What would a conventional war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact look like?

The question basically sums it all up. What do you think a conventional war between NATO forces along with the 435,000 forward deployed U.S. troops against the Soviet Armed Forces and their Warsaw Pact forces would look like?

It's very likely that it could have gone nuclear but let's assume that for the first few weeks, the conventional forces on both sides resort to fighting in a traditional style of warfare that was seen in previous large scale wars. What would that look like?

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Peacock
youtube.com/watch?v=4TPHQ2GFxMw
csla.cz/armada/taktika/plany001.htm
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What era?

After 1980, Pact loses. Before 1980, Pact wins. Simple as that.

But this is all assuming that it never went nuclear. Could the Warsaw Pact or NATO really win or lose if nukes are used on the battlefield? I guess this depends on if the nuclear exchange is only limited to the battlefield and its not outright total war involving nukes. I should have thought this through in regards to the era. Let's assume both eras. Before 1980 and after 1980.

A strictly conventional war would last many years and perhaps upwards of 100 million would die. The outcome would reply on whomever could acquire an advantage in the opening weeks.
Germany and the balkans would be lost definitely. The Soviet seven days to the rhine plan would have succeeded. NATO knew this too, and established defensive positions in France for the eventual Soviet wave.
The American heartland would be threatened by Soviet bombers that could be refitted with conventional munitions. American and Canadian interceptors would have likely diminished their effectiveness however. Ultimately Europe would be a lost cause. NATO would succeed in traditional scenarios however, as the Soviet navy would never be able to penetrate the north sea or the Mediterranean effectively. As well, American and Canadian assaults from the east, launching off of Japan and Alaska would have put the soviets on a two front war. The Canadian army specifically trained and still trains to this day for these kind of conditions.
The war would be cataclysmic and even more drawn out than previous wars. Neither the United States or the USSR would be majorly threatened by invasion, and Europe would be a proxy battleground for the entirety of the war. It would be attritional.

tactical use of nukes is a meme existing only in the minds of theoreticians

All major cities in Europe (east or west) flattened by warheads. Civilian losses on a scale above all other man wars. Europe becomes a barren and depopulated desert, broken only by the still-raging warfare. Russia probably wins the battle in Europe, but it conquers the scraps and suffers heavily as its young men are tied up guarding a radioactive wasteland.

This guy has it right but only if we're talking about conventional war only. The concepts of deescalation and tactical nuclear warfare existed at least since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

>conventional forces on both sides resort to fighting in a traditional style of warfare that was seen in previous large scale wars. What would that look like?

I'm guessing that the Warsaw Pact's plan 'seven days to the rhine' is just another Schlieffen plan. Cool on paper but once the war starts, all shit can happen.
I give Nato and the US Air as well Sea supremacy so the russians will have a hard time advancing without nukes.

In general the whole fearmongering about the russians was a gross overestimation of the soviets ability.
I've read a paper that the the soviets were prtety worried to conquer even shitty little Austria because once you leave the Eurasian steppes, the alps and other frontiers become really shit battle fields.

/k/ would be triggered by these posts

a lot of europe gets blown up. spending on the time period, several warsaw pact nations either drop out of the war or turn on the Soviets. nations like Czechslovakia and Hungary.

I'd say NATO loses before 1984-5, and it could go both ways after that.
Despite technological advantage of USA, Soviet MIC and Soviet armed forces were a monster right until the end.

/k/ is few vatniks and Chinks and Ameritards who think anything not made or developed in America is shit.
Their opinion on anything that's not guns is worthless.

/k/unts are the epitome of American military culture - the idea that tech and hardware can trump doctrine, logistics, and planning.

The later the Cold War gets hot, the more likely it is that the Germans would have refused to fight each other. Pacifist and pro-reunification tendencies were growing ever stronger in both halves of Germany ever after the Berlin Wall had been built.

t. Dmitry Kalashnikov

Buttblasted Europoors detected.

