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Campaign: World 2020 (highly modded)
Region: U.S.

Settings:
Victory: Capital
Allied Victories
Mil Difficuty:Very Hard
Economic:Normal
Diplomacy: Normal
Approval Effects: Medium
Extended Spotting and Ranges: off
FOW: on
Nukes: allowed
Nuke Penelties:Low
Debt: None

Tech Level:120
MilCap:71 (Russian = 48. China = 36)
Units:2094
Treasury: $40,000m
Population: 300m
Debt:0

This game's ORBATs has been modified to reduce the number of Regions from 184 down to a more reasonable 125. This was accomplished by grouping little nations into neighboring larger nations. For instance, all of the Caribbean island nations are now one.

As always, my first order of business was to lock my Defense Minister out of garrison and unit control. Part of my modding of this game was to weaken the garrision unit. You can read about this here:

viewtopic.php?f=44&t=16017&start=60

In this game I decided to allow my DM to auto-build my units and missiles, using the new version 6.6.2 unit "Exclude" feature. I went through each sub-class of unit and excluded or marked as "Favorite"/"Standard" every unit type there.

I had the largest MilCap in the game so, diplomatcally, all of my North American and Caribean neighboring regions hated me. To remedy this I closed down arms factories until my MilCap was lower than that of Russia.

I set my treasury department for 2% for sales/unemployment/property/pension, 50% taxes overall and 50% social spending.

I set up my Research, selected intelligent topics to research and set their budget.

In Production I set a 40% markup for each consumer product, reduced production on all items according their market prices. Other Production objectives are:

1. Scrap 325 petrolium power plants, replacing them with 100 new Nuclear ones.

2. Delete industrial hexes with just one node or expand them for maximum efficiency.

3. Construct new production facilities to become self-sufficient.

4. Start a big oil export industry, including developing Alaskan North Slope oil deposits.

5. Start a large consumer goods export business.

I usually try to scrap all of my coal power-generation plants, but due to recent forum advise, I decided to keep them this time.

I was surprised to discover that my Agriculture and Fresh water facilities could all be de-activated without any impact on production. I know that land in SR2020 has intrinisic food and water production, but I have never seen it to this extent before.

_________________
"War is merely the continuation of politics [diplomacy] by other means"
General Carl von Clausewitz - 1832

"Defense: De ting dat keeps de cows off de road."
Catatonic - 2012

At this point I should have started the laborious business of making allies but I started attending to military base re-alignment instead. Base re-alignment consists of four objectives:

1. Clear the center of the Region and the Gulf Coast of military facilities, except for existing aircraft and missile factories and shuttle air-fields. Move other fabs to the coastal regions.

2. Build protective military facilites on the Canadian border.

3. Build protective military facilites on the Mexican border.

4. Configure the defense structure of the East and West coasts to allow easy deployment of units over-seas.

5. Build two complete armed forces - one on the East coast to deal with Europe and Africa and another complete one on the West coast to deal with Asia.

6. Sort all the units and place them into reserve in appropriate locations.

Objective 1) is necessary since on the game map the central U.S. is stuffed with expensive, un-needed air-fields. It is difficult to transport land units from land fabs deep inside of the country. Aircraft can easily fly out, as long as they are provided with sufficient shuttle air-fields to get the across the Region.

Objectives 2) and 3) are obvious - both Canada and Mexico hate the U.S. because of its high MilCap. They will both predictably DOW the U.S. once their war justification climbs above 18%.

Objective 4) becomes increasingly important in the mid-game when you are faced with the problem of how to move all of land units and aircraft that you have constructed across the ocean, so that they can kill something. This means reserve barracks located near or on sea-pier hexes with nearby air-fields. This takes about five six or more such hubs.

Moving aircraft over-seas is a pain too. Fortunitly, I have modded my Orders file to allow AC to be loaded aboard ships as cargo. Otherwise they must be trans-oceanically ferried via AC carriers or fly across. High-tech aircraft have the range to fly on their own but many older aircraft need the service of air-tankers. Other planes and helos cannot air-refuel and have to make the trip in short hops. On the East coast the shortest route for this is from
Newfoundland to Ireland. On the West coast it may mean crossing the Alutians up in Alaska.

