Well are you talking about? The Soviets pulled out because of problems back home. They were quite happy to crush resistance when they wanted to. This is pretty well established stuff.
How long could a coventional WW3 have lasted?
- Thread starter Forcon
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Well are you talking about? The Soviets pulled out because of problems back home. They were quite happy to crush resistance when they wanted to. This is pretty well established stuff.
I doubt it last more than a few months - modern military technology often means things are destroyed far quicker than they can be placed, whilst faster logistics and warfare in general mean that the battle for Europe could be over relatively quickly. Not to mention economic issues - the world economy is gonna take a tumble in general. WP probs be hit the hardest. The economy could collapse and end the war before the fighting even ended. It also depended what each side is going for - WP planning to reach the Channel and NATO going for Moscow 2.0 or are they just deciding that Germany would be better wholly red or blue?
Do you have a feasible suggestion?
If the Soviets have overrun Europe, then NATO's losses will have been much worse.
No. You are the one making up the criteria. The OP said nothing about nuclear weapons not being developed.
Given that NATO's heavy combat power would have largely been destroyed, what would they have to defend with? Soviets managed to move large mechanized forces across much larger distances over much worse terrain and infrastructure inside of a month before.
Occassionally damage or destroy one with the odd mine but otherwise run away?
Nonsense. It's not as if there is a magic anti-Russian force-field on the Rhine. Once through the thin NATO defenses, there would be little to stop Soviet forward detachments from seizing key Rhine bridges for the main force to cross.
Good for the Soviets, since it means they get to overrun NATO forces as they are attempting to retreat. Soviet Operational Manuever Groups forces were designed to have a field day with such wholesale withdrawals as well as drive through the resulting holes and run rampant in the deep-rear. Especially since...
This means leaving giant holes for the OMGs to drive through and cut off NATO's retreat routes! Not to mention foster a sense of betrayal on the part of the West Germans.
Wrong. The majority of US gear slated for a European war was stored in Europe. It was mainly the old obsolete stuff.
I have already addressed trying to use Afghanistan as an example in this thread. Try and pay attention.
They also don't want to die even more. The Soviets aren't going to be the Nazis: collaboration will be rewarded and there is much less of a cultural gap then there is in Afghanistan. Put another way: how big of a anti-Soviet resistance movement developed in East Germany after the territory was occupied?
That is why they still have maintenance crews who go through the stuff and check over everything occassionally. Not using them reduces their maintenance cost, it doesn't eliminate it.
Decades old T-55s are still occasionally being yanked out of Eastern European swamps in running condition.
Not to mention the whole war.
And all you have are examples where the lopsidedness in equipment losses is easily explainable by things other then problems with the equipment itself. The Koreans, Chinese, and Vietnamese fielded primarily light infantry forces with very little in the way of heavy Soviet gear. The Arab armies were (and mostly still are) hilariously incompetent.
I, on the other hand, have provided an example where the resource and skill gap was much smaller (although India still had a noted advantage in both of those) and it was the side using mostly Soviet gear which won with the fewer overall casualties.
Funny, given that is precisely what you are doing: you are saying that NATO gear would have been 1337 invinciblez in comparison to Soviet equipment while I have been saying that Soviet gear was, in fact, eminently competitive with their NATO counterparts.
Just because it chose one particular narrative style doesn't mean it's genre wasn't a techno-thriller.
Well, they probably indeed are not as good on a man-for-man basis but then war is not a matter of man-for-man.
Oh, probably. Depending on how fast the Soviets decide to move, they might not detect it in time though.
Balaclavas do resemble Ninja headgear!Unless....the Warsaw Pact was a hugh army of Ninjas....NINJAS WITH TANKS!!!
Hm, something of a level playing field then. At least neither of them are driving a Yugo.
My information says explicitly that the Pakistani's were using M60s. Although a large number of Chinese Type-59s were upgraded with an L7 knock-off.
I have already observed repeatedly in this thread training standards utterly collapsed from some time around the mid-80's onward. By the 90's, the Russian army was in a very sorry state indeed.
There was a case in the 1st Gulf War where an Iraqi training round (which, in a pretty standard twist for the Iraqis, were actually of better quality then their actual SABOT) managed to wreck an Abrams pretty bad. But most of the time, the Iraqis were generally using horribly obsolete weapons and ammunition and doing so incompetently at that.
