View Single Post
  #52  
Old 01-10-2011, 09:38 PM
HorseSoldier HorseSoldier is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Anchorage, AK
Posts: 846
Default

Getting back to the original post, I don't think it's too plausible as depicted. The Soviets are on the defensive for the beginning of the war, and so acquiring shot up or abandoned NATO armor wouldn't be a really common turn of events. By the time they're back on the offensive, nukes are flying and everything is getting very ragged in terms of higher organization being able to divert the resources necessary to pull in a regimental sized group of captured armor, spare parts to get it running again and keep it running, ammunition for main guns, etc.

With all the talk about precedents from WW2, it should be born in mind that there's a lot less US armor on the ground in the Twilight War than there was back then, and the Soviets in WW3 aren't the Germans in WW2 (or the Soviets in WW2 for that matter) and desperate for working kit in the same way.

Even with modern Soviet armor (T-72+) to generate a sustainable force you'd probably need to be capturing depots, not isolated battlefield mobility kills and abandoned hulls, and you'd need to capture the spares to go with them. The Israelis pulled this off by developing ties to spare parts supplies or replacing stuff with in house equipment during peace time. I don't recall any cases where they were stuffing their crews in captured tanks on the fly, even in '73 when everything was spiralling the drain pretty hard.
Reply With Quote