# Cold Warrior Question - Who Would Have Won?



## OldTanker (8 Sep 2011)

Being a basic "cold warrior" (served 1970 - 2002) I have a question that I have never really been able to sort out - how would a land battle in Europe between the Warsaw Pact and NATO have played out? I've read the fictional accounts, but what I'm really looking for is some technical analysis (if that's the right term) that was done after the collapse of the Soviet Union that compared our plans and capabilities and theirs. As a related anecdote, I had the opportunity in the early '90s to discuss this issue with a West German colonel who was one of the first NATO officers into East Germany after the collapse. He just shook his head and told me "we should fire all of our intelligence staff - they totally underestimated the Soviet's capabilities and plans". I've done the usual Google search but nothing pops up (weak search skills?) and I was thinking if any group of people would be aware of what I am looking for, the Army.ca community would be them. Any ideas? Thanks.


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## Edward Campbell (8 Sep 2011)

My, personal opinion is that we (NATO and especially the US) consistently *overestimated* Soviet and, generally, Warsaw Pact capabilities. I will make an exception in the case of the East Germans who, I believe were damned good soldiers who got 100% from their kit.

The Russian logistics tail was second rate, to be charitable. I have heard estimates of 60 to below 30% for the "runners" in a typical Russian or other than East German Motor Rifle or Tank division; fuel and ammo depots were, reportedly, often empty - due to endemic corruption; those that weren't empty didn't have access to transport.

Discipline in the Russian army appears to have been maintained using a combination of vodka and a knout.

Training, I think ranged from excellent for senior, regular officers, down to poor for junior, conscript troops.

Mind you, in the late 1960s, some of our NATO allies were nothing to write home about either.

But that's just my  :2c:


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## Loachman (8 Sep 2011)

Who would have won?

The cockroaches.


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## aesop081 (8 Sep 2011)

I don't know and i'm glad we never got to find out.


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## Monsoon (8 Sep 2011)

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> Training, I think ranged from excellent for senior, regular officers, down to poor for junior, conscript troops.


Agreed. I've heard it said (from someone I gauge to be a reliable source) that the Russian Navy was never able to consistently do underway replenishments during the Cold War. The procedure isn't rocket science, but it requires a well-trained and organized deck force. As a short-service navy with a huge number of functionally illiterate conscripts, the Russians could muster themselves to carry one out for special occasions but otherwise went alongside to refuel or, as a final resort, brought the ship to be refueled alongside a tanker at a dead stop in the middle of the ocean.


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## opp550 (9 Sep 2011)

Loachman said:
			
		

> Who would have won?
> 
> The cockroaches.



^This

Thank god it did not happen


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## FlyingDutchman (9 Sep 2011)

Now please excuse me if this is wrong, I am remembering this from my high school history, but Russia could toss people at us again and again due to their population.  I believe my history teacher said they could bury us with their bodies.


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## Journeyman (9 Sep 2011)

FlyingDutchman said:
			
		

> I believe my history teacher said they could bury us with their bodies.


 Are you sure it wasn't an English teacher explaining "hyperbole"?   


I suspect that your teacher may have been misquoting Nikita Khrushchev, who said, "Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you."

Mind you, ol' Nikki remarked subsequently, "I once said, 'We will bury you,' and I got into trouble with it. Of course we will not bury you with a shovel. Your own working class will bury you."

[/tangent]


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## Monsoon (9 Sep 2011)

FlyingDutchman said:
			
		

> Now please excuse me if this is wrong, I am remembering this from my high school history, but Russia could toss people at us again and again due to their population.  I believe my history teacher said they could bury us with their bodies.


If by "us" you mean "Canada" then perhaps... but the Soviet Union had a population somewhere south of the US alone, and the numbers aren't any better when you compare the Eastern Bloc to all of NATO.

Now in terms of political will, maybe. The Russians have never been shy about sending soldiers into meat grinders and might have won a war of attrition that way. But I think the position of the sides in the Cold War was such that if it ever turned into a war of attrition then NATO would have already made a losing move somewhere earlier.


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## daftandbarmy (9 Sep 2011)

If you look at all the 'West' vs. 'East' type conflicts over the past years (Isreal vs. the Arabs, Desert Storm, OIF etc) it seems like we would have kicked Soviet ass.


