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Red Army

190 statements
36 feature instances
4 referencing feature instances

Red Army	type	TVTItem
Red Army	label	Red Army
Red Army	page	RedArmy
Red Army	comment	Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_1'); })A 1989 novel by Ralph Peters, often counted among the techno-thriller genre thanks to its subject matter — a Soviet invasion of Western Europe. Unlike other techno-thrillers, however, Peters wrote the entire story from the Soviet point of view, and has the Soviets actually win.As the story opens, World War III has already started (Peters never does mention what started it) and the Red Army under General Malinsky is about to attack across the plains of northern Germany. What follows is the offensive operation that NATO so feared during the Cold War; the mechanized Soviet armies split the alliance's front and pour across northern Germany too fast for their squabbling high command to react in a timely fashion before it's too late.Like Red Storm Rising, it’s a highly educational read, and is surprisingly easy going since Peters avoids geeky details (he talks about 'tanks' and 'anti-air units' instead of 'T-80s' and 'ZSU-23-4s') and focuses squarely on the characters, every one of whom is properly fleshed-out and three-dimensional. Unfortunately, it had the misfortune to be released at the end of the Cold War and thus for many became Hilarious in Hindsight when the mighty Soviet Union broke up and the Gulf War occured. The use of outdated, export-quality equipment by Iraqi forces in the latter 'proved' to many that the USSR's emphasis on planning and organisation would have counted for nothing in the face of NATO's marginally-superior weaponry note Ignoring the massive organisational advantage of the U.N. forces over Iraqi ones in that conflict, not to mention the air superiority and element of strategic surprise caused by the U.N. forces' unexpected armoured-mechanised thrust through southern Iraq to encircle Iraqi forces in Kuwait - rather than a frontal attack that restricted the fighting to within Kuwait as the Iraqis had expected, and Peters was accused of overhyping the USSR's capabilities.Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_2'); })Peters acknowledges in his afterword that his novel portrayed a 'best case' scenario for the Soviets which showcased their strengths (careful, skillful planning) and NATO's weaknesses (reliance on improvisation, severe internal divisions). He's also said that he wrote the novel in part because all the famous World War III technothrillers of the time portrayed best-case scenarios for NATO in which Soviet forces were forced to improvise and fight in unusual situations (only to be thwarted by small bands of intrepid spies/heroes). In this respect it is arguably 'harder' fiction than the latter, as it portrays a mundane/typical WWIII scenario rather than an exciting/fantastic one.While fans of NATO's military technology are quick to claim that Red Army 'fails the history test' - because Soviet smarts really were on the verge of being outmatched by NATO (weapons-technology-)brawn in 1989 - it's an excellent human drama that devotedly details the workings of a modern army.Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_3'); })
Red Army	fetched	2022-05-31T08:56:28Z
Red Army	parsed	2022-05-31T08:56:28Z
Red Army	processingComment	Dropped link to WorldWarThree: Not a Feature - UNKNOWN
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Red Army	isPartOf	DBTropes
Red Army / int_1237828f	type	Anyone Can Die
Red Army / int_1237828f	comment	Anyone Can Die
Red Army / int_1237828f	featureApplicability	1.0
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Red Army / int_19d06ef7	type	A Father to His Men
Red Army / int_19d06ef7	comment	A Father to His Men: Lieutenant Colonel Shilko. Before the war, he and his subunit had a local reputation for being able to raise chickens for food and profit.
Red Army / int_19d06ef7	featureApplicability	1.0
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Red Army / int_1c398324	type	Death from Above
Red Army / int_1c398324	comment	Death from Above: It is implied that Anton's advance battalion was attacked by Apache helicopters, which launched their missiles outside the range of the battalion's air defense weapons.
Red Army / int_1c398324	featureApplicability	1.0
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Red Army	hasFeature	Red Army / int_1c398324
Red Army / int_1f6ec528	type	Would Not Shoot a Civilian
Red Army / int_1f6ec528	comment	Would Not Shoot a Civilian: Inverted. Leonid accidentally shoots two German civilians when trying to hide in a basement. Played straight by Bezarin, who nearly fires on his own men and threatens his subordinate with an "immediate battlefield court-martial" to get them to stop raping and killing refugees.
