[Raellus]

That was a good read, Web. I'm sorry that it took so long for me to rediscover this thread and comment. I've been thinking about the Chinese front recently and it's raised some questions.

Where did the fiercest, most strategically significant fighting take place? Canon doesn't have much to say about this other than "northern Chinese industrial heartland", but that's about it. Obviously, the bulk of the fighting would take place in China's populous, industrialized northeast. But what about other regions? The border between China and the former USSR is very long, especially if one assumes that Mongolia would/could not maintain any sort of meaningful neutrality. I find it odd that Mongolia isn't mentioned. Really, unlike the canonical descriptions of the fighting in the West, no place names in China are provided. We can safely assume that a lot of action takes place in NE China. What about its mountainous, desert northwestern hinterland? Apparently, during the border skirmishes of the late 1960s, the Soviets were considering an invasion of Xinjiang in the hopes of inspiring its non-Chinese ethnic majorities into declaring independence and joining the USSR as a semi-autonomous SSR. So, certainly there'd be some fighting there. Because of the length of the front, I just don't see static, WWI-style trench warfare as being a viable tactic/strategy.

Would the PACT units sent east to fight the Chinese be grouped into a majority PACT corps or army or would they be spread among majority Soviet corps/armies? I tend to think that it would be the latter, giving the Soviets more control of their erstwhile allies. I can see logic in both approaches but what would be most realistic and why?

As to the course of the fighting in China, there are several clues in the canon (primarily in the v1.0 "Chronological Background"), but mostly it's left to the imagination.

"The Red Army enjoyed rapid initial success, and tank columns rolled deep into the northern Chinese industrial heartland." This suggests that Soviet armored mobility played well during the early fighting, probably because the Chinese chose to fight back, in kind, with their technologically obsolete, home-grown (though largely copied from earlier Soviet material) tank and mechanized forces.

Canon then says that the Soviet onslaught began to bog down as the Chinese rapidly called up its massive reserves and mobilized its large People's militia. It describes China as becoming, in effect, a meat grinder for both sides. I agree with Web's assessment/description of large scale Chinese infiltration tactics, given the size and structure of the PLA and its supporting People's Militia. I see the Chinese as losing most of their armored/mechanized forces early on as they try, futilely, to beat the Red Army at its own game. At that point, the Chinese can only fight back by throwing millions of lightly-equipped infantry at the Soviets, slowing them down while Chinese armor and air strength are rebuilt far from the front lines.

This strikes me as a sort of a role reversal for the Soviets, with the Red Army playing the Wehrmacht of July 1941, making massive initial gains against ill-prepared, poorly-led Chinese military forces, until Chinese numbers and manufacturing capacity, backed by Western "Neo Lend-Lease" aid, ground down the Soviet/PACT spearheads and began to overtake Soviet capacity to replace men and material. In this scenario, the Chinese would trade space for time, albeit begrudgingly. From what canon has to say, this strategy eventually bears fruit.

By the time the nukes start flying, the Chinese have been able to rebuild "mechanized columns" vaporized "in imagined pursuit" of retreating USSR/PACT forces.

That said, I am sure that there would be cities/regions that the Chinese would do everything in their power to hold on to, a-la Stalingrad. Where would this decisive turning point campaign take place?

Clearly the Soviets/PACT weren't fighting in the East with their full strength, as the Chinese were. This also mirrors the Germany v. USSR dynamic of WWII. The Soviets/PACT have to keep significant forces in Eastern Europe, as the Politburo still considered NATO to be an existential threat to the Soviet Union.

What about the naval war between the USSR and China? In the T2K v1.0 timeline, the Chinese navy would have been no match for the Red Fleet. I see the Soviets destroying the PLN pretty quickly, then attempting to blockade Chinese ports to prevent the arrival of Western aid. It's not mentioned in canon, but I am sure that this would have escalated tension between the USSR and the West, especially when Red Fleet subs start sinking non-Chinese flagged merchantmen, as would certainly occur at least a few times before the war expanded to Europe.

I'm going to take another look at the Soviet Vehicle Guide for clues regarding the fighting on the Chinese Front. Aside from those already mentioned, are there other canonical sources worth taking a look at? Specifically, is anyone aware of any canonical source that identifies the non-Soviet PACT units sent to China and where they operated? Are there any Challenge articles on the Chinese Front?

Anyway, I'm interested in reading your thoughts on the Chinese front.