In Defense of the Red Army

[Raellus]

Reports of the Russian military's demise have been greatly exaggerated

I think that we can all agree that the Russian military hasn't performed well during Putin's War in Ukraine, especially during the first 1-2 years. Extrapolating from that, it would be easy to conclude that the Late Cold War Soviet military would have been handled rather easily by NATO in a general European War. Perhaps that's a mistake.

Russia's been able to sustain it's "Special Military Operation" for over two years, under broad economic sanctions, and without fully mobilizing the Russian economy for total war. Recently, Russian forces have seized the initiative and are threatening to push the UAF back on a broad front after achieving a significant penetration of UAF defensive lines west of Avdkiivka.

This speaks to Russian resiliency, doggedness, and resourcefulness.

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[Vespers War]

I think that we can all agree that the Russian military hasn't performed well during Putin's War in Ukraine, especially during the first 1-2 years. Extrapolating from that, it would be easy to conclude that the Late Cold War Soviet military would have been handled rather easily by NATO in a general European War. Perhaps that's a mistake.

Russia's been able to sustain it's "Special Military Operation" for over two years, under broad economic sanctions, and without fully mobilizing the Russian economy for total war. Recently, Russian forces have seized the initiative and are threatening to push the UAF back on a broad front after achieving a significant penetration of UAF defensive lines west of Avdkiivka.

This speaks to Russian resiliency, doggedness, and resourcefulness.

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I'm not sure Russia's inability to break a stalemate with a country that had a pre-war army 20% its size, a GDP 10% as large, and 33% of its population is a particular testament to their capabilities.

Edit: the rough equivalent for the United States would be getting stalemated by Brazil.

[Raellus]

I'm not sure Russia's inability to break a stalemate with a country that had a pre-war army 20% its size, a GDP 10% as large, and 33% of its population is a particular testament to their capabilities.

I'm not saying that the Russian military is good. My point is that, despite its many serious flaws, it's maybe not as bad as many analysts claimed it to be up until this year, or so. And, currently, there's growing concern that Russia may be about to break that stalemate, so the jury's still out on that point.

Edit: the rough equivalent for the United States would be getting stalemated by Brazil.

To be fair, the USA has been definitively stalemated by two far less powerful countries during the last 50 years (essentially bracketing the Late Cold War period), so we're not the world-beaters the jingoists proclaim us to be either.

I'm very much aware that all of these comparisons are apples-to-oranges. There are simply too many variables at play in each case to draw any meaningful conclusions re a hypothetical WWIII. We're dealing with a lot of counterfactuals. Essentially, I've been playing devil's advocate in this thread, trying to find a bright side for those who want to believe that a war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact during the Late Cold War period would have been evenly matched, or at least competitive. IMHO, that's an essential premise of TWILIGHT:2000 in all of its iterations.

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[Raellus]

I find it far more interesting that these depletion levels are coming from engaging a single country on their border under conditions generously described as air parity, with no NATO involvement, and with the thing starting off with some of the most modern ground branch equipment they had in stock, thrown against anti-armor systems that was new 25-30 years ago.

I mean, BMPs weren't any tougher 30 years ago than they are now, and you can still kill them with platforms throwing 40mm grenades or .50AP and SLAP. Hell, the Ukes logged a T-80U kill with a Carl Gustav, and volleyed AT-4 hits seem just as effective on the homegrown stuff as the "monkey models."

Given what we've seen of their hardware on live fire ranges, I think it's a lot more likely that we spent 75 years doing what we do best: overestimating our enemy and assuming the worst to ensure overmatch. We saw more or less the same thing in Chechnya; the only real success they managed was when they massed DIVARTY or corps-level artillery assets and delete entire settlements and called it square. First sign of significant, organized resistance using even equivalent hardware, and they melt about as quickly as the Republican Guard did.

Their problems (hardware and wetware both) seem to stem much further back than the Cold War ending with the collapse, and reached far deeper than poor warehousing of vehicle stocks; Cockburn had a fairly insightful look into this with The Threat: Inside The Soviet Military Machine as far back as 1985.

I get the feeling that thousands of Leopards, Challengers, Abrams, F-15s, F-16s, and F-22s wouldn't exactly help their situation much even if you were to somehow double the size of their military; you'd just harvest more meat, and faster.

