Soviet expeditionary force during the cold war

With the likely exception of the Inchon landings I can't think of any post ww2 US operations that involved divisional sized combat operations without host nation support. (Maybe the 1958 Lebanon operations and the later operations in the Domican republic also come close ?)

Not even sure I would count the Inchon landings given that the US had Japan as a staging base and the Pusan Pocket in southern Korea to provide some amount of support in terms of air cover for the landings.

In any event if one assumes a friendly host nation that allows for a peacefull off load in a port and provides a reasonable amount of host nation support then nations such as Canada for example could on paper at least have deployed brigade groups with tanks, self propelled artillery and APC's overseas during the Cold War. I don't think this is quite the type of answer the OP is looking for however.

The ability to actually land forces in the face of opposition and sustain them during combat without a near by friendly port is what sets super powers apart from nations such as Canada IMHO

Well actually your description of Canada sounds very much in line with what the OP was looking for.

Look back on the the OP and we see:

"Goal is to provide some support for their allies in localized conflicts like
Angola civil war
Libya vs Egypt late 70s
South yemen
Horn of africa
Prevent coups against friendly regimes"

In none of those examples would it be a case of Soviet forces needing to be landed in the face of opposition/combat and indeed what the OP was asking about seems like what your standard expeditionary force (whether it be American, BEF, Canadian, Australian, New Zealander, South African, Indian, French, Brazilian or Cuban (to Angola), ) would be expected to do.

The requirement that such a force needs to be landed in the face of an opposing force is, as noted before, not the usual historical experience of expeditionary forces especially after 1900 (the various amphibious landings in the World Wars being the bulk of instances where such landings were opposed). And more often than not the landings were with host nation support or it opposed they were opposed by forces noticeably inferior in numbers, experience, organization's or armaments or some combination of such (eg Grenada). Again the opposed landings in the World Wars (a period of 10 years out of the entire century) was the period where this wasn't the case. So in essence what you have been asking for is something very different from the OP - the ability of the Soviet Union to conduct opposed landings in a World War type situation, not just to help allies in localized conflicts.

The Falklands example is the only other one besides Grenada that I can think of with opposed landings and combat (I don't think even Lebanon in 1985 counts as there was some kind of local acquiescence at least by some factions in Lebanon).

But then that's still quite different from the OP as the UK wasn't landing forces to support an ally in a localized conflict but was landing forces in a straight up conflict over British territory (and even here the Falklands population was entirely pro-British so even though the Argentine military forces opposed the British, any British force that landed on the islands would quickly receive local support which would be invaluable). The USSR didn't have overseas colonial territories so this kind of fight would simply just not occur
 
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Not even sure I would count the Inchon landings given that the US had Japan as a staging base and the Pusan Pocket in southern Korea to provide some amount of support in terms of air cover for the landings.



Well actually your description of Canada sounds very much in line with what the OP was looking for.

Look back on the the OP and we see:

"Goal is to provide some support for their allies in localized conflicts like
Angola civil war
Libya vs Egypt late 70s
South yemen
Horn of africa
Prevent coups against friendly regimes"

In none of those examples would it be a case of Soviet forces needing to be landed in the face of opposition/combat and indeed what the OP was asking about seems like what your standard expeditionary force (whether it be American, BEF, Canadian, Australian, New Zealander, South African, Indian, French, Brazilian or Cuban (to Angola), ) would be expected to do.

The requirement that such a force needs to be landed in the face of an opposing force is, as noted before, not the usual historical experience of expeditionary forces especially after 1900 (the various amphibious landings in the World Wars being the bulk of instances where such landings were opposed). And more often than not the landings were with host nation support or it opposed they were opposed by forces noticeably inferior in numbers, experience, organization's or armaments or some combination of such (eg Grenada). Again the opposed landings in the World Wars (a period of 10 years out of the entire century) was the period where this wasn't the case. So in essence what you have been asking for is something very different from the OP - the ability of the Soviet Union to conduct opposed landings in a World War type situation, not just to help allies in localized conflicts.

The Falklands example is the only other one besides Grenada that I can think of with opposed landings and combat (I don't think even Lebanon in 1985 counts as there was some kind of local acquiescence at least by some factions in Lebanon).

