The Most Effective Soviet Military

[dropbearabroad]

"Were any of them military failures?"

Okay, I know the debate has moved on from Easterling's post and others have answered it already so sorry for the late reply. But, I think the following reflects on a lot of this. Yes, they were military failures, or in the case of Korea at the very least it was a non-success. Military and political decisions and aims are not separable in these cases. Mao knew it, the VC knew it, the US Army failed to learn the lesson. You may wish to argue that these weren't battlefield failures, though even that would be debatable in some of these cases, but that's a different argument entirely.

And it misses the main point. You don't fight wars to win battles, you fight them to win the war. If you win both then wonderful, but in the end the only important matter is to win the war. Whether the enemy won by using WWI tactics, or a willingness to absorb more casualties than our side or by realising that the battle for hearts and minds is just as important as any other battlefield is not crucial to either the question or the world shaped by these conflicts. But who actually won is.

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by Easterling

One might say that the primary objective was not to be defeated themselves, which they failed to do.

Actually the Communists' objectives changed in the same way the UN did. China had power sufficient to drive the UN headlong in inglorious retreat out of North Korea, it did not have anywhere near power sufficient to actually win Korea. It failed to understand this.

Originally Posted by Easterling

And comparing the Korean war and ww1 is wrong, the scope and size of these conflicts is too different.
My comment about the Russians and Chinese was that they were ready to fight a war of attrition (like ww1) not that they were willing to use ww1 tactics or wheapons (although the chinese did come very close to doing that in Korea, but only because the country was still recovering from the civil war and couldn't equip it's army as well as it would have liked).

Your comment is mistaken. Neither Russia nor China were prepared for attrition warfare in either case. They waged them, but waging a war and being prepared for it are two different things. WWI tactics, whatever this means, were not "here's a rifle, there's the enemy, go die" in concept. What the Chinese did was use a guerrilla army's tactics to thoroughly defeat MacArthur's army, the same men, same units, same equipment under Ridgway used their own logistical overstretch to inflict asskickings in turn.

Originally Posted by BlairWitch749

I think you are agreeing with me

keep in mind in my original post I said "sort of" technically superior

the russian steamroller at the front level was a work of art from fall 43 on no question, but at the division level and below, your average Russian regiment didn't particularly bear any superiority to a German regiment and in some areas was inferior (both in the infantry but much more so in the tank divisions)... and the russians did make up for this with mass, which them employed ruthlessly and effectively; in stalin's own words "quantity has a quality all it's own"

Mass of firepower, however, not manpower. By the late phase of WWII, you cannot criticize the Allies for overreliance on firepower and exempt the USSR from that criticism. The Soviets loved Dakka about as much as the USA did.

Originally Posted by Easterling

But the US pulled out of fight where the soldiers were accomplishing something (Korea, Vietnam)

No they weren't and no it didn't. Repeating this a million times makes it no more truthful the millionth time than it was the first time.

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by dropbearabroad

"Were any of them military failures?"

Okay, I know the debate has moved on from Easterling's post and others have answered it already so sorry for the late reply. But, I think the following reflects on a lot of this. Yes, they were military failures, or in the case of Korea at the very least it was a non-success. Military and political decisions and aims are not separable in these cases. Mao knew it, the VC knew it, the US Army failed to learn the lesson. You may wish to argue that these weren't battlefield failures, though even that would be debatable in some of these cases, but that's a different argument entirely.

And it misses the main point. You don't fight wars to win battles, you fight them to win the war. If you win both then wonderful, but in the end the only important matter is to win the war. Whether the enemy won by using WWI tactics, or a willingness to absorb more casualties than our side or by realising that the battle for hearts and minds is just as important as any other battlefield is not crucial to either the question or the world shaped by these conflicts. But who actually won is.

Even Vietnam is a military failure: it's just not a failure at the tactical level, more of the strategic-logistical level. At a certain level when Hanoi's logistical base was in Beijing and Hanoi knew how to use its weapons to actually fight, where Saigon's army was feckless at anything other than gunning down civilians, the USA's going to get tired of saving Saigon from itself after a certain point in time.

[Kome]

Originally Posted by Dathi THorfinnsson

And gives kids strong incentive to underperform.

Possible suggestion: Make conscript service a requirement for higher education? It gives them a carrot for the end of those two years, and it could be hoped this could stop the brain drain a bit and develop a loyal intelligentsia class.

Of course, im not sure whether that would generate enough college graduates for the needs of the Soviet Union...

