In Defense of the Red Army

[Legbreaker]

For my part I don't see civilisation, or at least attempts at organisation slipping away all that easily. Yes there will certainly be instances of barbarism and chaos, but humans as a whole prefer order.

Where there is a working command structure, whether that be civilian or military, Division sized or platoon, you'll see attempts to follow pre-war rules. In fact I see an increase in discipline being vital to survival. If you have individuals doing their own thing, breaking the laws, traditions, habits, etc then the whole unit is weakened. A good commander/politician will see that right from the beginning and take the necessary steps.

This may be the implementation of a democratic system where everyone gets a say and vote thereby instilling a sense of community and individual worth, or raising of a brutal police force with no qualms about beating the populace down and into line, or something in between. In military units I can see MPs being very busy, and senior NCOs having a number of "quiet talks around back" with the less cooperative soldiers in their unit.

Without discipline and order a unit is sure to fall apart and become either marauders of their prey. Without unit cohesion that unit is in serious danger of being wiped out by other units with perhaps less resources, but better command and control.

The same ideas apply to such things as marking minefields. If a unit fails to mark them, especially around their cantonment, or located within their area of support (ie the farmland that feeds them), they'll very quickly find themselves at odds with the civilian population. Without that population chances are the unit will starve, have great difficulty acquiring necessary raw materials, parts etc and suffer continuous sabotage attempts from the disaffected locals.

[95th Rifleman]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

For my part I don't see civilisation, or at least attempts at organisation slipping away all that easily. Yes there will certainly be instances of barbarism and chaos, but humans as a whole prefer order.

Where there is a working command structure, whether that be civilian or military, Division sized or platoon, you'll see attempts to follow pre-war rules. In fact I see an increase in discipline being vital to survival. If you have individuals doing their own thing, breaking the laws, traditions, habits, etc then the whole unit is weakened. A good commander/politician will see that right from the beginning and take the necessary steps.

This may be the implementation of a democratic system where everyone gets a say and vote thereby instilling a sense of community and individual worth, or raising of a brutal police force with no qualms about beating the populace down and into line, or something in between. In military units I can see MPs being very busy, and senior NCOs having a number of "quiet talks around back" with the less cooperative soldiers in their unit.

Without discipline and order a unit is sure to fall apart and become either marauders of their prey. Without unit cohesion that unit is in serious danger of being wiped out by other units with perhaps less resources, but better command and control.

The same ideas apply to such things as marking minefields. If a unit fails to mark them, especially around their cantonment, or located within their area of support (ie the farmland that feeds them), they'll very quickly find themselves at odds with the civilian population. Without that population chances are the unit will starve, have great difficulty acquiring necessary raw materials, parts etc and suffer continuous sabotage attempts from the disaffected locals.

The cantonment system wouldn't go into effect till the later half of the conflict. Before that you would see some pretty desperate battles before lack of resources and broken chains of command mean that units have to base themselves around a wider community. Sldiers would still be expecting ultimate victory before being sent back home so nobody would care too much about the piece of foreighn turf they are fighting over, I would imagine Russian, American and British soldiers would care the least while Plish, Czech and German soldiers would probably be more mindful.

I'm sure many would come to regret their actions in seeding vast areas of central and eastern Europe with munitions and when the cantonment system goes into effect everyone would be VERY careful to police their areas of control and mark mine fields.

We need to remember that the Twilight conflict has 3 very distincy stages. First it would be a convetional, fluid campaign. Secondly things would become more desperate, nukes and chemical weapons start flying and the focus is on destroying or blunting enemy capabilities. only in the last phase of the war when soldiers begin to realise they are stuck in theatre for the long haul and require the co-operation of locals will hey be more area of the need to mark thins properly and use caution with area denial munitions.

[Webstral]

I agree completely that some minefields are going to go unmarked and forgotten. However, mines tend to reveal themselves fairly quickly. Some will go undiscovered for extended periods, but the mines laid in places used habitually will be discovered and marked promptly.