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## BernDawg (9 Sep 2011)

Caveat - I'm not, by any means, a scholar on this subject but...

I believe that NATO would have been handed their asses for the first 48-72 hours then gotten their collective crap together and formed a viable defence. As the WP forces outran their supply lines we would then be in a position to counterattack with, I believe, devastating results as we brought the full weight of our conventional munitions to bear. Now if we're talking about tactical nukes and retaliation etc. then, yes the roaches would be the ultimate victors in Europe.


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## dapaterson (9 Sep 2011)

There was a US humour magazine that once in the late '80s had a chart showing "The World Championship", listing various historical conflicts between nations, taking the victors, finding conflicts between them, showing who won, and so on.

The conclusion?  With the semi-finals showing losses by the USSR and the USA, the world's greatest military showdown was still looming - a face-off between Afghanistan and Viet Nam.


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## vonGarvin (9 Sep 2011)

I've gamed this potential conflict from the past using a variety of games.  Now, these are just games, and there are many variables that can affect any conflict.  

But the question is too vague to answer with a definitive "we" or "they".  So, assume two points in history where the Cold War was in danger of going "hot".

In the early 1960s, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, we neared the brink, but I do believe that had it resorted to the use of force, it would have started with the employment of nuclear weapons on a wide scale.  To say that there would have been a "winner" in that case....

The next point was in the mid 1980s, just before Gorbachev took over the reins in the USSR.  Even then, you have to make many assumptions.  But if you look at the classic "invasion of the west" by the USSR and its Warsaw Pact Allies, it really comes down to this:
How much warning does NATO have?
If the USSR launched a virtual surprise attack (eg: "Strategic Surprise"), then I do believe that the USSR would have had a field day advancing into the Federal Republic of Germany.  The employment of nuclear weapons could have been totally avoided, and given that the Soviets would be deep into the Federal Republic, I couldn't see even Reagan using nukes on them.
If the USSR had achieved only a Tactical Surprise, with some NATO build up and readiness levels increased, I would say "flip a coin".  The likelihood of nukes?  Higher.
If there were some sort of Extended build up of troops on both sides, either one side would have backed down first, or it would have turned into a high-tech version of the First World War.  In this case, I would see the employment of tactical nukes to try to break the stalemate.  (I've faced such a situation as the Warsaw pact player in such a scenario, and they make a very nice hole in the enemy lines.  The hope is that they don't retaliate with a strategic strike).

This doesn't answer the question, but in short, Nobody Knows.


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## brihard (9 Sep 2011)

I think that any theory about it having had the potential to stay conventional is grounded largely in folly. Too many idiots thought that Nukes and chemicals were something that could be constrained to 'tactical' use restrained by sober, military calculus. No, I think it would quickly have escalated to strategic nuclear exchange. And the meekest - with the best exoskeletons - would have inherited the earth.


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## Muttenthaler (23 Sep 2011)

In WW2, Russia was a slow, lumbering giant. When they finally got their schtick together, they were a force to be reckoned with. However, there is, and was too much corruption to make it a viable fighting force (conventionally anyway). After cutting off some of thier supply lines, which were in poor repair anyway, they would have likely surrendered.

The German officer cited earlier in this post could have been right, though. Russia has been fairly good at hiding their actions from the western world, and during the cold war, their spy network (KGB) grew to rival that of others of its time.

As support for Russia's ability to hide information, I would like to give an example from another eastern country - China. The White pyramid was not discovered until a US bomber was taking aerial photographs of the Chinese landscape, and even with visual evidence, the Chinese still denied its existence and planted trees on it and called it a "hill". They've since come clean.

But, as stated numerous times before in this thread, if nukes were used, it would be a moot point, and none of us would likely be here.


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## dogger1936 (23 Sep 2011)

No one. The world would have been a very scary place even if one of the major superpowers "won".  On a lighter note situation no change in Africa.


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## Edward Campbell (23 Sep 2011)

As one who was, for a wee while, paid to actually *think* about the _unthinkable_ and as one who has visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki and *thought* about what I read and saw, a nuclear war, even a strategic nuclear exchange, was, and still is, survivable, by a large share of the populations of, say, North America, Europe and China and it, nuclear war, is still, therefore, anything but _unthinkable_.