Objective 5) includes establishing two or more airborne bases in which to reserve only airborne units such as AB foot-pounders, AB infantry, ATs, artillery, etc. On the East coast there is Fort Bragg and Fort Benning - both traditional airborned and special forces bases. Unfortunitly, they aren't on the coast. On the West Coast there is another Ft. Bragg so that be comes the third. The Marines get two dedicated bases at Camp Pedelton on the North Carolina coast and Camp Lejeune in Oceanside, California.

Another is to set up seperate submarine and ampibious bases on each coast. For instance, in San Diego in RL there is the Point Loma submarine base and the Coronado Amphib base. But these don't exist in the game. Neither does Camp Lejeune in Oceanside.

This sorting is an on-going process all during the game, but once you have indentified and constructed the facilities it becomes easier.

_________________
"War is merely the continuation of politics [diplomacy] by other means"
General Carl von Clausewitz - 1832

"Defense: De ting dat keeps de cows off de road."
Catatonic - 2012

After I got my military sorted out I was one month over-due for dealing with my Diplomatic responsibilities. I began to pull up the Diplomatiic Exchange screen and go though the boring and repeatious tasks of negociating treaties with the other 124 Regions of the world. I started with the U.S.'s traditional European allies. Many like Britain would accept a Full Alliance immediately. Many others like Germany and Italy reqired a lengthy, repeated contacts to finally build up the a FA treaty.

I began region by region in an initial attempt to surround Russia and China with my allies. After hours of work and many bribes I was able to accomplish that. Then I attended to the Pacific regions - Australia, Phillipines, New Zealand, Japan and Indonesia. These were easy - they all gladly, readily accepted a FA treaty. So did South Korea and Taiwan

Then I did the mid-East, with special emphisis on Saudi Arabia. I did not really care to ally with all of these regions. I ignored Israel since relations with it are so toxic.

Then I attended to my enemies. Again, the purpose was not to ally with them but to set up basic diplomatic, trade and over-flight agreements. These help to keep their dislike of the U.S. from growing and festering.

I was very selective in Africa too, with special emphisis on allying with South Africa. I also chose traditional U.S. friend Tunisia, Morocco, Mauritania and Cameroon due to their startegic locations on the Atlantic.

The really bad-boys like Sudan, North Korea, Yemen and Somalia will be ignored.

Finally I was finished, but I had the warm feeling that I was "in with the world" and that the U.N. really liked me.

For all other nations (most of which I intend to conquer) I decided to just wait for them to make the first move. Those who offer trade deals get the full suite of diplomatic and trade treaties.

_________________
"War is merely the continuation of politics [diplomacy] by other means"
General Carl von Clausewitz - 1832

"Defense: De ting dat keeps de cows off de road."
Catatonic - 2012

With my diplomatic chores completed I returned to my endless task of sorting out my military and creating their infrastructure.

I was able to negociate only the basic diplo/trade treaties with Canada and Mexico. They stubbornly rejected Mutual Defense or non-agression pacts.

I mentioned creating a chain of defense posts along my Canadian and Mexican borders. But it is not enough to just build bases and fortifications - you need to man them with units, otherwise attackers will just march up and take them. I began to distribute my land units and aircraft along each border, placing them all in reserve so that they will be ready for the inevitable atttack.

In the case of Canada this was not so big a job - one big step over the border and across the St. Lawrence seaway and Ottawa is captured. I stocked suffecient tanks at Fort Drum and lined up amphibious armor along the seaway.

Canada did not take kindly to this. On March 27th Canada DOWed me. It was all over very quickly. I air-dropped Special Forces into Ottawa and sent in the tanks. My amphib armor quickly crossed the seaway and decended upon the Canadian Capital. So endith Canada.

It took me hours to de-militarize the region and to scrap all of the air-fields, fortifications and radar stations.

_________________
"War is merely the continuation of politics [diplomacy] by other means"
General Carl von Clausewitz - 1832

"Defense: De ting dat keeps de cows off de road."
Catatonic - 2012

My biggest mistake in my first SR2020 game was to let it strech on for too long. After 15 game years Russia and especially China has grown immensely powerful and were just stuffed with high-tech units. I resolved not to make that mistake again.