We should expect a deliberate use of mines to defend base camp areas in Europe beginning in 1997—perhaps earlier. The pre-war minefields may be hash by late 1997, but once the pace of war starts to slow the emplacement of permanent fields will accelerate. The Summer 1998 fighting will demonstrate to the European commands that peace is still some way off; whatever local and temporary arrangements that were made up to that point will be expanded into a series of measures to create safe base areas for all units. Also, the use of mines to canalize the next enemy’s offensive will gain importance. These mines will be marked for more practical reasons than the Geneva Convention; friendly casualties and losses among local civilians are to be avoided. Even the Soviets in Poland will realize that maintaining the good will and cooperation of the locals is a combat multiplier.


Webstral


P.S. Of course, not everybody is going to think in such rational terms. There is plenty of room for soldiers to treat the locals like hosts for uniformed parasites.

[Raellus]

I'm currently finishing up Max Hastings' single-volume history of WWII, Inferno (it was published first in the UK under a different title) and, in his analysis of the war, he brings up a couple of points about the WWII Red Army that I would like to reiterate here.

WWII-era Soviet troops, many of them illiterate peasants, were able to withstand sustained hardships that most troops from the Western Allies (henceforth WA) did not experience often or for long periods of time. Whereas WA troops often had the "luxury" of stopping and calling in massive artillery barrages and airstrikes when they met strong enemy resistance, Soviet troops were often forced to attack again and again without the benefit of strong supporting fires. Wehrmacht troops who fought on both fronts often noted this contrast. They generally stood in awe of WA fire support while simultaneously being fairly contemptuous of WA reliance on said. On the other hand, Wehrmacht troops learned to cede a grudging respect for the Red Army soldier who they considered simple-minded but incredibly tough and determined. In other words, the Red Army often did more with less than the WA.

Soviet units, although well supplied with lend-lease trucks, were able to live off the land much better than WA or even Wermacht units, reducing their need for the long logistical chains that WA armies could not operate without. One of these days I'll track down the stats that back this up, but the Red Army in WWII was able to field and supply a larger combat force than the WA with fewer supporting units and trucks. Even so, the Red Army during Operation Bagration was able to advance over 450 miles along a broad front in a matter of a few weeks before logistical difficulties slowed them to a halt.

I know that the Red Army of the late Cold War was not the same force as that fielded in '43-45, and that the WA, later NATO, armies also changed (mostly for the better), but it's hard to contend that young men raised during consumer goods shortages in the authoritarian U.S.S.R. were not tougher, in many ways, than those young men raised in the West on Pac-Man, MTV, and Big Macs (insert your prefered equivalent Western cultural equivalents here).

Also, the Red Army's leadership and operational doctrine steadily improved over the course of the Great Patriotic War. I know that some detractors here have pointed out as proof of their inherent inferiority to the West how poorly led, and chained to outdated military dogma, the Soviet Army was in Afghanistan and, later, as the Russian Federation, in Chechnya. I contend that the Red Army of the Twilight War, much like that of WWII, would have identified and elevated talented generals and weeded out the incompetent ones as the war progressed. Some of this would have happened during the China campaign. More would occur as NATO pushed the Soviets east towards their own border. In the case of the latter, you can be sure the entire Soviet economy, monolithic as it may have been, would have been operating at full capacity in support of the war.

All of this suggests to me that, after the tech advantages of the West were rendered null by time and attrition, the Soviets would be in a better condition/position to continue the war on a stronger footing than NATO would.

There's one more point that I would like to make based on a recent viewing of Soviet War Scare 1983 (a History Channel documentary on Able Archer and the near nuclear war that occured as a result), and that is, as a result of their historical collective experience, the Cold War Soviets had an almost atavistic fear of invasion and war. If attacked, I have no doubt that they would have fought with a patriotic furor that would have surprised the West. In the v1.0 timeline, it is the German Army who strikes first (again!).

[95th Rifleman]

The problem is western attitudes tend to be a bit blind. The west consider themselves to be the "victors" of the cold war, citing the collapse of the soviet union and the defeat of soviet-equipped militaries in the 90's.

I must agree with Raellus that the realities are very different. One of my pet hates is how people consistently ignore Soviet air defence in their comparisons. Sure, soviet aircraft where inferior to western counterparts but the soviets whee far more advanced in the area of air defence, the Tunguska system is a prime example. The soviets knew that western helicopters and aircraft where superior so created systems to negate that superiority on the ground rather than in the air.

