Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

http://nationalinterest.org/files/st...?itok=4c02p4m4

"How would such an invasion unfold? A missile barrage and air strikes at dawn, crippling the Baltic States’ defenses, would precede a large-scale airborne operation supported by a small-scale land intrusion into Lithuania from Russia’s enclave in Kaliningrad.

Before the alliance could understand — let alone react to — what was happening, it’d be over."

Source: The National Interest, (Ulc, Karol: http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the...soldiers-19083)

The article fashions a compelling narrative for the making of an interesting scenario or campaign. Check it out, especially those guys and gals into Nato/Russian scenarios.

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Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

The Gods forbid that ever actually happening. I don't think the Baltics are defensible by conventional Western forces, most certainly not today, that leaves little choice but defeat and withdrawl or escalation to nucs. Not my cup of tea at all.

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

The Lithuanians have ( I am told ) long felt it was just a matter of time before the Russians returned and a lot of that is because of THIS

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attac...1&d=1484854872

I don't think a lot of people know that is Russian territory

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

While not part of NATO Sweden no longer describes itself as neutral and something that was hardly true even during the cold war, or even WWII - it is likely that Moscow now count Sweden as part of the "enemy camp" (and probably did back then as well).

As of 2009 Sweden issued the so called declaration of solidarity where it is stated that Sweden will not remain passive in the event of an attack of an EU or Nordic country - which basically means Russia must factor in the possible basing of NATO air in Sweden if the Baltic states are attacked. Should NATO go "Pourquoi mourir pour Dantzig?" on the Baltic states Russia can pretty much ignore Sweden.

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

I would strongly urge people to check out the very poor state of most NATO military forces today outside of the US.

Britain is probably, overall, the strongest of them and her military forces have never been weaker. The smaller Western European forces, with all due respect to those serving, are almost not worth having at all.

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

Happy new year 1937.......goggle "george santayana history quote"

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

UK military spending is supposedly around 2.5% GDP, but that includes a lot of creative accounting, including intelligence and police type stuff, that, while very important, would not make the single UK Armoured division any stronger in a actual fight.

In terms of numbers; men, tanks, ships, aircraft, helicopters, etc British forces today are roughly 50% as strong as they were in 2000 and more like 25-30% as strong as they were in 1982.

French defence spending is under 2% of GDP and a lot of that, as always, goes on stuff that is very specific to France and French interests rather than NATO.

German defence spending is not a whole lot more than 1.5% of GDP and Germany, because of her size, geographical position and economy, has to be the central pivot of European defence. The smaller Western European nations, as I said, are getting close to being almost worthless. While Canada has very good, but very small and very underfunded forces.

I don't actually see Russia under Putin as much of a threat to Western Europe. Another leader might be another story. As I see it at the moment, Western Europe wants to try to push Putin and Russia while entirely lacking the military means to back that up, short of full US backing. Happily I think Brexit will lead to a stronger US-British alliance, at the expense of EU ambitions.

China, well that is a different story...

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

Well nobody really believes that there will be a war with Russia, political BS aside. And many do not wish for any confrontation with Russia either, as it interferes with their own defense interests. Thus, NATO is less unified than ever before.

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

Yes I think nations like Greece, with some justification, are a lot more worried about Nato member Turkey (with a rather Islamist leaning Government) than Russia.

On the other hand UK defence advocates are still using Russia as a bogey man, because she is realtively close to UK. While in actual fact a post Brexit, global trading nation, like UK has much more to worry about in China and maintaining unrestricted maritime free trade and putting a stop to Chinese influence and pressure on nations from the East coast of Africa, through the Indian Ocean, to the Pacific.

UK has vital interests in the Gulf, the Indian Ocean (where the British Indian Ocean Territory remains a very important base) allies like Brunei in Borneo and long term friends like Australia and Singapore and New Zealand in the far east.

One reason I was happy to see that an early QE Carrier deployment is widely expected to be to the Indian Ocean and the Pacific.

