Russia's Soft Flank

[ChalkLine]

Here's an interesting article of where all the old soviet stuff went

The Eastern Military District in particular is a “museum of antiques,” according to VPK. The district, stretching across 2.7 million square miles and including the Kuril islands, the island of Sakhalin and the Kamchatka peninsula, is still largely reliant on old equipment such as 1960s-era BMP-1s and 1970s-era Konkurs anti-tank missiles. Anti-aircraft systems rely heavily on Shilkas, mobile anti-aircraft cannons ineffective against high-flying aircraft.

[Raellus]

I think that the Far Eastern TVD was pretty much always a secondary concern for the Soviet Union/Russia. From all of the RL Soviet OOBs I've seen, the East got the least, so to speak. Russia had better hope that relations with the PRC remain fairly chummy because I'm pretty certain that the modern-PLA could kick the crap out of Russia in near future [non-nuclear] war.

[RN7]

Originally Posted by ChalkLine

Here's an interesting article of where all the old soviet stuff went

I would agree that the Far East was less important than Europe to the Soviets due to the forces that NATO had arrayed against them in Europe were larger, more powerful and generally better equipped than in the Far East during the Cold War. China, Japan, North and South Korea, Taiwan etc also were rivals and could not be expected to put up a unified front against the Soviets, and US forces in the region were smaller than what were in Europe.

However in 1991 the Soviet Far Eastern Strategic Direction Theatre of Military Operations had 3 Military Districts (Far East, Siberian and Transbaykal) with a total Soviet Army force of...

50 divisions (7 tank, 35 motor rifle, 1 airborne, 7 artillery)
3 tactical missile brigades
2 Spetsnaz brigades
10 Attack helicopter regiments
9,700 tanks, 9,500 artillery weapons and 550 attack helicopters.

At the end of the Cold War the Soviets also moved 16,400 tanks and 25,000 artillery units into storage east of the Urals.

The Soviet Air Force had 1,180 combat aircraft with the Far Eastern Strategic Direction Theatre of Military Operations, including Mig-25, Mig-29, Mig-31, Su-24 and Su-27, and 215 SAM compexes including SA-5 and SA-10 SAM's. There was also the ships and aircraft of the entire Soviet Pacific Fleet

This was in size equivalent or larger than the combined East and West German armies in the Cold War, and it excluded Soviet strategic forces and nuclear weapons.

[hell-fish]

I think the Soviet defense in the Far East always relied on geography more than force. Siberia and the Soviet/Russian Pacific maritimes are massive and massively underdeveloped - a paved highway was only completed in 2015.

Beyond that, until the past decade or so, the Chinese military was decidedly backwards. A T-62 tank would be practically as effective against Chinese armor as a T-80, and a BMP-1 was still far more advanced as an infantry fighting vehicle than the more numerous, more primitive Chinese Type 63 APC.

Effectively, it was a secondary theater because it never needed to be more. Those Siberian forests would swallow entire Chinese (or American) armies.

[Cdnwolf]

Tom Clancy's The Bear and the Dragon talked about massive storage depots set up east of the Urals to provide materials against any Chinese aggression AND provide backup material for a counterattack against Western Europe.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Cdnwolf

Tom Clancy's The Bear and the Dragon talked about massive storage depots set up east of the Urals to provide materials against any Chinese aggression AND provide backup material for a counterattack against Western Europe.

I read that a few years (decades?) ago and remember thinking how well parts of it fit into the China/USSR war in T2k. It was almost as if Tom had played the game once or twice before writing the book.