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Grand Prize Winner, Any reasonable non-nuclear cold war invasion of europe would involve a massive Soviet armoured thrust through the Fulda gap (look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulda_gap) AND would involve absolutely massive military power. It's so not true that the Warsaw Pact's military was mostly made of rust in the 80's - on the contrary they were at their peak. It's pretty chilling that contamporary wargames would usually end with crushing Soviet victory, or alternatively the US nuking an advancing Soviet army on German soil. That of course because nuking Soviet soil would initiate the whole mutally assured destruction easter egg feature. I remember this leading to all kinds of controversy including my country wanting to withdraw from NATO over their willingness to use our soil and military as radiation sponges. On a more serious note, the Soviet army unit was in many ways superior to the Nato ones. Front line units had nightvision equipment and two SVD-equipped snipers per team, zerg rush amounts of T80 and T72 MBTs (4-1 ratio to NATO armour) and first class ground support and air suprtiority fighters.
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Aug 19, 2011 14:32
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Ah, good, this is interesting! The year 1983 is special due to the massive psyops and wargames in that year which literally nearly initiated a nuclear exchange. (Arguably biased but still interesting account at https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/a-cold-war-conundrum/source.htm) Due to the high state of alert in just '83, a great effort was put into estimating Soviet military capability. There have been a couple of interesting Norwegian books published the last few years on the subject of covert action during the cold war, one of which details a number of penetrations through northern Finland deep into Kola and into eastern Europe to assess the size and capability of their assets. For the northern European flank, the knowledge on their capabilities was sufficiently accurate to be constantly depressing. Even if the Soviet Army suffers the same issues they have always had with discipline, maintenance, logistics and so forth, the fact remains that their equipment is created to suit and their ability to handle losses unsurpassed. For NATO, on the ground in Europe in 1983, it would almost certainly have proven an overwhelming force. As for the nuclear attack to counter an armoured breakthrough, their losses would of course have been considerable, but I still think it would have been more of a psychological strike. We could probably argue whether a decision to attack Europe could be considered rational on behalf of the Soviet management, but I very much doubt they would have failed to understand that a follow-up strike would hit Moscow. You are correct that numbers alone don't convey the real-world strength, and perhaps there is some truth to some high level wargames making inaccurate assumptions for political purposes. Myself, I have had the diametrically opposite experience. During my service every military wargame I have come across or participated in has been meticulously prepared. Being a small nation, that often put our forces at a drastic disadvantage, despite some times superior capabilities of our forces. Being an officer during the cold war must have been pretty dark. Our fast response forces up north did not stock food for more than eight days, which was expected lifespan plus one week.
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Aug 19, 2011 17:25
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Thanks for the JSTOR link, interesting stuff! Mr. Sunshine, we were in the same position here in Norway. There's a strategic line in the north and the general idea was to mass pretty much our entire military there and engage in a delaying defensive tactic untill reinforcements arrived. Famously, a number of German officers experienced in this kind of tactics were involved in drafting the plans... I don't know if the OP picked 1983 on purpose, but there was an event in that year where Soviet forces massed along our border in the north, massive elite elements were 'exercising' in easten europe and so forth. According to one of the books mentioned above, Soviet armour elements were observed performing night operations requiring the kind of night vision gear Nato tankers were confident they did not possess. Have you had a look at the T-80 spec? For it's time it must have been quite impressive. The T-80 was the first turbine powered MBT, providing it with the best mobility of any contemporary MBT. 46 tonnes through turbine power and composite armour and with an auto-loader main gun the size and silhouette was smaller than ours tanks were at the time. The 125mm smoothbore main gun can fire the AT-8 guided missile. Imagine the kinds of technology we'd see if they'd kept up this kind of engineering effort today..! It's a common idea that Soviet engineering was not up to western standards, but I think this is a misconception. The budgets and intended users are usually completely different. I can say that some Russian naval binoculars are built to an amazing technical specification, superior to the point where commander of a sub I served on used his private one complete with Cyrillic labelling. It's a good thing there was never a full-on showdown, though interesting to discuss.
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Aug 20, 2011 12:56
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gradenko_2000 posted:How different were WW1 U-Boats compared to WW2 U-Boats? I keep hearing about how April 1917 was a really really bad month to be in the British Merchant Marine, though I can't quite imagine how advanced submarine technology would be by then. Early in WW2 the peak of submarine technology was the german type VIIC, and the intensive development throughout the war led to the age-defining type XXI. Early on, the subs were somewhat improved on terms of range and depth, but Wolfpack tactics apart were pretty much similar to the WW1 conterpart. Deck guns were still used, indeed the Royal Navy fielded some notable designs that had dual turrets with actual ship guns for surface gunnery. As submarines go, they were spectacularly ill fated. The germans added flak guns, even experimented with some flak submarines that intended to surprise kill ASW aircraft. Well, the aircraft won. The VIIc was so good that the Norwegian Navy raised and overhauled several boats that were scuttled by the brits after the war, and ran those (K-class) long after the "modern" british post-war subs that we were supplied free of charge. One of these, Kaura, is on display in Germany today. Later on, the XXI redefined the game. Designed for submerged operation, they were full-welded clean-hulled and ran three times the battery power of most similar-size subs. Using a schnorchel, they could run generators submerged, and could replenish batteries from half to full charge in three hours. Improved submerged speed and range allowed them to run with, or even outrun, escort vessels. The XXI design was so good it was set in production by the Soviet navy, albeit "improved" with reduced speed and range, and formed the mainstay of their diesel-electric fleet well into the 60s.
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Dec 3, 2011 02:33
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gradenko_2000 posted:On a related note, why was there starvation in WW1 Germany, but not in WW2 despite the similarly tight blockade? Advances in agricultural technology enabling self-sufficiency? Starvation (as in life threatening mal-nutrition) was common in Germany from '44 untill '49 or '50. I have no idea why you have'nt noticed, but could be that among the deliberate bombing of population centres, mass purging of ex german areas and the horrible treatment of civilians (particularly in the eastern sectors) starvation simply was'nt killing people fast enough to be ranked as a major problem.
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Dec 3, 2011 12:00
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