Could the soviet method of war have been successful ?

[Hannibal]

The wars in the middle east seem to prove that the American method of war is much more effective than the Old Soviet method .Quality beats quanity.While the Arabs may be Brave theRussian exprt equipment is not their top of the line stuf. Also I assume that Arab traing is not up to russian training .So used the way it is supossed to be used with large amounts of artilirty .On the ofensive with large advantages of tanks aircraft and infantry.So if the russian insead of folding up came over the fulda gap would we have stopped them without using nukes ?

[Chelco]

IMHO, the Soviet way of war could have succeeded in the hands of the Soviets only.

The problem with importing military doctrine from another country is that you have to be very clever accounting for cultural differences and your officer corps shortcomings. For example in the October 73 war, the syrians "took good Soviet tactics and made them bad and took bad Soviet tactics and made them worse" (from Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991).

[Childress]

Agreed. One suspects, in the case of the Arab-Israeli wars, that if the weaponry had been reversed the results would have been the same.

As was claimed of the the late NFL coach, Bum Phillips and his coaching staff: 'He can take hiz'n and beat your'n, or he can take your'n and beat hiz'n'.

['Card]

It seemed to work pretty well against the Nazis. Not really all that different on a tactical level, when you think about it.

I'd say the American technological advantage is decisive in long-range, set-piece battles when the US has air supremacy. But if CM:SF demonstrates any one tactical concept, it would be that all the high-tech gizmos don't help much once the fight is in congested territory at point-blank range.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Chelco:

the Soviet way of war could have succeeded in the hands of the Soviets only.

I think this is the crucial factor that the original poster needs to consider. The Red Army, for all its tactical-level doctrinal failings, if we want to call them that, still had discipline and relatively well-maintained and modern equipment.

[SgtMuhammed]

Originally posted by 'Card:

It seemed to work pretty well against the Nazis. Not really all that different on a tactical level, when you think about it.

I'd say the American technological advantage is decisive in long-range, set-piece battles when the US has air supremacy. But if CM:SF demonstrates any one tactical concept, it would be that all the high-tech gizmos don't help much once the fight is in congested territory at point-blank range.

Don't forget that NATO, as the defender, would largely be the ones choosing the battlefield.

[kipanderson]

Hi,

The wars of the Middle East over the last decade or more are no representation of “the Soviet way of war”. No more than a match up between a crack Soviet Guards Corps of ’89 against a late ‘60s National Guard unit would have been a representation of the American way of war.

To give an example. The T72s used by the Iraqis were “monkey models” as the Soviets called them. Their armour, fire control, night vision, ammunition and so on are decades behind the ‘90s and contemporary Russian equivalents of current and late ‘90s NATO kit.

This matters… a lot. See what has happened when the latest NATO/M1A2 tanks and Bradleys come up against mid and late ‘90s Russian anti-tank weapons. If you select in the editor best equipment for the Iraqis you get late ‘90s Russian anti-tank weapons and you can see how easily the hold their own against current, very latest model M1s.

The Iraqis where also completely untrained. Totally useless.

The wars against the Iraqis have been, in military terms, the equivalent of the Zulu wars the British fought in the 1800s.

The insurgency wars that followed the invasion have been real enough, exact parallels to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the invasion wars themselves were not really wars at all. Just semi-hostile occupations. In a sense this makes it even sadder for the relatives of those few NATO soldiers who lost their lives during the occupation.

From the post invasion phase lots of lessons “re-learnt” but from the invasion wars themselves there was just confirmation that very poor third world countries are not good at high-intensity warfare. As they were not in the 1800s.

All interesting stuff,

All the best,

Kip.

[The_Capt]

I have to echo Kip's points.

The world has not seen Soviet style warfare in a modern context. The Soviets actually had a very good sense of operational manoeuvre, better than the west some argue.

The "mass lemming charge" type of warfare that the average person think the Soviets were all about really doesn't understand how they were setup.

In western doctrine the basic manoeuvre element was the Task Force, built on a Bn or Regt it was the foundation of how we were setup. It also had a ridiculous tail on the thing, which we usually forgot about as we dance about the battlefield in our descrete packages.

