How long could a coventional WW3 have lasted?
- Thread starter Forcon
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One side would escalate as soon as it appeared defeat was imminent, knowing this the other side might decide to launch as soon as they thought they were about to gain an advantage and so on until the optimal strategy would be to just launch the missiles immediately if you're ever willing to launch them.
Certainly in earlier decades, but still possibly true in the early 80s, the war would last about as long as it takes for the Soviets to reach the English Channel. They ended World War II as the masters of conventional war, the reason they didn't take all of Europe back then is a mixture of reaching the end of their supply lines about midway through Germany, the impending need to get peace and start rebuilding their country, and Stalin basically being satisfied with what he already got (guy's a dick, but he wasn't a dick that necessarily wanted to invade/kill the entire world). I think it was the West threatening to escalate it into nuclear war ('Atomic Diplomacy', then Mutually Assured Destruction once the Soviet got their own bombs) that deterred invasion when relations soured.
I'd say NATO would win if they can withstand the soviets initial offensive. Once the US gets their armies into Europe they would have a much harder time advancing. Especially since the WP countries would surrender or defect once NATO troops enter their borders in force
My guess is six months with the Soviets calling for peace when they are somewhere toward the eastern end of Poland
My guess is six months with the Soviets calling for peace when they are somewhere toward the eastern end of Poland
In 1980? 2-3 weeks before the Red Army reaches the Rhine. To keep it conventional that is as far as they get. France WOULD use its deterrent force to prevent a Soviet invasion. NATO ground elements and even air elements were at their nadir, nobody in Brussels had any illusions about what would happen.
1985 onward? Up to three months, depending on how effective the Soviet sub force is at interdicting the Atlantic.If the U.S., and to a lesser extent, the Canadians manages to reinforce fully its over. If the Soviets close the Atlantic NATO runs out of supply inside of a month.
1985 onward? Up to three months, depending on how effective the Soviet sub force is at interdicting the Atlantic.If the U.S., and to a lesser extent, the Canadians manages to reinforce fully its over. If the Soviets close the Atlantic NATO runs out of supply inside of a month.
How effective would a strategy similar to the one the Russians deploy in Red Storm Rising (invasion of Iceland, heavy use of bombers and subs as convoy killers, etc)?
As for the OP, as others have said once it looks like either position is on the verge of collapse, the pressure is going to mount (and mount hard) to deploy tactical nukes/WMD's. My guess is that the Soviets might be willing to let NATO reunify Germany (either by force or at the peace table), but after that it's game over.
That scenario is pretty much the one that NATO feared the most short of major WMD use, which is why Larry Bond modeled it for the original military training version of the now classic Harpoon (Bond actually co-wrote RSR, especially the naval combat sections). The Alliance's strategy in case of war was centered on bottling the Soviet fleet north of the GIUK gaps and preventing air attacks on shipping using airbases in Newfoundland, on Greenland (weather permitting), Iceland, Norway and the UK. Lose Iceland and the entire strategy falls apart
Norway was always a wild card, too close to major Soviet bases, too much Norway and too little Norwegian Army to go around. The USN hoped to supplement ground based air with carriers, doctrine was always shifting, but for the most part it seems that the Pentagon figured that it would need at least four decks, supported by a number of SSN, to be able to deny the area all the way to Soviet waters (the Fleet also expected to make conventional strikes on the Murmansk area, something that seems to be overly optimistic to put it mildly).
What the actual Soviet plans were have remained, at least publicly, something of a mystery, although some sort of sea interdiction seems a good bet, simply based on the Red Banner Fleet's force structure.
I think depending on how much warning NATO gets - 6 weeks maximum
If NATO is forewarned and reforger is in full swing then Warsaw Pact loses
If its a surprise attack out of the blue then there is a good chance that Pact forces reach the Rhine + overrun Denmark before NATO reinforcements can arrive.
At this point either the background count climbs rapidly or a ceasefire is made
All pie in the sky through - until mid 80s NATO defence of Germany was a trip wire - after which tactical Nukes would be used on any Warsaw Pact concentration's - and they made sure the Russians were aware of this.
