Kirewa Waters Scenario: A Battle for Water Security
- dankellaway5
- 4 days ago
- 12 min read
In this simulation I stepped into the shoes of Kalundu which is a poorer, landlocked state facing a stronger coastal neighbour, Azimbar, in a limited war over water, minerals and political survival. The conflict centres on the Kirewa River. The river rises in Azimbar and is controlled by a huge upsteam structure, the Kirewa Grand Dam, which powers its cities and industry. Kalundu sits downriver with failing harvests, rising food prices and periodic blackouts, watching water levels fall while Azimbar sells electricity abroad and extracts lithium and rare earths from the disputed Kirewa Triangle.
After years of arguments over water releases, opaque data from the dam, and an unequal mining regime, Kalundu’s leadership faces mounting unrest at home. Farmers blame Azimbar for drought-stricken fields; urban protesters blame their own government for weakness and mismanagement. Diplomatic efforts have stalled. Border incidents around the mining zone have become more frequent and more lethal. In that context, a limited war fought primarily along the river and around the mines becomes thinkable for both sides: Azimbar to impose a buffer and secure its assets, Kalundu to force a change in the rules that govern its survival.
This article aims to see how such a conflict might evolve under different choices. The aim is not to predict the future or to glorify conflict, but to study how political, military, economic and informational pressures interact when real governments find themselves in hard corners. By running such a simulation, I can test strategies, expose blind spots and think more clearly about the kinds of decisions leaders face when escalation feels unavoidable.
For this scenario I deliberately chose to play Kalundu, the weaker of the two states. Stronger powers enjoy more options and more slack; they can afford mistakes. Weaker states cannot. They rely on deception, timing, careful choice of objectives and the ability to turn limited successes into political leverage. Stepping into Kalundu’s position forces me to think in those constrained terms: how do you defend your population’s access to water and resources, extract a tolerable settlement from a stronger neighbour, and keep your own government standing at the end?
My aim with this piece is to walk through the campaign as it unfolded: what I was trying to achieve, why I chose certain courses of action, where the plan worked and where, notably in the dam sabotage, it strayed into highly risky territory. What follows is an analytical after-action review: a structured look at how Kalundu fought, what it gained, and which of my own decisions I would question if this were more than a simulation.
Military Balance at Start of the Scenario:
Azimbar Armed Forces (ZAF)
Manpower: ~55,000 active, ~60,000 reservists (not all mobilised).
Ground forces
I Corps (Northern/Kirewa front):
1st Armoured Brigade – ~80 modernised MBTs, mech infantry, 155mm SP artillery.
3rd Mechanised Brigade – three mech infantry battalions, towed artillery, ATGMs.
5th Motorised Brigade – three motorised battalions, light artillery.
I Corps Artillery Brigade – 122mm MLRS, heavy 155mm guns.
Corps Air Defence Regiment – SHORAD batteries + widespread MANPADS.
II Corps (Central/Southern):
7th Light Infantry Brigade (internal security, coastal defence).
9th Motorised Brigade (operational reserve near Aziri/Nambara).
2nd Artillery Brigade (towed guns, some rockets).
Special Operations Command:
Azimbar Rangers Brigade (3 light battalions).
Special Intervention Group (~800 SOF).
Air force (AzAF)
18 multirole fighters (c. 12 fully mission-ready).
8 CAS/strike aircraft.
24 attack helicopters (c. 18 available), 30 transport/utility helicopters.
12 MALE UCAVs (8 operational), 30 tactical ISR drones, ~200 FPV/loitering munitions.
Navy
4 missile boats, 6 fast patrol boats, 2 small landing ships – focused on protecting Nambara and coastal shipping.
Kalundu Defence Forces (KDF)
Manpower: ~70,000 active, ~80,000 reservists/paramilitaries.
Ground forces – frontline
Northern Command (Kasari front):
2nd Mechanised Brigade – ~70 older MBTs, mech infantry, 152mm artillery.
4th Mechanised Brigade – three mech infantry battalions, one tank battalion.
6th Light Infantry Brigade – three light battalions suited to hills/ambush.
8th “Water Protection” Brigade – motorised infantry, artillery, engineers for river defence.
Northern Artillery Division – two MLRS regiments (122/220mm), one heavy gun regiment.
Central/Southern:
10th Light Brigade – internal security around Mubega.
Republican Guard Division – two elite heavy brigades near the capital as strategic reserve.
Special forces & auxiliaries
Presidential Guard SF Regiment (~1,000 operators) for deep raids and reconnaissance.
Border auxiliaries and militias with mixed training and loyalty.
Air force (KAA)
24 fighters (mix of older 4th-gen / upgraded 3rd-gen, ~16 mission-capable).
