Can Anyone Here Answer Some "Red Storm Rising" Questions For Me?

Discussion in 'Warfare / Military' started by Dayton3, Aug 21, 2017.

  1. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    1962 is not 198X. The situations aren't the same. Cuba was under direct threat of "regime change" in 1962. It wasn't in the 80's. They aren't going to want to commit national suicide just so the Soviet's can bomb Panama or Canaveral.
     
  2. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

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    Oh well. I'm sure a couple of cruise missile launching submarines in the Caribbean would do the trick.
     
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  3. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    The problem is getting them there and surviving long enough to launch. I've heard the Caribbean was effectively a US lake when it came to subs.
     
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  4. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

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    By the way I thought Cuba had pretty decent armed forces in the late 1980s with quite a bit of fairly advanced weapons supplied by the Soviets. I'm not suggesting they could withstand a conflict with the U.S., but I thought they were roughly equal to one of the Eastern European Warsaw Pact nations and in a war could be an annoyance for the U.S. to deal with.

    Note, in "The Third World War: The Untold Story" the Cubans have no intention of joining the Soviets war against NATO and the Soviets are supremely annoyed privately vowing to "deal" with Castro after the war is won.

    But of course, U.S. intelligence misreads Cuban communications with the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. launches massive air strikes anyway. Killing a whole bunch of Cubans both military and civilian.
     
  5. Strasser

    Strasser Banned

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    People tend to forget Mexico was the main Soviet intelligence base in the western hemisphere, not Cuba or even the Soviet Embassy in the U.S. Something might be made of smuggling missiles into a South or Central American country and warehoused and later assembled, small nukes, dirty bombs, that sort of thing, and plenty of fifth columnist types running around. A limited guerilla war on U.S. soil would be devastating enough if planned and targeted well. Just look at a map of pipelines, rails, and refineries, and major East-West commercial interstate routes all within easy reach just via Texas. Shutting down California would be a piece of cake for a country with the resources of the then-Soviet state.
     
    Last edited: Sep 5, 2017
  6. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

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    IIRC Popular Mechanics did a story on Soviet era plans for a state funded "guerrilla war" inside the United States during a world war but IIRC it said the Soviets dropped the idea by the time the mid 1980s came around.

    Don't know why.
     
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  7. Strasser

    Strasser Banned

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    Yes, I remember people getting a little nuts over that. I don't know why either, but I would guess it was the internal fighting in the Soviet govt. and the turning inward of the bureaucracy and intelligence agencies all trying to guess who the winners were going to be and trying to end up on 'the right side' or at least not caught in anybody's sights as a threat.
     
    Last edited: Sep 6, 2017
  8. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    A guerrilla war without popular support and when the other side has Delta Force won't last very long.
     
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  9. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

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    Beyond the seizure of Iceland, could the Soviets have gone a long way toward compensating for their lack of carrier air power (even with their one major carrier) by seizing air fields in Norway and even Denmark? They could ultimately supply those overland with some difficulty.

    IIRC in most World War Three books they did make a substantial effort to do this reaching all the way to Bodo in Norway.
     
  10. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

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    Here are a couple of observations regarding Sir John Hackett's "The Third World War: August 1985

    1) I had wondered why when it came trying to destroy the all important U.S./Canadian Calvary convoys bringing the equipment for two full Corps to reinforce NATO troops in Europe that the Soviets only had about 60 Backfire bombers available. They used two thirds of them in a single massive airstrike against the Convoys (losing half of the 40).

    Then I remember that a massive RAF airstrike using 52 Tornados and Buccaneers against Soviet Backfire bomber bases on the first day of the war destroyed 61 bombers and damaged a number of others.

    2) The death toll in the war might've been far less than I projected.

    A) Chemical weapons were not used as extensively as I thought. Rereading it I noticed that the Soviets only attacked with chemical weapons the forces that had no means to retaliate. Since the U.S. could retaliate they did not try to attack U.S. forces. Though in the other book, the U.S. did launch some chemical weapons retaliation "on behalf" of their NATO allies.