But then that's still quite different from the OP as the UK wasn't landing forces to support an ally in a localized conflict but was landing forces in a straight up conflict over British territory (and even here the Falklands population was entirely pro-British so even though the Argentine military forces opposed the British, any British force that landed on the islands would quickly receive local support which would be invaluable). The USSR didn't have overseas colonial territories so this kind of fight would simply just not occur
So in essence the Soviets had at least the same ability of other first world nations such as Canada to deploy forces overseas in a permissive environment (ie. A friendly port to land in and no interdiction of the lines of communications back to the home land.)

The limits would have been how many units the Soviets wanted to deploy and how much civilian and military shipping could have been made avaliable for this task (along with port capacity at the receving end.)

That sounds about right to me :)
 
The Falklands example is the only other one besides Grenada that I can think of with opposed landings and combat (I don't think even Lebanon in 1985 counts as there was some kind of local acquiescence at least by some factions in Lebanon).
I think the landing at Inchon counts. It was opposed, and the local allies were still bottled up in Pusan (on the other side of the county).
 
If you are deploying forces in a "permissive" environment, you can use civilian airliners to fly troops and regular merchant ships to provide supplies augmenting whatever "grey" assets you have. As the "permission" decreases this becomes more problematic. The issue with the Soviet Navy was that it had decent shooters, but really minimal "fleet train". Basically most Soviet naval vessels except for the nuclear powered ones had short legs and living conditions on board were not set up for long cruises (much like the Hochseeflotte of the Kaiser's navy). The amphibious component of the Soviet Navy was designed for amphibious warfare in the Baltic and against Norway.

As far as host nation support, in essence there is always host nation "support" unless you are invading an atoll. Back in the old days this was looting or confiscation, or as Napoleon said making war pay for war. Some host nation support is convenience like getting hot chow instead of MREs, some is the folks who run the port - operate the cranes, are pilots bringing ships in etc. In a permissive environment, the authorities are inviting you in, in a conflict your allies are inviting you in, invading enemy territory you need to bring a lot more to the game of course you can get "host nation support" by offering food for work as opposed to lead for no work.
 
Again the opposed landings in the World Wars (a period of 10 years out of the entire century) was the period where this wasn't the case.

Well, even in the case of the World Wars most of the amphibious operations there were launched from a relatively nearby location, even if just as a stop-over point for replenishment. D-Day was based out of Britain. Gallipoli was based out of Egypt. The Japanese conquest of Southeast Asia and the Philippines was based from occupied Vietnam. And the whole point of the Pacific island hopping campaign was that each captured island served as a base from which to capture another island somewhat further in until finally Japan itself was within reach. The only case of a "pure" trans-oceanic amphibious assault I can recall was Operation Torch, with the American forces coming straight out of the Eastern Seaboard and the British forces coming straight from the home isles. That sole exception indicates that while a proximate base isn't a absolute requirement for sustainment of a amphibious assault force, it's pretty much one step removed from it.
 
I think the landing at Inchon counts. It was opposed, and the local allies were still bottled up in Pusan (on the other side of the county).

I'm not so sure, specifically because part of the Inchon landing taskforce came from the Pusan Pocket:

https://weaponsandwarfare.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/smith-map-inchon-task-force.jpg

smith-map-inchon-task-force.jpg


So strictly speaking this isn't like Grenada or the Falklands, because at least part of the landings were conducted with host nation support (as Blue cat outlined it and had as a requirement) since the ROK still survived in the Pusan Pocket and the Pocket itself provided a staging area for further attacks against enemy forces within the same country.

I'm inclined to agree that it counts as an expeditionary force doing an opposed landing, but it cannot fully count as an expeditionary force doing an opposed landing without host nation support (or as Blue cat directly said "With the likely exception of the Inchon landings I can't think of any post ww2 US operations that involved divisional sized combat operations without host nation support." and "actually land forces in the face of opposition and sustain them during combat without a near by friendly port"). The 1958 Lebanon landings definitely couldn't count since it was the Lebanese President himself who first called on American assistance and that should be the very epitome of host nation support.

Really and truly the only ones I can think of which clearly fit the bill in the Cold War era as Blue cat described it would be Grenada in 1983 and the Falkland Islands in 1982 (coincidentally they were only about year and change apart) and maybe the Anglo-French landings at Suez in 1956. In none of those cases though did the expeditionary forces face any really significant threat of "interdiction of the lines of communications back to the home land" as Grenada, Argentina and Egypt were in no position to do that with respect to the United States, United Kingdom and France.