For the most part, I agree. The Soviet... er, Russian army has always performed best when wielded like a blunt instrument. Since the fall of the USSR, they've tried to ape Western operational doctrine with little success. For example, its early-war attempts at decisive "thunder runs" against Grozny and Kiev were catastrophic failures.

Instead of bludgeoning away at a narrow segment of the front line with a tank army backed by entire regiments of heavy artillery like they did in WW2, the Russians attack piecemeal, across a broad front, in dribs and drabs. They throw a company of tanks or motorized infantry at a perceived soft spot in the Ukrainian defenses, get wrecked, then try again, and keep trying, until the Ukrainians are forced to pull back. Gains are often minimal, but the costs are still high. Since February 2022, I've been wondering why this has been the case. Yeah, by employing late-WW2 operational tactics, the Russians would be losing a regiment or division at a pop, but they'd much more likely force a significant breakthrough that would collapse Ukrainian defenses and lead to bigger, faster territorial gains. In the long run, though, the Russians don't seem too concerned about incurring casualties. It's weird.

In any case, what the Russians have succeeded at, once again, is absorbing massive manpower and materiel losses without significant negative political or economic consequences (at least, to date). The West has not demonstrated, since WW2, that it can do the same. And, despite decimating its own military in the process, as things stand, Russia will probably win a strategic victory over Ukraine (as it did v. Chechnya).

I think it's a lot more likely that we spent 75 years doing what we do best: overestimating our enemy and assuming the worst to ensure overmatch.

History shows that the US did the exact opposite with both Vietnam and Afghanistan (and, nearly, Iraq). That is the purpose of this particular thread- to gird against underestimating an adversary.

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[HaplessOperator]

A clarification

History shows that the US did the exact opposite with both Vietnam and Afghanistan (and, nearly, Iraq). That is the purpose of this particular thread- to gird against underestimating an adversary.
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I'm largely referring to our conventional buildup, focuses on strategic threats, and the military industrial complex.

Overestimating for downstream overmatch is what gives us F-22s and F-35s when the world's second army is installing wood screws and bare metal cockpit interiors on "stealth" aircraft.

Also, for what it's worth, I've never seen an adversary in Iraq that could match us in a stand-up fight. There was political and strategic underestimation of what would be required, and the simple fact is that unless we were prepared to kill every man, woman, and child in the country, the lack of a uniformed enemy more or less necessitates that the men in camouflage are eventually going to go home and life is going to continue - more or less - as it did before they came.

As for the actual enemy, there's a reason the most successful tactics largely centered around single shots taken followed by exfil, and roadside bombs; winning a standup fight was essentially impossible, due to the level of overmatch brought to the table even at the small unit level.

Engaging a squad of Marines in Karmah meant that you were attacking three to six machine guns, three grenade launchers, ten rifles, and anywhere between 13 and 26 rockets, and that's before QRF shows up; there's only so much that sandals and faith in Allah bring to the table against a baker's dozen guys that know how to leverage that.

[Raellus]

I'm largely referring to our conventional buildup, focuses on strategic threats, and the military industrial complex.

Overestimating for downstream overmatch is what gives us F-22s and F-35s when the world's second army is installing wood screws and bare metal cockpit interiors on "stealth" aircraft.

Also, for what it's worth, I've never seen an adversary in Iraq that could match us in a stand-up fight. There was political and strategic underestimation of what would be required, and the simple fact is that unless we were prepared to kill every man, woman, and child in the country, the lack of a uniformed enemy more or less necessitates that the men in camouflage are eventually going to go home and life is going to continue - more or less - as it did before they came.

I hope that I didn't offend with my comment re Iraq. I totally get what you're saying, and I understand very well how guerilla forces can win a strategic victory against a much stronger nation that's doing its best to follow the civilized laws of war. War becomes a lot more difficult when you're fighting with one hand tied behind your back against an enemy that refuses to follow any rules. What surprises and offends me is how US policy-makers haven't internalized and applied the lessons the country so painfully learned in Vietnam.

As for underestimating a near-peer adversary, the USA has made that mistake before. Even after its shocked-the-world victory over Russia in 1905, Japan's military capabilities and competence were sneered at by the USA and its western allies, much to their detriment in 1941-'42. Just a few years later, Douglas McArthur underestimated the Chinese* prior to their entry into the Korean Conflict and the result was a stalemate along the 38th parallel.

*To consider the PLA a near-peer adversary in 1951 is being very generous.