    B) Several large West German cities were largely spared much destruction such as Hamburg (largest city in West Germany). This was due to the Soviets largely avoiding urban centers if possible and the speed of the advance meant little fighting happened in large German cities along the Inner German Border. Not to mention Hamburg declared itself an open city anyway.
     
  11. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

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    I've been wondering. Of course the F-117As that we are familiar with were not equipped with the two Sidewinder AAMs that were used to down the Soviet Mainstay AEW aircraft.

    But I've recently learned that the USAF EF-111 Raven escort electronic jamming aircraft DID carry two Sidewinder AAMs. Given that the EF-111A Raven was fully capable of near Mach 1.0 low level speed and there were some 42 of them available to the USAF, might it have been feasible for a trio of Ravens to penetrate deep into Warsaw Pact territory and down the Mainstays?
     
  12. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    It would be better to use F-14's with their Phoenix missiles set to seek-on-radar mode.
     
  13. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

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    I wondered about them too.

    Two questions though:

    1) Would the USAF really seek help from the USN?
    2) What about some of the problems Phoenix missiles had with their rocket engines failing to ignite (IIRC).
     
  14. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    1. NATO high command would be the ones planning the operations.

    2. That's why the F-14 carries 6 of them.
     
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  15. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

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    1) Point taken.
    2) True. Though IIRC F-14s never carried six Phoenix missiles when operating from a carrier due to the excessive bring back weight if none were fired. A more typical "maximum loadout" was four Phoenix, two Sparrow, and two Sidewinder with of course various combinations of those three. Though of course operating from a land base at the beginning of World War Three in the scenario suggested, toting six Phoenix AAMs would be quite doable. A single F-14 could quite possibly hose the Mainstay and its escort fighters.
     
  16. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

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    Another question I've had though not related to "Red Storm Rising" but mainly in Michael Palmer's books "The War that Never Was" and "Arctic Strike".

    In both Palmer has a couple of F-117A Nighthawks being used for a single "silver bullet" type of mission operating from a carrier. While at first this seems ridiculous as I've never heard of an F-117A operating from a carrier, I now remember reading a passage in a book on the Lockheed Skunk Works that indicates modifying the Nighthawks for carrier use would've been pretty easy given three major features they had built into them already.

    1) A full length nose to tail keel (for the catapult bar in front and an arresting hook in the back).
    2) Three main wing spars that crossed from the starboard wing through the aircraft body and to the port wing.
    3) The landing gear attaching directly the main loadbearing fuselage bulkhead
     
  17. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    Why in the world would you ever need to?
     
  18. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

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    In the books, in order to launch stealth attacks on extremely heavily air bases on the Kola Peninsula.
     
  19. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    Why not just fly out of Iceland, Norway, or Scotland and fly over Sweden and Finland?
     
  20. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

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    I think that was done as well. But I suppose one could argue for range and response time. After all the longer a stealth fighter is in the air en route to a target its chance of detection likely rises.
     
  21. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    It’s even harder to get an aircraft carrier stealthily anywhere near the Kola Peninsula.
     
  22. APACHERAT

    APACHERAT Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    How to Hide a Task Force

    The main question is: How do you hide a task force at sea? The answer in very general terms is; by not telling the other guy where you are...
    -> http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-031.htm
     
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  23. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    Counterpoints: RORSATs, maritime patrol aircraft, picket submarines. The Kola Peninsula was just south of the primary ballistic missile sub bastion of the Soviet Navy. It was their most protected and most surveilled piece of ocean.
     
  24. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

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    It's been done before. Much harder to detect and track a moving target (carrier) than a stationary one (air base).
     
  25. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

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    In 1981, the 83 ships of the NATO force avoided all of those efforts to detect and track them.
     

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