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What If: A World Frozen In The Cold War


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Well before the Reaganauts began their supposed arms race that 'defeated' the USSR [see comic books]

 

I've read the original budget summaries going way back when; since the University of Maryland College Park is a Federal Depository Library -- Carter's last Budget Summary (FY1981) had this line regarding F-15 Eagle production:

 

"Procurement funding of the total force of 729 F-15s is expected to be completed in FY1983."

 

Come Ronald von Reagan, F-15 production continues well past that date, with the F-15 still being proposed for funding in FY1989, the last Reagan Budget.

 

EDIT: Or was the last Carter Budget FY82 and the last Reagan Budget FY90? Need help from true Government budget affinicadios...

Edited by MKSheppard
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Banshee's thread.....what say you.....Carter 2nd term? Or Reagan? Carter may have got himself a 2nd term with Eagle Claw carried off, even messily. OK, a little messily. A bloodbath would be as bad as Desert One. Of course the Islamic Republic may have found itself in a position to have to turn to Moscow for help....which would have been a complete disaster as the Soviets would have full access to all the goodies in Mehrabad, TOWs, AH-1Js, HAWKs, the delivered but semi complete ADGE etc. The US sure gets screwed over....an extra serving of Carter and loss of advanced tech to the Sovs. Lipetsk as Groom Lake...kinda cool.

 

With Carter in place....would you have Congressmen sneaking into Afghanistan to make deals with the mujahideen and providing them with the means by which to neutralize the Soviet air power?

Edited by Simon Tan
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There was much liberated for study purposes. Some of the items are pretty damned amazing. The question is whether a 2nd term Carter admin would be aggressive in Afghanistan as Reagan? The decision to introduce the Stinger and provide the skills to use them was undeniably provocative. These and other capabilities provided in a clandestine manner turned the Mujahideen fortunes around as they were getting hammered by increasingly aggressive and effective soviet fixed and rotary wing air support. They brought in Egyptian SA-7s first and then Chinese copies but they did not have the desired effect so they decided to supply the Stinger.

 

Simon

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Banshee's thread.....what say you.....Carter 2nd term? Or Reagan? Carter may have got himself a 2nd term with Eagle Claw carried off, even messily. OK, a little messily. A bloodbath would be as bad as Desert One. Of course the Islamic Republic may have found itself in a position to have to turn to Moscow for help....which would have been a complete disaster as the Soviets would have full access to all the goodies in Mehrabad, TOWs, AH-1Js, HAWKs, the delivered but semi complete ADGE etc. The US sure gets screwed over....an extra serving of Carter and loss of advanced tech to the Sovs. Lipetsk as Groom Lake...kinda cool.

 

 

At the time the chief desginer of Phazotron was a CIA agent.

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Again, the USSR knows the West is not coming; the KGB chief is a Politburo member, then replaces Breshnev.

 

True, but Andropov also had his ghosts haunt him, remember he was ambassador in Hungary in 1956 and was one of the hardliners that wanted to quash the Prague spring, definitely a supporter of intervention in Afghanistan, as well as a devoted prosecutor of human rights activists. He was the one that initiated the RYAN program in which KGB stations were to be on alert for a Western first strike.

 

The man was quite paranoid, specially as Reagan kept making menacing noises, and he knew the Soviet regime had feet of clay, so he clearly was worried about the West, plus Marshal Ogarkov was making noise about falling behind the West in military technology.

 

Running the KGB can only be a paranoid pursuit. However, Andropov apparently had serious second thoughts about Afghanistan, was looking for a way out, maybe even just a decent interval as finally obtained.

 

He also had to worry about Ogarkov and whoever might be behind him, considering that the defense economy and force levels were going to change as a given

 

Europe was worried about the strange noises RR made as well.

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The Tianamen Square Chinese solution as opposed to say the Shenzen Special Economic Zone Chinese solution. Or the One Country Two systems Chinese solution? Sounds like the previous Korean Sunshine policy.

Is the SED capable of reinventing itself and by extension the GDR? Assuming the Soviets realize that Honecker is out of step with the Neo-NEP policy, do they have the means by which to retire the old guard in favor of new blood more in line with Moscow's needs? Lets assume they do, by hook and crook and they get the changes they want to enable the 'Austrian solution'. And that the US acquiesces to the German request to kindly go home now, thank you for everything.