What these examples also show is that mostly such landings seem to occur where the landing power is pretty much assured of victory because of it's massive military superiority over the territory where the landing is taking place (the only point where this might have been a much closer run affair was the Falklands).


Basically the Soviet Union pretty much did have expeditionary force capability as the OP was asking about (as Obsessed Nuker noted) which suited its purposes just fine (they just didn't seem to really need to use it in most of the situations described), and any ability to land forces straight into combat in an opposed landing without a nearby friendly port and with the possibility of interdiction of the lines of communication back to the home land was about as useful as the ability of the US or China to land their armed forces on another (uninhabited) planet in another galaxy (which was totally uninhabited) and as noted previously by Obsessed Nuker with that kind of definition ("ability to land forces straight into combat in an opposed landing without host nation support/a nearby friendly port and.....with the possibility of interdiction of the lines of communication back to the home land") not even the US, UK or France would qualify as having a proven expeditionary force capability in the Cold War era since none of them had to face that kind of situation during the Cold War (and arguably even in the World Wars as Allied naval superiority by 1942 meant the Torch landings were probably safer than the interdiction environment implicit in Blue cat's original requirements).

It would be a serious waste of money for the USSR (even to such people who were renowned for wasting money as some in the Soviet politburo) since there wouldn't really be a conceivable situation where the Soviets might want to land division-sized forces half a world away directly from the USSR in the face of enemy interdiction outside of a World War scenario (at which point nuclear weapons come into the equation making such a landing likely unnecessary anyway). And in situations outside of a World War scenario it would likely be against a much weaker opponent (like what happened in the US vs. Grenada, and UK/France vs. Egypt) or at least one which had basically no capability of striking the USSR directly (as in the case of the UK vs. Argentina, where British warplanes could conceivably have bombed Argentina (and the government appeared to consider this as an option as well as the possibility of landing in southern Argentina) whereas Argentina's ability to send a bomber to hit a target in London was essentially zilch) in any kind of retaliatory move.
 
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I'm not so sure, specifically because part of the Inchon landing taskforce came from the Pusan Pocket:

https://weaponsandwarfare.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/smith-map-inchon-task-force.jpg

smith-map-inchon-task-force.jpg


So strictly speaking this isn't like Grenada or the Falklands, because at least part of the landings were conducted with host nation support (as Blue cat outlined it and had as a requirement) since the ROK still survived in the Pusan Pocket and the Pocket itself provided a staging area for further attacks against enemy forces within the same country.

I'm inclined to agree that it counts as an expeditionary force doing an opposed landing, but it cannot fully count as an expeditionary force doing an opposed landing without host nation support (or as Blue cat directly said "With the likely exception of the Inchon landings I can't think of any post ww2 US operations that involved divisional sized combat operations without host nation support." and "actually land forces in the face of opposition and sustain them during combat without a near by friendly port"). The 1958 Lebanon landings definitely couldn't count since it was the Lebanese President himself who first called on American assistance and that should be the very epitome of host nation support.

Really and truly the only ones I can think of which clearly fit the bill in the Cold War era as Blue cat described it would be Grenada in 1983 and the Falkland Islands in 1982 (coincidentally they were only about year and change apart) and maybe the Anglo-French landings at Suez in 1956. In none of those cases though did the expeditionary forces face any really significant threat of "interdiction of the lines of communications back to the home land" as Grenada, Argentina and Egypt were in no position to do that with respect to the United States, United Kingdom and France.

What these examples also show is that mostly such landings seem to occur where the landing power is pretty much assured of victory because of it's massive military superiority over the territory where the landing is taking place (the only point where this might have been a much closer run affair was the Falklands).


