I started this blog on 21 Feb 2001 and then Migrated Balagan to WordPress on 15 Sep 2013. So, roughly 4.5 years ago. One of the great things about WordPress, compared to the hand crafted HTML site I had before, is that I get statistics on page views. Apparently I’ve had 1,176,779 views since I migrated and 1,125 comments. My biggest day (23 Feb 2018) brought 2,420 views – this was because Reddit got hold of my Academy of Street Fighting: Tactics during the Battle of Stalingrad post. Today is a typical day with 750 views.
Cold War
The war that never happened except by proxy in other theatres.
Deep Battle: Soviet Doctrine for Operational Level Warfare
Everybody knows about the German’s Blitzkrieg style of warfare. But I was surprised to discover the Soviets had a similar approach to warfare called “Deep Operations” or “Deep Battle”. This was a well defined doctrine for Operational Level Warfare, was invented during the 1920s, and deliberately applied during WW2. Admittedly Deep Battle had mixed success during the war, but this was probably more to do with the previous purge of Soviet military leadership than with any fundamental flaw in the doctrine. Soviet doctrine in the Cold War period is still based on Deep Battle.
Portuguese Army List for Cold War Commander
I’m thinking of using Cold War Commander for the Portuguese Colonial War but the rules don’t have a Portuguese Army List. So I wrote my own. It is based on my Portuguese Order of Battle. I’ve adopted the updated army list format of Blitzkrieg Commander (2009) with AT and AP being separate and a CA column.
Soviet Order of Battle and Doctrine in the Cold War
From the mid 1950s the Arab nations were equipped by the Soviet Union. In the absence of good data on the Arabs themselves here’s a description of the Soviets. As my main interest is company level infantry actions I will focus on motorised infantry battalions and below. Most details are taken from Isby (1981).