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Re: Red Army = most effective force !
conventional forces where extremely important during the 'cold war' since it was expected that war could start at any time. Both the USA and USSR spent huge amounts of resources building complex and expensive defense systems.
the 60s idea that nuclear weapons and the air-forces would completly replace ground conventional weapons never took place. Besides many of the tanks and apcs could operate in a nuclear environment. nuclear weapons and planes can't occupy or hold any terrain. we are lucky militaty leaders never decided on a direct confrontation, I think they understood what nuclear war would mean. yeah, there are several limitation the old sp code is showing. |
Re: Red Army = most effective force !
I'm not sure that "generations" would do it all re. ERA stopping power. Bear in mind that some modern "new-generation" ERA packs are lighter and less efficient to suit lighter vehicles.
Anyhow, I think that "generation" and "effect" variables would be redundant. Better get back to 2 variables and raise the number of "generations", each one with an upper limit of penetration/warhead size that it can stop. E.g. instead of having figures from 1 to 19, why not reaching up to 49 or 59, with more different ERA levels, from basic early-80s stuff to Kontakt-5 or similar, with several shades in between? Just my 2c on an off-topic subject that cannot possibly be modeled in the game, I don't even know why I bothered http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif |
Re: Red Army = most effective force !
You bothered because you care, as we all do. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
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Re: Red Army = most effective force !
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How is a 46 ton tank, better than one nearly twice it's weight? I'd also like to ask what evidence you bring to support this? |
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Re: Red Army = most effective force !
Last time i played a post year 2000 small generated battle, i understood why i should not buy anything expensive for such low battle points/small map if i was playing usa/usmc and have red army as opponent.
After deploying my 4 SEAL platoons (4 SEAL platoons are a total of 8 squads and 4 pathfinders) with 3 CH-46 for quick insertion in objective, i had the surprise to see nearly a hundred of infantry and APC to run and quickly overwhelm my poor small platoons. And despite using lots of smoke grenade to create some ambush for this insane amount of APC in the objective zone, while this helped really against infantry, with the incredible bad luck at assaulting APC those SEAL had (despite the SEAL squads are classed as engineer in the game), in less than 10 turns, mostly everyone was dead. After checking a bit more after game, the 4 SEAL platoons + 3 CH46 were costing me 1860 BP, with such an amount of BP , using red army you could buy 14 Mech platoons (42 squads and +/- 35/40 APC). So if you plan to play with small battle points against an army that comes with cheap to buy units, never ever buy expensive units if you plan to have a chance, or just do not let the AI to buy what he wants, buy things yourself for it. |
Re: Red Army = most effective force !
The SEAL and other specials are more for scen design than for "real" battle http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Or for PBEM with agreed limits to the other side...
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Re: Red Army = most effective force !
"How is a 46 ton tank, better than one nearly twice it's weight?"
I suppose that if by "equivalent" he means that it would not be a Gulf War style one sided massacre he might be right.Consider however: 1) no thermal sight; 2) several weak spots in the front armor; 3) ammunition performance likely insufficient to deal with M1A1 HA; 4) various odd ends, like unprotected ammo storage, insufficient main gun depression etc.; |
Re: Red Army = most effective force !
Marek, hope you were sarcastic, as T-34 WAS the best tank in the WWII. At least I consider it as the mother of all modern tank designs... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif
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Re: Red Army = most effective force !
Yep, Nightblade, you can easy count out your Chinooks from that force core points in a real firefight. Besides, as Russia has less than 70 exp points as core experience, the red army units become even cheaper to buy in numbers. Overwhelming numbers, and as their tech advances, troop quality doesnt matter that much anymore, especially in "one-shot-one-kill" units.
All in all I consider the red Army to be a first-class foe in winSPMBT after 2000. Just remember, that an Oob designer has a lot to say with every country. (And the guy who put up Russia, did a very comprehensive work, considering WinSPMBT picks and tactics) |
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You trying to start a fight with me old fruit? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif |
Re: Red Army = most effective force !
I played a 1969 battle against the chinese as the soviet union, and I had the same thing happen to me. for my 2 bmp comapanies, the chinese had bought 3-4 mech companies. some chinese units would literally dismount 50m from my own dismounted infantry, after my units ran out of return fire shots.
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Re: Red Army = most effective force !
If you plan to use special farces, then these are best used in a scenario, and not a generated battle.
Generated battles are for normal line forces meeting normal line forces. Special farces (SAS, Spetznatz and so on) are provided as a tool for the scenario designer. They don't appear on the normal battlefield (or if they do, they belong to the army-level commanders, and not you as "Lt Col Regular Guy" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif The scenario designer can then plan a situation where the eliteness of the special farces can be balanced by the setup (lack of time and so on and so forth). Cheers Andy |
Re: Red Army = most effective force !
