Question about the Soviet collapse and aftermath.

[sojourner]

I was curious and thought I'd put it to the more knowledgable here.

In the aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse and disintegration, why didn't more of the bigger military items end up getting sold off instead of scrapped/abandoned? I would have thought that the new Russian government would have seen these items as a good source of income to get started with, yet here we are 20 years later with pictures of submarines and tanks rusting and disused.

 

[wissaboo]

I don't think they were very good quality compared to western ones.

 

[thestrangequark]

Let me preface this by saying that I don't know a lot about politics, and have only a public school knowledge of the collapse of the USSR (and what little I can remember of the event itself) and so my post may reek of ignorance. That being said, my first thought was that if I were the the government of a country newly formed from the shambles of a massive union, plagued by internal conflict and bordered by multiple potential enemy states (formerly of the union or no), the last thing I'd want to do is sell off my weapons and technology to those who might use them against me, even if I no longer have the means to use them myself.

 

[MANT!]

Some of those bigger items (nuclear subs and the like) were obsolete and dangerous with NO foreign buyer (not even India)

Most of the tanks left to rust were also obsolete as well..and tired "Category B reservist assets" also didn't have many foreign buyers after the ass-handing of Desert Storm..
Same with many of those trusty Mig-21s and Mig-23s.

Another problem was the lack of proper maintenance of those older assets adding to the cost of those assets on the International market.

The Russian Federation isn't as obsessed with the size of it's armed forces as the Soviet Union was..The Soviets kept many obsolete war machines to keep the huge size of it's armed forces, the Russian Federation's military is much more modern overall than the Soviet Union's ever was.

Now some of those assets, (an aircraft carrier and some other surface ships) were sold as they weren't considered too obsolete by potential buyers China and India.

 

[EmoBorg]

these are figures regarding the soviet armed forces in 1990 prior to the fall of the Soviet Union, from wikipedia.

In 1990, the Soviet Army possessed

• 55,000 Tanks. Including 4,000 T-80, 10,000 T-72, 9,700 T-64, 11,300 T-62, 19,000 T-54/55, and 1,000 PT-76
• 70,000 Armored Personnel Carriers. Including BTR-80, BTR-70, BTR-60, BTR-D, BTR-50, BTR-152, and MT-LB
• 24,000 Infantry Fighting Vehicles. Including BMP-1, BMP-2, BMP-3, BMD-1, BMD-2, and BMD-3
• 3,500 BRDM-2 and BRDM-1 reconnaissance vehicles.
• 33,000 Towed Artillery Pieces. Including 4,379 D-30, 1,175 M-46, 1,700 D-20, 598 2A65, 1,007 2A36, 857 D-1, 1,693 ML-20, 1,200 M-30, 478 B-4 Howitzers and D-74, D-48, D-44, T-12, and BS-3 Field/Anti-Tank Guns
• 9,000 Self-Propelled Howitzers. Including 2,751 2S1, 2,325 2S3, 507 2S5, 347 2S7, 430 2S4, 20 2S19, 108 SpGH DANA, ASU-85, and 2S9
• 8,000 Rocket Artillery. Including BM-21, 818 BM-27, 123 BM-30, 18 BM-24, TOS-1, BM-25, and BM-14 Multiple Rocket Launchers
• SS-1 Scud, SS-21, SS-23, and FROG-7 Tactical Ballistic Missiles
• 1,350 SA-4, 850 SA-6, 950 SA-8, 430 SA-9, 300 SA-11, 70 SA-12, 860 SA-13, 20 SA-15, 130 SA-19, ZSU-23-4, and ZSU-57-2 Army Air Defense Vehicles
• 12,000 Towed Anti-Aircraft Guns. Including ZU-23-2, ZPU-1/2/4, S-60, 72-K, 61-K, 52-K, and KS-19
• 4,300 Helicopters. Including 1,420 Mi-24, 600 Mi-2, 1,620 Mi-8, 290 Mi-17, 450 Mi-6, and 50 Mi-26