Should I make a comparison of Zulu spears vs. British Martini-Henry rifles? Oh wait, it's a useless comparison that has no bearing on any actual political and military situation, just like your picture. American avionics and aerospace engineering is bretty gud, but it's not like the average American has anything to do with that, especially considering most defense contractors are chock full of naturalized immigrants and the sons of immigrants.

t. engineer in US defense industry who knows how fucking bloated and inefficient this industry is

This has always struck me as a chink in the Warsaw Pact armor; what is motivating your average Czech tank driver or Romanian infantryman in an invasion of Austria or Denmark?

>what is motivating your average Czech tank driver or Romanian infantryman in an invasion of Austria or Denmark?
The thought that the rest of Europe Suffer the same way they suffer

Czechs and Hungarians legit hated the Soviets. Especially after the soviets crushed both of their attempts of reform/revolution, to escape communism.

given their location and neighbors. they would have just dropped out and turned on the soviet forces occupying their countries.

Considering that both sides only had supplies for about 2 weeks (70s/80s), and modern battle speed vastly exceeds production time/capability, I doubt it could go on for more than 3 weeks, unlike what said.

A lot would depend on the smaller treaty partners, especially after 1980. How long before Poland (solidarnosc) turns against the SU? How long will the FRG/GDR really wanna fight their brothers? Is France ready to stick their head in the noose for NATO/Germany?

Imho, if WP manages to reach the Rhine through sheer luck in less than 2 weeks, Germany would have to sue for peace, the war would officially be over but the SU would have serious trouble holding on to the occupied territory/the pact (horrendous losses and massive uprising probably)

Yeah, on /k/ this would turn into some weird shitfest over the slight differences between infantry assault rifles

Not necessarily. In World War 2 you found folks who hated the Soviets fighting for them anyway and not just because Nazi Germany was busy trying to kill them. The same with Nazi Germany. One of the last German units to surrender was a Waffen-SS unit of volunteer Frenchmen. In this scenario the Soviet Union wouldn't need the undying loyalty of its satellites (and they almost certainly knew they would never get it anyway), but just enough to keep the lesser NATO nations busy while the main attack is conducted by the Soviet Army. There would probably be a few rebellions, but that never stopped a superpower before and I fail to see why it would do so in this situation.

Problem is, the Red Army wasn't exactly consisting of ethnic, communist Russiany, many of them couldn't even speak Russian. How long would the morale of some Uzbek hold out fighting against Germans/Danes/Dutch, literally defending their homes?

But this is a war of conquest by the USSR using dominated nations as cannonfodder and buffer zone, it's not a case of having to choose between being subjugated by Nazis or Soviets. Even if the leaders of the Warsaw Pact countries were in agreement, it's feasible that civil unrest occurs throughout the WP countries along with mass desertion.

The promise of looting would be a great incentive; not so different from the latter stages of WWII. I think even serious talk of war would have seen the acceleration of the protest movements that ended communism.

There's also the issue about how the Soviet system dealt with the unpopularity of the war in Afghanistan. A full-on euro invasion would have been a much greater example of that. I don't know much about how dissent around that issue was handled...

That's a question that will never be answered. Mutinies in armies are very rare, but they do happen. In my inexpert opinion, if the Soviet Army wins and wins often then most of the Soviet Union's allies are going to stick with them. The few rebellions would be crushed brutally. If the Soviet Army loses hard, then yeah, I expect strong rebellions to take place and, with it losing the war already, the Soviet Union would be hard pressed to stomp them out. Rebellions aren't easy and aren't as inevitable as hindsight would make us believe.

The scenario in the OP didn't mention who the aggressor was. Even then, there are plenty of examples throughout history where soldiers from conquered lands were used as troops with minimum issue by their new overlords. As I said, the Soviet Union doesn't need the love and affection of its allies, only their obedience which they had for pretty much the entire Cold War with only a few exceptions. Rebellions would take place for sure, I agree, but none strong enough to win or affect the final outcome of the war. Not unless the war has already been decided. This war would also likely be very short. Too short for any resistance movements to cause any real damage.

Good points. I'll send the word to my fellow Moldovan conscripts to keep our heads down. Let's hope we I can loot some jeans and cigarettes from a Vienna shopping mall, and some new shoes for my mamma, and be home by Christmas.