The Soviet basic manoeuvre element was the Division. Smaller than the western version but still big this thing was fire and forget. The Soviets weren't mindless hordes they simply played in a bigger league than us. If you look at Army or Army Group you can see all of the assets that enable manoeuvre. We pushed them down to the Bn because we thought that was the road to success. The Soviet model was to punch a very large hole in your line and then empower whole Armies to conduct operational-level manoeuvre. This is how you push us back to the Channel before we even get the kit ready for the fly-over.

There are even some who think the Soviets and there model would have won in Afghanistan. They had to adopt to mountain warfare but they still relied on mass-manoeuvre-shock to get the job done. If the West had not been backing the Muji's the Soviets may have pulled it off. We are on the ground slugging it out with these guys as per our doctrine (light and fast) and it really isn't working too well. Add to this that the other team does not have a superpower backing it and maybe our doctrine isn't as sexy as some believe.

Finally we did learn one lesson from the Soviets and that would be the absolute requirement to dominate the sky. The idea of the west operating in anything less than air supremacy is seen as crazy talk. Before we even begin a ground war we blast everything we can possibly ID as a target from 30,000 feet.

Again in the Cold War - turned hot, we were hoping for air parity.

All we have proven in the last 17 years is that we can beat light-medium weight regional powers in a steel-on-steel engagement, which if 25 yrs ago anyone tried to pitch this as the "bar" for the military power of NATO, they would have been laughed right out of the building.

What we are also in the process of proving is that we are woefully unprepared for what to do after we win and drive the other side underground.

[Sgt Joch]

The Chinese beat the U.S. to a draw in Korea with a lack of supply, armament and against U.S. air superiority. The North Vietnamese beat the U.S. outright in Vietnam, in both cases with Soviet arms and Soviet training.

U.S. and Israeli successes against Arab armies have more to do with the armies themselves, rather than the "Soviet model".

[Sirocco]

Originally posted by Sgt.Joch:

The North Vietnamese beat the U.S. outright in Vietnam

The US beat the US outright in Vietnam.

[dynaman200]

> The Chinese beat the U.S. to a draw in Korea with a lack of supply, armament and against U.S. air superiority.

The US was also tying it's own hands behind it's back by refusing to hit targets in China Proper (for the most part).

> The North Vietnamese beat the U.S. outright in Vietnam

Never militarily though, they won by wearing down US resolve.

[Sirocco]

Originally posted by Sgt.Joch:

U.S. and Israeli successes against Arab armies have more to do with the armies themselves, rather than the "Soviet model".

As I understand it, the Egyptians in 1973 had the upper hand in the initial stages, working to a pre-determined plan and more on a defensive posture, but when moving forward, tossing out the old plan and improvising a new one, they pretty much fell apart. That sounds like a rigid Soviet style force.

[Michael Dorosh]

The North Vietnamese beat the South Vietnamese, to be accurate. Nixon ensured that "Vietnamization" went ahead so that by 1972, all major US combat forces were rotated out of the country. In 1975 - three years later - the north beat the south in a conventional invasion.

The US wasn't there. Don't let the helicopters on the roof of the embassy fool you.

[Marek Brzezowski]

Please, do not exaggerate in any direction. Although soviet doctrine isn't in any way disabled it ain't perfect either.

Lets look how long it took them to subdue Chechenya - two costly campaigns with the first one totally lost.

Anyway - I think both Chechenya and Iraq affairs shows how difficult is to win assimetric, total conflicts for modern, total war orientet armies. Funny is that both Americans and Soviet found very similar solution to be the most efficient - to exploit enemy's internal conflicts and to convince some parties to join army's side.

[MikoyanPT]

I dont believe the american method proved superior in Afghanistan. Let´s talk about that in a few years from now.

The russians didn´t used the quantity method over quality in Afghanistan. They were engaged with few men and were mostly preocupied in taking the less casualties as possible.

Has the only time soviets were engaged in middle east was in Afghanistan were they fought against a guerrila, you cant generalise it to other theatres.

The old soviet combat filosophy is designed against a conventional army, and they managed reasonably well by adapting in afhanistan.

But for me, is quite obvious that a fulda gap engagement would end in a bloody stalemate until someone pressed the big red button that drops the big bomb . And then bye bye blue planet, hello red and dusty planet.