If you buy yourself the units/equipment the AI will use against your army, you can easily solve this problem and then create a possible "to win" or "to lose" battle according to the armies setup you decide.
This way, sf or other kind of very expensive units can be very well used in generated battles without a problem and prevent the frustration such 100 vs 1 situation usually lead into when the AI buy very cheap units in nearly invicincible amount. |
Re: Red Army = most effective force !
Doing that means no suprises. although, I've done that occiasonly to give the ai, in my mind, more realistic buys.
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Re: Red Army = most effective force !
I wish this War Nerd guy posted on this furum more. A really funny article:
http://www.exile.ru/2005-April-08/war_nerd.html Quote:
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Re: Red Army = most effective force !
a perspective from a neutral country "green slime"
reg. "russian tanks rusting outside" never heard of such a thing. most tank barracks in the world have a bunch of old tanks standing around in a lot for basic training purposes, or even simply as a memorial. the idea that a category A or B unit, which spent all of their recruits time in mind-boggling "make work" tasks, would let their critical combat equipment go to hell is just wrong. until the mid 1980s, where corruption/embezelement of supplies as well as "moonlighting" of NCOs became an increasing problem, soviet and some WP (especially GDR ans CSSR) readyness was first rate, better in our view then most NATO equipment. - tank training for soviet and cssr was absolutly first rate, and superior to many NATO countries, especially in gunnery and formation keeping (battle drill). given the two-year enlistment periods common nearly no tanker trained in one tank and was expected to fight in another, although o/c this is not valid for C formations whose expected mob time included training with "new" equipment. B-formations still had refresher courses and were familiar with their equipment - "warsaw pact advancing along two roads" i have no idea what that is supposed to mean. norway, perhaps, and wouldn't have that been 1 road unless they crossed finland? - "logistics, etc." this is the biggest myth of all - that soviet logistics was a nightmare or a mess. o/c after 1985 everything slowly went downhill, but the soviets beforehand were true masters of the art - more importantly, they were ther first to employ "computurised" logistic systems - basically big calculators - first at front then at army level, from 1975 onwards. these systems were so advanced they AUTOMATICALLY could issue (print orders ready for signing or teletype reley) movement and priority orders on supply coloums and MSRs. the fact that they were less "flexible" then NATO is completly irrelevant - if you do not resupply a regiment but simply pull it from the line and put in another you do not need flexibility. this approach was brilliant as while they knew it cut combat capability in some ways (lack of experienced NCOs, commanders, etc.) in allowed the "same" factors to be considered fresh each time in the battle management computers, i.e. they knew exactly what equipment would be how worn out over how much time, and could therefore pre-order supplies, unlike the NATO system, which was "pull" rather then "push". finally the WP has a defence mobilisation scheme that only countries such as norway, austria and sweden have - every vehicle could be commandered for the front - effectivly the entire country could go to "war industy" at the flip of switch. - "small-unit inflexibility" who cares? when the vast majority of your engagements are going to be regiment-size, that is what you train for. that they are "set-piece actions" is only marginally negative, if at all, if it is a true combined arms assault. that fire strikes "could not be adjusted" or similar is complete nonsense. battilion-sized task groups could immidetly form after breaking the line and were perfectly able to fullfill their main mission - push deep and disrupt. i can't really comment on technical/ equipment matters as others prolly know more about it here, except for one minor detail: the older t-72 varaints vibrated so much that crews routinely fell asleep on the march and would roll of the roads - none combat attrition rate for an tank regiment road march was many times higher then for nato equiviliant (brigade without supply arm). between 1975-85 the WP would have given NATO a serious challange, and depending on circs, it would have been a tight thing. given that the most likely "threat of war" scenario was due to Operation RYAN (look it up if you don't know it) in the 1982-83/84 timeframe i think everyone in the west should be a lot more thankfull that it never happened. |
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A historical case in point is the german advance in ww1 in august of '14. It is often said that the germans would have won if they had had those divisions there in the west of france that they had send to the eastern front to face the russians instead. What is forgotten is that there was literally no room for those divisions. A german infantry division on the march through belgium and france needed an awful lot of road space. So much that often the end of the column ended a days advance more or less on the same positions that the leading units had started of from that morning. The roads in belgium (the east of belgium being the bottleneck) and france were already packed with moving columns of troops and supplies (of which there were often shortages due to the congestion of the roads). From a battlefield point of view those additional divisions could have made all the difference, from a logistical viewpoint it made more sense to send them elsewhere. While I don't debate the existence of a complex supply system, or the abundance of bridging equipment and engineers, nor the waterfording capabilities of many soviet AFV's, what I do debate is their ability to advance all those troops, their supplies and reinforcements along the limited infrastructure available. This is NOT just about bridges, what some people seem to think. You can just as easily take out large sections of roads, crossroads etc with modern engineer and demolition equipment so as to make them unusable (as roads etc) for quite some time. Which is what matters, time. Every minute and hour lost means more pile up of vehicles and the more they pile up the harder it becomes to 'un-pile' them. You might say, well they can just go around it right? Tracked vehicles and all terrain wheeled vehicles can, but trucks will quickly become stuck (all that traffic going over non hardened ground will soon turn it into ploughed fields, hard to croos with trucks). So as soon as you have column of trucks stuck/slowed, everything behind it, including tracked and AT wheeled will get stuck in the traffic jam too. It's simply a matter of the amount of traffic density that the exisitng infrastructure could handle, then add deliberate delays and blockings and you'll come to what is realistically possible in terms of nr of manouvre units and supply chain. Add in doctrine (fast or slow advance, high or low ammo expenditure (artillery especially) etc, etc) and the number gets higher or lower, basically the faster you want to advance, the lower the nr of troops. In my opinion, assuming a reasonable disruption by NATO, a WP advance would have stalled quite quickly after initial succes. Narwan |
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Re: Red Army = most effective force !
