In Defense of the Red Army

[Homer]

I’d offer that 1999s Allied Force is a better look at what may have happened in a peer fight. Even with the lessons learned from ODS and a massive overmatch in firepower, Serbia was able to maintain a credible GBAD threat and deflect a proportion of NATOs efforts throughout the conflict by using anti-SEAD tactics, deception, and dispersal. Despite fielding a smaller force than the Iraqis, the Serbs were able to retain an effective air defense force.

[Raellus]

Good call, Homer. In terms of air-defenses, the Serbs arguably did more with less than the Iraqis- that shouldn't be overlooked.

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[bash]

Something to keep in mind between Iraq, Serbia, and a T2K war would be the context of the air defenses and the ROE of the attacking force. In Iraq their air defense had to defend huge areas and the ROE for Coalition forces was "shoot anything dangerous looking". In Serbia the air defenses had much smaller coverage areas covering parent formations. The Coalition ROE were more restrictive as well.

In a T2K WWIII there would likely be good defenses on the Soviet side but a fairly lax ROE for NATO forces. NATO would also have the benefit of B-2s and F-117s for taking out air defense HQs and/or batteries themselves. So definitely not a cakewalk for NATO but the Soviets also wouldn't have an impenetrable wall of air defenses.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by bash

Something to keep in mind between Iraq, Serbia, and a T2K war would be the context of the air defenses and the ROE of the attacking force. In Iraq their air defense had to defend huge areas and the ROE for Coalition forces was "shoot anything dangerous looking". In Serbia the air defenses had much smaller coverage areas covering parent formations. The Coalition ROE were more restrictive as well.

In a T2K WWIII there would likely be good defenses on the Soviet side but a fairly lax ROE for NATO forces. NATO would also have the benefit of B-2s and F-117s for taking out air defense HQs and/or batteries themselves. So definitely not a cakewalk for NATO but the Soviets also wouldn't have an impenetrable wall of air defenses.

Good points. Would the US have risked B-2s for anything but nuclear strikes, though? I'm not well versed on late-Cold War SAC doctrine, but I would hazard a guess that B-2s would not be released to deliver conventional strikes anywhere near the FEB. F-117s might have good success against Soviet air defenses initially, but the Soviets probably would have "cracked the code" pretty quickly. IIRC, the Serbians allegedly figured out a way to detect and track them using ground-based radars (shooting down at least one F-117 with a SAM), and the IRST capabilities of the MiG-29 and SU-27 would mitigate, to some degree, the F-117's stealth capabilities v. radar.

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[ToughOmbres]

My own view is that Command would be loathe to risk the (presumably) small number of B-2's available in the Twilight War for anything other than extremely high priority nuke targets. Command (again in my view) would be only slightly less likely to risk the small number of F117's against Air Defense targets and then only the top priority such as radars-even assuming you could boost the numbers slightly with increased wartime production.

[bash]

You both may be right about the B-2 but I think the Nighthawks would definitely be used to break down air defenses. I'd imagine a NATO air in Eastern Europe would end up looking a lot like Desert Storm. Nighthawks taking out fixed radars and C2, Phantoms running Wild Weasel missions, and Aardvarks reupholstering everything with every stand-off weapon that can be mounted.

I agree that the Soviets will have a better response than the Iraqis though. Just better integration of their air defense, better intelligence on NATO's stealth assets, and better equipment will even the odds a bit. I think the air defenses USSR proper would main unassailable until TDM but I don't think Eastern Europe would remain quite as secure.

[Ursus Maior]

The B-2 Spirit only reached IOC on 1 January 1997. Depending on edition/timeline that means there would be only very few B-2 operating, indeed. Original production ended in 2000, but that was only the case, because Clinton had one of the prototypes rebuilt into a 21st Block 30 fully operational B-2. The peak of production was around 1989, so all historical 21 planes would/should/could be available for T2K.