If we are going to see a nuclear exchange my guess is that it will come in the Middle East - my assessment being that Israel will respond to a massive attack with chemical weapons by going nuclear early and even more massively, or, even more likely, on the Indian sub-continent when the _fruit loops_ and _looney tunes_ take over in Pakistan, and I think they inevitably will.








Who would have 'won' a nuclear exchange in NWE Europe in the 1960s? It depends on the Soviet _strategic_ objective - which has never been clear to me.


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## dogger1936 (23 Sep 2011)

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> As one who was, for a wee while, paid to actually *think* about the _unthinkable_ and as one who has visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki and *thought* about what I read and saw, a nuclear war, even a strategic nuclear exchange, was, and still is, survivable, by a large share of the populations of, say, North America, Europe and China and it, nuclear war, is still, therefore, anything but _unthinkable_.
> 
> If we are going to see a nuclear exchange my guess is that it will come in the Middle East - my assessment being that Israel will respond to a massive attack with chemical weapons by going nuclear early and even more massively, or, even more likely, on the Indian sub-continent when the _fruit loops_ and _looney tunes_ take over in Pakistan, and I think they inevitably will.
> 
> ...



It has always seemed to me keeping countries under proxy control or destabilizing them to maintain what it needed to at least match the west. I believe their whole strategic idea was to "keep up with the Jones".

I fully agree the next big conflict is going to come from a failed state directed towards Israel instead of the west due to short flight/response time. The middle east will be a bigger wasteland than it already is. Humanity will "epic fail" yet again.


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## Cloud Cover (23 Sep 2011)

I thought it was pretty obvious that this guy actually won:


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## a_majoor (23 Sep 2011)

Now this might take a lot of Google Fu, but I am sure that I read that East German war plans discovered after the Fall of the Wall were based around the idea of using tactical nuclear weapons and chemicals as the opening play for WWIII. Since the East Germans did not control the nukes, it seems fairly obvious that the Soviet plan was tl lay a huge nuclear "Fire Corridor" for their forces to move through.

This of course assumes the information was accurate.

Having seen the effects of a conventional "fire corridor" during various wargames, this certainly seems like a reasonable extrapolation of Soviet military thought (and the well known Russian love for massive amounts of artillery); the question at this point is two fold:

Would the Western Strategic Direction have been actually able to advance the armies through the nuclear inferno, and

How would the West have responded?

If the Soviets had their s**t together and moved fast enough, they _might_ have been able to race through the ruins of Germany and entered France and the Low countries before any sort of effective response could be mounted. The likelyhood of this seems rather minimal. As well, what would the point of this have been? A radioactive wasteland would not support the sort of pillage and plunder the Soviet state would have needed to pay back the cost of the war, nor would it have made holding the Eastern European part of the Empire any easier, who wants to be buffering space for radioactive fallout and toxic gas clouds?


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## cavalryman (23 Sep 2011)

In the hoary old days of yore (late 80s) as per my failing and scotch-fuelled memories I remember the war games 4 CMBG HQ staff used to participate in with the US in Stuttgart based around an all-out Soviet invasion, and it usually ended fairly regularly with NATO (read the US) employing tac nukes to stem the flow.  Make of that what you will. In any case, Germany was screwed. -

As a side note, if you ever had the chance of exercising with the Germans back then, pretty much every east west bridge span was set up to receive prepared demolition charges, said charges being stored nearby and in the charge of reservists whose sole job was to place them if the balloon went up. Going into the bowels of an Autobahn overpass on the Danube and watching the Germans rig the dummy charges was to say the least, interesting.  The Soviets would not have found their race to the channel an easy thing


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## cupper (23 Sep 2011)

I recall a discussion shortly after the fall of the WP with a senior Col. in the Army who was tasked in Plans and Ops at Marcom at that time, and it correlates to other items I've heard and read over the years.