That is because Suvorov is something of a hack. He is correct that the monkey-models were stripped down versions of mainline Soviet equipment (but then again, everybody does this: M1A1s used by the Egyptians are not remotely of the same quality as those used by American forces) and I've heard that some of his stuff about the Speznatz has been verified, but most of the rest of his stuff I wouldn't trust even as far as I could throw it.
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I don't know that they were that terrible - the Egyptian's certainly very nearly pulled it off
Well, that's where Pollack's book seems to fall down. He identifies what the problems are - basically junior leadership is atrocious, and technical skills are at best lacking - but not why that is the case, and why it has to date defeated all attempts to remedy.
I have seen three theories advanced on this:
1. A unique combination of factors come together in Arab culture to make it really bad. Sometimes an era of war just shafts a particular culture. For example, the Scots got really boned by 17th and 18th century warfare against the English - they were too independant and couldn't see the point in lining up so someone else could get them killed. As a result they rarely formed large effective armies, and those they did couldn't hold together.
In the Arabs case, their tyrannies just don't lend themselves to that sort of thinking and Arab status consciousness hamstrings the development of the necessary competance in the lower ranks. If you're technically adept, what are you doing working on a tank? You deserve to be in Baghdad working on designing missiles! And if you have initiative, what are you doing working as a junior officer? Shouldn't you be backstabbing your way up the political ladder? And if your subordinate can think independently, might he not one day become a danger to you? Better not encourage that! Another factor is that that they are still in the "manual labor is for the lower classes" mindset that the so called "Protestant Ethic" of the Reformation kicked out of Europe fairly quickly. (That attitude hung on in China until the communist took over, and is still alive and kicking in parts of Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America) Cleaning up? That's for the servants to do. Not the sons of noble families (or their modern equivalents).
For the 20th century, Eurasian autocracies (which includes the Soviet Union and, to a lesser extent, Nazi Germany) have historically managed to balance obedience to power with individual competence to form effective armed forces. Their level of initiative at lower levels hasn't reached the level of western militaries but certainly isn't as debilitating as the Arabs, and in fact gives them a different set of strengths from Western armed.
2. A competing theory that I have seen advanced is that it is actually more of a political problem with how these states are so young assessment would be that the screwed up nature of Arab military endeavor is really just a symptom of a much larger problem with the way Arab states formed/continued.
The Arab world has really not been able to get it's state system to work yet, (due to various reasons including but not limited too: the fact that it was weirdly divided by European powers, the lack of experience of the founders in political endeavor, and the inability of Arab elites to get Arab populations really on board) but neither has it collapsed the way Africa's has due to natural resources/rent from oil/indirect rent from supplying dudes to work on oil. Interestingly, the Arab states which have derived greater actual legitimacy from their population (Egypt and Jordan) have also demonstrated greater competence in their wars.
3. Basically both of the above acting in concert.
Interestingly, the tactical nature and low level organization of insurgency has served as a school of hard knocks to teach many Arabs some of those sort of skills... but unfortunately mostly to the insurgents. Combined with the fact that these insurgents generally have a unifying ideology (fundamentalist Islam) that they are loyal-to-the-death for, it neatly explains the greater degree of competence Da'esh and their associate have demonstrated compared to the armies of the current Arab states.
The Egyptians are definitely one of the two of the most competent Arab armies, the other being the Jordanians, but even they only achieved their best success when they limited their men to the same WW1-esque tactics the Iraqis did... and with the same result that the whole thing fell apart once they had to stop going according to script and improvise.
I cannot find any evidence of them Using M60s in 1971
The main tanks used were
PAK Army
M47
M48
'Modernised' Shermans
Type 59s
Ind Army
T54
T55
Centurion - earlier Mark with the 84mm Gun
Amx 13/75
In fact the Only M60 I can see them 'ever' using is a unspecified number of Bridge layers using the M60 Chassis and the bespoke M88 ARV which uses some common components.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that what ever source you have may be confused or confusing due to the odd manner in which the M47 / M48 and M60 are both being named 'Patton' despite them being a generation apart.
The Type 59 used in 1971 is armed with a Chinese copy of the Russian D10-T 100 mm Rifled gun
The British offer an upgrade package for the T54/55 and Type 59 family of tanks which can give it a L7 - makes sense given that its the most produced design ever
China developed a 105mm 'copy' for their Type 59 D upgrade package in the 90s
And of course the Pakistanis with Ukrainian help have made their own upgrade package producing the Al-Zarrar series with a 125mm auto loading Smooth bore gun and over the last decade or so have modified up to 600 of the type 59s to this standard.