But it was difficult for me to come up with a effective plan. Both Russia and China were very far away. Mexico will still attack and so ties up the units reserved there. The rest of my forces are divided between the two coasts - could I take on Russia or China with just one of my coastal armies?

I had already established some forward bases in the Pacific. But the distances in the Pacific are vast - the pre-built Alutian base in Adak, Alaska was still 2,000 km from the nearest Russian air-base in Kamchatka. And what good is Kamchatka anyway?

There is also Hawaii, and its military resources are there from the game's start. But it is 4,500 km South-East of the nearest Russian city at Vladivostok. But if I was to really "reach out and touch" Russia, then where should it be? Somewhere they could not really punish me with the full might of the Russian war machine.

How about Vladivostok? I could do it incrementally. Perhaps stage from Adak and Hawaii. A C-17A cargo plane has a range of 8,890 km, twice what the Hawaii-Vladvostok trip would take. And with transport ships, it really does not matter what the distance is - you just have to wait until they arrive. I have a friendly allied staging area in Japan. And I could take my good old time planning this caper.

YES! Let's do this!

_________________
"War is merely the continuation of politics [diplomacy] by other means"
General Carl von Clausewitz - 1832

"Defense: De ting dat keeps de cows off de road."
Catatonic - 2012

First I began construction of some supplementry air-fields near my existing Pacific bases. I flew airborne combat engineers to the islands of Kauai, Hawaii, Attu, Alaska and St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Straight. St. Lawrence was 3,300 km from Vladivostok, but it might still come in handy.

Japan would be helpful as a staging area - I could land aircraft there and re-provision ships there. But Japanese air-fields are few, far-apart and crowded. I needed to build my own bases within striking distance of Vladivostok and make an initial foot-hold on Russian territory.

In my previous game I conquered Russia from Europe and when Russia fell, China took nearly all of the Russian far-East, including Vladvostok and the formerly Russian-owned Shaklin Island. It was game year 2035 and when I tried to invade China from the East. When I tried to land on Shaklin Island I got five air-bases full of high-tech Chinese fighter planes in my face.

But this was not 2035 and Moscow was far away. I would make my first target Shaklin Island again. I would make an amphibious landing and take the coastal Russian air-base there. Then once I had built a sea-pier I could station ship and land regular units there if I wanted to.

The second step was to begin pulling amphib units out of reserve on the West coast of CONUS. Amphib land units would be loaded loaded onto Amphib ships so that they could land on Shaklin Island without a sea-pier. Airborne units could be loaded onto transport planes and flown into Adak or Hawaii and wait on their aircraft until they were actually needed. The remaining non-amphib land units, including tanks and AA could be loaded into standard troop transports and be landed when sea-piers in the combat-zone became available.

Helos could be ferried on the decks of helo carriers or placed on ships as cargo. A few fixed-wing fighter planes would be helpful and could be transported on two CVNs, who could also supply strong air-cover.

We have a Plan!

_________________
"War is merely the continuation of politics [diplomacy] by other means"
General Carl von Clausewitz - 1832

"Defense: De ting dat keeps de cows off de road."
Catatonic - 2012

I actually think invading China from the Pacific and Russia from the Baltic Sea are the best strategic options there are. In my future games I will also try to avoid invading the USA from the Pacific. As North Korea, I didn't have much choice, but it is terribly inconvenient.

November 1st, 2020

Much of the U.S. West-coast land force has been loaded onto amphib ships, standard troop ships and cargo aircraft. Un-needed air and naval units are left behind as are the units covering Mexico in San Diego. C-5A transport planes are lined up on the runway at Ft. Shafter, Hawaii, full of Marines, Airborne and Special forces jump-troops. Two LHD with helocopters and one LPD were waiting off the East coast of Shaklin Island, filled with amphib units waiting to hit the beachead. They were guarded by two cruisers, one DDG and one FFG.

At one point in the operation there had been real fear that there would not be enough West-coast amphib ships to accomplish the mission, but once they were actually loaded there turned out to be plenty.