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

^fair enough. I'd say that in general the world has become much more multipolar and complicated than the straighforwardness which dominated the Cold War. I think NATO in general struggles to find a role in this new world and the Russian threat is an attempt at appearing important even nowadays (and all troubles with the latter are amplified because of that).

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

Much truth.

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

Although when viewed from the perspective of the Baltic states the Russian threat is the single most important factor for joining NATO. They are in NATO becasue the non-ethnic Russian majorities of those countries don't want to be in USSR v2.

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

And this is at all surprising?

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

A political solution may exist.

However, if you were tasked with putting together a response to a Russian invasion is I think most interesting for this forum to consider.

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Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

I would still say don't bother. The Baltics are not defensible by NATO, in conventional terms, as of now.

What is more they could only be, perhaps, defensible if all Western European NATO nations increased their defence spending by at least 50% and the US made it a priority. Neither of which is very likely to happen.

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

You maybe right about the Baltics being indefensible.

So, let's say they can not be defended by Nato or by themselves, then a scenario, a timed objective, of a Russian airborne assualt, say a company tasked to secure a com station at a crossroads, or a bridge maybe just what the doctor ordered.

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Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

How are the Baltics in terms of terrain? I thought that in addition to all other problems they have, their terrain is not very defensible as well. Is anyone more familiar with this topic?

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

There's this really nifty program called " Google maps " and it seems they have driven all over the Baltics.......:D

and then there's this

http://www.venhola.com/maps/

put in the lat and long and you have a game map

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

Generate a random map using batloc 123 or 124 or 125. (Finnish batlocs).

Run each batloc a reasonable amount of times to get the feel of each map code - say 6 times each.

Baltics may be a bit more urban than those Finnish maps, so you could edit in a paved road across the map, with a village or town plonked somewhere in the middle.

for the SP map tool, try
54.567687
25.623729

(dont bother saving the map for the editor - it is boringly flat!)

That was a randomish pick of a major road towards Vilnius (off map to the left) from the border (off map to the right) and for the country seems rather open - but towns and villages do seem to take up a lot of the non-field space that isn't pines.

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

HELP!

Okay I inserted the coordinates into the SP map tool at
http://www.venhola.com/maps/. It generated a flat map devoid of any features. What gives?

And the suggestion: "Generate a random map using batloc 123 or 124 or 125. (Finnish batlocs)." Batloc? Okay, Battle Location, got it.

So, back to the venhola generated maps. How are we to insert them in the game map editor? There is no .cmt file generated.

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Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

Did you flood fill the entire map with page two editor base terrain ?? ( editor--page 2-- top left button ) There is a how to guide out there for the program https://github.com/tvenhola/SPMBT-ma...ster/MANUAL.md

and a sticky thread full of info in this tread

IF you did do that and the map is still dead flat you have your answer to "what's the terrain in the Baltics like:

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

Oh, and looking at my random rectangle, I picked a large castle it seems, at Medininkai. An odd type - an enclosure castle, i.e. mainly a whacking great curtain wall with a keep tower tucked away in one corner.

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

The venhola maps have a button to save the data - and it saves to map999, which in 999.9% of all users saves is already titled "auto saved map" or whatever, since that is the auto-save slot. So that has a CMT file already associated.

It will open a save dialogue - usually save to your downloads folder.

Now, simply drop it in the game's maps folder (overwrite any existing map999) and then open map999, save off to another slot with appropriate name (if keeping it) ASAP.

If you dont have an auto saved map in 999 - go into the map editor, dont do anything, then save the blank map as map999 with a file name and do the above process.

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

This is the terrain Venhola creates for the game just east of the Coordinates Andy supplied...... the KEY is to look at the mini map.. the mini map was redone a couple years back so that every contour is a different tan/ brown with the darkest indicating the highest ....

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attac...1&d=1485218009

......so if you see terrain showing on the mini map but it's not on the main map you haven't defined the contours using flood file.