Formation keeping isn't much worth in combat http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Syrians on Golans in 1973 were keeping formations pretty well AFAIK, made them just good targets http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
To put Czechoslovakian war readiness a bit into perspective, my father served a long time as active duty officer in Signal corps. In wartime, each of their stations was supposed to have a Motor Rifle company or at the very least platoon for defense. Guess how many times they did actually train it in the 15 years he spent with the Signals. Another great anecdote from a joint training with the Rooskies. Russian tank brigade was to attack alongside our Mototr Rifle Brigade. True the Russians were showing the battle drill OK (ie they were driving in nice tight formations that would make any A-10 pilot scream with joy) but atleast their command post (where my father was providing comms for liaison officer) was in quickly built bunker with a good view on the battlefield and objective. Czechoslovakian CP was a big white tent with another big white tent alongside where waiters in smokings were serving drinks. Our defense ministers were all too often interested in such important issues like forbidding the officers to wear any other combat boots than the officer's (these got shallower patterns on their soles so generally sucked in mud etc.) and the thing was pursued with more vigour than any combat training - my father was one of two officers of his unit who circumvented this by having standard soldier's boot soles mated with their oficer's boots - he said he could've laughed his ...erm, bottom off when, while climbing a rather steep and muddy slope in autumn, they were the only two who managed to do it without repeatedly falling face-down into mud. And there were many other similar cases. So while the unit's training might be good, training of cooperation wasn't as good and the higher echelons weren't much prepared to fight a war, they were more interested in playing soldiers. EDIT: Dunno how the tank gunnery training looked like, but rifle training was performed (atleast with father's unit) scarcely and with a very limited ammo allowance - this was being circumvented by various tradeoffs of insignia and other souvenirs with Russian troops who had very loose regulations in this field and had generally as many free rounds as they wanted. Still, there were some "active" higher officers who were trying to uncover such mischiefous wrongdoings and make sure the soldiers didn't fire more than the official allowance. Also, during one gunnery training session (organised in a military area Milovice IIRC) my father got an invitation from their fellow Soviet Signal unit and contrary to our practise (where Signal troops were training only with a rifle and officers also with pistols), they had everything from pistol up to RPG training fires so my father spent a happy afternoon there trying out AK-74, PKM and RPG. He was invited also for the next day when MANPADS training was to take place but unfortunately they were parting too soon so he wasn't able to get there. |
Re: Red Army = most effective force !
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And it wouldn't be a golden period either. WP losses would have been massive, much higher than NATO's losses (who would have had the advantage of defending). Whether they would be able to hold on to that territory is dubious, but too speculative to make any clear claims on. But again, that's just my opinion. Narwan |
Re: Red Army = most effective force !
I hold the opposite view. I beleive west germany could have been over-run and occupied within a week. If the objective was to re-unify germany by force, then I think thats very possible. on the other hand a full-scale invasion and attempt to incorporate the whole of europe would be a stretch, although not maybe not impossible.
losses of course would be high, but if tactical nuclear weapons where used losses on both sides would be much higher, in addition to big envirinmental destruction. In the end success and failure depends on alot of factors,strategic and tactical suprise,strategic objectives, western will, nuclear weapon use, etc. |
Re: Red Army = most effective force !
From what I worked out from talking to people who served in BAOR, is that it would come down too, if we run out of bullets to send down range before the Godless Commie Hordes(TM) ran out of spares to keep their tanks mobile.