I agree with you, that it would be too short a war for any meaningful resistance in the sense of partisans/maquis/mujahadeen to become viable (although dunno about already established resistances like solidarnosc), I was more going for scenarios like the Italians during Operation Crusader and general poor preformance of Pact troops to offset numerical superiority.

>Even then, there are plenty of examples throughout history where soldiers from conquered lands were used as troops with minimum issue by their new overlords

I'd say that is a bit more difficult to achieve in the modern era of nationalism and wtih the politcal mindset at that time, do you have any good, comparable examples (I know there are many times this happend, I'm just curious which ones you mean)?

OP's scenario does kinda imply a Pact first strike (some enlightenment OP, maybe?)

Take into account that many of the Eastern Bloc nations were there against their will ie. Poland / Hungary - factor in their eventual turning against the Soviet Union as well.

>let's assume that for the first few weeks, the conventional forces on both sides resort to fighting in a traditional style of warfare
The problem here is that for damn near the entire period the war plans we have for the Pact are wholly dependent on nuclear weapons. I don't even know of any exercises that didn't assume nuclear use by the 9th day. Traditionally the war was supposed to begin with dumping every nuclear weapon onto the enemy, at which point the conventional phase begins. IIRC they kept so much shit lying around in the assumption that every factory would be non-functional basically overnight.

I've also heard that at least East Germany built the assumption of massive desertion rates into their plans. In all honesty the war would have been ended by massive protests across the Bloc no matter what.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Peacock

>Day 1: Russian armored and mechanized division steamroll west germany due to overwhelming numbers
>Day 3: NATO forces surrounded and start to panic and use tactical nukes
>Day 4: Pact countries use tactical nukes in response
>Day 5: tactical nuclear naval warfare
>Day 6: global thermonuclear war

youtube.com/watch?v=4TPHQ2GFxMw

Charles de Gaulle's nuclear doctrine basically ensures that a global thermonuclear war happens in any case. His whole idea of France's nuclear doctrine is that they can't count on the USA's help (Because they will not risk their country to be annihilated by nukes just to save western Europe) and that they are too small/not populous enough to survive in a total war scenario. So, to him, France would have to resort to fire every weapons of mass destruction available at Russia, even if they can't survive the retaliation.

"Within ten years, we shall have the means to kill 80 million Russians. I truly believe that one does not light-heartedly attack people who are able to kill 80 million Russians, even if one can kill 800 million French, that is if there were 800 million French."

Additionally isn't this, for the most part, a case of top of the line US Fighters that then go up against outdated USSR-export models of the Soviet planes?
Hardly anyone uses the F-4 as a Air Superiority anymore, would hardly be fair to compare it with the Pak FA now.

>Czechoslovakia attacking Austria
No, our plan was to nuke Bavaria with 96 100kt nukes and to reach Spain in 30 days with our 5000 tanks.

I translated this text 11 years ago from one website that is about Czechoslovak People´s Army, I apologize for English of 13 years old me.

Here it is:

part 1

Hello, Czech here, there were several major plans for ČSLA until revolution in 1989. Most of them were created in early 60´s.

Operační plán Orel (Operational plan Eagle) (February 1951)

In this scenario, war would start by NATO attack against Soviet and DDR forces in eastern germany and against Soviet occupation forces in Austria, after defeat of WP there, (Warsaw pact was created in 1955, but i will use it as name for Eastern forces), NATO would continue in attack against Hungary and finaly Czechoslovakia. Attack would be in in ´´cross´´ Plzeň-Prague-Vroclav and Viena-Brno-Katovice.
Our goal was inspired by pre-2WW scenario to hold invaders until allies will arrive to help us, Soviet Union in this case.

Another plan attached to this one is Operační plán Pěst (Operational plan Fist) (March 1951)

After defeat of invading forces and arrival of Soviet forces, WP forces would push throught the line Plzeň-Munich, plan was to reach Danube in 4-5 days, after it, our forces would create bridgehead near Regensburg.

