usa vs continental europe and china, two front war

[Enforcer Talen]

one yr to prepare.

[Tsyroc]

Do either China or Europe have the means to get any kind of signifcant force over to the US?

Or, did you want the U.S. to be trying to conquer China and Europe at the same time. Trying to conuer eithr seems kind of stupid and both rather foolish.

[Enforcer Talen]

so what? this is what if.

they have a yr to build an appropriate navy.

[Sea Skimmer]

China and Europe could lift perhaps one light division to America, but the USN would sink it and the entire PLAN in about a week. Using commerical Ro-Ro ships, they might move a fair sized force, but that requires a secure port, which is impossibul to obtain, even if a road march from southern Mexico was accepted.

The European Surface forces will last maybe two weeks, assuming the B-2's don’t get too many in port, and the SSN's might hold out for a month or so.

Course, the Western European fleets would sink some USN ships, I wouldn't be surprised if a Carrier was sunk or heavily damaged, but the long pre time would place the USN in an insanely strong position.

After that things become simple really, sealing off both Europe and China from the imported oil they need to survive would be child's play for the USN before the hostile fleets have even been sent to the bottom.

Subs can strike at the North Sea Platforms, and those fields, which are in Europe, would be put out of action fairly quickly with bomber strikes. Then it’s a matter of moving onto the lesser refineries and storage tank farms and then power stations.

By this point, both sides will reach an agreement. America really woundn't want a prolonged war with Europe, but bombing it into submission is unlikely to work. Knocking out power is the simplest way to make life hard for the citizens of Europe, which would help bring them to the table.

With the overwhelming American victory on the high seas and crippling of European power should be sufficient for America, so it wont likely have any demands that cant be lived with.


Give both sides a year to prepare really stacks things in the United States favor; they already are by a wide margin. It has time to shift around propositioned forces, pull troops out of Europe and further fortify its forward bases in the Gulf, Iceland and other places. It also can produce a quite huge stock of ammunition and equipment in that time, far more proportionally then Europe can.

Any forward bases Europe attempted to build, are not going to last long under the weight of firepower the USAF tactical forces could bring against them.

[NecronLord]

Is Russia in continental europe by your definitions?

[Cpt_Frank]

At least by mine, it is.
And no nukes I guess.

Though, Europe/China has the british fleet and the huge chinese army. Gives them a slight edge of the US.

[Wicked Pilot]

one yr to prepare.

That's it? All we get is the time frame? How about objectives of the countries? What are their motives? Just which European countries are we talking about? Can U.S. allies join in? etc.

You need to be way more specific.

[Cpt_Frank]

And during what time period? Today? After WWII? Shortly before WWI?
During the American Civil war? Napoleonic era?

[Sea Skimmer]

At least by mine, it is.
And no nukes I guess.

Though, Europe/China has the british fleet and the huge chinese army. Gives them a slight edge of the US.

You might want to take a look at the British fleet as a whole and compare it with what the USN deploys just in the Persian Gulf before you make any claim of it giving Europe an Advantage.

WTF is the PLA going to do to America, build a bridge to Alaska with its dead? Anyway, the US Army with reserve forces could take the PLA in open combat, the disparity in training and equipment is simply insane, more then half the PLA tank units still use T-54 clones, and less then 10% have something that could even be called modern armor.

[Next of Kin]

I think that Azeron had a thread like this a while ago (I'm just too lazy to go and look for it!).


I think China's air superiority is suspect when compared to the U.S. I guess the only card that China may have to play is her naval and missle defenses. Of course the U.S. could send bombers to weaken these defenses....

[Stravo]

Screw this, let me plug in some details.

The EU is slowly taken over by pro French politicians, France herself has come under the sway of right wing idealogues after many racial riots rip through the country due to the heavily North African population. The French respond by becoming more fascist and so the government becomes a right winger's dream. Soon these French fascists begin to envision a Europe dominated by French culture and power (yeah right) and drag in Germany which also has a right wing government elected in response to their own racial and ethnic issues. Using their influence they cow the rest of Europe to join them in a growing crusade against American unilateralism and hegemony. America's war into Iraq only fuels the fire, also fueling the fire of radical Islam in Europe causing more riots that piss of the already skitish Europeans.

Finally action is taken and the EU declares war on the US, promising that it will only be an economic war. However, soon all US friendly nations like the baltic states, Checoslovakia and Poland are invaded by EU armies to restore order and stop pro US sentiments from spreading like cancer. England secedes from the EU and begins providing bases for USN vessels and planes. The EU responds by starting an air blitz against England in the hopes of either knocking her out of the Alliance with the US or outright invading her. German and French divisions are massing at Calais for Operation Gentle Thunder.

