How long can NATO hold the Fulda gap

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It would be really interesting to see what the deployment trends were like. In Russia, I think the MiG-29 was deployed in '84 and the Flanker in '85. How many and where? How many Apaches were in Germany in 86 and how many MLRS systems in 84? I'm pretty sure the M-60 was still widely deployed in Germany for most of the first half of the 80s even as the M1 and M1A1 was rapidly replacing them. It's great to have Apaches rolled out in 85 but doesnt help much if war starts in 85 and there are only 10 ready for combat. Same with all the other new systems deployed during that period. It takes a while to manufacture them, train the crews, and integrate them into combat formations. If anyone has insight or reference material, I would be interested.
 
It would be really interesting to see what the deployment trends were like. In Russia, I think the MiG-29 was deployed in '84 and the Flanker in '85. How many and where? How many Apaches were in Germany in 86 and how many MLRS systems in 84? I'm pretty sure the M-60 was still widely deployed in Germany for most of the first half of the 80s even as the M1 and M1A1 was rapidly replacing them. It's great to have Apaches rolled out in 85 but doesnt help much if war starts in 85 and there are only 10 ready for combat. Same with all the other new systems deployed during that period. It takes a while to manufacture them, train the crews, and integrate them into combat formations. If anyone has insight or reference material, I would be interested.

The Apaches did not make it to Germany until 1987 - at least, officially.

Here's a backgrounder on its development and deployment (PDF File). Relevant excerpt:

The first unit to convert to the Apache was the 7th Battalion, 17th Cavalry Brigade at Ft Hood, which began its 90-day battalion-level conversion in April 1986. The 7-17th was followed by the 1st and 2nd Battalions, 6th Cavalry Regiment, 6th Cavalry Brigade. These two units departed the United States in September 1987 for the Apache's first deployment to Europe. Their 38 AH-64s were part of Reforger '87 (REturn of FOrces to GERmany), flying 725 hours in large-scale exercises in night and bad weather to achieve a mission-capable rate of 90 per cent. Upon completion, the aircraft of the l-6th remained at Illesheiin to became the first Apache unit to be based in Europe, while its sister battalion returned to Ft. Hood. By 1990 Germany had became home to eight AH-64 battalions, with over 160 aircraft.

So your point is valid. That said, the Army had 68 of them in hand by January, 1986; if there is enough lead time in terms of deterioration of relations and apparent war preparations, it's quite possible that many of those Apaches might be rushed over, though there would be the usual problems with pilot and ground crew training and familiarity, access to parts, etc..
 
The Serbian air campaign had nothing to do with high intensity warfare over a battlefield the likes of which the Central Front would have developed into.

NATO disagrees. The Serbian air defense campaign today is used as a textbook example of Soviet-style IADS successfully preserving a ground force under conditions of total enemy air superiority.

The ROEs for NATO restricted them to an almost ridiculous high minimum attack altitude, for example.
Maybe if you actually read my posts, you would have understood the implications of that:

Me said:
was in an atmosphere of minimal casualties of course (both for NATO for political reasons, and for the Serbs because they only had a few SA-3 batteries and couldn't afford to lose them), but it does provide an idea of how robust and annoying a handful of well handled SAMs can be. In this scenario NATO can't afford to be so squeamish, so they'll have to strike targets and suck up the losses, meaning attrition will be much heavier. Much heavier. With Soviet counter air and attrition from air defenses, we could expect NATO air losses to be in the double digit percentiles, which gives them about a week before they have to scale back/withdraw.

Not to mention the technology to conduct a campaign like Allied Force didn't exist in the 1980's, so yeah, of course NATO's plans for a war in 1984 looked substantially different.

But Allied Force was 1999 NATO vs Serbia using 1960s Russian gear. And it didn't exactly prove a walkover for 1999. That isn't a ringing endorsement of 1985 NATO against the 1985 WarPac.

The locations of fixed SAMs beyond the Curtain were well known. They would have been toast very quickly. The thing with mobile SAMs is that while you are shuffling them around and playing hide and seek, they cannot do their job, which is shooting at enemy planes. So, mission kill. And lots of holes in the vaunted WP anti-air umbrella. BTW, chances are that when one does radiate, it eats an anti-radar missile.
Heh, such optimism that is completely unwarranted by actual historical examples. For instance: I once chatted with a NATO intelligence officer who recounted watching a video of an NATO strike package under SA-3 attack during a strike during Allied Force. As the plane the guncam footage was from (an RAF Tornado) evaded missile after missile, you could hear the escorting Hornets desperately trying to suppress the Serb SAM battery. He lost count after twenty "Magnum" calls*.