Essentially the strategic view by NATO was that the first 48 to 72 hours would basically be complete beatdown of NATO troops on the front lines. Days 4 to 7 would turn into a delaying / holding action, giving up territory as necessary to minimize losses (sacrifice ground for time). By Day 8 sufficient forces from the US, UK and yes Canada would have arrived on European soil to start a counter offensive. As well, the Soviet supply lines by that point would be stretched to capacity and the juggernaut would start to grind to a halt.

The overall view was that it would end in a stalemate, but ultimately the Soviet Government would implode due to the failure to achieve domination of Europe.


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## Old Sweat (23 Sep 2011)

In response to the last three posts, it would have taken an awful lot of nukes to establish a corridor, and to what purpose? (Back in the bad old days I was trained as a nuclear weapons target analyst, so I have a bit of admittedly dated knowledge.) The WP forces may have targetted installations, air fields and the rest. However our side had done the same. The NATO concept of operations was to hold the WP on obstacles, natural or otherwise - and the Sappers routinely practiced laying huge anti-tank minefields - and force a concentration of forces to mount a deliberate attack to breach the obstacles and break through the defenders. It was at this time that nuclear release was supposed to be delegated to corps commanders by Saceur and the "nuclear fire plan" would be fired. I used quotation marks around nuclear fire plan because it was not a classic fire plan, but rather an allottment of nuclear devices down to divisions and brigades. Instead of a really big bang, it therefore would have been a series of nuclear detonations.

Re the reinforcement of Europe, I have my doubts considering it happening in that the WP air forces would probably have targeted the military and civil air fields from the gitgo. If I recall correctly, NATO counted on enough strategic notice to mobilize reserves and to move forces from the UK and North America.


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## cupper (23 Sep 2011)

Old Sweat said:
			
		

> Re the reinforcement of Europe, I have my doubts considering it happening in that the WP air forces would probably have targeted the military and civil air fields from the gitgo.



About half of the stuff I've read over the years assumed that air superiority favored NATO, and that the WP airfields would only be effective for a very short period of time. But then again, they also assumed that WP air defenses would have made this a highly difficult task.

The other half assumed that IF a surprise attack were to occur, NATO air defenses would over come the lack of warning.

All told, you couldn't really be sure of how the air war was going to play out, except that over the long term (relatively speaking) NATO would gain air superiority, and then they would play havoc on the Soviet supply lines.


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## Old Sweat (23 Sep 2011)

Back in the sixties we certainly didn't plan on air superiority, especially as the US was concentrating on Vietnam. And not just aircraft, but missiles as well, would have been fired at the airfields.

And regarding the air situation, the NATO forces except for the Germans, had no real corporate memory of a hostile air environment. We were planning to fight with an open flank above us. For example in 2 British Division which included 4 CIBG the air defence resouces consisted of one regiment of 40mm 70 calibre guns, although there also was a corps level regiment of missiles which basically provided area defence for the logistics tail.

Could we have won? Sure, our troops were better and a lot of our kit was comparable, at least in 1 British Corps. Some of the other allies, maybe not so much. The challenge was that there were just so many WP forces. We also were constrained in that the smart operational tactic was to trade ground for time. However, again in the sixties, the Germans would not countenance such a move. Up in the Northern Army Group area holding the classic North German Plain which was flat and open and led straight to the low countries a la the Von Schlieffen Plan we also had a fairly weak force* of four corps - one made up of regular British and Canadian forces and three other (German, Dutch and Belgian) with conscript forces with a lot of Second World War kit, especially in the last two - and not a lot of natural obstacles far enough back to allow us enough time to develop them. Our supporting tactical air force was also not all that strong.

* 1 British Corps had three divisions of seven brigades total including 4 CIBG which from about 1968 was the Corps Covering Force, but other UK based brigades were supposed to use the pre-chunnel ferry system to get to the area around the Weser in a matter of a very few days. Try the doing the movement calculations for that.


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## Edward Campbell (23 Sep 2011)

Further to what Old Sweat said:

1. The only real approach,for the Warsaw Pact, to anything of value, was through the North German Plain. The southern axis, the Fulda Gap and all that, was, always, a side show - a good enough sideshow to tie down two pretty good German corps and two indifferent US corps;

2. There was no way that anyone, from Europe or North America, was reinforcing anyone in Europe in days or even weeks - months, maybe, but months was way too long. It, reinforcement of NATO by NATO, was a logistical *impossibility*; but

3. We had one HUGE advantage ...
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
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... the enemy was the Warsaw Pact.