Soviet Air Defence Forces


2,410 interceptors = 210 Su-27 Flanker 850 MiG-23 Flogger 350 MiG-25 Foxbat 360 MiG-31 Foxhound 500 Su-15 Flagon 90 Yak-28 Firebar 50 Tu-128 Fiddler

AWACS aircraft = 7 Tupolev Tu-126 Moss 1 Beriev A-50 Mainstay

Surface to air missiles on strength in 1990 included:

1,400 S-25 Berkut - being replaced by the Almaz S-300 and expected to be replaced by the Almaz S-400 Triumf
2,400 Lavochkin S-75 Dvina 1,000 Isayev S-125 Neva\Pechora - 300+ sites, 2 or 4 missile launchers and rails 1,950 Almaz S-200 Angara\Vega\Dubna - 130 sites 1,700 Almaz S-300 - 85 sites, 15 more building ABM-1 Galosh Anti-Ballistic Missile, part of the A-35 missile defense system


Soviet Air Forces


205 strategic bombers = 160 Tupolev Tu-95 35 Tupolev Tu-160 30 Myasishchev M-4

230 medium bombers = 30 Tupolev Tu-22M 80 Tupolev Tu-16 120 Tupolev Tu-22

3530 fighters = 610 Su-27 Flanker 720 MiG-29 Fulcrum 700 MiG-23 Flogger 800 MiG-21 Fishbed 400 MiG-31 Foxhound 300 MiG-25 Foxbat

2,135 attack aircraft = 630 Su-24 Fencer 535 Su-17 Fitter 130 Su-7 Fitter-A 500 MiG-27 Flogger-D 340 Su-25 Frogfoot

84 tankers = 34 Ilyushin Il-76 Midas 30 Myasishchev M-4 'Molot' Bison 20 Tupolev Tu-16 Badger

40 AWACS = 40 Beriev A-50 Mainstay

1,015 Reconnaissance and ECM aircraft = 50 Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 Fishbed 170 Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 Foxbat 190 Sukhoi Su-7R 235 Sukhoi Su-24 Fencer 200 Yakovlev Yak-28 Brewer 130 Tu-16 Badger 30 Tu-22M Backfire 10 Il-20 Coot

620 transport aircraft = 45 Antonov An-124 'Ruslan' Condor 55 Antonov An-22 'Antey' Cock 210 Antonov An-12 Cub 310 Ilyushin Il-76 Candid

2,935 civilian and other transport aircraft, usually Aeroflot aircraft which were easily converted

i dont have any figures for the soviet navy but they did have nearly 200 submarines if i am not wrong.

Based on this figures, i am very impressed with their size.

 

[captcalhoun]

size isn't everything as the saying goes. Battle of Britain, the RAF was outnumbered and won. Battle of Goose Green, 500 members of 2 Para took on 1,500 Argentine troops and won.

it's quality not quantity. sure, having 5,000 solid, dependable, reliable tanks is good, but having 500 tanks with the capacity to destroy an older more antiquated tank with high explosive anti-tank rounds is better.

like someone said, look at Desert Storm or even Iraq in 2003. all that ex-Soviet hardware up against the bleeding edge of Western hardware from Britain and America and the allies went through the Iraqi Army like figs through an incontinent midget.

 

[Starkers]

Yeah but we had complete air superiority in both which helps. I always thought Clancy's Red Storm Rising was a good hypothetical assesment of how NATO vs the Warsaw Pact would have gone. I think if the Soviets ever had tried rolling into Western Europe they'd have got pretty damn far. Yes size isn't everything, but they had such a phenomenal advantage that however good our technology was the sheer weight of numbers would have eventually told.

Surprised you didn't mention Roarke's Drift as another example

 

[EmoBorg]

size isn't everything as the saying goes. Battle of Britain, the RAF was outnumbered and won. Battle of Goose Green, 500 members of 2 Para took on 1,500 Argentine troops and won.

it's quality not quantity. sure, having 5,000 solid, dependable, reliable tanks is good, but having 500 tanks with the capacity to destroy an older more antiquated tank with high explosive anti-tank rounds is better.

like someone said, look at Desert Storm or even Iraq in 2003. all that ex-Soviet hardware up against the bleeding edge of Western hardware from Britain and America and the allies went through the Iraqi Army like figs through an incontinent midget.

