How would you conquer the U.S.

[Ted Striker]

.

[Saint Marcus]

Assuming you get through Canada (highly unlikely)

We're talking about a Canadian-European-Russian alliance here. Read the posts please. sigh

I'd like to see an army get through Chicago. It would be like trying to siege St. Petersburg. And that's just ONE strategic area.

Why on earth would Chicago have to be captured? First a quick blitz destroying an important part of the US' production capacity. Cities are secundary. Chicago can just be bombed, closed off, and then left alone till the whole area is secure. Starving them to death, like what happened to the Germans in Russia.

The most recent statistics put California alone at like 5th or 6th in the world, in terms of GDP. It was ahead of FRANCE. Los Angeles alone is a super powerhouse of industrial output, and LA County ranks like 12th in the world in GDP if it were its own nation.

Only 6th? And you are expecting California, which would be ranked #6, to produce as much as Russia and the EU combined?

Once the US ramps up the war machine, get the hell out of the way or DIE.

The US doesn't nearly produce as much as Russia and Europe combined. In fact, the combined EU alone produces more. Add the rest of Europe and Russia and god knows who else to that, and it simply doesn't matter anymore how much the US can produce since it won't make any difference.

[Alexander's Horse]

I don't think an invasion of the United States is feasible unless a. the United States declined significantly economically and/or b. the unity of the country declined dramatically.

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by Mark L


Why on earth would Chicago have to be captured? First a quick blitz destroying an important part of the US' production capacity. Cities are secundary.

Where the hell do you think the production centers are? Nebraska?

[Veracitas]

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless


Ideally, combine this with a fake geological expedition to Yellowstone, which sets charges to blow the Yellowstone caldera. The tanks arrive just as a humongous volcanic eruption goes off. Give them US or Canadian markings and English-speaking crews, and they'll soon be all over the central US as part of the rescue effort.

IIRC, if you blow hte Yellowstone caldera, not only will you smother most of the U.S. in molten rock, the amount of ash thrown up into the atmosphere will equal the effects of a nuclear winter. So, yah, that would do it, but what would be the point of conquering the u.S. that way if you have no U.S.--nay, earth--left to play with?

[Ted Striker]

.

[Dis]

and we can take over European automobile factories located in the U.S.

so even if you take out detroit, we have automobile factories in Tennesse, north carolina and a couple other southern states I believe.

good luck

[MORON]

Its hard to convert civilian industries to military ones with the super complexity of modern weapons.

[Dis]

we wouldn't need complex tanks to battle obsolete European and Russian ones

[MORON]

But with Infat doing troll-terrorism, you'll need all the help you can get

[David Floyd]

MarkL, you STILL are not addressing the problem with your Atlantic scenario.

I will certainly grant you that Iceland is an achievable target for the EU. Possibly even Greenland. What you still are not understanding is logistics.

You cannot stack 200 planes on Greenland, dude. This isn't Civ2. You can't just build an airbase in 2 turns and ferry aircraft in.

What you would have to do is strongly develop Iceland as a strategic base. Even then, though, you still couldn't base that many fighters off of Iceland - unless of course you want your fighters parked wingtip to wingtip across the airfield. Iceland simply can't support that many aircraft. And even if it could, what would you say to about 8 688i submarines surfacing, launching 12 Tomahawks apiece at the airfields, and departing? I'd say we'd have a new Big Bang. I guarantee that you aren't gonna be able to defend the entire Icelandic coastline from attack. That is ridiculous. All you have in Europe and Russia are basically a bunch of destroyers and frigates, with a coupla guided missile cruisers (probably rusting and inoperable) from Russia, and under 10 V/STOL carriers carrying about 12 Harriers apiece. If you want to station all that around Iceland - fine. Maybe if you use your ENTIRE navy, you could secure Iceland. Maybe.

But while you are occupying Iceland, the US is occupying Greenland. I guarantee you can't do a simultaneous operation - you don't have the assets, and without Iceland as a base you couldn't hit Greenland anyway. So basically you have Greenland developed into a base by the US. I'd estimate that you could reasonably assume at least a Marine brigade, with Air Force security personnel as well, on Greenland, along with possibly a couple of tank battalions, and a few dozen fighters. Probably an E-3A as well, and jamming and tanker assets. That basically gives the US a counter to Iceland. You can't bypass Greenland by any means, you have to attack it head-on. Unfortunately, Europe/Russia don't really have that many modern amphibious assault ships. Your best one is the HMS Ocean, in the Royal Navy, nor do you have a high-quality integrated amphibious assault force, such as the US Marine Corps.

