians, I managed to shift the balance by allowing development by some U.S. -connected corporations.

I didn’t manage to anger either superpower sufficiently that they sent warships to my seas, nor did I need to align with either one for protection. I triggered (for the first time) a military conflict with a neighbor, but quickly dispatched them with some U.S. military support.

One might speculate about how many smaller countries have attempted to play such a political game, feigning alignment with communism or capitalism with absolutely know fundamental belief in the system, other than the aid and support that it will bring. Is it a reflection of the real world, or just a clever gameplay element.

Moving on to that Dominican Republic crisis, and a scenario that imagines the assassination of Trujillo took place some years earlier, triggering the installation of a communist-aligned government. As Soviet military aid begins building up on the island, the U.S. government decides it must rely on military force. The result far more detail of what it might look like when that U.S. fleet shows up in the harbor.

Time to send that Soviet equipment to the bottom of the Caribbean, where it belongs. Orange is Dominican ships and air, with the orange square in the lower left being the target of my operation.

This scenario has the player in the drivers seat. We are working with a carrier (plus escorts), a destroyer and a sub. Our task is to use a carrier strike to eliminate the Soviet equipment from our backyard. The primary goal is the airfield where Russian Migs and bombers are stationed. In addition to whatever advantages we have in force, we also have the element of surprise. We can initiate our attack at our leisure with little-to-no expectation that our presence will provoke a first response from the enemy. In the screen shot above, I’ve located what appears to be all of the enemy forces and am positioning my initial strike. I’ve also noticed that the Dominicans are out buzzing my ships and aircraft in waves, so I’d like to hit them when they’re at the end of their fuel.

This scenario has a lot going for it, and satisfies many of my earlier complaints. First of all, the what to do is pretty obvious. No need to spend days hunting for enemies that may or may not be there. Second is the operation from the position of strength. I have the numbers and decent assets, so I don’t feel that I need to solve a complex puzzle to avoid slaughter. Of course, even with all my advantages, I got creamed in the first play-through.

The scenario, at this point, also solved another complaint I’d had about CMANO scenarios. When I lost and lost big, it was glaringly obvious what I’d done wrong. And at the risk of ruining the scenario for my readers, I’ll tell you what I did. I ignored the third dimension, altitude. I left the altitude settings for all my aircraft at the default assuming, I guess, that the game could deal with it. Thus, all my bombing attacks were from high-altitude while the enemy delivered their bombs rocketing in a sea level, both evading radar and being impossible to intercept by that 36,000 ft patrol. Being so obvious what I did wrong, it became pretty easy to tweak my gameplay and vastly improve my performance in a restart.

That’s the way I like it. Uh huh.

Forest Brothers

Tags

Cold War, communism, Lithuania, netflix, Russian

This week’s movie, about to be removed from Netflix, is The Invisible Front.

This is a movie I had no idea even existed, much less was available on Netflix, until I saw that it was about to be removed. Having watched it, I see it remains available as part of the Amazon Prime offerings and so it remains available to we streaming viewers, at least for a bit more.

The film’s title comes from the Soviet name for their fight against the partisans in the Baltic States. It was so-called because, officially, no such resistance existed. According to the Russians, the anti-Soviet fighters hidden throughout the woods in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were nothing more than “bandits,” terrorizing the local populous.

The film, a documentary, is based primarily on the book Forest Brothers: The Account of an Anti-soviet Lithuanian Freedom Fighter, 1944-1948 by Juozas Lukša. Lukša escaped from Soviet occupied Lithuania, through Poland, and into the West twice. While there, he wrote the aforementioned memoir in an attempt to show the West what was happening behind the iron curtain.

From a purely technical standpoint, the documentary is decent, but not great. It consists of interview with those who knew Lukša, as well as a surprising amount of film and photographic items from his time in Lithuania and in the West. The importance of the film, however, is its subject, which is little told or known in this part of the world (and probably less so as time goes by). From that point of view, I’ve never seen another film like it. In this, it is a must-watch.

Fail-Safe

Tags

CMANO, Cold War, Command: Modern Air/Naval Operations, global thermonuclear war, Russian, wargames, World War III

Throughout the 50s and early 60s, World War III meant unleashing the strategic bombers. The nuclear strike would come as a result of the bomber crews on alert. We might know of their coming hours in advance, and may even have a chance with our defensive fighters to stop or at least mitigate the attack. Our imagination was driven, both in the public at large and in the strategic planning, by the massive bombing raids at the end of the second world war. Just bigger bombs.

Until the development of the hydrogen bomb, the combination of yield and accuracy for a rocket-launched atomic bomb far under-performed the delivery of those bomb via bomber. For this reason, as well as the political machinations within the armed forces, the post-war focus was on perfection of the strategic bomber capability. Strategic Air Command was founded in 1947 and in late 1948 was given the mission of delivering a massive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union. For the next decade, the service acquired more and better strike planes plus a refueling fleet, leading to an ability by 1957 to have a 24 hour bomber/tanker alert force.

