"Red Dawn" Is In Remake !

[tombogan03884]

Big difference Tim.
With the Obummer cancellation of the new Amtrac for the Marines, and the introduction of the new Chinese model we are no longer at the top of the amphibious warfare food chain. But the fact remains, if they can't cross to Formosa, what makes any one think they can come here ?
Secondly, that type of warfare is old history, Hell, it was obsolete during the "Cold War" . Any one who thinks we "won"  that is a fool. The Soviet threat was the Magicians big boobed assistant bouncing around while we lost the fight to internal subversion.
Modern war, at the Superpower level is conducted in cyberspace, Information, and economic warfare are the now and future. Modern Nuclear war will not be fought with mushroom clouds and nation killing war heads. It will be fought with a few EMP bursts.
You don't even need nukes for that.

[Timothy]

Big difference Tim.
With the Obummer cancellation of the new Amtrac for the Marines, and the introduction of the new Chinese model we are no longer at the top of the amphibious warfare food chain. But the fact remains, if they can't cross to Formosa, what makes any one think they can come here ?
Secondly, that type of warfare is old history, Hell, it was obsolete during the "Cold War" . Any one who thinks we "won"  that is a fool. The Soviet threat was the Magicians big boobed assistant bouncing around while we lost the fight to internal subversion.
Modern war, at the Superpower level is conducted in cyberspace, Information, and economic warfare are the now and future. Modern Nuclear war will not be fought with mushroom clouds and nation killing war heads. It will be fought with a few EMP bursts.
You don't even need nukes for that.

No argument here Tom. 

Modern Naval Forces today have an entirely different roll than anything prior but the Russians have been selling anything they can, to whomever was buying for years.  I'm still comforted somewhat that the asset is still active.

[tombogan03884]

Are you sure it didn't go the way of SAC. They dismantled the DEWline nearly 20 years ago.

[Timothy]

Are you sure it didn't go the way of SAC. They dismantled the DEWline nearly 20 years ago.

Quite sure...mostly remote now but still active.  Undersea threats are still there, just different players, some military, some not.  Drug dealers are now using submarines to shuttle dope up from the south.  Real tough to track too, shallow runners, hiding in the ambient noise of water near the surface.

[warhawke]

Actually, I planned the Soviet Invasion of the US in 1983, just before the invasion of Grenada. Soviet air-coverage and transport capability (based primarily on the IL-76) required the runway on that Island to complete an air-bridge from Soviet controlled areas of Africa to Cuba and Nicaragua.

The primary Invasion force would have used the Northwest Passage led by Soviet nuclear powered Ice-breakers to move to the Mackenzie River in Canada and down to the Great Slave Lake. IIRC I figured 16 Divisions landing every 28 days from Mid-May to Late October. Soviet forces capturing several old EW sites in the Aleutians (there were a number of incidents in the area in that time frame, including the killing of 2 Alaskan N.G. soldiers at a White Alice site) and using them as forward control points to prevent U.S.N. interdiction of the invasion fleets.

The Arctic Ocean has never been a friendly place for the USN while the Soviets made good use of under-ice operations. Smaller landings in the south Hudson Bay area and moving to Lake Superior would have cut off eastern Canadian Forces and forced US forces to shift attention away from the main invasion front. Landings from Cuba on the Gulf coast to interdict US forces in the Trans-Mississippi area, destruction of cross-Mississippi bridges and the introduction of Nicaraguan forces into and across Mexico would have forced the diversion of US ground forces in the Texas and California regions. The addition of Spetnaz attacks on critical support, supply and communications targets could have reduced US forces significantly as CONUS had significantly fewer on-site resources to deal with conventional attack than any other area of operations  . The United States has not been presented a significant threat of conventional invasion since the mid 19th century and has relied on oceanic buffers to prevent any such operations. some 75% of US conventional munitions were stored OFF-SHORE and would have been unavailable in any kind of significant quantity for some time, especially in the face of Soviet interdiction efforts.

I'm not saying the the operation would have worked in conquering the US, I doubt it would have, but such an operation would have reduced the US, economically and militarily to a level far below super-power status without the release of nuclear weapons in it's early stages, which would have been unlikely given the threat of massive retaliation.

I showed some of the officers in my reserve unit the plan in 1984 (maps and everything, I was very thorough) and the next month one of them told me that he was damn glad we had invaded Grenada as he and the others could find no significant flaw in the plans. I think that was why they pushed me so hard to go ROTC, quite a compliment from a bunch of Vietnam vet officers and NCO's.

