I'm still here!

More miniatures can be painted and games played if you follow this advice.  

OK, it has been a LONG time since my last post.  There have been some external reasons I have not completed (or really even started) the Fulda Gap offensive, and it is not just because the 27th Guards Motor Rifle Division has been so hard to get out of garrison.  Instead, real life events have intruded on my sojourn into the past.  Health reasons, work, local politics and other annoyances have damped my ability to crank out content for fellow Cold War Warriors.  I think that such road blocks have been surmounted, or at least bypassed, and I am ready to return to the Fulda Gap excursion.

I haven't been completely sluggish in my painting and gaming, only recording the results.  Since my last post my godless Soviet horde has increased substantially.  I have even painted a lot of it as well.  I am helped out here by the standard Soviet camouflage of the day.  You can have any color you want, as long as you want green.  As such my TO&E has increased to the following:

EQUIPMENT        THEN           NOW              TO BE PAINTED

T-64                         10                 15                   0
BMP-2                      4                  14                   7
BMP-1                      1                    1                   0
BRDM-2                   4                    4                   0
ZSU-23                     0                    2                   2
SA-13                       0                     2                  2
SA-8                         0                     0                  4
2S-1                          0                     6                  0
2S-21                        0                     0                  6
BM-1                        0                     0                  3
Su-25                        0                     4                  0
Hind                          0                     0                  4
Sprandel BRDM       0                     0                  3
Storm ATGM            0                     0                  3
BTR-60                     0                     0                  5
PT-76                        0                     0                  11
BMP-1 Ksh              0                     0                   1
BRM                         0                    0                   2
PRP                           0                    0                   1
BRDM-2U                0                    0                   1
           
I have also painted up a full Soviet infantry company with SA-14 team and an AGL team, and then another infantry platoon as well.  Most of these are Battlefront models, though their are a few stray Skytrex vehicles for the command elements.  While there is a lot more to paint, the tractor works have been busy fulfilling the Party's Five Year Plan goals.  The Hinds and last batch of BMP-2s are about halfway through, and the command and recon vehicles are easy to bring to completion.  This will give me the ability to yield full TO&E units for a Soviet recon company (divisional and BMP equipped regiments), a reinforced BMP-2 mechanized infantry company, and a T-64 tank company.  If I just use the Team Yankee stats instead of The Soviet Army, FM-100-2-3 from June 1991,  I can field 2 tank units (seven T-64s apiece) and two BMP-2 mechanized infantry companies (10 BMP-2s apiece) plus lots of supporting units that make the Cold War Soviet Army so nasty.  That's more points than the standard Team Yankee game and my table can support, but there are many scenarios I can envision from the wargames I have played that will require a massive Soviet force.  Plus, I am somewhat obsessed with this project.  I will post more pictures soon to show I am not merely posting numbers.

This is all geared for a ~1985 Soviet Army, the year Battlefront's World War III erupts.  This is a decent year for me to envision my Soviet force as it was the year before I reached my first unit and much of the equipment was the stuff I was studying for my real world activities.  If WWIII had started in 1985 I would still have been a student in various training commands, and the war would have been over before I reached the front.  This is probably a good thing, but no need to worry about fiction.  The other period of time that I contemplate WWIII is the late 1970s when I was a teenager in the basement pushing around cardboard counters.  Here the equipment is a little less sophisticated.  The Soviets only have BMP-1s (still neat looking) while the main battle tank could very well be the T-64.  For the US the standard APC would be the M113, while the MBT would be the M60A3, with a few Sheridans running around.  One of my fonder memories from an article in the old Gene McCoy's Wargmers Digest is a picture of a M60A3 with its commander sticking his torso out of the cupola and signalling the advance.  This is certainly an enticing era in terms of looks, but I will stay with the 1980s for now.  Pictures to follow!