BAOR vs. Volksarmee

MacCaulay

Banned
This is very simple. It's WWIII, you're average conventional ground war scenario in the early-to-mid 1980s. We've all been over a million times the American and Soviet military abilities. That's fine.

But let's take our eyes off CENTAG for a moment, and focus on NORTHAG. More importantly, the British Army of the Rhine.

Let's assume for a moment that through a fluke of history and warplans, the East German Army, known as the Nationale Volksarmee, is tasked with breaking the BAOR.

I don't care about realism of the war plans, what we're looking for here is if the East German army had it in it to take on the British Army of the Rhine and win.

The BAOR was not just British. It was 4 Corps strong, consisting of Belgian, Dutch, German and British Corps. These troops guarded the defensively hardest terrain in the whole of Germany, and were expected to take the most casualties.

What, in your opinion, would be the Volksarmee's best option in attacking the combined forces? Could it make a dent and at least capture any of the major cities in West Germany?
 
I don't know enough about weaponry, tactics and strategy to contribute much beyond what the usual writers ion the subject can give you, but what I can tell you is that by the mid-80s there is a good chance the NVA is punching far below its theoretical weight. Discontent, low morale, even desertion and poor discipline are going to dog the forces every step of the way and unless you have the Soviets present (which you likely would, since they know this), there may be incidents of overt insubordination. I don't think anything like a rebellion or national fraternisatzion will happen, but these will not be dashing soldiers driving on to victory.

Keep in mind that in the 80s, pretty much everybody was convinced if the war started, nobody in Europe would survive. The GDR's soldiers were not really an exception, and though they were reasonably wiling to defend their socialist fatherland against the imperialist aggressors, it's unlikely they will be happy in an invading role. Especially if it follows the Warsaw Pact plans heavily relying on nonconventional weapons and inflicting heavy civilian casualties.
 

Redbeard

Banned
I'm not very much into the NVA, but I was serving in one of the NATO armies during the 80s and my impression is that NATO's defensive capabilities increased tremendously during the 80s (but not JUST because of me :D ).

Where NATO conventional forces in the 70s much appeared like unfocused and under strength versions of their WWII predecessors they by the 80s in materiel, training and doctrine became focused on stopping a massive WAPA attack. It is also my impression that morale by 80s was much improved compared to the 70s. Not at least the Bundeswehr developed some impressive ways and gadgets to kill massive armoured formations. This did of course not happen overnight, but by mid 80s I would say WAPA had lost the last chance of advancing far enough to achieve a political result.

We did not back then in any way count on low morale in the WAPA forces, certainly not in the NVA. I recall we by the late 80s wondered if they really counted on the Poles as that enthusiastic about dying for Moscow’s cause, but apparently only small elite forces like the Marine Division (rather Brigade IIRC) were given 1st echelon duties along with the Soviet and NVR units (in NWE). Although it is today tempting to see signs of the “inevitable” collapse from the very start I actually think morale and cohesion was quite high almost to the very end. Probably not in the fringes and periphery, but in core elements like the armed forces.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
No, Cal, we're not talking by themselves...

This is just a theoretical exercise. We're pitting the "best" of the non-Soviet Warsaw Pact against the "best" of non-US NATO.

Still pretty much the same answer. If the U.S. and USSR forces are isolated out the NATO countries have the same massive advantage in quality (both personnel and equipment), morale (many of the Pact troops had dreamed of getting to the West to ESCAPE their regime's for years), and technology.

The Pact forces actually match up worse than the general NATO/Pact balance because they have older gear and less in the way of deep strike capacity. They also are smaller formations than the Red Army, with far fewer Cat B & C divisions available.
 
Still pretty much the same answer. If the U.S. and USSR forces are isolated out the NATO countries have the same massive advantage in quality (both personnel and equipment), morale (many of the Pact troops had dreamed of getting to the West to ESCAPE their regime's for years), and technology.

The Pact forces actually match up worse than the general NATO/Pact balance because they have older gear and less in the way of deep strike capacity. They also are smaller formations than the Red Army, with far fewer Cat B & C divisions available.

Its much worse than that for them.
The US Army wasnt a huge proportion of the land forces in Europe. The USSR was most of the Warsaw pact...
 