This program is, IMHO, stellar top notch work. I am VERY impressed with what this can do:up::up::up:

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attac...1&d=1485217640

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

Indeed. Impressive. Thanks.

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

Sorry I came into this discussion late. As for the Baltic States being indefensible I would imagine that historically (and currently) this would be an accurate statement. The terrain offers immense opportunities for defense, but also affords open terrain for the offense (especially in the current infrastructure).

However, I don't consider the question of defensibility is pertinent to the potential of "if" it may occur. There are distinct strategic incentives for the Russians to stabilize their Baltic border, especially considering the Kaliningrad Oblast. Much as the Crimea gained tactical and strategic importance with the current Russian/Ukraine conflict, the Baltic states face similar pressure on the northern borders.

In gaming perspective, I consider the northern states a ripe zone for scenarios and I've spent much of my time focused on this region (Baltics, Finland, Norway). Perhaps it's my penchant for history, but history has a habit of repeating itself.

I believe the intrinsic forces in the Baltic would put up fierce resistance (much as seen in the Ukraine) but differing from the south, would soon be overrun due to their lack of substantive armor, air or anti-armor capabilities. Hence, in my scenarios, NATO falls into a support role with unfavorable odds.

In what I've developed to date, US participation is gauged on those rapid response units (GRF) able to deploy in theatre in 36-48 hours. Not a happy concept when you consider what we can conceivably get there quickest.

I have a second US scenario about ready to post (still not happy with it yet) based on this concept.

But, this is an interesting area and full of potential in this forum's context.

Tom

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

[quote=shahadi;836800
Indeed. Impressive. Thanks.[/QUOTE]

I've been using the map generator: http://www.venhola.com/maps/

almost exclusively to generate maps for scenarios. It is a perfect tool to get correct topography for locations and adds realism to scenarios based on specific locations or conflicts.

It has it's limitations though I consider them minimal. One of the problems is including streams or lakes into the topography. This is an issue with SPMBT and from previous discussions, I know it is one that we live with.

Therefore, when I generate a map that has what I consider essential waterways, you have to re-work the map a little (if possible due to the terrain), to lower terrain to zero for those streams you wish to include (essential if you want water crossings or bridges). Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

I used to spend significant time in exactly placing roadways and buildings as depicted in the venhola program map, into the SP map. Now I cheat. Unfortunately, the map generator hex numbers don't carry over to SP, so if you want to exactly place features, you have to mechanically count hexes in SP. So I'll put start and end points for the major roadways, and then find reference points between them to fill in the roadways from a visual inspection of the map. I do the same for the secondary roadways. You'll find that in counting hexes, you sometimes encounter what appears to be a incomprehensible route in reference to terrain (my geology background kicking in), so I move the road slightly to match the terrain.

I do the same with towns. The map generator's scale and that in SP is differing. I put in the general aspect of the town roadways visually. It works for me.

Cheating doesn't give you an exact representation of the map, but it provides the more general context of features to terrain. Plus, it's faster (now I do maps in a week that took me significantly more time in construction before).

Additionally, as provided previously by other posts, I use google maps and go to the roadway view to show me trees and other obstacles which I try to emulate in the map.

The best part of Venhola is the ability to rotate the map. This way, you can place the main roadway that you are using for your advance or the OPFOR's advance across the map lengthwise. This is a superb tool that gives you the best orientation for the scenario.

I've learned some other tricks of the trade in using the program such as obtaining the correct coordinates through google maps, screen printing the Vehnola map for reference later, and most importantly, writing down the coordinates you finally select ahead of time so as to re-draw the map at a later date. There are more.

I highly recommend scenario developers to use this tool.

Tom

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

Yes, I am very impressed with that tool as well. Superb work

Don

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

You dont need to screen print the Venhola map - I just right clicked on it and chose "save image as". It saves as canvas.png as default.

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

Thanks for that. That saves more time!