Basically the Soviet Union pretty much did have expeditionary force capability as the OP was asking about (as Obsessed Nuker noted) which suited its purposes just fine (they just didn't seem to really need to use it in most of the situations described), and any ability to land forces straight into combat in an opposed landing without a nearby friendly port and with the possibility of interdiction of the lines of communication back to the home land was about as useful as the ability of the US or China to land their armed forces on another (uninhabited) planet in another galaxy (which was totally uninhabited) and as noted previously by Obsessed Nuker with that kind of definition ("ability to land forces straight into combat in an opposed landing without host nation support/a nearby friendly port and.....with the possibility of interdiction of the lines of communication back to the home land") not even the US, UK or France would qualify as having a proven expeditionary force capability in the Cold War era since none of them had to face that kind of situation during the Cold War (and arguably even in the World Wars as Allied naval superiority by 1942 meant the Torch landings were probably safer than the interdiction environment implicit in Blue cat's original requirements).

It would be a serious waste of money for the USSR (even to such people who were renowned for wasting money as some in the Soviet politburo) since there wouldn't really be a conceivable situation where the Soviets might want to land division-sized forces half a world away directly from the USSR in the face of enemy interdiction outside of a World War scenario (at which point nuclear weapons come into the equation making such a landing likely unnecessary anyway). And in situations outside of a World War scenario it would likely be against a much weaker opponent (like what happened in the US vs. Grenada, and UK/France vs. Egypt) or at least one which had basically no capability of striking the USSR directly (as in the case of the UK vs. Argentina, where British warplanes could conceivably have bombed Argentina (and the government appeared to consider this as an option as well as the possibility of landing in southern Argentina) whereas Argentina's ability to send a bomber to hit a target in London was essentially zilch) in any kind of retaliatory move.
A few comments:

- I thought about including the Falklands as an example of post world war 2 divisional landings but I didn't think they were truly divisional in size. Perhaps they were more or less divisional in size and should be on the list ? They were a long distance away from a friendly port (Ascension Island ?) and the operation was conducted in the face of considerable opposition. Other than the Vulcan bomber, Nimrod and I believe a handful of C130 sorties all the air support was flown from the RN carriers.

-The Suez landings should likely be on the list as well although I believe the UK flew sorties from Cypress in support, but they also had their own air craft carriers providing support as well.

In the case of Inchon and perhaps Lebanon in 1958 I'm not sure how relevant it is that the landings were being conducted on the territory of a country that had requested them. In the case of Korea they had more or less been largely over run by North Korea and it is unclear to me how much help they were able to provide at Inchon. I'm less clear about the situation in Lebanon in 1958.

In any event to recap some prior posts of mine in this thread.. In my view many first world militaries should be able to send a portion of their military "over seas" given a permissive environment and the political will to do so. Some will be better at this than others (details such as the ability to provide logistic support away from their usual bases, and many other factors come into play.)

Some smaller nations who had little or no direct military threat to their home lands, yet wanted to do their part in the Cold War (ie Canada) also maintained significant portions of their military overseas during the Cold War and on paper at least had plans to send additional units overseas if needed.

The ability to do this with little or no help in an un permissive environment is what separates super powers from the others.
 
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what about their capability against non-NATO opponents like Iran, egypt, pakistan etc , will they be able sustain hostile "forced entry" operations against them ?
1) Egypt: Possibly
2) Iran, hell yes.
3) Pakistan. Awful terrian. Plus from the mid 1980's, nukes.
 
The ability to do this with little or no help in an un permissive enviornment is what separates super powers from the others.
I think the ability to conduct opposed landings is a bigger issue than the ability to do so without nearby allies. As any superpower worth the title can use an injection of cash and hardware to materialize an allied government on the spot.

On the subject of the USSR's forced entry capabilities, if the USSR had been able to send its intended force to Syria, could it have sent a force from Tartus to land in Galilee? Could it then sustain that force as it made the short run to the Jordanian border, thereby encircling the IDF's forces on the Syrian front?
 
The Soviets were kinda planning something like. I could imagine an expeditionary force centred around a pair of Roupucha class LST's and a Ivan Rogov class ship, escorted by a Kirov class CBGN, Slava class cruiser and other ships, probably including a Kiev class ship.
 
The Soviets were kinda planning something like. I could imagine an expeditionary force centred around a pair of Roupucha class LST's and a Ivan Rogov class ship, escorted by a Kirov class CBGN, Slava class cruiser and other ships, probably including a Kiev class ship.
How much of that equipment was in service in 1973 ??
 
