Soviet military vs U.S.

Discussion in 'Warfare / Military' started by oldjar07, May 14, 2013.

  1. krunkskimo

    krunkskimo New Member

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    Russia builds elaborate coffins which they fill young men with and send off to be buried in various locations across Europe.
     
  2. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    I'd like to second this point: Soviet export equipment to their client states were always inferior to the equipment meant for Soviet army use. We can see this with the use of RPG-22's and the like in Lebanon and by insurgents in Iraq. We thought after the Gulf War that the M1 Abrams was effectively invincible against Soviet equipment with the way they tore through Iraqi T-72's and deflected RPG-7's.

    However, we've recently begun to encounter the antitank weapons that the Soviets would have used in the 80's and they most definitely can kill Abrams tanks. Likewise with what we know now about Soviet T-72 gun fired ATGMs and their APFSDS-DU rounds, a hot war in the 80's would not have looked like 73 Easting. It would have been a lot more even except that the Soviets had way more T-72's than we had modern MBT's like the Abrams, Challenger, and Leopard 2.
     
  3. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    The US and it's allies have gone up against inferior Soviet export equipment. Against the good stuff that the Soviets kept for themselves and the major WP powers, things would have been different.
     
  4. Herkdriver

    Herkdriver New Member

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    A-10's destroyed over 900 T-72s in the Persian Gulf war in 1991, over 2,000 other military vehicles and 1,200 artillery pieces. It's the same tank they would see in this hypothetical scenario, I don't care what nationaity is crewing it...it's the same tank...and the A-10s 30mm cannon shredded it like a can opener. On the ground the TOW anti-tank missiles would also be effective.

    I think you're both wrong....if the A-10 can operate with impunity over a battlespace during a tank battle it would be a route, it's specifically designed for anti-armor and it's combat proven as is the AH-64 Apache in an anti-armor role. The biggest threat is Soviet air defenses, which are very advanced compared to wha tthe Iraqis had. If the Soviets can control the skies over a battlespace, that might be a different outcome in terms of a tank battle pitting thousands of T-72s against fewer M1 Abrams.
     
  5. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    There is no way that the Soviets don't use chemical weapons. They were a key element of their war plans.
     
  6. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    The SA-13 and SA-15 would have evened the playing field, especially the Soviet Army non-export versions with their superior radars and tracking systems.
     
  7. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    An Iraqi Lion of Babylon T-72 is not the same as a Soviet Army T-72/80. They simply are not the same tank. They don't have the same engine, they don't have the same armor composition, they don't have the same fire control, they don't shoot the same ammunition, etc.

    A TOW missile from the 80's without a tandem warhead would not have done very well against Soviet ERA.
     
  8. IgnoranceisBliss

    IgnoranceisBliss Well-Known Member

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    No one with any ounce of intelligence or military experience ever thought Abrams were "effectively invincible against Soviet equipment." There's no such thing on a battlefield. Tanks are vulnerable to a variety of different weapons system and at the right range and in the right location almost any anti-tank weapon from the 1970s onwards (hell go even further back) can knock out any modern MBT....including Abrams/Challengers/T-80s etc.

    I don't think anyone thought that Iraq was a testbed of what a Soviet/NATO war would of looked like, but it's undeniable that the poor performance by the Iraqi equipment indicated, at least on some level, that Soviet equipment wasn't up to par. Sure, the elite and well equipped Soviet units were formidable, but the majority of the Soviet Army was made up of units that weren't particularly well-quipped or in a state of readiness. Do people really think that the 2nd and 3rd rate Soviet motorized units at half-strength full of conscripts and armed with T-72s would have done dramatically better than their Iraqi counterparts?
     
  9. IgnoranceisBliss

    IgnoranceisBliss Well-Known Member

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    The Chechens had no trouble decimating Russian armor with RPG-7s and RPG-18s. A 1980s TOW misisle would have wrecked Soviet era T-72s and T-80s.
     
  10. Herkdriver

    Herkdriver New Member

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    I'm admittedly no authority on tanks, and although the source here, "Wikipedia" is somewhat dubious...
    According to wiki:

    For some reason the Soviet fanboys think the exports were nothing but cheap knockoffs, and to a degree I can concur, but to take the leap of faith and make the presumption the differences would change the outcome of a battle significantly. I'll have to disagree. There is historical precedence from this time period indicating Soviet equipment did not fare well in battle; I don't think that can be completely dismissed...so you and I are in agreement.
     
