Then BAM, Reagan.
"We will destroy the Soviet Empire!"
Nobody thought he literally meant it.
How long could a coventional WW3 have lasted?
- Thread starter Forcon
- Start date
Then BAM, Reagan.
"We will destroy the Soviet Empire!"
Nobody thought he literally meant it.
It's a conventional WW3. Technology will progress differently and Great Britain is an unsinkable aircraft carrier. There The USSR simply does not have the forces to go past the Rhine. If it is a long war, they will lose. I don't think the west has the resolve to win a conventional WW3. If this is the case, the USSR will probably call it quits at Germany and an overthrow will happen in Italy. The war will be costly for them too and if they desire to keep pushing, they will beat France but it won't be easy.
Yes... and?
What does this even mean? Will NATO suddenly develop laser guns or something?
It isn't as if this is 1940's Soviet Union. The USSR in 1960-1980 has far more amphibious assault capability (their airborne forces alone outnumber the British home army) and the channel and the North Sea can be locked down with anti-ship missiles. The Royal Navy is a shadow of what it was in the 40's and 50's. And to top things off, a USSR who is in a position to contemplate an invasion of the British Isles is one which has already wiped out the British Army of the Rhine, which means it has effectively wiped out all of Britains conventional combat ground power. Not to mention it is still too far away from Soviet industrial centers to provide an effective base for escort fighters and SEAD aircraft for American strategic bombers.
Yes, yes they do. If Soviet forces have reached the Rhine in force, then all NATO forces east of it have either been annihilated or will shortly be. Given that represents the vast majority of NATO's conventional combat power, there would be nothing left that can halt the Soviet advance. The majority of French heavy forces were likewise deployed in Germany. What was retained in France were more suitable for colonial wars then slugging it out with Soviet tank and motor-rifle forces. At that point either the French go nuclear and everybody loses, refuse to go nuclear and get occupied, or decide to strike a peace deal with the Soviets and become irrelevant to the conflict at large.
If Hakett's book was a Techno Thriller then it was a particularly dry one
ref Russian training - Not a stereotype
The fact is the Soviet army never maintained an army wide Professional experienced NCO cadre like western armies do.
Instead 'Sgts' in the Soviet army were 2nd year conscripts who had been chosen during their first year to complete a junior leaders course.
For more technical roles a 'Warrant officer' rank was created as equipment became more and more complicated but this rank was not an indications of long service and experience but rather a rank given to them upon completion of their 'technical' training for what ever branch they belonged to.
Basically 20 year olds!
The only analogy I can think of in the west is the Artificer rank which I believe is a equiv Petty officer rank in the Royal navy which was gained only after 5 years of Technical training.
The true long service professionals in the Soviet Army where the Officers and particularly in branches such as the Infantry they effectively had to act as Squad or section leaders effectively doing the same job as Corporals and Sgts in NATO Armies.
So I cannot agree that their level of training and expertise was as good as those in the NATO forces
Now I do agree that Quantity has a quality all of its own - which is why I said at the beginning if Pact forces manage to attack with little warning (ie less than 2 weeks) - then there is a good chance that they can gain the upper hand.
Now while some units particularly the East German army (which did maintain a good core of long service veterans / NCOs) could probably have pulled this off - but not your average Pact formation - there would have been too many signs.
Its a good joke - but that's all it is - hey maybe they were in a POW cage?
When the SALT talks were being conducted the Russian Armies expert on Nuclear Artillery was a general, The British Armies expert at the talks was a WO1 Sgt from the Royal Artillery Rgt.
The Russian was some what put out that he had to deal with a 'mere' NCO to which said British NCO replied "I'd rather be a Sgt in the British Army then a General in yours"
Now that's funny
Regarding T72/T80s etc
The Modern latest B3 T72s are very good tanks and I would rate them against all but the best the west has to offer.
Frontally the early T72s were designed to be invulnerable to the L7 105mm HESH (or HEP) - which was introduced to defeat the massed T55 formations - due to their laminate armour making the L7 which was the main NATO tank gun in the 60s and 70s obsolete.
Also the 125mm Gun on the T72 and T80 as you say would defeat most NATO tanks of the day at battlefield ranges.