If we were logistically challenged - and we were - they were logistically crippled. Further, we knew our plan; I have some knowledge of what we learned after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the reuinification of Germany and my "take away" was that they had no coherent plan.


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## cupper (23 Sep 2011)

See this is the problem, It seems that there are different era's within the Cold War.

During the first half of the 60's I wasn't even a gleam in my father's eye.

I grew up in the 70's under the fears of the marauding Soviet hordes waiting to break out across the central German Plains. Spent many days waiting for his return from STANAVFORLANT cruises.

The early 80's was when I really became aware of Us vs Them, and the potential for global nuclear war. Then from '83 to '89 kept the woods of Aldershot safe from the marauding Fantasian hordes.

And in '90 we finally realized the Peace Dividend. :sarcasm:

In all three decades, the threat was always there, but over time capabilities changed, opinions regarding nuclear options changed, technology changed. We came close to having the balloon go up many times. The Cuban Missile Crisis, Exercise Able Archer '83, among others. 

Who would have won, how and why seems to be more of a factor of the decade or era than anything else.

/end Rambling thoughts


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## GnyHwy (24 Sep 2011)

The Soviets would have rolled over any of the forces that we had in Europe; quite easily.  If you can locate an old gen force pub (stopped being used in the early 2000s) from your library, look at the enemy orbat and that is pretty much what the Soviets had.  Kind of surreal if you count the numbers.  

They would have used chemical weapons immediately and followed with multiple divisions and corps until they reached the Atlantic ocean.  I don't believe the force in Europe was ever intended for defeating them.  Just a force that could delay long enough to allow an effective counter attack force to show up.  In the end we would have won, but our forces that were already in Europe, would have been wiped out.

Their numbers alone were staggering.  Picture a brigade's worth of armour, mech inf and armoured arty in a 4km sq, then keep doubling it for a hundred kilometres in behind; and that's just the some of the ground forces.


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## Journeyman (24 Sep 2011)

GnyHwy said:
			
		

> The Soviets would have rolled over any of the forces that we had in Europe; quite easily.


I'll put more faith in the previous two pages, which outlined the poor WP servicability rates and absence of logistic capability, as opposed to the Int Branch horror stories of the 9 foot tall Spetz'naz.


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## cupper (24 Sep 2011)

Lets not forget that a significant portion of the second line fighting units were KGB battalions whose purpose was "pour encouragez les outres".

It's says a lot about an enemy when it needs to field a unit whose only function is to prevent the unit in front from retreating by shooting its personnel if they start to falter.


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## GnyHwy (24 Sep 2011)

Don't know much about the 60s, but if it happend in the 80s, the Soviets would have attacked late on a Friday night/early Sat morning.  Half our troops would have been drunk at the gasthaus and the other half would have been drunk somewhere else in Europe.

I still say they would have handed it to us for the delay phase.  No nukes as they were likely afraid of any retaliation.  They wouldn't have wanted a stalemate, their doctrine demanded they kept moving.  They likely would have used chemicals immediately though.  I have heard that from at least 2 very credible sources.

Their logistics would have failed them, but not before kicking the crap out of our stationed forces.  Once the counterattack arrived from the UK and US it would have been a different story. The Soviets knew this; which is probably why they didn't attack.

I still say our stationed forces were only a delay force and they would have been beatin up far past combat ineffectiveness.


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## a_majoor (24 Sep 2011)

Perhaps the best fictional narrative would be Ralph Peter's "Red Army", which looks at WWIII through the eyes of the Soviet forces; from Generals to Privates.

The book is quite believable (Peters was an intelligence officer), and the main take away was the (fictional) Soviets were counting on NATO inertia and irresolution to provide the fatal delay, strike a massive blow and hope the West Germans would capitulate rather than have their nation ruined again. The setting is the North German Plain and the Soviets make considerable headway with the initial advance. The Americans are offstage in the book, but they do make an appearance near the end, finally getting untangled from the Fulda Gap and striking north to hit the flank and cut the supply lines, causing considerable damage but too late to stop the political surrender and end of the war. 