And they never did get the SA-3 battery.

Similarly, in Vietnam SEAD attacks against fixed SAM batteries frequently suffered heavy losses and rarely permanently knocked them out.

None of this inspires much confidence in the ability of NATO to degrade the vastly larger and more sophisticated Soviet air defenses rapidly enough to affect the ground battle.

*Of course, as he pointed out, that doesn't mean they actually fired more then 20 HARMs. NATO knew Serb SIGINT was listening in, so SEAD packages would sometimes make bogus "Magnum" calls on the radio when they were low on/out of missiles. Either way, they fired a lot of HARMs to no ultimate affect.

Directly over the battlefield, ALL NATO gunners on the ground were trained to go for enemy command tanks and AD vehicles before anything else. Unit cohesion and AA capabilities would have been degraded very, very quickly.
Which is all nice on exercise. But in the heat and confusion of battle with WP artillery falling all around you, Soviet tanks bearing down from your front and likely working around your flank, with disorienting explosions constantly assaulting your senses, and your buddies dying around you... you might not really have the luxury of being able to methodically prioritize your targets.

People also fail to appreciate just how much firepower systems like the MW-1 or MLRS were adding to NATO's arsenal. With stuff like that, NATO did have firepower at battalion level akin to small tacnukes that could take out whole formations in minutes.
Willful exaggeration. The MLRS's cluster munitions, while plenty devastating against light formations, have a hard time taking out heavy tanks like the late-model T-64/T-72s and T-80s the Soviets will be using. And the MW-1 requires a NATO strike aircraft coming in low and exposing themselves to heavy SAM and AAA fire. for a relatively extended period of time. This is ignoring, of course, that the Soviets had plenty of equivalent systems to turn against NATO...

Attack helicopters do not swoop in at a height that makes them easy prey for Ivan Ivanovich Flakgunner. They hide. They go NOE.
So basically, they fly in at a height that would make them easy prey if they wind-up flying over a Soviet AAA or SAM piece they didn't spot until it's too late. ;)
 
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Well, thank you for trying to refute my points, but don't you think that most of what you postulated also applies to the Warsaw Pact? That combat is never one-sided? Because what you write seems to discount any ability on the side of the West.

All I am trying to argue against is the tired old myth of Invincible Ivan sweeping aside all before him without breaking a sweat, which is tiring and boring as hell. Because it simply isn't true, well, okay, from the early Eighties on. The seventies would have been dicey, and the fifties and sixties would have devolved into a nuclear slugfest within hours of starting the conflict.
 
Well, thank you for trying to refute my points, but don't you think that most of what you postulated also applies to the Warsaw Pact? That combat is never one-sided?

Well, fundamentally yes even if some of the details are different. Even if we assume the absolute best case for the Soviets (successful breakthrough-exploitation to the Rhine in approximately a week) is going to result in them taking quite a staggering amount of losses for the timespan involved.

All I am trying to argue against is the tired old myth of Invincible Ivan sweeping aside all before him without breaking a sweat, which is tiring and boring as hell. Because it simply isn't true, well, okay, from the early Eighties on. The seventies would have been dicey, and the fifties and sixties would have devolved into a nuclear slugfest within hours of starting the conflict.
Well, I've been fighting what's been something of the inverse myth: that Ivan is nothing but a bumbling idiot whose military never amounted to anything more then a punching bag for the West. I've seen that expressed many times and wouldn't be surprised if either it has risen as a response to the "Invincible Ivan" myth or vice-versa. But I find it to be equally boring, tiring, and untrue.

Neither view really fits with the actual reality is that NATO and the Warsaw Pact in Central Europe during the mid-80s represented the two most powerful fighting forces on the planet. Given the amount of firepower on both sides, the conventional conflict between the two is going be very fast and very bloody. And victory for either side is not a foregone conclusion.

Also, it is entirely conceivable that a 70s or 80s conflict would have devolved into a nuclear slugfest within hours of starting as well. In which case all this talk about the conventional side is rather superfluous. :p
 
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As to the equipment, you have to remember these were stripped down versions. Think of a car on the lot with no features versus a fully loaded auto. Central front gets fully loaded. Further, we can debate Soviet troop capabilities but they are still going to dwarf those of their Arab clients. Weapons availability is a good example. Poorly trained troops are going to do a much poorer job of maintaining advanced weapon systems in a ready state or turn around maintenance.