The expeditionary force consists of:
252 units
13 amphib/troop ships
14 transport aircraft
18 warships
2 CVN carriers w 8 combat AC
3 subs

At this time Japan is at war with China but not yet with Russia, so the U.S. forces will receive no aid from the dozens of Japanese warships cruising in the vacinity of Shaklin Island. Off the North-West coast of Hokkaido, Japan were three LPDs and another LPH packed with more units. They were guarded by another six DDGs. U.S. re-fueling tankers are scattered around the area.

Midway between San Diego and Japan is a carrier task force, centered around two CVNs carrying eight naval fighter aircraft. Also in the task force is another fully-loaded LPD. They are guarded by an escort of two DDGs and six FFGs.

A fully-loaded LCC is approaching the Eastern coast of Hokkaido.

A loaded AKE was sailing from a sea-pier on the West coast of Washington State, where a huge AOE was currently loading tanks, helicopters and supply trucks. These won't be needed until a sea-pier is built or captured in the combat zone.

Three submarines will soon be sailing from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Once hostilities commenced, one of the first objectives for the U.S. Navy would be to neutralize the Russian far-East fleet. The FOW was active and the U.S. has not yet made any real progress with launching its recon-satellites. So the extent and composition of the Russian fleet was unknown. As a percaution all of the troop ships and tankers were sent South or to the Eastern coast of Hokkaido.

Despite the naval escorts, no one was in any real danger yet, since the U.S. is still at peace. So the question is, who would start the war? Russia is already at war with China and had an excellent diplomatic reputation. The U.S. also has a sterling diplo-rep but also has a 75% justification for war with Russia.

So we wait and see what happens...

_________________
"War is merely the continuation of politics [diplomacy] by other means"
General Carl von Clausewitz - 1832

"Defense: De ting dat keeps de cows off de road."
Catatonic - 2012

November 1st, 2020

The Supreme Ruler makes the fateful decision - the U.S. declares war on Russia.

Here is a screen-shot of the combat area:



At the top right is Russian Shaklin Island (outlined in purple. To the right is Hokkaido, Japan. To the bottom-left is Vladivostok, Russia on the tiny peninsula.

A DDG-1000 immediately opens fire on the Russian Dolinsk air-field on the South-East coast of Shaklin Island. The waiting LPD hits the beachead as the two LHDs helo their troops onto the beach adjacent to the Russian air-field. The U.S. amphib forces land nearly within sight of the target air-field. The one resident Russian aircraft attacks and one marine "Alligator" amphib and one AA unit are damaged. The aircraft is quickly destroyed. Otherwise the air-field is defended only by some ineffective garrisons. These and the garrisons in the nearby town are quickly neutralized by 23 armored APCs and Engineers.

All eyes turn to the sky and await Russian air retaliation. Their one AA unit is damaged and they must depend upon U.S. warships off the coast for AA protection. The Engineers get to work repairing the runway. The construction of a barracks and a sea-pier is quickly begun.

The dreaded Russain air attack never materializes because the Russian Army and Air Force are busy fighting of a Chinese attack in Vladvostok.

Meanwhile the Navy patrols the straits searching for Russian warships and submarines. They don't have long to wait. Two Kirvak-class warships have sortied from the direction of Vladvostok and attack the patroling U.S. destroyers. Both are quickly destroyed with Harpoon missiles. The patrol naval continues.

November 4th, 2020

Finishing touches are put on the captured air-field because 12 use transport planes are in-bound from Hawaii. Due to the increased naval activity a P-3C Orion ASW patrol plane has been called in as well.

The carrier task-force is fast approaching Hokkaido from the South-East.

As the naval patrol continues the next Russian attack does not appear from Vladvostok in the South as expected. Instead the P-3 Orion spots one Russian CGN and five frigates approaching down the strait from the North. The U.S. ships possess the element of surprise and group together to form a more dense AA defense. A missile dual insues in which all five Russian warships are sunk with no U.S. losses.

As it turns out, these Russian warships sortied from the Komsomlosk-na-Amure shipyards far up the Anadyr River, North of Shaklin Island. More about this odd place later.

