Battle Generator - Issues

I thought that I'd be further ahead.

Been reading "Warning of War in Europe" from 1984, which discusses how the US intelligence understood Soviet systems of Readiness, what sorts of plans that the Soviets might implement and the implications of these for the amount of warning that NATO might get of an attack.  I had previously considered a straight forward three-part set of categories to describe the warning that NATO might get and, as a reflection of this, the level of preparation by the Soviet forces.

The labels I was using were:

1) Strategic Surprise;

2) Just in Time Warning;  and

3) Telegraphed Attack.

Given what I've read so far, it suggests that I need to change that somewhat, to something like:

1) Attack from Peacetime Posture;

2) Attack with Two Fronts;

3) Attack with Three Fronts;

4) Attack with Five Fronts.

The gain is that I'll have a tighter link to the levels of forces that might be available to prosecute an attack.  This flows through to setting the scale of the battle, the availability of reinforcements for the follow-on battles etc.  All very inter-linked.

Of course, this is US intelligence thoughts on what the Soviets thought, so inevitably room for divergence.  Still interesting.

The next great puzzle is getting a handle on the ORBATs for the Soviets through time and space, especially what tanks went where and when.

Till next time.