Brezhnev Doctrine – Soviets in Checkpoint Charlie

It’s 1965 and Kruschnev has, ahem, retired to be replaced by Brezhnev.  The Soviet Union finds itself having to focus not only with the threat from the West but an increasingly hostile China in the East and internal dissent as Kruschnev’s reforms are undone.  The latter culminates in the invasion of Czechoslovakia,the instigator event for Checkpoint Charlie. 

The Checkpoint Charlie time period saw the Soviet Union’s Red Army move from the “quantity has a quality of its own” approach of “good enough” with kit like the T-55 to a more “okay, what about *some* quality?” approach with cutting edge equipment like the T-64, BMP-1 and Hind attack helicopter.  Kruschnev had started the ball rolling with a general philosophy of “can we put a missile on this?” (including, notably, Cuba) and it bore fruit in Brezhnev’s era. But how does that manifest in the game?  Read on.

Tank Formations

When it comes to tanks, the Soviets kept the “good enough” mentality of the T-34/85 and expanded that, via the T-44, into the T-54 and T-55 family.  With a balance of mobility, armour and armament the T-55 out-gunned and out-armoured its contemporaries in the Centurion Mk.II and M26/M46 medium tanks, all whilst keeping the weight below by sacrificing such unimportant things as ergonomics.  The T-54 and T-55 is numerically the most important tank in the Soviet inventory, and it still compares well to the 90mm armed M48 in the US and West German inventory. 

However, assuming the West would close the gun gap, the Soviets took a leap and developed a smoothbore 115mm.  Whilst it feels like a backward step after moving from smoothbore cannons to rifled guns in the 18^th century, rifling drives limitations in maximum projectile velocity.  Additionally, as the physics of HEAT rounds became better understood, it was clear that the spin imparted by a rifle round was detrimental to the forming of the explosive “jet”.  Combined with a fin stabilised round, the smoothbore was considered the way forward by the Soviets and it appears they were correct in that given the 125mm and NATO 120mm both followed that route.  In game terms, the T-62 doesn’t improve much in the T-55 when it comes to mobility and armour but does outshoot the 100m and the L7 105mm with an AT19 round.  It does suffer from its cramped turret with a RoF1, Slow Firing rate of fore.  The T-62 makes a strong case for being a good tank to go for numbers with.

The Soviets didn’t rest on that laurel and, with the appearance of the NATO 105mm as a main gun across NATO, along with the UK and other already working on bigger guns, the next tank, the T-64, scaled up the 115mm to a 125mm.  The T-64 also introduced two new innovations.  The first was an auto-loader, resolving the issue of handling a large round in a cramped turret by removing the weak fleshy bit from the equation.  Whilst a NATO tank loader could outshoot an autoloader for brief bursts under ideal conditions, the auto-loader could keep the same constant rate even under combat stress and whilst bouncing over the dips and bumps of the Great European plane.  The T-64 thus gets a flat RoF 1 with no moving penalty, meaning its equivalent to its NATO peers whilst moving westward, as a good Communist tankie should be.

The other introduction was an early composite armour, BDD.  This armour used a ceramic matrix to counter HEAT rounds and disrupt penetrator rounds, giving the T-64 excellent protection over the front arc.  It equals the front armour of the Soviet heavy tanks whilst weighing about the same as the T-62!

However, the T-64’s innovations came with a price tag and some mechanical issues, leading to the Soviets to look as a simpler tank that sported the same fearsome 125mm but could be built quicker and cheaper, leading to the T-72.  This early “Ural” model matches the T-64 for gunnery and mobility, but has a lower armour threshold and only “bazooka skirt” side protection.  Good enough for a LAW72 but Carl Gustavs are a concern.  Warsaw Pact players will be familiar with the limitations of the budget model.  However, in a world without Milans and copious amounts of 120mm fin rounds, the T-72 stacks up well against all but the Chieftain and NATO heavy tanks. The real question is where it fits compared to the T-64.  The latter is about 1-2pts more expensive per tank but the extra armour is a compelling argument over the budget tank.

Talking of heavy tanks, the Soviets had followed up on the IS-3 was a series of improved designs, ending with the T-10M. 