The BBC recently got hold of a cabinet 'war game' in which it appeared that the Russians were winning after which Tactical Nukes were used.
The notes of this 'wargame' and other like it were 'leaked' to the Russians (and apparently vice versa).
It must have been even more difficult for Russia as they had 2 (USA/UK) and a potential 3rd opponent (France) that had Nuclear Weapons and could independently decide to use them.
The Third World War and The Third World War: The Untold Story by General John Hackett (Harold Coyle Piggy backs his story TEAM YANKEE into this ATL) is a pretty good stab of what might have happened.
My 30 year old copy of the first book disintegrated I had read it so many times!
There is little basis for this, even with REFORGER completed the Warsaw Pact still outweighs NATO quite heavily and NATO is hamstrung by a political attachment to a linear defense.
Although Hackett blatantly fudged things in favor NATO, including a bunch of althistory stuff pre-war like some how convincing the Germans to abandon forward defense.
It's telling that all the technothriller stories which involve a "best-case" NATO scenario generally involve NATO narrowly eeking out a win while the Soviet "best-case" (as portrayed in Ralph Peters Red Army) is a pretty rapid and clear-cut Soviet victory inside of a week. When one averages it out, it becomes pretty clear that anything short of a best case for NATO means the Soviets walk away the winners of the conventional conflict. At least, before NATO modernization and economic problems crash their military power from the mid-80's on.
And it all becomes irrelevant when the nukes start flying anyways.
Anaxagoras
Banned
If we're assuming no nuclear weapons, then the war could conceivably go on for a long time. The Soviet initial offensive would peter out when it reached the Rhine, because by then American, French, and British reinforcements are entering the line in large numbers and the Rhine itself forms a natural defensive barrier. On the other hand, it would not be easy for NATO to go over to the offensive for some time, as they would have suffered heavy casualties themselves and the Rhine would be an equally formidable barrier for them.
I've often wondered about other "fronts" of such a war outside of Germany. Norway is a given, but what about the Balkans? Would the Soviets make a play for Istanbul and closing off the Dardanelles? What about the Caucasus Mountains along the border with Turkey and the Soviet Union? What would happen in Asia or the Middle East? Might the Soviets even drop some Spetnaz commandos and perhaps even some airborne units into Alaska to attack the oil pipeline?
I've often wondered about other "fronts" of such a war outside of Germany. Norway is a given, but what about the Balkans? Would the Soviets make a play for Istanbul and closing off the Dardanelles? What about the Caucasus Mountains along the border with Turkey and the Soviet Union? What would happen in Asia or the Middle East? Might the Soviets even drop some Spetnaz commandos and perhaps even some airborne units into Alaska to attack the oil pipeline?
IMHO up to the early 1990s American SSN's would have destroyed the Soviet Navy in short order. Modern ASW is not quite as easy as it is in RSR. American CBGs always have an SSN attached just for that reason. A very good book that talks about American Sub exploits is Blind Mans Bluff. American SSNs "conduct oceanographic research" all over the planet and did quite a bit of it during the Cold Way.
Hacketts Book is hardly a techno thiller - and while it was written as a warning, in many cases NATO was actually better OTL than he had envisenged in his ATL 'buffed' NATO.
Everything that has happened since has convinced me that the Red Army might have been larger than NATO but its troops and NCOs were for the most part poorly trained and very wooden relative to those in NATO so this quantitative adavantage would not have been as decisive as you believe.
The late 70s was a period of decay for Russia and the Afganistan war in the 80s had cost it dearly as well as destroying the morale of the Red Army.
And its equipment largely a generation behind the West in terms of Quality at this time.
As you say Tactical Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Weapons would have been used from the start and this was always reflected in all levels of NATO forces training - they expected to fight and survive in an NBC environment.
sharlin
Banned
Because of the effectiveness of modern weapons as well as the actual difficulty in replacing or building them quickly (you'd not be producing X number of jets a day even going flat out) both sides would be exhausted rather quickly. True the Soviets had more stuff but the West had far more accurate weapon systems as well as superior air to ground ordinance. If somehow it didn't go nuclear basically it would last months before basically folks are out of tanks, planes and subs as well as fuel etc.