The GDR survives, fueled by Special Economic Zones where German companies pay little tax and can tap an affordable manpower pool. Indeed, between the SEZs and the extortion payments from Bonn, the GDR becomes the Miracle on the Elbe and far from losing Germans, the GDR becomes the destination of a veritable flood of guest workers from the Warpac. The money that went to the EU periphery winds up in the GDR, thus assuring regime survival. Comrade Krenz is hailed as the German Deng.

In this case, the Soviets would probably take advantage by selling the GDR lots and lots of 'good stuff' for cold hard DMs. You could literally have a situation where the GDR is actually keeping one of the tank production centers alive in lean times inside the Soviet mil complex. It would suit the cash rich, low population, still slightly paranoid GDR to max out their combat potential absent a GSFG. Possibly some chronically understrength units intended to be surreptitiously REFORGERed by air and rail transfer of certain identical Soviet units. The 'inactive' divisions in your list.

 

I would expect the LaSK to be heavier, with more PzDiv and less MotSchutzDiv.

 

That's a Chinese Solution I didn't think of, but apropos of Dave mentioning Sweden:

 

East Germany relied on forced labor

 

Until 1989, many Western companies manufactured their goods in East Germany, where labor was cheap, and West Germany was eager to improve ties. But a lot of the production workers were forced laborers.

 

The allegations against furniture maker Ikea that East German laborers for years toiled for the Swedish group started the ball rolling. On May 2, the Swedish television network SVT broadcast a report that gave former prisoners in East Germany, formally the German Democratic Republic, a chance to speak. They said that up until the fall of the Berlin Wall in late 1989, Ikea furniture was made in East German jails, including by political prisoners. It was forced labor in East Germany for a Western company. This was not an isolated case, but a common practice from which many West German companies also benefited. All prisoners in East Germany were obliged to work.

 

"Prisoners were made to do the hardest and dirtiest work, the work that nobody else wanted to do, under the worst conditions," said Steffen Alisch of Forschungsverbund SED-Staat, a research institute at the Free University of Berlin that investigates East Germany. He says threatening letters about forced labor were sent to Ikea as early as 1984.

 

Ikea wants to find out whether the allegations are justified by examining material from the authorities in Berlin holding the archives of the Stasi, the East German secret police. A report by German public television station WDR in 2011 had shown that 65 production sites in East Germany worked for Ikea, forming an extensive trading relationship. The proportion of forced labor used in making Ikea furniture is, however, unknown.

 

Forced labor was planned into the system

 

What is known is that forced labor was a fixture of the business plan of the GDR. In the mid-1980s, it was estimated that there were around 20,000 in prison. The prisoners represented "only" one percent of industrial production, but the government "didn't want to do without it," said Hildigund Neubert, who is in charge of Stasi files in the state of Thuringia, in an interview with DW. "When amnesties were granted on the GDR's national day, there were complaints from the ministries. They were afraid that without these workers, the economic plan could not be fulfilled."

 

For their work, the prisoners were given only a pittance. But Neubert says the responsibilities of individual Western firms are difficult to determine. He thinks it would therefore be a welcome move if the companies that profited from the dirty business of the slave laborers compensated by making donations to foundations in restitution.

 

A complicated exchange

 

It was common knowledge that Western goods were produced in the GDR. But the people in both German states knew only part of the story. Western companies benefited from the low wages in the GDR, while the West German government had a political interest in trade relations in pursuit of its policy of "change through rapprochement."

 

East Germany saw exports to the West as an opportunity to obtain the hard currency it increasingly needed. It had cooperation agreements with Sweden and Japan. "With [West] Germany, that would have been impossible," said Maria Haendcke-Hoppe-Arndt, an economist and former employee of the Stasi documentation authorities. East Germany wanted to avoid any official connection with West Germany.

 

That's why the "exchange" took place via the complicated indirect route described by Haendcke-Hoppe-Arndt: "If, for example, the mail-order house Quelle wanted 10,000 washing machines, this was recorded in the Central Planning Commission, and was then passed on to the relevant ministry and from there to the Foreign Trade Organization, which did not produce anything, but was solely responsible for the sale. There '10,000 washing machines' ended up in the export plan without the name 'Quelle' appearing."

 

[...]

