Hi all
I am considering writing a timeline on the subject of a "Limited" Nuclear War erupting in the 1950s, stemming from a Soviet first strike against perceived NATO aggression and ending in an Allied victory, due less to battlefield triumphs than to the collapse of the Soviet Union under the weight of nuclear strikes. If anyone has any ideas about how to better the scenario I describe below, or finds some glaring error/omission, I'd be grateful for any feedback. Without more ado...
-Soviet First Strike? In the absence of ICBMs or even SLBMs, long range bombers would have been the only delivery mechanism here, and this places severe restrictions on the ability of both sides to launch nuclear strikes at each other, albiet in different ways. For the Americans- the B-47 had a combat range of around 2000 miles, meaning it was reliant on European bases to hit targets in the USSR/Eastern Europe, as only the B-52 could go from America to the USSR in one straight shot. Is it thus fair to say that a successful Soviet first strike which destroyed SAC bases in Europe could, at minimum, delay the American nuclear response long enough for the Soviets to make a serious conventional advance? What percentage of SAC's bomber force and the American nuclear arsenal could the Soviets have destroyed on the ground?
-Soviet advance and how long it would take to drive them back. If, say, the Americans do not launch their nuclear strike until day three of the war (as the Soviet first strike has destroyed much of what they have in Europe, forcing them to bring reserves over from the CONUS), how far can the Soviet Army advance in that time? To the Weser? The Rhine? And once the Americans do launch their nukes at the USSR, how long until they can start pushing back in Europe?
-Destruction of conventional forces and erosion of fighting ability: In the 1970s and early 1980s, Soviet military planners envisioned dropping hundreds of nuclear weapons on Western forces in Germany on the first day of fighting- but this could not have worked in the 1950s with nuclear weapons so sparse, especially if the Soviets prioritise SAC bases. The Americans obviously would obviously have far more nuclear weapons to use, but SAC was always, well, strategic, and I know of no plans to send the bombers against Soviet troops in the field. In the mid-50s, things like nuclear artillery shells and nuclear-capable fighter bombers were only just entering service, so my first impression is that the fighting in Germany would have been primarily conventional. Is this accurate?
-Logistics: Tied into the above is: how long can both sides fight before their supply chains give out on them? The 1950s were not the 1980s- long wars remained the norm, as Korea demonstrated. The counter to this is, here nuclear strikes would have destroyed vast swathes of Europe- the Soviets will not be in a position to produce anything en masse, never mind shipping it to the front. Britain and France will be in the same position and will have only very limited port facilities to receive supplies from the United States. What the powers brought in to this war, in other words, is all they would have had to fight it with, and the war would have become a contest to make the other's logistics collapse first. Who would win in that situation? My gut tells me the West, because America is still intact and over a period of months, they can bring in far more than the Soviet Union, but I want to hear your thoughts.
-Level of destruction: My general impression of the period 1950-1957 (ie, between the outbreak of the Korean War and the invention of the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) is that, while it would be vastly more destructive than OTL's WWII, it would also be an order of magnitude less than what we see in, say, the Cuban Missile War scenario on this site, to say nothing of true end-of-Western-civilisation scenarios such as Threads. According to "Our World In Data", the Americans had 1169 nuclear bombs in 1953, 1703 in 1954, and 2,422 in 1955, while the Soviets only had 5 (!) in 1950 and 200 in 1955. Assuming a war in, say, 1954, the Americans could likely have put 250 sub-megaton bombs onto the Soviet Union and 250 onto China, while the Soviets could only have launched 50-100 successful sub-megaton strikes, accounting for things like air defence and salvage detonation. This would have been a massively lopsided war.
The effects would have been horrible in Western Europe- certainly more physical damage inflicted in one day than in the course of World War II, and command and control would have, at minimum, been severely ruptured. That being said, it would be qualified: the US and Canada would almost certainly have escaped unscathed, and 100 sub-megaton strikes (possibly even under 100 kilotons), would not have destroyed everything of value in Western Europe. Plenty of towns, factories, and the like, along with large swathes of the population, would have survived. In this, we are still close to WWII in that evacuation would be a viable strategy and the countryside would have come through mostly intact. Britain, France, etc, would have been "down but not out" and the Western Hemisphere would most likely be untouched.
In the Soviet Union and China, on the other hand, we might see something resembling Threads- the complete destruction of all cities and modern industry (the Soviet tendency to hyper-centralise production into one big industrial complex would be a major weakness here) and mass depopulation with the survivors becoming refugees. Once command and control broke down, and it wouldn't take long, both the Soviet Union and China would be finished as functioning states. It would make the Chinese Warlord Era look orderly. Eastern Europe would probably get hit somewhat lighter- for one thing, the Americans would probably want to portray themselves as liberators, which is somewhat harder to do when you've just nuked a nation's capital. I imagine there would be brutal violence when the Communist regimes collapse as Soviet troops pull out, though. I'm not sure if the West would have the military strength to occupy the whole of Eastern Europe, but that might be the only thing which imposes order.
@raharris1973 and @ObssesedNuker - I know this is an area of expertise for you both, anything you have to add would be greatly appreciated.
