Red Army = most effective force !

[Kuklinovsky]

I must add some explanations:

1. Some myths about Gulf War: US Amy fielded in Persian Gulf its brand-new equipment and arms like M1A1HA tanks with M829A1 ammunition. This weapon was relocated from West Germany or even hurriedly upgraded in Saudi Arabia because many of new stuff weren't in service until 1991! In contrary Iraqis had only downgraded export model tanks like T-54/55/59/69 of Soviet and Chinese origin and limited number of export T-72G "monkey model" without laminated armor and with ridiculous BM-12/15/17 APFSDS rounds withdrawn from Soviet service almost twenty years before!
Moreover during entire "1980s" time-period USSR had better APFSDS rounds than NATO. So there was no "crappy HEAT rounds" problem for USSR to solve. Simply Soviet regulations ordered to fire HEAT rounds against older Western tanks and APFSDS rounds at newer NATO tanks.

2. Soviet had advantage in armor up to the end of Cold War! They fielded T-80U in 1985 which was equivalent of US M1A1HA made five years later. Unfortunately well known Gorbatchev's military cuts prevented its wider deployment in GSFG as T-64B replacement. Anyway in 1991 Soviet T-80U had better armor than M1A1HA thanks to its second generation or "heavy" ERA and comparable APFSDS BM-42M round with almost identical penetration level like M829A1 (600mm RHA at 2 km). Also T-80U possessed long-range laser guided supersonic AT-11 ATGM designed to fight Western anti-tank gunships also. Its mobility was better than M1A1HA because of lower weight. M1A1HA was superior due to TI device but both tanks FCS were practically at the same level.

3. Maybe Chieftain was a match for T-64A BUT a small explanations is needed here: Britons manufactured a few hundred Chieftains and Soviets almost TEN THOUSAND T-64s!

4. As for older but modernized Soviet tanks like T-55AM/T-62MV: Simply compare them with older Western designs like AMX-30, Leo-1A3, M-60A1 which were in wide use during 1980s in many NATO countries. I am sure this balance won't be favourable for Western tanks!

PS. Mr. Tucan: You needlessly recommend me some amateurish tank forum to read. I prefer far more up front professional sources like declassified CIA, DIA and Soviet analysis or reports about above issues!

[narwan]

Oh no, not the myth of Soviet superiority again. People always seem to forget that the number of toys you have doesn't matter, it's the amount you can take to the party that counts. The thre most important elements would have been logistics, logistics and logistics.

Fact: WP forces would have to depend on only a couple of roads to advance into the west and more importantly, to support their advance into the west. Consequence of the Iron curtain. There were very few crossborder connections available to carry anything close to the amount of WP troops already in theatre and their supply. Take out those points at their bottlenecks and the party is over for the WP. No more fuel, ammo, food, water and bad tabbacco for the troops on the front. No more reinforcements, especially if you drop a couple of bridges in east-germany and Poland.
Personally I think WP forces would not have gotten very far.

Heard an interesting one about this recently, seems the westgermans had mined these chokepoints with nuclear demolitions. Seems they were prepared to take out these points permanently and stall the WP advance within a few miles of the border... Anyone got some more on that?

Narwan

[Smersh]

I've red reports of nuclear mines being used by NATO as well. No doubt, had WP forces come into contact with them, tactical nuclear weapons would have been free to be used on the battlefeild. Resulting in a much more destructive conflict.

I would love to have tactical nuclear weapons in SP

logistics of course always play a role in warfare, especially on the offensive. But I think its a myth to think that only a few blown bridges would have hindered a WP advance.

again, lets be careful not to get too aggressive and nationalistic on this thread.

[Marek_Tucan]

Smersh said:
logistics of course always play a role in warfare, especially on the offensive. But I think its a myth to think that only a few blown bridges would have hindered a WP advance.

Depends. Look at what problems did the Germans have during Market-Garden when they needed to get reinforcements to Nijmegen and weren't able to use Arnhem bridge. Or trouble with getting reinforcements to Normandy over destroyed railroad and road network. Sure the destroyed chopeoints won't prevent all reinforcements/stuff from coming in but it would severely slow down this and will create more chokepoints susceptible to air or TacNuke strikes.

Anyway, all too glad the Cold War didn't break into Hot one as it would be for sure bloody for both sides.

[Marcello]

"I won't use T-64B in here as it's more of a counterpart both on timescale and in capabilities) to Leopard 2."

I was commenting on mechanical reliability.Supposedly T-64 was very unrealiable initially (possibly some literally self destructed due to autoloader malfuctions, or so went the tale) but the issue was more or less sorted out by the time the main production versions A/B came online.I agree that the T-64B is later.

"Remember also that the mobility issue may not be as severe concerning Chieftain"

I agree that in principle the Chieftain had sufficient mobility.What concerned me was its reliability, that was my point with "if you can get there" comment. Unless of course all the claims about chronic engine overheating and transmission breakdowns were somewhat exaggerated.

[Marcello]

For what is worth I got the impression that the soviets took river crossing very seriously.All the APCs,IFVs and armored cars that could be made amphibious were so, even at the expense of others characteristics like armor protection.The tanks were capable of deep fording, even with all the limitations and the risks of such practice.Dedicated ambhibious tanks for establishing bridgeheads.Fast deployement GSP ferry to make tanks cross rivers when fording was was not an option.PTS-M and similar vehicles to ferry artillery, trucks and large amounts of foot infantry etc.

[Marek_Tucan]

The river crossing aspect is partly true but IRL it was being viewed as "not much practical" IRL... BMP's had sometimes a disturbing tendencies to sink and with deep fording I don't know whether our armz ever rained with combat schnorkels due to the risk of having no escape route while underwater (combat schnorkel wasn't passable for the crew).
Also there aren't so manz river banks suitable for deep fording/amphib crossing - it's about the same as with landing beaches on the sea coast.Plus of course trucks etc. would still need bridges.

[Listy]

Kuklinovsky said:
2. Soviet had advantage in armor up to the end of Cold War! They fielded T-80U in 1985 which was equivalent of US M1A1HA made five years later.

Ok I'll bite, seeing as I just sprayed my breakfast all over the place in fits of laughter.

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?

[Marek_Tucan]

Listy said:
I'd also like to ask what evidence you bring to support this?

No evidence needed, it's as self-evident as the fact T-34 was best tank of WWII and Sherman was just a total failure

[Nightblade]

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.