Cold Warrior Question - Who Would Have Won?

[cavalryman]

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

 

[cupper]

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.

 

[Old Sweat]

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.

 

[cupper]

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.

 

[Old Sweat]

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.

 

[Edward Campbell]

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.

 

[cupper]

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

 

[GnyHwy]

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.

 

[Journeyman]

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.

 

[cupper]

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.

 

[GnyHwy]

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.

 

[a_majoor]

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.

 

[Edward Campbell]

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.

 

[Old Sweat]

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.

 

[Kat Stevens]

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?

 

[Old Sweat]

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.

 

[Journeyman]

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.

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

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.

 

[a_majoor]

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....

 

[Fishbone Jones]

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