After 1955-1956, we knew that nuclear weapons would be used in massive scale, before that, it was expected that war would be fought conventional way. (USA had only 30 nukes that could be used Europe in 1950)

According to Soviet instruction from May 1955, goals of ČSLA were: 1) Dont let invading forces break to the our territory (destroy them on the borders)
2) Stabilise situation so main WP forces could counterattack in 10 days to 3 weeks from the start of the war.

Part 2
Example of new war planning is Operační plán Zástava (Operation plan ´´Flag´´) (Zástava is not typical word for flag-vlajka and its used mostly as official name for battleflag or regimental flag and things like that) that was made in 1956, Soviets upgraded it one year later. According to this plan, NATO would attack Czechoslovakia first. Attack was expected in 2 lines, Norimberg-Plzeň-Prague and Viena-Brno-Katovice. (it was expected that NATO would violate neutrality of Switzerland)

(now there are long texts about post-war fortresses, most of them were built in 50´s)

Our counterattack was planed that way that we woud enter Western Germany territory into the depth of 10 kilometers. After that, according to Soviet plans our soldiers would stop here and would continue in defending only to maximalise enemy casualities.
Our defense would be supported by 5 Soviet ´´plane/air divisions´´ (i dont know if there is english term for that), we had 13 airfields for them.

In 50-60´s, army doctrine was modernised in that way that much smaller units would operate autonomicaly, not fronts or armies, but divisions and brigades, (this was caused by expected nuclear war, no 2WW-style conventional warfare. Border units also had highest active manpower in peace times. ČSLA was supposed to attack at speed of 60-100km per day. It was expected that first 30 days would be the most important, becose most nukes would be used in 1st month.

Logistic: it was expected that long-term logistic would be probably impossible to reach, so units had to fight with their own equipment without logistic support (3-5 days) After the main nuclear strikes, it would be possible to create long-term logistic lines.

It was still expected that NATO would be agressor, we improved our plans to be more offensive in 60´s and 70´s

Accroding to plan from October 1964, it was calculated that ČSLA would cross Rhine and reach Langeres-Besancon line in France (more than 500km)

Part 3

in 8 days. (60km´s a day) This sounds totaly insane and it would be most likely possible only if would NATO lost all its fighting power at the start of war. (by nukes most likely) Main ČSLA goal was to destroy NATO forces in Bavaria, capture Norimberg industry, cross Rhine and continue with attack on French territory. Accodring to WP plans, our armies would reach Spanish borders in 30-35 days. All those things were too fast, so it was expected that ČSLA would do it alone without Soviet support. All those things were probably possible, becose ČSLA was strongest and best equiped army in WP after USSR.

Nukes: In the case of war, ČSLA would operate with 44 operationaly-tactical nukes and 50 tactical nukes.
Accroding to plans, it had to be 30kilotone nukes, but its not true and we would use 100 kilotones nukes, so ČSLA woudld march throught the nuclear wasteland in Bavaria.

AA defense: 7th army of AA defense had those goals: Repulse massive NATO airstrikes against Karsluhe, Prague and Ostrava

Repulse NATO recon planes and attacks against military+logistic targets.

Defend advancing units in Germany and France against enemy airforce

Paratroopers: 22. paratrooper brigade had to paradrop 4th day in the Northern Stuttgart area. or 5th day: into the Rastatt area. or 6th day: into the eastern area of Mulhouse to capture and keep crossing of Neckar or Rhein until land forces would arrive.

Tanks: our forces had 1120 T-34/85 tanks and 2120 modern tanks, they would face 800 NATO tanks in Bavaria and later 2250 French tanks (this is total amount of French tanks in 1964, so that number would be much smaller thanks to DDR, Polish and Soviet attack in the northern France.

Part 4

Logictic 2.0: It was expected that we would use 45 000 tons of ammunition, 93 000 tons of fuel and oils (out of that 40 000 tons are air fuel. Into the rockets: 220t of oxygen and 70t of rocket fuel.

So, this is all, you could think that i did not answered your question about 90´s, but those plans from 70´s were same, only with different numbers.

