Blue Water Development Diary

[AzureSkies]

I'm going to give the update in two parts. The first is going to be this text-heavy thing, but the next post (planned for tomorrow) will be a more photogenic vehicle highlight with in-game renders.

So this post is going to be some updates with regards to the plot. Not many pictures, and a lot of words, but this provides the context for the conflict in the game, and tells the true story of one of the moments we came the closest to nuclear war during the Cold War.

I've mentioned before that the premise was a Soviet response to Able Archer.

Let's go more into detail.

I'm assuming the readers here are probably familiar with MAD - Mutually Assured Destruction. The idea that nuclear war would be prevented, because both parties know they cannot win - that any conflict would cause them unacceptable losses.

A key part of this, is that it takes an ICBM about 30-45 minutes to reach the heart of the USSR from the mainland US, and vice versa. That window of time would allow the other nation to launch its weapons before their silos and launch sites were destroyed, even if they were all located and targeted.

There are also two kinds of attacks: A counterforce attack, which is aimed at destroying your enemy's ability to launch nuclear attacks, and a countervalue attack, which is essentially meant to inflict unacceptable losses on the enemy's population and infrastructure.

With that in mind, let's look at the timeline.

In 1976, the Soviet Union deployed RSD-10 Pioneer missiles (NATO reporting name: SS-20 Saber), truck-launched IRBMs (Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missiles). The Soviets believed that in the eventuality of a war, they could win a conventional war with numbers, but that NATO would employ tactical nuclear weapons and defeat their forces. So this missile system was developed for "surgical nuclear strikes", to knock out NATO tactical nuclear capability without enough warning for NATO to respond.

(Pioneer missiles*)

They were made to destroy NATO's tactical nuclear capability in Europe.

In December 1979, NATO command decided to deploy new missiles to Europe in response. Among these would be the MRBM Pershing II in West Germany. This would mean it could strike targets in Eastern Europe in only 4-6 minutes, and reach Moscow in only 6-8 minutes. Furthermore, the Pershing II's had a more advanced guidance system than earlier missiles, allowing them to accurately target Soviet missile launch sites.

The hope was they could negotiate with the Soviets to decommission their SS-20 missiles in exchange for NATO decomissioning their Pershing II's.

But the Soviets knew that the Pershing II flight time would not give them time to launch a retaliatory strike, and thus give NATO a true first-strike capability. As a result, in 1981, the KGB launched Operation RYaN to learn about the plans and possibility of a first strike by the US.

(Pershing II missile*)

Some of the key things they would look for would be preparation of frontline NATO forces and military communications between heads of states as indicators of an imminent NATO attack.

President Reagan took a strong stance against the Soviet Union, one that was interpreted as aggressive. In March of 1983, he announced the Strategic Defense Initiative, which Soviet leaders took as an escalation of the arms race into space, and Yuri Andropov, the then-General Secretary of the Soviet Union, accused Reagan of "inventing new plans on how to unleash a nuclear war in the best way, with the hope of winning it".

In April of 1983, the USN conducted FleetEx 83-1, the largest fleet operation to that date, which even involved provoking Soviets (in ways such as flying over their airspace) to study their electronics equipment and response tactics.

Similar psychological operations had been going on for years, to study Soviet response times and tactics.

In October of the same year, a coup in Grenada killed a number of leaders, and the US decided to answer the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States and the Governor-General of Grenada's appeal for aid. Operation Urgent Fury was launched. Margaret Thatcher publicly supported it, but sent private encrypted messages to Raegan.

Operation RYaN was aware of these messages, but not their contents, and was suspicious that these were some of the warning signs of a NATO first strike.

Then, barely more than a week after the conclusion of Urgent Fury, comes Exercise Able Archer 83. These were exercises carried out every year to test NATO readiness, but this year, the exercise raised the level of realism by including many heads of state of various NATO countries. They were simulating a nuclear strike in response to (fictional) Soviet chemical weapons attacks.

Non-routine elements also included the transporting of 19,000 US soldiers to Europe in a radio-silent air lifts, shifting command from permanent HQs to alternate HQs, new nuclear strike procedures that included communications with Washington and London, and various slips of the tongue that referred to B-52 flights as "strikes" instead of "sorties". It fit all the indications of a NATO first strike perfectly.

Soviet units were placed on high alert with readying of nuclear forces.

In reality, fortunately, the exercise concluded on November 11th, Soviet forces stood down, and we had no WWIII. The Pershing II's weren't even ready during Able Archer 83, though they were deployed immediately after. I personally don't know if the KGB knew that at the time, though they most certainly knew they were deploying sometime around that time frame.

