Let's Invade Russia!

[Elixir]

Mathias Rust tested the much vaunted Soviet air defences at the height of the Cold War, and they were utter dogshit.

By that kind of argument, then the US air defences must be cat shit.

I call your Mathias Rust with Frank Eugene_Corder

I seriously doubt that the Russian defences are any better today; The reaction at the time was for Gorbachev to use the incident to justify a purge of his political opponents, rather than to implement a more competent air defence policy.

And as you say, the system has never really been tested in the subsequent thirty years.

As barbos said, it was an organizational failure, not a technical or military training one. The Russians don't generally sell or give away their best equipment. The dogshit the US hit in Iraq was truly antiquated and wasn't a test of anything. If anything close to this threads scenario played out. I can guaranty that the military orders will be to shot anything/everything that isn't answering IFF correctly.

The US air combat/control hasn't been seriously tested since the Vietnam war, and even then we lost a few thousand planes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_losses_of_the_Vietnam_War

All told, the U.S. Air Force flew 5.25 million sorties over South Vietnam, North Vietnam, northern and southern Laos, and Cambodia, losing 2,251 aircraft: 1,737 to hostile action, and 514 in accidents.

When things get this complicated, things fall apart much faster, and you have more accidents.

One accident per more than 10,000 sorties doesn't sound a lot, for military ops.

 

[Sarpedon]

Should we tell him about World War 2?

 

[funinspace]

By that kind of argument, then the US air defences must be cat shit.

I call your Mathias Rust with Frank Eugene_Corder

I seriously doubt that the Russian defences are any better today; The reaction at the time was for Gorbachev to use the incident to justify a purge of his political opponents, rather than to implement a more competent air defence policy.

And as you say, the system has never really been tested in the subsequent thirty years.

As barbos said, it was an organizational failure, not a technical or military training one. The Russians don't generally sell or give away their best equipment. The dogshit the US hit in Iraq was truly antiquated and wasn't a test of anything. If anything close to this threads scenario played out. I can guaranty that the military orders will be to shot anything/everything that isn't answering IFF correctly.

The US air combat/control hasn't been seriously tested since the Vietnam war, and even then we lost a few thousand planes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_losses_of_the_Vietnam_War

All told, the U.S. Air Force flew 5.25 million sorties over South Vietnam, North Vietnam, northern and southern Laos, and Cambodia, losing 2,251 aircraft: 1,737 to hostile action, and 514 in accidents.

When things get this complicated, things fall apart much faster, and you have more accidents.

One accident per more than 10,000 sorties doesn't sound a lot, for military ops.

You are right, that is quite good. And most of those losses were due to antiaircraft artillery, which also tells us just how weak even this comparison is. We were fighting North Vietnam and the Vietcong. Another thing to remember, is that the military typically considers every flight a "sortie", from tanker refueling, to actual combat, to bombing the Vietcong in the mountains and in Laos, to helo trip for the visiting general.

This article seems like a good description of the anti-aircraft issues:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/vietnam/nva-ad-sam.htm

A reduction in firing results was also caused by deficiencies in the combat use of SAM troops. Since 1966 Vietnamese crews had been conducting combat firings independently, not having had enough practice with and knowledge of the equipment from the very beginning. There were even cases when missiles were launched without preparing initial data and without checking the technical equipment. Such missile launches were called the accomplishment of a tactical task to scare off American aircraft. The requirements of Firing Regulations were often not fulfilled: in firing against a maneuvering target, instead of a salvo of three missiles, a single missile was launched. When tracking a target manually, laying operators made errors in angle of sight, as a result of which the missiles went far off the target.

When it was first used on a large scale, in 1965, the SA-2 destroyed about ten fighter-bombers for an estimated 150 Guidelines launched: an average of one kill for every fifteen missiles. By November 1968 one aircraft was being shot down for every 48 missiles fired. During Linebacker II one aircraft was destroyed for roughly every 50 Guidelines fired.

 

[Bomb#20]

Mathias Rust tested the much vaunted Soviet air defences...

... I call your Mathias Rust with Frank Eugene_Corder

Apples to oranges. Corder was in violation of restricted airspace for about 15 miles, Rust 500.

