Istan

All empires fall, and each seems to fall in its own peculiar manner. Yet sometimes you see similarities between one fall and another. With the third British Empire we had experience gained when losing the two previous ones, so did it differently. But others lack our experience.

It’s fascinating to look at the fall of Imperial Russia. As somebody who has always been into ancient wargaming, I confess to being struck with the similarities between the fall of that empire and the Seleucid Empire. For the Russians you had the collapse and shrinking of the empire after WW1. It then expanded to its greatest extent under Stalin, before collapsing again until it stabilised as the Russian Federation and Putin seems to be trying to rebuild it.

Compare this to the Seleucids where their empire, founded largely be Seleucus out of the wars of the successors of Alexander the Great. It started coming apart but was glued back together by Antiochus III (also called the Great) who pretty much restored it. Unfortunately he fell out with the Romans and things started to come apart. Antiochus IVth then started to rebuild it but with his death after his army had failed to recover Persepolis things got distinctly ropey and the empire was never again the power that it had been.

Interestingly the two empires have something else in common. Whilst extending over great distances, their centres of power, population and focus were very much in the west. In the Seleucid Empire the core was Northern Syria and Babylonia. For Russia, the importance of Moscow and Petersburg mean they dominate as a quick glance at the population map above will show.

Another issue is that both empires seem to be focussed on their western boundaries when their true interests might indicate they looked more to their underpopulated easts.

But for the wargames campaign, the fall of empire is an interesting time. At the moment I suspect that for a lot of people, Russia is looking weak. If you just look at the case of Armenia. The forces of Azerbaijan overran Nagorno-Karabakh they did this in defiance of Russian support for Armenia. Indeed they cheerfully targeted Russian forces. They didn’t care. The calculation Azerbaijan seems to have made is that, ‘if we have Turkey supporting us, Russia is too weak and too overcommitted to do anything about it.’

So let us base your campaign on a nameless ‘Istan’ somewhere along Russia’s southern border. You were part of the Soviet Union. After the breakup you might well be at least nominally independent. But in your eyes, Russia has clung on to territory that is ‘rightfully’ yours. Stalin probably carved it off, or perhaps the Tsar did.

So your aim is to get that territory back, and at the same time be recognised as completely independent.

So let us have a Russian Power Projection Track.

120 to 144. Everything is normal. It’s a three day special operation, nothing to see here.

100 to 120. Of course we are not having problems. But half the units in the disputed territory are removed and replaced with conscripts.

80 to 100. Our borders are secure. All air defence assets not integral to infantry formations at brigade level or below are removed and sent west.

60 to 80. Russian mobilisation proceeds apace. All regular units are sent to Ukraine, and are replaced with two brigades of recently raised conscripts.

40 to 60. Fifty percent of all tanks and infantry vehicles are withdrawn from the area and are sent west.

20 to 40. All air assets are withdrawn from Russian area and are sent west.

0 to 20. All regulars are removed and the area is patrolled by lightly armed police units with no artillery and few heavy weapons.

Note that if you have a Russian score of 100, (for example) you are not sure just which band Russia is in. If you invade when it is exactly 100, toss a coin to decide. ‘We Demand Rigidly Defined Areas of Doubt and Uncertainty!’

Every strategic move (which is every month) roll 2d6+1d4 and deduct that from the Russian total.

The Chinese Power Projection Track

The treaty of Aigun, signed in 1858 between Russia and China handed over large areas of Manchuria from China to Russia and has been denounced since as one of the ‘Unequal Treaties’ that China intends to overturn. At some point it’s entirely possible that the Chinese government might decide that Taiwan can remain on the backburner, and instead they can quietly recover Manchuria and other territories they claim in eastern Russia. From their point of view it would solve many of their strategic problems giving them access to their own gas and oil. Also it is unlikely that the Americans or anybody else would step in to stop them. Indeed it’s difficult to see how anybody could step in.