 

Secret deals

 

In addition to these highly bureaucratic transactions, there was an area of ​​trade relations that is largely unknown. In 1966, a special "Department for Commercial Coordination" was established in the Ministry of Foreign Trade. Its director was Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski, who became Minister for Foreign Trade in 1975. He became famous in 1983 for negotiating a line of credit for the GDR in the billions of dollars with then-Bavarian Premier Franz Josef Strauss. His department, known as KoKo for short, was responsible for procuring hard currency by any and all means. In 1976, the department was spun off and became one of the most powerful institutions in the country. What exactly KoKo did to get Western money, Worst says, is "a major research area for the future."

 

http://www.dw.de/dw/...5932840,00.html

 

I'm certain the greedy both in the East and the West will keep the system ticking over as long as the peasants are not revolting.

 

The Krenz cabal actually paid an advance visit to Gorbachev to inform him of their plans to remove Honecker, to which he wished them good luck. I can't see an Austrian solution under any circumstances not including German reunification however; again, you're requiring consent of both German governments plus the four Allied Powers. An SPD government may have run with a Soviet proposal for mutual allied withdrawl, but it would have been a big leap even for them (as the Greek example shows, it's easy for opposition leaders to be vocal about leaving NATO, but once they become the government they tend to change their tune - if not out of national interest, then for calculating possible repercussions in the next elections); and I can't see either of the Western Powers going easily too, least of all from Berlin.

 

I care little about whether a butterfly flaps its wings so there is no sandstorm enroute to Desert One or John Hinckley aims a little better; both are are easily imagined, and I prefer the subtle causality changes as opposed to full-blown deus ex machina deployments.

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Running the KGB can only be a paranoid pursuit. However, Andropov apparently had serious second thoughts about Afghanistan, was looking for a way out, maybe even just a decent interval as finally obtained.

 

He would have had to try a lot harder to get out in his lifetime though, even assuming less American engagement under Carter (which I agree is not certain, since Reagan built upon the activities under Carter); a clean victory seems unlikely given Pakistani support, and less effective resistance might also have lessened the urge to withdraw. I still think we would have to keep the Soviets out of Afghanistan altogether, since so much depended on it; not just the direct human and material cost, but also the general harderning of mutual relations, the cancellation of the US-Soviet wheat deal and the reinstatement of draft registration done by Carter in reaction, the latter also costing him votes and thus contributing to his defeat in 1980.

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Wait....small causality changes but no deus ex machina? Yet the Soviets decide to just watch their client state fall apart due to internal conflict amongst the Afghan bolsheviks? I don't think Afghanistan can be wished away. The revolution there was falling apart and the reactionaries were making strides forward all over the country. Reading the Soviet accounts, you see the inability to understand the intransigence of the Afghan peasant to embrace the obvious benefits and joyjoy of Socialism and the frustration it creates. Seems to be a recurring theme.

The Soviets did not want to get involved in fighting the Mujahideen. They wanted to surgically fix the revolution and set it back on the path to success. Quite Rumsfeldy in that regard.Only the DRA....was not able.

Pakistani support of the Mujahideen is difficult to wish away too. Zia and his adherents were ideologically and pragmatically bound to back the Muj for many domestic and foreign reasons. You only get to tweak how much US involvement occurs.

 

The forced labor thing shows the structural weaknesses inherent to the GDR and the ossified Soviet thinking. This given the known limitations of forced labor from the preceding administration. How did the GDR teach WWII? Red tinted glasses could produce some very unusual distortions.

 

Fortunately, whatever happens...a KGB man from Leningrad becomes Secretary General/President of the SSSR/Russia.

Edited by Simon Tan
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Deus ex machina in the sense of "Woodward and Bernstein fatally crash their cars into each other", "Breshnev's plane pancakes on approach" and/or "Andropov is visited by the Ghost of Communism". I realize we won't avoid Afghanistan without some major intervention of higher powers, but I'd like to keep that as minimal as possible. Hence my sympathy for a Gorbachev who rises as before, but keeps the Pact together: Since he's still alive, no need for conjectural orders of succession, and ex-KGB Colonel Putin can shoot his action movies.

 

Let's return to the Iranian option for a moment: A dithering politburo delays decision on intervention for some more months. Meanwhile, Eagle Claw goes down, and whether a full success or not, major combat occurs in Tehran. The Soviets, whatever ulterior motives they wanted to pursue in Afghanistan - quelling the rise of Islamism close to their borders, thrusting South towards the Indian Ocean - see those much better served by invading Iran, creating a buffer zone of puppet states in the Kurdish, Azeri and Turkmen areas to the left and right and maybe on the southern shore of the Caspian Sea on the pretext of protecting themselves against American agression, citing their right to intervention under the 1921 Soviet-Iranian Teaty unilaterally abrogated by the mullahs in November 1979 (Saddam will likely take the opportunity to bite into Khuzestan a couple months early).

