Developments in Army and Land Technology:
The Gulf War had given both sides in the Cold War the means to test many of their technologies, tactics and strategies. The various weaknesses and strengths were assessed and filtered through the evaluation of both scientists and military officers, leading to many different outcomes. First the lessons made clear to both sides will be examined, the importance of IFF (Identification friend or foe) technology was highlighted, friendly fire incidents racked both the Soviet and American proxies. These technologies were already implemented in fighter jets, but as tanks and other vehicles become more advanced and expensive, combined with the prevalence and newly developing cheapness of digital technologies, make it possible for both to implement this, especially on the vehicles chosen as relevant for retrofitting. The M1A1 and M2A2 for the Americans and the T80U, T-72B, T-72BU, BMP-2D and BMP-3 for example, on the European side nearly all of their vehicles would receive these retrofits, except for the oldest of the reserve equipment.
The importance of electronic warfare, jamming communications as well as tracking, all were emphasized and all developed. The Americans did have an edge in computing technology, but the Soviets did make some forays into cheap but effective solutions into jamming that only the most robust technology, effort and competent NATO commanders could hope to avoid. The Soviet Army was more prepared to fight using older methods, including colour coded artillery rounds, using wired communication, but still had the means to counter jamming to some extent. The Americans definitely developed an edge in tracking, gun stabilization and accuracy, but the Soviets were introducing their own precision guided munitions, partly indigenous, and other aspects inspired by the reverse engineering of dropped unexploded GPS guided bombs. GLONASS guided gravity bombs started appearing in Afghanistan and very selectively Yugoslavia by 93 and 94. The Soviets developed their tracking abilities but they still remained behind, although new variants of their Kh-58 Anti Radiation Missiles had improved in quality. Overall both sides invested heavily into improving their counterbattery technology and command and control abilities, including the use of frequency hoping radios, etc.
Both sides realized the importance of drones, and poured increasing resources into that area as well.
Soviet and Warsaw Pact Developments:
The Soviets realized firstly how potent of a weapon NATO's airpower could be if unrestrained, so they continued their dual prong approach of land based, multi layered air defence systems, combined with their stronger, more advanced airforce to counter. They saw the power of US precision guided cluster munitions, invested in their own, and in the systems to ensure that they could not only knock out the enemy's artillery, but still have the mass firepower necessary to punch holes in the enemy's lines. They saw some of the faults in their T-72s, and maintained the T-72BU (T-90) and continual upgrade to this standard as the answer. The T-80U series was seen as wasteful, but recieved an update called the T-80UB, in 1992, but the vast majority of the the work of the Kirov Plant and KMDB were to upgrade the rest of the T-80B standard to T-80U and T-80UB standard. The older T-62s were put on firesale, and the lesser advanced variants of the T-64 donated to the Afghan and Yemeni armies. The rest were kept as a reserve and rotated out of frontline units, many sent to second rate divisions facing China or Pakistan. A large donation of some higher quality T-64Bs was arranged to Vietnam and Cuba.
There were now plans to develop a successor to both tanks, it was decided that instead of having two different tanks, the two main manufacturers would compete. This matched the ideological element of self management for better efficiency, and was generally agreed by the Soviet Army, as well as economists that they really could only afford one type of 4th Generation MBT. The Military budget had been reduced in the mid to late 80s, to make build up the computer industry as well as light consumer industry. The Soviet Union's electronic management system had improved the efficiency of the planned economy by a factor of at least 30 percent. But, the tightening of the military budget bristled against the necessary budget for the development of the economy. Slight concessions were made but fortunately for the Soviets the rising price of oil enabled them to make these vast expenditures without pressuring their economic growth too much. In the eyes of the Soviet Army, these expenditures were necessary to ensure that they maintained primacy in land and air power in Asia and Europe.
So KMDB and Kirov would submit the Object 640 (Black Eagle) against Uralvagonzavod's Object 195 (T-95), but some elements of 640 would be implemented into the T-95 would be designed by 1994-1995 and slated for production in 1998.