Small fleet of strike/COIN aircraft.
Rotary wing for transport and limited attack.
Tactical UAVs and some loitering munitions, concentrated around Kasari (L-9 airstrip) and Mubega.
1. Political and Military Objectives
Kalundu’s strategic aims were deliberately limited:
Water security – Azimbar had built the Kirewa Grand Dam downstream and was accused of hoarding dry-season flows, fuelling crop failure and migration. Kalundu wanted guaranteed, monitored releases.
Economic justice in Kirewa – The disputed Kirewa Triangle contained lucrative lithium and rare-earth mines. Kalundu wanted either a fair revenue share or de facto control over part of that belt.
Regime survival and legitimacy – The leadership needed to survive the crisis and emerge able to claim that it had defended national interests, not squandered lives.
Azimbar’s aims, by contrast, were to retain full control of the dam and mines, impose a buffer on Kalundu’s side of the border, and compel Kalundu to accept the 2011 status quo in practice if not in name. From the outset I tried to behave like a state that knows it cannot win total victory but can realistically win a better settlement.
Why this framing?Because limited political aims act as a brake on military overreach. They gave me a yardstick: if we had secure water, some Kirewa leverage and no regime collapse, the war was “won” – even if Azimbar kept the coast and the formal title to the dam.
2. Initial Concept: Deny, Deceive, Delay
Northern front:
Azimbar massed its main armoured corps opposite Kasari and Dar Kirewa, clearly signalling a river-crossing offensive. I chose a deliberately conservative posture: dig in, wire the bridges for demolition, mine the fords, and prepare to turn any crossing into a kill-zone.
I also imposed strict conditions on airpower: no major air or UCAV strikes until enemy air defences were degraded by special forces. This avoided throwing aircraft into intact SAM belts early on.
Western theatre:
The Lion’s Gate Pass in the west was lightly held on both sides. Rather than reinforce it with real armour, I turned it into a deception stage: fake radio nets, spoofed heat signatures, and militia theatrics to suggest an entire armoured corps forming for a flanking attack.
This forced Azimbar to redeploy real units westwards, diluting their northern striking power.
Artillery and EW:
Right from Turn 2, mobile “shoot-and-scoot” artillery became a central pillar: batteries displaced before enemy bombardment, survived, then counter-struck and moved again before counter-battery could land.
EW and cyber were used to:
Disrupt Azimbar logistics nets and UAV uplinks for short windows.
Feed false signatures to their ISR, reinforcing the myth of a large western build-up.
Why prioritise deception and artillery?Because Kalundu couldn’t win a straight armour-on-armour contest north of the river. The realistic path to leverage was to bleed, confuse and delay a stronger attacker while preserving my own force.
3. Special Forces and the Dam
Initial SF operations focused on:
Raids against Azimbar’s SHORAD and SAM clusters.
Sabotage of pontoon assembly sites.
Covert action to ignite limited urban unrest and port disruption in Nambara.
The logic was straightforward: cut their bridging, blind their air defences, and slow their supply chains before any large manoeuvre.
These missions were broadly successful. Pontoon sites were hit, one SAM radar and several AAA systems were destroyed, and Azimbar’s first major crossing attempt was delayed by a day or more.
The boldest move came in heavy rain on Turn 3: an SF team infiltrated via the river, climbed the face of the Kirewa Grand Dam, and emplaced shaped charges on a sluice gate and associated control infrastructure.
Operationally, this was framed as latent leverage; a way to threaten Azimbar’s control of the river without destroying the entire structure.
In practice, I later chose to detonate those charges live during a press conference, synchronising a narrative about Azimbar’s “unsafe dam management” with a real-world partial gate failure and flood surge downstream.
The result:
One gate crippled, some power and control infrastructure damaged.
An uncontrolled surge of water that flooded Azimbar’s lowlands, damaging logistics and causing civilian casualties.
AU and regional alarm at any attack on major water infrastructure, with immediate calls for a ceasefire zone and inspection regime around the dam.
Why do it at all?The cold-blooded rationale was to weaponise Azimbar’s own vulnerability: a sudden flood would damage their rear areas and visually reinforce my narrative that they “couldn’t safely control the river”. But as I’ll discuss later, this was the single most dangerous decision of the entire campaign legally, morally and diplomatically.
4. The River Battles: Killing the Foothold
With the dam rigged and Azimbar’s pontoon effort disrupted, the northern front became a deliberate attrition trap.
The doctrine was simple:
Allow a limited number of enemy vehicles (roughly a company group) to cross at prepared sites.
Once they were on Kalundu’s bank and slightly dispersed, open up with pre-sighted ATGMs, mortars and short, violent artillery concentrations.
