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Semyon Yakovlevich Sorókin
Guardsman
2nd Guards Rifle Division

"The guts of the German army have been largely torn out by Russian valour and generalship." - Winston Churchill, speech to Parliament 1944

Its funny because when my dad was in the RAF ,stationed out in Germany,he commented once that the real threat was from the Chinese.
There we were supplying them with technology which they are able to replicate in large numbers and at the smae time they had a semi-soviet ideology (which lets face it goes back thousands of years) and the problem of the need for "lebensraum"!

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Name: Robert Fillipovich Soodyarov
Rank: Yefreytor
Очын приатна - Эа вас !!
Drink Tea, Be Mellow !

I am afraid, Comrade Polski-Privet, I disagree with the idea that China would come to NATO's rescue. More likely they'd sit back and watch their two main rivals maul each other. Why risk a Soviet nuclear attack on the Chinese homeland - remember until recently China really had little or no credible nuclear force of its own. Soviet Far Eastern Forces, by the way, had no role in the west. A conflict with China would not have impacted much on the Central Front. The Soviet Union could have held the border indefinitely with forces in place - China's offensive capability in the 1980s was virtually zero, as was proved when they invade North Vietnam and got a very bloody nose indeed.

The border conflicts, Comrade Amer please note, were some major skirmishes along the Sino-Soviet border but these happened in the 1960s. They were long over by the time the 1980s came around, which is when I did my studies work and the period to which I refer.

As to political will. Well, we sat by and watched Polish democracy being suppressed by General Jaruzelski in the early 1980s and did....nothing. Not even an embargo or UN sanction. There would have been absolutley no justificaton to US decison makers for endangering the US homeland just to save Western Europe from Soviet dominance. So nuclear options were out. Actually, we know now that the policy was one of nuclear bluff, conventional fighting. Should Western Europe be lost, the US could have taken the longer view and fought a long conventional war using its huge economic muscle to wear down the Warsaw Pact - as they in fact did in the Cold War; spend the Soviets into collapse. Why risk turning the US into a larger version of Rwanda when you can win a war of economic/military attrtion? And the UK, our homeland, would not exactly have benefited from the use of nuclear weapons. Anyone seen 'Threads'?!

thanks for the info, any road even if the chinese had came in on NATO's side they would have been pushed back into china because they had no nuclear weapons, a poor economy and terrible tactics( the human wave). A few well located nuclear weapons would have put china of the map.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Sovie ... r_conflict

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"Lenin left us a great legacy, and we have f*cked it up." I.V. Stalin, June 29, 1941

In retrospect, I have to concede, I may have phrased my previous post too zealousley. The point I was trying to make was that , potentialy, hostilities with NATO may lead to conflicts outside of Europe that Soviet forces would have to deal with, sapping reserves and complicating operational planning, which the Soviet army relied on far more than western armies (who place more emphasis on tactical - squad or platoon - planning).

But you're absolutely right, Welsh Comrade, China was not capable of mounting much of an offensive (even if they decided to) and there was always Catagory A or B Soviet forces on or near the boarder to deal with just that.
Still, the USSR may have been reluctant to use Nuclear weapons in any theatre, for fear of spooking NATO into retaliation in kind.
And fear of a diversionary invasion of the far-eastern military district by the always sizeable (I think I heard 1/3 of total size somewhere?) garrison of the USMC in Japan, aswell as the JSDF being coerced politically by America to become alot more than just a "self-defence force," would still keep a good portion of the total potential fighting troops away from the west. (I know the military district system would have kept any large-scale westward deployment from happening, but just look at how much the 40th army was re-inforced from beyond it's original size in Afghanistan, especially with specialist units such as the VDV.)

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Quantity has a quality all its own

Comrade Polski-privet, a good point about diversionary attacks by the United States. Clearly the US would have swept the Red Navy from the seas in the Pacific (and elsewhere) and the pacific coastline of the USSR was very vulnerable.

What I am most clear about in my mind is that we lived through exceedingly dangerous days, especially in the early/mid 1980s and came out of it without war. Luck? God? Good planning? Whatever it was, I am glad to have had the chance to get middle aged and comfortably fat.

Anyone fancy wargaming the NATO/Warsaw Pact? No cop-outs. The loser loses - you don't get rescued by last minute engineered enemy 'mistakes' or unlikely perfect planning.

I still do - and I play the Belgians! I assume a 1985-1988 scenario, and oddly so far the game has panned out the way you describe.
I assumed I was just a lousy general.

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Radu Raduvich Himea
Yefreytor
Captain's Orderly

http://www.2ndguards.com/index.html


DEATHSPOON

Rob, nice to know you own gaming verifies DOAE's and CORDA's.

You probably were at least quite an adequate general - but there are limits to how much competence can compensate for a starting with inadequate resources and operating within a political straight jacket. The Iraqi Republicanm Guard had some pretty decent decent commanders in places but never had a chance really (just as well).

I cant be faffing around with painting and glueing, I get the £1.10 soldiers from britians. Already glued and painet and re-enact any battle I choose

I don't paint or glue any more - I did it all in the early-mid eighties and now, about once a year, get them out for an 'old times sake' game with my mates.
Which reminds me, I must get the 2nd Guards Wargames weekend organised again. Better luck this time.
And I'll also stop spamming this thread. It's rude.