[Easterling]

Originally Posted by Zmflavius

Except it really wasn't. My draw example still stands. And the point still stands, since both are wars, and both sides wanted to win, as opposed to some other outcome, which are the relevant aspects.

Wars are not like sports competitions where there is allways a clear way of keeping score. in wars each side sets it's own particular objectives, and victory is achieved by fulfilling one's objectives and preventing the enemy from fulfilling his. in Korea, if the North's objective was to capture the South, and at the end the South was still standing, in means the North lost and the other guys won.
Claiming that the UN did not win in Korea because it did not conquer the North is as absurd as claiming tha Britain did not win in the Falklands because it did not conquer Argentina.

Vietnam was a lost war as soon as we lost the propaganda war because the military was fighting the war in the exactly wrong way.

And in Vietnam too the South was still standing when the ceasefire was signed and the US troops withdrew. It was a political decision not to send the troops back afterwards

Originally Posted by dropbearabroad

Whether the enemy won by using WWI tactics, or a willingness to absorb more casualties than our side or by realising that the battle for hearts and minds is just as important as any other battlefield is not crucial to either the question or the world shaped by these conflicts. But who actually won is.

Winning hearts and minds is very important, but failure to do so does not tell us anything about the efficiency of an army, because winning hearts and minds is not the job of the military. The job of the military is to stab hearts and blow their brains out.

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

Your comment is mistaken. Neither Russia nor China were prepared for attrition warfare in either case.

Yet they were willing and able to do so. Also, I would say that the way te Soviet military was set up during the Cold War implies they expected to fight a large war of attrition, like the Great Patriotic War had been.

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by Easterling

Wars are not like sports competitions where there is allways a clear way of keeping score. in wars each side sets it's own particular objectives, and victory is achieved by fulfilling one's objectives and preventing the enemy from fulfilling his. in Korea, if the North's objective was to capture the South, and at the end the South was still standing, in means the North lost and the other guys won.
Claiming that the UN did not win in Korea because it did not conquer the North is as absurd as claiming tha Britain did not win in the Falklands because it did not conquer Argentina.

Except that the UN's own objectives changed to be exactly that. It's the part you're unwilling and unable to listen to. The Korean War is at best a stalemate for both sides.

Originally Posted by Easterling

And in Vietnam too the South was still standing when the ceasefire was signed and the US troops withdrew. It was a political decision not to send the troops back afterwards

At some level Saigon had to fight for itself, which it could not do. Unless you think the USA should have eternally had a million men saving the sorry hide of the Saigon regime?

Originally Posted by Easterling

Yet they were willing and able to do so. Also, I would say that the way te Soviet military was set up during the Cold War implies they expected to fight a large war of attrition, like the Great Patriotic War had been.

Yes, during the Cold War. You were arguing their WWII Army was structured for this. It was poorly structured in 1941 but on paper was supposed to be an all-arms *mechanized* army. Not a WWI-style infantry-machine guns-artillery-engineers-some airpower army. Imperial Japan was a pure old-school WWI Army in a WWII setting. The USSR....was not.

[Easterling]

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

At some level Saigon had to fight for itself, which it could not do. Unless you think the USA should have eternally had a million men saving the sorry hide of the Saigon regime?

Then the failure is to be attributed to the Saigon regime.

You were arguing their WWII Army was structured for this. It was poorly structured in 1941 but on paper was supposed to be an all-arms *mechanized* army. Not a WWI-style infantry-machine guns-artillery-engineers-some airpower army.

I did not mean to imply such a thing.

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by Easterling

Then the failure is to be attributed to the Saigon regime.

No, it still goes to the USA for propping the damn thing up far too long when all this did was set up something where failure is the only possible outcome.

Originally Posted by Easterling

I did not mean to imply such a thing.

Then you phrased your words very poorly by claiming that the Soviets were prepared for a WWI-style attrition war. The chaotic flailing of the 1941 battles on the Soviet side does not qualify for preparation as most understand the term.

[dropbearabroad]

"Even Vietnam is a military failure: it's just not a failure at the tactical level, more of the strategic-logistical level."

Exactly, completely agree.

"Winning hearts and minds is very important, but failure to do so does not tell us anything about the efficiency of an army, because winning hearts and minds is not the job of the military. The job of the military is to stab hearts and blow their brains out."

