In Defense of the Red Army

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by O'Borg

Put them [the Israelis] in a uniform, give them top class equipment and training and convince them their homeland will be crushed if they dont fight, and its a far cry from a Soviet peasant being press ganged, fed on raw potatoes and issued with kit they soon find isn't as good as the stuff the other guy has.

It sounds like you're referring to the modern IDF. The IDF of 1948-1967 was equipped with cast-off, second-grade weapons and equipment (Shermans, Super Mysteres and essentially stolen Mirages, FN battle rifles, etc.). That they did as well as they did against the lavishly Soviet-equipped armies of the Arab states speaks volumes about the average Israeli's (of that generation, at least) fighting prowess. I guess that kind of proves your point, huh? That said, your description of the average Soviet conscript sounds like it was given by a Wermacht staff officer during the planning for Operation Barbarossa. That was a bit of a mistake back then. I don't think it's very wise to make that mistake again. See my next response to your argument.

In more recent times, the technologically superior IDF has had trouble with guerilla-style adversaries (The second Lebanon War and the recent fighting in Gaza). This has been with 100% air superiority.

Originally Posted by O'Borg

The Soviets weren't, except during WW2 when their enemies thought them subhuman and ethnically cleansed them. In a very real sense they were fighting for their survival.

I'm sure that the Soviet propaganda apparatus would whip up the Red Army with reminders of what a unified, militarily aggressive Germany was capable of doing to Mother Russia. After West German army (in the v1.0 timeline) crossed the frontier into East Germany, I think your average Soviet soldier (or prospective soldier) would have little trouble finding the motivation to fight hard on their western front. Plus, as I mentioned in my original post, some Red Army units would already have combat experience from China (and some officers and non-coms would have served in Afghanistan). I really don't think the image of press-ganged, potato-eating, simpletons is entirely fair or accurate, especially by the time the Twilight War kicked off in Europe.

Originally Posted by O'Borg

I prefer to think of the hypothetical Soviet invasion of Western Europe in the following terms :
Imagine the latter half of WW2, but give the Allied forces low morale and poor leadership, and the Germans naval & air superiority and remove Hitler's tactical and strategic blundering from the equation.

This is an interesting way of looking at it. I'm still not sure, given the conditions you listed, that the Germans could have achieved more than an operational stalemate against the massive weight of Allied men and material. That's kind of what we're looking at in the later stages of the Twilight War.

[Grimace]

I'm with you Raellus in thinking that the Red Army would've been a lot harder to defeat than people think. Too often people are pointing at the rapid decline seen in the 90s and early 2000s as "proof" that the Soviet Union was a hollow shell of military power. I think those times were more indicative of the degradation that occurs when national morale coupled with massively suffering economy did to the military. Those things wouldn't have occurred in the middle of a war like the Twilight war.


And the general lack of "awesomeness" by our forces in Kosovo against Serbian forces seems to support my idea that: on the desert, we're something to be feared with our gadgetry, but put us in the mountains, with low clouds and forests and AAA and an enemy who's not stuck on open, flat ground and we're not the super amazingness that we appear in the desert. We're good, no doubt, but we're not going to inflict the massive losses that we saw in the desert. An awful lot of tanks, vehicles and men left Kosovo after some 60 days of constant air strikes.

Against the Soviets we would have suffered many more losses against many more foes.

[Fusilier]

Agreed. Nobody can say for certain what would happen, but I don't think it would be a decisive victory for NATO.

Often the centerpiece of the counter argument that the WP would fail miserably is by relating a hypothetically WW3 with what happening in both Iraq wars. I feel that is a poor comparison and isn't evidence at all.

Anything else I'd add would be simply echoing your statements.

[Targan]

I am impressed with your reasoning Raellus. I hope the DC Working Group read this thread.

[headquarters]

I think the analyzis is valid. Also the technological superiority that west often boast is not as advanced as we think / thought.

Lack of real enviroment testing and steady propaganda on our side led us to believe that our stuff and our organization is so and so much better.

The basis for stating this is contradictory. Nato nuclear weapons strategy was made to beat back the superior numbers of the soviets .Meaning that our gear and organization couldnt do it alone.

[Legbreaker]

It's basically the same way I've thought the war would progress. As you've stated Rae, the Soviets, and almost all of the countries in the WP had experienced combat in China for at least nine months (the timeline is unclear as to when exactly war broke out - sometime in 1995, presumably in the second quarter from how I read it).
Sure, most of those experienced units were still in the east, but it's not too much to believe veterans were rotated out back west and into training and command positions (especially the wounded).

I believe given the circumstances leading up to the war we're presented in the histories, the initial sucess of NATO most definately would have been neutralised, then reversed by the WP forces. Also, given the usual reluctance of so called "free" western democracies to implement conscription until the last possible minute, NATO reserves in the initial months would have been extremely limited.

Just imagine for a moment. War in Europe breaks out with the bulk of WP forces already committed in the east. Is there a pressing need in the eyes of the populace to sign up immediately? No, they've been told for decades their "boys" are worth fifty of those filthy commies.

Time goes past and all the ready units have been committed for the drive east. China falls apart (something nobody saw coming in a hurry, but nobody saw nukes being used either) and hundreds of thousands, if not millions of battle hardened WP troops and equipment are released to Europe.

And so the various governments begin recruiting in ernest, perhaps a few even implementing conscription. Now they've got the troops, but it'll take months to train them all to combat readiness, equip them, and send them over to the front lines, all while the remnants of NATO units are desperately trying to hold back the hordes of the WP bent on recapturing their homelands and teaching those child eating capitalists a lesson!