A few comments:

- I thought about including the Falklands as an example of post world war 2 divisional landings but I didn't think they were truly divisional in size. Perhaps they were more or less divisional in size and should be on the list ? They were a long distance away from a friendly port (Ascension Island ?) and the operation was conducted in the face of considerable opposition. Other than the Vulcan bomber, Nimrod and I believe a handful of C130 sorties all the air support was flown from the RN carriers.

-The Suez landings should likely be on the list as well although I believe the UK flew sorties from Cypress in support, but they also had their own air craft carriers providing support as well.

In the case of Inchon and perhaps Lebanon in 1958 I'm not sure how relevant it is that the landings were being conducted on the territory of a country that had requested them. In the case of Korea they had more or less been largely over run by North Korea and it is unclear to me how much help they were able to provide at Inchon. I'm less clear about the situation in Lebanon in 1958.

In any event to recap some prior posts of mine in this thread.. In my view many first world militaries should be able to send a portion of their military "over seas" given a permissive environment and the political will to do so. Some will be better at this than others (details such as the ability to provide logistic support away from their usual bases, and many other factors come into play.)

Some smaller nations who had little or no direct military threat to their home lands, yet wanted to do their part in the Cold War (ie Canada) also maintained significant portions of their military overseas during the Cold War and on paper at least had plans to send additional units overseas if needed.

The ability to do this with little or no help in an un permissive environment is what separates super powers from the others.
Non Great power expeditionary operations since 1945.
1) Cuba in Angola. Used commercial aircraft and merchantmen. Pretty impressive.
2) Pakistani support to King Hussain versus PLO in 1970. Already had troops in country as part of a training mission. Host government asked for help and these guys were reinforced. Both from forces in Saudi Arabia and back home.
3) Indian operation in the Maledives in 1988, Operation Cactus. A hop and a skip across.

So, either have friendly hosts or be literally next door. Or have zilch opposition?
 
Non Great power expeditionary operations since 1945.
1) Cuba in Angola. Used commercial aircraft and merchantmen. Pretty impressive.
2) Pakistani support to King Hussain versus PLO in 1970. Already had troops in country as part of a training mission. Host government asked for help and these guys were reinforced. Both from forces in Saudi Arabia and back home.
3) Indian operation in the Maledives in 1988, Operation Cactus. A hop and a skip across.

So, either have friendly hosts or be literally next door. Or have zilch opposition?
A number of non great power nations also sent sizeable forces to Korea and Vietnam.

There are probably other examples as well.

Edit to add:
It occurs to me that some of the UN peace keeping operations should also make the list.


Smaller Countries such as Canada, Australia, Pakistan, Cuba and no doubt others seem to be able to deploy forces overseas without to many issues in a variety of settings.
 
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Khanzeer

Banned
1) Egypt: Possibly
2) Iran, hell yes.
3) Pakistan. Awful terrian. Plus from the mid 1980's, nukes.
Isnt the terrain in Iran pretty awful too ? Maybe its possible in the Caspian

If a squadron of soviet SSN can sink most of the Egyptian navy then I guess its possible

Pakistan navy is minuscule now but in 80s had harpoon and many new ships on lease but its airforce is considerable in the 80s
 
Isnt the terrain in Iran pretty awful too ? Maybe its possible in the Caspian

If a squadron of soviet SSN can sink most of the Egyptian navy then I guess its possible

Pakistan navy is minuscule now but in 80s had harpoon and many new ships on lease but its airforce is considerable in the 80s
There is no USSR Pakistan scenario that involves any significant naval forces.
 
what about their capability against non-NATO opponents like Iran, egypt, pakistan etc , will they be able sustain hostile "forced entry" operations against them ?

For Iran I'm pretty sure they'd just come from the north where they had a land border, with a couple divisions to armies worth of tanks, depending on what the goal was exactly. No need to fuck around with an expeditionary force.
 
Anybody, literally anybody, can send an "expeditionary force" anywhere in a permissive environment. You just need the cash to charter merchant ships over and above what you control, and to charter aircraft to move troops. When you are not landing forces and equipment at a port or a large airport, even if nobody is shooting at you, that's when things begin to get sticky. Now you need to supply your force over the beach +/- airdrops and it becomes a lot more difficult. Regular merchant ships and standard passenger aircraft have limited uses now. Have to worry about naval or air forces that don't want you to deliver supplies, difficulty goes way up.
 
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