Here I disagree, winning hearts and minds in a conflict is vital. That dosn't mean your army still doesn't need to kill the enemy but they do need to win the political battle as well. This is what Giap and Ho Chi Minh realised and why the US lost in Vietnam. And Somalia, Beirut and is now losing in Afghanistan. Real wars are not simplistic computer games where all you need to do is rack up a score to win. The world has changed since 1945, and so has the way conflicts are fought. The homefront and the propaganda battle are just as important as some desert or jungle where heavily armed troops blaze away at shadows. Any worthwhile military knows that too, and taking this into account is the job of the military as it can make the difference between victory and defeat. Failure to adapt to the way wars are now being fought is inexcusable for any army. The failure of the US army to win the hearts and minds battle in Vietnam tells us everything about their failure to win the war; they didn't know how to beat the enemy, they didn't understand the enemy's strategy and they didn't even understand what their own country was thinking.

There's an old saying that the surest way to lose the next war is to train to fight the last one. This idea that you can conveniently separate the military and political sides falls right into that trap.

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by dropbearabroad

Here I disagree, winning hearts and minds in a conflict is vital. That dosn't mean your army still doesn't need to kill the enemy but they do need to win the political battle as well. This is what Giap and Ho Chi Minh realised and why the US lost in Vietnam. And Somalia, Beirut and is now losing in Afghanistan. Real wars are not simplistic computer games where all you need to do is rack up a score to win. The world has changed since 1945, and so has the way conflicts are fought. The homefront and the propaganda battle are just as important as some desert or jungle where heavily armed troops blaze away at shadows. Any worthwhile military knows that too, and taking this into account is the job of the military as it can make the difference between victory and defeat. Failure to adapt to the way wars are now being fought is inexcusable for any army. The failure of the US army to win the hearts and minds battle in Vietnam tells us everything about their failure to win the war; they didn't know how to beat the enemy, they didn't understand the enemy's strategy and they didn't even understand what their own country was thinking.

There's an old saying that the surest way to lose the next war is to train to fight the last one. This idea that you can conveniently separate the military and political sides falls right into that trap.

Actually the failure to understand this concept is a huge, impossible-to-overstate reason for why Germany lost both world wars, and why Napoleon got to Moscow and yet flopped finally in Spain and Russia. War as an apolitical concept is pure intellectual hubris, only the pseudointellectual focus of a blinkered mind thinks a battle can be understood outside its political context. Armies don't just show up and fight each other for shits and giggles.

[dropbearabroad]

Again Snake, I agree. Certainly with the Germans, I don't often comment on the board (I've doubled my posts in one day!) but I am a frequent reader and have followed many of the discussions about the two world wars and Germany's lack of a coherent strategy in either war and I agree with your analyses.

I hadn't thought of Napoleon's performance in this context but can now see that was the case in Spain at least, though in the Corsican's defence I think his ideas and the French Army's savage approach to dealing with the Spanish population were not unusual for the period. In hindsight, his response after the burning of Moscow is also a pretty strong argument that he was strategically bereft.

In terms of now, the apparent inability of at least some influential sections of western militaries to understand this is puzzling. They all come from democratic societies with free speech and mass media, they graduate from military colleges that are supposed to offer the highest levels of training, they are even professionally trained to think for themselves more than the militaries of many other countries. Now there are even forums like this one where the lessons of history can be discussed in minute detail with people all over the world. So why are the same mistakes being made? Is it national/institutional arrogance or simple human stupidity?

[The Historian]

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

So why is there a North Korea and why did the attempt to disrupt the Ho Chih Minh trail the military begged before before going Ludendorff fail?

In fairness, MacArthur was right that it'd take nukes to destroy the chinese horde. While Truman was right to withhold them for political reasons, that is why we lost in Korea.

Likewise, the Ho Chih Minh Trail was in a foreign country for much of its length. We couldn't perform a legitimate assault to destroy it without attacking Cambodia and Laos as well.

[dropbearabroad]

Which goes back to his point above that you can't separate the political context from the military situation.

[Easterling]

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

Then you phrased your words very poorly by claiming that the Soviets were prepared for a WWI-style attrition war. The chaotic flailing of the 1941 battles on the Soviet side does not qualify for preparation as most understand the term.

And you read my posts very poorly. I didn't mention ww2 or the Soviet performance therein, so stop bringing it up.

Originally Posted by dropbearabroad

That dosn't mean your army still doesn't need to kill the enemy but they do need to win the political battle as well.

If the army needs to win the political battle, then what do the politicians need to do? win military battles?

Wars in the modern age are total efforts invloving all aspects of society. If a war is lost, you can't just assign all the blame strictly on the military, when the loss has clear non-military causes due to flaws in society as a whole.
The reason why the US has trouble in all these little wars is not because the military is not up to the task, but because American society as a whole is not willing to commit itself to the effort of winning them.