Leading up to that point, the US had developed a decisive technological edge. US bombers, using refueling could travel across the globe to their targets. The speed and altitude capabilities of the B-47 and B-52 were such that they were largely unreachable by the MiG-15 interceptors used by the Soviets.

As the 50s drew to a close, this began to change. Both the U.S. and the Soviet Union were developing hydrogen bombs and the Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles to carry them, providing an alternative nuclear strike capability to the massed bombers. The Soviet Union, with its MiG-17 and more capable air-to-air missiles, became capable of countering the unescorted bomber attack. While this was hardly the end of American’s Strategic Bomber forces, the mid-50s represented a high-tide of sorts for Strategic Air Command.

Flying High Again

CMANO has two community-made scenarios looking at this particular period. The first explores the missions of aerial reconnaissance variants of the B-47, which were the closets this aircraft ever came to actual combat. On October 15th, 1592 a B-47B flew out of Alaska. Using special photographic and radar equipment, they  captured intelligence on  Soviet airfields Siberia. The missions carried no offensive weapons, although they were armed with tail guns. Interceptions by the Soviets were generally evaded through superior speed and altitude. According to Wikipedia, at least five B-47s were fired upon and at least three aircraft were lost while overflying Soviet airspace.

The CMANO mission appears to be based on a May 8th, 1954 top-secret reconnaissance mission, detailed here (it is story #2 from this website). It describes an unexpected encounter with the new Russian MiG-17s. The pilots expected that they were flying outside of the reach of the Russian defenses, and instead found themselves being fired upon by the new Soviet fighters.

The scenario itself is another boundary-pushing use of the CMANO engine. As the player, we have only 6 aircraft under our command and four of those are the refueling aircraft. That means we are actually commanding two aircraft in the assigned mission. This is pushing us out of the operational space and almost into the flight simulator territory.

In several attempts at the scenario, I’ve lost the first of my planes almost immediately several seconds after the appearance of a threat. Practically speaking, it means I’m left flying a single plane using the “manual” controls of the game engine.

Oh no. Here we go now. I’ve detected a SAM launch, which I manage to avoid. Not so easy is when those MiGs suddenly appear on my tail.

As I’ve written before, I’m not a fan of the puzzle-style scenario in strategy games. It’s one thing to make a scenario winnable only through planning, preparation, and judicious use of the available factors. It’s another to require that you get everything just right, or lose.

In this case, reading the story of the similar mission, we can see that the reality was considerably less deadline than the situation for a number of reasons. I wrote about this in the Korean War, how the computer pilots are much more aggressive than their communist counterparts. In this case, part of his success he credits to the fact the MiG-17 pilots didn’t push their advantage.

At the debriefing in Omaha, General LeMay asked, “Why were you not shot down?” My answer was that there was no doubt in my mind the Mig-17 pilots could have shot us down, if they had been willing to come right up our tailpipes! He made the statement that he was “. . . convinced that most fighter pilots are basically cowards anyway.”

Another problem with the scenario was found by a player and posted online. As distributed, the MiG-17s are armed with Kaliningrad K-5 (NATO designation AA-1 Alkali) air-to-air missiles. The scenario hints that one way around the Russian air defenses is to fly a night mission, but these missiles are in the CMANO database as day/night capable, as they use the aircraft radar for guidance. The missiles weren’t actually deployed on any MiGs until 1957. The scenario designer said he added them in after the original scenario development when play-testers complained that the scenario was too “easy.”

Makes me feel even more incompetent than I already did.

With the missiles in the scenario, I would tend to notice them headed for me seconds before my planes were destroyed. So I edited them out of the scenario.

Even without the missiles, and even at night, I’m continuously taken by surprise when one of the MiGs is suddenly upon me. While this part does seem to match the narrative, most interceptions become a fight to the death. As the saying goes, I have to get it right every time and the Russians only have to get it right once. So far, I’ve not been able to get it right every time.

I don’t know what the “secret” to this mission is. Taking hints from Colonel Austin’s story, it may be necessary to manage energy defensively. He was able, in some cases, to outrun his attackers by diving. It may be that the mission requires multiple sorties to gradually expose the defenses (although historically these were one-off, surprise incursions). I also wonder if I’m misusing the B-47s defensive capabilities. I don’t see any defensive measures on board, but maybe I’m missing something. I also assume that I should be flying “dark,” using my own radar only for ground surveillance. Perhaps I should also be looking for approaching enemies. I will say, though, that they’ve seemed even to sneak up on me when I have my radars on.