To be fair there were local reasons on why the Iraqis army failed during 1991 and 2003. In 1991 there were reports that the Iraqis were making their own tank shells but those shells were poorly made and hence fared poorly against American M1 Abrams .

Also the Iraqis quickly gave up on controlling the airspace and let the aillies dominate the air quickly. The Soviets had a massive fleet of fighters and support aircrafts like AEWs and ECMs aircrafts that would have put up an one hell of a fight for the NATO air forces. Sure the Soviets had old mig 21s but they also had plenty of mig 29s and su 27s which were modern back in the late 1980s and they had plenty of support aircrafts like tankers,AEWs & ECMs for the force multiplier effect.

The Soviet armed forces were not a bunch of starving North Koreans soldiers or poorly trained Somalis rebels or even poorly led corrupt Iraqis troops. They were a well trained & disciplined force.

The Americans generals were and are still students of the concept of Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) which led to their victory in 1991 but FYI, The RMA concept was originally theorized by the Soviets back in the 1970s. The Americans later copied the concept from the Soviets and improved it further.

 

[Captain_Nick]

I was curious and thought I'd put it to the more knowledgable here.

I'll answer anyway

In the aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse and disintegration, why didn't more of the bigger military items end up getting sold off instead of scrapped/abandoned?

They were afraid of the Germans

 

[Caliburn24]

As a former member of the last Armored Cavalry Regiment(heaviest armored formation in the world) in the US Army I'll say this. The infrastructure to maintain modern tanks, artillery, aircraft, ships and submarines is immense, and very, very, very expensive. The US spends more on defense than the next thirty nations put together, and we can only sustain ten active Army divisions at the moment. The nations who can afford a large well funded military, are usually also the ones who prefer that their major weapon systems are produced at home.

As to the hypothetical of a Soviet invasion of Europe during the Cold War, a lot would depend on the actions of various nations in the opening days of such a campaign. Would nations fight to the death or surrender quickly? And whether or not the Soviet's are able to achieve strategy surprise. And of course the million dollar question, when or if the war goes nuclear.

If the war remained conventional, the majority consensus that I have seen in military circles(albeit it only from US officers) is that if the war was waged in the 60s or 70s the Soviets would win because the US technological and doctrinal advantages had not yet been fully implemented. If the war was waged in the 80s the US would win because we had certain systems like the Apache and Abrams that were designed almost purely to counter a Soviet tide. Also, we had worked out most of the kinks in our REFORGER kits by the 80s, which would have allowed the US forces to enter the conflict earlier and thus have a greater impact.

 

[Relayer1]

As a former member of the last Armored Cavalry Regiment(heaviest armored formation in the world) in the US Army I'll say this. The infrastructure to maintain modern tanks, artillery, aircraft, ships and submarines is immense, and very, very, very expensive. The US spends more on defense than the next thirty nations put together, and we can only sustain ten active Army divisions at the moment. The nations who can afford a large well funded military, are usually also the ones who prefer that their major weapon systems are produced at home.

As to the hypothetical of a Soviet invasion of Europe during the Cold War, a lot would depend on the actions of various nations in the opening days of such a campaign. Would nations fight to the death or surrender quickly? And whether or not the Soviet's are able to achieve strategy surprise. And of course the million dollar question, when or if the war goes nuclear.

If the war remained conventional, the majority consensus that I have seen in military circles(albeit it only from US officers) is that if the war was waged in the 60s or 70s the Soviets would win because the US technological and doctrinal advantages had not yet been fully implemented. If the war was waged in the 80s the US would win because we had certain systems like the Apache and Abrams that were designed almost purely to counter a Soviet tide. Also, we had worked out most of the kinks in our REFORGER kits by the 80s, which would have allowed the US forces to enter the conflict earlier and thus have a greater impact.

The assessments I read (and I have NO specialist info) reckoned the USSR would've waltzed across Europe in the 60's and 70's, and the 80's wouldn't have been that different. It was a matter of slowing them down, not winning.