But you'd have to hit Greenland anyway, no way around that.

Let me digress from that battle for a moment, and tell you once more about Canada.

Canada has an inventory of approximately 85 modified F-18s, and some support aircraft. The US inventory is in the thousands. I guarantee you the CAF would cease to be a viable fighting force on the first day of the conflict.
The US would then hit the Canadian grain fields - the breadbasket of the nation - with possibly three army divisions. The best ones for the job, IMO, would be 1st Armored, 24th Mechanized, and 1st Infantry. We'd also have two airborne divisions that could intervene if necessary. The Canadian Army would have to fight for this area, clearly. The Canadian Army also has no standing divisions, and only, IIRC, 3 combat brigades, stationed all across the country. Unfortunately, they would be unable to move troops from the East Coast of Canada, because the 10th Mountain Division from Ft. Dix in New York would demonstrate against Eastern Canada, tying the Eastern Canadian forces in place. Also, with unchallenged air superiority over Canada - and you can't challenge this fact - the US could interdict Canadian reinforcements and supplies. Finally, the area the US would be moving into is good tank country - and the Canadians don't have anything in their inventory that can stand up to a US Armored Division. Not a chance.

So, we can reasonably assume a complete defeat of the Canadian Army and Air Force within a month - probably before you can even get set up in Iceland.

This is important, because it gives the US free reign to deploy the navy anywhere in the Western Atlantic with no possible threat, and it knocks Canada out of the war - unless Canada feels like starving to death.

But let's pretend that Canada stays in the war, by some fluke. Let's assume Europe/Russia still plan on landing troops in Canada and moving down through the US. This is just not possible.

In response to Euro/Russian moves into Iceland, the US moves into Greenland with the forces I mentioned earlier, and moves 5 carriers into the NorthWest Atlantic area. Sure, if the US fleet ventures under air cover from Europe, it will have some major problems. But there is no reason for it to. The Europeans and Russians have to come HERE, not the other way around.

To get here, they have to leave their air cover, except fighters from Iceland supporting attacks on Greenland, and any remaining Russian heavy bombers from the Kola Peninsula. The first move that MUST be done is the occupation - not just neutralization - of US forces in Greenland. Again, all you have for this are the Harriers from your V/STOL carriers and, at best, several dozen fighters from Iceland. Opposing this are, conservatively 3-4 dozen US fighters on Greenland (most likely F-15Cs), backed up by E-3A Sentries and jamming aircraft operating from Greenland, plus the combined air wings of 5 aircraft carriers (we would definitely beef up the air wings, I'd guesstimate we could put 2 squadrons each of Superhornets and Tomcats on each carrier, in addition to support aircraft). This means we are looking at around 300 US fighters, with plenty of Hawkeye and Sentry support, along with jamming aircraft. I would also guess that the US would deploy such F-22As as are available to Greenland, giving a HUGE advantage.

Even without throwing US strike aircraft into the fray, the US would enjoy heavy air superiority over the naval battlefield. Further, submarine superiority would belong to the US. Most of the European submarines are short-range diesal boats, many of them good for coastal operations only. The British have by far the best European sub fleet, with their Trafalgars and new Astutes, but are heavily outnumbered by US submarines. The Russians would not be a major factor, because of the appalling state of their fleet in general, especially submarines.

However, I'm predicting that even BEFORE the naval battle would begin, US B-52H Stratofortresses would stage out of the Continental US, and strike at Iceland with stand-off cruise missiles, protecting by the US aircraft in Greenland. This would be virtually an even air battle, between the US aircraft on Greenland and Euro/Russian ones on Iceland, with possibly a slight advantage to the Euro/Russians. However, the mission of the US aircraft from Greenland is not to defeat the enemy air force, it is simply to allow the B-52s to launch their missiles at Keflavik AFB - and any other bases that get developed - on Iceland. Enough missiles impact, and stuff like tank farms/fuel dumps, communications sites, munitions storage facilities, etc., start to go up, and eventually Europe/Russia can't support as many aircraft on Iceland - it slowly gets whittled down. Also, as I described above, US submarines could stage strikes against any bases on Iceland without much trouble, that would cause major problems. US submarines could also hit the Kola Peninsula - the Russian bomber bases - and knock out some of your long range bombing capability as well.