They where of the opinion that if it didn't involve so many casualties, it wouldd be the worlds biggest comedy routine. Then it'd all be down to whose nerve broke first, and started hurling Brick bats at each other. BAOR's main role was that of speed bump, and there was one fiction book which ended with BAOR getting Tac nuked by it's own side. |
Re: Red Army = most effective force !
"You can just as easily take out large sections of roads, crossroads etc with modern engineer and demolition equipment so as to make them unusable (as roads etc) for quite some time."
I don't know. You can put some demolition charges on the key points of a bridge and continue to use it until the last minute, then blow it up. Railroads are easy to take out too. But how would you destroy a paved road? Explosive charges? You will need to drill a lot of holes. Buldozers? Tarmac and the underlying layers seem pretty hard for your typical dozer blade to negotiate quickly. At any rate every time I have seen it removed specialized equipment was used.And that hardware was comparatively rare. I will also note that from what I remember from their doctrine the soviets emphasized the use of forward detachments to seize key passage points.That could be bad news for a bunch of engineers trying frantically to fill a road with holes. "Tracked vehicles and all terrain wheeled vehicles can, but trucks will quickly become stuck" I will note that most soviet vehicles have comparatively long unrefueled cruising ranges (like in the case of river fording it was accomplished with trade offs, see BMP-1 rear doors). The T-62 and the BMP-1 can, on paper, do more than 600Km. The T-55 can, on paper, do 600km, and so on.Those are not a trivial distances in Western Europe. I suspect that it was done on purpose to enable them to quickly seize NATO airbases and other key objectives without the hassle of dragging fuel trucks along. Which is not to say that trucks will not be needed but that "reasonable disruption" might be called in question. Again the specific historical period is important. |
Re: Red Army = most effective force ! *DELETED*
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Re: Red Army = most effective force !
The road range is problematic the moment you have to go off-road. Even more problematic the moment you have to fight, as that includes lots of dashes to the nearest cover, reversing etc. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
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Re: Red Army = most effective force !
Many roads, especially highways, have viaducts that can be easily blown up. Where off ramps from highways don't use viaducts they are usually on a some what elevated level. You don't have to drill through the tarmac if you can just go through the side through the packed earth. Highways are quick, but hard to get on and off, especially if the off-ramps are taken out. Units on it will be sitting ducks with very little cover or escape options.
Then there's for example the clever use of mines and booby traps to block routes around choke points, digging of deep trenches to block trucks, blowing up (high) buildings next to roads to block them, and then we're not even mentioning the use of nuclear demolitions or persistent chemical agents. Soviet AFV's may be protected from their nasty lingering effects, their trucks aren't. There are so many ways to block the handful of vital roads from east germany into the west. For me it wasn't until I started travelling between east and western europe in the early 90's and saw with my own eyes that I realised just how little infrastructure there really was connecting east and west. And not just across the border but also behind the border on the eastern side. Even without NATO harrassing them getting troops and supplies across the border would be a logistical nightmare. Narwan |
Re: Red Army = most effective force !
how quickly could all this be carried out if an attack came as a suprise? on a random sunday morning in the 70s-80s.
soviet doctrine of combined arms offensive also calls for paratroopers to land in key areas, to hold roads, bridges etc. in addition to the forward elements Marcello brought up. |
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Personally I do not think that the WP would have been able to pull off a suprise attack. If only for the simple reason that far too few of their units were with some consistency combat ready. Bringing a sufficient number to readiness is not something which goes unnoticed. It's quite a big deal. The WP simply was not capable of pulling off such a surprise attack. And NATO defensive plans called for countless security units and defense in depth, not to mention an extensive anti-aircraft screen to counter the well-known soviet doctrine. Again, a massive paratroop and airlanding operation is not something you can just pull out of a hat. It takes a lot of preparation. It is not compatible with the concept of a surpise attack. Either yo have a suprise attack, which means few forces available to begin with and nowhere near enough for serious paratype operations or you take your time to preapre in which case a surprise attack is no longer in the cards. Can't have it both ways. Your scenario does read well and quite a few novels have been written around that idea, but I find it far fetched and unrealistic. It too ignores the massive logistic preparation needed BEFORE you can even contemplate launching an attack. That is not something which would have gone unnoticed (and which takes weeks at least, probably longer). The whole assumption that the WP could pull off a quick surprise attack with anywhere near the troops needed for success and get them there on time is in my opinion inherently flawed. Narwan |
Re: Red Army = most effective force !
There were for example about four major roads between Czechoslovakia and West Germany. By the 1980's moreover the borders were subject to patrols of SLAR equipped aircrafts - hard to hide tank columns from them.
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Re: Red Army = most effective force !