The West responded by introducing in the 80s designs such as the Challenger, Abrams M1A1 and Leopard 2 and weapon systems such as Milan, HOT and TOW ATGW - all designed to defeat T72 and T80 beyond those ranges - just as the L7 had done to the T55 in the 60s.
T80s were found wanting pretty much where ever they have been used - Granted the Russians no longer use it and the Ukrainian Built ones (T84?) has been quite successful post 93
But the image of T80s instantly brewing up in places like Chechnia and Georgia (Granted cat B Units and internal Guard etc) and export T72s popping turrets doesn't leave me with much faith - especially when the same weapons vs NATO tanks during the same period did not produce the same results.
I know that the modern T72B3 is a good tank and well protected by today's standards but the B3 is a relatively modern version of the T72 and I would still rather go to war in a Modern Western Tank.
You know, it's highly unlikely that they would even reach the Rhine.
That is something that always annoyed me about those authors and spare thime tacticians.
They alway took the soviet war plans and the NATO worst case scenarios for realistic without even comparing it with the data that was openly available after the cold war.
The entire 7 days to the Rihne plan is not functional.
The propagated fear of a soviet push through the Fulda gap was nothing more than a big ruse.
While a push through the fulda gap would be a perfect way to split north and south germany and threaten important centers of industry, logistics and command, it assumes that there are no or only weak defenses in position.
But the Fulda gap was an easily defensible area wich would not only favor the western forces but channel the soviets in a way that the couldn't use maneuver anymore.
The only real area in western germany that favored the attacker and where the soviets could have had a fast advance, were the north german plains.
But NATO command knew that and stationed enough troops there.
Also, most warplans ignore the fact that the NATO armys had technological and qualitativ superiority to the warsaw pact forces 79 onwards.
Besides that the west german army was build to stop any invading force, not to defeat it but to stop for as long as it takes till reinforcements from the allies could arrive.
The Bundeswehr during the 80s outnumbered the NVA and the Polish army combined.
Really? So how is NATO going to overcome their numerical inferiority and poor deployment?
Of the three authors discussed in this thread, only Clancy lacked a formal military background. Hackett was a senior general in the British Army and Ralph Peters was an officer in US military intelligence. They were about as "spare time" tacticians as Zhukov or Eisenhower
As do far too many people here.
Good thing that was only the Soviet war plan in the 1960's. A really good thing, since it envisaged nukes being used to blast a path westward.
Correct. The main Soviet thrust would come across the North German Plain. A major offensive would likely be mounted in the Fulda Gap, but it would be intended just to pin down the West German-American forces there.
Too bad they were horribly outnumbered, poorly deployed due to a political, and coordination was less then ideal. To illustrate: the British Army of the Rhine did not take forward defense seriously and intended to conduct a fighting retreat from one prepared position to another once combat actually began, which would be the proper response. Unfortunately for them, the West Germans, judging by their training did. I don't know about the Dutch-Belgian Army on the northern part of the front. This would leave the Germans with exposed flanks for the Soviets to turn and notable holes in the front that would allow Soviet operational manuever groups to run in and wreck havoc in the rear areas, which would very quickly disintegrate any coherent defense. The Germans would be encircled and destroyed, leaving a gaping hole in NATO lines that Soviet mobile forces will be to run in and raise even more havoc, striking all the way for the Rhine. The British defences would be effectively by-passed and the BAoR would very quickly find itself likewise encircled
Once the Soviets have gotten to the point where their forward detachments are reaching and crossing the Rhine, then it's over. The American and French forces at the Fulda Gap would be cut off from their lines of communication and resupply, effectively encircled and just waiting destruction.
The linear defense strategy which NATO adopted at West German insistence was attempted repeatedly against the kind of mechanized assault we could expect from the Soviets during World War 2: by the Anglo-French against the Germans in 1940, by the Russians against the Germans in 1941, and by the Germans against the Russians in 1944. Each and every time the result was the same: utter catastrophe for the defender.
This is zero evidence for this. Soviet equipment throughout most of the Cold War was generally as good or (in some cases) better as it's western counterparts. No real technological military gap opened until the mid/late-1980s and even by then said gap was too minor to make a difference if it were not also for the falling Soviet training and maintenance standards. Indeed, I recall reading about a minor NATO freakout when they got their hands on a piece of Soviet Kontakt-5 reactive armor after the wall came down and found it was impervious to even the latest NATO tank rounds. New ammunition came down quite rapidly after that realization.