Even Peters, however, is not able to provide any coherent explanation as to why the war happened (the Soviet soldiers essentially shake their heads but carry out their orders); indeed while I received my early training to fight the Cold War, no one could ever explain why exactly the USSR would have come across the Inter German Border....(pillage and plunder didn't seem right, the devastation would far outstrip the value of anything they could have repatriated). Of course this didn't stop hordes of writers (I also have "First Clash" in my library at home), and I suppose we will go into our twilight reading novels of battles between massive armies in Asia...

WRT REFORGER; it is my reasoned opinion that the USSR would have used missiles to destroy every airfield capable of receiving heavy transports and every port capable of receiving military supply ships so all they would have had to fight against would be the forces already stationed in Europe on D Day. _Frontovaya Aviatsiya_ would have had the sky, and only needed to contend against surviving aircraft stationed in the UK or US Navy carrier battlegroups in the North Sea and Mediterranean sea  (and perhaps the _Flygvapnet_). This would have left a "donut hole" over much of Europe as all aircraft would be operating at extreme range to reach the battlefield.


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## Edward Campbell (24 Sep 2011)

GnyHwy said:
			
		

> Don't know much about the 60s, but if it happend in the 80s, the Soviets would have attacked late on a Friday night/early Sat morning.  Half our troops would have been drunk at the gasthaus and the other half would have been drunk somewhere else in Europe.



You are presuming that the Soviet troops would have been sober - which would have been just as unlikely in the '80s as it was in the '70s and '60s. Discipline, such as it was amongst the Russian conscripts, was maintained with a combination of the club and vodka - more of the latter being the tool of choice.




> I still say they would have handed it to us for the delay phase.  No nukes as they were likely afraid of any retaliation.  They wouldn't have wanted a stalemate, their doctrine demanded they kept moving.  They likely would have used chemicals immediately though.  I have heard that from at least 2 very credible sources.



Maybe. If their chemical weapons worked - a dubious proposition, at best.




> Their logistics would have failed them, but not before kicking the crap out of our stationed forces.  Once the counterattack arrived from the UK and US it would have been a different story. The Soviets knew this; which is probably why they didn't attack.



Their logistics would have prevented something more than 60% of their tanks from ever leaving the barracks gate ... and those that did would have lacked ammo and fuel.




> I still say our stationed forces were only a delay force and they would have been beatin up far past combat ineffectiveness.



Our forces were, indeed, only delay forces ... our _strategic_ AIM was to deter the Warsaw Pact. The Cold War was a _political_ action in which the military - on both sides - played a supporting role: think of it, the military, as the All Black's _Hakka_, it's a great show but the real game is rugby. In the Cold War the military was for show, the real game was economic and political.


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## Old Sweat (24 Sep 2011)

And for an interesting aside, the lessons learned from the 1967 Six Days War in the Middle East could not have amused the WP leadership. Forget the Israeli pre-emptive strike that crippled the enemy air forces on the ground. The Soviet tanks proved inferior to the Israeli armoured force, which included Super Shermans and "souped up" British Centurions. And their tactical doctrine which was straight Soviet did not work all that well. It is not too much to say that it probably would not have worked any better with WP conscripts than it did with Syrian and Egyptian conscripts. Given officers encouraged not to use their initiative (with political commissars looking for deviation in thought) and it could have made the Summer of 1941 look like a triumph of Red military power.


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## Kat Stevens (24 Sep 2011)

As a sapper who lived and trained in Germany in the late 80's, I can tell you that the entire country would be a giant obstacle belt within 48 hours.  Every bridge, culvert, mountain road, and goat path was/is laced with PPTs, whether a crater group, steel post obstacle, falling concrete block, or bridge demolition.  It would have been choke point after choke point, resulting in a high degree of suck for any advancing forces.  An effective obstacle is always covered by what?


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## Old Sweat (24 Sep 2011)

Kat Stevens said:
			
		

> As a sapper who lived and trained in Germany in the late 80's, I can tell you that the entire country would be a giant obstacle belt within 48 hours.  Every bridge, culvert, mountain road, and goat path was/is laced with PPTs, whether a crater group, steel post obstacle, falling concrete block, or bridge demolition.  It would have been choke point after choke point, resulting in a high degree of suck for any advancing forces.  An effective obstacle is always covered by what?


