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  • China vs Russia

    I was lurking at Tanknet and came across this thread

    China vs. Russia

    I am surprised that Russia is able to maintain such large inventory. I thought with the budget woes and training woes, the Russians would have a hard time to bring their army to bear in time to fight against the Chinese forces.

    What are your thoughts?

  • #2
    The Russian Experiance during the Cold War gives them a distinct advantage in any war against China. The Chinese have no real tank warfare experiance.

    But one thing is for sure, it would be one hell of a big fight.

    Last edited by Praxus; 21 Dec 03,, 18:21.

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    • #3
      The forces on both sides of the border ain't ready for a fight. The Chinese Military Regions on the Russian border ain't slated for heavy modernization. At most, one "modern" bde per MR.

      The Russian divisions are maintained at Class C lvl, ie 25% strength, pretty well a single regt per div.

      There's only about 3 months of year in which mech warfare could be fought in the Siberian tundra. After that, the mud and the cold stops arm'd columns in their tracks.

      In any other time, it would be an infantry fight. Even if the Chinese could surprise the Russians, they would have 9 months getting ready while every soldier on both sides try to stay warm. And then, the 1st Moscow and the 16 Guards would make mince meat out of the PLA.

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      • #4
        How much cold can armoured units withstand? I heard there is a certain level of temperature where anything below, the metal just can't perform and just shatters. Ditto for hydraulic fluids.

        How long can the Russia forces keep the edge over China forces?

        What do you think of the new doctrine of China's forces? Will it stand up to Russia military actions?

        Without using a glass ball or looking into the future, what steps does China have to take before they can take on Russia forces and beat them handsomely?

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        • #5
          It's the night before Christmas and finally, the old man gets to have some peace and quiet and some scotch.

          Well, Hitesh, the War Zone Campaign is both a political and a military doctrine. There are only two historical models to examine the doctrine from. The 62 Sino-Indian War and the Sino-Soviet Clashes. Militarily speaking, the PLA caught both the InA and the Red Army off guard and handed them both a resounding spanking.

          What's different is that the Soviets refused to back down and the result was 45 div, and 200 nukes. You know the Indian response. The result was that the PLA pulled back to more a defensivable position 100 miles behind the Sino-Soviet border, effectively ceding Soviet control of 100 miles of Chinese territory.

          The WZC effectively requires the enemy not to carry on the fight, by offerring terms that are better than carry on the war. It worked with the Indians. It didn't worked with the Soviets.

          The hardware difference between the two armies are still staggering. The Chinese still have a long way to catch up. They're essentially a WWII army, albeit with pockets of excellence but their treatment ain't any different than the Soviet army groups facing the Wehrmacht.

          Against the Russians, the Chinese are essentially wrong headed. The Chinese are gearing themselves to fight the Americans and their perceived weaknesses. Essentially, the Chinese are targetting the 3rd and 4th C and the ISR of C4ISR which are the American strengths. They're ignoring the C2 which is the Russian strength. Computer viruses ain't going to do squat against armies still using pencil and paper.

          I like Gen Cao in that he is a man of vision but he is far from being visionary enough to take on anyone outside of Asia and even India would give him alot of headaches.

          The thing I don't like about the WZC is that its an American strategic doctrine (FM-100) using Soviet tactics (Deep Battle) limited by Chinese weaknesses (essentially a home bound infantry army).

          The thing I do like is that the Chinese are experimenting. They're going to make mistakes but they're going to learn from their mistakes, even though we've made them a long time ago.

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          • #6
            Do you think Russia could invade China and win?

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            • #7
              Originally posted by Praxus
              Do you think Russia could invade China and win?
              No, China has too much strategic depth.

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              • #8
                So neither of them are in any position to invade one another?

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by Praxus
                  So neither of them are in any position to invade one another?
                  Depends on the OPOBJ. If it's a few kms of the border area, the Russians are in a better position.

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                  • #10
                    What about the situation with aircraft, Russian pilots are getting very few hours of flight experiance.

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                    • #11
                      Their good ones are.

                      China's best fighter jets are Russian export models.
                      "Every man has his weakness. Mine was always just cigarettes."

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                      • #12
                        Pilot quality wise, the Chinese are like the Russians. There are few good ones getting lots of flight time and alot of bad ones that just take and land the plane 3 times a year.

                        This being said, neither army is a firm believer in air power. Both had large quantities of ground based AD defence organic to the battalion level and their job is just to keep hostile CAS off the main force's back up to and including being targets themselves. For every bomb dropped on the AD troops is one less bomb available to stop the main thrust.

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                        • #13
                          Colonel,

                          All else being equal, don't the Russians have quite the qualitative edge in fighter aircraft?
                          "Every man has his weakness. Mine was always just cigarettes."

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                          • #14
                            If you're talking about the best of the best, they both came from the same design bureau if not the same factory.

                            However, getting outside the SU-27 family, the Russians do have superior MiGs. Up until recent years, Chinese MiG-21 clones were hand built and can vary in length as much as 15 cms from one plane to the next.

                            Case of if it doesn't fit, make it fit.

                            There is a big argument about the effectiveness of the PLAAF, pre-SU-27s. The J6 (aka MiG-19) is known to be a better dog fighter than the MiG-21 and MiG-23. Whether these are enough to overcome superior Russian AAMs is an open question.

                            Today, the PLAAF is still predominantly a dog-fighting thinking AF (without the training). All the publications and training I've seen indicates that they fly out and start spraying bullets.

                            There are some indications that the PLAAF is doing some manouver training. The idiotic bumping stunt pulled by the late Cmdr Wang Wei on the EP-3 incident does show that he, at least, had enough flight time to learn and practise this stupid move which means that he has more than enough flight time on his hands outside of the obligated training.

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                            • #15
                              Preposterious

                              Russia has a population of a 140 million that continues to decline, China has a population that continues to increase despite already have 1.35 billion people.

                              In a "No Nuke" situation the chinese could simply kill the russians into submission, which is exactly what the russians did to the german population during WWII.

                              The russians couldn't win that's for sure, they can't even occupy all of their own country, let alone occupy china. China would never even get close to moscow though, no other country in the world would get the moscow without taking massive casualties besides the US. China's aim would probably just to conquer all of Northwest asia from the russians, that would be worth more than anything.

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