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Radu Raduvich Himea
Yefreytor
Captain's Orderly

http://www.2ndguards.com/index.html


DEATHSPOON

glueing and painting is the best part especially when you look at some of your figures from a couple of years ago and then your latest ones and sse how much they have improved

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http://2ndguards.com/index.html

"Do what you do best Andrei......stay by my side .....and make your Maxim sing!" BobHR

Andrei Valtarovich Prusins
Guards yehfreytor
Kitchen Bitch
PTRD gunner

Don't think you need painted soldiers to war game WW3... well, not unless you have a bloody big table top!

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"Lenin left us a great legacy, and we have f*cked it up." I.V. Stalin, June 29, 1941

1/300th (or 6mm) scale, Comrade - makes all tables big!

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Radu Raduvich Himea
Yefreytor
Captain's Orderly

http://www.2ndguards.com/index.html


DEATHSPOON

Is there enough room on your table for all of GSFG to fit and then march to Calais for some Duty Free shopping?

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"Lenin left us a great legacy, and we have f*cked it up." I.V. Stalin, June 29, 1941

No, of course not, but there is enough space (at a 1cm = 50m) to do a divisional sized assault at a NATO inter-divisional boundary, or a Para operation against a rear area position.
For the full story of GFSG rampaging to the Channel, there are plenty of high quality boardgames on exactly this subject. Because I haven't grown up and with luck never will, I prefer the toys, though.

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Radu Raduvich Himea
Yefreytor
Captain's Orderly

http://www.2ndguards.com/index.html


DEATHSPOON

Of course the Soviet invasion of Czekoslovakia, from a standing start,in 1968, put the cat amongst the pigeons. So much for the warning given by the Soviet buildup.
We trained on the basis that when the Soviets reached the Minden Gap(a known choke point), then NATO went nuclear, Armageddon followed.

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8./Kompanie Infanterie-Regiment Gro�deutschland (mot)
" Regimenter sterben zehnmahl, aber es bleibt....das Regiment."

Maskirovka always was important to the RKKA/Soviet Army, it is central to all doctrine and this enabled them to pull off amazing movements and achieve total surprise in many places both during WW2 and afterwards.

In terms of GSFG and other Western facing Fronts, everyday activity was at levels which could easily mask any deliberate intent. There would be very little in the way of indication the storm was about to break simply because of the way they operated.

Most Western written WW3 scenarios suggest it kicking off off the back of a joint exercise in the DDR, but things I have read suggest it wouldnt need to be like that obvious

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"Lenin left us a great legacy, and we have f*cked it up." I.V. Stalin, June 29, 1941

No, it wouldn't be that obvious. Clancy's Red Storm Rising and Hackett's The Third World War both relied on a few weeks of advance notice. Ralph Peters implies that we had less than a week, which is more realistic. Additionally. NATO would have been very likely to dither (just look at the confusion over Hungary 56, Czechoslovakia 68, Poland 81, the Balkans in the 90s, etc, etc). I can tell you that trying to be beleived as an Intelligence Analyst often is like trying to wrestle with jelly. Once the GSFG and its allied units crossed the Inner German Border, we'd be beleived.

Looking at NATO history, you don't have to postulate Warsaw Pact brilliance, or even competence, to realise that we'd have been caught out. Our response times were appaling. Even West German units would have taken several days to get up to strength, to ammo and fuel. US forces relied on pre-positioned stores (POMCUS) which were easy to bomb and rocket - never mind gas. The channel could be mined by aircraft, subs and we know there were plans to lay prepostioned mines from freighters, to be activated later. US re-inforcement personnel came by air in large, relatively slow, Jumbo Jets across an 'air bridge' easy to attack with long range air-to-air missiles mounted on bombers. Spetnaz Units were designated to disrupt the channel ports, and rail and road bridges in West Germany with mines and demolition charges, and using 'offset homing beacons'. Equipment, ammo, spares, fuel had to come by sea across a wide ocean containing 100-150+ Soviet subs. Moving units forward in West Germany would have to be done over longish distances since NATO peacetime basing bore little resemblance to wartime deployment, and one oculd expect the roads to be choked with refugees streaming west. Sigh.

Still, it never happened and the US spent the Soviet into oblivion. It also wrecked its own economy doing it. Ah well, such is history. The future is Chinese.

Maybe that was half our problem ...we gathered loads of intelligence then didn`t believe or act upon it?

I think we were naive in out attitude to the way the Soviets thought and planned things and let ourselves miss obvious thins like Deception and Bluff.

We had experiences like it with our own officers on the engineering-front : the expression "don`t get technical with me Corporal" (spoken to a friend of mine) by some major or other sums up the attitude.

They either want the information or they don`t and on their own head be it if they choose to ignore it.

That said : it takes ages to get things going and the wrong decision could ruin somebodys` career!!

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Name: Robert Fillipovich Soodyarov
Rank: Yefreytor
Очын приатна - Эа вас !!
Drink Tea, Be Mellow !