If the WarPac/USSR equipment, training, men etc were so bad then the 'achievement' of the West in being technologically 'superior' is basically absolutely worthless, or about as good as being top student in a class full of coma patients. It also means the half century of paranoia about the Russians surging through the Fulda Gap, the trillions of $ spent on defense, the sacrifices made in the covert side of the Cold War, the lives and careers spent on the line in Germany of hundreds of thousands of men and women, the numerous deaths both suffered, inflicted and caused in the proxy wars of Korea, Vietnam, etc, were all utterly pointless at best and an example of extreme evil by the collective Western governments at worst, because it was all for nothing. According to those morons who wish to denigrate everything the Soviet's ever built, they could never have won, they never would have won and the Western powers would've been able to roll back the Russian's all the way to Moscow with something like a single Armoured Corps and a couple of infantry divisions to wave to the cameras.
It's an immensely stupid thing to claim, because it means all those mighty weapons and vehicles bought at vast expense and loudly proclaimed to be needed in vast numbers to just about hold back the Soviet tide were only marginally better than the apparent paper mache and cardboard jokes the Russian's were turning out. Which is hilarious from a third-party perspective, because it reduces equipment like the Challenger 2, F-22, or Leopard 2 from 'technologically advanced death machines' to 'marginally less shit than a weapon apparently more dangerous to its own crew than the enemy'.
Or, we could all be sensible and acknowledge that the Russian's are just as capable of making decent weapons, and both 'sides' (such as that term even applies these days) have their strengths and weaknesses, with superiority over the other in different fields, largely where those happen to clash. (EG, Western shipborne anti-air is generally held to have been superior during most of the Cold War, but Russian AShM's were far superior to Harpoon and Exocet. Conversely, the West expected their aircraft to hold a margin of superiority over the WarPac forces, but conversely the NATO ground based AA systems are essentially standing jokes compared to the Russian's idea of a ground based SAM and AA gun network).
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I think history has taught us that, when going to war against the Soviet Union, don't think flashy gizmos and ultra-high performance machines are going to make up for inferior numbers and difficult-to-replace munitions. Soviet equipment, when well-maintained and in the hands of people who knew how to use them, was deviously effective in their simplicity and fitted well within the needs of the Soviet military. Quantity is, indeed, a quality all of its own, and the Soviets knew how to use quantity when at their prime.
...long range escort fighters perhaps...
Classic wanking. The USSR builds up and NATO, without spending tons on ICBMs and nuclear deterrents sit on their hands making no adjustments. Hmm, sounds like a Nazi-wank.
They will be nowhere close to invading Britain by the time they have the staging grounds to do it. There are too many defensive lines in western Europe they can fall back on, blowing every bridge behind.
We have a thread about made-up WW2 movies. This sounds like a nominee for Red Dawn: Britain. I'd watch it.
Of course,t he west that has twice the reserves of manpower cannot raise more armies, and the USSR will have plenty of equipment left over after "annihilating" all of NATO.
For the USSR to achieve victory in continental Europe that assuredly, they would not have the air force to seriously make a play at Britain, which is where aircraft carrier Britain comes into play. Plus, it is doubtful they can even take all of France.
No nuclear ATL.
There is no way to sustain the numbers of fighters needed that far away from their air bases in the face of determined and effective air defenses for the length of time required for a sustained strategic bombing campaign against a peer opponent. It is something considered military impossible even today, much less 50 years ago.
The OP doesn't prevent nuclear weapon development. It simply states that nuclear weapons, for some reason, are not used once the conflict begins. That pretty much means we have to go with the OTL build-ups and deployments.
True. Nukes will have come out by then.
You know... come to think of it, so would I.
Sure they can raise more manpower. But this isn't World War 2 where you can just convert a vehicle shop into building tanks. Modern military equipment is extremely specialized and so is the industry required to make it. The Soviets tried to maintain a complete dual-use capability in their industrial sector and it is one of the major reasons their economy wound-up imploding on them*. There is simply no way the West can manage the production rates required to replace the lost equipment in a time span any shorter then decades.
And you aren't taking Europe back from the Soviets with just light infantry.