Russians elect an old school communist who although not returning Russia to her communist ways does put her on a path to restore old military glories and begins gobbling up her neighbors again to create a sphere of influence, pledgeing her nuclear capabilties to the EU, thus neautralizing US nuclear strike potentials.

In the East China is suffering through an awful famine, much like North Korea, and both powers decide to make a power grab while the west is busy annihilating themselves. Chinese forces begin attacks against India and aid North Korea in reunifying. An invasion fleet sets out for Taiwan.

Current US deployement. The US has JUST finished wiping Saddaam off the face of the Earth, thus the heart of US forces are deployed around the Middle East.

Time: NOW

US CANNOT use nukes in the European theater because Russia promises to use nukes in return.
Taiwan is screaming for help as the Chinese invasion fleet is two days from the island.



How's THAT for detail....NOW discuss.

[phongn]

US CANNOT use nukes in the European theater because Russia promises to use nukes in return.

The Russian ICBM force has been heavily decaying since the fall of the USSR. A counterforce strike with B-2s (conventional, doesn't neccessarily have to be nuclear) might do the trick, but it also might panic them into launching whatever they have.

Taiwan is screaming for help as the Chinese invasion fleet is two days from the island.

What invasion fleet? The PLAN is a joke, mostly consisting of FACs with few modern combatants.

[Stravo]

US CANNOT use nukes in the European theater because Russia promises to use nukes in return.

The Russian ICBM force has been heavily decaying since the fall of the USSR. A counterforce strike with B-2s (conventional, doesn't neccessarily have to be nuclear) might do the trick, but it also might panic them into launching whatever they have.

Taiwan is screaming for help as the Chinese invasion fleet is two days from the island.

What invasion fleet? The PLAN is a joke, mostly consisting of FACs with few modern combatants.

In regard to the invasion fleet, let's say that the Chinese have slowly built up a small fleet in secret for this occasion, not neccessarily modern armada but it has some cruisers and basic landing craft. Still no real match for a USN task force but a problem for the Tawain navy. I know Taiwan has a modern naval force but I just want to add an extra dimension to the US' response. I happen to think the US can take both these guys rather easily but let's throw in some kinks.

[weemadando]

Who's invading who?

Is their objective conquest and control or merely to destroy a regime?

What is the public opinion of this war?

Do you take into account random events?

[Robert Treder]

And what about Japan? Do China or Korea antagonize them? Has Japan militarized in this alternate timeline? They're already pushing for it, and if the EU, the Russian Federation, and China are all building up forces, it's not too hard to believe Japan would too.

And FUCK TAIWAN. If China takes it, the US should just let them. It's too damned small to worry about, unless you think communism is the devil.
But...the US thinks communism is the devil (and unfortunately seems to believe in a devil). So they'll respond to that. They'd also be obligated to respond to any assaults on the ROK, which seem to be part of Stravo's layout.

And since GB is with the US, I assume Canada and the lesser Commonwealth states are with the US too? Australia could be useful territory in a war against China.

As far as motives and intent go, the scenario seems to recommend regime change through conquering, WWII-style. China is invading Taiwan, the ROK, and India, not one of which US politics will allow. the EU is assaulting the UK, which the US won't stand for.

The thing about it is that you can't just say "they won't use nukes 'cause they're scared of nuclear war." France has nukes, for god's sake. And it's not like it would be hard for Germany or Italy to make them. This crazy EU, with the help of the crazy CIS that Stravo described would have enough nukes to pose a threat to the US or anybody else you pit them against. It's not that they would win a nuclear holocaust, but they would certainly make any US victory a pyrrhic one.
And China taking parts of India? Give me a break, that war will involve nukes. The US will consider responding in kind.

And with the world going fucked up like this, US politics are going to be Dubbyah's wet dream. Every crazy hawk will have been proven right, and as the bombings on 11 September 2001 have shown, a lock-stepping congress and flag-toting American people will march blindly into battle in the face of catastrophe.

In short, this war would be freaking awesome. I hope it doesn't happen.

[Stravo]

Actually this whole thread was started by Enforcer Talen but he gave no details, people started bitching about that so I filled in some details with a scenario I find rather interesting and at least gives the EU a REASON to fight with the US.

[Robert Treder]

Yeah, I was just having your scenario in mind because, no offense to Mr. Talen, yours is more interesting.

[Stravo]

I'm curious as to how the US deploys from the Middle East, because it essentially puts the heart of their forces in a central location where they can strike either way, against teh EU forces assaulting England or in an eastward strike against the Chinese.

