How Long Could a Conventional 1980s WW3 Actually Last?

Anchises

Banned
Historically, the experience of conscript soldiers on the soil of otherwise more wealthy countries has tended to suggest their reaction would be one of jealousy and resentment towards the enemy for having such wealth rather then disillusionment towards their own cause for failing to provide it.

As for the effects of indoctrination... well, results were mixed. In their political sessions, the Communists did manage to cram a lot of indoctrination into their two-year conscripts. For the average Soviet conscript the political sessions were mostly treated as a period for the soldiers to goof off, so much of the high minded communist ideology went over their heads. On the other hand, the political officers did manage to pass along some basic attitudes, the most dangerous of which for NATO was an unreasoning fear of the world outside the Communist Bloc.

Hard to resent someone when you invade his country and burn down his nice cities. The Nazis effectively indoctrinated the Wehrmacht into hating and dehumanizing their enemies in the East but that won't really work for the Soviets. Marxism-Leninism is not able to abuse the millennia of racist tropes and nationalism that the Nazis abused.

Sure there will be some mumbo jumbo about Fascist retaking Western Germany and a lot of Poles and Russians might be okay with destroying Germany (understandable given the unbelievable crimes of the Nazis) but the same is not true for the GDR troops.

A lot of young men not really willing to die for the hated Russians, constantly afraid that the world is going to end soon. A WP command structure not able to bridge the rivalries between the different nations and rich cities ripe for plunder. And an enemy that is not going to let you starve if you surrender.

From my point of view there is some potential for scenarios were the WP loses control over parts of its forces.
 
Hard to resent someone when you invade his country and burn down his nice cities.

It’s actually rather easy. As I said, Soviet indoctrination did instill a unreasoning fear of the outside world into Soviet troops. That is precisely the sort of fear which is incredibly easy to turn to some degree of hate, even if one is the agressors. The rest of Communist ideology plays pretty much no part in it and was largely lost on the bulk of Soviet soldiers anyways. You're right in that it won't be Nazis-level of hate, but one doesn't necessarily need Nazis-level of hatred to inspire a base modicum of desire to fight.

but the same is not true for the GDR troops.

Ironic that you say that, given that ther consensus is that GDR forces actually were the most loyal of the Soviet client states. Of course, the ironic flip-side to that is that they were the least trusted by the Soviets themselves.

A WP command structure not able to bridge the rivalries between the different nations

Eh? WP Command Structure very much managed to bridge the rivalries. Admittedly, it did so by subjugating all of them to that of the Soviet command structure specifically, but that still did the job.

and rich cities ripe for plunder. And an enemy that is not going to let you starve if you surrender.

These statements are semi-contradictory. West Germans in particular probably aren't going to feel particularly merciful to the enemy whose invasion is tearing up their land. That said, neither side is probably going to be hateful enough to commit mass butchery/mass starvation of PoWs. Eastern or Pacific Fronts this will be not. Of course, the degree of mass mechanization and speed of combat (both sides were expecting whole divisions on either side being rendered combat ineffective in the space of days) raises the question of how much opportunity either side would have for mass surrenders.

From my point of view there is some potential for scenarios were the WP loses control over parts of its forces.

I'd certainly expect second line forces to engage in plenty of looting, possibly to the degree that it is detrimental to responding to orders. But those aren't the sort of forces who are carrying the weight of the fighting. Revolts from WP are going to depend more on the overall political-military situation: the more the Soviets are winning, the less liable they are too occur.

Now as to who is better in the overall military fight... well, the base rule of thumb is that the later in the decade it is, the worst off the Soviets are and the better off NATO is. On the whole, early-80s, Soviets win majority of the time. Mid-80s, it's a coin toss. Late-80s, NATO wins majority of the time. The timeframe specified by the OP is the mid-80s so that fight could go either way. At least, in the short-term.