Another key factor is te more advanced anti-missle systems devised by the soviets in the mid 90's to deprive the west of their main anti-tank advantage, the ATGM.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

I remember playing plenty of flight sims in the 80s (F19/F117, Gunship, etc.) and being constantly frustrated by the clouds of SAMs so thick they'd blot the frigging sun out. :P

Always wondered why we never tried to maintain developmental parity - no offense but the M163 and Chaparral were jokes compared to some of the gear the Soviets fielded. Yeah some of it was pretty bad (the SA9, for example, had a very poor showing in S. Lebanon), but the Israelis were rightly afraid of the Shilka and SA11.

It seems like every time we got something comparable it would get shitcanned. Roland: Not Built Here (neither is a lot of gear we use and used so why was that singled out). ADATS: Same thing.

Patriot is kick-ass...but about as mobile as my house (which is to say: not). So Patriot is about like the SA-2.

Sigh.

(I still think the west won the Cold War :P )

[95th Rifleman]

Originally Posted by raketenjagdpanzer

I remember playing plenty of flight sims in the 80s (F19/F117, Gunship, etc.) and being constantly frustrated by the clouds of SAMs so thick they'd blot the frigging sun out. :P

Always wondered why we never tried to maintain developmental parity - no offense but the M163 and Chaparral were jokes compared to some of the gear the Soviets fielded. Yeah some of it was pretty bad (the SA9, for example, had a very poor showing in S. Lebanon), but the Israelis were rightly afraid of the Shilka and SA11.

It seems like every time we got something comparable it would get shitcanned. Roland: Not Built Here (neither is a lot of gear we use and used so why was that singled out). ADATS: Same thing.

Patriot is kick-ass...but about as mobile as my house (which is to say: not). So Patriot is about like the SA-2.

Sigh.

(I still think the west won the Cold War :P )

It was a case of arrogance and over-reliance on air technology on the part of the US. Germany and Britain tried hard to keep up with the German Roland and Gepard and the British Rapier and Javelin (later we adopted the starstreak).

American thinking got a bit blinded by the success of the stinger in Afghanitan and their belief that their aircraft would be ble to avoid such air defence systems, they over relied on their stealth and SEAD aircraft.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by Raellus

Soviet units, although well supplied with lend-lease trucks, were able to live off the land much better than WA or even Wermacht units, reducing their need for the long logistical chains that WA armies could not operate without. One of these days I'll track down the stats that back this up, but the Red Army in WWII was able to field and supply a larger combat force than the WA with fewer supporting units and trucks. Even so, the Red Army during Operation Bagration was able to advance over 450 miles along a broad front in a matter of a few weeks before logistical difficulties slowed them to a halt.

Fair points but where we use the term "living off the land" we really mean moving across the landscape like a plague of locusts. It's bad enough for rural civilians during times of war but it would be orders of magnitudes worse if the army moving through your area was relying on what they could "find" in the local area to supply themselves.

By late in the Twilight War NATO forces would be forced to operate in much the same way but I still suspect that Soviet soldiers would be more hated by European peasantry than their NATO equivalents for the above reasons.

[Webstral]

The West invested in airframes because the West had the money and the psychological framework to put into practice the philosophy that air superiority is achieved by aircraft, not ground-based systems. The Soviets put into practice a philosophy that point and area denial with dense and capable ground-based anti-aircraft systems was a cost-effective means of supporting the Army. The West expected that their huge investment in aircraft would enable them to take the initiative in the air and concentrate massive combat power on selected objectives. The Soviets expected that their robust point and area denial capability would enable their ground-based air defenses to keep the Western air forces from intervening decisively wherever the Soviets made their main effort on the ground. The West expected to use its air power to alleviate pressure on its ground forces. The Soviets expected to use their ground-based air defenses to keep the Western air forces from doing exactly that.

Obviously, this is an oversimplification. The Soviets would have entered a Red Storm Rising scenario with a major superiority in numbers of aircraft. The West would have had some effective point and area denial systems. However, where each side chose to make its major investment is telling.