As interesting as it is to have a unique mission in a unique time period, I don’t think I want to keep rerunning the same scenario with no clear idea of what I’m doing wrong. For now, I’ll take a break from Strategic Air Command to look at the intervening Suez Crisis, and I’ll come back to the 1957 scenario a little later.

Skating Left to Right Across Your Radio Dial

Tags

Cold War, hockey, Red Army, Russian

Tonight’s movie was Red Army. It’s the story of the Soviet Union’s Hockey program, and in some ways the Soviet Union, as told via the career of Slava Fetisov. There were so many pieces of this to like, that it came together as a tremendous whole. From the animations of the propaganda posters in the beginning to Hockey highlights that reproduced the excitement for non-hockey fans, I thought this documentary was put together very well (despite on-line grumblings to the contrary).

Fetisov’s career is central to Russian hockey almost from its beginnings – post-Stalin to the present. For once, I’ll not give away the “surprise ending,” unless of course I just did.

I’ll just say, it was fascinating take on the Cold War through the eyes of a man who seems puzzled by what the interviewer even means by Cold War.

NATO versus Warsaw Pact, Vol. II, Part 2

Tags

Cold War, Command: Modern Air/Naval Operations, IL-2, Steel Panthers, wargames, WinSPMBT, World War III

This is a Part 2 of a two part post. Start with Part 1 here, if interested. In the previous installment, I focused on a 1955 World War III scenario in Germany. This second part moves elsewhere in the world.

As a rule, I don’t like play a strategy game as I would a First Person Shooter. Running into a “gotcha,” then reloading and trying again and again may work for some types of games, it ruins the mood for me in a historical strategy game.

Part of the historical flavor is that, while we may study the situation in detail, the commanders at the time had none of that hindsight. So any surprise that they faced at the time, to the extent that the game can model it, will be a surprise for we players only the first time through. Add to that the unpleasantness of playing the same thing over-and-over again, trying to get it right… It’s usually better to expect a scenario to be a once-through affair.

One could make the counter argument that, as a military person, your real life counterpart has undergone training well beyond even the most dedicated gamer. He knows his own people and platforms inside and out and has also studied the enemy. He may well have spent more time in preparation for an operation than you’re going to spend on the entire game. In that way, playing and replaying a given scenario can be seen as an equivalent to the years of training and experience that precedes any battle.

Wherein I Completely Spoil The Surprise

At this point, I’m going to completely spoil the scenario Waller Takes Charge, from CMANO.

If not obvious from the intro, this one took me a few times to come close to getting right. And right from the get-go, I ran into a gotcha from the scenario maker (it’s a community-made scenario).

Briefly, the scenario places us in command of the Destroyer USS Waller, near Crete at the outbreak of World War III. Quite a bit of nastiness has preceded, leaving us in command of the air wings of the USS Intrepid. We are given the base at Souda Bay, on the northern coast of Crete, and tasked with finding the remaining Soviet ships in the Mediterranean, which are estimated to include a cruiser and at least two submarines.

Nuked! That can’t be good for morale.

The opening gotcha is that, while I am concentrating on figuring out what assets I’ve got and what I’m going to be able to do with them, unbeknownst to us all (well, if you haven’t been reading this, that is), the Soviets have a flight of four Tu-4 Bulls armed with nukes headed towards the airbase.

My first time through, I sent all my planes back to base, except for a mix of fighters and surveillance, which I sent to provide cover over the Waller and her sister ship DDE Cony. It wasn’t at all clear to me how much fuel I had, and I didn’t want to risk any losses through stupidly stranding my planes too far from my new base. It didn’t help that the planes were constantly complaining that I didn’t seem to know what I was doing, given that they’d already been given the “Return To Base” order at game start.

Is there a commander alive that, at the outset of hostilities, not only fail to provide a defensive fighter patrol over his own base, but ensure that all his available aircraft are unavailable, due to refueling and rearming? That’s essentially what I was doing, and the scenario is designed to punish the play for focusing on the goal but ignoring defense. At the start of the scenario, there is already a flight of inbound Tu-4 “Bull” bombers, armed with nukes, headed for the base. With no defense, it is an instant loss, even before the start.

Doing It Right

Having failed so obviously, it didn’t feel wrong at all to load up the game from the beginning and take the appropriate precautions.

Having done so (and having stopped the threat at the cost of a few fighters), it struck me that this was another easy scenario to throw together in IL-2.

As always, it surprises me when I achieve essentially the same result in IL-2 as I’ve just seen in CMANO. In this case, I was generally able to take out the incoming bombers, although generally losing 1 or 2 fighters in the process. It took me a couple play-throughs, but ultimately I managed to take out the incoming bombers and land my plane back on Crete.

Taking down one of the bombers with my FJ-3 Fury.