Over the long-term, a multi-year non-nuclear war (which I regard unlikely: within the first few months, at most, there are going to be strong pressures to escalate win, lose, or stalemate) that doesn't have a decisive element in the first year is going to be dictated more by non-military factors such as the economies of the respective sides. And in that specific aspect you have this strange asymmetry where the NATO economies is larger overall then the Communist Bloc but the WARPAC economies greater militarization and centralization allows them to punch above their weight more when it comes to military production. Some things also depend on that first year of war: the Soviets successfully overrunning continental Western Europe gives them a bunch more resources and denies them to NATO. Conversely, a successful NATO liberation of Eastern Europe does the same to the Soviets and likely deals a fatal political blow to the USSR itself. A WW1-esque grinding stalemate in Central Germany is the odd duck out there. Things are further altered by the prevailing global situation: does China sit this one out or backstab the Russians? How do things go in the Koreas and Middle East? These would fundamentally be secondary campaigns to the main show in Europe, but secondary campaigns can still have a scale-tipping impact on the primary one.
 
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By 1985, it's a ROFL-curbstomp for NATO against the WARPAC in any war that stays conventional. If the USSR launches an attack on NATO then without nuclear weapons, it gets stopped cold at the IGB. Same story at sea. The Red Navy will cease to exist shortly after the start of the war. Therefore, for the USSR to have a chance at "winning," the war will go nuclear with the first shots fired.


WOW you never lived in that era. You would have been laughed out of the room if you had made such a statement then. NATO was a mess - perhaps in better shape than the WARPACK , but the sheer enormity of the imbalance of forces , meant NATO had a horrible task in front of them and the out come very grim.
 
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Things are further altered by the prevailing global situation: does China sit this one out or backstab the Russians? How do things go in the Koreas and Middle East? These would fundamentally be secondary campaigns to the main show in Europe, but secondary campaigns can still have a scale-tipping impact on the primary one.

China was a nothing threat back then , it would take a decade or two for them to rehabilitate there forces to be able to threaten any one...remember there "Invasion of Vietnam"
 
China was a nothing threat back then , it would take a decade or two for them to rehabilitate there forces to be able to threaten any one...remember there "Invasion of Vietnam"

Undoubtedly China’s offensive potential was limited. Nevertheless, fighting her would have tied down a significant proportion of Soviet strength. That’s dozens of category A and B divisions plus thousands of supporting aircraft and basically the entire Soviet Pacific Fleet which otherwise would have been available for operations in Europe, the Middle East, and/or Korea-Japan. So calling China a “nothing threat” is also underselling them a bit.
 
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Toraach

Banned
Historically, the experience of conscript soldiers on the soil of otherwise more wealthy countries has tended to suggest their reaction would be one of jealousy and resentment towards the enemy for having such wealth rather then disillusionment towards their own cause for failing to provide it.

As for the effects of indoctrination... well, results were mixed. In their political sessions, the Communists did manage to cram a lot of indoctrination into their two-year conscripts. For the average Soviet conscript the political sessions were mostly treated as a period for the soldiers to goof off, so much of the high minded communist ideology went over their heads. On the other hand, the political officers did manage to pass along some basic attitudes, the most dangerous of which for NATO was an unreasoning fear of the world outside the Communist Bloc.
I don't know about other countries, but for Poland, I think that I'm right. Soldiers weren't in 80s totally interested in any ideological indocrination. Why? Because it all was contradictionary to their personal experience, and what they would see in the West would give them even more proof how bad their polish living condition and the system is. This period as I stated above, the Poles knew what was in their country and what was in the West (some idealized views, but we all could agree that there was much more consumer goods). 80s and also early 90s has a big part in developing polish national complexes towards the West. So it is like in my short tale, in Poland Andrzej could buy only vodka which was rattioned, in Kaufland he could saw many kinds of liquors in fancy bottles. It is a common thrope, that in 80s western consoomer goods were seen as better and more atractive than local, and nice packing was a part of that. People here even collected empty beer cans, and displayed them on MDF wall units among other trinkets, because that was something. Because polish industry didn't provide beers in cans, it was "western" it was "better". And in Germany there weren't lines for bread. Like visible on

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pewex

I don't see any reason why polish soldier could have very big ressentment against the western population. Ok, maybe some against Germans, because they weren't popular, that's pretty obvious.
Hard to resent someone when you invade his country and burn down his nice cities. The Nazis effectively indoctrinated the Wehrmacht into hating and dehumanizing their enemies in the East but that won't really work for the Soviets. Marxism-Leninism is not able to abuse the millennia of racist tropes and nationalism that the Nazis abused.