Whilst the IS-3’s armour and main gun were somewhat underwhelming compared to the newer NAYO mediums like the Centurion Mk.13 and M-60, the T-10M dialled everything to 11 or, more accurately, 19.  The 122mm achieved what the smoothbore 115mm did with technical wizardry by sheer brute force.  Similarly, its front armour of 16 could reliably stop NATO 105mm rounds and early TOW missiles but is matched by an impressive side armour 12, turning aside 90mm rounds with some regularity and even having a shot at stopping a 105mm round.  The arrival of the T-64 really spelt the end of the heavy tank, finally combing the impressive front armour and main gun with a far more mobile chassis.  Still, the T-10M and IS-3 would linger in independent tank units for a good while.  It’s hard to see much of a place for the IS-3 but the T-10 kinda works.  It’s cheaper than the T-64/72 whilst still having a broadly comparable gun, front armour, high side armour and “good enough” mobility (on par with the T-55, in fact, better cross!).

 All of the tanks have a similar formation:

• A HQ tank.
• Two to three company of three to ten tanks of the same tank model as the HQ.
• An infantry company in either BMP, BT-50 or BTR-60.
• A recee platoon in BRDM or BMP-1
• Up to two AA platoons, one Gaskin and one AA gun platoon with either a Shilka or ZSU-57
• A Carnation battery.

All of this is relatively familiar to most Team Yankee Soviet players and means you often only need to trouble the force support for an OP and some flyboys!  The biggest change is the addition of the ZSU-57-2 as a gun AA option.  Whilst the Shilka is better at engaging fast jets thanks to its radar; the ZSU-57 enjoys a better firepower and AT, making it a more reliable helicopter killer and light-armour shredder!

Infantry Formations

The infantry are much like their 80’s counterparts.  In fact, given the difference between an AKM and an AK74 is pretty academic at this scale so they are reusing the same models.  

Much like the tanks, the soviets field their infantry by the company, rather than a platoon.  This makes for big squads of AK-47, RPG-7 and PKM stands. 

The AK puts out a ROF3 burst of fire, but is comparatively short legged at 8” range.  The under-slung grenade launcher has yet to appear in the Soviet Union so its also only FP6.  However, each stand does have an RPG18 giving it an AT14 shot; useful when nothing in NATO is rocking better than side skirts!  The RPG7 is only AT14 too, but does have a 12” range and a FP4 warhead so bolsters the discardable rockets as a point defence weapon but can’t hurt most NATO medium tanks from the front.  The loss of the grenade launcher does worry me.  Traditionally, “assault 5+” means Soviets generally did better to go with a short range fire fight to clear opposing enemy out.  Without the grenade launcher, that becomes less of a viable option and places more ephasis on the boost to 4+ assault, putting the on par with the US and West Germans on a stand by stand basis. Weight of numbers and counetr-attack 3+ should see them through.

The Infantry companies also come with PKM machine gun stands for medium ranged fire support and have optional AGS-17 grenade launchers to further bolster that, along with SA7 MANPAD.  Some companies also get AT-3 Saggers to give some very potent long range AT18 shots versus armour.

The infantry can ride around in BMP-1 IFV or, BTR-50 or BTR-60 APC.  The BMP gives each infantry squad its own AGTW and a FP3+ 75mm gun for digging out infantry, but does make the infantry pricey. Pricey is relative, a full company with 12 BMP-1 is still about the same cost a NATO medium tank platoon with three tanks… 

The BTR-50 provides tracked mobility over terrain and is bullet-proof to small arms, but the BTR-60 is quicker on road and has a small firepower boost by sporting a 14.5mm MG.  The BTR-50 is also a resin and metal model so the BTR-60 wins the price war!

Looking at the rest of the formation, we have:

• A HQ and two-three infantry platoons, all riding the same type of IFV or APC.
• A tank company with T-55/62/64/72 options, no heavies.
• An AA platoon with Shilka or ZSU-57
• An AA platoon with SA-9 Gaskins
• A recce platoon with BMP-1 or BRDM
• An anti tank platoon with Malyutkas 9P122;  AT-3 Sagger on a BRDM-2 chassis
• A 120mm mortar battery
• A Carnation battery

Again, that’s a lot of fire-power in formation with only an OP really needed from force support.  It’s great to see Soviets finally get mortar artillery again too, with 4 or 6 tubes of 120mm with smoke rounds to boot!