*One of my favorite quips is that in making every effort to ensure they would win the conventional hot war, the Soviets lost the cold one.
They will. There is a reason they stuck their T-55s in storage, spending the money to maintain and modernize them, instead of just scrapping them: they'll be the king of the tanks once all the more advanced pieces of kit have been reduced to burnt out husks.
Because...?
It's actually entirely conceivable the USSR comes off better in air force terms then NATO does since they would lose a lot of munitions, support equipment, and possibly even aircraft and personnel when the rapidly moving Soviet forces overrun their continental air bases.
ASB forum is down that way.
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Oh, hey, I missed this at first. Ferreti's post must have slid it out of the way.
Some of them tend to be that way.
Yeah, you have a pretty neat stereotype.
Nothing in that is indicative of poor training. All you did was basically go and say that the Soviets don't do a number of things the same way as NATO forces did. Which is true.
But just because it is different does not mean it is worse. Soviet officers were not only themselves thoroughly trained, but also expected to do their utmost to train their soldiers. A Soviet enlisted man was regarded as his CO's responsibility. A poorly trained soldier was indicative of a bad officer and adversely affected their assessment. That gave officers the incentive to take training their soldiers seriously and the ability of said officers to discipline their soldiers gave them the necessary means to make their soldiers take training seriously.
Depends on which formation. The Soviet Category-A Formations stationed in Eastern Europe were maintained at full-combat readiness at all times. They could be up and attacking within just a few hours of the order being given. The Category-B divisions stationed on Soviet soil would require a few days before they could be combat-ready and moving west. The Category-C divisions would require anywhere between a few weeks to several months, since these were "cadre" formations... that is skeleton formations which consisted only of a few hundred people in peacetime that were supposed to be completely filled out with reservists.
Category-D's, or mobilization, formations would only begin to appear after three months since they were to be created from scratch.
Practically speaking, the Soviets would at most begin the war with only their Category-A and Category-B divisions at full-combat readiness. They would introduce the Category-C's late-war, and by a point at which the fighting would have already been de-facto decided. Category-D's pobably would never see the front-lines before the nukes start popping.
Only if you ignore the reason behind it. Which is provided in the paragraph directly above that I notice you did not bother to quote or even address at all.
Pretty much all versions of the joke indicate something along the lines of "Soviet occupied Paris".
A bit amusing, yes. Although I do think the benefits package for a Sgt in the British Army isn't as good as the one for a General in the Soviet Army.
~1,400 T-80s are in active duty use, although the number is falling as more T-72s are modernized to the B3 variant.
Which would be nice and all if it were not for the fact that the definition of "standard combat ranges" is the distance at which the two sides engage, that is spot and start shooting at, each other. It is irrelevant that you can destroy your enemy at 4,000 meters while he can destroy you at 3,000 meters when your direct-fire engagements are occurring inside of 1,000 meters. You are both equally capable of killing each other.
People like to talk a lot about Israelis-crewed M60s and Centurions blowing up Arab-crewed T-55s and T-62s in the Six Day and Yom Kippur wars a lot. They don't very much talk about Indian-crewed T-55s kicking the crap out of a variety of Pakistanis-crewed M60s and Centurions in the '71 Indo-Pakistani war.
Sending armor into an urban area with zero support is going to result in a lot of blown-up tanks regardless of what tanks you are using. The Russians could have been using Abrams and the results would have likely been the same.
Leaving aside that this was a case of Soviet/Russian weapons vs Soviet/Russian weapons, I don't recall any T-80s being used in Georgia.
Expecting deliberately degraded export-versions (AKA: "monkey models") or the even worse quality local copies manned by mind-bogglingly incompetent Syrian and Iraqi crews to perform the same as internal-use models manned by Soviet crews is asking for a lot.
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Again, being there is no exact year for this WW3 without nukes, it is hard to give a precise answer. However, even in WW2 the P51 was made to go to Berlin and back. The beginning of any such war would not require distances even greater than these, simply just to pummel USSR communications, bridges, perhaps manufacturing in Czechoslovakia and East Germany. Lord knows what else would be possible with butterflies leading to programs for long range jet fighters, which in OTL really were not necessary due to doctrine dictating that anything less than victory before the Rhine meant the nukes were coming out.