Sure there will be some mumbo jumbo about Fascist retaking Western Germany and a lot of Poles and Russians might be okay with destroying Germany (understandable given the unbelievable crimes of the Nazis) but the same is not true for the GDR troops.

A lot of young men not really willing to die for the hated Russians, constantly afraid that the world is going to end soon. A WP command structure not able to bridge the rivalries between the different nations and rich cities ripe for plunder. And an enemy that is not going to let you starve if you surrender.

From my point of view there is some potential for scenarios were the WP loses control over parts of its forces.
Billions of years of racist tropes and nationalism :D
You don't know much to what were soviet soldiers capable in the history, to what excesses. Germans were also capable during the 2ww, and any other soldiers too if you loose their lashes. The most important is that you need orders to commit the greatest crimes, or upper aproving of loosing discipline for common excesses (just like the soviets during ocupation of Germany, when they raped, pillaged and looted whatever they could seize, hating of germans for ocupation is one reason for that, but other is that the commanders allowed it). The "nazis" didn't need much indoctrination, because it wasn't like you think that they all the time in all places just shot to whoever they saw. Even in Poland, they massacred one village in my regions, and in the village two villages further common german soldier from the construction battalion on the airfield had deals and good terms with local peasants, those soldiers were older men (in 40s), and there were situations like from Allo Allo. Example when one half of my greatgrandfather shack was seized for quaters for germans, and in the barn were partizans. There were horrors and comic situations which happened for the same people in short time, like sometime later, my greatgrandmother and maternal grandmother (who was little at the time) miracously avoided death in some german punitive action after death of a german soldier (they returned home from visiting family in another village).

The most important, soldiers who would fight in 80s, they were born in 60s, they didn't remember the war, they don't have personal grudges against Germans or even Soviets. They have totally diffrent mindset that people from 40s or 50s.
It’s actually rather easy. As I said, Soviet indoctrination did instill a unreasoning fear of the outside world into Soviet troops. That is precisely the sort of fear which is incredibly easy to turn to some degree of hate, even if one is the agressors. The rest of Communist ideology plays pretty much no part in it and was largely lost on the bulk of Soviet soldiers anyways. You're right in that it won't be Nazis-level of hate, but one doesn't necessarily need Nazis-level of hatred to inspire a base modicum of desire to fight.



Ironic that you say that, given that ther consensus is that GDR forces actually were the most loyal of the Soviet client states. Of course, the ironic flip-side to that is that they were the least trusted by the Soviets themselves.



Eh? WP Command Structure very much managed to bridge the rivalries. Admittedly, it did so by subjugating all of them to that of the Soviet command structure specifically, but that still did the job.



These statements are semi-contradictory. West Germans in particular probably aren't going to feel particularly merciful to the enemy whose invasion is tearing up their land. That said, neither side is probably going to be hateful enough to commit mass butchery/mass starvation of PoWs. Eastern or Pacific Fronts this will be not. Of course, the degree of mass mechanization and speed of combat (both sides were expecting whole divisions on either side being rendered combat ineffective in the space of days) raises the question of how much opportunity either side would have for mass surrenders.



I'd certainly expect second line forces to engage in plenty of looting, possibly to the degree that it is detrimental to responding to orders. But those aren't the sort of forces who are carrying the weight of the fighting. Revolts from WP are going to depend more on the overall political-military situation: the more the Soviets are winning, the less liable they are too occur.

Now as to who is better in the overall military fight... well, the base rule of thumb is that the later in the decade it is, the worst off the Soviets are and the better off NATO is. On the whole, early-80s, Soviets win majority of the time. Mid-80s, it's a coin toss. Late-80s, NATO wins majority of the time. The timeframe specified by the OP is the mid-80s so that fight could go either way. At least, in the short-term.