Red Army / int_1f6ec528	featureApplicability	1.0
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Red Army / int_2737c505	type	Shoot the Dog
Red Army / int_2737c505	comment	Shoot the Dog: When Seroysha kills the surviving German civilian with the butt of his RPK to avoid being discovered by NATO troops. Part of the Soviet information warfare campaign is the destruction of the town of Lüneburg. The army commander whose operating sector the town is within doesn't agree with its destruction—neither do the pilots assigned to bomb it. The resulting propaganda works, and is a key factor in the West Germans suing for peace.
Red Army / int_2737c505	featureApplicability	1.0
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Red Army / int_2b706ca	type	More Dakka
Red Army / int_2b706ca	comment	More Dakka: NATO’s talent for dakka causes some sleepless nights for the Soviet commanders. For their men, too, come to think of it.
Red Army / int_2b706ca	featureApplicability	1.0
Red Army / int_2b706ca	featureConfidence	1.0
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Red Army / int_2f509897	type	Cavalry Refusal
Red Army / int_2f509897	comment	Cavalry Refusal: Type B. The attack helicopters assigned to support Gordunov's air assault battalion pull off earlier than he expected, which promptly reminds him of a similar incident in Afghanistan where his company was ripped apart by a dushman ambush.
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Red Army / int_37cb353b	type	Ate His Gun
Red Army / int_37cb353b	comment	Ate His Gun: Levin
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Red Army	hasFeature	Red Army / int_37cb353b
Red Army / int_38d02d44	type	Batman Gambit
Red Army / int_38d02d44	comment	Batman Gambit: Malinsky’s whole plan revolves around the knowledge of how each of his opponents will react to invasion. For instance, he knows that his NATO Northern Army Group counterpart will let his subordinates fritter away reserve forces on local counterattacks, leaving no force to impact the progress of his main attack sectors.
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Red Army / int_40da7cc9	type	Urban Warfare
Red Army / int_40da7cc9	comment	Urban Warfare: The Soviets avoid fighting in the cities to prevent losing operational tempo, but one divisional commander of Starukhin’s 3rd Shock Army draws himself into a bloody fight with the mixed West German and British elements trapped in Hannover. Not a pretty sight. Combat also breaks out in the many towns. Hameln in particular turns into a bloody quagmire for both Soviet and British.
Red Army / int_40da7cc9	featureApplicability	1.0
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Red Army / int_447d9e50	type	Xanatos Speed Chess
Red Army / int_447d9e50	comment	Xanatos Speed Chess: Essentially the entire Soviet war plan rests not on NATO making giant mistakes, but being too slow in recognizing and reacting to developments at the operational level. Results in a horrific, Stalingrad-style siege at Hannover for what is implied to be a large chunk of the Bundeswehr and many unlucky civilians.
Red Army / int_447d9e50	featureApplicability	1.0
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Red Army / int_468d28be	type	Million Mook March
Red Army / int_468d28be	comment	Million Mook March: Averted. The NATO armies are expecting a Zerg Rush: the battle plan they get is an astute, intricate and strenuously thought-out plan. And it all happens very, very fast.
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Red Army / int_474e3977	type	You Have Failed Me
Red Army / int_474e3977	comment	You Have Failed Me: Rounds from a NATO tank shell a building and force two of Gordunov's air assault troopers to surrender. Gordunov shoots them down before they have a chance to walk towards the enemy.
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Red Army / int_4eaa9b84	type	Author Tract
Red Army / int_4eaa9b84	comment	Author Tract: It's subtle in the story, but it's played straight in the afterword he writes. Peters wanted to show the readers that NATO's strategy of Forward Defense would be extremely unlikely to stop a Soviet offensive, along with the inefficiency of NATO's command structure, lack of unified doctrine and unified troop control, the strategic and operational flaws in NATO force dispositions, and complacency relying on technology and superior individual training. Peters does not hold the West Germans (mostly the politicians) in a positive light. He makes numerous references to them being the weak link in NATO, due to their insisting on a policy of forward defence and thus committing NATO to holding as much of German territory as possible - a political decision rather than a military one. This would mean NATO commanders being unable to trade space for time and/or a more defensible location. At the end of the book, though most of NATO is willing to fight on, West Germany unilaterally surrenders to prevent the destruction of their country, thus allowing the USSR to win by default. The West German Bundeswehr generally fights with tenacity and resolve in the book. Peters must hate NATO's overwatch tactic. NATO loses two easy wins because they waste time on overwatch tactics instead of selecting a Soviet type charge on line, which are depicted to succeed. The most successful NATO ground attack shown in-book was made by American tanks against a transport convoy ... without overwatch.