Shenanigans. The OP says "Assuming by some miracle it stayed conventional, how long could World War III have lasted in Europe..."
So, there won;t be nukes. He also specifies "mid 80s" for the event, and so if nukes were developed and we were talking about mid 80s, we wouldn't ahve the long range aircraft I am talking about but you would have NATO smart bombs and such.
Again, no, not in this thread. Start another thread where nukes are on the table.
However, if the USSR achieved such a crushing defeat of NATO in Europe, you would have NATO powers scraping clean the western hemisphere and all their equipment elsewhere around the world if they had to, and they can raise another army. What kind of shape is the USSR going to be to stop them? THeir losses will be heavy. Further, about half of the USSR's military was out of date equipment, with about 1/3 less men for logistics. Just how far is much of this equipment going to go without breaking down?
In the Arab-Israeli wars, we pretty much have a picture of what a numerically superior enemy with Russian equipment can do against a numerically inferior enemy, with better training and better equipment can do. Fighting NATO would just be a replay of this on a large scale.
However, like I said, I don't know if the West can politically win the war. So, if the USSR does successfully surround any sizable NATO forces, you may see a quick peace. If there is a resolve to fight, the USSR simply cannot push NATO out of France, NATO powers will clean the cupboards state-side and in Asia, raise another army and probably ramp up production of inferior models and equipment nonetheless, but the USSR would essentially have to o the same to replace their numbers. All the while, they can lose the occupation in Germany just like they did OTL in Afghanistan.
Just how well were these maintained, honestly? NATO had more men tending to their modern tanks than the USSR did to their huge array of backward tanks in storage and slightly less good modern tanks. I mean, it looks good on paper, but how would they really perform when thrust into service?
Oh yes, the unstoppable Soviet blitzkrieg. Worked out well for the Arabs in the 40s, 60s, and 70s.
I have enjoyed your dialogue with ObsessedNuker immensely. The only nitpik I would make is I would be careful extrapolating the arab/israeli experience on to a NATO/Soviet experience.
For one, the Israeli tactics actually mirrored those of the Soviets while the Arabs used little of the Soviet military science. IIRC, one of the lessons in 1973 was that mobile/personal anti-tank weapons like TOW's were effective on the first wave of Israeli armored attacks but the second wave tended to break through. In this case, the Israelis more resemble the Soviets and the Arabs that of NATO. What kind of conclusion can you draw when you are mixing equipment and tactics?
Second, Soviet equipment that was exported was stripped down of the bells and whistles. To what extent that affected Syrian and Egyptian capabilities I cant say. But it stands to reason there should be some performance loss relative to what you would expect from Soviet equipment in class A divisions.
All that said, I've enjoyed the banter. Thanks for contributing and please share your thoughts if either of my points are in error.
Well, I presume Israel doesn't have NATO's A-List weapons either. In the six day war, I believe they had mostly French stuff (and not sure if it is the best French stuff.) So, you have USSR's stripped down stuff facing NATO's stripped down stuff.
As for tactics, I cannot comment honestly. In one war the Israeli's were attacked first and on the other they pre-emptively struck. I am unsure how this relates to USSR-Nato strategems.
As for tactics, I cannot comment honestly. In one war the Israeli's were attacked first and on the other they pre-emptively struck. I am unsure how this relates to USSR-Nato strategems.
On my I-Phone, so I can't make thorough reply, but anyone who wants to realize the fallacy of using Arab performance as a metric for Soviet performance needs to read Arabs at War by Kenneth M. Pollack. I'll post some excerpts when I get home but the central gist is this: the various Arab armies are ASTONISHINGLY incompetent and tend to fare equally badly regardless of what equipment they are using.
A lot of excuse making. NATO weapons killed a ton more people in all the wars they were involved in (Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Israel, etc.) There has to be some point where a proven track record means something.
Not just armor, either. Look at the air war in Vietnam, for example. For quite a while Soviet-supplied equipment was doing pretty damn well against supposedly superior high-tech American airpower.
Though I doubt the restrictive ROE over 'Nam would apply in a no-holds-barred (save for nukes) war in Europe.
Though I doubt the restrictive ROE over 'Nam would apply in a no-holds-barred (save for nukes) war in Europe.
