"Cold war in the soviet Far East?" Topic

There have been some interesting Cold war discussions recently on TMP not surprisingly they have been centred around NATO vs WARPAC across Europe.

Now the Cold war isn't one of my gaming periods but I got wondering today if the cold war had gone hot. What would have been happening in the Soviet Far east/Alaska/Canada?

This area of the world was the only one were the US and the Soviet Union are close to each others sovereign territory, which while far away from any where important, would surely be to good a propaganda coup not to at least land some troops on.

So has anyone got any details on how a cold war gone hot might have unfurled in this part of the world?

The first assumption is would the Far East have been directly involved? The NorKs would be quick to take advantage of the West's reoccupation, but not necessarily the Chinese. Depending on the time, you have to ask which side the Chinese would have taken. There was a reason the Soviets keep around 100 divisions in Siberia. There were more afraid of an attack by the PRC than NATO.

There were few ground forces on either in the Alaskan theater, mainly for local defense, and for good reason. There were not enough roads to support the logistics for a large force. Both sides had a lot of air assets, but would they want to risk strategic escalation? Alaska and Canada were the primary air avenues for a nuclear attack on both main antagonists' homelands and they would be pretty quick to respond to even a small incursion.

Great question. I was recently wanting to do some Cold War gaming in Central America with Soviet and American troops on the ground. But a little research suggested that's probably way too unrealistic.

But it would be hard to call it World War III if there was only fighting in Europe, so I'd enjoy seeing more discussion on this.

There was one or more boardgames on a hot war in the Far East in the 1970s, but around USSR vs. PRC. "The East is Red" being one.

There was a recent S&T boardgame on the subject too, but set in the present day with updated forces and scenarios.

In the Twilight 2000 RPG, IIRC there was a Soviet landing on the west coast using their hovercraft transports, maybe a division or so driving down from Alaska through BC. Not much detail though, just a few references in the TO&E books and other fluff.

Edit – the novel "The War that Never Was', which is a late 1980s scenario, covers the globe, and there is at least some fairly detailed descriptions of the naval battles in the Pacific.

The Soviets didn't have the ability to project conventional power strategically in the Pacific. Except for a landing on Japan, where could they go? They would have to fight their way out of the Sea of Japan (and they still remember the Battle of Tsushima), then take on the US and Japanese navies, backed by land based air power from every direction. Even if they reached the major shipping lanes with any ammo left (the Soviets had minimal underway replenishment capability), it was a 1 way trip. The only marginally friendly port was in Vietnam, within range of the Chinese air force. Why land on Japan? Their Ground Defense Force had less force projection capability than the Soviets and a landing would only give the GDF a target they could reach.

With no reachable strategic objectives and the long, vulnerable border with China, The USSR had every reason to keep the Pacific quiet.

I suspect their bases on the Kamchatka Peninsula would have been hit hard by us, if WWIII would have kicked off, especially their naval base(s).

As a distraction, I can see the Soviets backing Cuba and Venezuela to aid them in supporting communists in Nicaragua. If they did well there, they could threaten the Panama Canal, or attack it directly with small numbers of raiders, in order to damage or destroy the locks there.

The US would definitely intervene if that were to occur.

You got my attention, Mako. Do you think that might include significant amounts of armor, or is that too much of a stretch?

What would be the strategic benefit of attacking the canal? Just to mess up all the countries using it?

IIRC, the Soviets had a full Naval Infantry Division in the Far East, whereas they had independent brigades elsewhere.

Water war for the most part I suspect. The Chinese were then, and are now highly suspicious of Russians. Plus the PLA was still all over the shop from having the Vietnamese hand them their asses.

And 80s era PLAN ships weren't exactly, I was going to say effective but really, there at all.

Vladivostok and the soviet fleet bases would have had the brown bombed out of them.

I think armor might be a stretch, other than perhaps a little of it, e.g. a USMC amphibious unit offloaded in country, plus perhaps a platoon of tanks to provide direct fire support.