Mark, face it, there really is no way you could win the Battle of the Atlantic in a US vs. the world scenario. You would have to be very good, very lucky, and have everything go right, and conversely, for the US, we'd have to be very stupid, very unlucky, and have absolutely NOTHING go right for y'all to have a prayer of winning. Even then, don't count on it. Balance of forces are against you. Remember, your Euro/Russian airforce, which would outnumber the USAF, only plays a part if you can bring it to bear at the decisive location. 2000 aircraft sitting in Central Europe aren't gonna do you a bit of good.

[KrazyHorse]

Canada has an inventory of approximately 85 modified F-18s, and some support aircraft. The US inventory is in the thousands. I guarantee you the CAF would cease to be a viable fighting force on the first day of the conflict

No sh1t. I thought we had 110 CF-18s, though. And it's RCAF, you ignorant Yank. We won't stand for any lèse-majesté here.

The US would then hit the Canadian grain fields - the breadbasket of the nation - with possibly three army divisions. The best ones for the job, IMO, would be 1st Armored, 24th Mechanized, and 1st Infantry. We'd also have two airborne divisions that could intervene if necessary. The Canadian Army would have to fight for this area, clearly. The Canadian Army also has no standing divisions, and only, IIRC, 3 combat brigades, stationed all across the country. Unfortunately, they would be unable to move troops from the East Coast of Canada, because the 10th Mountain Division from Ft. Dix in New York would demonstrate against Eastern Canada, tying the Eastern Canadian forces in place. Also, with unchallenged air superiority over Canada - and you can't challenge this fact - the US could interdict Canadian reinforcements and supplies. Finally, the area the US would be moving into is good tank country - and the Canadians don't have anything in their inventory that can stand up to a US Armored Division. Not a chance

I don't understand why you don't invade the East Coast immediately. To do so secures your back while you're busy reducing the West. Windsor-Quebec corridor should be the first to go; at a stroke you've got 2/5 of the population, 2/3 of the manufacturing potential, the administrative capital of the country and the capitals of the two largest provinces. That falls and all that's left is the oil-fields in Alberta, the pop on the West Coast, a few hundred million acres of wheat and a few billion acres of ice up north. It could probably be accomplished in less than a week.

[David Floyd]

I don't understand why you don't invade the East Coast immediately. To do so secures your back while you're busy reducing the West. Windsor-Quebec corridor should be the first to go; at a stroke you've got 2/5 of the population, 2/3 of the manufacturing potential, the administrative capital of the country and the capitals of the two largest provinces. That falls and all that's left is the oil-fields in Alberta, the pop on the West Coast, a few hundred million acres of wheat and a few billion acres of ice up north. It could probably be accomplished in less than a week.

If you're being sarcastic, I'm not suggested the US would occupy Canada, or even could occupy the whole nation effectively. I'm suggesting that all the US would have to do is to defeat the Canadian military, and occupy or severely disrupt the flow of food to Canadians. When Canada is starving, I doubt they will offer much resistance, and drop out of the war forthwith, don't you agree?

Although it might be beneficial to flatten some of the industry, you are correct in that, but I don't want to get the US Army bogged down in city fighting.

[KrazyHorse]

Who's sarcastic? I'm serious.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by David Floyd


If you're being sarcastic, I'm not suggested the US would occupy Canada, or even could occupy the whole nation effectively. I'm suggesting that all the US would have to do is to defeat the Canadian military, and occupy or severely disrupt the flow of food to Canadians. When Canada is starving, I doubt they will offer much resistance, and drop out of the war forthwith, don't you agree?

Although it might be beneficial to flatten some of the industry, you are correct in that, but I don't want to get the US Army bogged down in city fighting.

Oh, and starving canada doesn't work if the Russians are willing to airlift food over the pole.

Actually, even our urban strip of land produces food in sufficient quantity to feed itself. No grains, but plenty of meat, eggs, milk, fruit&vegetables.