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[HaplessOperator]

Perish the thought (non-smart-assedly)

I hope that I didn't offend with my comment re Iraq.

Oh, God, no, not at all. I was just highlighting the small unit-scale disparity. We saw much the same (but to a lesser degree, edging somewhat towards more parity) in Vietnam, and the Russians saw similar in Afghanistan in the 80s.

It was more engaging with the concept that we "lost to dirt farmers," a common refrain (not ascribed to you, or your words, but you get my meaning as shorthand). Dirt farmers don't win stand-up fights, because they very often literally can't. It's a much easier proposition, however, for that invading country to collectively get tired of spending money and trickling a few thousand lives over the course of ten or twenty years and decide to go home. This isn't to say it's not a victory for the occupied nation, because it absolutely is, but it's a victory derived from a wholly different mechanism than a battlefield defeat due to a lack of training, or faulty organization or doctrine, or hardware that simply cannot match the enemy's capability, or - I would contend - from underestimating the enemy tactically, operationally or even strategically, because there are such wildly different dynamics at play than in the conventional conflicts we organize militaries to engage. There's no way to put a bullet through an idea, or to drop a bomb and change hundreds or thousands of years of cultural gestalt, and this simple concept seems lost on in the minds of every leader who's ever had the thought to send soldiers to fight a population that can hide among civilians for the simple reason that they - for the most part - ARE civilians.

I totally get what you're saying, and I understand very well how guerilla forces can win a strategic victory against a much stronger nation that's doing its best to follow the civilized laws of war. War becomes a lot more difficult when you're fighting with one hand tied behind your back against an enemy that refuses to follow any rules. What surprises and offends me is how US policy-makers haven't internalized and applied the lessons the country so painfully learned in Vietnam.

As for underestimating a near-peer adversary, the USA has made that mistake before. Even after its shocked-the-world victory over Russia in 1905, Japan's military capabilities and competence were sneered at by the USA and its western allies, much to their detriment in 1941-'42. Just a few years later, Douglas McArthur underestimated the Chinese* prior to their entry into the Korean Conflict and the result was a stalemate along the 38th parallel.

*To consider the PLA a near-peer adversary in 1951 is being very generous.

I feel like it might be valid to point out that the era you're talking about, the beginning of the Cold War, as the world was creeping out of WWII and then sat and watched as the Korean War played out, is also where we began getting serious about R&D with the goal of overmatch, in a crawl progressing to a sprint culminating in the late 70s and early 80s where WP/Eastern hardware was definitively outclassed across more or less the full spectrum of systems.

I can't deny at all your points on the Russo-Japanese conflict, or the Chinese entry in Korea, but that's somewhat outside of the scope of the modern jet, nuclear, missile, and information ages of warfare, where we're looking at a case where a civilian company in one nation can cover an invaded country with satellites and provide non-jammable coverage against the efforts of what was supposedly the second army on the planet, and where sending last-generation hardware from one side can drag a three-day special military operation into a three-year slaughter without any feet, wheels, track, or tread on the ground.

[castlebravo92]

I hope that I didn't offend with my comment re Iraq. I totally get what you're saying, and I understand very well how guerilla forces can win a strategic victory against a much stronger nation that's doing its best to follow the civilized laws of war. War becomes a lot more difficult when you're fighting with one hand tied behind your back against an enemy that refuses to follow any rules. What surprises and offends me is how US policy-makers haven't internalized and applied the lessons the country so painfully learned in Vietnam.

As for underestimating a near-peer adversary, the USA has made that mistake before. Even after its shocked-the-world victory over Russia in 1905, Japan's military capabilities and competence were sneered at by the USA and its western allies, much to their detriment in 1941-'42. Just a few years later, Douglas McArthur underestimated the Chinese* prior to their entry into the Korean Conflict and the result was a stalemate along the 38th parallel.

*To consider the PLA a near-peer adversary in 1951 is being very generous.

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The purpose of a system is what the system produces, whatever the name or stated intent of the purpose. The US military, as an institution, knows how to successfully fight a counter insurgency war. The fact that we did not successfully fight a counter insurgency war is prima facia evidence that "winning" wasn't the goal. Cui bono

[HaplessOperator]

No one, really.

The purpose of a system is what the system produces, whatever the name or stated intent of the purpose. The US military, as an institution, knows how to successfully fight a counter insurgency war. The fact that we did not successfully fight a counter insurgency war is prima facia evidence that "winning" wasn't the goal. Cui bono

You wouldn't believe some of the crazy-ass RoE we were dealing with at certain times and locations.