I’ve seen some numbers for how much sustenance the Red Army could get from land the Germans considered scorched. If true, these numbers suggest that the Reds ought to have started with a SCR score of at least 50 (v1). However, I agree with Targan. It would have been hard for the locals that hadn’t been machine gunned to get by with the soft inner bark gnawed off all the trees in the forest, every tuber in a ten square mile area dug up and eaten, and every small mammal and bird in the same area put into “varmint surprise-ski”. Obviously, large numbers of civilians did survive. I can’t help but wonder, though, if survival didn’t mean come down to supplies rolling in behind the Red Army advance.

The degree to which US Army infantry is reliant upon close and consistent fire support is dismaying. It’s a major weakness. Once again, I feel the irresistible urge to advance my personal campaign for supplementing the traditional light/mechanized distinction in the US Army with a dragoon/grenadier distinction. Like typical mechanized infantry, the dragoons would be expected to move operationally and tactically in organic transport and to fight dismounted with close support from organic fighting vehicles as well as artillery and CAS. Dragoons could come in a variety of configurations while meeting the above conditions.

Grenadiers, on the other hand, would move tactically and operationally in vehicles belonging to a higher echelon. They would fight dismounted without close support from fighting vehicles. Support from corps-level artillery and CAS would be worked into the doctrine, but grenadiers would be expected to execute their missions without heavy fire support. I would add, though, that they should have some vehicles that could carry packs, ammunition, and other consumables over short distances so that the light fighters themselves could move and fight carrying the minimum additional mass. Every pound counts.

Dragoons probably would fight during the day, and they would never get very far from their fighting vehicles. Grenadiers probably would operate at night. Dragoons would go into the crucible of combat with the principle role of defending the tanks against the enemy’s infantry and dismounted anti-tank fires. Grenadiers would avoid combat as much as possible, preferring offensive or defensive ambushes. Dragoons could operate in any terrain, being all combined arms and junk. Grenadiers would operate in restricted terrain where the enemy’s dragoons would be forced to fight dismounted and with limited assistance from fighting vehicles. Dragoons could be produced relatively quickly. Grenadiers would take some training. Grenadiers would be junior Rangers, in effect, with a healthy dose of WW2 Japanese light fighter thrown in for good measure. Infiltration, camouflage, deception, superior leadership, superior training, superior marksmanship, superior conditioning, superior unit cohesion, superior leadership (‘cuz it needs to be mentioned twice), superior perks in the rear, and superior leadership (‘cuz it really does need to be mentioned three times) would distinguish grenadiers from dragoons. I’d have never been an NCO in a grenadier unit, though I might have done okay as a private.

Whenever the logistical situation demanded a down shifting of the tempo of mechanized operations, the grenadiers would go in to keep the front from stabilizing. They also would go in behind the lines, like the Chindits. Well-trained troops with effective light weapons can be extraordinarily effective under many conditions. Also, the grenadiers would be available to play the same game as enemy guerillas in the hinterlands, only with the advantage of aerial resupply and regular rotation out for rest and refit. Obviously, the US would need several brigades of these guys. The 82nd Airborne might qualify. I’m not up-to-speed on what the 10th Mountain has been doing since OEF started, so they may or may not count as grenadiers. I can say with certainty that 29th Infantry Brigade does not count. Not even close.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Webstral

Grenadiers would be junior Rangers, in effect, with a healthy dose of WW2 Japanese light fighter thrown in for good measure. Infiltration, camouflage, deception, superior leadership, superior training, superior marksmanship, superior conditioning, superior unit cohesion...

So what you're really saying is Grenadiers would be just like Australian reserve infantry?

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by Raellus

There's one more point that I would like to make based on a recent viewing of Soviet War Scare 1983 (a History Channel documentary on Able Archer and the near nuclear war that occured as a result), and that is, as a result of their historical collective experience, the Cold War Soviets had an almost atavistic fear of invasion and war. If attacked, I have no doubt that they would have fought with a patriotic furor that would have surprised the West. In the v1.0 timeline, it is the German Army who strikes first (again!).

