Thanks, dvyws--I can't add much to your contribution.
Overall, I agree with everyone who has pointed out limiting factors behind shipping Pact vehicles to CONUS and Canada and repairing said vehicles. I don't believe that the US is going to refit very large numbers of Pact vehicles by July '97. Among NATO forces, the Germans are almost certainly going to be the NATO players who have the most success with resurrecting Pact gear due to the intimacy the East Germans enjoy (!) with that equipment—as you point out, Raellus.
Regarding shipping schedules, I think turnaround time for the Atlantic convoys will have some complicating factors that may open windows of opportunity to load some of the choicer items liberated from the Communists. Although logistics have taken an enormous stride forward with computerization, there are still so many pieces moving in the Battle of the Atlantic that it’s hard for me to see the Atlantic convoys turning around and heading back to the US in short order each and every time. I’m not a Navy man, so I won’t expound on the Navy’s potential difficulties other than to say that the Navy will be fighting a three-ocean war right through the nuclear exchange. Granted, we know that the Western navies establish a clear superiority in the North Atlantic soon after NATO joins the conflict in Germany; however, as was pointed out in the thread on Australia and nuclear attacks, we know little about the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Both of these bodies of water figured prominently in the superpower rivalry. As a result of early losses during the Battle of the Atlantic, the US and Royal Navies probably will find themselves working very hard to provide sufficient escorts for the Atlantic convoys such that the convoys move with the efficiency and alacrity that SACEUR wants. In other words, there probably will be some ships idled in the Netherlands and Germany between legs. This idle time may or may not offer opportunities for the planning authorities to work in loading for westbound shipments.
Now I certainly don’t believe westbound convoys will be delayed so that captured Pact gear can be loaded aboard them. I do agree that loading American and Canadian gear for refit will be important.
Regarding the state of captured Pact vehicles, I agree that a portion of the Pact AFV will be complete losses. Even catastrophic kills, though, offer some salvageable items. Nor is every kill is a catastrophic kill. One of the lessons of Operation Desert Storm is that APSDFSDU rounds don’t produce catastrophic kills as often as HEAT rounds under conditions where both solid penetrator and plasma bolt penetrate to the interior of the target vehicle. Although the spalling and pyrophoric effects of the uranium solid penetrators do ignite fuel and ammunition, catastrophic kills are markedly fewer among solid penetrator users vis-Ã*-vis HEAT round users achieving penetration to the interior of the target vehicle. The crew of the target vehicle hit by a solid penetrator is, of course, reduced to hamburger and colloidal slime—even when they aren’t sucked out of the exit hole by the vacuum created by the passage of the penetrator through the crew space of the vehicle. Although any electronics may have been rendered unusable as a result of an APSDFSDU hit, the rest of the vehicle may be intact, albeit messy.
Less dramatically, AFV break down or lose tracks fairly frequently. Due to the nature of the battlefield in East Germany during December, the Soviets may find themselves forced to abandon large numbers of fighting vehicles which are essentially serviceable. Support services among Soviet divisions are markedly inferior to those of Western divisions in terms of abundance (teeth-to-tail ratio) quality (fewer long-term professionals). So long as Soviet forces remain on the offensive, the follow-on forces can collect knocked out vehicles or those that have suffered breakdowns. When the Soviets are withdrawing, they will be incapable of recovering their vehicles to the same degree as their Western counterparts (who may not recover lots of vehicles, either). When III US, V US, VII US, I Br, and II Br Corps (including Canadian forces) roar across the Inter-German Border in early December ’96, they are going to hit Pact formations on the attack against West German defenders. The situation may not be a complete replay of Operation Desert Storm, but a lot of the aspects of the Gulf fighting will be recreated. The Anglo-American forces will be fresh. They will have massive air support operating from nearby friendly air bases. The enemy will be tired from seven weeks of hard fighting. It’s going to be a bad, if brief, period for Reds. NATO will recover a lot of fighting vehicles that would be fully operable except for an engine in need of servicing, a broken track or damaged wheel/axle, a dead crew (and a small hole in the armor), or simply an empty gas tank.
Sorting all of the captured Pact gear out is going to be a gargantuan task. In all likelihood, vehicles will have to be moved to marshaling points, categorized, and moved onward. The fact that trucks, trailers, and trains are going to have to move westward after delivering their materiel to the front lines offers an opportunity to move all of this hardware, provided that the loading and unloading of the hardware does not seriously impede the process of getting the tools of war forward in January, February, and March. I haven’t considered many of the details of this part of the process.
Back in the US, the cash motive may prompt the DoD and applicable contractors to find space for refitting captured Pact vehicles into the flow chart governing the use of skilled labor. Come December, the US is going to be in the war full-time. The losses in Germany, over Western Europe, and at sea will be vastly greater than the losses endured during Operation Desert Storm. The US government is going to have to pay for a lot of hardware. Payments from China will dry up because production for China will probably come to a screeching halt in December, if not in October. Refitted Pact gear can be sold for cash or kind to China and other Third World players. These sales will in no way offset the massive expenditures the US will undertake. However, every little bit does help.
The Russian language labels inside the vehicles will have to be replaced, for sure. I’m confident a fairly expedient solution can be found, though. Stickers and stamped sheet metal with English labels will be fairly easy to manufacture compared to some of the other challenges that await.
Lack of familiarity with the vehicles will be an obstacle for refitters in the US to overcome, for sure. Translating operators’ and maintenance manuals into English will be the first challenge, although this too is probably an issue of lesser significance. Typesetting and publishing aren’t especially difficult in 1997. Getting good translations in a timely fashion will be somewhat more challenging; however, it may be that the appropriate manuals already have been acquired and translated prior to the US entrance into the war. The Chinese will have captured some of the gear and manuals in 1995 and 1996. Surely the US would have obtained copies of these manuals and translated them already. It might be a good exercise for Russian linguists.
I foresee the captured Pact vehicles being segregated by type into massive parks where cannibalization can occur on an industrial level. While this is happening, civilian technicians can become familiar with the vehicles. Specifications for the most needed parts can be drawn up and submitted to machine shops around the country while assembly lines are being planned.
Sadly for this grand scheme, the nuclear exchange begins in July and catches up with CONUS in November. Some users, like Nellis AFB, will have received complements of vehicles. For the most part, though, the captured AFV will be rusting in Germany, the Netherlands, or in ad hoc depots in North America and the UK. Lack of parts and skilled labor will create a tight bottleneck in the process of restoring captured Pact vehicles to operable condition.
Webstral
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