[Hannibal]

One of my favorite quotes of all time .Quanity has a quality all it own .I think against first line russian troops .With the Russins having large advantages in tanks artilary and aircraft Russian doctrine can be very effective .Russian equipment will not fare well, When as in the Gulf wars they were out numbered by top end US equipment .But with hordes mig 23, 27 backed up by large number of mig 29 and su 27 .The air war woud have been in contension .And russian tanks with numerical advantage can be effective.

[Cuirassier]

An interesting discussion.

First of all, I disagree that the American method of war is to superior to the Soviet. Certainly, both doctrines have their strengths and weaknesses; they just occur in different areas. Really it is nearly impossible to determine which is better, since the Soviets and Americans never fought each other directly.

But IMO, the American method of war is not the best, and I think it has actually gotten worse since the the 1991 Gulf War. It has become to maneuveresque and relies on technology too much. Traditional American doctrine was much more sound as it focused on only the destruction of the enemy. Current doctrine is much more inclined to drive through gaps and disrupt communications and create command shock yada yada.

The reason it has stomped Iraq twice in the initial invasion is not because of superior doctrine, though doctrine was sound in 1991, but because of superior technology. Quite simply, a 1960's-70's era Warsaw Pact style Tank Division or Army gets slaughtered in the face of an American armored division. The Abrams is just superior to T-62's and T-72's in every respect.

The real problem we see with the American method of war is during the occupation phase, when insurgents must be dealt with, as seen in Iraq and Afghanistan. The problem is that the US has become so reliant upon technology that it no longer is willing to accept realistic levels of casualties. The US thinks technology is a substitute for blood paid. And cetainly, technology can do that to an extent. But not to the level Americans demand.

And sure the Russians had trouble in Chechnya. But they still came out on top by developing a fairly effective doctrine to deal with insurgents. The US has yet to win in Afghanistan or Iraq.

Also, I don't think the Soviet method of war is accurately represented by the Yom Kippur war or the invasion of Afghanistan. In 1973, it is true the Egyptians and Syrians used Soviet tactics. While some didn't work great, others did (eg massing anti tank missiles and SAM's). Also, the equipment and training levels of Egypt and Syria were not on par with the Soviets.

Most importantly however, the campaign shows that neither the Syrians or Egyptians followed the Soviet doctrine of war. The Syrians and Egyptians planned to grab some territory, set up strong defences, and then sit there for a politcal settlement. Soviet doctrine OTOH always seeks destruction of enemy forces first and foremost. Territory is ignored, other than how it will affect destruction of the enemy. Thus, military victory precedes political victory, not the other way around.

Afghanistan is not representative of the Soviet way of war either as the invasion was not intended to decisively defeat the opposing forces, letting the Soviets conquer the area. Instead, Soviet troops were deployed in small numbers to prop up a pro-Soviet goverment for as long as it would take for Afghani forces to be raised to do the job themselves. The campaign did not seek decisive aims ( and thus did not follow Soviet doctrine) and failed as a result. Furthermore, since invasion was seen more as an occupation, only the small forces of 40th Army were deployed. The Soviets nearly always fought in Afghanistan with fewer men over a larger area than did the Americans in Vietnam for example.

If the Americans had fought the Soviets in Europe however, airpower must also be taken into account. American airpower has been largerly responsible for American victories since the Korean war. This is because the US has a top of the line air force and can easily gain control of the skies. Against the Soviets however, American air supremacy would be much more in doubt, since the Soviets had many good aircraft with good pilots. Probably more important though would be the number and sophistication of the Soivet SAM's that travel with virtually every gound unit. These in combination would put American control of the skies in doubt.

Finally, I deny the statements that the Soviets were rigid or lacked initiative or something. Arguably, the force structure and its intended roles was rigid during WWII, but this was no longer a factor afterwards with the increase of afv's in every formation.