_________________
"War is merely the continuation of politics [diplomacy] by other means"
General Carl von Clausewitz - 1832

"Defense: De ting dat keeps de cows off de road."
Catatonic - 2012

Ha! That reminds me of one game where I captured Moscow and inherited half the country, and found about 50% of the Russian navy spread over the length of the Volga. Talk about a riverine fleet.

Here is a screen-shot of the Vladivostok harbor:



As you can see it is a tri-corner area where China, Russia and South Korea come together. Both Russian and SK are at war with China. SK is fresh from its victory over North Korea.

Vladivostok is located on the small point at the top of the harbor. It contains a city/sea-pier with no visible ships and two air-fields. One airfield contains a landed Backfire bomber and a Shturm-S - whatever that is. The city contains one BTR-80 and one BMP-2.

A BMP-3 guards the town and power-station to the right of the harbor.

To the immediate left of the harbor is a parking lot full of soft Russian units - AA, light artillery, hand-held AT, bridging units, one or two MLRS.

At the top corner of the "parking lot" is a Russian naval fab with a sea-pier and air-field. This airfield has four or five old fighter planes, three Hoplite helos, a howitzer and an Airborne unit. There are no detectable ships.

The most dangerous Russian units on the harbor are the five submarines to the left of the Validvostok sea-pier. These prohibit any ship from approaching the city.

To the top left of the "parking lot" there is an active skirmish between SK tanks and Engineers and some Chinese APCs.

To the lower-left of the "parking lot" is another parking lot of SK units waiting to join the fray to the North.

I have been encouraging SK in this pursuit by donating tons of units to them, most of which they park around their Capital to the South. Whenever anyone makes me diplomatic trade offers for old units, I buy them and send them to SK. I did this for Mongolia too and it is now also surrounded with old units, but it is in no danger of being captured either.

The international center of the harbor is safe so I started running the P-3C Orion into there on patrol.

November 28th, 2020

A task group is sent North-West of the Shaklin Island airbase to attack and capture another Russian air-field there that threatens Shaklin. The TG has a single LPD full of amphib land units that will take the base. This operation goes off without a hitch. I left a garrison of three APCs and a DDG there and loaded the remaining units back onto the LPD. I moved all of my fighter planes from Japan to this newly captured air-field.

Sorties have been sent into Valadivostok harbor to try to figure out to take the city. Two DDG's attempts to destroy one of the BMPs with naval gunfire had very little effect. Unfortunitly these ships quickly discovered the submarines, which badly damaged one of the DDGs. It must await until the new sea-pier is completed to repair it.

Three U.S. submarines were also sent in, but they were out-numbered or out-classed by the five defending subs.

Fighter planes attempted to take out some of the Russian armor using air-to-ground missiles. That did not have much effect either. It was threfore decided to make more amphibious landings and eventually take Vladivostok by land.

December 4th, 2020

An LHD containing seven amphib and a supply vehicle attack the town of Nakhoda to the right of Vladivostok harbor. They immediately capture the town with only slight damage to an APC unit.

January 4th, 2021

An additional 15 APCs and Engineers land in Nakhoda.

January 9th, 2021

Thirty Marines are air-dropped 256 km North-East of Vladivostok, just East of another Russian airfield. These are soon joined by another 30 amphib land units.

Meanwhile one Seawolf submarine moves in on Vladivostok sea-pier and spots the Russian submarines. The Seawolf is destroyed on the mission. But this allows one F-35A multi-role fighter to attack the five deadly submarines using modded RUM-85A Sea Lance missiles to. All subs are destroyed in one sortie.

January 19th, 2021

Eight units from the newest landing proceed West inland and take the Russian air-field there. The U.S. now has 54 land units in mainland Russia at four different locations plus eight fighter aircraft.

February 1st, 2021

Two CVNs full of fighter jets move into Valadivostok harbor, protected by three submarines.

February 10th, 2021

15 amphib APCs move in and take Vladivostok with only minor casualties to themselves. This leaves it up to the Navy to "clean up" the 80 soft Russian units remaining in the "parking lot", so that the land units can safely claim the Rason Naval fab/sea-pier and the road for the U.S.