I am considering writing a timeline on the subject of a "Limited" Nuclear War erupting in the 1950s, stemming from a Soviet first strike against perceived NATO aggression and ending in an Allied victory, due less to battlefield triumphs than to the collapse of the Soviet Union under the weight of nuclear strikes. If anyone has any ideas about how to better the scenario I describe below, or finds some glaring error/omission, I'd be grateful for any feedback. Without more ado...
-Soviet First Strike? In the absence of ICBMs or even SLBMs, long range bombers would have been the only delivery mechanism here, and this places severe restrictions on the ability of both sides to launch nuclear strikes at each other, albiet in different ways. For the Americans- the B-47 had a combat range of around 2000 miles, meaning it was reliant on European bases to hit targets in the USSR/Eastern Europe, as only the B-52 could go from America to the USSR in one straight shot. Is it thus fair to say that a successful Soviet first strike which destroyed SAC bases in Europe could, at minimum, delay the American nuclear response long enough for the Soviets to make a serious conventional advance? What percentage of SAC's bomber force and the American nuclear arsenal could the Soviets have destroyed on the ground?
-Soviet advance and how long it would take to drive them back. If, say, the Americans do not launch their nuclear strike until day three of the war (as the Soviet first strike has destroyed much of what they have in Europe, forcing them to bring reserves over from the CONUS), how far can the Soviet Army advance in that time? To the Weser? The Rhine? And once the Americans do launch their nukes at the USSR, how long until they can start pushing back in Europe?
-Destruction of conventional forces and erosion of fighting ability: In the 1970s and early 1980s, Soviet military planners envisioned dropping hundreds of nuclear weapons on Western forces in Germany on the first day of fighting- but this could not have worked in the 1950s with nuclear weapons so sparse, especially if the Soviets prioritise SAC bases. The Americans obviously would obviously have far more nuclear weapons to use, but SAC was always, well, strategic, and I know of no plans to send the bombers against Soviet troops in the field. In the mid-50s, things like nuclear artillery shells and nuclear-capable fighter bombers were only just entering service, so my first impression is that the fighting in Germany would have been primarily conventional. Is this accurate?
-Logistics: Tied into the above is: how long can both sides fight before their supply chains give out on them? The 1950s were not the 1980s- long wars remained the norm, as Korea demonstrated. The counter to this is, here nuclear strikes would have destroyed vast swathes of Europe- the Soviets will not be in a position to produce anything en masse, never mind shipping it to the front. Britain and France will be in the same position and will have only very limited port facilities to receive supplies from the United States. What the powers brought in to this war, in other words, is all they would have had to fight it with, and the war would have become a contest to make the other's logistics collapse first. Who would win in that situation? My gut tells me the West, because America is still intact and over a period of months, they can bring in far more than the Soviet Union, but I want to hear your thoughts.
-Level of destruction: My general impression of the period 1950-1957 (ie, between the outbreak of the Korean War and the invention of the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) is that, while it would be vastly more destructive than OTL's WWII, it would also be an order of magnitude less than what we see in, say, the Cuban Missile War scenario on this site, to say nothing of true end-of-Western-civilisation scenarios such as Threads. According to "Our World In Data", the Americans had 1169 nuclear bombs in 1953, 1703 in 1954, and 2,422 in 1955, while the Soviets only had 5 (!) in 1950 and 200 in 1955. Assuming a war in, say, 1954, the Americans could likely have put 250 sub-megaton bombs onto the Soviet Union and 250 onto China, while the Soviets could only have launched 50-100 successful sub-megaton strikes, accounting for things like air defence and salvage detonation. This would have been a massively lopsided war.
The effects would have been horrible in Western Europe- certainly more physical damage inflicted in one day than in the course of World War II, and command and control would have, at minimum, been severely ruptured. That being said, it would be qualified: the US and Canada would almost certainly have escaped unscathed, and 100 sub-megaton strikes (possibly even under 100 kilotons), would not have destroyed everything of value in Western Europe. Plenty of towns, factories, and the like, along with large swathes of the population, would have survived. In this, we are still close to WWII in that evacuation would be a viable strategy and the countryside would have come through mostly intact. Britain, France, etc, would have been "down but not out" and the Western Hemisphere would most likely be untouched.
In the Soviet Union and China, on the other hand, we might see something resembling Threads- the complete destruction of all cities and modern industry (the Soviet tendency to hyper-centralise production into one big industrial complex would be a major weakness here) and mass depopulation with the survivors becoming refugees. Once command and control broke down, and it wouldn't take long, both the Soviet Union and China would be finished as functioning states. It would make the Chinese Warlord Era look orderly. Eastern Europe would probably get hit somewhat lighter- for one thing, the Americans would probably want to portray themselves as liberators, which is somewhat harder to do when you've just nuked a nation's capital. I imagine there would be brutal violence when the Communist regimes collapse as Soviet troops pull out, though. I'm not sure if the West would have the military strength to occupy the whole of Eastern Europe, but that might be the only thing which imposes order.
@raharris1973 and @ObssesedNuker - I know this is an area of expertise for you both, anything you have to add would be greatly appreciated.