And yet too this day nobody has managed to do the same thing
But without the ability to attack Soviet resource extraction and production, the Soviets could indefinitely maintain the required air defense forces to mitigate such a campaign indefinitely.
Yes. It does not say "Assuming by some miracle nuclear weapons were never developed, how long could World War III have lasted in Europe." That means pre-war developments are largely as per IOTL: all the investments (on both sides) have been made.
I don't really frequent the ASB forum any more.
Not fast enough to prevent the occupation of continental Europe. Air transport would be too piecemeal to ever work and sea transport would take something like half-a-year to assemble pre-existing forces.
Assembling whole new forces from scratch is something that will take decades.
Only if you ignore their non-divisional assets. A lot of the logistical assets that normally come under divisional command in NATO force structure are instead considered army or district/group/front level assets in Soviet force structure. This is because of deployment factors: a NATO divisions can generally expect to be sent anywhere in the world at any time and would find itself operating under a completely different command while a Soviet division in Germany under the command of the 3rd Shock Army is pretty much guaranteed to stay in Germany under the command of the 3rd Shock Army without interruption for the next 40 years.
Hardly. The Arab-Israelis wars are a picture of what you get when a at least nicely skilled force goes up against utter incompetents.
I already have talked about Pollack and a big case study he uses is the Iraqis in both the Iran-Iraq War and the Gulf War. Yes, they sucked - badly - in 1982-83, but by 1986 Saddam had freed his generals to fight the war as best they could. The Iraqi generals became adept at conducting methodical and intricate plans to minimize the defects in their military. . .
... Which Pollack states were crippling. The worst being utter tactical ineptitude. Units that were flanked would not reposition to defend themselves, they would not conduct recces or post sentries, nor would they use any initiative whatsoever, right up to battalion and brigade level. Equipment was never used to anywhere near its potential, and advanced features such as NVGs or lead computation computers on the newer Russian tanks were often ignored.
Basically, the Iranians were outnumbered by the Iraqis 2-1 in infantry for much of the war, and 20-1 or worse in armor. They were essentially a slow moving infantry army, and after the revolution and the purges they were hardly the world's best soldiers, yet in mobile operations they were repeatedly able to totally outmaneuver and encircle large Iraqi groupings of mechanized infantry and armor.
The Iraqi generals were well aware of these limitations, and countered them by building massive lines of fortifications through which the Iranians would have to slog. Even then in their last major assault on Basra, 90,000 Iranian infantry backed by 200 tanks penetrated through 5 out of 6 defensive lines before 200,000 Iraqi troops in prepared defenses and backed by 3,000 tanks, and supported by masses of artillery firing chemical weapons before finally being halted at the last defensive line outside Basra. However, overall these defenses worked as they allowed the Iraqis to apply their massive advantage in firepower, and minimize their total lack of tactics.
The generals also drafted complex and intricate plans which the troops rehearsed extensively before an operation, in which their every action was dictated by a set scheme. The Iraqi generals were well aware that the moment things deviated from plan their army would fall apart, so they restricted any operations to no more than 36-48 hours - about the limit they felt comfortable with before chaos would start creeping in. The general staff knew their army was utterly incapable of conducting maneuver warfare, and so never attempted it. They worked with a realistic assessment of what they had.
That being the case, Pollack argues that the Iraqi general staff actually did as well as anyone could have expected with what they had, and within the limitations of their tools actually did very well. He uses their decision to sacrifice the Republican Guard to extricate the rest of the army from Kuwait as an example, which was a hard decision, but made on a realistic assessment of an incredibly bad situation, and the only good decision they could have made.
However, he also uses the Iraqi army as a caution to anyone who might argue that good strategy and superior equipment overcomes all else. The Iraqi army clearly showed that even massive materiel superiority (against Iran) and the best laid plans are meaningless if your troops simply do not have the skill to use or execute them. The Iraqi high command would often put a superbly equipped armored formation in exactly the right place, only to have them sit around blissfully unaware while enemy infantry skirted around them, and then wiped them out from the rear.
And this isn't just an Iraqi problem either. The Syrians, the Libyans, the Egyptians, and even the Jordanians all exhibit the same tactical behavior to a greater or lesser extent. The Jordanian and Egyptian General Staff, like the Iraqis, came to recognize the limitation and adjust their strategy and operations like the Iraqis did. But the Syrians (as the repeated drubbing at the Golan Heights demonstrated) and Libyans (who had mechanized forces get routed by Chadian militia with nothing heavier the ATGMs mounted on technicals). By all accounts, it is the Saudis who are the worst: they combined all of the crippling issues of the Iraqi armies with a kind of spoiled rich boy attitude.