It depends when it starts. In the 1960s and 70s, it can last for years. It depends on if there are ATL Korea and Vietnam engagements. If so, the US won't have the wherewithal to force an unconditional surrender, RUssia is too big, though they would likely liberate everywhere up the Belarus and part of Ukraine.
Whatever war breaks out, the USA with its B52s and such is better prepared for a long slog that will bomb away Russian production. However, the USA and decadent western Europe are not prepared for Russian bombing. WHoever wins air superiority (which is apparently not a given) essentially will win the war, because it will become a matter of popular will to fight to the bitter death in the age of television and LSD.
Whatever war breaks out, the USA with its B52s and such is better prepared for a long slog that will bomb away Russian production. However, the USA and decadent western Europe are not prepared for Russian bombing. WHoever wins air superiority (which is apparently not a given) essentially will win the war, because it will become a matter of popular will to fight to the bitter death in the age of television and LSD.
No it's a techno-thriller, as was Red Storm Rising and Red Army. Hackett has the advantage over Clancy in
Not really
The stereotyped description of the Red Army that bears little relation to the reality... well, until the latter half of the decade when training standards went into free-fall.
Economically speaking, yes. But the impact of the economic decay did not become debilitating on the Soviet Military until the mid-80's.
Afghanistan was conducted largely with second-rate troops in an environment where Soviet doctrine did not work well and were deliberately under-resourced to boot. It is illuminating that the Soviets spent more money on the Soviet Group of Forces Germany in 1983 then they did
Erm, no. At the start of the 1980's, it was on the level (and in some cases superior) to NATO tech. By the late-1980's, it had fallen behind but was still eminently competitive: a T-80B is still perfectly capable of killing a M1A1 at standard combat ranges. Assuming it hadn't broken down because of collapsing maintenance standards.
Maybe not the start, but really this applies to both sides. The Soviets extensively prepared themselves for a NBC environment because they had assumed in the 50's and 60's that the entire war would be nuclear from the start. In the 70's and 80's they moved to a more flexible view but kept
Of course, even many NATO officers admitted that in a nuclear environment their forces (as well as the Soviets) would rapidly be rendered combat ineffective by the sheer amount of firepower being tossed around. When a formation takes 90+% casualties in the course of an hour, the survivors very quickly become more concerned with... well, survival then with prosecuting the war.
And of course, once the tactical nukes are being flung about there is no barrier to the all-out strategic exchange.
No, whoever wins in Europe essentially wins the war.
Airpower needs breathing space to be really effective. Allied airpower in Normandy in 1944 pinned the Germans down, but it did so at the end of a long campaign spanning years to pound German industry, cripple their transportation networks, and destroy their air force. When the rebuilt Red Air Force clashed with the Luftwaffe over Kursk, the air battles were titanic, but the two air forces largely canceled each other out. As a result, neither side's air power played much of a part in the decisive ground battles. In this scenario, both sides would start with vast, experienced, and effective air forces and air defense networks. There would have been no long campaign before the initial land war in which the air forces could slowly soften up the defences, and whittle away the threat - it would have been an immediate dive into a colossal air battle. This favors the side with the more powerful ground force... which is the Red Army.
This is the whole reason behind that old Cold War joke of a group of Soviet generals meeting in Paris and one of them asking, "By the way, Sergei, who won the air war?"
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Yeah. Conventional strategic bombing working. With a few hundred bombers. Flying into the teeth of air defenses and interceptors that make Hanoi look like Central Park and which the Germans, even adjusted for the difference in technology, could only dream of. With zero prospect for fighter escort or SEAD support. I can see this working real well.
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Be interesting to see which way China would swing post-60's in that scenario. On the one hand, Sino-Soviet split. On the other hand, they are just as disinterested in sharing a border with a pro-US united Korea as the Soviets are.