But all this is some decades after 1971
Huh... I rechecked my source and didn't find any mention of the M60 after all. I must have misremembered that or misread "M48" as "M60". I also meant to ask if the Chinese had started offering the L7 upgrade to the Type-59 by 1971 but worded the post very poorly.
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SinghKing
Banned
To hold a more pessimistic view, IMHO, such a conflict could well last for an extremely long time- perhaps even more than a decade. The answer seems incredibly counter-intuitive at first, but hear me out. Say the Cold War does go hot in the early/mid eighties- the line is crossed, and the nukes go flying in an all-out nuclear exchange. Would either side in the conflict necessarily have time to go through the political process of formally issuing their declarations of war against each other before the salvos of nuclear warheads hit their targets?
And if both sides did hit their key targets, how much of their political apparatus would be left intact in the aftermath? Not much, if any at all- and by the time that they actually manage to scrape together enough of a semblance of government to formally declare war against one another, it'd be virtually guaranteed that both sides' nuclear arsenals would have been expended. When it gets to the stage where both sides can actually get around to the formalities of declaring war properly, it's going to have been reduced to a conventional war.
And neither side's reconstituted "goverments" (in all likelihood, Military Dictatorship one and all) are going to want to surrender to the other, after having just been subjected to those unprecedented, apocalyptic levels of destruction, even that destruction had been mutually assured- those governments are going to be revanchist as hell, incensed by righteous fury and determined to win the (as-yet undeclared) war in which so many innocent people died in the opening few days, killed by their enemies without warning or mercy. Also, by this stage, it'd be virtually guaranteed that the vast majority of both sides' military-industrial complexes, tech bases and the majority of their population bases would have been wiped out by the initial nuclear exchange (WW3's opening 'prelude').
As such, it'd be safe to assume that they'd have to go through some major downgrading, forced to fight their conventional war with newly manufactured weapons and weapons systems which would previously have been obsolete- reducing their militaries' capabilities to '50s levels at best, potentially even back down to WW1 levels. And in such a hazardous war environment, where the fallout's going to claim at least as many lives on the battlefield (and on the home front) as their enemies do (or a hell of a lot more lives than the actual fighting does), it's going to take a very, very long time for that conventional war to be 'won'.
Shooting from the hip about WW 3.5
***START Spoilers/logistics rant*****
I used to play an RPG Twilight:2000 that had an almost ASB optimistic perception of how much modern military gear could survive a slow-motion escalating tactical-to-strategic nuclear exchange over a year.
LSS- cool stuff (T-90's and M1E1's) existed and "worked" three years after the nukes flew and wiped out the logistical base b/c Rule of Cool and folks will "improvise".
I work with very complex gear (hydrolectric plant, pumps, motors, gas feed systems, and other stuff run by SCADA) with a perfectly functional supply chain, skilled people doing their jobs professionally and stuff still breaks down.
W/o available parts and goodies, proper lubes, filters, and other facilitating supplies, stuff breaks down really, shockingly fast under normal usage, much less combat stresses.
I can improvise simple parts that might work 80% as well as a manufactured part with the same materials, from OEM drawings and specs, b/c I'm a mechanic and NOT a mechanical engineer and most likely not the CNC lathes and other sophisticated gear they use to make the parts.
With improvised materials, it becomes a devolutionary spiral 60% of 60% of 60% and you've got dysfunctional junk that needs 3-10X the mechanical TLC to keep running for 1/3 to 10% of the original uptime.
Behind the numbers, it means Sh*t works less and less well until there's nothing even close to useful going on.
***END Spoilers/Logistics rant***
Seriously it depends on who's fighting with what, with how many troops.
A mortally-wounded US or USSR that suffered 95+% casualties of people and key assets- power plants, refineries, factories, universities, and logistical networks, not to mention mechanized agriculture, due to disruption of the supply chain w no fertilizer, seed, or pesticides, and it gets medieval really quick even IF some flavor of functional govt survives.
NOBODY's thinking of some revanchist campaign when they won't even have horses to work with.
Consult Threads for a look at a post-strategic nuclear exchange world.
IF things stayed conventional, it depends on who's lucky and prepared while the first-line gear and crews are available and stocks of the wonder weapons exist.
After D+30, NATO and Warpac are thumb-wrestling.