The maps, complete with airbases, are all available. A little searching can spruce up the basic models with nice paint jobs. However, the one piece of the CMANO scenario I could not bring over: in the larger battle, I was using a mix of FJ-3 Furies and F2H-2 Banshees to defend the base. The latter, unfortunately, is not available in the jets package that I’m using. So my defense was all three defenders being FJ-3s.

That wasn’t very sporting. As a last flip of the finger, the dying bomber unloads its nuke. They didn’t do that in CMANO

As far as I can tell, my fighter losses in CMANO to the Tu-4 attack were all from the Bulls’ defensive gunnery. That was also true in IL-2; Approach the bombers to slowly, especially from the lower rear, and I’d find myself riddled with bullet. However, in every attempt I also lost either my plane or my wingman’s to the nuclear blast of the bomber discharging its ordnance before crashing. It makes me wonder if that was actually doctrine, either from the Soviets or the U.S.? Particularly during the 1950s when the fallout fear was less than later decades. In this particular scenario, I guess it is smart. A bomb detonated over open sea has little effect except to take out one or two enemy planes.

But I Digress

Having successfully defended my base, I tried again to focus on the mission and find the Russian subs. Once again, I was caught in another stupid mistake due to lack of attention. While I was focused on directing my air units, the Waller and the Russian counterpart drifted into range of each other and began firing. While initially panicked, I realized that I was, by far, getting the better of the situation. Unfortunately, what I didn’t watch for is that the enemy cruiser, while farther away, had a longer range on her guns, which were also considerably more deadly than the destroyer gunnery.

Found you! I’ve managed to pick up the location of the Soviet Cruiser Kuybyshev and it’s Destroyer escort. Those are my two destroyers, in blue. The green is neutral merchant shipping. It wouldn’t do to nuke them.

That prompted another reload. This time through, I concentrated on making sure I could bring everything to bear simultaneously against the Kuybyshev. I held my ships out of range until I had all my aircraft rearmed, and then moved in closer to hopefully support the results of my air attack. That’s when I found out several other pieces of information, (which a responsible commander would have known up front) the hard way.

Regular bombs (unless they are coming from enemy planes against your own ships, apparently) are fairly ineffective against moving ships. The only damage I seemed to do was with my final attack run where I used rockets. Also, the Soviet ships have a speed advantage. Keeping just out of range when the Russians want to close is not an option. Finally, the Egyptians, neutral at the start of the scenario, have an unexpected way of negating our air superiority.

Time for another reload.

At this point, I’m going to give this scenario a break. This reminded me how difficult many of the CMANO scenarios could be – in some cases puzzle-like in their solution. From the orders, one would assume a superiority in forces would be required to accomplish them. However, without some clever planning, the superiority may actually be with the enemy. It may be that only careful application of your available weapons, in just the right time and place, will allow you to overcome the otherwise impossible mission. Yes, this is an interesting problem for the commander. But it is less interesting if the nature of the threats, and the thus the combination of tactics to defeat them, is only know through multiple playthroughs.

As I started out, I find that frustrating in a strategy game.

Other Armies, Other Fronts

Just so I’m not left with no accomplishments, I also took on a another Steel Panthers scenario. This one, titled “Assault Gun Support,” imagines that World War III has spread in the opposite direction, to the north. The scenario is a counter attack with Swedish infantry support by assault guns against the Soviet aggressors (also supported by assault guns).

As always, fairly enjoyable gameplay. Also, as usually happens, I make my share of dumb mistakes. This time, I lost nearly all of my assault guns in the opening minutes. But the difference is I don’t feel the need to reload and restart just to make it through the scenario. I can live and learn, and maybe accept that I coulda/shoulda/woulda done better than that draw, without having to whittle away at the scenario until I “beat” it.

 

NATO versus Warsaw Pact, Vol. II, Part 1

Tags

Cold War, Command Ops, Conquest of the Aegean, Fulda gap, Germany, Highway to the Reich, Red Devils Over Arnhem, Steel Panthers, The Operational Art of War, wargames, World War III

There were any number of triggers that could have started World War III, but didn’t.

In the mid-1950s, Western Germany was released from its occupation by the Western Powers, became an independent country (from the East), and joined NATO. The Korean War, throughout, threatened to escalate beyond the borders of that peninsula. Throughout Soviet occupied Eastern Europe, independence movements hoped for Western intervention that might help them in facing down the Soviets.

Of course, Western leaders were well aware of the risks. While working to check Soviet aggressions, the still tried to tread softly so as not to launch a Third World War, probably nuclear, when the world was struggling to recover from World War II.

The flashpoint of any confrontation between the two superpowers was between East and West Germany. Having crushed the Germans in their “Patriotic War”, the Russians believed that they had earned German spoils of war. They also believed that, were the promise of a democratically-driven reunification of Germany honored, they could win the political game and install a Socialist government in a combined East/West German vote.

