Quote:
Originally Posted by Olefin
The interesting thing about a V2.2 version is it predicates that the NATO drawdown happened - but if the same thing happened on the Russian side then frankly the US Navy should be in very good shape - the Russian navy was in very bad shape by 1996 - and even if they tried to put a lot of money into putting it back into fighting shape it was not the navy that would have been encountered in a V1 war
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I was surprised to see that "president Clinton" (I so want to refer to him as "slick willy" right now) reduced the Navy's strength to around 55% of its Cold War strength. In addition, he also reversed ALL of the Division 86 Protocols (these were the protocols that added heavy combat brigades, light brigades and increases the size of artillery units from 6 gun batteries to 8 gun ones in the US Army).
This is important because it rationalizes why a weakened Russia could oppose NATO. The US got its "Peace Dividend" through Force Reduction. When you combine this with the NUMEROUS "peace-keeping operations" we were involved in (in my alternate history, they ALL happened), it is easy to see WHY the US was spread "paper thin" around the Globe. When the Twilight War goes hot, the US has troops in:
Asia (East Timor, and Korea)
Western Europe (Poland, Germany)
Eastern Europe (Kosovo)
Africa (Rwanda, Nijer, Kenya, Cameroon)
South America (mostly revolutionary or DEA related in Peru, Guatemala, Colombia, Mexico)
The Arabian Peninsula (Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait)
They are simply spread too thin after absorbing the Force Cuts of the Peace Dividend.
Russia:
I have the "Rogue State" of Russia (after the Coup of course) searching for revenue. In real life, the US lent Russia money AND bought up huge quantities of her nuclear materials to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands. As a result, Russia "behaved herself" throughout the 90's.
Once that US "intervention" is removed, there is NOTHING to stop Russia from selling the only things of value they have in great quantity... WEAPONS.
Russia sells T55Ms with the Volna fire control, T62s, and even MODERN T72s (with powered traverse and reactive armor) to IRAQ. They sell technology (including nuclear tech) to North Korea and Iran. They sell small arms and RPGs to South American drug lords and AL-QAEDA. They give AFVs to the Serbs, Libya, and The Congo. They sell tech to India and EVEN China before the Twilight War. By doing this, the Russians are able to build more modern weapons such as the T90, upgraded T80s, and newer weapons systems. Even the Navy benefitted from this. Russia only suffers a 30% to 40% degradation to her Naval force structure. She lost bigger units like her carriers (to pay the upkeep on her other capital ships) but kept the ships she could use as "surface raiders" as well as most of her subs. She also kept her small surface combatants like the Paulk Class ASW corvettes and the Tarantul Class corvettes.
Combine this with Russia playing "cat and mouse" with NATO (raiding commercial shipping but running from enemy combatants), explains why there aren't enough ships to take care of all the mission tasking.