I would prefer to shore up our defenses around England and make a cross channel attack after we set our forward bases in England. The Chinese can be held off by our naval forces and we can simply provide support and supplies to the Indians and Pakistanis as they face off against the Chinese. Basically fight the Chinese by proxy, except in korea where we get directly involved.

Face the EU directly and make it costly for them very quickly. i don;t think the population is ready to gut out a long protracted war where their getting hammered by air every day

[phongn]

In regard to the invasion fleet, let's say that the Chinese have slowly built up a small fleet in secret for this occasion, not neccessarily modern armada but it has some cruisers and basic landing craft.

And somehow the NRO managed to miss them? I think not.

[Azeron]

England has nothing to fear, France is on the other side of the channel.

Anyhow, time for some realistic apprasial of ths situation.

If America invades Iraq, and the Euro muslims revolt, the Euro middle class who has been getting squinked by liberal idiots is gonna revolt and demand sending muslims into concentation camps. They are going to make the US look like fire pot smoking peacenik liberals.

But okay suppose they just declare war on the US to be engaged in a year.

It actual army rasining thing would get stuck in the enviromental sub committee on floro-carbon impact reports paint a damming picture of using rocket powered misseles, so they order a redeisgn of missles to be prop driven.

In the Human rights commitee, they pass new regulation preventing soliders from killing soilders, since "Even enemy soldiers deserve to live", requiring euro Soldiers to fill out form 1245/9832 to comply with EU directive 2498/98765-48 before allowing them to acutally shooting an enemy soldier, after the enemy solider aggrees to undergo sensitivity training., No Eu solider is capable of correctly filling out form 2498/98765-48 so a 12 month form filing training camp is required to become proficient in filling out the single Form

US generals realizing how stupid the EU is, land a million man force into europe, have the soldiers claim refugee status, and go on welfare banrupting the EU. The US holding buys the EU up at an auction at 2% of actaul value.

Now realistically that whats happens.

[Sea Skimmer]

US CANNOT use nukes in the European theater because Russia promises to use nukes in return.

The Russian ICBM force has been heavily decaying since the fall of the USSR. A counterforce strike with B-2s (conventional, doesn't neccessarily have to be nuclear) might do the trick, but it also might panic them into launching whatever they have.

Taiwan is screaming for help as the Chinese invasion fleet is two days from the island.

What invasion fleet? The PLAN is a joke, mostly consisting of FACs with few modern combatants.

In regard to the invasion fleet, let's say that the Chinese have slowly built up a small fleet in secret for this occasion, not neccessarily modern armada but it has some cruisers and basic landing craft. Still no real match for a USN task force but a problem for the Tawain navy. I know Taiwan has a modern naval force but I just want to add an extra dimension to the US' response. I happen to think the US can take both these guys rather easily but let's throw in some kinks.

The equipment needed would be impossible to build without the United States noticing. And given the quality of the PLAN's latest destroyers, even if they could build a cruiser-sized hull, it wont be worth much.

Anyway, the US would just transfer part of its 6000 Harpoon stock to the ROC, along with appropriate truck mounted launchers, and a brigade or three of MLRS firing units.

Taiwan only has three beaches that could support divisional landings, though they wouldn't need several Corps to have even a remote chance, and all of them already have significant fortifications. One battalion of MLRS units in addition to the countries existing artillery at each one would crush any landing.

Harpoon knock out anything big that crosses the horizon.

[Enforcer Talen]

-is lazy-

-lets others make the details for his hypothetical situtiations-

[Admiral Piett]

Some points. If Russia is an EU ally this complicates things.Their armed forces are in a pitiful state but with european credits they could be at least partially restored to a decent level.The navy,once repaired, might cost a CVBG to the US navy and could cause problems to the resupply lines.The army and the air force could also play a role.
Furthermore Russia should be able to supply the EU with enough oil to sustain the war effort,so the loss of arab oil should not be a crippling hit (instead the destruction of the majority of EU and russian oil refineries would be a crippling hit).
But this is not really the main problem.The main problem is:what the US should do in this scenario?Forcing the EU to a table? Or a full scale invasion?
For the first option a bombing campaign against oil refineries would probably be the best.The question is:can it be done? Would the Air Force be able to destroy the majority of the oil refineries against the opposition
of the european (which are being reequipped with modern jets) and russian
(which would be partially restored) air forces without sustaining unacceptable losses?
A full scale invasion would be extremely difficult.High losses should be expected.The european countries do not have power projection abilities,however some of them have decent national armies.
If the war lasted for a long period of time without crippling hits the EU should be able tu build up military forces that would make an invasion absolutely impossible.At that point the war would became a stalemate.