The Sagger AT platoon does much the same job as the Spandrel platoon does in Team Yankee, providing a substantial boost to the infantry’s AT capability but being something of a glass cannon (glass missile).  That said, its far better than a TOW jeep by at least having *some* armour.  No word on it’s a stand-alone resin model or resin upgrades for the plastic model.  

A notable omission here is the VDV.  The BMD appears mid-way through the time period so there’s definitely a case to be made that the VDV should have made the book, utilising the existing infantry, BMD-1 and ASU-85 models.  Maybe we’ll see this revisited in the future.

Support

With the formations being almost entirely self-contained forces in their own right, it may be questioned what the Division is bringing in support.  A lot, it seems!

For artillery, Soviets have four boxes, a Carnation box, a Acacia box, a Hail rocket artillery box and, showing we are in Checkpoint Charlie, not Team Yankee, a towed artillery box with either 152mm Howitzers or 160mm Mortars. 

The 152mm are the same price as the Acacia which, given one is an unpinnable armoured box with a longer range, seems to be the classic Flames of War problem of the towed gun just not being competitive in cost.  The 160mm mortar is cheaper, but sports a shorter range and lower AT than the howitzers.  With the 120mm in formation, it’s tricky to see a place for either option.  All but the 160mm mortars also unlock access to the BMP-1 OP vehicle.

For anti-aircraft, there are more SA-9 Gaskins but also the SA-8 Gecko.  The Gecko, with less competition than in TY, can carve itself more of a niche as being the main SAM for the Soviets, with excellent range, ROF and firepower.  But its “tank save” armour leaves it very easy to destroy.

The recce box for Divisional Recce not only has BMP-1 and BRDM options but also the PT-76 light tank.  The PT-76 compares favourably with the recce BMP-1.  It doesn’t have the BMP-1’s missile, but its main gun has a stabiliser and RoF2 making it more useful at dealing with peer threats like Scorpions or Sheridan.  The lack of a missile makes it about half the price of the BMP.

There is also a box for anti-tank, bringing more Sagger wheeled tank destroyers.  Sadly, the Soviet 100mm anti tank guns (either the BS-3 rifled gun, T-12 or MT-12 Rapida smooth bore) don’t appear in the game. That’s a little disappointing given gun teams finally arrive to WW3!

Air support comes in the form of the SU-22 and the Hind helicopter.  The SU-22 is much like TY, sporting cannons and rockets, including a hefty demolition rocket.  There are no guided missile options though.

The Hind is also much like TY but sporting the earlier AT-2 Swatter missile, not the AT-6 Spiral. The AT-2 is still more than sufficient for the period, though, with a hefty AT21 defeating most NATO armour reliably. The Hind also has a troop transport capacity but doesn’t have the option of a Hind assault platoon attachment.

Dusting Off The Collection

Remember when Team Yankee first came out and you bought four of the then new starters with a bunch of T-72 and Hinds in?

Okay, well maybe I was the only one who bought four of them.  But you get the idea.  All those original model T-72 are getting a new lease of life in Checkpoint Charlie.  Similarly, large chunks of the existing Soviet range also get carried over.  Non-ERA T-64, Shilkas, BRDM and SA-9 Gaskins, Carnations and Acacia, even the much neglected SA-8 Gecko all get a chance to see the table again.  You can take a Team Yankee v1 soviet force and most of it will carry across, save stuff like the SA-13 Gopher. Additionally, the infantry largely carry across, though you may need some AT-3 Sagger teams to replace the Spigots.

In fact, the only real issue you may have is having built the T-55 and T-62 as the unarmoured 80’s versions you suddenly need the bog-standard version.

If you have an existing collection, the PT-76 and Sagger carriers are likely the only new investment you really need, though the T-10M and ZSU-57 may both be worth a look.

Conclusion

The Soviets provide an interesting mix of possibilities for force construction.  Do you go a high-end force with T-64 or T-10M, a horde of mid-ranged tanks like T-55 and T-62 or cover the inter-German border with Sagger Spam courtesy of BMP-1 and Sagger carriers. They also provide a way for established Soviet players to revisit some long neglected parts of the model range, safe from the Milan missile of Team Yankee.  There’s plenty of scope to expand the range later.  As highlighted, VDV and towed 100mm guns are all viable additions at a later date, as are TO-55 flame thrower tanks, so it’ll be interesting to see what the future brings.