"Drains, covered sewer entrances and culverts can be packed with explosives to disrupt paved surfaces if you don't have time to pierce the surface."
Sewer entrances are available only inside cities. Culverts and such will not be conveniently sited in the best places for demolition. You need to plan in advance for identifying the locations and which demolition team must go where, they must be reasonably accessible in order to emplace charges (not filled with water or too small to enter etc.) and when all it is said and done it will be a limited damage that engineers can repair quickly. I have no idea if it was even taken in consideration. "There was also the debate that certain NATO forces had stockpiles of arms that would have been released to the German population in major cities, arming hundreds of thousands of civilians." It sounds pretty useless to me.Most of the people will either be fleeing towards NATO lines (from what I have heard, NATO planners considered it a big problem, as they would have created traffic problems for NATO columns plus those civilians had to be fed and sheltered putting further strains on logistics), hunkering down or otherwise too shocked to mount anything resembling a guerrilla campaign in the first few days when it will matter most. "You don't have to drill through the tarmac if you can just go through the side through the packed earth. Highways are quick, but hard to get on and off, especially if the off-ramps are taken out. Units on it will be sitting ducks with very little cover or escape options." There are others places that highways can be entered or left, especially for the combat vehicles. Service areas may have connections with the road network, there are often dirt roads within reach of highway in cultivated areas etc.. This quite beside the fact that taking out a significant numbers of off-ramps is quite a lot of work. It is not like drilling thought the tarmac is the only problem. Even in the earth you still need to dig a lot of deep holes, or otherwise the damage will not be sufficient.The practical experience with bombing runways that I am aware of has shown that paved surfaces are more difficult to damage and quicker to repair than many (included myself before I found out) imagine. "digging of deep trenches to block trucks" If you have ever seen digging trenches in paved roads, you would realize that is not very practical. "blowing up (high) buildings next to roads" Outside urban centers that would be a pretty rare option. "and then we're not even mentioning the use of nuclear demolitions or persistent chemical agents" Nukes, well you are opening the pandora box. Using chemical weapons would be the best Christmas present you could give to the soviets. You can then sit back and enjoy the show of soviet chemical warheads missiles falling on NATO airbases,with the effect of massively cutting down NATO air forces sortie rate. This was a substantial concern for NATO planners back in the days. "The road range is problematic the moment you have to go off-road. Even more problematic the moment you have to fight, as that includes lots of dashes to the nearest cover, reversing etc" I got the impression that when the soviets specified design ranges for their vehicles, they did so with certain key objectives in mind. Yes, those 600 something km might be cut down to 400 something practice but I think this was aknowledged. If anybody has a map with NATO airbases at hand I think we might find something interesting. |
Re: Red Army = most effective force !
I also doubt that a surprise attack was feasible. A short notice attack was probably all they could hope for even under the best circumstances.
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In combat, I'd expect the fuel last for 200-300 kilometers in T-55 with fuel drums and a road range of 600km. If you take into account the combat consists not only from movements forward, but also sideways and back, it would cut down the real range of penetration into NATO lines further. And the advance would slow down again when field commanders find out the number of supply trucks coming to them is so low. |
Re: Red Army = most effective force !
The problem with the road disruptions methods which have been listed here is that:
A) they are often substantially time consuming; B) require a certain amount of advance planning to be effective; C) they are often quick to repair. For some you will have the additional problem of denying road use to your own side earlier than desiderable. Were they contemplated or are these just ideas that are being tossed around? Again I have been taken aback by how little disruptive and easily fixed the damage caused by runways bombing was in many cases. |
Re: Red Army = most effective force !
"Tell that to British XXX. corps veterans from op Market-Garden"
I am not aware of the specific configuration of that area but from what I have seen of the Netherlands when I was there, I would suspect that going off road may be a somewhat trickier proposition than in the rest of Europe. Plus driving around antitank guns isn't like driving around a blown up culvert. |
Re: Red Army = most effective force !
Marcello, I think we can write off the advance planning argument in the Cold-War-Germany scenario, don't you? If we are assuming a fixed NATO forward defence against a Soviet push, then the NATO demolition/obstacle work would have taken place on friendly ground.
Granted, after the attack alert it wouldn't probably have remained friendly for very long, but remember that engineer units on both sides had literally decades to think up and plot contingency plans including what to blow up, where and when. I don't think charges were planted in advance (though the shelf life of modern explosives would certainly have allowed it), but possibly some emplacements had already been drilled and readied. Come to think of it, and given the defense policy and the political climate in FRG, I wouldn't rule out that some strategic infrastructure was designed with the task of permanently blocking them in mind. |
Re: Red Army = most effective force !