[Sea Skimmer]

Some points. If Russia is an EU ally this complicates things.Their armed forces are in a pitiful state but with european credits they could be at least partially restored to a decent level.The navy,once repaired, might cost a CVBG to the US navy and could cause problems to the resupply lines.The army and the air force could also play a role.
Furthermore Russia should be able to supply the EU with enough oil to sustain the war effort,so the loss of arab oil should not be a crippling hit (instead the destruction of the majority of EU and russian oil refineries would be a crippling hit).
But this is not really the main problem.The main problem is:what the US should do in this scenario?Forcing the EU to a table? Or a full scale invasion?
For the first option a bombing campaign against oil refineries would probably be the best.The question is:can it be done? Would the Air Force be able to destroy the majority of the oil refineries against the opposition
of the european (which are being reequipped with modern jets) and russian
(which would be partially restored) air forces without sustaining unacceptable losses?
A full scale invasion would be extremely difficult.High losses should be expected.The european countries do not have power projection abilities,however some of them have decent national armies.
If the war lasted for a long period of time without crippling hits the EU should be able tu build up military forces that would make an invasion absolutely impossible.At that point the war would became a stalemate.

The problem is moving Russian oil to the West. One pipeline to the Black Sea is out of action thanks to combat in Chechnya, and the others while the others might have enough capacity to do it, they would be very venerable to attack, and in the case of the main route, the Tankers must pass though choke point after choke point.

In a war of this scale, the USN would be allowed to sink them, and the USAF to bomb them in port and demolish the storage farms.

Invasion will never be possible, has enough troops, and even using civilian shipping moving them would be hard. At best America would be able to grab some islands around the edge of Europe for basing.

As for destroying the refineries, most can be put out of action with two to four 2000-pound weapons in the right places. Once that’s done, all the crude sitting in the storage tanks needen't be destroyed.

JDAM's, JSOW, Tomahawks and quite a few other weapons would work, and more then enough are in stock to do the job, and American production of JDAM kits is going to pas the three thousand mark by the need of this year, that’s per month mind you.

Delivery is going to be limited to B-52's and B-1B's firing stand off weapons against coastal targets, and B-2 attack against inland facilities. Using those flying out of the United States and Iceland, I'd figure around Refineries and off loading points could be struck each night. There would still be a fair amount of firepower left for a few other select targets each night as well.

As for defenses. EU countries can deploy 9 E-3's, 1 E-2 and around a half dozen A-50 AEW aircraft. Not nearly enough to cover more then one country. The E-3/2's are dependent on America for parts and technical support. Cut that a year ahead and there going to be hard pressed to keep them flying before the war even starts.

SAM's insufficient to matter. European Nations outside of Germany and Russia have no SAM's which can even reach a high flying B-2, and while they have a lot which could hit cruise missiles, the number of targets which need coving, economic and military, would make them to ease to ignore or simply bomb into oblivion. Germanys SAMs are Patriots BTW, and thus also dependent on American support.

The ability of such system to target second-generation stealth is doubt, but they would pose a risk. So some refineries could be protected against direct bombing attack at least.

Fighters won't matter very much. A lack of tankers and a lack of effective radar coverage would make interception of stand off attackers difficult at best, and the B-2's are pretty much free to roam at will unless there is a very chance encounter.

Unless the USN opts to send several Carrier battle groups to strike at Europe, which might happen, European tactical airpower wont be very relevant. Some forward US bases are within range, but a strike of sufficient size is really not possible, to few tankers and not enough time to get more of them.

Russian can deploy perhaps 100 bombers of all types; most are Tu-95s and Tu-142s, not nearly enough for the targets they'd face, CVBG's and Iceland. They also lack modern stand off weaponry, attrition from fighter interception would be high in strikes and United States can deploy a lot of ground defenses today.

I wouldn't put much stock in the Russian navy outside of the 20 or so operational Subs they have today. A year is not nearly enough to bring back their heavy capital ships.


Really, I think the one-year prep time screws over Europe and China a lot. 1 Year is enough to shuffle around assets, but not long enough to obtain new ones. That gives a huge advantage to America, which already has lots of them, but hurt Europe, which spends far less proportionally on defense and has a smaller economy to start with.

Europe could greatly boost its military might given 3-7 years and change things quite a bit. But with one year, there pretty well doomed to defeat, though the American victory will not be impressive.

[Cpt_Frank]

Face the EU directly and make it costly for them very quickly. i don;t think the population is ready to gut out a long protracted war where their getting hammered by air every day

Ya know with bombings you might just accomplish the exact opposite of what you were expecting, just as it was the case in WWII with the german bombing of GB and the Allied bombing of Germany.
The hate can be a strong ally.

Oh and you are forgetting one important factor:
CANADA!