As to Afghanistan, if nothing else I think you have to haircut performance if only for morale purposes. Its one thing be marching through the mountains of Afghanistan (for what reason again?) and other to be locked in a death match against your foe that you have been raised since birth to believe is your enemy. And you dont have to accept the premise that all Russians believed the propaganda for it to have morale benefits, at least initially.

I've read that Soviet aircraft are difficult to keep at high serviceability rates. NATO has been consistently able to maintain serviceability rates at 90% under wartime conditions but not even the Soviets have been able to
reach these sorts of numbers. That is why I asked about Afghanistan, were the Soviets able to keep the aircraft they deployed to that theatre available at rates of more than 50%. IIUC only India has been able to squeeze high availability out of Soviet aircraft.

The same is true for tanks, Soviet tanks were notorious for bad serviceability due to poor build quality, the East Germans preferred their own tank engines as Soviet ones were filled with aluminium shavings.

Surely this would have an impact on the battlefield, especially after an initial effort to maximise availability wore off under combat conditions.
 
One concern I would have for NATO would be how long the rather expensive high-end air munitions stocks would last, I'm sure they had ample stocks prepared, but I mean we had problems with supplies in 2003 in much easier conditions. Would supply become an issue after the first couple days?
 
One concern I would have for NATO would be how long the rather expensive high-end air munitions stocks would last, I'm sure they had ample stocks prepared, but I mean we had problems with supplies in 2003 in much easier conditions. Would supply become an issue after the first couple days?

20 to 30 days most likely.
 
As to the equipment, you have to remember these were stripped down versions. Think of a car on the lot with no features versus a fully loaded auto. Central front gets fully loaded. Further, we can debate Soviet troop capabilities but they are still going to dwarf those of their Arab clients. Weapons availability is a good example. Poorly trained troops are going to do a much poorer job of maintaining advanced weapon systems in a ready state or turn around maintenance.

Even with a lot of changes in training and new gear, the attack on Ossetia/Georgia showed real weakness in C3, gear and training.

But it still easier to deflect blame onto Arabs with Monkey Models not being Stronk like proper Russian units
 
Even with a lot of changes in training and new gear, the attack on Ossetia/Georgia showed real weakness in C3, gear and training.

But it still easier to deflect blame onto Arabs with Monkey Models not being Stronk like proper Russian units

That also showed that they can strike real hard real fast.
 
Even with a lot of changes in training and new gear, the attack on Ossetia/Georgia showed real weakness in C3, gear and training.

Leaving aside that the only seriously notable deficiency showed by the Russians was in their air-ground coordination and that the Georgians got pretty well rolled over, the Russian Army in 2008 was practically a completely different force from the Soviet Armed Forces of the mid-1980s, what with having gone through a total national collapse followed by a painfully long and slow recovery of nearly two decades.

But it still easier to deflect blame onto Arabs with Monkey Models not being Stronk like proper Russian units
The utter incompetence of most Arab armies in modern conventional warfare is a very well documented phenonmenon. Arabs at War by Kenneth M. Pollack is an excellent and extremely thorough treatise on the matter... I highly recommend it.
 
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One thing i have noticed is that the Su-25 does not feature here for soviet CAS. Alot of sources feel that the Su-25 was equal or better to the A-10. We know that the soviets wanted to push the OMG into the rear of Nato for rapid exploitation as they sought a mobile war not a slugfest. However this might have changed as Nato's AT and air capabilities equalled the game. They might have changed doctrine, utilising different strategies and tactis in response to Nato's doctrine of eating away at the attack.

War is about surprise, reaction and initiative. If the soviets initial attack stalled, they would surely have changed tactics. Fighters might have flown low level missions with systems off until they were near enough to target E3 awacs there by disrupting NATO's C2 in the air.

Both sides utilised combined arms, the soviets in attack with artillery, air support, tanks and mech infantry. Nato in defense of overwhelming numbers would call in air support while targeting C2 of the soviet's.

Another thing is also airlift capability of the soviet's. The VDV are excellent troops with great mechanized capability and could have dropped as a opening gambit. Overruning Nato hq and high value installations, even if just for disruption this would have caused Nato to fight in the rear as well as hording of the world's largest tank force rolling at them. Quality and quantity....etc ammunition expenditures would have been a sight especially if a red storm rising like operation occures and cuts off the SOSUS line opening the atlantic to a round two of surface ships vs air attack vs submarines.

Point is

Everyone has a plan untill they get punched in the mouth...
 
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