Tom

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

Since British film makers only tend to like gallant British defeats, if that ever kicks off I see a British film about the military at last...
;)

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

"for fun" I just tried 42 and 42 for coordinates then flood filled it with red earth

It would take HOURS to get that far by hand

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attac...1&d=1485280446

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

That's a great base map. I don't care where it is in the world, but I may have to use that for a scenario!

Love this program.

Tom

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

The valley in the middle looks like a good place for a river, with a town and bridge in the middle of it.

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

Yeah, it would take me days (not hours), and still not get it as detailed as it is now. Close enough to represent the Fort Irwin National Training Center in the Mojave Desert, I'd say.

Ya never know where a thread will take you...from Ruskies invading to a great map tool, just remain calm, patient, and civil.

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Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

Or, a perfect spot for an ambush!

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Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

I will include it as is in the next patch but in the meantime...

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

I download the height map and send myself the mnap link. Then I open the map link on my spare computer so I won't have to move between the map program and the game - saves time, I guess it would be possible to solve with two screens as well.

I too like to compare with google earth for trees and fields.

For some countries there are other maps avaliable that will give you additional information not least on place names, like;

For Norway:

http://www.norgeskart.no/

National Land Survey of Finland:

https://asiointi.maanmittauslaitos.f...aikka/?lang=en

They will pretty much give you the name of every stream and little hill.

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

The Germans gave the Soviets a few black eyes at Narwa and later the Blue Mountains (hills really) in 1944. There were still sizable German forces in Kurland on May 8, 1945.

I think a Russian invasion of the Baltic states would be difficult against even modest NATO resistance. The current Russian leadership can probably plan ahead and move at a quicker pace than most democratic countries but against a unified Europe they can't IMHO win a conventional conflict that drags out. The European economy is larger.

I'm not convinced of the overall quality of Russian brigades vs western opponents. IIRC conscription was reduced significantly in order to try and combat the bulling of new troops.

IIRC Russia also used to have a hard time finding recruits to fill up all their numerous "elite" units (incl Ministry of Interior competing for bodies) as the health situation in Russia is not that great.

Assuming that Russia can probably not field everything they have against the Baltic states but need to keep their guard up in the north, the far east, the Caucasus etc I'm far from convinced that a defence of the Baltics is hopeless...

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

The thing that worries military professionals at the moment is the great strength of Russian artillery, it can call down a lot of very heavy and destructive fire, relatively quickly. If advanced Russian SAM systems work and protect that artillery from Allied aircraft, NATO would have a big problem. Artillery has, of course, long been the best arm of the Russian Army.

Some NATO forces, Especially the US and UK, have a lot of recent experience of COIN, but very little of conventional warfare. How useful some of the smaller NATO forces would be, and how good their troops might be, also very much remains to be seen.

My own view is that even the best multi national force (especially if that force includes several different languages) will have disadvantages against a peer/near peer unified enemy.

Also I don't see how a modern first world Armoured conflict in a geographically limited area lasts long enough for the economy to matter much once it kicks off...

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

Hmmm... You are aware that ALL NATO countries deployed troops in Afghanistan?

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

Yep, many of them not very many men and with limited orders -from their Governments/high command- to actually do very much, Canada being an honourable exception.

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

True that. For example, we deployed a mixed engineer/medical company that didn't leave Kabul at all and stayed most of the time at the international airport. So our contribution was pretty much symbolic (although, despite our government's best efforts to keep the troops out of firefights, some soldiers were engaged by the attacking Talibans in spring of 2012 when the attacked Kabul, fortuntely with no casualties from our side). Others did deploy troops in combat, but with the mindset of not having casualties at all, essentially making operations with them difficult. Anyway, the willingness in the coaltion wasn't particularly high, which is Ironduke's point I assume and frankly there is no evidence that NATO countries that aren't directly threatened (like the Baltic States, maybe Poland as well) will show much eagerness to fight with Russia.

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

I just adjusted the batlocs for the following post 2014 if playing vs Russia to the Baltics: USA, USMC, UK, Germany, Denmark, Canada, UK, Netherlands.