March 7th, 2021

Here is another screen-shot:



You can see that U.S. tanks have taken the last sea-pier/fab at Rason and the U.S. Navy is shooting up the last of the Russain hardware in the "parking lot" to the South-West.

_________________
"War is merely the continuation of politics [diplomacy] by other means"
General Carl von Clausewitz - 1832

"Defense: De ting dat keeps de cows off de road."
Catatonic - 2012

Now the U.S. had its foot-hold in Russia and it had cost them just a couple of units and a lot of time and effort. But from Vladivostok to Moscow is 9,000 km, the width of three of the world's largest nations - China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan. The further West that the U.S. main force travels, the farther their supplementry and replacement units must travel to reach them. Isn't this insane?

But the flip side is that as the U.S. progresses West the more of Russia's bases, weapons plants and oil they will capture. And once the mission is completed, the U.S.'s other great foe, China will be surrounded to its East and to its North by the U.S. and its new bases. And China's new replacement advisary will not be as clumsy and un-coordinated in its attacks. And meanwhile those former Russian weapons fabs will be turning out state-of-the art units that don't need to be transported across the vast stretches of the Pacific in order to use them on Russia and ultimately on China.

The other worries here are premature war with China or Mexico. If anything annoys China before the U.S. can take Moscow and return its main force to China's North, China could very easily DOW the U.S., move North and take it all away. And in March, 2021 U.S. forces are too weak to take China. That will have to wait.

Fortunitly, China has "other fish to fry" - it is at war with nearly all of its surrounding regions, all of which are U.S. allies.

And what of the Russian enemy? What types of opposition could the U.S. expect on the way to Moscow? In general the opposition would start out light since its war with China and Kazakhstan had depleted its units in the East, especially tanks. But the Russian defenses would certainly increase as the U.S. approached Moscow. Single air-fields could be defended with as few as five units, while large cities and important large fabs could sport 50 defending units or more.

The only real "super-base" on the way was at Pavlovo just West of Moscow. But this situation could work for the U.S. and give it time to accumulate sufficient units in the two years that it would take to progress its main body to Moscow.

I am giving this somewhat long-winded explaination because I do not intend to describe the taking of all 34 barracks, airfields, fabs and cities on the way to Moscow. But you can read the next posts for summaries of what it was like.

_________________
"War is merely the continuation of politics [diplomacy] by other means"
General Carl von Clausewitz - 1832

"Defense: De ting dat keeps de cows off de road."
Catatonic - 2012

Russia is the largest country in the world and also contains some of the longest (and apparently deepest) rivers. The most famous is the mighty Volga river in central Russia.

Strangely, when traveling the vast Russian interior you will encounter shipyards built on rivers up to one thousand kilometers from the ocean. One example is the Nizhny Novgorod shipyard, located at the confluence of the Volga and the Oka rivers. This sea-pier is at least 1000 km South of the nearest ocean. It just happens to be across the river from the game's super-base/air-fab at Pavlov.

Another is the Komsomlosk-na-Amure shipyard, 500 km up the Anadyr River, North-West of Shaklin Island.

The oddest thing about these sites is that once you capture one you may discover five or more enemy submarines lurking by the sea-pier. This is an awkward problem for your land-forces, who are totally un-armed for ASW.

There are two things that you can do:

1. Call in some ASW aircarft to attack them.

2. Ignore them.

The problem with solution 1) is that many Russian subs have short-range AA missiles to shoot down ASW helicopters and they can damage your ASW aircraft.

Solution 2) is recommended since, except for over-flying aircraft, these expensive submarines are harmless, unless they escape to the open ocean. Once you capture the region then they will become yours as the spoils of war.

_________________
"War is merely the continuation of politics [diplomacy] by other means"
General Carl von Clausewitz - 1832

"Defense: De ting dat keeps de cows off de road."
Catatonic - 2012

This 9,000 km Westward trek across Siberian forests, vast rivers and the Russian steppe presented extraordinary supply problems. Without capturing or building a supply infrastructure along the route, the U.S. forces would have quickly have halted and been destroyed. Fortunitly many Russian bases, towns, cities and fabs were captured along the route and created adaquate, perminate sources of supply.

