"Near Future/Sci-Fi Arctic/Antarctic Warfare" Topic

Greetings collective brain. I am looking at a project which combines a few different themes in one go. Snow terrain and
Near Future/Sci-Fi combat.

What are your views on such a conflict?

I am thinking that such a conflict would entail low intensity, but highly trained and well equiped troops. Infantry would move out of hidden vehicles. Armour etc may be sparsely used except in a big push.

As a Sci-Fi alternative I was considering areas of thin ice that may be a hazard.

Thanks,

Michael

Metagaming's Ice War. An oldy worth looking for.

War in the Ice from spi
the game had the US with remote control tanks fighting the Russians and South Americans for the resources of Anartica. plus they wakeup an unknown advanced civilization under the ice.

Uh, Battle of Hoth?

Whichever side had better IR camo would win the sneaking contest, which means they win the battle.

It's easy to make snow-camo work for visible light, but it's nearly impossible to completely suppress your IR signature (this usually results in baked troops and overheating vehicles). The side that best suppresses their IR will get the first shot(s), which means that they have won. Modern/SciFi precision-guided munitions generally don't give anyone a chance after they've been hit.

For the surrounding seas involved in such a game, try James Cobb's "Choosers Of The Slain"; Has some interesting and correct data about the Argentine presence in the Antarctic, and the way such a conflict might occur.

I'm thinking that combat will be a combination of Napoleon's and Hitler's Russian experience, without the possibility of foraging and rtreating safely into other countries; The whole continent being surrounded by ocean and nations that nobody is going to be allies with entirely makes for some head-bending logistic problems alone. Let's add in weather, electromagnetic communications troubles, dehydration of troops . . . Oh, it's a universe of fun, I'm here to tell you.

…unless the I/R sensors can be jammed, or overloaded with false target.

Herding penguins, anyone?

I imagine PETA will be after me for that comment. Really, I was only kidding, at least until the shooting starts. Then, they might make for good camouflage.

Polar bears, angy walrusi (just coined that plural term – yes, I know it isn't correct, but it sounds neat), and hungry killer whales, with attitudes, searching for an easy meal under and around the thin ice.

Whichever side had better IR camo would win the sneaking contest, which means they win the battle.

That's what I thought. I was reminded of "the Zone" novels with armoured vehicles slowly advancing while attempting to discover enemy infantry with AT weapons.

Mind you, you could simplify things by simpling saying detection technology is cancelled by surpressing technology.

I would think it'll be decided by air power. No trees, built up areas, civilian population to hide in. Large IR signature. Lots of difficult terrain to cross. Long logistics tail.

Individual soldiers and vehicles are susceptible to minor injuries and damage. Likewise, entire units have many vulnerable and critical elements. Short term lack of food, fuel and shelter could quickly knock a unit out of action.

Is it possible to keep an airbase open there? Not just an airstrip for landing modified cargo planes, but a military airbase?

Air power could be projected from the sea, even if not. Weather might be a very significant factor.

I could also see it being a conflict of sneaky specforces, trying to keep a public lid on the fighting.

As for hazards, there's all sorts of dangers, especially if you're on one of the ice sheets.

Cruise missiles with "smart bomb" cluster munitions for strikes vs. infantry/bases. The counter to this is wide dispersal and hopes for severe inclement weather to mask deployment (in addition to other camoflage measures.) Vehicles will tend to ice up if not kept running "hot". (Tracked vehicles would be very susceptiple to this.) Large units of infantry would be limited to defense of their base areas, as any long-distance travel would be slow and have high attrition rates due to the extreme cold. Hence, any assaults on opposing bases would have to be delivered by air (weather permitting!) or small commando teams (hopefully delivered most of the way to the target area by air.)

Of course, if you want to take all of the fun out of it, start lobbing some nukes around. It will make some good sized lakes, but they'll eventually ice over…. ;)

Of course the seas in those areas can be so fierce, and unpredictable, that operations may be severely curtailed in bad weather too, and no doubt, some escorts will be lost, and/or severely battered.

I concur with the comments about air power. It will pretty much rule the day, provided it has the range to get to the target area, and back home again.

How's this?

TMP link
TMP link
TMP link
TMP link

Hope it helps a bit.

CC

Aaaaaah CC. I thought this thread would spark your interest.

If we're talking sci-fi, then air power may be negated by AA lasers. Planes flying in the cold air have quite big IR signatures too.

And you could move go under the ice as well?

It should be noted that Arctic and Antarctic are quite different – Arctic, there are some logistic areas reasonably close – plus, clearer what they are fighting for (trade routes, resources) – plus, there are indigenous people in the Arctic

Antarctic – very different place – ultrahorrible weather, really at the end of a logistical string, resources may be there but tough to get, etc.

There are a few minis around that could be used – Pulp Figures has a few, Copplestone as well

Read a book called Thunder of Erebus by Payne Harrison. It's a Tom Clancy type novel about NATO and Soviet forces slugging it out in the Antarctic.

Also, as mentioned above SPI's War in the Ice detailed combat operations in that theater pretty well. Limited forces, difficult logistics, and keeping forces combat operational would be a major challenge.

