Reds With Rockets: Difference between revisions

It is generally accepted that from c.1972 to end of the '80s, NATO would not have been able to defend Western Europe militarily from a Soviet assault without using [[Superior Firepower]]...although Soviet documents from the time seem to disagree. What's more, for much of this period tensions between the two powers were at a low, with the situation only escalating in the "Second Cold War", post-1979. By the post-Cold War era, conventional high technology weapons and equipment were being deployed which worked against the Soviets' large mechanized forces to the point that they were becoming a decided vulnerability.

 

* Strategic Rocket Forces - the people with [[Mnogo Nukes]], who controlled the USSR's intercontinental ballistic missiles. The name "Rocket" comes from the fact that the Russians, by and large, use the same word (''raketa'') to mean "missile" and "rocket"- which is also why this entry is called [[Reds with Rockets]].

* Ground Forces AKA The Red Army (or the Soviet Army after WWII, there were actually a lot of "armies", the Soviet equivalent to NATO "corps") - The people with Kalashnikovs. Had Mnogo Nukes in the form of tactical ballistic missiles and artillery. You wouldn't believe how many tactical (non-nuclear) rockets they had; some units in the past had more rockets than gun-style artillery.

* Spetsnaz ('''spet'''sialnogo '''naz'''nacheniya- "Special Purpose Units") - refers to a large collection of units, including Spetsnaz GRU (Glavnoje Razvedyvatel'noje Upravlenije - Main Intelligence Directorate), the KGB's counter-terrorist Alfa Group and internal security forces. Most of these groups still exist in some form among the [[Tricolours With Rusting Rockets|modern Russian military]]. Much of what is known about them comes from [[wikipedia:Viktor Suvorov|a controversial defector]].

 

 

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070929122422/http://world.guns.ru/rifle/rfl03-e.htm Mosin-Nagant] - actually entered service in XIX century, long before [[Red October]]. Designed by Captain Sergei Nosin and Belgian Léon Nagant, c.37 million were built. It may look outdated when compared with semi-auto rifles of 1930s, and it was, but it's also powerful and precise. Mosin-Nagant rifle (of another design branch) with iron sights only was [[Weapon of Choice]] of the most deadly sniper ever - [https://web.archive.org/web/20101219085353/http://mosinnagant.net/finland/simohayha.asp Simo Häyhä, "the White Death"]... and he ''has'' choice. During [[World War Two]], a sniper version was made.

 

 

 

As noted, fictional bad guys love to use Soviet weapons, even if they're not actually Soviet. This is rather [[Truth in Television]] for a number of reasons, especially for the AK-47 family:

(Speaking of advertising, Amnesty did a spoof shopping channel video with the host advertising the AK-47. It can be found on the DVD for ''[[Lord of War]]'')

 

 

The infamous Russian fighting vehicle; tough, hard look, nasty armor, not enough fuel to reach the front line. It has been said that everything the Soviets built, from tanks to washing machines, was built using three times more steel than it needed, because Stalin wanted to inflate the economic figures associated with steel consumption. True or not, Commie stuff looks tough and keeps going under adverse conditions, with plenty of spare parts to hand helping. Unless it is the Yak-38 "Forger".

The Soviet Union was really into military parades and flypasts- Moscow's airspace is barred from access totally except for them, frequently having nuclear-capable missiles going through Red Square on events like Victory Day (9 May - the end of the [[Great Patriotic War]] in Europe for Eastern Europe due to time zone differences). This tradition of parading hardware, which allowed Western analysts to look at new Soviet tech (although the Soviets didn't say what stuff was called), was discontinued in 1991, but resumed with [[Tricolours With Rusting Rockets|the Russian military]] in 2008.

 

 

It has to be remembered that the Soviet Union had a whole different view of war than NATO, or indeed that of Western-style armies which we find ourselves most familiar with.

* The Soviets placed a big reliance on land-based naval aviation, especially anti-ship bombers like the "Backfire". This was as part of their planned defence against a multiple U.S. carrier group attack via the Kola Peninsula and also in the Med. The Soviets had the problem that all their naval access routes to oceans required going past hostile states - Denmark, Turkey, Japan, Norway. However, this may not necessarily be a factor due if the Soviets wanted to keep the Americans ''out'' of their waters rather than bursting forth into the open seas.

 

 

The Soviet Union had a considerable chemical weapons programme, including such lovely stuff as VX nerve agent, although little information was available during the [[Cold War]]. The U.S. and USSR signed an agreement in 1990 to dismantle the stockpiles, a process that is still ongoing. An incapacitating agent, possibly [[wikipedia:KOLOKOL-1|KOLOKOL-1]], would later be used by Russian forces during the 2002 Moscow theatre siege, to disastrous effect.

Both of these programmes are popular sources of a [[Weapon of Mass Destruction]].

 

 

The female Soviet officer is cited in [[The Baroness]] and we note also the example of Major Anya Amasova from ''[[The Spy Who Loved Me]]'', although she's actually a KGB agent (and a bad [[Fake Russian]], but let's not quibble here). When the chips were down and the Nazis were at the Gates, the women chipped in. Women flew combat and the only two female aces in the world were both Soviet (a fact noted by an American character in ''[[Red Storm Rising]]'', mentally complaining that she's merely doing ferrying duty while the men were fighting, who then proceeds to become number three). 89 of them became Heroes Of The Soviet Union.

After the war, most left and it was rather hard for those who stayed. There were still a few there though. Svetlana Savitskaya, the second woman in space and the first to do a space walk, was a military test pilot.

 

 

As with any military, there were medals. Here are the more notable military ones (there were civilian ones as well- the USSR had three ranks of medals for ''having seven or more children''). Sadly a lot of these ended up being also given out like candy to any popular Communist (Brezhnev awarded himself ''four'' Heroes of the Soviet Union medals, which resulted in quite a few jokes). Many of these are retained by the modern Russian military. The medals Brezhnev gave himself were revoked, though.

* Order of Victory - Only 20 of these made. Awarded to the top Soviet generals of the [[Great Patriotic War]], as well as to Stalin and some foreign leaders. Montgomery and Eisenhower got one as well. Contains 174 diamonds (although those might be fake) and is worth a lot without the historical value of it.

 

 

Some members of the Soviet military become well-known names in the West, often because they wrote prolifically.

* Marshal of the Soviet Union '''Nikolai Ogarkov''': Serving as Chief of General Staff from 1977-1984, he was the man most responsible for reforming the Soviet Army into a force that was capable of winning a conventional war by the 1980s--through renewing emphasis on operational art and tactics, and developed the concept of the theater-strategic operation. Outside of Western military circles he is well known for being the spokesman following the KAL 007 incident.

 

 

During the [[Cold War]], [[Reds with Rockets]] were easily usable bad guys (often [[Mooks]] - they're positively churned through in a battle in ''[[The Living Daylights]]'') for Western media, although a few good ones could turn up (in an episode of ''[[MacGyver]]'', a Soviet soldier who Mac earlier spared lets him and two others leave Afghanistan). There are probably tonnes of Soviet and Russian examples with them as heroes.