And now, some actual excerpts from the book:
This is in great contrast to Soviet training, which emphatically emphasized both use of and defense against maneuver, speed, and deception. Furthermore, they made sure their officers were repeatedly tested in wargames and military exercises which were subjected to a very thorough system of post battle review and instruction where competence at lower levels was rewarded and encouraged. Thus they were continually improving.
That is probably what happens. The military victory will likely be coupled with considerable political psy-ops to try and convince the Western publics to make peace.
Zero evidence for this.
Well, their economy is better structured for it, so their economy would likely be able to ramp-up production much faster... it would probably plateau at a lower level though.
Germany is not a place ripe for an active insurgency like Eastern Europe or Afghanistan. We are more likely to see something along the lines of a Western European resistance movement like the French resistance.
Probably quite well. The stuff in storage was out-of-use so the only worry was wear, not tear. Add on top of that the fact the standard tendency of the Soviets to make things seriously resistant to wear (they are still finding stocks of abandoned-but-still-functional Soviet weaponry in Siberia) and the vast majority of that stuff is likely still workable.
The fact that the T-55 (and it's copies) is still the most numerous tank in the world despite it's obsolescence and the fact production has long since ceased is a testament to it's durability.
Please, Deep Operations. Soviet methodology was never anything so informal or ad-hoc.
Given that they comprehensively lacked the skill for anything more then the relatively static phased-advance-and-entrenchment, this is hardly surprising.
All examples of which involve a large disparity in overall resources (Korea, Vietnam), skill (Israel), or both (Iraq). But there are examples of Soviet weapons kicking the ass of NATO equipment... I've already cited the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971 in this thread.
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I shall call off the hit I had out on you for this slight
Apart from the initial "Team Yankee" style introduction - it read like a history book (World War Z copied this style of writing) and focused on the Politics and Strategy before during and after the 3 week conflict.
So hazing then?
Still not impressed and I'm still not rating them as anywhere near as good man for man as the then NATO Trained soldiers.
Unless all the Western Intelligence services where sleeping and the equally alert NATO forces who had been preparing for such an action for 30 odd years - were also sleeping - the moving up of additional forces and supplies would be spotted.
Unless....the Warsaw Pact was a hugh army of Ninjas....NINJAS WITH TANKS!!!
No seriously NATO would not have been caught Napping - they were quite paranoid over the whole threat.
No I read it - just heard it so many times - often with that 'Joke' being used.
Got his own Zil did he?
The British WO1 probably owned his own car - decadent Westerner that he is
I thought they had been completely retired them after checking various sources a year ago after the Crimea thing but now lots of the online sources say words to the effect of "XXX in service retired by 2015" - When in early 2014 most claimed it had already been retired!!!
So I guess given its now 2015 they are retired then
No they don't - I expect thats probably because the Pakistanis to the best of my knowledge were using Chinese made Type 59s and US M47/M48 Patton's and large numbers of up gunned Sherman's - and never used M60s or Centurions
As far as I am aware only the Indian Army used Centurions during the earlier conflicts in 1965 and then the older 20 pounder variant at that - which more often than not despite being an older tank got the upper hand over the 90mm armed Pakistani Armys M48 Patton's
<Google Fu>
The principle tank Battles in 1971 were conducted with T59 and Upgunned Sherman tanks in the Pakistan Army vs T54 and T55 as well as some French AMX 13 in Indian Service. Didn't go well for the Pakistanis.
Other Engagements included Indian Pt76s vs Pakistani M24 which went worse for the M24
And Battle of Basantar of course where the M47s and M48s ran head long into the Indian Army in a repeat performance of Asal Uttar except it wasn't Centurions but more modern T54s and T55s facing them - and this battle went just as Badly as the earlier one.
Basically the T47 and T48 was found wanting against the 84mm 20 pounder of the Centurion and 100 mm DT-10s of the more modern T54/55.
I guess those Russian Officers didn't train their men very well!!