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Red Army / int_5a3b8032	type	The Un-Reveal
Red Army / int_5a3b8032	comment	The Unreveal: We never exactly find out what political factors caused World War III to happen.
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Red Army / int_5e782d0c	type	Super Prototype
Red Army / int_5e782d0c	comment	Super Prototype: During a march, one of Anton's battalions is destroyed by an unnamed weapon. It is implied to be an Assault Breaker-type weapon.
Red Army / int_5e782d0c	featureApplicability	1.0
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Red Army / int_6366f900	type	Old Soldier
Red Army / int_6366f900	comment	Old Soldier: Lieutenant Colonel Gordunov is an Afghan veteran."He knew the garrison slang terms that sought to degrade, to cut him and those like him down to size. "Afghanistan mentality. Blood drinker. Crazy Afgantsy." Name-calling that in the end only betrayed the nervousness, the awe and even fear of those who had not gone."
Red Army / int_6366f900	featureApplicability	1.0
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Red Army / int_6d332aea	type	Driven to Suicide
Red Army / int_6d332aea	comment	Driven to Suicide: Levin
Red Army / int_6d332aea	featureApplicability	1.0
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Red Army	hasFeature	Red Army / int_6d332aea
Red Army / int_76a08cd6	type	Friend or Foe?
Red Army / int_76a08cd6	comment	Friend or Foe: This is how Trimenko gets killed. His anti-aircraft units mistook his helicopter for an enemy; not helped that his pilot flew higher than normal to avoid striking power lines.
Red Army / int_76a08cd6	featureApplicability	1.0
Red Army / int_76a08cd6	featureConfidence	1.0
Red Army	hasFeature	Red Army / int_76a08cd6
Red Army / int_8878f3be	type	Badass Army
Red Army / int_8878f3be	comment	Badass Army: Subverted and a half. Individually, the Soviet soldiers are all a pretty ordinary lot. Collectively, however...
Red Army / int_8878f3be	featureApplicability	-0.3
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Red Army	hasFeature	Red Army / int_8878f3be
Red Army / int_94f41e7d	type	Mucking in the Mud
Red Army / int_94f41e7d	comment	Mucking in the Mud: The Second Guards Tank Army attacks in terrain that has turned boggy from the rain. Chapter four has an account of a tank battle with both sides' vehicles bogged down to their turrets.
Red Army / int_94f41e7d	featureApplicability	1.0
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Red Army / int_a67b86a7	type	General Ripper
Red Army / int_a67b86a7	comment	General Ripper: Malinsky starts sounding like one when he justifies his decision to actively ignore NATO military units which have retreated into West German cities. In his eyes, they are now the Soviet Army's "hostages", to be traded one nuke at a time if the Western Allies nuclearize the battlefield. Given Malinsky's preference for Batman Gambit, he could very well be planning for his counterparts to realize this is what he intends—and thereby desist from using nuclear weapons, which could be what he's banking on to happen in the first place.
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Red Army / int_a839608e	type	Trapped Behind Enemy Lines
Red Army / int_a839608e	comment	Trapped Behind Enemy Lines: Gordunov’s air assault battalion has the duty of securing the Weser-spanning bridges in Hameln, fifty kilometers behind British lines. This is a diversionary assault, purely intended to draw West German and British units away from the main axis of attack. The battalion dies awaiting a linkup with Soviet armor that was never coming in the first place.
Red Army / int_a839608e	featureApplicability	1.0
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Red Army / int_b542cf17	type	Opposing Combat Philosophies
Red Army / int_b542cf17	comment	Opposing Combat Philosophies: NATO is committed to fighting and winning at the tactical level. The Soviets, on the other hand think one scale higher at the operational level. Malinsky’s operational plan involves NATO commanders focusing on and perceiving success at the tactical level against a backdrop of an unfavorable operational situation.
Red Army / int_b542cf17	featureApplicability	1.0
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Red Army / int_b9abf327	type	How Much More Can He Take?