The big problem with those OMG's the Pact used was they were all teeth, no tail. Baaically they're a "win or die" offensive formation.
No repair facilties, inadequate medical facilities, and the thought the Red Army put into supplying them would make a US QM Corps officer die with laughter.
Against determined resistance, they'd get beat the ^&*( up, and effectiveness would degrade to armed mob within seven days as they went from Cat A to Cat C quality troops and gear. Sure they'd kill a lot of people and wreck some stuff.
Germany would be a dead zone if both NATO and Pact loosed the nukes and CBW agents on hand ca 1985.
No question the NATO troops would be in sad shape themselves by that point as well, but with they could hold off the Pact from making any decisive gains IF some flavor of C3I exists and everyone decides to keep fighting.
YMMDV but I see a WWI-style Cambrai going on as the various parties lose the ability to send and equip troops for at least a year sorting out the post-apocalyptic chaos.
You could end up with the Hundred years War of maruaders ravaging the irradiated, toxic landscape for decades until s/b gets enough people and gear together to smash all resistance and impose peace.
***START Spoilers/logistics rant*****
I used to play an RPG Twilight:2000 that had an almost ASB optimistic perception of how much modern military gear could survive a slow-motion escalating tactical-to-strategic nuclear exchange over a year.
LSS- cool stuff (T-90's and M1E1's) existed and "worked" three years after the nukes flew and wiped out the logistical base b/c Rule of Cool and folks will "improvise".
I work with very complex gear (hydrolectric plant, pumps, motors, gas feed systems, and other stuff run by SCADA) with a perfectly functional supply chain, skilled people doing their jobs professionally and stuff still breaks down.
W/o available parts and goodies, proper lubes, filters, and other facilitating supplies, stuff breaks down really, shockingly fast under normal usage, much less combat stresses.
I can improvise simple parts that might work 80% as well as a manufactured part with the same materials, from OEM drawings and specs, b/c I'm a mechanic and NOT a mechanical engineer and most likely not the CNC lathes and other sophisticated gear they use to make the parts.
With improvised materials, it becomes a devolutionary spiral 60% of 60% of 60% and you've got dysfunctional junk that needs 3-10X the mechanical TLC to keep running for 1/3 to 10% of the original uptime.
Behind the numbers, it means Sh*t works less and less well until there's nothing even close to useful going on.
***END Spoilers/Logistics rant***
Seriously it depends on who's fighting with what, with how many troops.
A mortally-wounded US or USSR that suffered 95+% casualties of people and key assets- power plants, refineries, factories, universities, and logistical networks, not to mention mechanized agriculture, due to disruption of the supply chain w no fertilizer, seed, or pesticides, and it gets medieval really quick even IF some flavor of functional govt survives.
NOBODY's thinking of some revanchist campaign when they won't even have horses to work with.
Consult Threads for a look at a post-strategic nuclear exchange world.
IF things stayed conventional, it depends on who's lucky and prepared while the first-line gear and crews are available and stocks of the wonder weapons exist.
After D+30, NATO and Warpac are thumb-wrestling.
The big problem with those OMG's the Pact used was they were all teeth, no tail. Baaically they're a "win or die" offensive formation.
No repair facilties, inadequate medical facilities, and the thought the Red Army put into supplying them would make a US QM Corps officer die with laughter.
Against determined resistance, they'd get beat the ^&*( up, and effectiveness would degrade to armed mob within seven days as they went from Cat A to Cat C quality troops and gear. Sure they'd kill a lot of people and wreck some stuff.
Germany would be a dead zone if both NATO and Pact loosed the nukes and CBW agents on hand ca 1985.
No question the NATO troops would be in sad shape themselves by that point as well, but with they could hold off the Pact from making any decisive gains IF some flavor of C3I exists and everyone decides to keep fighting.
YMMDV but I see a WWI-style Cambrai going on as the various parties lose the ability to send and equip troops for at least a year sorting out the post-apocalyptic chaos.
You could end up with the Hundred years War of maruaders ravaging the irradiated, toxic landscape for decades until s/b gets enough people and gear together to smash all resistance and impose peace.
Obviously, point is the Germans were not happy and were not below ripping down walls and other overt acts if the opportunity presented itself (i.e. WW3 presents an obvious opportunity.)
Losses for both will be bad. Of course, your feeling is that NATO will stick 100% to the plan and everything will go worse than expected and the USSR will stick to the plan an everything will go better than expected.
