Soviet Naval Infantry

[Legbreaker]

Naval Infantry make a bit of sense in Korea anyway. After all, MacArthur used marines at Inchon to good effect, why wouldn't the Soviets/NK's try something similar?

[mpipes]

And you can always have a few more raised. Never forget, in each of the canon time lines, the Soviets had increasingly been mobilizing for the China War. By time WW3 broke out, all their Cat C forces were either mobilized or were mobilizing and a lot of Reservist had already been called up. By the time NATO was involved, all of their wartime production plans were up and running (but so too was the West's for the most part - either to supply the Chinese or as part of the run-up to full war).

Clearly, GDW did not have EVERY unit accounted for, even US forces are woefully incomplete. For example, there are dozens of brigades of various types not mentioned anywhere. Combat Engineer Brigades and Corp Artillery Brigades are all but ignored. Corps HQ units are barely mentioned, and each US Corps command brings a TON of combat support and fire power to the fight. Same with the Soviets. Also, the Spetsnaz and MVD/KGB units are never really discussed either, which gives any game master wanting to add a lot of a fertile unit territory to mine.

[Legbreaker]

I don't think it was necessary to include every major unit though, only those in the European theatre the PCs were likely to bump into to begin with. Also, after several years of war, some of those Corps level units may have been broken up and used as replacements further down or permanently assigned at the Divisional, even Brigade or Battalion level as communications became more and more difficult - not much good having a artillery unit for example that can't provide supporting fires because nobody can talk to it, and there's no fuel for them to move into position anyway.
Engineers in my experience are often broken up with component units widely dispersed anyway - they're usually (again, my experience) units for administrative purposes only and very, very rarely come together in one place at the same time.

Worth considering also that the PACT units appear to have taken greater casualties than NATO - Divisional strengths are on the average much lower even though there seems to be more of them. On the other hand they started out with less personnel as well, so perhaps when expressed as a percentage of authorised strength they come out about even...

[mpipes]

BIG agree there. By 2000, a lot of units have been disbanded and personnel and equipment re-allocated by all militaries.

[pmulcahy11b]

One thing to keep in mind is that Naval Infantry are NOT Marines. In most countries, Marines have a lot more training, from marksmanship to specialized assaults to rearguard actions.

The closest Western approximation to Russian Naval Infantry are the troops who landed on the beaches on D-Day -- they are trained to land on beaches and take objectives, then fight their way in, and some of them has specialist training to allow them to do things like blow wire and blast seawalls and fortifications -- but they are not specially-trained troops like Marines are.

[Lurken]

Then there is also the Naval Infantry formed from port side personnel and sailors without ships.

Soviets did it in Odessa, Sevastopol, and would have done so again in Murmansk with NATO came closer to them during their offensive.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

These pages might be of interest: -
https://weaponsandwarfare.com/2020/0...aval-infantry/
https://weaponsandwarfare.com/2018/1...hion-vehicles/

The following pages from the same site might also be of use: -
https://weaponsandwarfare.com/2015/1...ity-post-wwii/
https://weaponsandwarfare.com/2019/1...br-class-lcac/

EDIT: Also found this thesis by USMC Major John Carroll from 1977 about Soviet Naval Infantry, for those who don't mind a deep delve: -
https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a047604.pdf

[chico20854]

Originally Posted by Lurken

Then there is also the Naval Infantry formed from port side personnel and sailors without ships.

Soviets did it in Odessa, Sevastopol, and would have done so again in Murmansk with NATO came closer to them during their offensive.

I'm working on a history of the Norwegian-Kola campaign and have done exactly that. Division Polyarnyy is rushed to the front, composed of whatever excess naval personnel that could be found ashore in Severomorsk and Murmansk, to stop the NATO advance, especially since the east shore of the Litsa Fjord is a major series of submarine bases.

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by Lurken

Then there is also the Naval Infantry formed from port side personnel and sailors without ships.

Soviets did it in Odessa, Sevastopol, and would have done so again in Murmansk with NATO came closer to them during their offensive.

Probably the first example of this in Russia were the sailors from the St Petersburg base who came to the aid of the rebellion that later produced the Soviet Union. Not exactly the same thing, I'll grant you, but along the same lines.