  11. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    But there is one advantage that the A-10 has against the vast majority of Air Defense Missile Systems, it's altitude.

    Almost no air defense missiles (other then MANPAD) are useable at altitudes lower then 800-1,000 meters. And even MANPADS need at least 200 meters of altitude to engage.

    The A-10 is designed to operate at treetop level, which renders almost all missile systems useless in regards to engaging it.
     
  12. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    That puts it in the reach of the SA-19/Tunguska M1 and the ZSU-23-4. Also the SA-15 is designed for vertical launch and can do a high angle attack on aircraft and helicopters at treetop level.
     
  13. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Those are all gun systems though, not missile systems. I never said it was completely safe, simply that ground to air missiles for the most part could not engage it.

    Our Air Defense units still have .50 cal machine guns for the same reason, to bring down aircraft our missiles could not touch.
     
  14. Herkdriver

    Herkdriver New Member

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    There were a few A-10s shot down by SAMs and SA-13s in Gulf War I....

    It's an armored aircraft with alot of system redundancy which allows it take a beating, but it's not invulnerable.

    Given this scenario of a conventional war with the Soviets, losses will be high...it will not be a redux of the Persian Gulf war.

    The discussion is centered on who would actually win the war, and NATO all the way.

    In the mid-80's NATO had Stinger missiles which would have decimated the Soviets inventory of rotary wing aircraft...look no further than Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation and the use of Stinger missiles by Afghanis.
     
  15. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    NATO would win (assuming no nukes are used, because then escalation means nobody wins) but it would be one hell of a pyrrhic victory.

    Also, in a conventional war in Europe, the Soviets would be doing this best to suppress Stinger launches will massed artillery and chemical strikes.
     
  16. Herkdriver

    Herkdriver New Member

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    It would be a blood bath...both sides knew it and it's why it never happened.
    What we're discussing never happened..and that's a good thing. Hopefully the era of full blown conventional wars on the scale of WW2 will never happen again, because technology has increased the ability to kill 3 fold what it was in WW2 and that's not even bringing in the nuclear equation.
     
  17. oldjar07

    oldjar07 Active Member

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    Actually, once the general offensive started, it didn't take that long to go from Moscow to Berlin. Operation Bagration and Vistula-Oder were pretty impressive offensives in their speed and firepower. Vistula-Oder had the potential to take Berlin in February or March, 1945. Operation Bagration didn't start from Moscow, but the Soviets were still rebuilding in 1943 and 1944 to be able to launch the overwhelming offensives after June, 1944 to push to Berlin. Also, look at the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. I believe they advanced at about 40 miles a day across a front the size of the whole Western Europe front with over a million men on each side.

    I don't think invading Western Europe would have been near as bad logistically as Operation Barbarossa was. I don't know how Turkey would cut off any logistics routes. The Soviets would have enough divisions on that front to prevent that. Germany didn't seem to have too many problems with Greece. Western Manchuria was considered to be impassable by the Japanese, but the Soviets launched their main invasion force there. I'm sure there could have been something similar planned for Italy.
     
  18. oldjar07

    oldjar07 Active Member

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    Yes, air support rips up tanks, if you have air superiority. There is no chance NATO would have air superiority over Warsaw Pact. Most A10s and attack helicopters would be grounded due to heavy losses and would have nowhere near the impact they had in Iraq.
     
  19. oldjar07

    oldjar07 Active Member

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    How do you think they'd use them? Do you think they'd use it to eliminate pockets of resistance and enemy fortifications before resorting to tactical nukes?
     
  20. oldjar07

    oldjar07 Active Member

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    Igla's are better than stingers and strelas are equivelant, i believe.
     
  21. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    Persistent agents from SCUDs and FROGs on command centers, airbases, and port facilities, non persistent agents from artillery shells and aircraft on troops concentrations and stay behind unit suspected positions.
     
  22. Herkdriver

    Herkdriver New Member

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    Igla's are not better. they are basically identical, the Stinger is lighter and additionally there is the cost factor. A Stinger system costs $38,000 per unit compared to $60,000-80,000 for the Igla.