It is simple wanking, nothing more. I feel like we are debating the Schleifflen Plan as if it never happened. ("Oh yeah, Germany's military was way more powerful, the French plans were to attack right where the Germans were defending. They would lose the flower of their army, numerically superior German forces would overrun the BEF and channel ports, and then surround the French.")
It presumes one side's plan works perfectly and the other side never makes adjustments. From what I can understand, western military commanders are better trained. It is not impossible for them to be so stupid, but it is not a given either.
Already conceded that to you. Now, you have to be a big boy and admit this thread simply has nukes off the table, you have now three replies which are predicated upon a nuclear exchange which the OP said is off the table.
Presumption.
So, Napoleon captured Moscow in 2.5 months. That means the Germans could have done it too right, they had better technology after all.
Come on, if the USSR was so adept that NATO did not have a key qualitative advantage off the bat, they would withdraw and blow the bridges. Of course, Soviet wizards can outdo any fighting withdrawal from trained NATO forces, who will let themselves be routed like a force of mercenaries in the 1700s.
Yeah, because the West has always particularly cared how a neighboring nation fares (i.e. Belgium.)
Of course stuff slated for European war was already in Europe, how about the rest of NATO's global warmaking capability? Not in Europe! They will be able to replace losses at least initially and have the advantage of defense.
UNlike all that brand new, state of the art RUssian pieces of equipment.
You have a way of handwaving that there was not a single sizable cold war conflict where Russian weapons won the day. Try and pay attention to that.
Different story, Germany was crushed, raped, looted, and had nothing left. This is not true decades later. West Germany won't want to become East Germany, they will fight like a cornered animal.
Have you ever seen that episode of Top Gear where they took that T55 and they drove it into the ocean, lit it on fire, and then put it on top of a building and when they demolished the building, the T-55 still ran? You can't kill the machine!
Of course, there is always a reason why forces with Russian equipment always lost more men, each and every time. It can never be the equipment's fault...
Eminently compeitive is not enough to push NATO to the English Channel, unless they are deliberately stupid strategically. You simply presume that they will be. That's a dumb presumption.
***START Spoilers/logistics rant*****
I used to play an RPG Twilight:2000 that had an almost ASB optimistic perception of how much modern military gear could survive a slow-motion escalating tactical-to-strategic nuclear exchange over a year.
LSS- cool stuff (T-90's and M1E1's) existed and "worked" three years after the nukes flew and wiped out the logistical base b/c Rule of Cool and folks will "improvise".
I work with very complex gear (hydrolectric plant, pumps, motors, gas feed systems, and other stuff run by SCADA) with a perfectly functional supply chain, skilled people doing their jobs professionally and stuff still breaks down.
W/o available parts and goodies, proper lubes, filters, and other facilitating supplies, stuff breaks down really, shockingly fast under normal usage, much less combat stresses.
I can improvise simple parts that might work 80% as well as a manufactured part with the same materials, from OEM drawings and specs, b/c I'm a mechanic and NOT a mechanical engineer and most likely not the CNC lathes and other sophisticated gear they use to make the parts.
With improvised materials, it becomes a devolutionary spiral 60% of 60% of 60% and you've got dysfunctional junk that needs 3-10X the mechanical TLC to keep running for 1/3 to 10% of the original uptime.
Behind the numbers, it means Sh*t works less and less well until there's nothing even close to useful going on.
***END Spoilers/Logistics rant***
Seriously it depends on who's fighting with what, with how many troops.
A mortally-wounded US or USSR that suffered 95+% casualties of people and key assets- power plants, refineries, factories, universities, and logistical networks, not to mention mechanized agriculture, due to disruption of the supply chain w no fertilizer, seed, or pesticides, and it gets medieval really quick even IF some flavor of functional govt survives.
NOBODY's thinking of some revanchist campaign when they won't even have horses to work with.
Consult Threads for a look at a post-strategic nuclear exchange world.
IF things stayed conventional, it depends on who's lucky and prepared while the first-line gear and crews are available and stocks of the wonder weapons exist.
After D+30, NATO and Warpac are thumb-wrestling.
The big problem with those OMG's the Pact used was they were all teeth, no tail. Baaically they're a "win or die" offensive formation.
No repair facilties, inadequate medical facilities, and the thought the Red Army put into supplying them would make a US QM Corps officer die with laughter.
Against determined resistance, they'd get beat the ^&*( up, and effectiveness would degrade to armed mob within seven days as they went from Cat A to Cat C quality troops and gear. Sure they'd kill a lot of people and wreck some stuff.
