Blue Water Development Diary

[AzureSkies]

Originally Posted by bismarck1011

The models look great, but will there be other factions to this game? Like american and British naval units?

Of course! It wouldn't make sense to only have Soviet units and nothing to combat them. We should have a USN vessel to show off in early July, and at least one NATO aircraft before then.

Also, the Brits will certainly be making an appearance further down the road.

[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

[AzureSkies]

Today, we'll be taking a look at the S-3A Viking.

In the 60's, work had began on a replacement for the piston-powered S-2 Tracker. The US Navy needed a more modern anti-submarine, carrier-based aircraft. With 186 entering service in the 70's, the S-3 Viking ultimately filled the role.

Since the Soviets invested a large amount of resources into submarines with powerful, long-range supersonic cruise missiles meant to kill US carrier battle groups, the S-3 played an extremely important role in creating an ASW (Anti-Submarine Warfare) "net" at a long range from the carrier battle group.

Some of you may be familiar with the S-3's ability to carry AGM-84 Harpoon cruise missiles - however, although it wasn't until the late 80's that the S-3B was fitted with that ability (and Blue Water takes place in 1983), the S-3A did carry a wide range of weapons and sensors...



Extending from the tail is a retractable/extendable boom for a MAD (Magnetic Anomaly Detector). The sensor carefully scans the local magnetic field. The large metal hull of a submarine hiding under the water will cause a distortion in the magnetic field that it can detect.

(At least, most submarines. The Soviets did build some with titanium hulls to avoid this, however)



Underneath, many little slots are visible - these would carry 59 sonobouys and one slot was reserved for search and rescue equipment. It also had 3 dispensers for carrying a combination of 90 total flares, chaff, and expendable jammers.



Finally, internal bays could carry four air-dropped Mk.46 or two Mk.50 torpedoes to prosecute any submarines it found. The external pylons were, in some theaters, mounted with bombs, as well, to catch anything surfaced or snorkeling.

And with that, there's little commentary left, so I'll just leave it to the gallery:









The Azov from earlier gives us something to park it on to observe its nice folding wings. Almost all, if not all, carrier-based aircraft could fold their wings to reduce hanger space needed.

Pardon many of the WIP and placeholder UI elements.

[PurpleCow]

Personally I think an early release would be a great idea. Many sim fans such as myself are more than willing to invest in an early access project in order to help it progress.

[AzureSkies]

Hello everyone,

I think I'll start trying to make these a regular Tuesday night thing.

For the most recent progress, it's mostly been administrative work, and the hard-working modelers making progress on their end, too. Not much to say on this front, other than switching to a new repository system can be a real pain.

But more on the vehicle fare, today's update is going to be relatively short, and the vehicle of today is the Royal Navy's Sea Harrier FRS-1.



The Sea Harrier FRS-1, informally known as the "Shar", was the variant of the Harrier used on the UK's Invincible-class aircraft carriers.



With only 111 built, it seems lackluster on paper, being subsonic and having light air-to-air armament compared to other aircraft like the Tomcat.



Nonetheless, its purpose was to provide air defense for the British Navy, and that, it did.



It, along with the GR.3 land-based variant, the Shar was the primary aircraft of the British during the Falkland Islands conflict, and had tremendous success, shooting down 20 Argentine aircraft with no air-to-air combat losses of their own.





Hovering exhaust effects will continue to receive tweaks, but not so bad, so far.





That's all for this week. Thanks for stopping by!

[p7p8]

It looks awesome - I'm say this as almost "fanatic" DW player

[AzureSkies]

Hello again.

More of the same. A new ship model is nearing completion - the first US ship - but it'll be a bit before it has enough of the weapons' systems models to be completed to show it off here.

Last week I showed some screencaps of the Sea Harrier FRS-1 - today, it's a similar, but Soviet aircraft - the Yak-38 "Forger".



The Yak-38 was developed specifically for use on the Kiev-class "Aviation Cruisers", which are strikingly similar in airwing capacity to the British Invincible-class aircraft carriers, except that the Kiev also carried a formidable armament of its own.



Faced with the same design requirement of VTOL capability, what the Soviets ended up with is very similar to what the British got in their Sea Harrier program: a subsonic jet fighter with relatively little armament and short range - greatly inferior to land-based aircraft, but still a vast improvement to relying on SAMs alone for fleet air defense.



A bit of an unusual design choice, it had no internal guns but instead had to use a 23mm gunpod (or two) installed on one of its four under-wing pylons.



Part of this relatively restricted loadout, is that it could carry 2 FAB-500 bombs, 2 AA-8 Aphid short-range AAM, or 2 Kh-23 Grom (NATO name "AS-7 Kerry") small air-to-ground/antiship missiles. Use of the Kh-23, however, required another pylon be occupied with its guidance system.