Over the long-term, a multi-year non-nuclear war (which I regard unlikely: within the first few months, at most, there are going to be strong pressures to escalate win, lose, or stalemate) that doesn't have a decisive element in the first year is going to be dictated more by non-military factors such as the economies of the respective sides. And in that specific aspect you have this strange asymmetry where the NATO economies is larger overall then the Communist Bloc but the WARPAC economies greater militarization and centralization allows them to punch above their weight more when it comes to military production. Some things also depend on that first year of war: the Soviets successfully overrunning continental Western Europe gives them a bunch more resources and denies them to NATO. Conversely, a successful NATO liberation of Eastern Europe does the same to the Soviets and likely deals a fatal political blow to the USSR itself. A WW1-esque grinding stalemate in Central Germany is the odd duck out there. Things are further altered by the prevailing global situation: does China sit this one out or backstab the Russians? How do things go in the Koreas and Middle East? These would fundamentally be secondary campaigns to the main show in Europe, but secondary campaigns can still have a scale-tipping impact on the primary one.

I can say as always, that a knowledge of the outside world and opinnion of their own system, was wastly diffrent for Poles and Soviets in 80s. For Poles "the war for the peace" wasn't their own war. I agree that in the WarPac weren't any issues of rivalries between states, because all was totally subjugated and controled by the Soviet Empire. The Polish People's Army was the most sovietived structure in Poland, I mean commanding officers and military secret service. I agree also that the GDR was one of the most indoctrinated and loyal states in the camp. Which cannot be said about the Polish People's Republic, especially in 80s when this country just rooted.
 
I don't know about other countries, but for Poland, I think that I'm right. Soldiers weren't in 80s totally interested in any ideological indocrination. Why? Because it all was contradictionary to their personal experience, and what they would see in the West would give them even more proof how bad their polish living condition and the system is. This period as I stated above, the Poles knew what was in their country and what was in the West (some idealized views, but we all could agree that there was much more consumer goods). 80s and also early 90s has a big part in developing polish national complexes towards the West. So it is like in my short tale, in Poland Andrzej could buy only vodka which was rattioned, in Kaufland he could saw many kinds of liquors in fancy bottles. It is a common thrope, that in 80s western consoomer goods were seen as better and more atractive than local, and nice packing was a part of that. People here even collected empty beer cans, and displayed them on MDF wall units among other trinkets, because that was something. Because polish industry didn't provide beers in cans, it was "western" it was "better". And in Germany there weren't lines for bread. Like visible on

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pewex

I don't see any reason why polish soldier could have very big ressentment against the western population. Ok, maybe some against Germans, because they weren't popular, that's pretty obvious.
Billions of years of racist tropes and nationalism :D
You don't know much to what were soviet soldiers capable in the history, to what excesses. Germans were also capable during the 2ww, and any other soldiers too if you loose their lashes. The most important is that you need orders to commit the greatest crimes, or upper aproving of loosing discipline for common excesses (just like the soviets during ocupation of Germany, when they raped, pillaged and looted whatever they could seize, hating of germans for ocupation is one reason for that, but other is that the commanders allowed it). The "nazis" didn't need much indoctrination, because it wasn't like you think that they all the time in all places just shot to whoever they saw. Even in Poland, they massacred one village in my regions, and in the village two villages further common german soldier from the construction battalion on the airfield had deals and good terms with local peasants, those soldiers were older men (in 40s), and there were situations like from Allo Allo. Example when one half of my greatgrandfather shack was seized for quaters for germans, and in the barn were partizans. There were horrors and comic situations which happened for the same people in short time, like sometime later, my greatgrandmother and maternal grandmother (who was little at the time) miracously avoided death in some german punitive action after death of a german soldier (they returned home from visiting family in another village).

The most important, soldiers who would fight in 80s, they were born in 60s, they didn't remember the war, they don't have personal grudges against Germans or even Soviets. They have totally diffrent mindset that people from 40s or 50s.


I can say as always, that a knowledge of the outside world and opinnion of their own system, was wastly diffrent for Poles and Soviets in 80s. For Poles "the war for the peace" wasn't their own war. I agree that in the WarPac weren't any issues of rivalries between states, because all was totally subjugated and controled by the Soviet Empire. The Polish People's Army was the most sovietived structure in Poland, I mean commanding officers and military secret service. I agree also that the GDR was one of the most indoctrinated and loyal states in the camp. Which cannot be said about the Polish People's Republic, especially in 80s when this country just rooted.