[Zmflavius]

Originally Posted by Easterling

And you read my posts very poorly. I didn't mention ww2 or the Soviet performance therein, so stop bringing it up.

No, you made an unwarranted and factually inaccurate comparison to WWI, where one to WWII would be far more appropriate, which is why we make a point of bringing it up.

If the army needs to win the political battle, then what do the politicians need to do? win military battles?

Wars in the modern age are total efforts invloving all aspects of society. If a war is lost, you can't just assign all the blame strictly on the military, when the loss has clear non-military causes due to flaws in society as a whole.
The reason why the US has trouble in all these little wars is not because the military is not up to the task, but because American society as a whole is not willing to commit itself to the effort of winning them.

If you look at it from a strictly economical point of view, these wars which were not fought with total war were not fought so because no matter what payoff was gained, they did not merit such investment. A war should never be fought to be won for its own sake, but only for a favorable outcome, which is only the case if the outcome's benefits outweigh the costs. To give an example, it was insane to levy a draft to try and 'win' a war in a Third World country, which had virtually no natural resources or strategic importance, just so we could have the privilege of shaking our cock at Communism, driving Laos and Cambodia into the Communist camp, and to hold up a regime which has not a shred of legitimacy. Feel free to dispute this if you like, but war should never be fought for its own sake, nor should the military fight without restraint for the same reason as the first clause. If the military can't win a war without completely pissing on the reasons we fought the war in the first place, then we should never have gone to war at all.

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by The Historian

In fairness, MacArthur was right that it'd take nukes to destroy the chinese horde. While Truman was right to withhold them for political reasons, that is why we lost in Korea.

Likewise, the Ho Chih Minh Trail was in a foreign country for much of its length. We couldn't perform a legitimate assault to destroy it without attacking Cambodia and Laos as well.

No, MacArthur was not right as the "Chinese Horde" had no real reason to intervene if he had not deliberately ignored all their warnings up to and including annihilating an entire ROK force before they hit. There's a word for that in a military sense. It begins with "I" and ends with "y."

Originally Posted by Easterling

And you read my posts very poorly. I didn't mention ww2 or the Soviet performance therein, so stop bringing it up.

Actually you pretty much were referring to it when you said "The USSR was structured for a WWI-style attrition war." What were you really referring to? The Russian Civil War?

Originally Posted by Easterling

If the army needs to win the political battle, then what do the politicians need to do? win military battles?

Wars in the modern age are total efforts invloving all aspects of society. If a war is lost, you can't just assign all the blame strictly on the military, when the loss has clear non-military causes due to flaws in society as a whole.
The reason why the US has trouble in all these little wars is not because the military is not up to the task, but because American society as a whole is not willing to commit itself to the effort of winning them.

Actually you pretty much can lay the blame squarely on the military if it gets what it wants when what it wants involves ignoring any of those other aspects *beyond* what it wants. This is the Dolchstosslegende/Ludendorff variant of "history."

[Easterling]

Once again for those with text comprehension issues:

on WW1 and Korea - The Korean war in it's final years, once the front had stabilized, aquired a static character like ww1, whithout room for sweping maneuvers (characteristic for ww2). Maybe the US Army culd have continued to push back the Chinese, but they didn't like the manpower costs associated with hea-on attacks against prepared positions, so they stopped. They were not willing to fight attrition warfare.

On the Soviet army and attrition warfare. The Soviet Army after ww2, and based on the experience of Barbarossa, was prepared for attrition warfare. There are several clues pointing at this.
One is the conscription system. The Soviets had a (relatively) large percentage of troops under arms and an even larger percentage of trained troops in reserve, that could be mobilised in short notice. This makes sense if you expect to need to "spend" lots of soldiers quickly (like in the case of attrition warfare) and need lots of reserves.
A second clue was the design of soviet weapon systems. These are often stereotyped as cheap and lacking in quality - which is mostly wrong - but the core truth is however that the Soviet weapon systems did emphasise ease of production. The Soviets expected to need to porduce lots of equipment quickly. Take the exemple of the T-72 tank which is often said to have been a "mobilization" tank. It was not as powerfull as the "premium" T-80, or contemporary western tanks, but it was supposed to be produced in large quantities during wartime.
This shows that the Soviets expected to be involved in large scale high intensity combat between conventional forces over long periods of time (which causes attrition). The problem is that this kind of conflicts never happened and probably could not happen in the atomic age.
So they build a military, and a corresponding military-industrial complex, that probably would have been effective for it's specified task (I tink they could have beaten NATO in a conventional ww3) but in hindsight was a waste of money.