Didn't East-Germany have an economy about the size of the Netherlands, or at most the Benelux?

I doubt the East-Germans would get far in this scenario.

[B said:
MacCaulay[/B]] No, Cal, we're not talking by themselves...

This is just a theoretical exercise. We're pitting the "best" of the non-Soviet Warsaw Pact against the "best" of non-US NATO.

I always thought the Poles were No.2 after the SU in the Warschaupact.
Maybe even the Czechoslovakians before the East-Germans.
 
Declassified East German documents prove that the NVA would attack the NORTHAG with a frontal offensive and an amphibious assault against Denmark. NVA would have not operated alone, but with the help of Soviet Forces in DDR and two Polish armies. Documents are about exercises and we have no war plans. (I have their translation in Italian, I don't find English translations...). All exercises include the use of tactical nukes, but in a 1984 wargame, commanders had to study the possibility of a war "with or without" the use of WMD.
In case of war in '70s or early '80s, NATO opposing forces were very weak. West German troops, in particular, were very demotivated (but British military standards were always high). NATO improved its military capability since 1982-83. In the same period, morale in NVA declined sharply. A victory of NVA could be achieved in this front before the '80s and not after. About the terrain, the German "plain" was not a plain anymore after the heavy urbanization in those regions. A Soviet and East German advance could be easy in the '50s, but in the '70s or '80s they had to overcome urban defenses everywhere. A defense in depth could help NATO, as pointed out by John Hackett in his "The Third Wolrd War".
 
Soviet war plans were released in the 1990s that showed the WARPAC plan was to ignor the BOAR except some minor attacks to pin them in place. Apparently the BOAR was not considered offensive enough to be a threat. However WARPAC thrusts to the north and south were designed to encircle and cut off this force ,after the Rhine had been reached.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Soviet war plans were released in the 1990s that showed the WARPAC plan was to ignor the BOAR except some minor attacks to pin them in place. Apparently the BOAR was not considered offensive enough to be a threat. However WARPAC thrusts to the north and south were designed to encircle and cut off this force ,after the Rhine had been reached.

This actually a good plan since the BAOR would have stomped their probable opponent flat as a bug.
 
Soviet war plans were released in the 1990s that showed the WARPAC plan was to ignor the BOAR except some minor attacks to pin them in place. Apparently the BOAR was not considered offensive enough to be a threat. However WARPAC thrusts to the north and south were designed to encircle and cut off this force ,after the Rhine had been reached.

Wonderful plan, that....

So we go around our toughest opponent, who will no doubt just sit there drinking tea, then once we have surrounded them they will surrender.
Hum.
Pehaps they should look up 'flanking attacks' in the manual, and note what happens to armies that go around forces that are mobile and get a good look at your supply echelon. Not to mention having artillery capable of plopping all your bridges into the river frm where they are sitting 'surrounded'...

Failing that, maybe even look up 'retreating to avoid being cut off....'
 
Here I found the NVA documents about an eventual war in Europe. This is the German Federal Republic report of 3 October 1990, I know it's absolutely generic, but it could be interesting for this discussion