Air power can be 'projected' from as far away as you please. Throw drones into the mix and it gets even more crowded up there. The real question is what is the fight all about? What is the objective? This coupled with the technology/force structure would determine what type of forces being fielded and their operations.
A good cop-out would be to do a small skirmish game with oddball off-board intervention. Cheaper too.

"Herding penguins, anyone"

Someone got into big trouble in the 80's for machine gunning penguins in the 'campo' of the Falklands!
Also blowing up Argie oil drums with a Browning .50 they kindly left for us to play with…….

This reminds me of an idea I had for a near future campaign, supposing oil is discovered beneath antarctica, and all of a sudden it becomes prime real estate.

I imagine IR stealth would be important, as mentioned. Hovercraft would be very useful, I imagine, as would submarines, for a certain distance inland. Armour would be very hard to utilise, being very 'noisy' on IR and likely to fall through thin ice.

Think of the effect extreme cold would have on electronic equipment. A lot of armies use recoilless rifles over TOWs in arctic conditions because the electronics tend to fritz out in the cold.

Some kind of ice-melting tunnelling machine could be cool.

Ogres on the Ice shelf?

Spill-over fire damaging the ice…

We have considered this, to the point of drawing up pland for a board.

If you're talking playing in the Arctic (before the sea ice melts forever), there's a different level of concern than the Antarctic. Up north, there's not really any land, it's all ice (might be 200ft thick, but still ice). Down south, there's actually a big rock in the way of under-ice travel.

Also, under-ice absolutely sucks for a submarine, even a couple feet of ice can trash fairwater planes (637/Sturgeon class had planes that could go vertical, and the 688s that are rated for under-ice have bow planes). Worse yet, it's very hard to tell if you've got a clear polynya (open water) or if it's just 6 feet of solid ice. 6 feet of solid ice will stop a 7kton submarine in it's tracks and screw up any raised masts&antennas, permanently.

Down South is a lot colder, which is even harder on any infantry. steel-tracked vehicles would have to keep moving or freeze in place (snowcats have exotic-rubber tracks).

Another issue is ground blizzards whiting out the 6-20 feet of air closest to the ground.

Another reason for it to be low intensity would be the net gain after factoring the costs. If you're fighting over oil or other resources you may find the cost of the conflict outweighs the gain.

I could see a campaign based on rapid deployment forces protecting and capturing research bases and wellheads. Conventional airpower would be of limited value as you probably wouldn't want to risk too much damage to those expensive facilities.

I have an image in my head of elite, PA troops being dropped in over the horizon, then having to yomp in and reduce the defences sufficiently for follow on forces to come in by air or hovercraft.

Campaign structure could be nice and simple too, matching your mobile assets against the available targets, and no wide fronts to maintain.

Great idea from Mr Wright there!

Hmmm… Good point about PA troops. If you're talking about serious PA (not just an exoskeleton, but Starship Troopers/Armor full spacesuits), the troops will be fine in that weather, and the suit is designed for even more hostile environments than 'mere' 100 below F.

A few facts -

Walrus ( The plural ) live in the NORTHERN hemisphere; there are none in Antartica, though there are 3 tonne Elephant seals . . .

Hovercraft can operate on both the dry land and ice/snow fields found in Antarctica; they do require outrigger skis to enable they to avoid skidding on snow and ice however, as noted in Kim Stanley Robert's novel 'Antarctica'.

90% of the ice in the South Pole is on top of dry land; and that ground is continent. Oil is unlikely to be found frequently there, but coal most certainly is.

This is interesting:

picture
picture

For 15mm gaming, let's see what figure suggestions are offered on this other thread:

TMP link

CC

MWright,

This is one chap's site that my friends and I are basing our Ogre campaigns on: link

Beware, one Pop-up on the way in, but it's a great site for some ideas….

CC do a Google image search for HOTH. I picked up quite a few ideas for my side project:

link

You can build your own version of Hoth using the instructions in the links at the bottom of this website – just scale down for 15mm:
link

Cheers
Mark

Mark,

Woman's Day? No. I'm not going to ask.

Anyway, that looks awesome. Here's the 5 part instructions:

link

Thanks.

CC

Leave no stone unturned CC, when searching for wargames goodies.

Cheers
Mark

I'd go back to the Cold War and Ice Station Zebra, using 5150 or Ambush Alley depending on scale.

More inspired souls:

TMP link
YouTube link

Dan

Don't worry about the cold. It will be a hot dry desert with a hole in the ozone layer in about 2 years anyways.

pffft! That 'hole' in the ozone layer is a 1-2% reduction. Those false-color maps greatly exaggerate the scale for ease of data-processing by the Mk1 eyeball. Does that lead to a lot more UV coming in? yes. More thermal energy? not in the slightest.

There is quite a bit of oil in the Arctic, it's just hard to get to under all that ice. I've heard that the Russians claimed a large portion of the oil-lands, the Canadians claimed a big slice, and the US barely claimed anything of that particular pie, but now the Russians have figured out how to get a drill rig to work under the ice and run the pipeline up underwater valleys/fjords to shore stations. Suddenly, the Russians have a whole lot more oil than the entire middle east.

Arctic oil reserves:

link

Antarctica has it's own potential resources too:

picture
link

I see a Fuel War on the horizon . . .

Better have your miniatures ready, and discuss the scenarios for them, before it becomes impossible to talk about the situation once it's a current affairs topic!!!

Dan