 

Absent the Afghanistan invasion, the Carter Doctrine is not yet in place and there are no significant US military capabilities in the Gulf. Of course Carter will have to react, but he can hardly fight the Soviets (and Iraqis) alongside the Iranians, nor vice versa. While demonstrating toughness with Eagle Claw, by the same token he has now drawn the Soviets into dangerous proximity to the waters and oil of the Persian Gulf. Now what?

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Iran is a much more ambitious undertaking, even with Saddam's collusion. I would suggest that it would be like Afghanistan on steroids. The Iraqis simply could not take and hold much more than Khuzestan so the Soviets would still be in an imbroglio, and the DRA would still be falling apart.

 

A successful Eagle Claw would be a loss of face and prestige for the parties allied to the Imam and while weakened, they really did not have any internal competitors, religious or secular. The effect of the invasion would be exactly the same as the Iran-Iraq War. it would galvanize the public and rally them around the leadership, which inevitably meant the Imam. If we take the Hezb-e-Tudeh Iran as the classic Marxist cat's paw and they request intervention on behalf of the people of Iran, they still make up a small fraction of the revolution. Even if they take some of their leftist partners...it's still a limited base. They have little or no influence with the armed forces, especially the air force.

 

I believe that the pro-Imam factions would still purge the revolution (this is customary no?) The Soviets will be running this though Southern Direction and not just Turkestan MD and while they have more forces, they will be resisted by forces that had prepared for years exactly for this. I don't think the Iranians could hold but it would be a lot messier than motoring to Kabul. There would be time for the Revolution to eat itself.

 

Newly reelected President Carter has a massive headache. After the 'greatest rescue mission ever' leaves hundreds of dead Iranians, Iran has declared war on them. The USN is already massing in the Arabian Sea to resist Iranian threats to close the straits of Hormuz when the Soviet/Iraqi invasion changes everything.

The Iranians are collapsing and there is the very real possibility of the Soviets being in control of the main route of American oil imports. Teheran is not talking to Washington as they are busy with their purges. Perhaps the Iranian government in exile invites the US to save Iran from imminent disaster. They still have strong links with the military, especially the air force, which is performing heroically and embarrassing the hell out of the Soviets but they are too few.

They are amenable to any solution to save Iran while the idiots in Teheran bicker. Far from Teheran, a small core of IRIAFofficers agree to throw in the lot and risk their lives and those of their families with the government in Exile. They allow C-130s painted in IRIAF colors to fly in led by the heroes of Eagle Claw, SFOD-D who lead the operation to fly in the 82nd Airborne.

 

it's getting messy.......real messy. Can we just intervene in Afghanistan?

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I was thinking more of the KDP-I inviting not nationwide occupation, but creation of autonomous puppet states in a rerun of 1945/46 with no messy insurgency, to be defended merely on the outside while patiently waiting for the rest of the stepping stones towards the Gulf to fall; but looking about, I find no matching friendly base for the arguably even more important Azeris. In fact the latter supply key personnel for Tehran until today, including the current Supreme Leader. So yeah, probably a bad idea.

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For completeness sake, I´ve found a picture of the VT PLF 2.

 

 

**SNIP**

 

Speaking of images, there are none of our purported Marder 1A4 with GDD-A 35 mm turret since that was apparently just a proposal by Oerlikon, but I found one of a model of the Begleitpanzer 35 mm project which was considered as an alternative to the Begleitpanzer 57 mm mounting the Bofors naval gun, supposedly with the same turret, but including a HOT launcher.

 

More than that according to an article in IDR 2/1978

 

At the same time, Thyssen-Henschel and OerlikonBührle have been jointly investigating the possibility of replacing the Marder´s Rh 202 20 mm gun with a new, lighter Oerlikon35 mm cannon firing armour-piercing ammunition. On 30th November 1977, two converted Marders, one with an external 35 mm mount and the other with the new gun mounted internally, gave the first firing demonstrations to Army and Defense Ministry Procurement Department officials on the Meppen test range.

