Well, I always thought an SSN-like scenario in the Spratlys would be nice with our dynamic campaign system. Or a mercenary-type campaign channeling Strike Commander. Only the imagination is a limiting factor here.

True, sadly a lot of cool 4th generation projects sort of died with the cold war on both sides of the iron curtain.
What do you model this on? The big weakness of the original RSR book was how poorly they described the land war in Europe.

Well, we now know the Soviet Union always planned for a massive use of conventional- and rocket artillery along with liberal use of tactical nuclear and chemical weapons to soften up the NATO defenses, so any real war would likely be a very quick affair.

Our scenario and the way the war plays out is less Clancy and more influenced by Sir Hacket's WW3 and Harvey Black's 'Effect' trilogy. A realistic conflict might be over in days, but this hardly makes for an exciting campaign, so in the game it takes place over a period of a few weeks to several months, depending on the breaks.

This is dependent on the time period, ie look up how doctrine changed by Zapad-77 and then Zapad-81 exercises.

Heh, did you ever try The Red Army?

Clancy's vision of a war in central Europe was not unrealistic. The Soviets had several war plans, also pure-conventional ones.

Clancy's suspicion that the Warsaw Pact states, which shared a border with West Germany, would be reluctant to agree to use weapons of mass destructions, was right, I guess.

There are strong indications for instance that Czechoslovakia might not have particpated in a conflict between NATO and WP. The unity between the WP states was only strong on paper.

This depends on the time period. In the relevant time frame (from late 70s and through 80s till the end of the cold war) it was assumed that Czeckoslovakia would participate in the WP offensive and defensive operation as required.

They were to form their own Front patern formation with the Soviet Army patern formation in it (in peace time Ground of Soviet Forces), same with Polish except that Soviet forces in Poland were under a purelly peacetime organisation and de facto were a part of GSVG.

Hello. I'd like to chip in some information in this conversation, although it has periphery relevance to Cold Waters.

The most prominent sources I've come across (there may be others) describing a Soviet European offensive with heavy NBC participation would be Wilbur Gray's article arguing that the Soviets restored to a nuclear-heavy war plan in the face of a supposed NATO conventional superiority, (rather sensationalist) news articles about the "Seven Days to the Rhine war plan", and some academic articles arguing that DDR on Warsaw Pact military exercises was evidence that the a nuclear first-strike war plan. I found the 1st to be deficient in its understanding of Soviet military art, the second to be sensationalism, and the third (as pointed out in this page) a "confusion between first-strike and "preemption"; the latter meant "attempting to strike an enemy that is preparing to a launch a nuclear strike before he is able to launch."

To paraphrase the readings on Soviet military art from the Soviet Army Studies Office (SASO), the Soviet Studies Research Centre (SSRC), David Glantz's articles, and the Voroshilov Lectures book series, the Soviet military adopted a "nuclear only" option during the 1960s under Khrushchev. Following his downfall, the Soviets expected waging either full-scale nuclear war or large-scale conventional war in a "nuclear-scared context", albeit for a clear preference for the conventional. During the late 1970s and the early 1980s, military reforms under Marshal Ogarkov refined the Soviet military towards conventional mechanized warfare. By the end of the 1980s, Soviet military theorists believed that next-gen Western systems (SADARM, the E-8 JSTARS plane, the canceled "Assault Breaker" etc) and "weapons of new physical principles" were going to make traditional mechanized forces in NATO and Warsaw Pact armies obsolete.

IMO, the Soviet would only use nuclear weapons in (1) in the face of a NATO/Chinese offensive that would threaten the Soviet homeland, and (2) if NATO was going to launch a massive and effective tactical-theater nuclear strike (the Voroshilov book pointed out that the Soviets might have tolerated limited NATO nuclear escalation to show resolve, albeit they doubted it would say limited for long). On the contrary, instead of "restoring momentum" to a conventional attack, nukes would generate large zones of destruction that would impede rapid forward movement--think about how nukes would block roads in forested and close terrain, and create unpredictability for military planners and the state leadership. As for chemical weapons, the Sovietologist Chris Donnelly argued that they would slow down the rate of advance and NATO might escalate with nukes, meaning that they (like nukes) was more of a fear and deterrent weapon.

I'd argue that Ralph Peters' 1989 novel Red Army represents the most "believable" NATO-WP war scenario in fiction--it's quite clear he was reading similar source material as SASO's and SSRC's Sovietologists. However, the story ends on the third day of the war with a unilateral West German ceasefire...

The Cold Waters campaign plays out as a conventional war, with the risk of going nuclear towards the end.

Would this affect the ammo loadouts for the Soviet vessels?

Yeah, we don't do nuclear-tipped weapons in the game. Isn't much fun to be on the receiving end of several kilotons.

You guys have quickly become my favorite developer and I am eagerly awaiting this release. From what I've gathered, it sounds like RSR and Tom Clancy's SSN hooked up and had a baby called Cold Waters :Kaleun_Applaud::up: I have a feeling this is going to provide more than enough tense moments than even the saltiest sub-driver can shake his periscope at. It's a must-buy for me.

Atlantic Fleet ranks up there as one of the best naval games I have played next to Aces of the Deep and SH:CE. That is saying a lot, believe me!

Now if we could only get the "Atlantic Fleet" work-over on Pacific Fleet and release it for PC.... :03::yeah:

P.S. Love the art-style, especially the color palette and icebergs - thanks for the wallpaper!