Throughout the duration of the Cold War, the parameters of armed conflict remained the same. The forces of the Warsaw Pact had the advantage in numbers, but not in time. If the Soviets did win World War III in a quick strike, they would be drawn into (at best) a conflict of attrition with little to gain at the end of it. The United States would be able to shift forces to Europe to bring the conflict back into balance, and in the long run, would bring to bear its massive industrial capacity that supplied the Soviets in the second world. If truly threatened, the West might respond with its nuclear capability.

Given the numerical superiority of the Soviet ground forces, the location and nature of the initial battles also remained constant. The West would have been foolish to assault a numerically superior force, so one imagined the opening of the war with NATO on defense. The heavily mechanized forces of the Soviet Union would need suitable terrain if they were to rapidly advance across German. Two likely avenues of advance presented themselves, the flat areas in Northern Germany (North German Plain) and the area of woods and farmlands near Frankfurt, called the Fulda Gap.

Fulda Gap

I start, as I so often do, with a TOAW scenario. In this case, the Fulda 55 scenario that shipped, again, as part of the original TOAW package.

At first glance, the scenario is pretty much a reprise of the Patton 45 scenario that I wrote about earlier. The size and scale are identical; 5km hexes and 1 turn per day. While the location, obviously, has moved, the terrain itself is similar; farm and forest land broken up by some cities and rivers. But at this scale, its mostly a large, rectangular map with scatter terrain features. In fact, the scenario was designed by the same person, Doug Brevard.

As war breaks out, the Soviets easily dominate the skies and are on the attack with a huge force superiority. Playing, once again, as the U.S. (NATO has U.S. and West German forces, the latter using U.S. equipment), the play seems to be to strategically give ground while waiting for reinforcements. For the player who is really into the “study” of a hypothetical battle between Fulda and Frankfurt, the fine details of the terrain may add to the experience, as a one off the difference between Germany and Czechoslovakia are not game-changing. The “flavor” is the possession, by both sides, of both chemical and nuclear weapons and the possibility that the “high command” will bring those into play. Of course, given that, to the modern mind, any use of weapons of mass destruction is a loss for mankind, this too doesn’t seem a huge factor.

Playing through, the result was much as I expected. The game play was very much a repeat of the Patton 45 result.This time, the position of the rivers made my strategy work a little smoother. I blew all the bridges, defended the river crossing and waited for reinforcements to arrive. At that point, I had air superiority and was able to isolated and eliminate the enemy.

The tide is about to turn

I’ve said it before, I’ve nothing against an easy scenario. But also as I talked about before, it was the lack of unique features that made this one fall flat. At this scale and time frame, I don’t see much game play difference substituting M46s for Panzer Vs.

I did throw together a IL-2 scenario and, even accounting for my own incompitance behind the stick, I don’t see how this army could gain air superiority fielding F89s and F94s against MiG 19s.

Again, a present-day map of the area depicted in the scenario show the landscape has a little more character than what you might get from the game.

Tank Tactics

Also, as before, it’s the Steel Panthers scenarios that provide the fun.

First, at this level, there is a unique feel to the time period. It is definitely different than World War II, matching Soviet and U.S. Technology of the 1950s. It is also not Korea. The Communists, here, have access not to surplus, but the best technology that they can field (arguably superior to what the U.S. is fielding). A very different feel than the numerically superior but technologically inferior Koreans and Chinese.

The most obvious to me was the vulnerability of armor to infantry at close range.

I think I messed up. I quickly advanced into this village to grab a good defensive position and, instead, ended up getting my armor into a knife fight with the Soviets. Just look at that mess.

In this scenario, I made what was probably a major mistake from the get go. It was a meeting engagement so I moved my (roughly a) company-sized mechanized infantry unit, with one platoon of tanks in the lead, into the village (pictured) to try to establish a good defensive position. I was a bit surprised by, and quickly suffered heavy losses from, the superior capabilities of the Soviet tanks and the effectiveness of the RPG teams. Having pretty much lost all my armor, I was forced on the defensive, where my own bazookas took out all the Soviet armor. The battle resulted in a draw.

As a note of comparative interest, the equipment is very different when comparing the TOAW scenario to the Steel Panthers scenario. Most obviously, the German mechanized infantry in TOAW are outfitted with M59 APCs and Saracen armored cars, not the halftracks and M8s of Steep Panthers.

It’s Medium, but is it happy?

One of the more innovative and intriguing games of the last decade is the Command Ops engine from Panther Games. The system made its debut in 2002 with Airborne Assault: Red Devils Over Arnhem. The game, as indicated by the title, allowed the player to assume command of the British airborne forces (The Red Devils) in the fight to take and hold the Rhine bridge at Arnhem during operation Market Garden. The scale was operational, but much finer grained than the typical hex-and-counter operational game, but still not down in the well-trodden weeds of tactical combat simulation. The game had some significant

Amid much consternation, the game moved from Airborne Assault publisher Battlefront to Matrix Games where it was enhanced and re-released as Highway to the Reich (HTTR) in 2003. While purchasers of the original game were angered about having to rebuy the game they already owned, the new title was both improved and expanded. Playable forces now included American, British and German ranging the entire length of the contested route and multiple river crossing that characterized that battle, included both paratroop and armored forces.

