burmafrd said:
The T-72 was not all that fast; and neither were the BMPs and other armored support vehicles. Not to mention that inthe very rigid control system that the Red Army trained under, the faster they went the more confused they got.
I agree that the T72 had some serious shortcomings. In fact, I'll even grant that the Red Army was sort of like the 1927 NY Yankees: A great team in 1927, but that is no help to them in 1984. Ditto the Red Army in 1984. They were hard and nasty in 1945, but 40 years later they simply aren't the same.
The point is that for the suggested conflict, they don't need the boys who marched from Moscow to Berlin. They need to simply cover the distance between the inner German border and the Low Countries/France.
Given a two year lead up, I'm sure that the average Soviet formation could be made able to move a short distance, clobber some loosely organized forces, then sit tight.
The Red Army myth of invincibility would be pretty qucikly put to the test; and the corrolary to the confidence and fear that it gave would also be the kick to the natural independent instincs of the rest of the Warsaw Pact if they saw the Invincible Red Army as no longer invincible but beatable.
Let me be clear: In a simple sandtable match up, NATO will win and beat the WP eleven times out of ten. It's that clear and marked of a difference.
The problem is that wars are not fought on sandtables without outside considerations. If the Soviets were attempting to score an outright, settle all the bets once and for all match in 1984, they get smoked hard. The Soviets weren't stupid, they knew a straight up punching match gets them killed. So what I'm positing is that the Soviets would be aware that they can't score that global victory, but they sure can achieve a local, limited victory, defined as the elimination of West Germany as a member of NATO.
Yes, months and years after the Soviets pull this kind of operation, there will be strong indicators if not outright proof that they couldn't have gone a step further west than they did. A good parallel would be the fears of an Iraqi invasion of Saudi Arabia in 1991 after the invasion of Kuwait. After the fact, it became very obvious that the short drive by Iraq into Kuwait was pretty much the end of their logistics.
However the military and NSA intelligence teams were a lot better.
It is highly unlikely that they would not correctly put the pieces together
There are two problems with that.
First, the NSA missed the sudden collapse of the USSR as much as everybody else. The fact is that we never really got a good handle on the USSR or Russians for that matter. The KGB weren't as effective as Hollywood likes to make them sound, but they weren't pushovers either.
Second, let's give you the benefit of the doubt and say that the NSA figures out from all of the widespread indicators that the WP is about to throw a punch at NATO. They still have to convince the political leadership of all of NATO that it's going to happen. There is no naval surge. There is no obvious irritant in play. There is no evidence of activity outside of Europe. Even if they manage to put all of that to explained, what is the NATO solution? Mobilize? That would cost trillions of dollars and if the Russians don't move, they look like idiots and forms a victory for the WP in and of itself. Anything else is arranging deck chairs on the Titanic, since the only forces that will matter are the ones right in and proximal to West Germany.
especially as the scenario put forth is one of the main ones that we looked at during that time period.
Yes, I'm broadly plagarizing. It also adds some credibility to your points in that you recognized it as such.
That's why it's a much more plausible scenario than the original one in this thread. NATO spent a great deal of time looking at this as a problem because it was a real smart play on the part of the Russians and there is no easy fix against it beyond adopting a nuclear first use policy that says that the minute the first Soviet boot hits West Germany, Moscow gets cratered.
As regards supporting terrorists; at that time there was a suspicion the Russians were doing that anyway in the real time line; there is NO chance that some evidence of this support would NOT get out if it really happened; and once it did everything the Russians did would be under a microscope.
The issue isn't if the Russians were supporting terrorists. They were. Big time. They were so prolific, there are some prominent terrorist organizations from the 70's and 80's that were less involved with their ideology and more with doing the work of the KGB/GRU.
The ramp up in support could be easily explained as a reaction to the US funding of counter-Soviet forces in Afghanistan. In essence, if you're going to give Stingers to Al-Q, we're going to give SA-7s to the PIRA or FLQ.
As well, I'd like to think that the moment the Soviets started pointing ICBMs at the west, they were under the microscope.