[Sponsor]

[fightingquaker13]

Not bad as plans go. Still, it ignores two crucial factors. The first is that while poppoing a nuke on a land based target would have led to badness, popping one in the middle of the ocean to tag an invasion fleet would not (and still does not) carry the same consequnces. Yes it ups the ante, but stiill, are you really willing to initiate a MADD scenario over a few ships and a few thousand guys? I'm willing to bet that the answer is no. And that's the question. Woud they have nuked DC, knowing we would hit Moscow over blowing up some ships? Its one of the imponderables of the Cold War.
Th second point is this. Any invasion force, even one from Latin America would be operating at the wrong end of a long logistics train and true to the movie, Army aside, they would not have an easy time of it. I don't think the average American would think twice about shooting at those guys and any retaliation would just piss us off more. Hell, the Sovs learned that against the Germans. Everytime the Partisans struck, the Nazis killed a bunch of civilians. All that did was to recruit more partisans. We are learning that the hard way in the Sand Box. I guess I agree with Lincoln. The only way the US will die is by suicide. Absent huge internal turmoil that leaves us divided and unwilling to fight, the oceans are still a sufficient barrier as long as an enemy knows that they will face a very hot reception while they try to take miles and miles of very hostile ground.
FQ13 

[JC5123]

Kind of sounds like that is the premise though. America is bankrupt and the Chinese are calling in our debts. We don't have any money, so they are taking assets. i.e. LAND. In which case, the American gov't can't stop them. Our leaders put us so far into debt with them, they don't have a choice but to give up the territory. It's scenarios like this that make people so angry that congress has us mortgaged to the hilt. The only two assets that the government has are land, and people. Kinda makes you feel like a slave doesn't it.

[tombogan03884]

FQ, You are overlooking some things, first off, Nuking the Northern invasion fleet is a non starter, by the time the politicians in Washington realized what was going on, built up enough courage and then talked to Canada about it, things would be all over. Even if politicians did get off the mark and decide to nuke friendly territory in a timely manner none of our weapons where aimed at the middle of nowhere. The whole premise of MAD was the targeting of each other's cities, you don't re target an ICBM by just cranking in a few clicks on the scope, also this was prior to GPS which means that it would have been all manual map table calculations.
On top of that, the effects of nuclear torpedoes would have been hampered by the ice itself, limiting the effectiveness of the few that could be brought to bear in time to have any effect.
As far as the logistic tail of the Southern operations, it was irrelevant. Their job was not to win any kind of decisive victory, simply to sow confusion and draw off troops from the primary AO, foraging would have supply enough resources for them to accomplish their primary mission, any actual gains they made would simply be icing on the cake. You have to remember, The Soviet leadership of that time were WWII veterans where they issued one guy a rifle and 5 rounds, the 4 guys after him just got 5 rounds and orders to pick up his rifle when he was killed. casualties did not have the same impact on their society that they do on Western societies. Another thing to bear in mind was that Soviet stratagy fucused on reinforcing success, advancing units got resupplied and reinforced at the expense of stalled units, and all units were simply pushed to advance as long as they survived then new divisions were thrown in behind them.
 Also, at that time, according to the declassified portions of the Mitrokhin Archive, (The Sword and the Shield Pgs 392-393 )  Breznev's successor, Former KGB director Yuri Andropov, and the leaders of the Politburo were so convinced that Reagan intended to launch a nuclear first strike that much of the KGB's First Chief Directorate was tasked with searching for information on US intentions under the auspices of "Operation Ryan".
And then there was Spetznaz. Remember our "ReForGer" exercises ?  Return Forces to Germany , we practiced defending the Fulda Gap, and reinforcing our troops in Germany on a regular basis. Spetznaz practiced screwing up those types of operations just as carefully. The primary mission of many of the Soviet "illegal" networks  ( operatives inserted under false identities and non diplomatic covers, such as the 11 arrested and exchanged a year or so ago ) was establishing equipment dumps for exactly that sort of operation.
The work of the US military in responding to invasion on multiple fronts would have been severely hampered by wide spread attacks on transportation and communication hubs. Among the items standard to Soviet Operational planning was chemical weapon attacks on nerve centers such as command posts and air fields. even with warning, and limited casualties efficiency at such points would have been greatly hampered by the need to work in protective equipment. To get an idea of what I mean, try disassembling your Sportical wearing  winter gloves, a snowsuit and SCUBA mask, then consider how that would be trying to maintain  jet aircraft.
Warhawke presents a frighteningly simple and effective plan.

[JC5123]

Don't forget also, that peoples thinking has changed since the cold war ended. Especially now after events like 9-11 and Katrina. Many more people are thinking about surviving disaster, and anyone serious about it has considered defense. I think that a better percentage of people today would be better able to defend against an invasion than they would have been at the time of the original Red Dawn.

People today, (yes I am even lumping in the mall ninjas) are better armed and equipped than they were 30 years ago. And as for the mall ninjas.....Every army needs cannon fodder. 

[Texas_Bryan]

Apparently from the writer of Red Dawn, but in video game form.