 

Also demonstrated for the first time was a functioning prototype of the Begleitpanzer 57 mm or 57 mm escort tank developed by Thyssen-Henschel and Bofors as a joint venture quite independently of the Marder firepower improvement program and based on the Marder chassis and Bofors 57 mm naval gun

 

Here is an image of the GDD-A turret with the external 35 mm mount, followed by a drawing showing how it would look mounted on Marder.

 

 

 

For competeness sake, here is the GDD-B turret (presumably the internal gun mount mentioned in the quote above) together with a suggestion how it would look mounted on Luchs.

 

 

 

I must admit that I have never come across the Begleitpanzer 35 mm, but here is a photo of the 57 mm version. It was intended to be able to fire either HOT or TOW missiles, both of which were in service with the Bundeswehr.

 

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Dave....I just want to intervene in Afghanistan to save the revolution there. It's simple, we go in, deal with Amin, put in Kamal and after a short time, we pull out. A nice neat little operation, home by May Day if we are lucky. Amin is the problem, he's strayed from proper Maxist-Leninist methodology which guarantees success. No, he's winging it.

At least we've nixed this Iranian operation in the bud. Let them duke it out with the Americans. BTW...that Operation Eagle Claw was awesome......we need to crank up Spetzgruppa Alpha after they come back from Kabul.

 

Eagle Claw was super complicated and resembles one of those cunning IJN plans. Between trucking into Teheran to the forced entry into Manzariyeh airport. As it was, they never even got to the point where the bodycount could really go beserk. The abort came before the bodycount began.

 

How was the Begleitpanzers to be employed? Resembles a BMPT.

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Dave....I just want to intervene in Afghanistan to save the revolution there. It's simple, we go in, deal with Amin, put in Kamal and after a short time, we pull out. A nice neat little operation, home by May Day if we are lucky. ....

 

When have US forces ever done so???

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I take it he's speaking for the Soviets ... and I gather this was actually their original plan, AKA the historically proven Short Victorious War concept. Maybe they should have hired Donald Rumsfeld from G. D. Searle & Company to advise them how it's done properly.

 

I must admit that I have never come across the Begleitpanzer 35 mm, but here is a photo of the 57 mm version. It was intended to be able to fire either HOT or TOW missiles, both of which were in service with the Bundeswehr.

 

 

I never heard of the 35 mm variant either before I went in search of GDD-A turret pictures for my Marder 1A4 and found references to a book about Marder and all its variants, including this one. I knew of the GDD-B when I fell in love with the Luchs following our ride at Kummersdorf and was looking for ideas to give it more firepower ...

 

The Begleitpanzer of course was meant to lend heavier organic firepower to the infantry (at that time including the Panzergrenadiere, who would probably have gotten their cannon platoon back in their heavy companies, previously reduced to pure mortar companies). The Leopard 1A6 project followed the same idea. In reality, the Panzergrenadiere became part of the Panzertruppen under Heeresstruktur 5 and eventually got a platoon of five Jaguar tank destroyers instead (a step I haven't included in my alternate TO&E because of the Marder upgunning and I was worried - probably wrongly, given the introduction of Panther - there wouldn't be enough to go around for my larger number of brigades).

 

But Dave, since you volunteered to steer the discussion back towards more hands-on matters, maybe we should come to the toys of other players: Britain, France, Italy, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania? Now that 135/140/152 mm tank guns have appeared, how will they react? IFVs? Artillery? Aircraft? Ships?

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Thanks for orienting me, Banshee. The lines of this variant of BeglPz reminds me so much of the Panther of WWII, having recently returned from a climb over it at Littlefield's. The roadwheels are conventional of course but the sheer size and shape of the hull remain strikingly similar.

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Local toys planned to be introduced until 1995:

Army:

01. 2nd gen SACLOS ATGM “DruG”and "DruG-2" (basically Milan with longer range)

02. M-80A IFV with 30mm AC

03. Modernization of T-55

04. Modernization of M-84 MBT

05. M-90 Vihor MBT

06. 152mm NORA-C towed gun-howitzer with aux engine.