It's similar to Czechoslovakia in 1938 - all bridges were prepared for demolition (in sense that there were picked places where to put them to have greatest effect, how large amount to put there and larger bridges got already prepared special "demolition chambers"). During the mobilisation, all that was needed was to proceed along the plans and place explosives where needed.
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Re: Red Army = most effective force !
I have no doubt about the bridges were set up for quick demolition. That is pretty basic.
What I have reservations about is the other stuff it has been talked about, such as demolishing the off-ramps etc. In South Korea they have massive concrete blocks ready to be dumped on the roads and tricks like that.But it is all prepared in advance and ready to be operated on short notice. Was something like that done in Germany? I might be wrong but not that I am aware of. |
Re: Red Army = most effective force !
I believe there are many myths about the WP that still persist in the West. As Siddhi mentioned, it's important to distinguish between Category A, B and C units - and so on: it would be important to get some knowledge about the Soviet + WP doctrine and organization first - some 'dry' reading unless you're a real freak or you had officer training on that subject anyway, but I really appreciate my old copy of a manual on that subject - quite useful,then you know exactly what+ where TVD West was and so on, and dont have to rely on 3rd-hand sources or the over-rated western intelligence reports from the 80s that still persist on the internet... but such manuals aren't printed any more (I would guess), better get one on the flee market or via e-bay!
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Re: Red Army = most effective force ! *DELETED*
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Re: Red Army = most effective force !
I'm not exactly a expert on NATO tactical or strategic defense strategy, its been a few years since I've red anything about it. But, is what you guys keep talking about, essentially sabatoging and destroying transport and other infrastructure, what NATO defense strategy called for? I find it hard to beleive West Germany would carry out a sort of modern 'scourged earth' plan.
Arming civilians I think would have lead to increased civilian casaulties, by makeing it difficult for soldiers to distinguish combantants from non-combatants. Its not difficult to imagine military age men universally being arressted or targeted. this again brings up the fact that any probable conflict would be extremely painful and destructive for all sides. |
Re: Red Army = most effective force ! *DELETED*
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Re: Red Army = most effective force !
[/quote] How big would the initial success be, How much territory could have been occupied in that golden period? [/quote] depending on operational/ and some strategic suprise being achieved by the WAPA, assuming moderate WP air superiority for the first few days, and moderate SF action, all within the 1980-85 timeframe, i would give the WP good chances in breaking NORTHAG completly. the belgiums and dutch are good soliders and each have national distinctive charachteristics (IIRC the belgiums could mobilise very quickly, and the dutch had a very smart supply system), but the real question would have been if they could retreat fast enough to keep their armies intact. if NORTHAG was smart and the germans did not insist on saving Hamburg AND the dutch and belgiums could save their army in a retreat they, together with BOAR and the germans, could probablly have stablised the line at Hannover by D+3/5. OTOH the chance that the dutch or belgiums would simply disintigrate given the equipment pairing (old Leos against T-72/80s/ BMPs) was simply very large in such great terrain. CENTAG and US VII Corps OTOH would probablly have stopped them within 20-50km, at least until the second echalon would hit. @on supply and obstacles. austria was "obstacle mad" and prepped everything imaginable for demolition, also it had the heaviest fortified lines in europe (possible exception of the swiss), and still the ability of solid engineers and good planning to overcome these hindrances are not that great, IF terrain and weather play their part. having said this the germans were perfectly willing to blow everything to hold the WP, this included even "over the road canals" (water cannals that are in effect "reverse bridges" over a roadway, if you know what i mean) - the questions is how often you are actually able to do this: demo lines are very easily cut by arty fire, especially 120mm airburst (i have no idea why, angle maybe?), also you can simply kill the demo team instead, there are a lot of options, the point being that at 10-25% faliure rating for each obstacle you will have a lot of obstacles left open that you PLAN on being closed, it makes your reserves very hard to position. as PLASMACRAB correctly pointed out, most of not all transportation infrastructure build in many european countries (incl. germany) post war had very definte national defence guidelines, there are dozens of interesting websites and pictures on the web for anyone that is intersted. NARWAN i talked to a HV District commander (Tromso) some years ago and he also confirmed that you, like austria, had pre-mined basicaly everything he said however the main problem was not the 51st(?) MRD advancing out of Kola but was the SOV airborne and marine forces landing in your area and capture the mob locations. BAGGYPANTS talked about the high casulties needed to "breach" obstacles with speed - i agree. the only real cliche that is certainly right was the WAPA acceptance of casulties compared with western armies - you can see it in what they consider the minimum for combat effective (a MRR)= 30-40% (!!) while IIRC in the US it would be 50-60%. if the WP was unlucky and the terrain was really muddy and wet, fine, little off-road movement of supplies possible, but in the NORTHAG area the monster ZIL trucks were perfectly capable of driving over fields, and most trucks have a recovery winch anyway. furthermore you cannot compare germany WWII with germany of today, there are MANY TIME more roads and villages today and the armies really are SMALLER then they were then (the amount of vehicles actually in use is not disimilar). logistics is a science, not (or not only) an art, and people learn how to do it for YEARS. as i mentioned, the WAPA had some very easy solutions to complex problems, and traffic management for WAPA was very easy as they have their own "Kommandanten Force" troops that were its own command and purly in charge of managing traffic and logistic flow, unlike the west, that left it all the poor MPs who would be complelty overwhelmed. just imagine an expected 3-6 MILLION german refugees heading west in their own personal autombiles, all within 1 week, and you can see that the main thing getting in the way of the WP tanks could very well be VW Beatles... |
Re: Red Army = most effective force !
