Author Topic: Cuban Missile Crisis (Read 1653 times)

Boroda · « **Reply #45 on:** January 10, 2006, 09:19:07 AM »

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Originally posted by weaselsan
I don't doubt his intelligence, after all he is a grand master you don't earn that by being dense. Any invasion plans would still be held top secret.

Well, Yakovlev wrote about possible reasons to disclose US plans off _attack_, and he argues with American author of the Drop Shot plan study. He comes to a conclusion that the only reason was to show that they simply don't care...

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Originally posted by weaselsan
I believe most of the war games where always played out as the Soviets as the attacking force. If i'm not mistaken they had a large numerical advantage in both armor and personel (infantry). If western Europe where attacked I don't see anything short of tactical nuclear weapons stopping them.

Plans written when they didn't know USSR already has a bomb estimated that in no more then 6 months Soviet Army will control whole Europe, Mediterranian and Middle East including Gulf. With several nuclear bombs after that USSR could easily destroy NATO air force bases in UK and reach victory conditions. All this regardless to nuclear bombing of Soviet cities...

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Originally posted by weaselsan
I notice you use the term propaganda alot. If something is written that is not based on cold hard facts it may be speculative and not necessarily propaganda. If you write something that you know to be false for the purpose of deceiving your own people or the enemy thats propaganda.

What I mean probably includes reasonings like I mentioned above about disclosing war plans. This is propaganda at it's best: making conclusions based on facts, when conclusions probably don't correspond with real intentions of the other side, but sound true and serve to form a nessessary public opinion. It was a way of Soviet propaganda, no obvious lies like "evil Soviet regime (tm) killed 50 million people only because it was evil".

lasersailor184 · « **Reply #46 on:** January 10, 2006, 09:55:25 AM »

Nuclear Weapons aside, the Soviet Union never had the ability to project power. It is a common misconception that they did. If you look at all of their advances throughout time, you'd see that each one had a huge defensive advantage.

Boroda · « **Reply #47 on:** January 10, 2006, 10:30:57 AM »

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Originally posted by lasersailor184
Nuclear Weapons aside, the Soviet Union never had the ability to project power. It is a common misconception that they did. If you look at all of their advances throughout time, you'd see that each one had a huge defensive advantage.

Well, US occupied half of Europe, and presence of NATO forces on our border was the biggest "projection of power". We had a direct threat that US never experienced. I mean - after US Civil war.

As for "ability to project power" - Russia waged war in Manchuria 100 years ago, then in 1945 we transferred great military power to Far East and finished Japanese Kwantun army in 2 weeks loosing only 9000 soldiers. We have enough problems on our borders so we don't have to project power to Antarctic or Madagaskar (oh, in fact we had huge military power at Madagaskar once

). If you look at the borders of Russian Empire - you'll see that we advanced to "natural borders" that protected us better then military power. When we advanced further - we never were so successfull, look at Russo-Japanese war. We projected power, look at Second Pacific Task-force journey from Baltics to Far East, but it really seems that it was a bad idea...

Hangtime · « **Reply #48 on:** January 10, 2006, 10:44:52 AM »

If the Russians pulled an armored advance thru Europe of the 60's and 70's they would have been met at the French border with French nukes, or a French surrender. Should be noted that by this time, France was no longer participating in NATO armament, command, commonality or military exercises.

Should also be noted that as far as I'm aware, not ONE 'Reforger' exercise was 'won' by the US. Every single time we ran this massive all-out 'wargame' exercise with the West Germans in the 'soviet' role we had our tulips handed to us. The west german military of the time was far and away the most motivated and effective modern 'kill the enemy's armor' force on the planet. Those guys really knew how to kill tanks.

The enitre West German force was well suited to fighting a defensive war on it's own soil.. and if faced with a soviet invasion they would have fought like lions, knowing full well that US/NATO policy would have forced the use of defensive tactical nukes on west german soil if the west german army failed to contain the soviet advance. They would not have been 'pushovers'... they were extremely motivated; knowing that their homes, familys, cities and land would be a nuclear battlefield in a soviet/NATO confrontation if they were unable to stop a soviet advance via conventional means.

john9001 · « **Reply #49 on:** January 10, 2006, 01:12:12 PM »

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Originally posted by Boroda
If you look at the borders of Russian Empire - you'll see that we advanced to "natural borders" that protected us better then military power.

sorry, i can't seem to find any "russian empire", maybe you had better update your maps Mr USSR.

Boroda · « **Reply #50 on:** January 11, 2006, 08:19:35 AM »

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Originally posted by john9001
sorry, i can't seem to find any "russian empire", maybe you had better update your maps Mr USSR.

Soo years 1700-1917 are out of your historical knowledge?

USSR = Russian Empire (1914 borders) minus Poland and Finland plus Eastern Prussia (Kaliningrad) and Tuva.

