The Last War: 354.

[Jotun]

Very nice chapter. I hate to ruin a good story with truth, but my only nitpick is with the idiocy of the Soviets in trying to operate a nuke boat in the shallow waters of the Baltic Sea. As you can see in this map, there really isn't much room for a large submarine to manouver, let alone operate tactically. Much of the Baltic is PD only for a nuclear boat, which is why the Soviets never operated SSNs in the Red Banner Baltic Fleet.

Let me explain. As a German who got his sea legs in the Baltic, I know that. My reasoning was that Pact and "old" NATO navies had fought each other to exhaustion over the first two weeks and the Soviets would throw everything they had into what amounted to the Charge of the Light Brigade.
NATO, in contrast, was, thanks to Finnish and Swedish navy and lots of anti-shipping air assets, in a somewhat better position.

We can always retcon it.
But the REDFLT brass would have been under a lot of political pressure to present something, anything that could be called a victory and they would have sent every halfway battleworthy vessel into combat, Literally at gunpoint.

[Jotun]

How many torpedoes were launched, the text says 6 but it sounds like two groups of two torpedoes were launched at the Battlecruiser, two at the destroyer and two at the sub with the frigate's rocket launchers destroying one group.

Six by Manthatisi, two by another NATO sub.

[Paul Nuttall]

How many torpedoes were launched, the text says 6 but it sounds like two groups of two torpedoes were launched at the Battlecruiser, two at the destroyer and two at the sub with the frigate's rocket launchers destroying one group.

Six by Manthatisi, two by another NATO sub.

Ahhh right.

[Johnnie Lyle]

Very nice chapter. I hate to ruin a good story with truth, but my only nitpick is with the idiocy of the Soviets in trying to operate a nuke boat in the shallow waters of the Baltic Sea. As you can see in this map, there really isn't much room for a large submarine to manouver, let alone operate tactically. Much of the Baltic is PD only for a nuclear boat, which is why the Soviets never operated SSNs in the Red Banner Baltic Fleet.

Let me explain. As a German who got his sea legs in the Baltic, I know that. My reasoning was that Pact and "old" NATO navies had fought each other to exhaustion over the first two weeks and the Soviets would throw everything they had into what amounted to the Charge of the Light Brigade.
NATO, in contrast, was, thanks to Finnish and Swedish navy and lots of anti-shipping air assets, in a somewhat better position.

We can always retcon it.
But the REDFLT brass would have been under a lot of political pressure to present something, anything that could be called a victory and they would have sent every halfway battleworthy vessel into combat, Literally at gunpoint.

I would advise against retconning for several reasons:

1. The war has been raging for a long time, and the decision makers are probably mentally exhausted and this making subpar decisions. This is especially true for people who are new to their posts and learning on the job. So it’s 100% feasible for the op order writers to see submarine and not process the differences between the Baltic and the Atlantic.
2. We have all been in situations where the people who know the best uses of their equipment and solutions to problems are neither in charge nor listened to, with resultant stupidity ensuing. That is in a Westerly context, where dissenting voices are a lot more tolerated and listened to. The Soviet Union was even worse about this, and so it’s highly unlikely they would be able to understand why the Baltic is bad for a nuclear submarine, if they even wanted to listen.
3. Finally, fiction needs to include reasonable fuckups due to human frailty to be plausible, because that’s what happens in real life. Especially given that the Soviet Union and then Russia in @:
   • Has shown itself to be extraordinarily militarily inept
   • Is obsessed with compartmentalism, gundecking and hiding mistakes
   • Has a serious issue with a culture that actively discourages people from speaking up when they see problems
   • Worst of all, appears to have actively corrupted its military educational and learning institutions, so it can’t figure out what actually works and what actually doesn’t
   As a result, the Soviets probably should be in a fog of disbelief, making objectively stupid decisions because they don’t know which way is up.

[Jotun]

Very nice chapter. I hate to ruin a good story with truth, but my only nitpick is with the idiocy of the Soviets in trying to operate a nuke boat in the shallow waters of the Baltic Sea. As you can see in this map, there really isn't much room for a large submarine to manouver, let alone operate tactically. Much of the Baltic is PD only for a nuclear boat, which is why the Soviets never operated SSNs in the Red Banner Baltic Fleet.

Let me explain. As a German who got his sea legs in the Baltic, I know that. My reasoning was that Pact and "old" NATO navies had fought each other to exhaustion over the first two weeks and the Soviets would throw everything they had into what amounted to the Charge of the Light Brigade.
NATO, in contrast, was, thanks to Finnish and Swedish navy and lots of anti-shipping air assets, in a somewhat better position.

We can always retcon it.
But the REDFLT brass would have been under a lot of political pressure to present something, anything that could be called a victory and they would have sent every halfway battleworthy vessel into combat, Literally at gunpoint.

I would advise against retconning for several reasons:

1. The war has been raging for a long time, and the decision makers are probably mentally exhausted and this making subpar decisions. This is especially true for people who are new to their posts and learning on the job. So it’s 100% feasible for the op order writers to see submarine and not process the differences between the Baltic and the Atlantic.
2. We have all been in situations where the people who know the best uses of their equipment and solutions to problems are neither in charge nor listened to, with resultant stupidity ensuing. That is in a Westerly context, where dissenting voices are a lot more tolerated and listened to. The Soviet Union was even worse about this, and so it’s highly unlikely they would be able to understand why the Baltic is bad for a nuclear submarine, if they even wanted to listen.
3. Finally, fiction needs to include reasonable fuckups due to human frailty to be plausible, because that’s what happens in real life. Especially given that the Soviet Union and then Russia in @:
   • Has shown itself to be extraordinarily militarily inept
   • Is obsessed with compartmentalism, gundecking and hiding mistakes
   • Has a serious issue with a culture that actively discourages people from speaking up when they see problems
   • Worst of all, appears to have actively corrupted its military educational and learning institutions, so it can’t figure out what actually works and what actually doesn’t
   As a result, the Soviets probably should be in a fog of disbelief, making objectively stupid decisions because they don’t know which way is up.

Points well made and taken, sir. Thank you.

[Johnnie Lyle]

Thanks!

I think Bernard had commented that bits of TLW were getting hard to write, because we’re seeing the Russians in @ be so gobsmackingly stupid, which wasn’t really thought believable before.

[Jotun]

Thanks!

I think Bernard had commented that bits of TLW were getting hard to write, because we’re seeing the Russians in @ be so gobsmackingly stupid, which wasn’t really thought believable before.

I think we can rationalize the early effectiveness of the WP in TLW with weight of numbers and weight of fire and at least part of the officer corps being somewhat competent and not quite as comically corrupt as Russia‘s officer corps.
A lot of those compretent soldiers are now pushing up daisies or forming a greasy layer of soot on the inside of a T-90 turret. So there has to be a decline in effectiveness. But not on a Keystone Kops level, or whatever the military eauivalent is. Yeah.

Maybe we should move any further discussion to the discussion thread?

[Bernard Woolley]

Thanks!

I think Bernard had commented that bits of TLW were getting hard to write, because we’re seeing the Russians in @ be so gobsmackingly stupid, which wasn’t really thought believable before.

The old saying about fiction having to be plausible comes to mind.