U.S. forces also tried and succeeded to create new areas of increased supply North of their route. That way when they returned to battle China they would not face the same harsh, low-supply conditions as when they arrived.

At the same time this widened the area of U.S. control into the Russian North, depriving Russian of millions of square km of territory, hopefully de-moralizing the Russian army. This also deprived Russia of its major sources of petroleum. At the end of the camapign Russia possesses fewer than 50 oil/gas fields, mostly in captured Armenia.

In order to accomplish this airborne combat engineers were air-dropped into captured Russian oil-fields, or even into huge empty regions. There they constructed air-fields and Military Fortresses. MFs are the strongest buildable supply-generationg units in the game. beyond just the single road.

A chain of sea-piers was also begun along the Arctic ocean in order to increase U.S. control there.

Unfortunitly the Russian units encountered along the way could not be captured. And since Russian resistance increased as the U.S. main force approached Moscow, new and replacement units needed to be brought in. This was accomplished by both lsea and air. In order to systemize and simplify the sea-lift process just one sea-port was used - the initial one at Vladivostok. The other end of the sea-chain was San Diego. New units from CONUS would motor to San Diego where they would be loaded into huge AOE cargo ships. These ships would steam to Vladivostok and unload. The newly arrived units would then be sequencially moved to specific waypoints along the route West.

Air-droppable units arriving by ship or plane would be loaded onto C-5A or C-17A cargo planes and flown to the Western front, whereever it currently was.

Helicopters arrived with the initial invasion on Shaklin Island and more were brought over as cargo on ships. This soon created a handy "On-call" air-transport system that would autmatically answer calls for air transport.

Attack aircraft initially arrived by aircraft carrier and more were gradually introduced either by direct-flight from CONUS or as ship cargo.

Initially the biggest need was for para-troops to drop onto remote Russian villages, oil/gas fields and factories. Lighter units like supply trucks, artillery and AA were also in early demand. Later heavy armor and MLRS/missile launchers were brought in. The last units to arrive were long-range AA and tanks.

As Russian arms fabs were captured they would automatically start turning out new, modern units as well. This was expecially helpful for supplying heavy tanks near the end of the campaign when M1090 FCS tanks began to appear in quantity.

During the campaign deployed U.S. units grew from 485 on November 1st, 2020 to 1057 at the battle of Moscow on March 3rd, 2023. Only a small fraction of these units were actually in the "spear-head" main force that worked its way West to Moscow.

_________________
"War is merely the continuation of politics [diplomacy] by other means"
General Carl von Clausewitz - 1832

"Defense: De ting dat keeps de cows off de road."
Catatonic - 2012

Russian opposition increased as my main force headed West towards the Volga River and then Moscow.

Eastern Russia is arctic tundra, forested semi-mountainous terrain and flat, grassy steppe, all criss-crossed with wide rivers. Fortunately there was an established road with a paralleling railroad all of the 9000 kms.

All towns and villages were heavily (6) garrisoned. As I said earlier, garrisons were modded to be weak and ineffective in this game, so they were just of nuisance value.

Larger towns and mines/plants would have one or two armored units (BMP) guarding them. Single air-fields and barracks had armor and artillery. The major opposition was centered around large fabrication complexes with their accompamying air-field, barracks or both. The bases could be defended by forty or more units of all types. Air bases would be sure to have figher cover (Foxbats) and ever-present Werewolf helicopters.

Much of the Russian tank corps had been depleated by Russia's constant war with all of the regions to the south of the route - China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan.

AA protection was a must and all that was available early on was the air-droppable Avenger close-air AA unit. U.S. fighter and Interceptors seemed ineffective at repelling the increasingly serious Russian air attacks.

Russian air units would flee to the East for repair and so tended to build up ahead on the route. Infantry, AA and artillery on the other hand was usually destroyed while defending a target or while in captured barracks while being repaired.

Another heavy drain on Russian armor was their constant attacks in one or two unit groups. These could easily be destroyed by U.S. aircraft or by infantry if pursuit of the escaping wounded Russian unit was possible.

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"War is merely the continuation of politics [diplomacy] by other means"
General Carl von Clausewitz - 1832

"Defense: De ting dat keeps de cows off de road."
Catatonic - 2012