In this alternate timeline, however, the Soviet Union decides to act in accordance with their preparations in Operation RYaN. The SS-20 missile batteries launch surgical nuclear strikes on believed Pershing II sites in Europe, in a desperate pre-emptive strike to restore MAD and prevent the [believed] imminent nuclear destruction of the Soviet Union.

(SS-20 missiles had a yield of 150 kt. Pictured is Greenhouse George, yield 225 kt. *)

The General Secretary, Yuri Andropov, simultaneously informs Raegan why he has done this - to prevent a first strike by NATO, and that he will accept a limited tactical nuclear response, but urges him not to escalate the conflict, or face a full Soviet countervalue attack.

Raegan and Thatcher decide not to escalate, and the Soviets keep to their word - and the war remains conventional.

Their war goals are to expand the buffer in Europe, because clearly, the proximity of NATO forces had proven catastrophic, and thus they will enact their pre-prepared war plans to march far west, even into France.

However,

True to reality, France has long departed the NATO military command structure, and they have their own nuclear doctrine. If Soviets near the French border, they will deploy tactical nuclear weapons as a warning. If they cross and invade, France will launch a full countervalue attack on the Soviet Union, triggering a full nuclear exchange.

So the planned campaign of the game will balance on a razor's edge - it will be difficult, and at times, desperate. You may be tempted to use tactical nuclear weapons to gain an edge. But their use will result in measured retaliation - either by Soviet naval forces present, or later in Mainland Europe, bolstering the Soviet advance westward.

Failure will also have terrible effect on the war effort.

And in either case, if the Soviets reach the French border...

Good luck.

And with that... Let's rewind a little.

In researching nuclear warfare doctrines and strategy, terms and analysis, I came across something interesting. In November of 1982, a year to the month that Able Archer almost triggered armageddon, a 10-year old girl, Samantha Smith, living in Manchester, Maine, wrote a letter to Yuri Andropov, the General Secretary of the Soviet Union:

Dear Mr. Andropov,

My name is Samantha Smith. I am ten years old. Congratulations on your new job. I have been worrying about Russia and the United States getting into a nuclear war. Are you going to vote to have a war or not? If you aren't please tell me how you are going to help to not have a war. This question you do not have to answer, but I would like to know why you want to conquer the world or at least our country. God made the world for us to share and take care of. Not to fight over or have one group of people own it all. Please lets do what he wanted and have everybody be happy too.

Samantha Smith

The letter was featured in a Soviet newspaper, but it wasn't until April of 1983, after sending another copy to the Soviet ambassador to the United States, that Yuri Andropov himself answered:

Dear Samantha,

I received your letter, which is like many others that have reached me recently from your country and from other countries around the world.

It seems to me – I can tell by your letter – that you are a courageous and honest girl, resembling Becky, the friend of Tom Sawyer in the famous book of your compatriot Mark Twain. This book is well known and loved in our country by all boys and girls.

You write that you are anxious about whether there will be a nuclear war between our two countries. And you ask are we doing anything so that war will not break out.

Your question is the most important of those that every thinking man can pose. I will reply to you seriously and honestly.

Yes, Samantha, we in the Soviet Union are trying to do everything so that there will not be war on Earth. This is what every Soviet man wants. This is what the great founder of our state, Vladimir Lenin, taught us.

Soviet people well know what a terrible thing war is. Forty-two years ago, Nazi Germany, which strove for supremacy over the whole world, attacked our country, burned and destroyed many thousands of our towns and villages, killed millions of Soviet men, women and children.

In that war, which ended with our victory, we were in alliance with the United States: together we fought for the liberation of many people from the Nazi invaders. I hope that you know about this from your history lessons in school. And today we want very much to live in peace, to trade and cooperate with all our neighbors on this earth — with those far away and those near by. And certainly with such a great country as the United States of America.

In America and in our country there are nuclear weapons — terrible weapons that can kill millions of people in an instant. But we do not want them to be ever used. That's precisely why the Soviet Union solemnly declared throughout the entire world that never — never — will it use nuclear weapons first against any country. In general we propose to discontinue further production of them and to proceed to the abolition of all the stockpiles on Earth.

It seems to me that this is a sufficient answer to your second question: 'Why do you want to wage war against the whole world or at least the United States?' We want nothing of the kind. No one in our country–neither workers, peasants, writers nor doctors, neither grown-ups nor children, nor members of the government–want either a big or 'little' war.

We want peace — there is something that we are occupied with: growing wheat, building and inventing, writing books and flying into space. We want peace for ourselves and for all peoples of the planet. For our children and for you, Samantha.

I invite you, if your parents will let you, to come to our country, the best time being this summer. You will find out about our country, meet with your contemporaries, visit an international children's camp – Artek – on the sea. And see for yourself: in the Soviet Union, everyone is for peace and friendship among peoples.

Thank you for your letter. I wish you all the best in your young life.

Y. Andropov