28 January 2017

Baltic Security Scenario Simulation in Poland


The Potomac Foundation and the Casimir Pulaski Foundation will host their first joint Baltic Security Scenario Simulation in Warsaw, Poland on January 23-26, 2017.

The purpose of this wargaming initiative is to assist the Polish national security decision-makers in the development of a regional and NATO accepted understanding of the nature of the Russian military threat to the Baltic States and Poland.

Media Inquiries: info@thepotomacfoundation.org

The wargame seeks to explore the dynamics between national defense and coalition warfare considerations; defense of the capital and defense of borders; defeating forces and defeating adversary’s plans.

Wargame participants will include defense experts and government representatives from Poland, the United States, Baltic and Nordic countries.

The simulation will be conducted using the Potomac Foundation’s proprietary HEGEMON platform and methodology. HEGEMON features Google Earth interface, and includes a complete regional order of battle, as well as a detailed attrition calculation application for direct fire, indirect fire, air attack, and air defense. The forces are controlled by players who issue movement and combat orders for each turn to the units under their command. All unit orders provided for each move to the umpire, who adjudicates movement and combat outcomes. All orders are submitted and executed simultaneously.


In advance of the simulation, Dr. Phillip A. Karber, the Potomac Foundation President, has issued the following statement:

Last year Russia announced its intent to bring back the 1st Guards Tank Army deactivated following the end of the Cold War. Such deployment with forward elements near Smolensk and recent information publicly discussed in Moscow raise a number of security concerns: 
The 1st TA will be organized around 3 Divisions and 3 maneuver Brigades — a very powerful and offensive strike force; Its assets will include approximately 700 Tanks, 1300 other armored vehicles, 500 tubes of artillery and multiple rocket launchers, covered by a dense, mobile-radar air defense umbrella; 1st TA is being outfitted with the latest Russian armament, and has been declared an early recipient of the new Armata T-14 Main Battle Tank; Russia has announced that the 1st TA is to be ready by this spring, and field-tested in the upcoming Zapad ’17 exercise scheduled to be held in western Belarus during September ‘17; Russia has ordered over 4,000 rail flat cars for deployment of heavy equipment into Belarus (only 200 were used in the last Zapad ’13) – which is sufficient to transport all the heavy vehicles of 1st TA as well as substantial amount of ammunition and sustainability — the most powerful concentration of offensive weaponry in Eastern Europe since the end of the Cold War. 

Given this, General Breedlove and I believe it is extremely important for the Alliance, and its front-line members, to start addressing the potential threat this force possesses before it actually appears on the Polish border. Participating in a realistic computerized simulation with military experts (as opposed to a simplistic war-game) is a useful way of thinking through the implications of this challenge with interested Allies.

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