Officer of Engineers

There was LB I and II which gone through one of the thickest AD nets in history. Admittingly, it took time to reduce them all. However, the net around various units would not be as thick. As for the VVS. If they're still flying, so would be the NATO flyboys.

Are there going to casualties? Most certainly. Is it enough?

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Chimo

Officer of Engineers

What about China? Chinese survival would depend on an American victory. At the very least, one might think the Chinese would cut off aide to their SE allies to ease the American burden.

lwarmonger

But would China do anything against the Soviet Union? Personally, I doubt it. In '73 they lacked the ability to do much of anything against the Soviet Siberian Fronts, even without the Russian nuclear arsenal coming into play. Also, question. When did the BMP IFV's start coming out? Would the BMP-1 have been available for this conflict, or would the Soviets still be entirely using BTR's?

Officer of Engineers

That really depends on Mao who is by this time, a babling old fool who would be just delusional enough that the Heavens have given him the oppertunity to spread the true Communist revolution.

Anon

I'm pretty sure the BMP-1 was in service in large numbers in 1973, but that's just a guess. I was only 4 years old then...lol.

deadkenny

Pretty sure the BMP-1 was deployed in large numbers to the 1st line units by '73. The 2nd line were prolly still in BTR's.

I don't see China taking offensive action - just being very prepared. Most likely effect is that the Soviets can't afford to strip the China front to reinforce the effort against NATO.

troung

"There was LB I and II which gone through one of the thickest AD nets in history. Admittingly, it took time to reduce them all. However, the net around various units would not be as thick. As for the VVS. If they're still flying, so would be the NATO flyboys. Are there going to casualties? Most certainly. Is it enough?"

LB-I/II were bombing raids not resupply missions done with enemy planes in the air attacking cargo planes as the war rages miles back on the front lines.

The VVS did also not fly the same way NATO did, they flew much bigger filling the skies with planes. I don't know if airdropping supplies more or less behind the front lines would work with regiments of MiG-23MSs, MiG-21MF/PFs and such flying around in big numbers. One for one their planes were not very good but in numbers a MiG-23 becomes part of a big pack and increases in effect. There would be swarms and not pairs of planes showing up over the lines.

And plus An Loc and Khe Sahn were hard enough without having to worry about scores of enemy fighters and bombers breaking up the missions. I don't know but it would be damn bloody to try to do so. And thats leaving out how muhc would get through and once landed how much would survive enemy artillery zeroed in on drop zones and how many supplies are needed to keep a surronded division combat ready.

"Pretty sure the BMP-1 was deployed in large numbers to the 1st line units by '73. The 2nd line were prolly still in BTR's."

The BMP-1 was around in big numbers but in 1973 they were still looking to charge them into the enemy with the infantry shooting out the sides or dismounting and putting the BMPs in front of the infantry. That FYI failed the same year in the middle east but it would have been too soon to change doctrine around.

"The US had a highly refined wild weasel strategy in 1973, that was conveniently also extensively combat tested. OTOH, the Soviets had no equivelant whatsoever back in the early 70s."

The were limited in SEAD as the Kh-28 was cleared in 1971/72 but the platfrom was damn old. So it got held back. By the 1980s the Soviets were ahead in some areas.

"The Hawk missile was a decent SAM...so it leads me to believe they'd probably suffer more from our SAMs than we would from theirs."

Still North Vietnam had far less fighters and SAMs to worry about. And remember the rest of NATO were flying in F-104s, F-5A/Bs and such which lacked SEAD/ECM and we would not have enough platforms to protect them all.

But without SEAD the HAWK would have been damn lethal to Su-17s and such and even Tu-22Bs.

Praxus

How much forces did they have in Siberia? Something like 500,000 I believe? Perhaps a land invasion in the East would help to draw some of their forces from Europe?

deadkenny

I'm sure NATO would benefit, but what would the benefit be for the Chinese? It would be difficult for the PLA to launch an effective offensive, since much of it was logistically tied to it's local district. Plus, it becomes increasingly difficult to leave nukes out of the equation. I can buy it in a WP invasion of Germany - since the WP objective could be to capture the country intact for their benefit and NATO wants to minimize civilian loss of life. On the other hand, the Soviets wouldn't likely refrain from use of nukes on China if the Chinese started to get too aggressive.

Anon

Nukes were banned and destroyed by all major powers by treaty six months prior to the start of hostilities.

No one has any.

That's the only way this debate can be plausible, so that's the operating assumption i'm working under.

Metak

I think the main Chinese problem would be logististics and the sheer number of Soviet artillery pieces pointed at the border. Chinese wave tactics would not work to well against massed Soviet artillery with mountains of shells. I would be slaughter for the Chinese.

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http://zeljko-heimer-fame.from.hr/images/yu%7Dcetni.gif

Officer of Engineers

It was to show that ground base AD was not a show stopper.

However, I had a reply all mapped out until I realized I was barking up the wrong tree. I was still thinking a nuke scenario where the war must be over within 30 days. So, my assumptions would not be valid.


China

What can China do and what can she do it with?

China can attack the USSR. She just won't win but she can attack. The point here was that Mao Tse-Tung was an old man who believes his own cult of personality. He dragged China through 3 disasters (the Korean War, the Great Leap Forward, and the Great Proliteriate Cultural Revolution) and the scary thing was that he brain washed over 200 million people (the Red Guards and their followers) into his delusions. In fact, the attrocities attributed to the Chinese by the Soviets during their border clashes were rumoured to be done by the Red Guards (teenagers pretending to be revolutionary soliders) and not by the regforce PLA.

This being said, the Chinese defence plan had always relied on a strategic mobile reserves to attack the invader when guerrilla warfare has taken its toll on the invader. Specifically this was the 38th and 39th Group Armies which at the time also contain their entire tank force reserves (mostly Soviet T-55 clones).

lwarmonger

But would it do any good? The SU could take most of Manchuria away from China (to protect the trans-Siberian railroad) at this time with forces already in place (are we assuming that they hadn't built up for the invasion of China in this scenario...? it doesn't really matter but it would be nice to know). Other than that, they wouldn't continue on to occupy the rest of China (not without nuking it first, and with no nukes that means no occupation) until after Europe was conquered. Given that, Chinese tactics would have minimal effect, as their armoured forces would be easily crushed long before guerilla warfare had any noticable impact. The SU always maintained a large enough standing garrison with China to do at least that much. No sane (and I do understand that may not apply here) Chinese leadership would try to take the SU down from behind, even without nukes in the equation.

Officer of Engineers

Ahhh, weren't you the one who was argueing for the Chinese side?

lwarmonger

The Chinese side today. The Chinese economy is now substantially larger than that of Russia, and the Russian military has fallen quite a ways since 1973 as well. China was still a peasant society in 1973, incapable of matching Russia militarily or economically. Even without nukes, there was no way China could win back then, wheras now they have the industrial muscle to make their numbers felt in a protracted war.