The Winter War in the Far East, Pt 1

[kato13]

Webstral 01-17-2004, 11:13 PM The Winter War (1995-1996) was something neither the Soviets nor the Chinese expected to fight. There are many parallels to the situation of the Nazis in the Soviet Union during the winter of 1941-1942. The numbers of troops were smaller, but some comparisons can be made.


The first and most obvious comparison between the situation of the Nazis on the Eastern Front and the Soviets on the Far Eastern Front is that neither the Germans nor the Soviets expected they would have to fight a winter war. Hitler invaded the Soviet Union with the intent of forcing a World War One-style stalemate along a line east of Moscow. At no time did he intend to conquer the entirety of the USSR. He intended to render the Soviet Union incapable of meaningful interference in Europe. He believed this could be accomplished in a single campaign season, and so the Wehrmacht was unprepared to fight the winter war when it came.


Divided as they were at the start of the Sino-Soviet War, the masters of the Kremlin were of like mind in that they never contemplated the destruction of China. The war in Manchuria was not even intended to bring about a change of government in Beijing. From the start, the Soviet intent was to force a negotiated settlement on the People's Republic of China by dealing her a swift and solid defeat in the northeast corner of the country. This could be accomplished in a single campaign season--indeed, the victory had to be won in a single campaign season to be accomplished as envisioned. As a result, there were no plans of any consequence for extending the war past October 1995.


Like the Nazis at the end of 1941, the Soviets found that their logistical situation was unsatisfactory, to put it mildly. The further the Soviet armies advanced, the further supplies had to be transported across an infrastructure that was frankly inadequate for the task of moving so many thousands of vehicles and so many thousands of tons of supplies. The Soviets did their best to exploit the existing rail network, and where they could the supply situation was at least tolerable. However, the Chinese had made a point of destroying the railroads as they withdrew. Worse, the presence of literally thousands of armed partisans throughout Manchuria resulted in frequent attacks on the rail lines themselves and often on the trains bearing the much-needed supplies. The roads, too, were subject to frequent mining, demolition, and attack. Pre-war estimates of how much materiel could be moved over the Manchurian communications network proved optimistic by a large margin. Similarly, estimates of the consumption of fuel and large-caliber ammunition had proved low. As a result, by the end of October the Far Eastern TVD was operating a logistical system using a plan that was largely improvised and utilizing an infrastructure that was in much worse shape than it had been in mid-August, the dedicated work of Soviet Army engineers notwithstanding.


Unlike the Nazis, the Soviets were prepared for winter fighting. The troops were far better equipped for the cold and snow of Manchuria than the Germans had been for the cold and snow of western Russia. Training for winter warfare was far more thorough. The equipment had been designed with primitive conditions and winter conditions in mind. Psychologically, the Soviet troops were better disposed to withstand winter conditions than their German counterparts had been. A not inconsiderable factor in the ability of the Soviets to stand up to the Manchurian winter was the presence of great numbers of vehicles of every kind. Although the high degree of mechanization of the Soviet Army placed demands on the supply and services echelons that dwarfed those of the Wehrmacht [on a per-unit basis], the ubiquity of vehicles provided shelter for the troops if none other was to be had. Although the interior of a BTR-70 in the dead of winter was hardly the same as a cozy fireside spot at home, the soldiers were at least out of the wind and inside a mostly-enclosed space. This was a major boon to the infantry, who typically are the most exposed to winter weather.


Perhaps the greatest difference between the Soviets on the Far Eastern Front and their Nazis counterparts was the decisions made by the leadership. Though Danilov had been dragged into the war reluctantly at best, he now was determined to see it through to its conclusion. Since the start of RED WILLOW, the Chinese ambassador to the UN had offered some settlement terms to his Soviet counterpart that could only be described from the Kremlin's point of view as outrageous. Other efforts at negotiation through secondary channels revealed to the Soviets the intransigence of the Chinese. In the last week of October, it was obvious to Danilov that Beijing, buoyed up by the results of the counteroffensive, would settle for no price he was willing to pay. The war would continue for the foreseeable future, and the first order of business for Danilov was to put his troops on the best possible footing for the fighting to last all winter.