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Siddhi: If you give the WP T80's you should give the dutch Leo 2's. Their appearance in the respective forces is nearly simultaneous (and by the late 80's about half the dutch tank force was Leo 2's). You should also keep in mind that while nearly the entire dutch IFV force was made up YPR-765 PRI's half (or more) of the WP mech units were in BTR's. BTR's are useless against the YPR's, while the YPR has no problem taken out BTR's or BMP's. In the armor vs chain gun equation it also has the edge over the bmp-2. Then there are the vast amount of YPR SP-ATGM's. Those were meant to deal with the tanks you mentioned. In order to do that with little risk, they have the unusual ability of elevating their launch platform up to about 30 feet so they can fire over hill tops, trees, walls and buildings without exposing themselves. Not something you can easily model in the game, but impressive and effective. It's also the dutch who had the fast moblisation scheme, the fastest and most effective of all of NATO. by the middle to late 80's the dutch had one of the most modern and well organised armies of NATO. The only real drawback was the lack of a decent combat helicopter. And there's off course the US corps destined for the north german plain. Only a single brigade is stationed there in peace time but all equipment for the rest is allready in theatre, only the troops need to be flown in (REFORGER). Again, if the WP had enough time to assemble the large forces needed to take on the dutch and german corps on the north german plain, then Nato would have had time to at least begin with REFORGER... The north german plain was defended by germans and dutch, not belgians. The belgians are actually further to the south in the much thicker wooded and hilled terrain, which their infantry heavy army is designed to make best use of. Directly south of the dutch and germans is the BAOR whose northern most forces cover the southern edges of the plain. The north german plain was not a walk over. And as to the many roads, thats true, once you get some distance away from the border. The whole point is though that there is very little cross border infrastructure (and access roads to the border on both sides) which would have been the bottleneck chocking all WP troops actually crossing into west germany. Narwan |
Re: Red Army = most effective force !
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On the whole your argument seems to be that it would be hard for NATO to demolish things effectively while it would be fairly easy for the WP forces to overcome them. I think you've got it the wrong way around. It is much, much easier to demolish and block than it is to clear and circumvent. It's also being stated that the WP had prepared and developed for this, etc. Well so did NATO, the germans in particular. Another point is the opening of hostilities itself, the assumption is, I assume, that firing will be initiated by the WP with the comencement of the cross border attack and/or preparatory artillery strikes. I doubt it would happen that way. The war would be on before any troops crossed the border. NATO wasn't stupid and would know full well what the massing of WP troops near the border would mean. Stern warnings and ultimatums would be given. When those were not met, (conventional) cruise missile and air strikes on the forces in east germany were extremely likely. I won't sepculate ont he results of those, the point is that in my opinion there would likely already be a shooting war before any WP ground forces crossed into NATO terrirtory. That would make the intial attack much harder still. Narwan |
Re: Red Army = most effective force !
narwan:
- good point on the technolgical equipment of the dutch, as to pointing out my reversing the belgium and dutch army traints. are you sure the dutch had leo-2s as well as massed heavy IFVs in BEFORE 1985? also, again without notes in front of me, I don`t think ANY of the category A MRR regiments deployed on the IGB at that time had more then a single BN of BTRs,if that, and the BMP is a great piece of equipment, if only for it's low profile and manuverability. - the abilty of VII Corps (? i forget) to deploy to NORTHAG in time is seriously questionable. IIRC it would take 10 days for REFORGER to completete the first phase, the NATO Rapid Reinforcement Plan would take 30 days at least. The ability of the soviets in particular to get their units up to war strength much quicker is a very complicated debate, but in my view, true. The biggest mistake in my view is your appraisal of the political component - the ability of NATO to actually mobilise in time is by no means certain, it requires substantial political will and in RL would also require bruxelles to agree IN TOTAL for it to go ahead. In terms of "pre-emptive strikes", i think you can forget it - there is no way that such on order would be sanctioned by NATO unless there had been tensions for a long time (over a month) and enough time for political consensus to be built. - on fortifications and obstacles. i have to admit this is actually one my old duties, and something i know a bit about. it short: it's all a bit different, people have spent over 50 years working on the problem, there is quite a lot of give and take - effectivly it comes down to terrain however. obstacles in the hills/mountains is one thing, the north german plain is another. - as to germans willing to nuke on their border: sorry, completly, irrefutably, wrong. Not even Kohl would have agreed to it, according to him, and he was by far the most aggressive. |
Re: Red Army = most effective force !