That's very true, and it's also worth bearing in mind that the Soviet government had total control over the news etc that the people got. Whoever actually struck first, chances are the Soviet people and soldiers would believe it was the Germans.

[dragoon500ly]

Isby quotes a stat in "Weapons and Tactics of the Soviet Army" that is of intrest:

"There is an average of 3.285 logistics, service, communications and support personnel for every US fighting soldier. The comparable Soviet figure is surprising, they average 0.68 support personnel per every fighting soldier."

"The reason why is the different missions of the two armies. While the Soviets are prepared to fight a lengthy war, their main emphasis is on a short, intense conflict. They also lack the large training base and overseas commitments which dramatically increase the US Army's support requirements."

"The Soviets also enjoy a higher readiness in equipment. Soviet weapons are simple, rugged and have lower maintenance requirements than their Western counterparts. In WWII, in spite of their shortage of trained personnel, the Soviets were able to repair between 75-80% of their disabled vehicles, 80-90% of these within two days, a performance that is currently matched only by the Israeli Army."

I remember a demonstration that a Vietnam veteran Sergeant taught his platoon on a rifle range at Graf, he took an AK-47 and an M-16, blew four magazines through each on full auto, then threw the weapons into a mud puddle, submerging both weapons. He ran a cleaning rod through the barrel of each weapon, hand cycled the action twice and then proceed to load and fire another magazine on full auto, the M-16 fired some eight or nine rounds and then jammed. The AK-47 went through another three mags before the sarge ended his demo.

[HorseSoldier]

I know that the Red Army of the late Cold War was not the same force as that fielded in '43-45, and that the WA, later NATO, armies also changed (mostly for the better), but it's hard to contend that young men raised during consumer goods shortages in the authoritarian U.S.S.R. were not tougher, in many ways, than those young men raised in the West on Pac-Man, MTV, and Big Macs (insert your prefered equivalent Western cultural equivalents here).

An interesting footnote I read in Murray Feschback's pretty bleak Ecocide in the USSR: Health And Nature Under Siege is that polution and environmental contamination was so severe in the USSR that by the 1980s a huge percentage of potential conscripts to the Red Army were being turned away because they were medically unfit. This was mostly related to asthma and other respiratory problems caused by air pollution in industrialized cities, but there were various other problems all related to environmental mess the Soviets made of Mother Russia. It's been a long time since I read the book, but I think the reject rate was quoted as something like 45% -- but regardless, it was bad enough that there are various reports and documents reporting that this was considered a critical threat to national security by senior military leadership by the mid-late 1980s.

Now, obviously, one of the first things the Soviet government would do on the outbreak of a general conventional war would be to reassess their recruiting standards and criteria. However, I have to suspect that a lot of those guys who would have otherwise been rejected for service wouldn't have held up well on the battlefield.

I would guess that, with recruiting standards loosened for the Sino-Soviet War once the war starts in Europe at any given point in time, the Soviets would have much higher rates of duty-limiting illness and deaths from disease. (At some point after the nukes this probably flattens out more towards parity as everyone who is at increased risk of death from disease on both sides doesn't make it through short rations and cold winters, etc.)

Feschback's book deals almost exclusively with the USSR but environmental conditions were pretty much as bad, or maybe worse, in the other Warsaw Pact nations, so this was likely also a problem for the East Germans, Poles, and others.

How this interacts with growing up in a comparatively austere environment is an interesting question. I agree that Russian recruits in the 1980s/90s may have been better prepared mentally for privation, but it's likely that this was offset on the NATO side by better nutrition, medicine, and healthier environments personnel grew up in to maybe produce something of a wash at a big picture statistical level.

[Webstral]

I would argue that we’re not prepared to fight a lengthy war successfully. If we meant business, we would have flooded Afghanistan with troops from the beginning. We don’t have enough trained manpower to do that, nor do we have the political will to have the reserves called up long enough to make up the difference. We have fought for years under the assumption that it was all going to get better any day now, relieving us of the effort of making an appropriate commitment. We’re fighting the Rhodesian War in Central Asia and no closer to winning than the Rhodesians were. This makes me sad, because I know guys like Law have put real effort into getting victory over there.