Shame they didn't have some decent NCOs and long term professional servicemen to hand eh?
Abrams and Challi 2s have been comprehensively 'tested' by various Iraqi 'organisations' using a bewildering number of weapon systems (the majority of them Russian) under such conditions as those faced by T80 in Chechnia and T72 in Georgia (the T80 was not to be used in built up areas after the earlier battles - the Russian's had lost faith in them - probably unfairly given the T72s fairing little better under the same circumstances)
The Western Tanks however show a stubborn reluctance to immolate their own crews or explode when damged by a given weapon system.
And every time I see a Western tank vs Eastern tank argument where immolating Russian Tanks are mentioned - its always "Monkey tank variant" or "Cat B unit" or "Internal Security Division" or <add your favourite excuse here>
Western tanks have proven difficult to destroy even at point blank ranges by their own sides.
Basically their designs serve their crews far better than the Russian Designs serve theirs and that was as true in 1985 as it was 15 years later!
Today the T72B3 looks a world away from those models in use back in 85 and 2000 - but that been down to an awful lot of hard won experience!
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No point in doing it I guess? No one is preparing for such a war, due to ICBMs and stuff.
This is a "come as you are war." If the Soviets clean the cupboards trying to retain tactical air superiority, they won't be able to efficiently replace aircraft losses. The USSR had more fighter aircraft than NATO. Int he 1980s, NATO aircraft and missile technology was much better. It would be a Turkey shoot.
Perhaps, I figured that the TL would have to prevent nuclear development for it to even work, but fair enough.
Then ask the mod to move it, this is the criteria for the thread, not your made up criteria.
All those breaking down Russian tanks are just going to cross all the rivers in France and such unopposed? I mean, look what Taliban can do against tanks. You can't simply steamroll over an enemy that is willing to fight over a distance like that.
The RUssians would not be able to cross the Rhine. Nato would fall back, let west German collapse, and defend behind the RHine just fine.
Again, the US always ahd the mority of their men and equipment stateside...so, it does not get lost in the initial engagement by default.
USSR in Afghanistan also shows how "competent" Soviet forces were and how their morale was.
Honestly, I agree. The West does not have a spine. If the USSR stops at the Rhine, they are fine and become the uncontested masters of central Europe and perhaps force Italy into their sphere of influence. If they push farther, then it becomes an unwinnable fight to the death.
Theoretically, though I think quickly the war would be fought by aircraft, mines, and hand-held tank killers (as the USSR would have to go through tons of unhappy people who don't want to be occupied.) These probably favor the West.
True, it was only their politeness and sheer humiliation that the USSR felt so bad for them, they just backed up and left in the late 80s.
Shenanigans. I work in a body shop. Anything that sits has problems. Mice eat wires, fluids are hygroscopic, etcetera. Don't believe it for a second.
Or to its cheapness and commonness for a long time long past. THe KJV Bible is still the most common kicking around, though it hasn't been the best seller for years.
The Pakistanis lost more men and essentially lost an equal amount of aircraft. So, quite frankly, all you have is your make pretend speculation. I can speculate that Luftwaffe 46 would have been 1337 inviciblez, but that sort of wanking just doesn't fly.
No-one has mentioned Victor Suvarov's opinions on the strengths and weaknesses of the Soviet Army as expressed in The Liberators and Inside the Soviet Army.
In short if the invasion follows the Soviet Army plan then they will steamroller over NATO, but if the plan goes off track then the Soviets will not be able to adapt.
According to Suvarov the Soviets knew their logistics were abysmal and their plans were designed to cope with this. But if their plans went wrong then nothing would be sent to where it was actually needed.
In the 1960's, 70's and 80's the Soviet Army emphasised appearing large and dangerous, and actually being dangerous was a much lower priority.
In short if the invasion follows the Soviet Army plan then they will steamroller over NATO, but if the plan goes off track then the Soviets will not be able to adapt.
According to Suvarov the Soviets knew their logistics were abysmal and their plans were designed to cope with this. But if their plans went wrong then nothing would be sent to where it was actually needed.
In the 1960's, 70's and 80's the Soviet Army emphasised appearing large and dangerous, and actually being dangerous was a much lower priority.
Suvorov was my source for suggesting that Soviet exports were stripped down versions and not good representations of the front line equipment.