Operational Planning of the Warsaw Pact

Under Soviet guidance, Warsaw Pact planning envisaged an
attack by a total of five Fronts (a Front corresponds to a full-strength
NATO army group) against NATO forces in Northern and Central
Europe.A The ground forces for these five Fronts were to consist
of:
* Soviet military forces in the GDR, Poland, and Czechoslovakia;
* the NVA, the Czechoslovak People’s Army, and the Polish
People’s Army; and
* Soviet military forces from Belorussia and the Ukraine.
The Soviet Baltic Fleet, the Polish Navy, and the People’s Navy of
the GDR, as well as the air forces of numerous countries, were also
included within the plan.
The NVA documents show that this deployment of forces served
as the basis for many command exercises and staff exercises in the
WP and NVA. The chronicle of the GDR Defense Ministry for
1977/781 lists, among other things, the following theme of the
General Officers’ Training Course: “Preparation and Conduct of
Offensive Operations Along the Front with and without Nuclear
Weapons.” Additional tasks were stipulated for “Offensive
Operations in the Direction of the Coast” in the Northern-Lower
Saxony/Schleswig-Holstein area.
In 1978 the same chronicle describes a staff exercise under the
leadership of the then Commander-in-Chief of the Warsaw Pact,
Marshal Ogarkov, in which a five-Front “attack in the western and
southwestern military theaters” was to be rehearsed.B
In 1980 the NVA hosted the Warsaw Pact’s “Comrades-in-
Arms-80” maneuvers.2 The aim of the exercises was formulated in
the following way by the WP High Command:
1. Conduct of operations at the outset of a war:
* Breaking through a prepared defense by overwhelming a
security sector.
* Prevention of a counter-attack.
2. Conduct of operations in the depth of the enemy’s defense, in
conjunction with naval and amphibious forces.
3. Completion of the subsequent duties of the first-echelon armies.
Corresponding to each of these points were training exercises
that convincingly showed how NATO’s defense-in-depth could be
ruptured. The penetration was to occur in three stages at the
operational and tactical levels (Army, Division), as can be seen in
the briefing materials prepared for high-ranking political and
military visitors:
* Stage One: Breaking through the defense,
* Stage Two: Overcoming the defensive
sector, deployment of the second echelon,
* Stage Three: Paratroop landings, deep attacks over water, and
offensives in combination with the paratroopers.
The aims and conduct of the exercise are but one example among
many of how the Warsaw Pact was poised for offensive operations
from the very beginning of a military conflict with NATO. Except
for a few exercises in the late 1980s, defense against a NATO attack
was not practiced because such an attack obviously was considered
implausible.
Planning for military operations at the operational and strategic
levels of the Front (known in the West as army groups) also
reflected this general set of aims. After the WP exercise “Soyuz-
83,” the GDR defense minister at the time presented the whole
concept in the following way, according to the sealed minutes of the
National Defense Council:3
The strategic groupings of troops and naval forces of the armed
forces of the USSR, the Poland People’s Republic, the GDR, and
the CSSR have the following mission:
The principal aim of the first strategic operation with troops on
four Fronts is a rapid advance, reaching the frontiers of France by
the 13th or 15th day, and thereby:
* taking the territories of Denmark, the FRG, the Netherlands,
and Belgium;
* forcing the withdrawal of these West European countries from
the war; and
* continuing the strategic operation by establishing two
additional Fronts inside France, shattering the strategic reserves
on French territory, and reaching Vizcaya and the Spanish
border by day 30 or 35, thus accomplishing the final aims of the
first strategic operation by removing France from the war.
These examples and the above-mentioned documents clearly
show how dominant the offensive was in the operational and
strategic thinking of both the NVA and the WP. This offensive
orientation persisted until the end of the 1980s despite the
intervening political changes in the Soviet Union. Even in 1988-89
there was an advanced course for the senior officer corps of the
NVA in which the “instructions of the Commander-in-Chief of the
Pact’s Joint Armed Forces regarding the operational mission of
troops and naval forces” set forth the following aims:
The goal of the operation is to liberate the territories of the GDR
and CSSR, to occupy the economically important regions of the
FRG east of the Rhine, and to create the right circumstances for a
transition to a general offensive aimed at bringing about the
withdrawal of the European NATO states from the war.4
Formulated in this way, the goals of the exercise remained in a
long tradition of earlier exercises. As a general justification for the
Warsaw Pact’s attack plans and as a way of quelling any possible
criticism, the scenario for the exercise was based on the assumption
that NATO had committed prior aggression. This assumption was a
standard one within the ideological framework of the WP. From the
documents, however, it is clear that the prospect of an attack by
NATO could not possibly have been taken seriously.
A sure sign of the hypothetical character of the assumptions in
this and other exercises is that the supposed starting conditions were
not actually reflected in the course of the exercise. Normally, only
mobilization and counterattacks were practiced. The preparation
and conduct of a defense against an attack, which was the principal
aim and central feature of all NATO exercises, was certainly not of
comparable importance as an exercise topic for the NVA and WP.
In 1984, when Czechoslovakia was hosting the Warsaw Pact’s
“Shield” exercise, one of the five parts of the exercise was, for the
first time, devoted to the practice of defensive operations. The
remaining parts of the exercise were then dominated, as in the past,
by rehearsals for a massive offensive against the West. In the
treatment of this new exercise goal, and in the subsequent
discussions that Gorbachev obviously inspired among military
specialists about a defensive military doctrine, the Czechoslovak
People’s Army played a distinct leadership role within the Warsaw
Pact, while the NVA acted as a braking force.C
The changes in security policy that followed Gorbachev’s rise to
power were accompanied, albeit hesitantly, by similar revisions in
military-strategic thinking. The first serious proposals for the
development of joint defensive options for the Warsaw Pact came in
1985 when, for the first time, a joint staff training exercise was held
at the highest levels of the WP on the theme of “Strategic
Deployments and Preparations to Defend Against Aggression.”5
The basic principles laid down in that exercise were tested in
subsequent staff exercises; and in September 1989 they were
incorporated into revised orders on defense, as the chronicle of the
NVA reveals. The offensive components of planning and exercises
clearly remained, but they came only after the initial defensive
phases of operational and strategic counterattack.
 

