Pre Twilight War Military Build Up
 

This is in no way a thread stating how things ought to be but a brainstorming to what might have been. We all know from the game what the political stuation was prior to 1996. We know what military equipments were available and from that we can imagine that a new if more limited arm race at existed prior to the conflict (As leg pointed out in another thread, things evolved quite fast toward the nulcear exchange which takes place only about 1 year after NATO involvement in Europe). We even had plenty of OOB dating 1996. However, I don't recall that we ever discussed the military building that brought the Twilight War to what it was.

IMHO

USSR had starting to build massive amounts of weapons by 1995 (we can take that from granted). I would also assume that USSR carried on several modernization program prior to 1995 in response to the growing tensions in the Far East (for exemple, several Mig-21 brought up to Mig-21/93 standards). It had expented all of its forces (air, ground and navy) produces more new equipments, done some basing refitting and sometimes advanced ones on the oldest equipments.

China has assembled a massive army and produces large amount of equipements by 1995. However, most of them remain outdated until supplies are received from tghe West. I also expect China to have applied a 1 rifle for two men policy.

France after lowering military spending to 3% of its GDP by 1990 slightly raised it above cold war levels in face of the growing tensions to reach 4 to 4.5% of its GDP. That generates major social turmoil but allows for the production of more subs, more aircrafts, new tanks (Leclerc) an additional aircraft carrier and 2 to 3 LPH resembling the Mistral but copied on the planned nuclear PH75 (one might have entered production and the other are still not commissioned).

Germany, we know.

UK has suspended the decommissioning of several ships and established more squadrons while equipements taken out of service are put in storage.

Sweden relies on heavy storage

NATO or Warsaw Pact give me some headache.

And I doubt US simply sitted there, despite Tanner being foolish. New equipments might have been fielded with some delays as IRL but prototypes would have been produced earlier and more equipements would have gone off the drawing boards while several older equipments were not retired, porbably undergoing extensive modernizations or put in storage. By 1995, the situation has changed and US starts to enter the arm race, not expecting to be drawn into the obviopusly coming conflict but applying a "prepare for the worse policy". Moreover, military industries are going with more private ventures than ever, expecting some heavy sales to China (something similar occurs to arm industries all around the world). They are soon proven right and if not for Congress forbidding several exports, profits would have been even higher. Meanwhile, the USN starts to work everywhere on getting part of the mothballed fleets back in action (I'm not talking of combat ships but of transports and combat cargo). If the worse occurs, you might need them fast to bring supplies to the fronts. As a result, when US troops cross the frontier into Poland, US arm industry is already ready to convert to a full time war production.

Something else, more US citizens have applied from 1994 to the various active State Guards.

Some thoughts. Incomplete but thoughts nonetheless

To a certain extent I think this is something that depends on which timeline you're following - V1 or V2.X.

For example, in V2 the UK went through a Defence Review at the end of the Cold War that reduced the armed forces strength by around 20% (and from memory virtually halved the number of Armoured Regiments). In V1 that Review probably wouldn't have taken place (or may have had a completely different outcome).

There's also the question of whether or not you have a Gulf War taking place in 1991 (particularly if following the V1 timeline). Again to quote a UK example, a number of flaws with the L85 assault rifle were identified during that War.

Just a few thoughts...

Good thoughts

This is going to be a tough one!

A lot will depend on just how sure the USSR was that it would have to go to war. If the decision was made earlier enough, then I would reasonably expect a surge in KGB operations to shut down Western intelligence operations within Russia. There would also be in increase in countermeasures to conceal military activities from the various recon satellites.

There would certainly be a higher level of training and a lot more combined arms training than normal. There would even be limited call-up of Category II divisions (bringing them up to Category I readiness). Would the Russians risk alerting NATO/China by moving units closer to the border? The presence of the US/UK and French Military Liasion Missions in East Germany would argue against any moves there, but a couple of border skirmishes along the Soviet-Sino border are very likely, justifying the movement of "reserves".

Almost certainly older, less-capable equipment will be modernized or replaced by newer equipment.

The Western response will be intresting to say the least. Certainly the post-Cold War decommissionings would be delayed or canceled. As for calling up the defense reserve fleet? Doubtful at best, more likely would by STUFT programs to gather enough hulls. If any crisis takes place (the Sino-Soviet War for example), then I can see the more capable reserve ships being activated.

I would also expect to see a major diplomatic effort on the part of the Soviets, to "convience" the West that there is nothing to fear. The Tom Clancy novel Red Storm Rising is an excellent source for this line. Anything that would convience the political leadership of the West that the intelligence/military chiefs are "over-reacting".

In 2.2 at least, the Soviets have been in combat in various areas since 1991.
Note this was already occurring before the coup.
Reading through the background material, the fighting only increased as time went by with more and more units called up, trained, and sent into the fight. By 2000, it's very likely a large number of older Soviet troops could have nearly a decade of combat experience on three or more fronts.

Meanwhile, (in 2.2) Iraqi invades Kuwait with the RL result. After Iraqi is booted out the west (less Germany) sees no further combat until December 1996, and besides Germany has not seen any significant reason to build up forces. The Germany-Poland situation is really the only reason I can see that the west is even at war in the first place (the east is a completely different situation with what looks like continuing a rolling internal revolts and political instability).

Thanks...having only ever used the V1 timeline when gaming, I have a passing familiarity with V2.0, but I'm not familiar with the 2.2 timeline at all so didn't realise it included the 1991 Gulf War.