    Another factor what the Soviet fanboys are forgetting, is that by the mid-80s the USSR was in decline, less than a decade later it would collapse from it's own bloated weight. Do you honestly think that conscripts from Soviet satellite nations would have their hearts in defending the "Motherland?" or in advancing the Russian cause?

    They'd surrender if given the chance. The core Russian military would not be easy to defeat, as historically the Russians have little regard for their own troops. They often shot their own for retreating against German emplacements. Russia itself would not be easy to defeat, however the Warsaw Pact would not fight as a unified front for very long. The USSR had peaked by the mid-80's, it was in decline. Militarily NATO was very strong, at least the U.S., Reagan had reinstituted a strong pro-military policy and smart-bombs were right around the corner technologically. You could drop a 1,000 lb. GPS guided bomb on the lap of a Soviet company without being in any danger of man portable air defenses.
     
  23. IgnoranceisBliss

    IgnoranceisBliss Well-Known Member

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    I suggest you read up on the invasion of Manchuria. The Soviets fought a 3rd rate Japanese Army that had had most of its heavy equipment and weapons stripped for service in the Pacific. And to begin with Japanese "armored" forces were basically relics from the 1920s and 30s, and weren't even close to comparable to the type of mechanized equipment used in Europe at the time. The Japanese had no experience with combined arms warfare and had a much more immediate threat in the form of the U.S. military closing in on its homeland. If you think that a Soviet invasion against modernized, well-equipped, trained, and motivated NATO forces in Europe 40 years is comparable, you're completely wrong.
     
  24. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    And I am sorry, but this shows the limits of your tactical and strategic knowledge.

    During WWII, Hitler faced 2 major challenges in his European Offenses. First was the Maginot Line, which he just bypassed and destroyed like an egg shell. This defense was nowhere near as tough as it was claimed to be.

    Then there was the harder one, that of the Soviet Union. Now the Soviets did not really have much of a defensive line, and what generals were left after years of Stalinist purges was largely a joke. But what they had was the ultimate of "defense in depth" simply because of the huge expanses of open ground they had to cross to really get to anything of importance.

    Hitler largely ran to Moscow unopposed, with limited resistance. And if you notice, the return to Berlin with the Soviet Offensive was not so fast, was it? That is because the Germans were fighting back with everything they had, and it took the Soviets years to do what Germany did in months.

    And this is what it would have been like from day 0 in a NATO-Warsaw Pact war. NATO had planned a fighting retreat, with hundreds of preplanned defensive positions. All intended to do one thing, to slow down and blunt the Warsaw Pact forces until help could arrive from the UK, US, and other nations. No real "pitched battles", no mighty clashes of forces, just fight and retreat, fight and retreat, weaken the enemy without weakening yourself to much, and let them extend their logistics lines as those of NATO got shorter and tighter.

    This is really not rocket science, and even a "dumb grunt" like me can see this. By the time they got to France, their logistics lines would have been stretched to the max.

    And here you are confusing the tactics of one war and injecting them into another without thought.

    In Iraq, there was no "front line" for most of the war. The majority of tanks were destroyed even before the ground phase started, and the US enjoyed ground superiority at will from day 1.

    Nobody here that is looking at this seriously is assuming either side would have this. And unlike the Gulf War where A-10s prowled behind the scenes hunting tanks, in this conflict they would mostly have been used in a more defensive role, blunting the effect of the Armored forces to try and blunt their attacking capabilities.

    In many ways, Warsaw Pact tactics were an off-shoot of those used by Germany early in WWII. Take lots and lots of tanks, with mechanized infantry behind them, followed by foot infantry. Punch holes in the defenses with tanks, pour through with the other infantry forces. A-10s would have been mostly concerned with striking those forward tank units, trying to reduce their numbers in order to help blunt the offensive and hopefully develop stable lines at which to defend.

    Actually, I do not think either side would have used chemical weapons. Both sides were well aware of where that might have led to, and I do not think either side was crazy enough for that.

    Which "Strela"? That is like talking about the "Panzer", even though the Germans had several models of them.
     
  25. oldjar07

    oldjar07 Active Member

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    Well, it's no different than suggesting the Iraq wars would have anything to do with the performance of Nato forces then.
     

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