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By 1984 half the mech battallions had the heavy IFV, the rest a wheeled APC. By 1988 all mech battallions in the three mech infantry divisions of the dutch corps had the heavy IFV (and two of a reserve brigade aswell). Dutch recon units (of which they had a lot) also mostly employed the heavy IFV in 1984 with some lighter IFV's (M113 with 25mm gun) added. Quote:
In 1989 the soviet divisions still used the TO&E of 1 tank regiment, 1 bmp regiment and 2 btr regiments for the motorised rifle divisions. That includes the divisons in east germany. Add in the tank divisions whichhad no btr regiments or battallions and you end up with more or less a 50-50 spread between BTR's and BMP's. There were some reports of maybe some divisions having two bmp regiments and 1 btr regiment but I've yet to see that substantiated. Seems there weren't enough bmp's to achieve that. No debate on the bmp being a good piece of equipment, the dutch heavy IFV is so too. Quote:
I also don't believe in the argument that NATO would be politically weak in replying to a soviet threat and build up. I believe that they full well realised that a weak response only calls the one thing you're trying to avoid over yourself. You're questioning NATO's ability to mobilise, well I'm pretty sure that the WP had as much if not more problems themselves. I recall you yourself mentoning such a thing about the Hungarians a while back? The soviets would certainly need the troops of their allies in an attack so the political and mobilisational problems are not exclusive to NATO. And such a 'pre-emptive' strike is extremely likely in my view. If there are large troop concentrations on one side of the border and aircraft with stand-off weaponry patrolling on the other side what would happen if those aircraft would light up targets on the other side with their radar (let's say anti sam missiles). I doubt the soviets would hold their fire, not all of them anyway. Only one sam needs to be fired to start a shooting war. Let's say no sam was fired. What would happen if a single NATO missile was fired (with for example the option to self destruct before hitting the target)? Now the WP troops would certainly open up. Again a shooting war with opening missiles being fired within seconds of each other with both sides accusing the other of firing first, which would happen in any case. I have a hard time not to see an air war preceding the ground war. Quote:
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The germans employed the strategy of forward defense (also well known). Can't do that without being ready to lay waste to that forward area... They knew that if they were succesful in that, it would/might save the area's behind from damage. In that view it makes sense. Narwan |
Re: Red Army = most effective force !
"If you reread my post you'll see I said digging deep trenches (easily done even with commercial diggers) to block trucks driving around blocked roads not in order to block the roads. So that'd be next to roads and in fields, not the roads themselves. Also a good and very quick way to make those exit points a lot harder to make work."
Which requires digging hundreds of meters or kilometers of deep trenches.With the commonly available commercial equipment that is a very time consuming affair, not something that can be done on the fly. The only way such task can be carried out in a reasonable timeframe is with chain escavators, like the soviet PZM series. From what I have seen this isn't the sort of equipment that your typical local construction firm will generally have in the inventory. "On the whole your argument seems to be that it would be hard for NATO to demolish things effectively while it would be fairly easy for the WP forces to overcome them. I think you've got it the wrong way around. It is much, much easier to demolish and block than it is to clear and circumvent." But in reality many of the actions you are describing are actually construction activities. You are calling for building obstacles requiring extensive digging and earth moving. Such activities are actually very time consuming and as they would require damaging infrastructure, infringing private property etc. it would be unlikely that they would be carried out until the war was a sure thing.By then it would be too late to carry them out in an extensive manner. "Well so did NATO, the germans in particular" I have no doubt that they were prepared to blow up bridges,laying minefields (much faster than trench digging) and such. What I have a lot of reservations about is much of the rest, like blowing up off ramps and so on.If they were in the plans and the necessary preparations (pits for the demolition charges etc.) had been made, by any means tell me so. If they are just ideas being tossed around, then they are not very practical. |
Re: Red Army = most effective force !
"I believe that they full well realised that a weak response only calls the one thing you're trying to avoid over yourself."
Just because it makes sense in strategic terms that does not mean the political realities of the NATO countries would make it feasible. |
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