Main borders in Asia were drawn in 1870s-1880s. An attempt to spread influence into Manchuria in 1895-1905 failed, and it was the last "leap" outside of natural borders.

I use a term "natural" because you can see what goes on Tajik border and other Central-Asian "republics" now.

weaselsan · « **Reply #51 on:** January 11, 2006, 11:53:14 AM »

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Originally posted by Boroda
Soo years 1700-1917 are out of your historical knowledge?

USSR = Russian Empire (1914 borders) minus Poland and Finland plus Eastern Prussia (Kaliningrad) and Tuva.

Main borders in Asia were drawn in 1870s-1880s. An attempt to spread influence into Manchuria in 1895-1905 failed, and it was the last "leap" outside of natural borders.

I use a term "natural" because you can see what goes on Tajik border and other Central-Asian "republics" now.

1700-1917 Russian history is not out of historical knowledge...but is out of historical relevance. Since most of that era was a Monarchy, nothing of that time except for possibly Russian History students will have much of a bearing on todays issues, political or other wise.

john9001 · « **Reply #52 on:** January 11, 2006, 02:30:05 PM »

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Originally posted by Boroda
Soo years 1700-1917 are out of your historical knowledge?

USSR = Russian Empire (1914 borders) minus Poland and Finland plus Eastern Prussia (Kaliningrad) and Tuva.

Main borders in Asia were drawn in 1870s-1880s. An attempt to spread influence into Manchuria in 1895-1905 failed, and it was the last "leap" outside of natural borders.

I use a term "natural" because you can see what goes on Tajik border and other Central-Asian "republics" now.

i repeat, time to update your maps, you have no "empire"

Boroda · « **Reply #53 on:** January 12, 2006, 10:10:59 AM »

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Originally posted by john9001
i repeat, time to update your maps, you have no "empire"

Whom did you say it to?

Boroda · « **Reply #54 on:** January 12, 2006, 10:45:47 AM »

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Originally posted by weaselsan
1700-1917 Russian history is not out of historical knowledge...but is out of historical relevance. Since most of that era was a Monarchy, nothing of that time except for possibly Russian History students will have much of a bearing on todays issues, political or other wise.

Political system doesn't matter much, it's only a way of organisation for Russian "super-ethnos".

My historical approach isn't based on Marxist "historical materialism", it's more like Lev Gumilev's "ethnogenesis".

From Great Principate of Moscow we spread all over Eurasia, finished around 1880 and finally had one Emperor who didn't wage wars (Alexander III). He said that Russia has only two allies, it's Army and Navy. Now we can add Strategic Missile Corps to this short list...

mydavis · « **Reply #55 on:** January 19, 2006, 04:45:15 PM »

anyone who really want to learn about how the russian missle crisis in cuba and in general was resolved, should read the book. "The Spy who saved the World"
About a russian colonel Oleg Penchovsky, who literally saved the world.

This man decided that the russian goverment was evil and would cause a war. passed secrets to the US and to Kennedy that the russians could not deliver a warhead accurately.

this led to Kennedy sticking to his guns and standing firm( before that he was considered weak by the russions)
this led to the famous "wink" in the kitchen between kruschev and kennedy, Kennedy called his bluff and winked at Kruschev, because he knew that the russian targeting and delivery systems in thier rockets didnt work. At that time, Kruschev knew that his secret was out and that the US knew he couldnt aim the missiles, he had to back down but he also had to save face, so they picked the missiles in turkey to allow Kruschev to claim some victory.

Vulcan · « **Reply #56 on:** January 19, 2006, 06:53:32 PM »

WOLVERINES!

RAIDER14 · « **Reply #57 on:** January 19, 2006, 07:38:21 PM »

Explains how the Soviets backed down

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The Americans were prepared for war. Soviet ships bound for Cuba turned back and the premier of the Soviet Union agreed to remove the missiles and dismantle the missile sites because they did not want to go to war against the U.S.

Cuban Missile Crisis photos

dynamt · « **Reply #58 on:** January 19, 2006, 07:43:08 PM »

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Originally posted by Vulcan
WOLVERINES!

Lea Thompson and Jennifer Grey were kinda hot in that.

weaselsan · « **Reply #59 on:** January 19, 2006, 08:06:46 PM »

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Originally posted by Boroda
Political system doesn't matter much, it's only a way of organisation for Russian "super-ethnos".

My historical approach isn't based on Marxist "historical materialism", it's more like Lev Gumilev's "ethnogenesis".

From Great Principate of Moscow we spread all over Eurasia, finished around 1880 and finally had one Emperor who didn't wage wars (Alexander III). He said that Russia has only two allies, it's Army and Navy. Now we can add Strategic Missile Corps to this short list...

I was referring to John 9001's reply about the change on the map. He is pointing out the Fall of the Soviet Union. You are talking about the Historical Russian Empire. I thought that was Ivan the Terrible, He was the one that built a Russian Navy on par with European Navy's. We'll maybe not Great Britians but most of Europe.