Poland had Poland as a later batloc V Russia, now it has some chance of Ukraine (they would possibly be involved there) and the Baltics as well.

The Baltic batlocs use the Finnish ones with lots of river and marsh and lakelets as a base but add e.g. occasional urbanisation (town).

The other minor nations v Russia post break-up of the USSR usually had their home country as the batloc, and remain so.

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

Very much my point.

I believe the German troops, for example, did not do much in the way of night patrols (kind of important in a military campaign). The troops from Canada fought hard. The relatively few troops from Australia and New Zealand fought hard (Check out the losses). Also bear in mind, as Suhiir pointed out on another thread, most nations have some good, elite units, how good the rest of that nations armed forces are depends...

Allied casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan (These first are dead).
http://icasualties.org/

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

The Georgia war 2008 was a strategic Russian victory but did expose embarrassing Russian shortcomings in especially command and control, intelligence, comms, electronic warfare etc
The war lasted for only five days and they had problems with basic equipment as well as the troops understanding their actual mission prompting the ongoing reformation of the Russian armed forces - aiming at being finished by 2020, but how far have they come? How will they fare against a more qualified opponent like NATO?


Are NATO nations of today not sufficiently coordinated that poses a problem. However there are over 100 languages spoken in the Russian federation. Supposedly the best soldier material is now increasingly to be found in non-Russian minorities where the birthrate is also higher.


Assuming there is a will within NATO and the European Union to actually fight. Economy will tell should the conflict not be ended quickly. If Russia overruns most of the Baltic but NATO/EU does not yield and start to build up forces in Poland, maybe Scandinavia the odds will likely not be in Moscow's favour.

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

The decisive units of a Russian brigade are staffed by good quality personnel (the battalion tactical groups). Check this source:

http://mwi.usma.edu/russian-ukrainia...s-battlefield/

At some point it says:

And I agree with the general concept. I do not think that Russia will fight like the stereotypical Soviet army (which was also misunderstood by many in the west) and there is a very good reason for that: it does not have the resources the former USSR had. Modern Russia has to fight much more smart and carefully if she wants to have any reasonable chance of success. And the first NATO forces in the area are undermanned, undergunned and ill trained for conventional or even the new form of hybrid warfare.

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

The most recent stuff on Russia I saw was a talk from a former Royal Marine at RUSI, he had been observing Russian forces in Ukraine, and made much of both their very strong and flexible artillery, signals and electronic intelligence, etc. He made a particular point of how difficult it was to mass forces for a counter attack without getting a massive artillery stonk on top of you.

To my mind if there is a fight over the Baltics and NATO loses, they either quit and cut their losses or it goes nuclear and we are all likely to lose.

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

Old habits die hard.

Historically the Soviet/Russian art of warfare has been more amazing in theory than in practice. Maybe they have reached their 2020 goals etc ahead of time but I doubt it.

Re: Russian Invasion of the Baltic States
 

It was amazing in practise as well...when it was actually performed and not when Soviets were doing knee-jerk reactions to stop the Germans onslaught in the early years. Examples can be found in Operation Bagration, the Vistula-Oder offensive and Manchuria. In the Cold War they simply perfected an already proven system, while NATO was struggling to find a plan that didn't involve "push the red button after the Soviet tanks penetrate our lines". NATO finally found a doctrine that offered better chances of winning tactical victories, hoping that this would translate into operational success (something that they did not have as a concept until the late 80's IIRC) and relying on technological assets. Problem was that the Soviets were already thinking operationally and wars are won on the highest levels, not on the number of battles one side wins (and historical examples are abundant).
Having said that, modern Russia is not USSR. Because of the massive disadvantage in every field compared to the latter, they have to change the way they fight and actually it seems they are doing it. Yes, it won't be a smooth transition, but no country has that good fortune. And they did have a chance to see it in action in Ukraine. Will it be enough to enable them to fight the top tier NATO nations? I hope we won't have to see. But don't underestimate the bear.