If you have any question, i could probably answer them, here is link to source: csla.cz/armada/taktika/plany001.htm
There is also nice map of attack, D1,D2,D3 atc are days when would our troops reach those places. Sorry for my bad english.

Politically, yes. Millitary wise there was never a moment NATO could have won before july '91.

thanks bro

np user

Interesting. Thanks. I always thought of the Czechs as more in line with the West. I mean that on cultural and political level. Do you think the actual soldiers would fight hard in that situation and would the country itself be for it?

>Veeky Forums shitposting about an older, better board
wew

Partly yes, but communists had always huge support there, especialy in industrial areas. KSČ had 1 720 000 members in 1988, out of the total population of 15 milions.
Of course, not all Czechs and Slovaks that were in KSŠ were communists and many of them were just oportunist, but iam sure that our soldiers would fight. Even hardcore anti-communist would fight against NATO if would NATO kill several milion civilians with nukes. Even when we exclude policical orientation out of this, people would just fight for their country.

That is true. Makes sense. I suppose there may have been still a lot of hate for Germans at that point too.

Of course, but biggest problem for us when some German lives here, thats reason why we hate Sudet Germany much more than all other Germans combined, especialy if they demand land and houses we "stole" from them in 1945.

You did steal it and do not even pretend that you didn't.

>Be German peasant in 13th century
>colonize empty forests in Sudety because Bohemian king wont tax you for several years
>Austro-Hungary collapses
>you demand autonomy even when you lost the war
>1938
>you start with murdering of Czechoslovak soldiers and police
>you call it genocide when they arrest you
>Munich Agreement
>you steal farm of your Czech neighbour because he fled
>1945
>you get expelled
>m-muh genocide of Germans

You defeated your own argument on the second line when you admitted the forests were empty and thus were not owned until the krauts moved in. You stole the property of others that had been there for centuries by your own admission.

Except they were, they were owned by the Bohemian king that allowed krauts to settle there if they will be loyal to Czech crown. This is like Czech from Volyn demanding splitting from Russia/Ukraine to join Czechoslovakia/Czechia

>they were owned by the Bohemian king that allowed krauts to settle there if they will be loyal to Czech crown
And they were loyal to the crown until the monarchy collapsed upon which moment the ownership transferred to those living on it: Krauts. Theft is theft. It doesn't matter what kind of mental gymnastic fuckery you try here. You physically removed people from their property which their family had owned for centuries. That's theft.

Removing someone for betrayal of their country (Czechoslovakia) by supporting Hitler that wasnt even German isnt wrong. Antihitlerite Germans werend deported.

>Antihitlerite Germans werend deported
That's wrong though

it isnt, if you were sudet german and you had czechoslovak citizenship, you werent deported

All of them would have had Czechoslovak citizenship, you fucking retard

Most of them took German in 1938 or 1939.

Look at the domestic reaction to the oil crisis when the arabs stopped selling oil, and the domestic reaction to the Vietnam war when the bodies started flying in.

The modern civilized, comfortable and nice to live in states couldn't handle total war, people just don't want to. War is shit for the individual people, its terrible, and understandably they'd protest and want the government to stop making them ration food and metals, and to stop sending their sons to die abroad.
A totalitarian brainwashed regime is always better equipped to fight than an open, humane democratic regime.

Anyways, the NATO states were richer and stronger industrially, but its population would simply not want to fight very long, which sort of cancels that wealth. It would thus be closer than people here give it credit for.

>All major cities in Europe (east or west) flattened by warheads.
First you need to define major. Otherwise its a meme with no value.
Or are you talking about nuking the civilian leaders of Germany/France/Poland or other large nations? Because that misses many many major cities.

>Civilian losses on a scale above all other man wars.
You are competing with total annihilation as loss condition. So scale isn't higher.

>Europe becomes a barren and depopulated desert,
How would that happen? WW1 land recovered in a few seasons.
>radioactive wasteland.
How would you accomplish that? Neither side has enough nukes to do that. Nevermind there is no fallout scale because the only comparisons are a leaking reactor and a prototype dirty bomb.