Blow the bridge or pontoon to cut them off.
Azimbar’s first serious crossing attempt was mauled: half a dozen tanks and IFVs destroyed, surviving infantry pinned in untenable positions, and the bridge collapsed under them. Subsequent probes were smaller and more cautious, and similarly repulsed.
Why fight this way?Because killing armour in the water or on a narrow bridge is a far better exchange ratio than meeting full brigades on open ground. It also has psychological impact: after one or two such disasters, political appetite for “one more big push across the river” tends to evaporate.
Meanwhile, my own artillery stayed largely silent between engagements, enhancing the impression that Kalundu’s guns had been suppressed.
5. Deception Pays Off: Setting Up the Central Offensive
While Azimbar fixated on the river, I used the western theatre and militia formations as theatre.
Lion’s Gate militias paraded, drove in circles and lit conspicuous campfires, generating the impression of substantial forces massing for a mountainous flank attack.
Northern “amphibious assault” decoys such as dummy pontoons and AFV heat signatures suggested Kalundu might cross its own river in force.
This tied down several real Azimbar battalions in the west and forced otherwise offensive units into defensive postures south of the river.
In the centre, I quietly:
Pulled reserves back 5–10 km to dry high ground, both to avoid any flood pulse and to be ready for rapid redeployment.
Hid front-line mech and light infantry in EMCON, under camouflage and thermal cover, to give the impression the sector was thinning.
By the time I was ready to move, Azimbar’s picture looked like this:
A “dangerous” Kalundu build-up in the west.
A stubborn but supposedly attrited defence in the north.
A quiet, perhaps weakened, central sector.
In reality, the opposite was true.
6. Lightning in the Triangle: The Central Offensive
Once enemy logistics were strained, SHORAD degraded, and attention fixed north and west, I launched a fast, limited offensive into the Kirewa Triangle.
Key components:
4th Mechanised Brigade spearheaded the advance along the main road, accepting moderate–heavy casualties to punch through narrow defiles and prepared positions.
6th Light Brigade exploited hills and rough ground to cut lateral tracks and seal off local counter-attacks.
SF and drones struck roads, rail spurs and logistics hubs behind the central line, derailing trains, blowing small bridges and hitting ammo depots.
Air and artillery focused on enemy artillery, AA and HQs, taking advantage of earlier SEAD work.
By the end of the main push, Kalundu had:
Seized a major mining town and surrounding infrastructure.
Dominated a key road junction.
Effectively brought roughly 40% of the “contestable” central zone under direct control or fire dominance.
Crucially, I stopped there and dug in, rather than pushing on to chase a collapsing enemy.
Why stop?Because the political objective was not to conquer Azimbar but to gain enough ground to underpin a “fair” 50/50 or better settlement. Pushing deeper would only have increased casualties, stretched logistics and made me look like the aggressor.
The new salient became the bargaining chip that ultimately shaped the ceasefire line.
7. Coercive Diplomacy and AU-Brokered Settlement
With Azimbar’s northern offensive stalled, its central line breached, and urban unrest flaring in Nambara and Aziri, I shifted emphasis to diplomacy.
Publicly, Kalundu offered:
An immediate ceasefire on current lines of control.
Recognition that Azimbar would keep formal ownership and operation of the Kirewa Grand Dam.
In return, AU-supervised water metering, real-time flow data, and binding seasonal release schedules.
A joint economic and security regime for the central Kirewa zone which in practice, consolidated Kalundu control over the newly seized town and mine complex, with revenue sharing under AU oversight.
Behind closed doors, Azimbar’s external backers made clear they would not bankroll a counter-offensive to reverse these losses. Continued war risked sanctions, suspended loans and further unrest.
The AU-brokered outcome looked like this:
Ceasefire on current lines; the “Interim Security Line” became, in all but name, the new border in central Kirewa.
Kalundu retained its salient, a key town and a slice of the mine belt, plus a share of mining revenue.
Azimbar kept the dam and its coastal heartland but accepted intrusive water monitoring and a demilitarised strip around the dam and key infrastructure.
AU observers deployed around the dam and central checkpoints; both sides pledged no further attacks on dams or major civilian infrastructure.
From Kalundu’s perspective:
Water security – achieved.
Kirewa leverage – largely achieved.
Regime survival with a credible victory narrative – achieved
8. Results and Stats: How Did It End?
At campaign’s end, the rough balance sheet was:
Territorial and strategic
Kalundu held all pre-war territory and added a central salient including one major mining town and key road links.
Azimbar retained the dam, the coast and Nambara, but lost part of the contested Kirewa Triangle and its unilateral control over water flows.