Under the Matrix banner, Panther continued releasing follow-ons in the series. 2006 saw the availability of Conquest of the Agean, looking at some neglected battles. In particular, the German airborne assault on Crete and the conquest of Greece. In 2010, they returned to the tried and true, releasing Command Ops:Battles from the Bulge (BFTB). With the amount of improvements that had gone into the engine, they re-released their original two games as expansions to BFTB.

The system broke new ground with regards to AI, particularly for the player’s own side. Commands could be given at the highest level, leaving the AI to plan and execute using available forces. The game could be played either with such minimal interact, or commands could be issued at the company level (the individual icons) for a more traditional interaction. An innovative “fog of war” system, which allows the player no information about enemy units not spotted also added to the unique feel. Finally, rather than a hex-and-counter system, the game uses an extreme fine grid and clock to approximate continuous time and movement. With that, the units are represented by square icons, but their actual battlefield footprint and simulated.

Another notable feature of Command Op: Battles from the Bulge was that is was released with virtually every aspect of the game open to the user. Previous version had limitations which restricted modding or user-made scenarios to similar locations and/or forces as the released game. In BFTB, users could add any map, any set of forces, and any timeframe. The limitation of its modelling capability was only the scale and the scope of tactics within the game. User made scenarios appeared across the spectrum of the War in Europe, notably adding modelling of the Eastern Front.

Livin’ in the 50s

One obvious route for expansion for user-mods is into the early years of the Cold War. The U.S./Russian or NATO/Warsaw Pact forces are largely upgraded versions of what used in the Second World War. Particularly as this game, in both BFTB and HTTR occur late in the war and, for the British and American forces, already represent end-of-war development. For the Soviet side, the Eastern Front mods have been created. It should be a fairly straightforward exercise to meld the two together, eliminate the Germans, and create a U.S. versus Russia, or some combination of their client forces.

As I said, the limitations on modding are that straying outside what the core engine can do means that the modelling could well fall apart. Obviously recreating recent battlefields would be a problem – helicopters, drones, and real-time satellite imagery weren’t part of the World War II battlefield. Another area, though, that has been a problem for the system is mechanized operations. The original game was designed for the paratrooper battles, and all three battle iterations focus on major airborne battles. Initially this meant neglecting the finer points of mounted infantry wasn’t an issue.

I’ll expound briefly. In a more traditional operational game, motorized or mechanized infantry can account for the transports simply as modifications to the movement factor (and maybe combat as well, depending on what’s modeled). No need to think in detail about the transition from mounted movement to deployed combat, except possibly to model the reduced effectiveness during transition. Where are all those trucks when the infantry is dug in and defending a position? Somewhere else in the hex, one would imagine. It isn’t that important. In a tactical game, the transports are included explicitly. You dismount your soldiers, and then actively must move the transports to where you want them. Want to use transports again? You’d have to move them back. But this series has a problem. The individual position of the troops are modeled, but not explicit. So where are those trucks? It became a very tricky simulation problem within the engine.

In any case, one would expect to be able to find battles worth modeling (either real or imagined) in the first-or-second post-WWII decades that are close enough in tactics to be doable.

While there was and continues to be expressions of interest in both Cold War Europe and the Korean War, concrete effort has been a bit thin on the the ground. The one exception is a BTFB scenario with mid-1950s “estabs” (the available order of battles for included forces) for both the U.S. and Soviets.

This is Belgium, not Germany

The scenario’s designer used the Onhaye map. In the context of the original Bulge game, this is a hypothetical scenario that imagines the Germans have advanced so far as to establish a bridgehead across the Meuse River, and the allies must push them back. In a 1955 scenario, one might imagine a similar struggle over river crossings taking place in Germany or Czechoslovakia. Similar battles happened in my TOAW game, above, although the Meuse is a considerably bigger obstacle than the Fulda.

Without digging into the details with the scenario editor, the point of this scenario seems to be roughly-equal forces fighting over the center of the map, with plenty of time to duke it out. The upgraded equipment isn’t terribly noticable, although it probably shouldn’t be at this scale.

This is a game that really combines the big picture with the details. Terrain, timing, distance – these things are all critical. It’s not like the higher operational scale where the difference between a “clear hex” and a “rough hex” are the combat and movement factors. This makes it great for fighting specific historical battles where the significance of these features are known. Of course, a tactical level game could be the same way. The difference is, this game won’t tally up the score after 45 minutes. Being able to rest your troops over the day/night cycle, keeping appropriate reserves – these are the factors you need to be thinking about. An attack may be planned and executed over several days, if that’s what it takes to get all your forces into position and ready.