wormyguy

Banned
Didn't East-Germany have an economy about the size of the Netherlands, or at most the Benelux?
It varied, but at one point in the 70s it actually exceeded that of Britain.

(Though that says much more about Britain in that time period than it does East Germany.)
 
Wonderful plan, that....

So we go around our toughest opponent, who will no doubt just sit there drinking tea, then once we have surrounded them they will surrender.
Hum.
Pehaps they should look up 'flanking attacks' in the manual, and note what happens to armies that go around forces that are mobile and get a good look at your supply echelon. Not to mention having artillery capable of plopping all your bridges into the river frm where they are sitting 'surrounded'...

Failing that, maybe even look up 'retreating to avoid being cut off....'

In as much as I truely admired the way in which the BOAR made the best of the political football they became in British Politics through the decades, it was becoming apparent that they just lacked the depth of reserves needed to sustain the war that likely would break out [if it didn't go nuclear]. Yes they could defend their sector making up for any difficency in the Belgium/Dutch positions etc. I just had grave doubts in them being able to mount any kind of serious sustained counter offensive after stopping any WARPAC offensive. It probably would exhaust their supplies and reserves.

I remember talking to some BOAR tankers once , they laughed at their real chances in such a war . They thought they would last days not weeks. They remarked that they probably had the best troops in the world with some of the worst equipment. I quietly reassured my self that the Israelis had done wonders with that very same combination....and I hoped for the best.:( They used to refer to their tanks as "Panzers" and I got the impression they felt like they were like Tiger tanks in the Eastern Front.

We had to live in the real world back then :eek:
 
Here I found the NVA documents about an eventual war in Europe. This is the German Federal Republic report of 3 October 1990, I know it's absolutely generic, but it could be interesting for this discussion