I'm not saying that's correct...just things I'd read.

 

[Caliburn24]

Well there are too many variables and unknowns to argue dogmatically that one side would win over the other, and it is still heavily debated in military circles.

But most of the people who believe the Soviet's would have just rolled over NATO are not field soldiers and were never field soldiers. They see the massive numbers of Soviet weapons and soldiers without understanding the quantitative differences. If you read the memoirs of some of the German panzer aces of WWII they fought successfully while often outnumbered by more than ten to one. Michael Wittman destroyed 29 Allied armored vehicles in less than 15 minutes with only his one tank.

We(US) stole without shame from the German army in terms of doctrine and tactics, and with the advent of the Abrams had a greater technological advantage(arguably) over T80/72s than Tigers had over T34s or Shermans. Plus in our hypothetical war NATO would most likely have air superiority.

Would the Soviets and Western allies have been able to advance on Germany if the Luftwaffe had air superiority in the later days of WWII? Unlikely. The ability of a Soviet force to advance against a technologically advanced NATO ground force that also has at a minimum air-parity seems dubious at best.

So long as it is a straight up fight via the Fulda Gap or whatever an Allied victory in the 80s seems at least possible. But the Soviets would have been perfectly capable of trying something sneakier.

 

[captcalhoun]

Yeah but we had complete air superiority in both which helps. I always thought Clancy's Red Storm Rising was a good hypothetical assesment of how NATO vs the Warsaw Pact would have gone. I think if the Soviets ever had tried rolling into Western Europe they'd have got pretty damn far. Yes size isn't everything, but they had such a phenomenal advantage that however good our technology was the sheer weight of numbers would have eventually told.

Surprised you didn't mention Roarke's Drift as another example

i was ignoring the complete air dominance of the allies and only referring to the ground battles.

i didn't mention Roarke's Drift because i thought we lost that one. i missed the end of Zulu.

as for RSR, well, he made a few assumptions in that one, like the success of the USAF's stealth aircraft in bombing bridges to slow down the Soviet advance and the US destroying the Sov Air Force's AWACS planes to give NATO the advantage of airborne radar control. both of which enable NATO to dominate the night skies and wreck havoc on Soviet ground forces bottled up on the east of the rivers.

 

[MacLeod]

Well Rorke's Drift was a British victory however it was preceded by a British loss, the Battle of Isandlwana.

 

[sojourner]

Dammit, now you guys have me wanting to play an updated version of Harpoon. Which doesn't exist.

 

[Starkers]

Well Rorke's Drift was a British victory however it was preceded by a British loss, the Battle of Isandlwana.

Rorke's Drift, 150 British soldiers, 3000+ Zulus, 11 Victoria Crosses...

I love a good heroic defence story.

Then there was Ulundi which was a pretty decisive victory.

 

[Knight Templar]

The huge factor that could never be answered about how the Soviets would've done in a conventional war with NATO was warning time (the amount NATO had of a certain Soviet invasion).

This was one reason the Soviets put so much stock in surprise.

A veteran U.S. officer that I knew had a handy formula for it.

1) NATO gets two days warning time- 90% chance Soviets win.

2) NATO gets three days warning- 80% chance Soviets win

3) NATO gets four days warning-70% Soviets win

4) NATO gets five days warning- 60% Soviets win

5) NATO gets six days wanring-50% Soviets win

6) NATO gets seven days warning-40% Soviets win

7) NATO gets eight days warning- 30% Soviets win.

8) NATO gets nine days warning- 20% Soviets win.

9) NATO gets ten days warning- 10% Soviets win.

Of course there is no scenario where there is 100% chance the Soviets win or 100% chance NATO wins.

 

[Knight Templar]

the US destroying the Sov Air Force's AWACS planes to give NATO the advantage of airborne radar control. .

apparently the U.S. hunting down and destroying Soviet AWACS aircraft was a planned tactic as in another scenario/book run with the input of U.S. and Soviet generals (after the Cold War ended), the U.S. repeatedly used fighters to "headhunt" Soviet AWACs aircraft.