Defending the Meuse, or Fulda, or some River, in any case. It’s just after midnight, and the Russkies have squeezed into a gap in my lines with 15 T-54s. This is going to be a long, unpleasant night.

This is both a boon and a curse when trying to play a pure hypothetical engagement. Yes, the level of detail will let you look at true what ifs, with some sense that the emergent details have meaning. On the other hand, without an actual historical account to guide you, where do you start with a battle location. Game maps are on the order of a couple hundred square kilometers. But why would the U.S. forces decide to face of the Soviets in this particular map square?

The questions become important because, with the required detail of these maps, it is quite an investment to realistically model your selected battlefields. Conversely, with the modeled terrain being such an important factor, fighting on “generic” terrain is going to be less than satisfying.

Overall this level of play is a more satisfying experience than the next level up Operational Game (the Fulda 55 scenario in the first part of the article). I’m not sure I’ll want to dig too deeply into this mid 50s timeframe, but I may find another excuse to come back to this game and its editors. While the NATO/Warsaw Pact technology is probably quickly racing ahead of the engine’s bailiwick, there may be some scope going forward for the 2nd and 3rd world conflicts, such as the Middle East.

Continue on to Part 2 of 2 here.

 

 

 

Coup de Chat

Tags

CIA, Cold War, Iran, Middle East, Mohammad Mosaddegh, oil, Samorost, The Cat and the Coup, United Fruit Company

The crisis in Iran in the early fifties is something that still resonates through international events today. Many in Iran justify their blood feud with the United States on the basis of the CIA’s intervention in their government, propping up the Shah back in 1953.

The game The Cat and the Coup was created to tell that story, and from that particular angle. It is a game that receives pretty high praise on the internet, probably not least of which because it is a free offering. It is quite different from anything else I’ve talked about on these pages, but it the subject matter and timeline fits very well within my Cold War theme.

It is a simple 2D puzzle game with very fanciful graphics illustrating the historical events in question. It’s not a genre with which I have a lot of familiarity, but it immediately reminds me of Samorost (also free) in tone, feel, and play style. It is considerable shorter and simpler, though, than Samorost. Like other games of its genre, part of the “puzzle” is figuring out what you’re supposed to be doing in the first place. There are no instructions, no back story, except that “you” can move (the cat) to coax the former Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh out of each room. We also find him on his deathbed.

The game is charming in its simplicity. You won’t be needing to google up walk-throughs to solve this one. Each puzzle uses similar mechanics, and has the same goal (moving from one “room” to the next). There’s no ability to save, perhaps because the game itself is so short. In reality, the game is unrelated to the “history,” and it is the latter that is the point of this exercise.

On this one, I try not to spoil the experience. If you want to see what the game is like, just play it. It’s short and its free.

The detail here are the scenes surrounding the game as Mosaddegh and his cat progress through it. In them are depicted the events that made up the crisis in Iran. It is a one-sided telling (justified or not); Mosaddegh is the only personage portrayed accurately as human. The CIA, for example, is a giant lizard and President Truman as a rabbit and the American Military (perhaps?) as a giant, mechanized pig being driven by a Nazi-hat wearing eagle, begin controlled by an English bulldog.

While the modern interpretation of events certainly does not put the West in the best of light, it is worth noting that Mosaddegh himself came to power after the assassination of the previous Prime Minister by a radical Islamist group, Fadayan-e Islam. Prime Minister Haj Ali Razmara was something of a moderate figure. Although a former General and appointed by the Shah, he proposed a plan for both decentralization and modernization. He managed to anger both the right and left; the former by cutting government patronage and the latter for failing to get good enough concessions in contracts with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the British owned controller of Iran’s oil which was seen by the left (and many if not most Iranians) as profiting at the expense of the poor of their country. A particular thorn was it was known that other countries, such as Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, were operating under better terms.

After the assassination, Mosaddegh was appointed by the Shah, a long-time political opponent, with the backing of the Parliament. His policies emphasized social reforms benefiting the working poor and a reduction in the power of the Shah. On May 1st, 1951, Mosaddegh nationalized the Iranian oil industry, long a goal of his party the National Front, with an improbably unanimous support of the Parliament. This lead to a stand-off with the British government, who prevented Iran from selling its oil internationally without them.

The oil embargo had a terrible impact on the Iranian economy, and the political situation in that country rapidly deteriorated. Immediately preceding the coup, Mosaddegh attempted to dissolve the Parliament to give himself direct law-making powers. This was used a pretense for supporting his overthrow. While today most agree that the CIA had stepped out of bounds with its “Regime Change,” the events are hardly as clean as the modern interpretation would have it. Policy makers at the time saw the Soviet Union’s hand in an increasingly radical Socialist moving coming to power, and I’m not sure they’ve been proven wrong.