Red Army / int_b9abf327	comment	How Much More Can He Take?: Senior Sergeant Hornik is quite incredulous to see NATO tanks shrug off rounds from his anti-tank gun battery. Justified as they were equipped with last-generation anti-tank guns.
Red Army / int_b9abf327	featureApplicability	1.0
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Red Army / int_be991863	type	The Neidermeyer
Red Army / int_be991863	comment	The Neidermeyer: Starukhin.
Red Army / int_be991863	featureApplicability	1.0
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Red Army / int_c515d358	type	America Saves the Day
Red Army / int_c515d358	comment	America Saves the Day: Averted
Red Army / int_c515d358	featureApplicability	-1.0
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Red Army / int_c673210e	type	Informed Judaism
Red Army / int_c673210e	comment	Informed Judaism: Chibisov, as Peters wrote it: "was an ethnic Jew whose family had long ago renounce its religion, but he still felt compelled to struggle relentlessly against every last vestige of his Jewishness."
Red Army / int_c673210e	featureApplicability	1.0
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Red Army / int_cd809603	type	Tank Goodness
Red Army / int_cd809603	comment	Tank Goodness: Both displayed, and averted: Tanks are the main striking force of the Red Army. Particularly true of Starukhin's army facing the British. Not that it helps him much, anyhow, as the British—thanks to their head-start in commencing engineering work—manage to set up defense line after defense line in rapid succession without becoming completely disorganized, until Bezarin manages flank and rout the remaining elements of the core British armored division and link up with an air assault bridgehead. However, it is clear that the Soviet armored vehicles are smaller (and implied to be of worse quality) than the "monstrous, boxy, Western tanks," which often results in lopsided distributions of wreckage post-battle. Of course, this could also easily be the result of the British being on the defense and the Soviets on the offense. Averted, in that tank battalion commander Bezarin overcomes the qualitative inferiority of his tanks (and salvages his superior's idiotic battle plan) with a bit of improvisation and a deadly precise understanding of how to use terrain in modern warfare - exposing the fundamental truth that it's people who win wars, not tools.
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Red Army / int_d9e9ad7e	type	The Cavalry
Red Army / int_d9e9ad7e	comment	The Cavalry: Kryshinin’s forward security element is saved in time by the main body of his regiment’s advance guard and top-priority air support.
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Red Army / int_e49686	type	The Hero
Red Army / int_e49686	comment	Tanks are the main striking force of the Red Army. Particularly true of Starukhin's army facing the British. Not that it helps him much, anyhow, as the British—thanks to their head-start in commencing engineering work—manage to set up defense line after defense line in rapid succession without becoming completely disorganized, until Bezarin manages flank and rout the remaining elements of the core British armored division and link up with an air assault bridgehead.
Red Army / int_e49686	featureApplicability	1.0
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Red Army / int_f1d6144a	type	War Is Hell
Red Army / int_f1d6144a	comment	War Is Hell: I defy anyone to read about being trapped in a burning tank and then get all patriotic about enlisting. The ordinary conscript, Leonid, does not have a pleasant war: "As fast as he could run, he went toward the sounds of battle. He did not think even briefly of rejoining the fight. He simply wanted to be close to other living men."
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Red Army / int_f32d85ab	type	20 Minutes into the Future
Red Army / int_f32d85ab	comment	20 Minutes into the Future: The book’s tagline is, ‘A Novel of Tomorrow’s War’. The mention of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty puts the date after June 1988.
Red Army / int_f32d85ab	featureApplicability	1.0
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Red Army / int_f7cee9b	type	Last Stand
Red Army / int_f7cee9b	comment	Last Stand: When it's clear that no friendly forces are coming to link up with Gordunov’s battalion and the British troops keep on coming to recapture the bridges.
Red Army / int_f7cee9b	featureApplicability	1.0
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Red Army / int_ffad4e9f	type	Shown Their Work
Red Army / int_ffad4e9f	comment	Shown Their Work: Peters was one of the few in the West to actually know and not have a stereotyped view of the Soviet military system, compared to most other authors and military professionals.
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The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

Red Army	hasFeature	Gunship Rescue / int_22beff21
Red Army	hasFeature	Possible War / int_22beff21
Red Army	hasFeature	Underequipped Charge / int_22beff21
Red Army	hasFeature	World War III / int_22beff21

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