07. Self propelled 152mm NORA-B

08. Modernization of AT-3 Sagger

09. New disoposable AT weapon (120mm M90 "Strsljen")

10. New recoilless gun (120mm M91)

11. Improvement to 90mm M79 "Osa" AT weapon with tandem HEAT and FAE ammo.

12. 100mm APFSDS ammo

13. New 125mm APFSDS ammo (with France)

14. RAP and ICM 120m mortar ammo

15. 120mm lightweight mortar in towed and SP version

16. New 5.56mm weapons (M80 rifle, M82 SAW, M89 LMG)

17. Heavy engineeer vehicle/APC on T-55 chasis "Munja"

21. Short range ATGM "Bumbar"

22. Longe range (8km) laser guided ATGM "Meteor"

 

AF/AD:

01. "NA" multirole fighter jet (I have doubts that it would ever see daylight)

02. “Lasta” trainer

03. Self propelled 30mm twin AA with radar and laser targeting (by Marconi, same as on Marksman)

04. Modernization of M-53/59 SPAA with above FCS

06. 40mm ”AS-83” AAG (basiclz high capacity high sustained RoF Bofors L/70) - towed

07. 40mm ”AS-83” AAG - self propeled

08. Strela-10M2J1 SP-SAM

09. Grom-2 AGM

10. Low level target detection szstem “Sonic”

11. New IFF

12. UAV

13. Domestic production of new shoulder fired SAM (SA-18) and mountings for vehicles

15. Observation and targeting radar for older AAGs

16. Modernization of existing SA-7 with new guidance from SA-18

17. Modernization of Gazelle helicopter with laser guided version of "Drug-2" ATGM

18. Gsh-23LU-J gun with 4500 rpm RoF and improved burst limiters

19. AGM-65/Grom-2 compatible TER

20. Improvement of Giraffe radar

 

Navy:

01. C-64 missile boat (improved "Koncar" class with Rbs-15 missiles)

02. S-26 mine sweeper

03. New family of naval mines

04. C-03 large patrol ship ("Kotor" class with Rbs-15)

05. B-73 Submarine with SSMs (adoptation of Rbs-15)

06. radar gun sights for coastal arty

 

+loads of logistics

Edited by bojan
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16. New 5.56mm weapons (M80 rifle, M82 SAW, M89 LMG)

 

Was Yugoslavia actually going to go to 5.56 mm for domestic use? I always thought those guns were meant for export only.

 

I take it nothing in your list actually ever materialized due to the war and subsequent breakup.

 

Some preliminary thoughts on other nations: With any luck, the quadripartite NPzK-140 would have been ready for introduction with Leopard 3 and M1A3 around the millenium. It's easy to see it being stuck on a slightly-delayed Lerclerc Mk 2, too, since that already has an autoloader. For the Brits: Challenger 3?

 

The latter can also upgrade Warrior along the Warrior 2000 proposal in the same timeframe. How soon could the CTA 40 have been available for upgunning if people had put their minds to it (paging Tony Williams)? Would we have seen an earlier replacement of Scimitar, likely by Stormer? Will the French still replace their AMX-10P with the VBCI wheeled deathtrap if the mission remains to defend France in Germany more so than in hot sandy places, or go with a tracked IFV similar to the Mars 15?

 

As everybody is upgunning its IFVs, will the Italians eventually put the 60 mm OTO turret on the VCC80? The Polish BWP 2000 also goes back to WP times, but will obviously not get Italian turrets in our scenario; maybe the one from the BMP-3 or a similar domestic product? I guess CV90 and ASCOD will emerge largely unchanged.

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...Was Yugoslavia actually going to go to 5.56 mm for domestic use? I always thought those guns were meant for export only.

Actually yes, long tests were run with Sweden in '80s to dicide on best round available. It was not high priority project but it was expected to arm all "special purpose units" (which locally included paras, military police and border guards) 1st, regular formations next. rearmament was expected to last until 1996-98.

 

I take it nothing in your list actually ever materialized due to the war and subsequent breakup.

Some did, by various post-breakup republics.

Modernization of T-55 - Slovenian M-55S was actually based on this, Israelis only provided 105mm guns and ERA.

Parts of T-55 modernization were used for overhaul of Serbian T-55 in '90s (MPG-780 powerpack).

Modernization of M-84 MBT - Slovenians modernized all of their to this standard, Croatians made 14 M-84A4 Snajper which are same thing but w/o LWRs.

One M-90 Vihor prototype was left in Croatia, one hull in Serbia. Croatian M-95 Degman is heavily based on this one.

30mm armed M-80A was produced in trial series and actually used in Bosnia (by both Serbs and Muslims).

Self propelled 152mm NORA-B was actually produced after all and is in use (Burma and Kenya each got 30), Bangladesh also ordered some but I am not sure if those are delivered yet.

120mm M90 "Strsljen" was prduced but production stopped in '90s.