In terms of exploiting opportunity, the Soviets were never rigid. The Soviets exploited the successes of Bagration and the offensives in the south to the fullest. Operation Uranus and Little Saturn were actually exploited too much. The Soviets were perfectly capable of changing a plan to meet circumstances. Its just that it was Army and Front commanders making this call, which is traditionally much higher up the chain of command when compared to western systems. Thus, the Soviet system was indeed 'command push,' but it was not overly rigid. You just had to be someone quite important to change a plan. But if you were, you could deffinately change the plan, and this did happen.

[Andrew H.]

Originally posted by dynaman200:

> The Chinese beat the U.S. to a draw in Korea with a lack of supply, armament and against U.S. air superiority.

The US was also tying it's own hands behind it's back by refusing to hit targets in China Proper (for the most part).

> The North Vietnamese beat the U.S. outright in Vietnam

Never militarily though, they won by wearing down US resolve.

That's what Pyrrhus said about the Romans. And it's extremely silly to talk about how we "won militarily" even as we lost the war. If "winning militarily" means anything, it needs to mean that you won the war. We can then go on to lose the peace...

But what we did in Vietnam was lose a war of attrition, even as we won every battle. But we didn't win every battle *by enough.* We took more casualties than we could afford. The Vietnamese took even more casualties, of course - but they could afford them. And the battles we won were not decisive; they didn't interfere with N. Vietnam's real warfighting ability.

But Vietnam (and Korea and WWII and the Civil War) aren't particularly relevant to the way the US fights wars now because our new warfighting doctrine (AirLand Battle and its friends) is the direct result of our failure in Vietnam.

The US strategy in the civil war was to use our superior manpower and material resources to outproduce and outman the CSA. Essentially, we fought and won a battle of attrition.

This was the exact same plan we used in WWII - the US plan was not rely on our technological prowess to overwhelm the Germans (good thing); we relied on our tremendous (and unmolested) industrial capacity to vastly outproduce the Nazis and then to engage in a war of attrition (in which we substituted using and losing materiel for men). But the materiel we used was not technologically superior to what the Germans had; it was generally good enough, and we had a lot of it. The Sherman gets a bad rap; it was a completely adequate tank - but certainly not technologically overwhelming compared to German vehicles. But we could produce lots of them (and part of the reason why more powerful tanks were not produced sooner had to do with the fact that we could produce and transport lots and lots of Sherman tanks). We also produced lots of artillery and radios and planes and fuel and trucks, etc. None of this was particularly better than what the Germans had...but quantity has a quality all its own, whether you are talking about soldiers or equipment.

Anyway, the american plan of relying on attrition and our overwhelming industrial capacity was a strategic failure in VN and (IMO) Korea. It works fine when you are locked in a life or death struggle with an adversary and can turn the entire economy to warfighting. It doesn't work as well when you are fighting a war on the side.

Anyway, the failure in VN, the lack of a clear victory in Korea, and the recognition that the USSR might also be pretty good at industrial production and attrition led the US to develop a new way of fighting wars, which is the American method described in the original post - it relies on *overwhelming* technological superiority, on having very well trained troops (necessary if you are relying on tech anyway) *and* on the principle of decisively destroying the enemy's warfighting ability. The point is to win like we won at 73 Easting; not to win like we won in Hue. Or even the Bulge.

But I think it's really hard to know how this would actually work against, say, the Soviets. One analysis of the new doctrine in the 1st Gulf war showed that it dramatically increased the cost of mistakes made by the enemy forces because the dramatically increased situational awareness allows the mistake to be fully exploited. (Cf. the Iraqi reinforcements apparently destined for Khafji that were destroyed in column while still far away.) This means that this sort of warfare may lead to particularly asymmetric losses against poorly trained and led troops. While there is undoubtedly still a significant advantage against well led but technologically inferior troops, it's not clear what the technology multiplier is.

And while I have no doubt that if the US had had to fight the USSR in 1989 for some reason the US would have prevailed decisively (because of technological superiority *and* because the USSR's doctrine severely underestimated the multiplying effect that sufficiently mature and synergistic technologies would have on warfighting).

And certainly today US methods still have the edge. But it's hard to know how great that edge is, since all potential adversaries have been feverishly studying US procedures in the 17 years since Gulf War I.