Germany would be a dead zone if both NATO and Pact loosed the nukes and CBW agents on hand ca 1985.
No question the NATO troops would be in sad shape themselves by that point as well, but with they could hold off the Pact from making any decisive gains IF some flavor of C3I exists and everyone decides to keep fighting.
YMMDV but I see a WWI-style Cambrai going on as the various parties lose the ability to send and equip troops for at least a year sorting out the post-apocalyptic chaos.
You could end up with the Hundred years War of maruaders ravaging the irradiated, toxic landscape for decades until s/b gets enough people and gear together to smash all resistance and impose peace.
I played Twighlight 2000 back in the day - I liked the system although I had some issues with the US centric back ground.
Namely British Equipment being less capable than US Equipment even when it used the same ammo, same barrel length etc
The Dragon ATGW being better than the Milan
Stupid
I got the impression that the unit you represented had been the last survivors of the last US Armoured Division in Europe - having just been rolled over by the last Russian Armoured division (which had scraped together 100 tanks for a last effort) both units being pretty much scragged as a result and 'your' group represented what were effectively a bunch of armed survivor scavengers.
Before this the handful of US armoured vehicles represented those that had been cobbled together from other tanks and APCs etc.
And tanks like the M60 and T55 became more common
Some of the fan driven content online made more sense to me such as
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~dheb/2300/Admin/Index6.htm
Back to the original question: Decades!
Imagine a 1948 Scenario with a different airlift, not cargo into Western Berlin, but allied personal out of the city, and a state of war between the US and the SU, technacly, but nopt a lot more than border raids and shooting, since no side really wants, or is prepared for a full scale war.
This could go on for a long time.
Just a thought, what do you think? Maybe this doesn't qualify for WWIII, though...
Imagine a 1948 Scenario with a different airlift, not cargo into Western Berlin, but allied personal out of the city, and a state of war between the US and the SU, technacly, but nopt a lot more than border raids and shooting, since no side really wants, or is prepared for a full scale war.
This could go on for a long time.
Just a thought, what do you think? Maybe this doesn't qualify for WWIII, though...
Well, best case for the USSR is that everything goes better then expected (for them) which is the worst case for NATO. Worst case for the USSR does indeed have them stalling about halfway to the Rhine, but that requires a huge number of things to break NATO's way. Improbable, but not impossible.
No, because even adjusted for technology they singularly lacked the logistical assets, infrastructure, and expertise available to NATO and the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War..
Not their plan IOTL, when they generally acknowledged
Of course, Soviet wizards can outdo any fighting withdrawal from trained NATO forces, who will let themselves be routed like a force of mercenaries in the 1700s.
They certainly do if that neighboring nation makes up a key portion of their military strength.
Let's see. In the 80's the US had 18 active duty divisions. Of these, 4 were forward deployed in Germany:
1st Armored
3rd Armored
3rd Infantry (heavy)
8th Infantry (heavy)
These were the best equipped divisions in the army. With them were 2 of the 3 armored cavalry regiments and 3 addiitional forward deployed combat brigades of CONUS based divisions. The plans were to reinforce them with a further 5 divisions and the remaining cavalry regiment via REFORGER:
1st Cavalry
2nd Armored
1st Infantry (heavy)
4th Infantry (heavy)
5th Infantry (heavy)
With forewarning these would most likely be in place, or in the process of being flown and picking up their gear from prepositioned stock (POMCUS). Without forewarning they would be flown in to Europe and pick up their gear as soon as the war starts.
Those 9 divisions represent the entire bulk of the US heavy tank formations.
That would only leave the following forces for your counter attack:
2nd Infantry (in Korea)
6th Infantry (light)
7th Infantry (light)
9th Infantry (motorized)
10th Mountain (light)
24th Infantry (heavy)
25th Infantry (light)
82nd Airborne, light infantry basically
101st Airborne, light infantry basically
Of these 6th Infantry and 10th Mountain would probably have been sent to Norway, together with the 2nd Marine division. The only other heavy division in that orbat, 24th Infantry, would most likely deploy to Southern Europe, and the two airborne divisions would most likely go to Europe as well.
Of the 10 National Guard divisions the following divisions were earmarked for NATO deployment
29th Infantry (light)
35th Infantry (heavy)
40th Infantry (heavy)
49th Armored
50th Armored
Together with the 5 round out brigades for active duty divisions those represented the best equipped and prepared NG units.