Military
Kalundu forces retained roughly 75–85% of their combat effectiveness; SF and central mech units took the brunt of casualties. Artillery and air remained largely intact.
Azimbar suffered heavy losses in its armoured brigades and central sector units; several artillery batteries and AA systems were destroyed, and logistics were under constant pressure.
Political
Kalundu emerged as the side that “fought for the river” and accepted a monitored, legally framed settlement.
Azimbar avoided collapse but lost face regionally and domestically, gained AU monitors on its key asset, and saw its narrative of “defending Kirewa” eroded by battlefield reverses and internal unrest.
9. Dam Sabotage: A Self-Critique
The dam raid and subsequent gate detonation deserve particular scrutiny.
What it achieved:
Tactical/logistic disruption downstream – flooded depots, damaged roads, chaos in Azimbar’s rear.
A powerful visual narrative that “something has gone badly wrong” with Azimbar’s dam management, which I tried to spin as their negligence.
Additional pressure for an AU-monitored regime.
What it risked:
War crime territory – deliberate attacks on major dams causing civilian casualties are treated extremely harshly under international law. If attribution had been clear, Kalundu’s moral high ground would have evaporated.
Alliance blowback – external partners who tolerated forceful self-defence might balk at weaponised flooding, risking arms cut-offs and sanctions.
Escalation – Azimbar could have responded with missile strikes on Kalundu’s own infrastructure, or appealed for foreign intervention on their behalf.
In the simulation, I “got away with it”: suspicion was high, proof was lacking, and the crisis nudged the AU into imposing the very monitoring regime Kalundu wanted. In a real crisis, that outcome is far from guaranteed.
If I replayed this scenario, I would still consider planting the charges as an extreme deterrent option – but I would be far more reluctant to detonate them absent clear evidence that Azimbar was preparing catastrophic flooding of its own. Even then, the proportionality and signalling thresholds would be extraordinarily high. As played, it was a coldly effective but strategically reckless choice.
10. Performance and Lessons
From an analytical standpoint, several aspects of the campaign felt broadly realistic; others were more “cinematic”.
Strengths in decision-making:
Limited, clear aims – I consistently aimed for water security and partial Kirewa leverage, not regime change in Azimbar. Military operations were designed to support those aims, not exceed them.
Economy of force and deception – tying down enemy units with fake threats in the west and notional crossings in the north was a cost-effective way to create local superiority in the centre.
Use of artillery, EW and drones – shoot-and-scoot guns, BDA via UAVs, and EW to degrade enemy ISR all map closely onto modern conflict practice.
Timing and termination of the offensive – hitting the central sector once enemy logistics and AA were strained, then stopping on a politically useful line rather than chasing “total victory”, was one of the strongest calls of the campaign.
Coercive diplomacy – ceasefire offers were made from relative strength and framed in moderate, easily sellable terms (“we just want our water”). Mediators like simple, verifiable packages – and that’s what they were given.
Risks and overreach:
Dam sabotage – effective in-game, but a glaring escalation risk, likely to be heavily punished in reality if exposed.
Scale of covert unrest – repeatedly inciting port riots and sabotage across multiple cities via gangs and agents is possible, but we should treat the success rate in this run as optimistic.
Attrition of elite forces – SF were used aggressively on multiple high-risk missions: pontoon raids, deep AA strikes, and the dam. In a drawn-out conflict, that tempo risks hollowing out the most capable units.
11. Takeaways for Real-World Crisis Planning
Three main lessons come out of Kirewa Waters:
Limited goals + coherent strategy beat maximalist fantasies
Kalundu never tried to become a regional hegemon. It tried to secure water, a share of Kirewa and survival – and designed its military, informational and diplomatic moves around that.
Deception, ISR and artillery still win campaigns
In a modern EW-heavy, drone-saturated environment, the side that better manages signatures, deception and mobility can offset disadvantages in raw hardware.
Critical infrastructure is a political weapon as much as a military one
The dam raid shows how tempting it is to strike at the opponent’s systemic vulnerabilities – and how easily such moves can backfire. Any planner flirting with attacks on dams, grids or ports must weigh not just the military payoff but the legal and moral cost.
In the end, my decisions for Kalundu forced a ceasefire on terms substantially better than the status quo ante despite starting weaker on paper. It secured monitored water flows, a tangible stake in the Kirewa zone and regime survival. It did however come at the price of heavy casualties, international scrutiny and one highly controversial decision on the Kirewa Grand Dam. As a simulation, Kirewa Waters is a reminder that in real crises “success” is rarely about total victory; it is about whether a government can achieve limited, realistic objectives without crossing lines that later prove impossible to defend.
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