Operational Planning of the Warsaw Pact

Under Soviet guidance, Warsaw Pact planning envisaged an
attack by a total of five Fronts (a Front corresponds to a full-strength
NATO army group) against NATO forces in Northern and Central
Europe.A The ground forces for these five Fronts were to consist
of:
* Soviet military forces in the GDR, Poland, and Czechoslovakia;
* the NVA, the Czechoslovak People’s Army, and the Polish
People’s Army; and
* Soviet military forces from Belorussia and the Ukraine.
The Soviet Baltic Fleet, the Polish Navy, and the People’s Navy of
the GDR, as well as the air forces of numerous countries, were also
included within the plan.
The NVA documents show that this deployment of forces served
as the basis for many command exercises and staff exercises in the
WP and NVA. The chronicle of the GDR Defense Ministry for
1977/781 lists, among other things, the following theme of the
General Officers’ Training Course: “Preparation and Conduct of
Offensive Operations Along the Front with and without Nuclear
Weapons.” Additional tasks were stipulated for “Offensive
Operations in the Direction of the Coast” in the Northern-Lower
Saxony/Schleswig-Holstein area.
In 1978 the same chronicle describes a staff exercise under the
leadership of the then Commander-in-Chief of the Warsaw Pact,
Marshal Ogarkov, in which a five-Front “attack in the western and
southwestern military theaters” was to be rehearsed.B
In 1980 the NVA hosted the Warsaw Pact’s “Comrades-in-
Arms-80” maneuvers.2 The aim of the exercises was formulated in
the following way by the WP High Command:
1. Conduct of operations at the outset of a war:
* Breaking through a prepared defense by overwhelming a
security sector.
* Prevention of a counter-attack.
2. Conduct of operations in the depth of the enemy’s defense, in
conjunction with naval and amphibious forces.
3. Completion of the subsequent duties of the first-echelon armies.
Corresponding to each of these points were training exercises
that convincingly showed how NATO’s defense-in-depth could be
ruptured. The penetration was to occur in three stages at the
operational and tactical levels (Army, Division), as can be seen in
the briefing materials prepared for high-ranking political and
military visitors:
* Stage One: Breaking through the defense,
* Stage Two: Overcoming the defensive
sector, deployment of the second echelon,
* Stage Three: Paratroop landings, deep attacks over water, and
offensives in combination with the paratroopers.
The aims and conduct of the exercise are but one example among
many of how the Warsaw Pact was poised for offensive operations
from the very beginning of a military conflict with NATO. Except
for a few exercises in the late 1980s, defense against a NATO attack
was not practiced because such an attack obviously was considered
implausible.
Planning for military operations at the operational and strategic
levels of the Front (known in the West as army groups) also
reflected this general set of aims. After the WP exercise “Soyuz-
83,” the GDR defense minister at the time presented the whole
concept in the following way, according to the sealed minutes of the
National Defense Council:3
The strategic groupings of troops and naval forces of the armed
forces of the USSR, the Poland People’s Republic, the GDR, and
the CSSR have the following mission:
The principal aim of the first strategic operation with troops on
four Fronts is a rapid advance, reaching the frontiers of France by
the 13th or 15th day, and thereby:
* taking the territories of Denmark, the FRG, the Netherlands,
and Belgium;
* forcing the withdrawal of these West European countries from
the war; and
* continuing the strategic operation by establishing two
additional Fronts inside France, shattering the strategic reserves
on French territory, and reaching Vizcaya and the Spanish
border by day 30 or 35, thus accomplishing the final aims of the
first strategic operation by removing France from the war.
These examples and the above-mentioned documents clearly
show how dominant the offensive was in the operational and
strategic thinking of both the NVA and the WP. This offensive
orientation persisted until the end of the 1980s despite the
intervening political changes in the Soviet Union. Even in 1988-89
there was an advanced course for the senior officer corps of the
NVA in which the “instructions of the Commander-in-Chief of the
Pact’s Joint Armed Forces regarding the operational mission of
troops and naval forces” set forth the following aims:
The goal of the operation is to liberate the territories of the GDR
and CSSR, to occupy the economically important regions of the
FRG east of the Rhine, and to create the right circumstances for a
transition to a general offensive aimed at bringing about the
withdrawal of the European NATO states from the war.4
Formulated in this way, the goals of the exercise remained in a
long tradition of earlier exercises. As a general justification for the
Warsaw Pact’s attack plans and as a way of quelling any possible
criticism, the scenario for the exercise was based on the assumption
that NATO had committed prior aggression. This assumption was a
standard one within the ideological framework of the WP. From the
documents, however, it is clear that the prospect of an attack by
NATO could not possibly have been taken seriously.
A sure sign of the hypothetical character of the assumptions in
this and other exercises is that the supposed starting conditions were
not actually reflected in the course of the exercise. Normally, only
mobilization and counterattacks were practiced. The preparation
and conduct of a defense against an attack, which was the principal
aim and central feature of all NATO exercises, was certainly not of
comparable importance as an exercise topic for the NVA and WP.
In 1984, when Czechoslovakia was hosting the Warsaw Pact’s
“Shield” exercise, one of the five parts of the exercise was, for the
first time, devoted to the practice of defensive operations. The
remaining parts of the exercise were then dominated, as in the past,
by rehearsals for a massive offensive against the West. In the
treatment of this new exercise goal, and in the subsequent
discussions that Gorbachev obviously inspired among military
specialists about a defensive military doctrine, the Czechoslovak
People’s Army played a distinct leadership role within the Warsaw
Pact, while the NVA acted as a braking force.C
The changes in security policy that followed Gorbachev’s rise to
power were accompanied, albeit hesitantly, by similar revisions in
military-strategic thinking. The first serious proposals for the
development of joint defensive options for the Warsaw Pact came in
1985 when, for the first time, a joint staff training exercise was held
at the highest levels of the WP on the theme of “Strategic
Deployments and Preparations to Defend Against Aggression.”5
The basic principles laid down in that exercise were tested in
subsequent staff exercises; and in September 1989 they were
incorporated into revised orders on defense, as the chronicle of the
NVA reveals. The offensive components of planning and exercises
clearly remained, but they came only after the initial defensive
phases of operational and strategic counterattack.