The Soviets tactical approach, relying on mobility and emphasizing deep battle doctrine, was updated. To feature more emphasis on precision attacks, on neutralizing enemy air power and exploitation of armour. This required a gradual change institutionally in the Soviet Army as officers were given slightly more authority to act on their own initiative. Overall in the Soviet Army, two categories of soldiers in the combat arms existed, professionals and conscripts. The professionals generally were corporal (equals) and above, and became the core of a class of soldier used to train, instruct and command the conscripts which mostly consisted of privates, or in the case of reservists corporals. Abuse was common, but also deeply punished by officers, many of whom looked to either political or military careers, the benefits associated with those and therefore tried to keep clean units. Corruption wasn't uncommon, soldiers would often steal supplies or food, some were caught, others ignored. (Nothing approaching what happened in the late 90s with soldiers selling entire armories or even tanks disappearing). Rigid political education was maintained to varying degrees of effectiveness. The Soviets adopted the VSR camouflage as a standard, trying to phase out the plain, KMLK, TTsKO uniforms somewhat slowly. But later in the 90s VSR would be developed into 'Flora'. There also existed different variants of these.
The importance of the helicopter as both a means of transport, which was already emphasized by Afghanistan, but also for precision attack as in the Gulf War. The Soviets winded down developing the Mi-28, choosing instead to maintain it's production mainly for export to it's Warsaw Pact allies and customers like Algeria, India and later China. Instead focused on upgrading the Mi-24D, and producing the KA-50 and later the KA-52 series of attack helicopters.
Much work was done on upgrading the IFVs and APCs of the Soviet Army, after the vulnerability displayed during the 70's and 80's proved several design concepts either ineffectiveness or dangerous. Since 1990, the Soviet Army had been replacing the BMP-2 in it's best divisions with the BMP-3, this process continued and expanded. Consequently as new equipment entered the best or frontal divisions, their equipment moved down to the more 'regular' and generally was pushed eastward. The Soviets began to disregard the Chinese military as an actual threat, believing that one or two of their best divisions, and their advanced air power was more than enough to deter the Chinese; and it was as their own development was progressing but much slower (especially than OTL, when Russia sold many advanced technologies to them for hard currency).
The BMP-1Ps and few older BMP-2s that characterized the far east mechanized divisions had more combat power than the Chinese units they faced by far. The BMP-2D was continued in production, but also were massively exported. The BTR-80 was replaced with the BTR-82, and later the BTR-90.
The AK-74M had already begun replacing the AK-74 in front service in 1990, and was also becoming very common, as were new optics, holographic or scopes. The RPG-29 was the mainstay anti tank weapon of the Soviet Infantry, in additional to the disposable RPG-26 and RPG-7 with upgraded ammunition. ATGMs included the Metis-M and Konkurs-M, which were the mainstay and also exported. The 9K114 Shturm was upgraded with the 9M120 Ataka and was produced in an additional AT support role, along with Konkurs-M carrying BRDM-2s.
The Osa was beginning to be regulated to the far east, or sold off as new Tors continued to replace them in air defence units. The 2K22 Tunguska also began replacing the ZSU-23, although the latter was generally upgraded with Iglas also. The Buk M1 was also emphasized as was the S-300PMU for theater and strategic level air protection. A completely new addition was slated for the 1993 Victory Parade, called the Pantsir-S, and dubbed the SA-22 Greyhound by NATO intelligence.
In the area of artillery, the 9K58 Smerch (BM-30) was lauded and despite it's slow adoption due to budget restraints became a mainstay of the Soviet Artillery Arm, in addition to a self propelled Mortar System called the 2S23 Nona, based on the chassis of the BTR-80. Also notably the 2S19 Msta which was featured in the 1991 Victory Parade. The TOS-1 had proven very useful in Afghanistan, and complimented many pioneer units.
Next update will be the on the west, can definitely use suggestions on that front.
