Quote:
Originally Posted by HorseSoldier
If they come across at Nome, the main problem I'd see is that agriculture isn't feasible in that location due to permafrost. Even further south at Bethel the only local agriculture done there requires everything to be grown in raised containers, rather than in the soil.
Moving a major military force 800 kilometers through the Alaskan Bush is really no easy or modest undertaking at all, even in peacetime. And that's assuming nature is relatively benign and doesn't just kill some portion of your force in any number of ways, which nature in Alaska is prone to do (i.e. look at the losses both sides suffered during the Aleutian Campaign in WW2 -- storms and fog killed more than enemy action, and just the logistics of fighting on the island that was contested produced a casualty rate comparable to the worst campaigns in the Pacific, only most were environmental casualties rather than combat deaths/woundings).
|
The US and the Japanese are horrible examples. The US after transferred a unit destined for a Tropical theater to the Aleutians still equipped with tropical weight equipment. As for the Japanese their northern islands are cold and snow bound however these can be served by ports all around as they are comparatively small.
The Soviets have decades of experience doing it. You can drop all of Alaska three or four times in the Soviet Union just from the Ural Mountains to Kamchatka. Look at some satellite imagery of eastern soviet union. Your not going to find much roads.
Summer is a frenzy to repair, plant. and harvest. What is impassable in summer, becomes trouble free under 10 feet or 3 meters of snow and ice.
As for farming the Soviet diet isn't pissing around with tomatoes and strawberries. Turnips, potatoes, parsnips, etc root vegetables. Gardening is a fad in the States but it is a damn necessity in Russia, through in they pickle huge amounts of stuff.
The AlCan highway project is surprising in that it worked. With open cabbed, unheated equipment, that were without hydraulics.