An example: In Al Anbar, 2005, for a significant part of the year in the vicinity of the city of Karmah, we were prohibited from pre-emptively engaging individuals carrying obvious heavy weapons with ammunition. PK machine gun, RPG, M69 or D-37 mortar, doesn't matter, can't shoot them, doesn't matter if they see you, start running, take up positions, can't shoot them, no firing until they engage you first.

Those might be poor farmers on their way to hand those weapons in for buybacks, you see.

Almost universally, they were simply transporting them to another location for hiding away, protected by the aegis of dumbass RoE.

I'd argue that no one benefits, really, but merely that it's next to impossible to militarily force a change of culture without undertaking utterly repugnant actions. It's also not really what a military is built to do, and certainly not with two hands tied behind your back and both balls taped to one leg.

[castlebravo92]

You wouldn't believe some of the crazy-ass RoE we were dealing with at certain times and locations.

An example: In Al Anbar, 2005, for a significant part of the year in the vicinity of the city of Karmah, we were prohibited from pre-emptively engaging individuals carrying obvious heavy weapons with ammunition. PK machine gun, RPG, M69 or D-37 mortar, doesn't matter, can't shoot them, doesn't matter if they see you, start running, take up positions, can't shoot them, no firing until they engage you first.

Those might be poor farmers on their way to hand those weapons in for buybacks, you see.

Almost universally, they were simply transporting them to another location for hiding away, protected by the aegis of dumbass RoE.

I'd argue that no one benefits, really, but merely that it's next to impossible to militarily force a change of culture without undertaking utterly repugnant actions. It's also not really what a military is built to do, and certainly not with two hands tied behind your back and both balls taped to one leg.

I'd argue that there are certain groups of people that profit more from long, failed wars than short, successful wars. Dumb ROEs get established because of "mission accomplished" turning a war into a "peacekeeping op" where no one told the other side and where it's a bad look if we blow up "farmers" who are handing in their weapons for buy backs.

Additionally, I won't ever say the Taliban were the good guys, but they certainly did put a crimp in things like Afghan opium production and Man Love Thursday, which both exploded back again after the US and the Northern Alliance temporarily kicked the Taliban out into Pakistan. In effect, the US military became the security force for illicit Afghan opium farming and heroin production for 20 years. Given the fairly rich legacy of certain US governmental organizations in the trafficking of narcotics, I would argue this wasn't exactly accidental.

[Red Diamond]

Yes and No

Let me start by saying I think the Red Army is, and always has been, capable and worthy of respect. It would always give the US and NATO a real run for their money.

However, in the T2K lore, it seems just the opposite has come to pass. The US and NATO and other allies (ROK, etc) are getting their ass kicked at every turn. The idea that the Red Army could get in a protracted war with China, then lose some of their WARSAW Pact allies to the West and then charge through Poland causing the collapse of Western Europe is crazy. And then, it's the US Government that falls apart- crazy! In My Humble Opinion.

Let's remember, it was the Soviet Union that actually fell apart. It was the Red Army that was much more hollow and ineffective than we had thought, while the US was more capable than we imagined.

In the end, it's just a game and the GM can determine how he wants to create reality so it shouldn't matter at the PC level.

[Raellus]

However, in the T2K lore, it seems just the opposite has come to pass. The US and NATO and other allies (ROK, etc) are getting their ass kicked at every turn. The idea that the Red Army could get in a protracted war with China, then lose some of their WARSAW Pact allies to the West and then charge through Poland causing the collapse of Western Europe is crazy. And then, it's the US Government that falls apart- crazy! In My Humble Opinion.

Which edition are you referring to In 1e, the ass-kicking is mutual, and the only Warsaw Pact ally that the USSR loses is Romania. NATO, on the other hand, loses Italy and Greece. Most Soviet gains can be attributed to the use of nuclear weapons. By mid-2000, the situation in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia is essentially a stalemate. IMHO, 1e is the least improbable of the three-and-a-half editions of T2k but yes, suspension of disbelief is still necessary.

Let's remember, it was the Soviet Union that actually fell apart. It was the Red Army that was much more hollow and ineffective than we had thought, while the US was more capable than we imagined.