And, as was pointed out above, it's important to keep in mind that soviet doctrine as implemented by Syria or Iraq is sort of like US doctrine implemented by, say, Egypt - a poor reflection.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Andrew H.:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by dynaman200:

> The North Vietnamese beat the U.S. outright in Vietnam

That's what Pyrrhus said about the Romans. And it's extremely silly to talk about how we "won militarily" even as we lost the war. If "winning militarily" means anything, it needs to mean that you won the war. We can then go on to lose the peace...

But what we did in Vietnam was lose a war of attrition, even as we won every battle. But we didn't win every battle *by enough.* We took more casualties than we could afford. The Vietnamese took even more casualties, of course - but they could afford them. And the battles we won were not decisive; they didn't interfere with N. Vietnam's real warfighting ability.

But Vietnam (and Korea and WWII and the Civil War) aren't particularly relevant to the way the US fights wars now because our new warfighting doctrine (AirLand Battle and its friends) is the direct result of our failure in Vietnam.

The US strategy in the civil war was to use our superior manpower and material resources to outproduce and outman the CSA. Essentially, we fought and won a battle of attrition.

This was the exact same plan we used in WWII - the US plan was not rely on our technological prowess to overwhelm the Germans (good thing); we relied on our tremendous (and unmolested) industrial capacity to vastly outproduce the Nazis and then to engage in a war of attrition (in which we substituted using and losing materiel for men). But the materiel we used was not technologically superior to what the Germans had; it was generally good enough, and we had a lot of it. The Sherman gets a bad rap; it was a completely adequate tank - but certainly not technologically overwhelming compared to German vehicles. But we could produce lots of them (and part of the reason why more powerful tanks were not produced sooner had to do with the fact that we could produce and transport lots and lots of Sherman tanks). We also produced lots of artillery and radios and planes and fuel and trucks, etc. None of this was particularly better than what the Germans had...but quantity has a quality all its own, whether you are talking about soldiers or equipment.

Anyway, the american plan of relying on attrition and our overwhelming industrial capacity was a strategic failure in VN and (IMO) Korea. It works fine when you are locked in a life or death struggle with an adversary and can turn the entire economy to warfighting. It doesn't work as well when you are fighting a war on the side.

Anyway, the failure in VN,

</font>

[MikoyanPT]

[/qb]

[Hannibal]

I remember a show about worl war 3 .The show said the war would be come as you are war .The new high tech war would use up weapons at such a rate tht industry would not be able to replace them.

[Sgt Joch]

Not to through more oil on the fire, but in 1967, the Royal Jordanian Army was British trained and equipped mostly with modern U.S. M47 and M48 Patton tanks. The IDF, on the west bank,fielded mostly WW2 vintage and upgunned Shermans. Yet the IDF beat the Jordanians decisively. Again, more an issue of a Arab army with all its faults being the enemy, rather than the weapons and methods making a difference.

[luderbamsen]

Gentlemen, we seem to be mixing things up a bit, like.

The Soviet doctrine that I assume is the one we're talking about here was for conventional force-on-force engagements, generally on a large scale (the Soviets were always keen on quantity). As such, it only has relevance in force-on-force engagements (like the beloved Fulda Gap scenario).

Debating this doctrine in an Afghanistan context is essentially pointless, as is debating current US Army force-on-force prowess in an assymetric/counter insurgency scenario like Iraq or Afghanistan.

[76mm]

I can describe from personal experience an instance of how Iraqis made poor use of Soviet equipment in the first Gulf War:

I was in a tank unit, we came up against some Republican Guard T-72s which were equipped with dozer blades on the front. Presumably the Soviets would have used these blades to create hull-down fighting positions by digging down into the rather flat terrain. The Iraqis used the blades, however, to create "hull down" positions by scraping dirt into thin, waist-high berms on three sides of their tanks, which was about as effective against our sabot rounds as holding up a piece of cardboard. I think the Russians would have done better!

[Janster]

Considering the main cause of concern for Russia now is China, I'm quite sure they will have to adapt their quantity tactics, for quality themselves, and they cannot hope to match China man for man.

Its ironic that during the entire 'cold' war, most of the russian troops were deployed towards china..

It's always been weird to think that russia needed more land...considering what they got..even in their diminished form now...

However they have a VERY hungry neighbour, who would love siberia for themselves

Janster