The 21st Century Red Army that Never Was

[Gary Oswald]

Discuss this article by @Coiler here

 

[Charles EP M.]

It's a bit fascinating that the mock-up Russians for training against aren't at all what the Russians at the time were sctually doing

 

[Thande]

It's a bit fascinating that the mock-up Russians for training against aren't at all what the Russians at the time were sctually doing

Probably the same was true in reverse, of course.

 

[Death's Companion]

Probably the same was true in reverse, of course.

There was a joke that I think David uses occasionally but I might be misremembering where the Soviets stopped bothering to read American Doctrine because the Americans themselves obviously never read it.

 

[SpanishSpy]

There was a joke that I think David uses occasionally but I might be misremembering where the Soviets stopped bothering to read American Doctrine because the Americans themselves obviously never read it.

 

[Coiler]

Well, legendary boxing commentator Thomas Hauser had this to say on a slightly similar (ok, totally different topic): "Mayweather doesn’t know how McGregor will box because Conor doesn’t know how to box."

 

[Coiler]

Here's a great article by people far more knowledgeable than me about what the Russian military actually did in terms of force structure (and how it affected their campaign for the worse)

 

[Death's Companion]

Here's a great article by people far more knowledgeable than me about what the Russian military actually did in terms of force structure (and how it affected their campaign for the worse)

I feel more than a little vindicated by this aspect of things because I've always felt and loudly argued that high quality infantry are the most important aspect of any Army and everything else comes after because nothing else really works without them. You need good gear obviously but the people and how they are used matters more.

The Russians focused on firepower and masses of hardware and at every point pushed infantry numbers and training and employment to the back of the queue and it crippled them.

 

[Coiler]

Old thread, but I finally found a CIA analysis guessing at what the actual USSR's plans for the Mobile Forces would have been.

• Force structure isn't quite the same as in the OPFOR document, but that can be forgiven as an early design. The basic principles are still there
• By 2000, there would be nine such mobile corps (as opposed to dozens and dozens of conventional divisions) in the Soviet Army.
• Of those, three would be deployed in the western theater (Fulda Gap, etc...), two in the southwest (Southern Europe), and one in the northwest (Northern Europe). East of the Urals, two would be deployed in the Far East and one in the southern theater (Middle East/Central Asia)
• The OPFOR document has the Mobile Forces being more centralized as a deployable force, with only a few being forward deployed. Of course, this assumes a different policy/environment (since the 1985 study assumed the Warsaw Pact to still be intact, for starters). The 1985 analysis had no mobile corps in the strategic reserve districts. The closest is the southern one in a lower-priority region, and I can easily see it being moved if need be.
• The OPFOR document also renames fronts (ie, the highest-level military formation) "Strategic Groupings". This is just a name change for what already has a lot of names (fronts, army groups, etc...), and unlike the mobile corps, it's still organized and fights the same way as it always has.

 

[Doctor Sulemain]

I fucking love Late Cold War Retrofuturism. So much cool concept art.

 

[Coiler]

The one "mobile corps" actually made was the experimental 5th Independent Guards Army Corps, stationed in Belarus.