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by Easterling

Once again for those with text comprehension issues:

Ad Hominem is a sign of either arguing in bad faith or refusal to concede losing an argument.

Originally Posted by Easterling

on WW1 and Korea - The Korean war in it's final years, once the front had stabilized, aquired a static character like ww1, whithout room for sweping maneuvers (characteristic for ww2). Maybe the US Army culd have continued to push back the Chinese, but they didn't like the manpower costs associated with hea-on attacks against prepared positions, so they stopped. They were not willing to fight attrition warfare.

WWI was not always and forever a static war of attrition. In the Balkans, Syria-Palestine-Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Eastern Front, and the first and last phases of the Western Front there was plenty of maneuver. The idea that the US Army, which in the ACW and WWII showed plenty of reliance on bleeding forces stupidly has some reticience to shed blood is a sad excuse betraying a fundamental lack of comprehension of how the USA wages war. The USA showed no hesitation for senseless bloodbaths at Monte Cassino or the Siegfried Line.

Originally Posted by Easterling

On the Soviet army and attrition warfare. The Soviet Army after ww2, and based on the experience of Barbarossa, was prepared for attrition warfare. There are several clues pointing at this.
One is the conscription system. The Soviets had a (relatively) large percentage of troops under arms and an even larger percentage of trained troops in reserve, that could be mobilised in short notice. This makes sense if you expect to need to "spend" lots of soldiers quickly (like in the case of attrition warfare) and need lots of reserves.
A second clue was the design of soviet weapon systems. These are often stereotyped as cheap and lacking in quality - which is mostly wrong - but the core truth is however that the Soviet weapon systems did emphasise ease of production. The Soviets expected to need to porduce lots of equipment quickly. Take the exemple of the T-72 tank which is often said to have been a "mobilization" tank. It was not as powerfull as the "premium" T-80, or contemporary western tanks, but it was supposed to be produced in large quantities during wartime.
This shows that the Soviets expected to be involved in large scale high intensity combat between conventional forces over long periods of time (which causes attrition). The problem is that this kind of conflicts never happened and probably could not happen in the atomic age.
So they build a military, and a corresponding military-industrial complex, that probably would have been effective for it's specified task (I tink they could have beaten NATO in a conventional ww3) but in hindsight was a waste of money.

The USSR was not prepared for attrition warfare, it was prepared for a conventional war of maneuver. This is why its production emphasized a wasteful production by peacetime standards but quite reasonable production by wartime standards. The USA was not prepared for conventional warfare either, it chose to rely on atomics at the expense of a solid conventional force because massive nuclear retaliation is much cheaper.

[Easterling]

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

The USSR was not prepared for attrition warfare, it was prepared for a conventional war of maneuver. This is why its production emphasized a wasteful production by peacetime standards but quite reasonable production by wartime standards.

This raises the question of what were they thinking? Did the Soviets seriously believe they would have the occasion to fight a conventional war (or a nuclear war that would last long enough to warrant switching to mobilisation and wartime production)? Because otherwise, their military-industrial complex was, as you said, wastefull.

And clarify your statement. Why is "preparing for a conventional war of maneuver" incompatible with "preparing for attrition"?

[Kome]

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

The USSR was not prepared for attrition warfare, it was prepared for a conventional war of maneuver. This is why its production emphasized a wasteful production by peacetime standards but quite reasonable production by wartime standards. The USA was not prepared for conventional warfare either, it chose to rely on atomics at the expense of a solid conventional force because massive nuclear retaliation is much cheaper.

Attrition warfare and conventional war of maneuver are not exclusive from each other. Its hard to maneuver when you run out of equipment and you cant replace them fast enough.

In wartime the Izhmash factory could produce 13,000 rifles a day. The armored divisions would be padded with 'monkey model' replacements, the idea being no matter how good the tanks ether side had in their A-list armored divisions prewar, once the war heated up all those would eventually be destroyed through enemy action (conventional or nuclear) or wear and tear. But the same could be said of NATO's armored divsions. Since monkey model tanks could be produced faster than a tank with full features would they could restock their armored divisions faster than NATO could restock theirs, allowing them to keep the initiative.

The same logic for missiles and so on. Better subpar quality missiles than no missiles.

Very attritional mindset. Because by definition WW3 would result in heavy casualties and losses by both sides. Thats undeniable. Basic logistics becomes attritional as you try to figure out how to replace losses faster than the enemy.