 

[LordKiran]

Wait, so your theory is when we get to Moscow we'll find Putin hanging around somewhere in town waiting for us to depose him? The entire Russian government will have decamped to Yekaterinburg.

For a win, do we have to go all the way to Yekaterinburg? You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - the most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia".

Could NATO succeed where Bonaparte and Hitler failed?

Let's not forget Charles XII. Napoleon read up on his Russia campaigns voraciously, and convinced himself he understood Charles' errors well enough to avoid repeating them.

Conquering russia can't be that hard, The Commonwealth did it.

 

[rjh01]

1. Not really, if you go through the Baltic countries, get St. Pete's then straight to moscow from there. You can capture and use Russia's superb river transportation system. Bonaparte and Hitler went against the rivers and failed. The Mongols went with the rivers and succeeded.
<snip>

I doubt if you could use much of the existing river shipping. If the Russians had any sense they would sink any ships or otherwise make them unusable when they knew that they would otherwise fall into the invaders. So the invaders would have to bring their own ships in. This is not a simple matter. These ships would not be suitable for ocean crossing. They would need to be put on other ships and carried across. Then rivers can be blocked either by mines or blockages.

 

[Horatio Parker]

The Germans had trouble because their army wasn't fully mechanized. Most of the Wehrmacht advanced the same way Napoleon's army did: by marching.

Also Russia's road net was very primitive. In all European Russia, there was only one paved two lane highway, the Minsk-Moscow. If the road system had been as developed as France's, Russia would've been quickly overrun.

 

[barbos]

The Germans had trouble because their army wasn't fully mechanized. Most of the Wehrmacht advanced the same way Napoleon's army did: by marching.

Also Russia's road net was very primitive. In all European Russia, there was only one paved two lane highway, the Minsk-Moscow. If the road system had been as developed as France's, Russia would've been quickly overrun.

Plus russians shooting at them was not helping Hitler.

 

[Horatio Parker]

The Germans had trouble because their army wasn't fully mechanized. Most of the Wehrmacht advanced the same way Napoleon's army did: by marching.

Also Russia's road net was very primitive. In all European Russia, there was only one paved two lane highway, the Minsk-Moscow. If the road system had been as developed as France's, Russia would've been quickly overrun.

Plus russians shooting at them was not helping Hitler.

Yes the Red Army was more formidable than the French. Their tenacity continually impressed the Germans.

And Hitler said that if he had known about Russia's superior tanks, he wouldn't have started the war.

 

[SLD]

Could NATO succeed where Bonaparte and Hitler failed?

Let's not forget Charles XII. Napoleon read up on his Russia campaigns voraciously, and convinced himself he understood Charles' errors well enough to avoid repeating them.

This is perhaps the most salient point made here. Too often we look back at history as a guide and it often fails us. The Japanese thought they could repeat Tsushima with the US Navy, but we refused to oblige them. The US thought it could repeat South Korea in Vietnam but the Viet Cong just didn't want to play along nicely. We often say that if only Hitler had done this or that he could have made it to Moscow but that just assumes a lot of things that may not be true. I once heard some German officers discussing the planning of Barbarossa and learned that in they actually destroyed more Russian divisions than their war games showed. But they forgot to plan in the Russian ability to replenish those divisions. This isn't a WWII military, anymore than the Wehrmacht was Napoleonic. History is important but you need to understand where it is different.

SLD

 

[Rayschism]

Hitler and Napoleon failed because they didn't have the right equipment to take over Russia, not to mention the Russian scorched earth policy.

 

[funinspace]

... I call your Mathias Rust with Frank Eugene_Corder

Apples to oranges. Corder was in violation of restricted airspace for about 15 miles, Rust 500.

That is a good point. But in the end they are both still fruit

 

[Rayschism]

Apples and oranges are like boots and tennis shoes as they follow the same pattern.

And, you can mix apples and oranges in a blender to make a smoothie.

You really can't mix boots and tennis shoes in a blender though.

