Soviet invasion of Norway 1963

Suhiir · #1 June 26th, 2014, 08:42 PM

Thank you!

Given that the Soviet OOB showed T-90's I'd suspect it was early 90's in origin. But I don't suspect other then equipment upgrades the formations themselves have changed so it gives me a good indication of what was available in the 60's.

Next question.
Would the Soviets be likely to lead with their best formations or with a 2nd line one saving their best for when they ran into a "hot spot"?
I need to decide would the 1st wave or 2nd of the assault be the better equipped one.

wulfir · #2 June 27th, 2014, 05:34 AM

I'm not sure - but I wonder if they would not want their best forces in the lead...

If they are invading overland they have basically one road to advance along - I assume they would need the road to supply their invasion. There is little room to manouver along that road and I assume the division in the lead is what the Soviets have to fight with (it being complicated to push a trailing division forward to the front on just one road clogged with stuff belonging to the lead division).

I imagine the Norwegians would have had, similar to to Swedish practice, plans for destroying roads and infrastructure - if they then could mine or fight delaying actions along those destroyed bits of the road they would be able to slow an advance considerably. There is a saying that goes something like "if you continously kill off the enemy lead AFV you create an interesting leadership problem for the enemy (Bn) commander as he will now have to convince the next crew to go forward." In such an environment you'd probably get better results with qualified units rather than trying to bull your way forward with 2nd rate forces.

There might be solutions to this problem though, the Russians have a saying of their own that goes something like "Where the reindeer can go, so can the Russian soldier go. And where the reindeer can not go, the Russian soldier can still go."
Leapfrogging airborne units forward has been suggested, seaborne attacks combined with an overland invasion etc.

Link to a US Army study of the Soviet arctic operations late WWII:

http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/CGSC/CAR...sOperation.pdf