Russia's Soft Flank

[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.