Improvement to 90mm M79 "Osa" was actually produced, but is not in service (Croats were interested in FAE version for Afghan mission few years back).

100mm APFSDS ammo got finally introduced in 1999 (M98)

RAP and ICM 120mm mortar ammo - ICM was used in Bosnia, probably from initialy produced series. RAP is formally in service in Serbia.

Heavy engineeer vehicle/APC on T-55 chasis "Munja" - prototype exists.

Short range ATGM "Bumbar" - this was finally introduced this year (even if trial models were used since late '90s)

"Lasta” trainer - finally introduced and actually Iraq got 20 in 2010.

"DruG" got ditched as not enough improvement over Fagot (AT-4), multi-charge version was later ditched as not finished.

Self propelled 30mm twin AA with radar and laser targeting - single one was made but never outfitted with FCS/radar.

Strela-10M2J1 SP-SAM - 2 produced, still in use. Difference from standard Strela-10 was use of modified M-80A IFV chassis vs MTLB.

C-64 missile boat (improved "Koncar" class with Rbs-15 missiles) - Croats finished this one "Kralj Petar Kresimir" class.

Edited by bojan
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The Westward drift was on. The question is whether Yugoslavia will stay in one piece after Tito in a Cool War environment (with the Austrian model implemented in Eastern Europe and a withdrawl of US/UK forces. What you would see is a massive increase in US presence in the UK, especially of air assets.

 

Vladimir Putin becomes the Soviet action superstar of the 90s and goes on to become President. "Dosvedanya Berlina" is hailed on both sides of the Iron Curtain as a triumph of cinematographic culture with popular appeal. His 'reserve and dry wit' make him the Soviet Eastwood and Bronson leavened with a good dash of Van Damme and Norris. Mosfilm's decision to tap John Woo to direct "Goodbye Berlin" created a volatile mix of explosive action in sea of classical Russian tranquility.

Edited by Simon Tan
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I was thinking maybe we went about Afghanistan the wrong way. Instead of trying to shoehorn in people who would decide against intervention, why not simply remove the reason for it? Let's just say the Parcham and Khalq factions in the PDPA never yield to Moscow's pressure to make peace but keep fighting each other, the 1978 coup never materializes or fails, and Daoud can keep things together for a couple more years. If the PDPA still succeeds by maybe 1983, the situation goes sideways as before and they turn to Moscow for help, they're getting into the Andropov-Chernenko interregnum trying to fix conditions at home, and will likely be told to go hide and fuck themselves.

 

3 x 50-series, 6 x 60-series Heimatschutzbrigade

 

[...]

 

6 x 70-series, 3 x 80-series Heimatschutzbrigade

 

[...]

 

Those brigades are now pretty much regular mechanized formations with early 90s equipment, except the Panzergrenadier battalions have no mortar company as the M113s have long since reached the end of their service life; I ammended the TO&E of the Jäger battalions in the active divisions accordingly. This may compensate for the disbanding of two active divisions to some extent.

 

Building on this thought, I went a step further and created some actual homeguard divisions. It's not too big of a leap, since the possibility to assign TA brigades to NATO as backup forces always existed, and Heimatschutzbrigade 56, later 66, were actually earmarked as roundout brigades for 1. Gebirgsdivision.

 

Territorialkommando Schleswig Holstein

 

- Heimatschutzbrigade 61 (home defense role)

- Heimatschutzbrigade 71 (home defense role)

- Heimatschutzbrigade 91 (home defense role)

 

Territorialkommando Nord

 

Wehrbereichskommando II

 

- 1. Heimatschutzdivision (earmarked for I. Korps)

-- Heimatschutzbrigade 52

-- Heimatschutzbrigade 62

-- Heimatschutzbrigade 72

 

- Heimatschutzbrigade 92 (home defense role)

 

Wehrbereichskommando III

 

- 3. Heimatschutzdivision (earmarked for III. Korps)

-- Heimatschutzbrigade 53

-- Heimatschutzbrigade 63

-- Heimatschutzbrigade 73

 

- Heimatschutzbrigade 83 (home defense role)

- Heimatschutzbrigade 93 (home defense role)

 

Territorialkommando Süd

 

Wehrbereichskommando IV

 

- 2. Heimatschutzdivision (earmarked for II. Korps)

-- Heimatschutzbrigade 54

-- Heimatschutzbrigade 64

-- Heimatschutzbrigade 74

 