More than likely, airborne, or light infantry troops dropped in via helos, or aircraft. Probably lots of jeeps and Humvees, depending upon your conflict date(s). Lots of helos to move troops to hotspots in the jungle terrain, like in Vietnam.

Amphibious landing ships parked offshore, just in case, and to provide support to the forces on land.

The strategic implications of cutting the canal are huge, in a war, since it greatly slows the shifting of military assets (naval ships) from ocean to ocean, not to mention the considerable impact on commercial vessels as well.

Thanks, Mako. Maybe I can game this…again. I had a solo campaign with US and Soviet forces in '80s Nicaragua last year, but it was pretty fanciful, with special forces groups I had invented, and near the country's capital, which isn't very realistic. I'd like to game something more conceivable.

You're welcome.

You could run a "where's Ortega?" campaign, in Nicaragua.

Kind of like a "where's Waldo" game, but with jungle terrain, and small villages, with the US special forces, and/or others trying to hunt Daniel Ortega down, around the country. Obviously, his loyalists, and military would oppose such moves, so you could have anything from very small skirmishes with a squad or two per side, to larger missions in the villages and towns. Throw in some Cuban, or Russian soldiers too, just for fun.

IIRC, the Hind gunships and Mig-29s really got Ronnie (Ronald Reagan) steamed up, back in the day, when we found out those were in Nicaragua.

I'm thinking helo insertions, Humvees, technical, etc., etc..

That'd also work for hunting narco-terrorist leaders as well in the region, too.

To make it really interesting, the bad guys have infiltrated some of your forces, and/or the police units, so you never know who to trust, just like in Mexico, and the rest of South and Central America.

Ok, that actually sounds halfway similar to my campaign last year, so maybe it wasn't so crazy after all! Except they were searching for missiles a la the Cuban Missile Crisis, instead of Ortega.

One the scenarios in our long running WW3 'campaign' was a Soviet naval invasion of Japan.

Mainly an excuse to use those big Russian hovercraft thingies.

Well, they have taken over some of the Northern Japanese isles, and occasionally run exercises there to annoy the locals, so that's not too difficult a stretch.

a hot war in the Far East in the 1970s, but around USSR vs. PRC. "The East is Red" being one.

I still have that game ! Pretty neat !

wanting to do some Cold War gaming in Central America

There was a leadership/mapex computer assisted exercise at Bragg, in '89. The 82d and 10th MTN with my Bde, the 197th Mech out of Benning. The 197th was part of the 18th ABN Corps at that time. All being sent somewhere in South America, forget where ? To combat a communist inspired civil war, sound familiar ? GEN Westly Clark was the overall exercise honcho. He was just COL at the time IIRC. With at least one retired 2 or 3 General being involved. So it was a pretty important and fairly large exercise. So someone thought it was worth while training. To run such a "what-if" scenario … I as a senior CPT was the acting Bde Cdr. The Bde eventually sent an LTC and MAJ from the Bde. As I think the other LTCs, COLs and GENs running the other units got tired of a mere CPT alluding to them they couldn't penny-packed out my Tanks and Mech units from the Bde to support their ops. We go in at least in BN TF size. I told the 82d the same thing about their M551 Bn when we wargamed various scenarios.

The Corps G-3 eventually called back to Benning to say that "this hard charging" CPT they sent was kicking butt. But every other unit had at least a MAJ or LTC in charge. It think that that means I was an -hole. And wouldn't let the other senior officers play with my tanks ! Of course I think the retired Gen found the whole thing amusing. Regardless it was a big exercise and it was scenario that they believed was worth wargaming. And in the end, I didn't get promoter to MAJ and was RIF'd … Guess I was a real -hole !

Legion, remember T. R. Fehrenbach's description of the differences between warriors and professional soldiers.

I don't know if I was up to those standards …