At the start of RED WILLOW, Soviet High Command had sought and received permission to shift a half-dozen combat-ready divisions from Eastern European garrisons to the Far East. It was a move calculated to bring some of the best formations of the Soviet Army to bear in a crisis and also to reduce tensions in Europe. NATO had gone on alert in August, and they were still at a heightened state of readiness. The removal of a few divisions from Eastern Europe was thought to have the added benefit of demonstrating to the Western Allies that the Soviet Union had no designs on Western Europe.


The divisions from Europe began to arrive as RED WILLOW was winding down. Losses to 1st Far East Front had been so great that the six new divisions were used to replace in-place front-line divisions that were then withdrawn from the front for rebuilding. Though Sauronski wanted to renew the offensive as soon as possible, he recognized that the Far Eastern TVD was in no condition to wage a general offensive, even with the new divisions. Danilov was even less eager to go to the offensive at the beginning of November. CINC Far Eastern TVD had convinced the Premier that the Soviet forces in the Far East needed an extended break to rest, refit, resupply, and receive reinforcements.


Based on all this, Danilov issued a directive that would ensure two things: that the Soviet Army would survive the winter in tolerable condition, and that the Sino-Soviet War would drag on into 1996. Far Eastern TVD was directed to create fighting positions and fortifications that would enable Soviet forces to defend a static front more-or-less along the front-line trace of Soviet formations on November 1, 1995. This gave the Soviets the chance to do their work before the ground froze. With the arrival of the six fresh divisions from Eastern Europe, the danger of a renewed Chinese counteroffensive receded for the time being.


In early November, the Soviet Politburo summoned CINC Far Eastern TVD and a number of other senior generals to Moscow to discuss how to win the war in the coming spring and how to use the winter months to best prepare for the renewed offensive. The generals had some sobering news. Far Eastern TVD would need 75,000 replacements to bring the surviving Soviet Army formations of the original invasion force back up to strength. (The divisions that had been completely destroyed would not be rebuilt.) Only about a quarter of this number would come back from the hospitals within the next thirty days. Slightly less than half of the total number of Soviet troops lost on the Far Eastern Front were POWs who essentially were lost to the war effort. The remaining quarter were troops who had been killed or so seriously wounded that they would not be back within thirty days.


Far Eastern TVD also would require 11,000 AFVs of various types and more than 19,000 trucks to come back up to authorized strength. The number of vehicles in need of spare parts was even greater. Losses in tube artillery, multiple rocket launchers, and heavy mortars exceeded the 6,000 mark. Virtually every other category of equipment from radios to engineering vehicles to machine guns had suffered similar losses.


Also, there was no question of launching a 1996 offensive with the forces in the field--even with the six divisions from Eastern Europe. As of November 1, 1995, the equivalent of thirty-four divisions was assigned to Far Eastern TVD. Even if and assuming that the damaged formations were brought back up to strength, the Soviets could not believe the PLA would fail to reinforce Manchuria massively by the start of the 1996 campaign season.


In fact the PLA, which had lost a quarter of its pre-war manpower, already was training masses of replacements. The Chinese economy had gone to a full wartime basis. Production of consumer goods had ceased almost entirely, and Chinese industry was being retooled for defense. Three million men had been called into service. Soviet intelligence estimated that the PLA would be able to field between forty and eighty new infantry divisions, ten to twenty mechanized or motorized divisions, and ten to twenty armored divisions by April 1996. Estimates varied based on the amount of equipment produced or purchased, the PLA's decisions in how to allocate the available equipment, and the PLA's standards on what it considered fighting trim for new divisions under the circumstances.


Given the number of Chinese divisions expected to be in the field in the spring of 1996, CINC Far Eastern TVD wanted forty fresh divisions with which to resume the offensive. These forces were on top of the personnel and equipment required to bring the original invasion force back up to strength. In addition, CINC Far Eastern TVD wanted to replace his aircraft losses and increase the number of fixed-wing combat aircraft in the Far East by 1,000 airframes.