So every strategic move, draw one card from a convention pack of cards for the Chinese. Add the value of the card drawn to a running total. So Ace equals 1, and a King = 13.

When the Chinese total is higher than the total on the Russian Power Projection track, the Chinese quietly move to annex considerable chunks of eastern Russia. This takes d6 months and at the end of the process, the game is over. If, by that time, you have conquered the area you wanted, and have made a strategic partnership with Turkey, you’ve won. If not, you are doomed to fade from being a Russian dominated buffer state to being a Chinese dominated buffer state.

Signs of collapse.

Each strategic move roll percentage dice. If you roll higher than the total on the Russian Power Projection track then the Russian oil industry has collapsed to a level where they may not even be supplying their home market. The Chinese are immediately dealt one extra card.

Strategic partners

This I’ve simplified, and rolled everything together in Turkey. Each move roll a d4 and once the total reaches 24 you have achieved a strategic partnership with Turkey.

If you buy equipment from Turkey you can roll a d6 instead. To achieve this, you as the wargamer have to buy models of Turkish produced equipment for your force.

Balance

There is a delicate balance here. If you work it out on your fingers, the dice rolls are knocking an average of 9 points a strategic move off the total on the Russian Power Projection track. Also with three dice you’ll never knock off less than three.

But the Chinese total is growing one card at a time. This is an average of 6.54. But then the Chinese have a chance of getting an extra card.

Now the optimum time for you to invade is probably when the total on the Russian Power Projection track is below 80. So that is probably eight moves. But in the same period the Chinese probably get 9 cards and that averages 58.6. So if you strike too soon, the Russians might be a bit tough, if you wait too long, then the Chinese are already moving and you’re struggling to make your mark.

Your campaign

I would suggest you look at the general area on Google Maps and just pick somewhere to be your theatre of operations.
Mark out the area on your map.

Forces.

It really depends what you have. But I would suggest that at the start they are about equal. So if you have three ‘brigades’ of Russian troops with proper support, you would have a similar force as the gallant defenders of your Istan.

Initially Russian forces with be regulars with reasonably modern equipment. But conscripts will have older tanks and older APCs. You on the other hand will start off with the equivalent of reasonably modern Russian and/or Chinese equipment and if you buy some Turkish stuff you get to field that instead.

Playing the campaign solo.
The Russian forces will dig in, try and form a coherent front and just try and stop your advance and win time. They won’t have the sort of support needed to produce their own Surovikin line, but they will have enough mines and diggers to fortify strong points and the approaches to towns. Perhaps a third of the front can be to that level.

♥♥♥♥

If you are looking for rules to play out the battles, then you might want to try Hell and Fateful Decisions.
Available from Amazon in paperback for £10 or on Kindle for £4.

Or from Wargame Vault in pdf for £4.

https://www.wargamevault.com/product/465582/Hell-and-Fateful-Decisions

The idea behind this set of rules, aimed at smaller scale figures, is relatively simple. It is to place the player in the position of Battalion Commander. They’re designed to be played with 6mm figures but obviously work for 2mm, 6mm, 10mm, and I know people who’ve used them with multiple based 15mm figures.
Because of this the rules have been designed to limit the fine detail that the player has to handle. In a combat the Battalion Commander is not going to worry about the positioning of squad automatic weapons and the handling of platoon assets. Lieutenants are paid to worry about that for him. However, the distribution of Battalion heavy weapons and the co-ordination of support units attached to the Battalion from the Division is very much his responsibility.
The rules include sections on solo play, ‘shaping the battlefield’ and they also attempt to cover drone warfare. The problem I faced in updating these rules is that warfare is undergoing a period of rapid evolution. The battlefield is a very different place to what it was when these rules were first published thirty years ago.
On the positive side, these rules also include the remarkably popular Kalashnikov Tribal rule set, which took very little updating, because incompetence is reassuringly timeless.