That was the case in the sixties, as well, although the effectiveness of the coverage no doubt improved over time.


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## Journeyman (24 Sep 2011)

Thucydides said:
			
		

> The book is quite believable (Peters was an intelligence officer)...


I admit I enjoyed the book when it originally came out (1989). However the combination of now _actually_ knowing what was on the other side of the Iron Curtain, plus the 'every character is a caricature' style of writing, caused his books to head off to the second-hand bookstore about the same time as the "Viktor Suvorov" books went.

As for Peters being believable because he was in Intelligence officer...  :  I'm pretty familiar with Int folks, having occasionally served within Int staffs. They're obligated to think about an enemy's "most likely" and "worst case" scenarios. Because Commanders tend to focus on the "worst case" -- preparing for the worst will most often cover off the most likely -- Intelligence personnel become habituated to thinking along the lines of the worst case. This in no way makes them believable; rather, the 'chicken little' syndrome wears thin quickly when events continually prove the 'worst case' to be wrong, notwithstanding that's what command asked for, and the 'most likely' may have been correct but less dramatic. 

The boring nature of recurring 'worst case' hyperbole doesn't make Int people believable; it does tend to keep them from getting invited to parties though.


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## TangoTwoBravo (24 Sep 2011)

I think that a possible "most likely" scenario could have been a limited offensive with the aim of seizing a big chunk of West Germany and then holding it as leverage in whatever dispute caused hostilities. By limited offensive I refer to the aim not the means. They would have employed the whole of their offensive capabilites less weapons of mass destruction to overwhelm the forward NATO forces and then establish a defensive line (backed by lots of SAMs). NATO would then have been faced with a dilemma - attack into numerically superior defences or accept the new status quo. This could have been complicated as well by large numbers of NATO prisoners courtesy of "forward defence." By the WP not taking the whole enchilada NATO would have much less likely to go nuclear.

Yom Kippur could be seen as an example of such an offensive, although the Israeli riposte showed that there were certainly flaws. Handing the initiative back to the enemy certainly has problems. The Coalition's ability to rip through Iraq's air and ground defences in 1991 also show the vulnerability of WP style forces to Western methods. Still, the build-up for 1991 was done without interference. I doubt that the WP would have given us that for free. I am not sure how closely the 1991 Iraqis would have compared to the 1988 WP, but it is intriguing.

The other WP course of action would be the unlimited offensive with the aim of conquering Western Europe. While this would play to their strengths (Manchuria 1945 etc) and force the US and UK to have to consider OVERLORD redux, it would also be likely to trigger nuclear escalation. I don't think, therefore, that it would be a very likely scenario.


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## a_majoor (24 Sep 2011)

WRT Peters being believable, I meant in the sense that he was speaking from a much greater base of experience and knowledge than, say, Tom Clancey. Peters also admits in the afterword of one of his books that he is indeed going for the "worst case" scenario in order to provide the dramatic arc and compressed timeline for his story (if WWIII had devolved into a WWI like stalemate it would have been much harder to write a gripping and entertaining story). Debating on the Internet always leaves large holes in arguments (sigh).

A humorous aside, I was gripped by novelmania during my tour of Cyprus in the winter of 89 (in the pre internet/smatphone age, people actually sat in small groups and played cards, watched the same movie or TV show together, or pulled out pens and paper and wrote by hand!). While others wrote sword and sorcery or space opera, I decided to write a Canadian war novel set in WWIII Germany (no, I also had no real reason for the war to start). The story arc as I remember it involved the Soviets smashing 4 CBBG during their advance, but discovering the Canadians simply would not stop fighting...Sergeants gathering up stray clerks, dismounted tankers and logistics types to continue the counter offensive were a big part of the story.

Sadly for my literary ambitions, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev turned out to be my toughest critic, going so far as to change the political landscape and invalidating the background....