Danilov outright refused to countenance the requested increase in Army strength. There was no way to provide the additional troops and materiel without calling up huge numbers of reservists. Forty divisions represented a half-million personnel in divisional formations alone. Army-level, front-level, theater-level, and rear area security troops would represent another 200,000 personnel at least. Although some of this combat power could come from active-duty formations shifted to the Far East from one of the other theaters, both Danilov and Sauronski were loathe to draw down further the existing garrisons in Eastern Europe and elsewhere to fill the requirements of a forty-division build-up. Ground crews and other support personnel to support the increase in air power allotted to Far Eastern TVD would be more manageable, but 1,000 additional combat aircraft were more than Danilov was willing to support. The call-up of so many reservists would have a noticeable impact on an economy that was already flattening. Danilov demanded other options.


The GRU suggested that fewer Soviet divisions would be needed if fewer Chinese divisions were created and introduced into Manchuria prior to April 1996. There was little enough that the USSR could do about the call-up of three million Chinese men to fill uniforms without resorting to weapons of mass destruction employed against Chinese population centers. However, if the Soviets could find a way to reduce or even halt the production of AFVs, artillery, and other materiel, the Chinese would be forced to put a higher proportion of light infantry divisions into the field in 1996. Though light infantry posed its own problems, the Soviet Army was confident that they could handle light infantry so long as the Soviets retained the initiative.


China's defense industry had been dealt a serious blow by the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. The GRU argued that sustained air effort directed against Chinese industry could so delay their efforts to equip new divisions that Far Eastern TVD could make do with fewer troops and less materiel.


Sauronski liked the idea. The Soviets retained a significant advantage in the air. The PLAAF had been decisively defeated during the two months of active campaigning in Manchuria. Although the Chinese were not yet out of the game, the ability of the PLAAF to defend Chinese airspace south of Manchuria was an open question.


Soviet Frontal Aviation and the Air Defense Force had enjoyed even greater success than the Army so far. The exchange rate in air-to-air action dramatically favored the Soviets over their Chinese counterparts; and the Soviets were suffering fewer losses to Chinese ground-based air defenses than the other way around, despite the fact that the Soviets had flown six times as many CAS (close air support) and strike/interdiction missions during the first two months of the war. Long Range Aviation, though a lesser player in the war so far, had demonstrated the ability to penetrate China's air defenses north of the Yangtze River and knock out high-value targets. Together, these forces were anxious to demonstrate that they could achieve (with a little more time) the same kind of results as the USAF and its allies had in the Persian Gulf.


After requesting a few days to plan and make estimates, the Soviet aviators returned to the Kremlin with a bold plan. While the Army dug in and rebuilt its strength, the SAF would take the war to the enemy. Soviet aircraft would attack critical industrial, power generation, and military targets throughout the depth of China's territory. At the top of the list were the factories producing--or gearing up to produce--China's tanks, APCs, and self-propelled artillery; China's fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft; China's electronics; and China's air defense, air-to-air, air-to-ground, and anti-tank missiles. Other targets included infrastructure clearly vital to the war effort, major training centers and cantonments, and small arms and artillery factories.


An important benefit of the air campaign was the prospect that China might throw in the towel when her leadership came to appreciate that China's entire defense industry was on the block. If the air campaign hit the Chinese hard enough, the Air Force might succeed where the Army had failed to bring China to the bargaining table under conditions favorable to the Soviet Union. If the air campaign did its job well enough, the 1996 offensive might not be necessary.


Danilov liked the idea. While there were some dangers in expanding the war to include targets well away from Manchuria, he was attracted to the idea of playing to Soviet strengths. China had manpower--seemingly limitless manpower. The Soviet Army already had had a taste of Chinese willingness to trade lives at a very unfavorable exchange rate. Although Soviet mechanization and firepower might prove superior to Chinese numbers, the events of the war to date had demonstrated that victory based principally on the efforts of the ground forces would not come cheaply. In the air, however, the Soviets possessed a firm advantage. He reasoned that the numbers of Chinese riflemen mattered for naught in an air campaign where superior Soviet numbers and quality of airframes could be brought to bear. He gave the SAF the green light to begin its campaign.



Webstral

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Jason Weiser 01-18-2004, 10:38 PM As always, very nice, especially liked the nods to the suggestions we made?

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