The truth is, we'll never really know. The Cold War Soviet military was never tested against a near peer adversary, and neither was the US military. The lessons derived from the post-Soviet collapse period are informative, but by no means conclusive. We're making sweeping inferences from the poor performance of the rump Russian military in Chechnya and the USA's stellar performance in Desert Storm.

Therefore, whatever the conclusion one arrives at- the USSR as paper tiger or as formidable foe- we're essentially dealing in counterfactuals. The purpose of the OP was to support a plausible alternate reality where the Twilight War, as described in 1e or 2-2.2e canon (4e didn't exist yet), could have occurred.

In the end, it's just a game and the GM can determine how he wants to create reality so it shouldn't matter at the PC level.

That's the crux of it, at a micro level.

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[castlebravo92]

Which edition are you referring to In 1e, the ass-kicking is mutual, and the only Warsaw Pact ally that the USSR loses is Romania. NATO, on the other hand, loses Italy and Greece. Most Soviet gains can be attributed to the use of nuclear weapons. By mid-2000, the situation in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia is essentially a stalemate. IMHO, 1e is the least improbable of the three-and-a-half editions of T2k but yes, suspension of disbelief is still necessary.

Yep, the USSR was losing until summer of 1997, when German units cross into the USSR. Then the USSR starts using nukes, nukes China to oblivion, then redeploys the far eastern forces to Europe and slowly retakes territory. The defection of Italy, Greece, and France, and Italy and Greece turning into co-belligerents with the USSR really does a number on Germany and Turkey (sort of - Turkey is unable to deal with Greece, Bulgaria, and the USSR southern front all at once).

[ChalkLine]

Let me start by saying I think the Red Army is, and always has been, capable and worthy of respect. It would always give the US and NATO a real run for their money.

However, in the T2K lore, it seems just the opposite has come to pass. The US and NATO and other allies (ROK, etc) are getting their ass kicked at every turn. The idea that the Red Army could get in a protracted war with China, then lose some of their WARSAW Pact allies to the West and then charge through Poland causing the collapse of Western Europe is crazy. And then, it's the US Government that falls apart- crazy! In My Humble Opinion.

Let's remember, it was the Soviet Union that actually fell apart. It was the Red Army that was much more hollow and ineffective than we had thought, while the US was more capable than we imagined.

In the end, it's just a game and the GM can determine how he wants to create reality so it shouldn't matter at the PC level.

The Western Narrative on the collapse & dissolution of the USSR is extremely misleading. It didn't fall, it was pushed and just as they were making peace.

I find it to be one of our interesting blind spots, much like the way we think wars start only when a rifle is fired, that we don't look at the events leading up to the dissolution but only try and analyse it from its preceding situations.

To put it simply, the West spent decades preparing for that very moment to crush the USSR and people seem to think we stood quietly and suddenly it just fell over. If you look at Russian literature from 2000 to today you get a very different view. Their narrative points to a lot of shady intelligence dealing in the periphery. An interesting point is all the oligarchs who made money from the dissolution were prior criminals, smugglers & so on and by definition these people worked with foreign intelligence agencies.

[castlebravo92]

The Western Narrative on the collapse & dissolution of the USSR is extremely misleading. It didn't fall, it was pushed and just as they were making peace.

I find it to be one of our interesting blind spots, much like the way we think wars start only when a rifle is fired, that we don't look at the events leading up to the dissolution but only try and analyse it from its preceding situations.

To put it simply, the West spent decades preparing for that very moment to crush the USSR and people seem to think we stood quietly and suddenly it just fell over. If you look at Russian literature from 2000 to today you get a very different view. Their narrative points to a lot of shady intelligence dealing in the periphery. An interesting point is all the oligarchs who made money from the dissolution were prior criminals, smugglers & so on and by definition these people worked with foreign intelligence agencies.

The Soviet Union is a lot of things, but innocent victim isn't one of them.

They worked, actively, to undermine the US and it's government going as far back to the 1930s. In fact, their primary export for decades was counter-intelligence engineered destabilization of foreign countries, so if they collapsed by similar operations by the West / the US, it would be fitting, but I am skeptical. The record of success by the US in ops like that just isn't that good. Take Cuba, for example. Just about every single "intelligence" asset we ever had in Cuba was a double agent, meanwhile they had numerous assets imbedded in our own intel agencies. The USSR and Russia never had a Robert Hanssen. Etc. Our humint was never that good, and there's was often superb.