- Heimatschutzbrigade 84 (home defense role)

- Heimatschutzbrigade 94 (home defense role)

 

Wehrbereichskommando V

 

- Heimatschutzbrigade 65 (roundout brigade for 10. Panzerdivision)

- Heimatschutzbrigade 75 (home defense role)

- Heimatschutzbrigade 95 (home defense role)

 

Wehrbereichskommando VI

 

- Heimatschutzbrigade 66 (roundout brigade for 1. Gebirgsdivision)

- Heimatschutzbrigade 76 (home defense role)

- Heimatschutzbrigade 96 (home defense role)

 

Homeguard divisional troops:

 

- Artillerieregiment

-- HQ/HQ battery

-- SPH battalion (24 x M110)

-- rocket artillery battalion (24 x LARS)

 

- Sicherungsbataillon

-- HSS company

-- 3 x security company

 

2 x Jägerbataillon

-- HSS company

-- 3 x infantry company

-- heavy company (6 x 120 mm mortar)

 

- Panzeraufklärungsbataillon

-- HSS company (1 x Leopard 1A6, 2 x Luchs)

-- 3 x mixed armored recon company (9 x Leopard 1A6, 10 x Luchs each)

-- brigade scout company (24 x Luchs, one platoon for each brigade)

-- armored recon company (16 x Fuchs, six with RASIT radar)

 

- Flugabwehrbataillon

-- HSS battery

-- 4 x armored SPAAG battery (6 x Gepard each)

 

- Pionierbataillon

-- HSS company

-- 3 x engineer company

-- heavy engineer company

 

- Instandsetzungsbataillon

-- HSS company

-- 2 x vehicle maintenance company

-- electronics maintenance company

-- tank transporter company

 

- Nachschubbataillon

-- HSS company

-- 3 x supply company

-- transport company

 

- Fernmeldebataillon

-- HSS company

-- 2 x signals company

-- EW company (6 x Hummel ECM vehicle)

 

- Sanitätsbataillon

-- HSS company

-- 3 x medical company

Edited by BansheeOne
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Would they do that? it would be a dangerous signal to their other clients, especially the ones in Eastern Europe. Notice how the exactly the same the Afghan solution then and now. Afghanization with a promise of support. Najibullah was essentially in the same position as South Vietnam in 1975. If we dial out the US support or certainly dial it down to a token effort, the Mujahideen would be essentially the chronic PITA that the Taliban are. The Pakistanis are in fact the best thing Kabul has going, their propensity to divert resources to themselves will limit the full effect of Saudi monies. I posit that the Afghan imboglio will result in the same kind of result as the US is facing. Publicly removing combat forces but maintaining Spetznatz, MVD (police trainers..apparrently) and air assets to support DRA operations.

 

I believe that the impact of the Afghan experience will be greater as opposed to the cognitive dissonance that actually occurred. Lots more emphasis on Spetznatz, light infantry, choppers etc. as opposed to conventional warfare. (especially with the withdrawal from Eastern Europe). A lot of field expedient modifications and variants like the various E-models just vanished.

 

Imagine a Soviet SOCCOM, under the GRU complete with their own secret city in the middle of nowhere that happens to look like Anytown, USA or Somewhereburg, FRG.

 

I'm trying to imagine the alt-Cold War 2012 Trabant Two, built in cooperation with VW.

Edited by Simon Tan
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I still don't see a complete withdrawl from the satellites, not least because in the real world it brought its own economic problems. As part of the unification deal, Germany financed housing for the returning WGF soldiers, which was just not there - and to make it worse, those were people used to the relatively nice living standard in the DDR, so it had to be top-shelve by Soviet standards. I understand getting a DDR posting was considered winning the jackpot in the Soviet army, so you might actually consider the troops there somewhat of a stabilizing factor for force economics.

 

Good argument regarding models not evolving from the Afghanistan experience, though not a dealbreaker. The problem is I simply cannot imagine things there not devolving from the original plan of "we go in and kill Amin, secure the cities and key infrastructure, and afterwards merely serve as a backbone to the Afghan army winning over the insurgents, then pull out" - the Afghans just didn't play along. Do we win anything at all by postponing the war five years or so (other than, of course, helping Carter's reelection chances a little more because he won't reinstate draft registration)? The firepower increase is probably neglegible, but if Gorbachev is still the one to reverse course, obviously the quagmire is shortened by that amount of time.

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