Within the greater Cold War contest, the success of the operation in Iran was probably a catalyst for future CIA operations throughout the world. Within a year, the CIA engineered the removal of Colonel Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán who had nationalized the land of the United Fruit Company in Guatemala.

All that aside, the Cat and the Coup is an nice little artistic piece telling a story about which most of its target audience (the English-speaking, first world game players) have little or no knowledge. Whatever shortcoming it may have, it was worth the time to play through.

Banana Republic

Tags

banana, city builder, Cold War, Honduras, Juan Manuel Galvez, minimum wage, Tropico, Tropico 3, Tropico 4, United Fruit Company

The term Banana Republic was coined to describe the country of Honduras at the turn of the 20th century. The country was dominated by the interests of several fruit companies engaged in the export of bananas from that country.

“Bananas” is also the scenario of the campaign game in Tropico 3.

Tropico 3 is a city builder. It is set in the Caribbean, where you play a ruler of a single island nation named Tropico. Like any good game of its genre, it builds nicely on the theme with tropical landscapes, buildings, and society. It also came about at the height of popularity of the genre, and tends to get the mechanics of the game right as well. The micromanagement is limited and the presentation is clear.

What sets this particular city builder apart, however, is how it integrates the theme with the game mechanics. In a modern city simulator, who are you playing as that you are allowed to build housing, roads, stores, industry, etc? Well, in Tropico, you are a populist dictator who micromanages whatever he wants to, proving random bits of the economy for free (food, healthcare), collecting from other bits of the economy in taxes, allowing the “citizens” to maintain their own individual economies, plus grafting a little off the top for your own personal account. Add to that some more historical themes, such as balancing your relationships with the Cold War superpowers and the political hot potatoes of socialism versus crony capitalism, and you have something can sit along side some of the more serious historical games in my list.

Not to imply there is anything being realistically simulated here. It’s still the same house-of-cards system, where you gradually build up an economy by layering more complex buildings and cycles on the simple. You need to balance ramping up the cost to match your income, and prevent mismatches that might cause a collapse. The additional factor in Tropico is that there are various political factions, with which the citizens align. Keeping the factions happy is necessary come election time so that you can get voted in for another term.

Tropico 3  (year developed) is really an re-implimentation of the original Tropico. Tropico 2 was a pirate-themed game, a path that was abandoned. Incidentally, both Tropico 4 and 5 are also incremental upgrades to Tropico 3. I had to start with one, and Tropico 3 seemed to be the right place. At some point, I’ll have to return and compare versions.

The “Bananas” game begins in 1950 when you take over the presidency of the island from a strongman who has “retired” under unstated but seemingly suspicious circumstances. Historically, this corresponds with the departure of dictator Tiburcio Carías in 1949 and his replacement via (a somewhat rigged) election by fellow National Party of Honduras (PNH) member Juan Manuel Gálvez. After his election, Gálvez departed from his predecessors policy, emphasizing education and giving more leeway to the  political opposition.

The scenario begins with the initial building of several banana plantations, for the purpose of exporting via an American fruit company, Fruitas Ltd. Some of this mirrors the longer history of Honduras (banana export under the control of large fruit concerns predated the period by at least half a century), while some of the events in the game a remarkably similar to the Gálvez administration.

During the scenario, I am offered a significant infusion of development money in exchange for a long-term contract freezing Banana prices. This is remarkably similar to the 25-year contract Gálvez signed with the the United Fruit Company at the beginning of his term.

I found myself investing in schools and housing, much like my historical counter-part, as well as raising wages. One of the triggered events involves a push for a minimum wages (to which I acceded), which was apparently the doing of one of the fruit conglomerate rivals to my partner, Fruitas Ltd. I don’t know what facts this might be based on, if any, but it certainly sounds plausible. The scenario also had a lot of focus on immigration issues, a focus of Honduran politics (although mostly in decades preceding the timeline of this scenario). In the first half of the century, labor for the plantations was imported from elsewhere in the Caribbean. This was countered by restrictive immigration policies immediately preceding the Second World War.

The Caribbean as re-imagined by Tropico. I’ve completed the “Bananas” scenario, and am ready to move on.

In reality, Gálvez was overthrown by his own vice-President in 1954 following . In game, I managed to avoid having to face either re-election or extra-democratic removal before I achieved victory. The first scenario was very easy, but moving forward turns out to be considerably harder. In attempting a second scenario, I have twice found myself invaded and deposed by the United States before I could complete my objective… a situation that occurred a half a dozen times in the history of Honduras.

On-line reviews of Tropico do refer to the difficulty of the game. Some indications are that Tropico 4 eased up on some the difficulty levels. I’d probably enjoy a slightly more casual game. I may have to try the other versions.