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Originally Posted by Jason Weiser
The trouble is, the Chinese AF just aren't able to keep up with the Soviets..at first. The elements of the AF that are learning to use the new Western kit are still in the US and elsewhere, learning how to use it. What's left is in the same position the Soviet AF was in in '41-'42, being tackling dummies for the other side. The Soviets also take down the Chinese AD network with frightening ease, blowing large holes in it for raids of Bears, Backfires, Badgers and Fencers to range throughout China. And most of the raids are at night..which means the Chinese are at a further disadvantage.
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A fair point, but I was specifically referencing armor production. Given western aid, specifically fighter jets and SAMS, I think that the Chinese could protect their relocated AFV factories enough that they could start rebuilding their own armored/mechanized forces almost exclusively with domestic production. I don't think that the Chinese would be capable of rebuilding an effective, home-grown AF after their initial losses. I totally agree that an influx of western aircraft, some piloted by westerners, is what allowed relocated Chinese tank factories to continue cranking out cheap-ass T-55 knock-offs. I just think that it would be easier for the U.S.A. to dust off some of the old Phantoms and A-4s and the like stored in S. Arizona, and crank out a few factory-fresh F-5s and F-20s, and ship those to China, than to produce and ship enough American-made tanks to rebuild the PLA's smashed armor forces. Sure, they'd throw in a few Stingrays, and M48s, and LAV-75s, but that would just be icing on the cake. The biggest western contribution- in my T2KU, at least- was aircraft, SAMs, and ATGMs. IMO, it's about conservation of effort and economies of scale. Those western planes and American-made ATGMs are what allowed the Chinese to hold on. That, and their massive manpower reserves and well-established partisan system, of course.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jason Weiser
b) From all accounts that I can glean from, the East Germans sound to me like they were left to fight a rear guard to extricate the Soviets from a Red Willow-style encirclement. I assume they were instead, encircled themselves and forced to capitulate. This will not play well back home at all.
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Someday, I'd like to run a T2K campaign based around a group of NVA soldiers, c. 7/97, who say "f*#$ it!" and head for home after being placed in a hopeless rearguard position by their Soviet masters. How do you say, "good luck, you're on your own" in Russian? Considering the distances involved, and the intervening obstacles, both natural and man-made, such a campaign could be epic- a modern Homeric odyssey, if you will. I'm going to call it, "T2K: The Long March". My fellow history buffs will get it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jason Weiser
c) What happens between June 1996 and July 1997? That is 11 months we cannot account for. Do the Soviets allow a stalemate to set in, rightly believing that the decisive theatre is now the West? Do the Chinese build up for their own offensive, that fatefully kicks off in the Summer of 1997, and so overwhelm the remaining Soviet units that the Soviets "hold the trigger down and empty the magazine" with regards to the nuclear option in China, as we see the Soviets basically practicing wholesale genocide with regards to their use of nuclear weapons (Not that using nukes in any format is easy on the surrounding life forms).
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I think that's about right, Jason. This is what canon has to say about the situation in the Far East in the Summer of 1997, starting with the strategic situation in Europe:
"By early July, NATO advanced elements were closing up on the Polish-Soviet frontier in the central region, while continuing the siege of Pact-held Warsaw." (Twilight 2000 Referee's Manual, p. 25)
Then, after a blurb about the Polish government-in-exile, canon goes on to say,
"In the Far East, Pact forces began major withdrawals all along the front, and the mobile elements of the Chinese Army began a victorious pursuit." (p. 25)
On July 9th, with NATO forces closing in on Soviet soil, the Soviets start using tac-nukes. The canon continues with,
"In the East, however, they were used on a massive scale. Chinese mechanized columns were vaporized, caught in the open on the roads in imagined pursuit". (p. 25)
I think, in 13 months between June '96 and July '97, that both China and the USSR were rebuilding and re-martialing their forces in the Far East. This would have been more difficult for the Soviets because, by then, they were fighting a two-front war. The Soviets were probably trying to manage the overall situation, holding on to as much strategically-significant ground in Manchuria as they coould whilst shifting whatever forces they could spare from the Far East back to central Europe. In the meantime, the Chinese were rebuilding their "mobile units" for a massive summer offensive against the PACT occupiers. It sounds like they hit the Soviets just as the Soviets commenced a general retreat. But, instead of chasing the Red Army back across the border, those new, rebuilt "mechanized columns" were annihilated by Soviet tac-nukes.