In short, once these forces are gone it's game over. The US would have to rebuild its entire mechanized from scratch cause there's no way you can defeat the Red Army using light infantry only. Since the REFORGER divisions would leave their tanks in the CONUS and just fly in and pick up POMCUS kit instead there would still be a quite large inventory of tanks and IFV's, but they wouldn't be the most modern. Mostly early Abrams and Bradleys models and for the rest M-60A3's and M113's. There were even a few NG units still using the M-48A5 as late as 1989.
The only way your dreamt up counter attack could ever take place is if the US were to make the conscious decision to write off those units in Germany as lost as soon as WWIII starts and kept the REFORGER divisions in the CONUS. They would still have to be totally re-equipped though as all there wasn't next to no M1A1 Abrams tank in the CONUS at that time. They were all deployed to Europe, either as part of the units of 7th Army or in prepositioned POMCUS stocks for the REFORGER divisions.
The Soviet standing army consisted of 192 Category A and B divisions equipped with the latest T-80s, T-72s, and T-64s, plus another 40-50 Warsaw Pact allies equipped with liscensed copies.
Still haven't read the rest of the threat I see since I have already cited a Cold War conflict where Russian weapons won the day. And so have you, in fact... there is no Republic of Vietnam any more, after all.
They had more then enough munitions lay about to run an insurgency. There was just no willingness among the population to do so.
Don't really watch Top Gear, so I'm afraid your joke kind of flies over my head.
It is a poor user who blames his tools.
Given that their entirely planning involved militarily strategic stupidity for the sake of political unity... I'm not presuming anything. You are the one presuming that after NATO decides to not escalate, they would somehow about-face and successfully pull off an completely different plan that has not been contemplated since the early-1950s and which no preparations for have been made at all. This is, despite the fact, that by the time NATO comes to the point where it has too choose between nuclear escalation or changing their conventional ball-game, it will be far too late to change said ballgame. You might as well ask the Germans to withdraw Army Group Center to avoid it getting destroyed by Bagration in early-July, 1944.
Even the Americans and British, the two NATO forces which made by far the most preparations for an actual attempt at defense-in-depth, never believed a retreat to the Rhine to be militarily feasible once the war started.
...Can't believe you really believe this
They're still not going to purposesly sink with the ship if the breakthrough can reach the Rhine.
And tons of national guard and other equipment which for all we know is classified.
Unless the USSR has only a token victory and has lost the majority of their heavy equipment too.
Vietnam didn't win that war, however. SOuth Vietnam collapsed two years after an armistice. So, you still have no examples.
Again because bombed into ground, raped, pillaged, blah blah blah.
Hence the link. Have you also heard of the T-55 that cross the English Channel underwater? They sure are air tight!
Well why then South Vietnam collapsed if Vietnam didn't win?
Same way we can say Iraq didn't lost 2nd Gulf war it just collapsed.
So was Yugoslavia, Poland or parts of Soviet union and their population fought.
Well, not English channel but this Czechoslovak People Army's T-55 seems pretty air tight. After all they had equipment to protect the crew against contamination. ;0
...Can't believe you really believe this
Your right, I screwed up while quoting you. My bad.
North Vietnam achieved it's objective by conquering South Vietnam and thereby re-unifying the Vietnamese peninsula while the US failed in it's objective of maintaining the independence of a stable South Vietnam. If achieving ones national objective via political and military means doesn't count as a "win" for a nation, then no war in history has been won.
Actually... that is kind of something that has been lost in this thread: what is World War III being fought over? That could play quite a bit into how long it lasts and how the two sides act.
Yes. They collapsed in the face of a North Vietnamese offensive which rapidly ripped apart their US-armed but anemic and corruption-riddled army. Are you really that ignorant of the actual sequence of events?
None of which prevents an insurgency. After all, the Western Soviet Union was bombed into the ground, raped, pillaged, and blah, blah, blah in 1921-1942 but that didn't prevent them from being insurgent as all get-out.
Well why then South Vietnam collapsed if Vietnam didn't win?
Same way we can say Iraq didn't lost 2nd Gulf war it just collapsed.
That's pretty true. 1st Gulf War they were militarily defeated.
Weren't strat bombed into the stoneage with no hope for victory. The USSR never was knocked out of the war, so they weren't obliterated at the level of Germany with no hope of ever winning.