[Adm.Lee]

I have to agree that, if the Soviets were "up" and willing and ready to fight, they could do NATO a LOT of damage. If they've had time to prune out the deadwood (both people and policies) that accumulates in peacetime, the likelihood of that happening increases. I have to wonder, though, how easy it would be to support a fight against the Chinese, make the Far Eastern Front(s) into wartime-capable forces, and shuffle the Western and Southwestern Fronts' leadership and forces into wartime status, too.

If anything, I think the Western and SW TVDs might fall apart even quicker than in canon, if they are really caught flat-footed by the German unification.

Along those lines, though, I and some other had disagreements with Peters' ending: the West German government threw in the towel, seeing the civilian casualties the Soviet forces were deliberately inflicting. Peters is a really good writer and analyst, however, so I am willing to chalk it up to literary license.

[kato13]

Deleted a duplicate post.

Personally I feel the declassified materials released since 1989 drastically lower my opinion of what the USSR was capable of long term. They could have caused incomprehensible damage to western Europe in a short conflict, possibly destroying NATO but IMO internal pressures and logistical issues would have dealt them a serious blow if the conflict went on beyond 3 months.

[Grimace]

See, I view the ability of the Soviets to enhance the longer something goes on. Look at the Soviets preceeding World War 2. On paper they could probably hold out 1-2 month tops. How long was it before they came roaring back and whalloped the Wermacht in WW2? It was certainly well after 2 month of fighting.

The whole thing that people tend to forget is that Russia has this weird sort of perseverence under adverse pressure. Sure, we might have been able to stymie the Soviet advance, but what are we going to do? Sit there? No...we'd try pushing back...going into Russia. And that would create a major issue, not only in terms of what we can do, but what we'd do to the Soviet mindset.

So I certainly see the Soviets lasting longer than 3 months. And the longer they last, the nastier they'd get, IMO.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by kato13

Personally I feel the declassified materials released since 1989 drastically lower my opinion of what the USSR was capable of long term. They could have caused incomprehensible damage to western Europe in a short conflict, possibly destroying NATO but IMO internal pressures and logistical issues would have dealt them a serious blow if the conflict went on beyond 3 months.

I'd be interested to read this stuff. I'm not sure exactly what materials you're referring to but I am aware of the great internal and external pressures the Soviet economy was under during the late eighties. It simply could not compete with capatalist systems in the global, free market economy. But we're talking about a wartime economy here and that is quite different. A command economy has certain advantages over free market economies in wartime. For example, workers need not be paid in cash. Resources needed for war-related production can simply be commandeered instead of paid for. The USSR had a wealth of natural resources and wouldn't need to look outside its borders for much, negating the need to use hard-to-find hard capital. The Soviet Union prior to WWII was no economic powerhouse but it was able to mobilize and retool its industries to produce massive amounts of military hardware. In many ways, the pre-WWII economy was in worse shape than the USSR or 1989. The West simply doesn't have those luxuries.

Most wartime economies rely on defecit spending, and a command economy allows for a certain degree of added leeway that capitalist economies won't sanction. Just look at the defecit the U.S. has run up during the last 8 or so years which was due, in large part, to financing two "low-level intensity" wars. If anything, the western [capiltalist]democracies may have more trouble ramping up and maintaining the flow of weapons, munitions, and supplies under high-intensity war conditions. If the argument is that the Soviet Union couldn't have paid for a full-scale, two front war, it could just as easily be argued that the NATO nations couldn't have either.

With almost a year of full-scale combat with China under its belt, the Soviet Union would be well on its way to achieving a wartime economy. As Leg pointed out, reserve units would already be at least partially mobilized and factories would already be cranking out replacement weapons and munitions by the time Germany sprung its surprise reunification party. In that regard, at least, the Soviets would certainly have a leg up on the West.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by Targan

I am impressed with your reasoning Raellus. I hope the DC Working Group read this thread.

Thanks, Targan. I hope I've given them something to think about.

One last thing before I give someone else a turn.

Although it is true that most NATO weapons systems/platforms were (and continue to be) superior in most respects to Soviet gear throughout the Cold War, it bears keeping in mind that shortly before the collapse of the USSR, the Soviets were starting to roll out some pretty capable systems. Due to the massive military funding cuts that started around '91, most of those systems either withered on the vine or were ordered/employed in only very limited numbers. I think many of us tend to imagine the late '80s matchups of Challengers vs. T-72s, or F-15s vs. MiG-23s when we try to envision the Twilight War. Soviet reserve units are often tooling around in T-55s and BMP-1s. By the Twilight War, the Soviets would be fielding considerably better front line gear and better gear would have trickled down to many second and third line units. Here's a brief list of stuff well down the pipeline by 1991, IRL:

The T-90 tank, combining and upgrading the best features/components of the T-72 and T-80.

The BMP-3: probably the most heavily armed IFV in the world.

The BMD-3: ditto for airborne troops.

The BTR-90: a marked improvement in the series, with a heavy armament in its own right.

The 2S19 152mm SP gun.

The SU-30/32/33/34/35: Several very capable air superiority, multirole, and strike members of the excellent SU-27 family.

The Kamov KA-50 Hokum attack heli (and probably a couple hundred Mi-28 Havocs).

The An-94 assault rifle: This is a bit of a late addition, but it combines a fairly revolutionary firing mechanism with tried and true Kalashnikov features.

And perhaps even a regiment or two of T-95 tanks...

In the Twilight timeline, by 1996, these systems would have been in fairly widespread service with Guards and Category I divisions, freeing up the next lower level of gear (T-72s, BMP-2s, MiG-29 etc.) for Category II divisions and so forth, in a sort of trickle-down effect of major weapons systems. In 2000, you might still see a few T-62s and MiG-21s, but, by '97 those would be used in deep reserve units only.

After the nukes, though, a lot of old T-62s and T-55 and such would likely still be in reserve storage, ready to head for the front. NATO likely couldn't match that.