This ingenious system is not without its faults. The Soviets have demonstrated tank river crossing operations during their annual war games, but have fudged the matter by laying concrete roadways on the river bottoms to prevent problems. In reality, riverbeds may be too soft or irregular to permit easy transit by tanks, and the water may be too deep for the snorkels. Even when the riverbed is suitable, the operation is hazardous. In spite of their weight on dry land, tanks retain a certain measure of buoyancy underwater. This makes them very difficult to handle and especially difficult to steer. As a result, a river crossing operation by tanks is unlikely to be a spontaneous affair, with the tanks leaping into the water at first opportunity. Combat engineer troops are provided with special amphibious vehicles, like the IRM, which have sensors capable of testing the river bottom. Armored recovery vehicles are also likely to be present to help tow tanks that become bogged down.
In the event that the river is unsuitable for deep fording with tanks, as in the fictional scenario, the Soviet engineers have special tank ferries. These are tracked vehicles with folding pontoons stowed on their roofs. It takes two of these vehicles, called GSPs, to make a ferry buoyant enough to support a tank. The vehicles drive into the water and are clipped together. They have their own ramps, and the tanks can drive aboard and be transported to the opposite shore. A tank division has only six of these pairs, so it would take some time to move a regiment of tanks across a river.
Light armored vehicles are less of a problem. They are light enough that they will float with the right hull design. Virtually all Soviet light armored vehicles are amphibious. Wheeled light armored vehicles like the BTR-80 infantry transporter have a water jet propulsion system. Water is drawn into a tunnel and pushed out the back end by a propeller. Tracked vehicles like the BMP infantry transporter or 2S1 artillery vehicle can use their track to propel themselves through the water, as mentioned in the fictional scenario.
The U.S. Army has paid less attention to these amphibious features, since it presumes it will be operating defensively with bridges intact behind its positions. American tanks are not designed for deep wading. Many light armored vehicles, like the M113 infantry transporter or the M2 Bradley, are amphibious like their Soviet counterparts. However, many other vehicles are not. The M109 armored artillery vehicle is not amphibious, unlike the Soviet 2S1 as seen in this scenario.
Tanks and light armored vehicles constitute about a fifth of the vehicles in a Soviet tank or motor rifle division. The rest are trucks, trailers, and other support vehicles. Very few of these are amphibious. To get these vehicles across a river, conventional combat engineer techniques are used. Pontoon bridge systems like the PMP are the usual method. The PMP is carried on a truck; the truck backs up to the edge of the river, and the pontoon sections are slid off into the water for the engineers to assemble. A typical Soviet division has enough PMP sections to make 120 meters of sixty-ton bridge, or 280 meters of twenty-ton bridge. The bridge takes from fifteen to forty minutes to assemble, depending on the type. In the event of a major river crossing operation, additional pontoon bridge units would be provided to allow several bridges to be assembled.
Rivers are the main natural obstacle to mobile tank warfare. Mines are the most common manmade obstacle. The Soviets have paid more attention to rapid minefield breaching than any other army. Every tank regiment has its own minefield breaching equipment, and the division has specialized equipment. The standard method for minefield breaching is the mine roller, which consists of heavy cast metal wheels on special arms attached to the front of the tank. The tank is driven into the minefield and the rollers detonate the mines in front of the tank. The rollers can withstand more than a dozen mine explosions before they are worn out and have to be replaced. Soviet tanks can also be fitted with mine rakes — small plows that push aside tilt mines or other types of mines that the rollers do not detonate. As the mine-roller tank drives through the minefield, it leaves a trail of incandescent markers for the remaining tanks to follow.
Minefield breaching of this type is slow and tedious. The mine-roller assembly is too heavy to permit tanks to always carry it. It takes time to bring it forward from rear supply areas and fit it to the tank. And the tank moves through the minefield slowly. If the minefield is properly protected with tanks or antitank missiles, the mine-rolling tank makes an easy target. The way around this problem is to use a rapid minefield breaching method. The Soviets use a specialized vehicle called the MTK, which has a special rocket launcher. Attached to the rocket is a length of explosive tubing. When fired, the rocket drags the explosive over the minefield and drops it. When it hits, the explosive line charge is detonated, destroying mines near it and blowing a path through the minefield. Such a system is very quick to operate, but it is complex and costly. A division will have only a handful of these vehicles.
Although the Western press is full of stories about "technology transfer" and the Soviet acquisition or theft of Western military technology, the reverse situation is not often discussed. One of the few areas where the U.S. Army has copied Soviet technology has been combat engineer equipment. The U.S. Army's ribbon bridge system is based on the Soviet PMP system. The U.S. Army and Israeli Army mine rollers and mine rakes are based on Soviet mine-clearing systems. None of these are high-tech systems, but they do demonstrate the Soviet attention to detail in this often neglected area.
Indeed, the amount of Soviet attention to combat engineering belies Soviet claims of the defensive orientation of the Warsaw Pact. An army does not need a lot of fast bridging equipment or minefield breaching systems if it is primarily interested in defense. An army that has an offensive posture, however, requires rapidly deployable bridging equipment, since it has to presume that its opponent will destroy his own bridges as he retreats, to hinder the passage of the enemy. This has even been recognized by Mikhail Gorbachev, who stated in his UN speech in December 1988 that he would reduce the amount of engineer equipment held by forward-deployed Soviet formations in Central Europe as part of the Soviet gesture to reduce cold war tensions in the area.
CHAPTER 7
Fighter Combat:
The Battle for the Airfields
Senior Lieutenant Ivan Dushak adjusted the harness that strapped him into his MiG-29A fighter aircraft. He had flown this particular machine, number 21, several times before. It was pretty much trouble free in the hands of a good ground crew and had the red operating proficiency badge on the nose as a result. The high walls of the ready revetments blocked what little sunlight was available in the early morning hours. Dushak took a small flashlight from his flight suit to check the notepad he had strapped to his right leg. It was securely in place. He turned his attention to the cockpit instruments and began going through the engine warm-up procedures. He checked to make certain the inertial navigation system had been turned on. It would take several minutes of warm-up time to operate properly. The airfield support battalion brought a truck to tow the aircraft out of the revetments before the engines were started. As his aircraft was towed into the open, he felt exposed. The NATO air forces had been attacking Soviet airfields relentlessly, and the last thing he wanted to happen was to lose his aircraft on the ground. He hoped that his wait until takeoff would be brief.