It could also carry external tanks on the pylons, and surprisingly enough given its relatively small payload weight, two RN-28 nuclear bombs.



Another interesting design feature is that unlike the Sea Harrier FRS-1, which used two nozzles on each side of the fuselage for balance, the layout of the Yak-38 was more similar to today's F-35, using centerline thrust behind the cockpit to balance the torque.

Some interesting trivia about the design is that it featured an automatic ejection seat that would fire if one of those forward VTOL engines failed and the aircraft rolled beyond 60 degrees.



By 1983, Soviet pilots were well-adjusted to the new technology.

[AzureSkies]

Originally Posted by p7p8

It looks awesome - I'm say this as almost "fanatic" DW player

Thank you very much! I was quite a fan of the game, myself! It's aged quite a bit, but every now and then it's nice to break it out again and do some TMA work in a Los Angeles, or sail around in a Perry. Been awhile since I've done that, though.

[Medley1991]

Originally Posted by AzureSkies

Hello everyone,

I think I'll start trying to make these a regular Tuesday night thing.

Yeah ! Perfect idea !

[AzureSkies]

Today, we're going to be looking at a capital ship.



This is the Slava.

She was decommissioned in 1990, but re-instated in 2000 as the Moskva, and serves in the Russian navy as the flagship of the Black Sea fleet today. However, since we'll be talking about the ship as she was in November of 1983, we'll refer to it by its old name - the Slava.

Commissioned at the end of January of 1983, she's the only ship of her class to be in service during the events of Blue Water.



Anyone familiar with modern Soviet warships will probably know about the Kirov. The Kirov is renown for its extremely formidable loadout of 20 P-700 Granit (NATO name: SS-N-19 "Shipwreck") supersonic, long-range missiles and 96 very long-range S-300F Fort (NATO name: SA-N-6 "Grumble") SAMs.

Although not nuclear-powered like the Kirov, and only at around half the displacement, the Slava carried 16 comparable P-500 Bazalt (NATO name: SS-N-12 "Sandbox") missiles and 64 S-300F Fort SAMs.



Simply put, while not quite a Kirov, there's good reason that of the 3 Slava-class ships completed, two serve as fleet flagships today. In Blue Water, you will find the Slava as the flagship of a Mediterranean Soviet task force, either leading your fleet, or leading the fleet you must keep from reaching Italy or France.















Now let's take a look at her weapons -



First off, Slava carried an AK-130 dual gun. A 130mm gun capable of firing 90 rounds per minute - either HE or fragmentation AA rounds to intercept aircraft or missiles - it is a good gun for closer quarters.



However, with a maximum firing range of 23 km for ships, 15 km for aircraft, and only 8 km for missiles, ideally, you'd never let your enemies get that close...



Its primary armament is its enormous signature array of 16 P-500 Bazalt (SS-N-12 "Sandbox") supersonic cruise missiles that would cruise at Mach 2.5, striking targets up to 550 km (300 nmi) away. The 5-ton missiles could carry a payload of a metric ton - either enough explosives to end almost any ship in a single blow (except perhaps an aircraft carrier), or enough weight to fit a 350 kt nuclear warhead, as they were sometimes armed with.

Also visible in this shot are AK-630 CIWS guns. At 4-5,000 30mm rounds per minute, these posed a good defense against any incoming cruise missiles or vehicles in range.

[As with the Azov, not yet modeled are 2 RBU-6000s that will be included in the full game.]



In addition to the two on the bow, there's also a separate battery of two AK-630 guns (with their own independent radar director separate from the bow battery's) on each side of the ship.

Also visible in this shot is the utility boats.



Moving further aft, we find the S-300F Fort (SA-N-6 Grumble) missile silos. I wrote about this weapon system in the Azov post. These are very long-range SAMs that are highly capable for fleet defense, and the Slava carries 64 of them.

In the bottom-right of the picture is the "TOP DOME" radar director for the S-300 missiles.



Easy to miss since the doors are flush with the hull, and thus almost invisible until the doors open and they turn to fire, are the two 5x 533 mm torpedo racks. These could carry torpedoes with a range of about 20 km, and are generally a useful weapon to respond with if a submarine launches an attack.



And finally, we have the OSA-M (NATO name: SA-N-8 "Gecko") short-range SAM launchers on either side of the helicopter hanger. Behind it you can see the radar unit for its guidance.



And finally, the best weapon to use for hunting submarines. Getting close enough to fire from the torpedo racks means putting the ship closer than you'd ever want it to enemy submarines. A better weapon is an escort corvette or frigate - or the best weapon, an aircraft.



Our guest for today's highlight that you may have noticed in earlier shots, is the Ka-25 Hormone. A multipurpose helicopter that features as an extremely useful ASW asset.

The Hormone will get its own feature at some point, but until then, have a few shots showcasing its deployment from the Slava's hanger.





And that's all for today. Thanks for joining us!