Thanks for that "giobastia". I read an artical in the early 1990s that showed this hypothetical NATO aggression. It postulated a resurgent neo nazi West Germany Panzer Korps spearheading a NATO push through Berlin -Warsaw- Minsk axis, with the aim of reaching Moscow.

I remember discussing this with Russian officers on the internet about 10 years ago. They seemed to be convinced such a scenario could seriously unfold that way :confused:
 

wormyguy

Banned
Thanks for that "giobastia". I read an artical in the early 1990s that showed this hypothetical NATO aggression. It postulated a resurgent neo nazi West Germany Panzer Korps spearheading a NATO push through Berlin -Warsaw- Minsk axis, with the aim of reaching Moscow.

I remember discussing this with Russian officers on the internet about 10 years ago. They seemed to be convinced such a scenario could unfold that way :confused:
Apparently one of the hardest things for military commanders on both sides of the Cold War was to explain to their civilian leaders how exactly World War III could actually start. Nobody ever came up with a convincing/likely scenario. That scenario you just described is ridiculous but as likely as any.
 
The BAOR was not just British.
Yes it was.

It was the British I Corps with some attached units from the UK itself that were supposed to reinforce it.
It was 4 Corps strong, consisting of Belgian, Dutch, German and British Corps.
Now that was NORTHAG.

(So by WWII standards, it was not an army group in size, just an army. But, with an unprecedented amount of firepower.)
These troops guarded the defensively hardest terrain in the whole of Germany, and were expected to take the most casualties.
That depends on if you believed the Soviets would try to force the Fulda gap I suppose.
What, in your opinion, would be the Volksarmee's best option in attacking the combined forces?
Ask the Soviets for help or hope the British are all drunk:

British I. Corps:
3 armoured divisions (1st, 3rd, 4th)
1 artillery division (1st)

GDR Army:
2 tank division (9th, 7th)
4 motorized rifle divisions (1st, 4th, 8th, 11th)
2 motorized rifle regiments

Considering Western divisions were uniformly larger than the Warschaupact ones, Western equipment and training was in general better and the British have the advantage of being on the defending side, the cards are stacked heavily in the British favour.

This is just a theoretical exercise. We're pitting the "best" of the non-Soviet Warsaw Pact against the "best" of non-US NATO.
In fact, in heavy units (tanks primarily), both the Dutch I. Korps and the German I. Korps in NORTHAG outnumbered the BAOR. The Dutch Corps was considered the strongest and thus was the only sector that was not assigned a backup division.

(The Germans and Dutch participated in the 80s 'Reagan buildup', while the British though "we're gonna get nuked anyway" and drew down their forces.)

FlyingDutchman said:
I always thought the Poles were No.2 after the SU in the Warschaupact. Maybe even the Czechoslovakians before the East-Germans.
The Poles were too unreliable. And the Czechs had to be put into their place in 1968.
The GDR was first, then probably the Czechoslovakians (as the only Warschaupact country with a decent indigenous arms industry - Skoda primarily).

wormyguy said:
It varied, but at one point in the 70s it actually exceeded that of Britain.
Considering the UK had a population three to four times as large as the GDR, I'd like some numbers before I start believing that.
 
It varied, but at one point in the 70s it actually exceeded that of Britain.

(Though that says much more about Britain in that time period than it does East Germany.)

There was a time when the CIA thought that the GDR had a higher per capita standard of living than Britain. This was done using Net National Product, a measure invented in the eastern bloc to make them look good which involves giving a value weighting to useless bits of steel that nobody wants.

That is all.
 
IIRC, I. UK Corps sat in the line of advance of the 3. Soviet Shock Army, which was quite a frightful outfit.
But if we assume that all Russians had had too much Vodka - and the NVA 5. Army, which was employed in the sector opposite NORTHAG, staggers ahead alone - well, all of the NORTHAG Corps would have made minced meat out of them in short order.
 
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