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## Fishbone Jones (24 Sep 2011)

eace: Who really wins in war, man! Nobody! You can't hug your baby with nuclear arms!! eace:







Thought we needed som levity 8)

As an aside, I remember being told that my Centurion was good for about 18 minutes once we reached, or became, the FEBA. That dropped to about 7-10 once we fired our first round. Which may explain the drinking we did over there ;D


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## Rifleman62 (25 Sep 2011)

> ...my Centurion was good for about 18 minutes...



Is that broken down with limited maint resources or enemy action?

The Prague summer of 1968 was an interesting time.

On one FTX we were "attacked" by a Brit tank unit using white light. Blinded. Scary. 

What about France? What would they do or produce?


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## Fishbone Jones (25 Sep 2011)

Rifleman62 said:
			
		

> Is that broken down with limited maint resources or enemy action?



Nope, that was rolling.



			
				Rifleman62 said:
			
		

> What about France? What would they do or produce?



A shortage of white linen and clean underwear?


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## a_majoor (26 Sep 2011)

France would do what was needed to protect the interests of France, not NATO. Their nuclear deterrent was to threaten the WP is their armies passed beyond the borders of Germany and threatened the French metropole...


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## Danjanou (26 Sep 2011)

recceguy said:
			
		

> As an aside, I remember being told that my Centurion was good for about 18 minutes once we reached, or became, the FEBA. That dropped to about 7-10 once we fired our first round. Which may explain the drinking we did over there ;D



That the one in the CWM that you tried to do the halt parade on and almost got us tossed by museum security? Didn't seem to be running then. 8)

Being "killed" 6 times in one day on REFORGER 80 kind of gave me an idea of my life expectancy as a speed bump in the Fulda Gap should the Cold War have ever turned hot.


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## vonGarvin (26 Sep 2011)

Thucydides said:
			
		

> France would do what was needed to protect the interests of France, not NATO. Their nuclear deterrent was to threaten the WP is their armies passed beyond the borders of Germany and threatened the French metropole...


Interesting that you say this.  

One thing that Grognards like to do is to take old games, and "fancy them up", so to speak.   So, about a year ago, I took the rules for two contemporary games on the potential "Battle for Germany" (aka "NATO vs. Warsaw Pact, circa 1985") and blended them.   The rules for the use of nuclear weapons was pretty clear that either player had control of when to initiate the use of nuclear weapons, mostly tactical weapons.  One result was that units could no longer "stack" at the same as prior to their use, to represent units spreading out to avoid becoming targets.   Anyway, one rule was that once the Warsaw Pact forces reached the Rhine, and had a logistical tail back to the east, then there was a chance for France to employ nukes on those forces.  In the game, there was a restriction on the use of nuclear weapons on enemies that were in friendly cities (eg: NATO could not nuke a Soviet Division if it were in Bremen, for example, and the Warsaw Pact could not nuke a Brit division if it were in Leipzig).  This restriction did not apply in the "first strike" of the French Army.  Admittedly, this rule was more flavour than anything, but it was one way to "game" the effect of French independent nuclear deterrance.


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## cupper (26 Sep 2011)

Most of the gaming I did in the early 80's that involved NATO vs WP basically ran the same as most of the predictions posted here. Things would start quickly as WP gained major ground, but would grind to a halt then NATO would being a counter offensive that would ultimately end in a stalemate, or a release in nuclear forces. 

There was the odd time when, due to a bad series of gambles combined with bad rolls of the dice, that one side or the other ended up wiping the opposing force off the map. Ultimately the world would end as a glowing mass of cinders.


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## vonGarvin (26 Sep 2011)

cupper said:
			
		

> Ultimately the world would end as a glowing mass of cinders.


Yes, but it was fun 

I still play those old games, mostly via Email.  NATO: The Next War in Europe and Third World War: Battle for Germany were two of my faves.  Recently, I was playing NATO, and I told the Russian guy that if he used chemicals, I would respond with nukes.  Two turns later, he starts with chemicals.  I went nuke on him, but it initiated a strategic exchange.   Game over


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## tomahawk6 (26 Sep 2011)

The counter to a large scale Warsaw Pact tank invasion were ERW [enhanced radiation weapons].Interestingly enough the ERW may have been tested in Canada at Nicolet Proof and Experimental Test Establishment.Dont know if that is true,but the US did have a small inventory of these weapons which could have blunted an invasion.


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