 

[LordKiran]

I mean if the US' only interest was to beat back the russian military, with possible land concessions to allies (Finland, Japan, ect.) then it's not like they would need to invade particularly deep into Russia to make that happen. I suspect the US military (And most inhabitants) would be perfectly content with a moral victory that saw small land concessions as opposed to a total victory with complete occupation of the Russian Nation.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

I mean if the US' only interest was to beat back the russian military, with possible land concessions to allies (Finland, Japan, ect.) then it's not like they would need to invade particularly deep into Russia to make that happen. I suspect the US military (And most inhabitants) would be perfectly content with a moral victory that saw small land concessions as opposed to a total victory with complete occupation of the Russian Nation.

If we're trying to be realistic in terms of motivations, reactions, etc., it seems to me there would be no attempt to invade in the first place. And if there were (so, not realistic about that), if Russia were even partially invaded by US forces using conventional weapons and Putin didn't see a path to military victory without nukes, he would very probably use at least tactical nukes in the battlefield, reckoning that the US and allies would not go for an all out nuclear war due to MAD.

 

[LordKiran]

I mean if the US' only interest was to beat back the russian military, with possible land concessions to allies (Finland, Japan, ect.) then it's not like they would need to invade particularly deep into Russia to make that happen. I suspect the US military (And most inhabitants) would be perfectly content with a moral victory that saw small land concessions as opposed to a total victory with complete occupation of the Russian Nation.

If we're trying to be realistic in terms of motivations, reactions, etc., it seems to me there would be no attempt to invade in the first place. And if there were (so, not realistic about that), if Russia were even partially invaded by US forces using conventional weapons and Putin didn't see a path to military victory without nukes, he would very probably use at least tactical nukes in the battlefield, reckoning that the US and allies would not go for an all out nuclear war due to MAD.

Your stance presumes that the US would be the aggressor. Even then, all the US need do is wait for another provocative military action from the Russian Government on the scale of the Ukraine invasion as a pretext for an ultimatum. "Get out or else."

As for the question of battlefield nukes, it really depends on where those nukes hit. If they're within US gains then that's really just another form of losing isn't it? Kill a few ten thousand men and poison your own lands for generations to come?

If they're dropped within allied territories then Putin is just digging his own grave at that point and will only ensure a less secure position in peace talks at best.

 

[LordKiran]

Hitler and Napoleon failed because they didn't have the right equipment to take over Russia, not to mention the Russian scorched earth policy.

Half-right. They all made the same mistake of pushing past their own logistical limits, a mistake aided by Scorched Earth policies sure, but you can't really blame the impulsive strategic blunders made by the invaders on the scorched earth policy alone.

 

[bilby]

Hitler and Napoleon failed because they didn't have the right equipment to take over Russia, not to mention the Russian scorched earth policy.

Half-right. They all made the same mistake of pushing past their own logistical limits, a mistake aided by Scorched Earth policies sure, but you can't really blame the impulsive strategic blunders made by the invaders on the scorched earth policy alone.

It's never a good idea to use a strategy that depends upon the enemy leaving supplies and infrastructure for you to use. Enemies tend not to act in one's best interests.

 

[LordKiran]

Half-right. They all made the same mistake of pushing past their own logistical limits, a mistake aided by Scorched Earth policies sure, but you can't really blame the impulsive strategic blunders made by the invaders on the scorched earth policy alone.

It's never a good idea to use a strategy that depends upon the enemy leaving supplies and infrastructure for you to use. Enemies tend not to act in one's best interests.

Sure but that's not what I'm talking about. Napoleon at least had the excuse that armies still largely depended on foraging for supplies in his time. What's Hitler's excuse for advancing well past his own supply lines? The worst part is that they already had one war to learn from just a decade prior!

 

[bilby]

It's never a good idea to use a strategy that depends upon the enemy leaving supplies and infrastructure for you to use. Enemies tend not to act in one's best interests.

Sure but that's not what I'm talking about. Napoleon at least had the excuse that armies still largely depended on foraging for supplies in his time. What's Hitler's excuse for advancing well past his own supply lines?

The same as his excuse for not providing adequate winter clothing for his armies; and for not using tanks with wide tracks that could cope with the Russian mud; and for attacking on too many fronts simultaneously; and for not making tactical withdrawals to save his armies from annihilation - He thought that sheer force of will and German racial superiority could lead to victory, regardless of any considerations of mere reality.