History seems to agree with you. The Soviets had to send in troops at least three times to put down revolts in Eastern Europe :1948, 1956, and 1968. There was a fear they would do so in 1980 as well. This is not the record of a region that was strongly indoctrinated. It is the record of people who resented being colonized.
 
The Sir John Hackett book about an alternate WW3 starting in August 1985 had the fighting continuing past two weeks by which point the Warsaw Pact was unravelling. The Soviets launched a single nuclear missile destroying Birmingham - NATO responded by destroying Minsk and the USSR collapsed into anarchy.

All slightly implausible I'd have thought. The Soviet way of doing things was All or Nothing. If this TL is predicated on Nothing, the question becomes one of survival IF the conventional war isn't won quickly and the superior economic and industrial strength of the USA is brought to bear in Europe and elsewhere.

How does it end once the initial Warsaw Pact thrust into West Germany is halted ? Hackett postulated a series of counter-offensives in the Northern and Central sectors which would push the Warsaw Pact forces out of parts of West Germany. It's not unreasonable NATO could start rolling back the Warsaw Pact from their positions and it's then a question of how effectively the Warsaw Pact could fight a defensive campaign. One option would be a gradual withdrawal back to the IGB assuming the cohesion of the Warsaw Pact forces remains but in the face of allied aerial assault and defections we could, as Hackett envisaged, witness a rout as Pact formations are encircled and cut off.

NATO forces cross into south west Czechoslovakia and parts of the GDR but obviously don't want to get into street fighting in unfamiliar towns relying instead on civil disorder and protest to slow down or hamper the Pact's attempt at consolidation.

By now, I would guess the peace faction in the Politburo has somehow gained the upper hand and is seeking terms via Sweden or Switzerland. Unable and unwilling to force an unconditional surrender, NATO agrees to a worldwide cease fire and the fighting mostly ends.

After that - another thread perhaps ?
 
You say that the conflict has to say conventional, but I don't see how that can happen. France by that point had already developped her strategy of MAD to the extreme, meaning if her territory is threatened she will use nuke. I have no doubt the USSR would have done the same. I don't see how a conflict in Europe, in that case, could stay conventional.
 
Historically, the experience of conscript soldiers on the soil of otherwise more wealthy countries has tended to suggest their reaction would be one of jealousy and resentment towards the enemy for having such wealth rather then disillusionment towards their own cause for failing to provide it.
You're dealing with a people who have been told of the superiority of Communism and are using it's philosophy to liberate the world. This after decades of depravation to remain on a war footing against further Imperial aggression. Imagine the UK or US stuck in the rationing days of WWII for years. Couple that with propaganda claiming the workers are oppressed and living in squalor while the bourgeois enjoy gilded age level luxury.

When these soldiers discover the other system is better, do you really believe they'll merely be jealous rather than question their entire worldview? Great living conditions, mountains of consumer goods, thriving art and social communities; this isn't a war from Medieval Europe where the poor knew the score; this is a battle of ideologies.

An example: a professor of mine worked for the government and in the eighties he was assigned to chaperone an important Soviet defector. He showed the defector around town to various stores and such to familiarize him with the area and to find what he needed. Midway through, the defector asked his handler, "When will you show me the ACTUAL stores?" The defector couldn't believe the grocery stores stocked so much (and that it was fresh), that department stores were full of top level goods, and long lines were nonexistent.

Toward the end of the Napoleonic Wars, Tsar Alexander was careful to limit interaction between his soldiers and the Parisians. Stalin was likewise in WWII. There is a major reason and that was the Russian leadership didn't want their people realizing how bad they had it.
 
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You're dealing with a people who have been told of the superiority of Communism and are using it's philosophy to liberate the world. This after decades of depravation to remain on a war footing against further Imperial aggression. Imagine the UK or US stuck in the rationing days of WWII for years. Couple that with propaganda claiming the workers are oppressed and living in squalor while the bourgeois enjoy gilded age level luxury.

When these soldiers discover the other system is better, do you really believe they'll merely be jealous rather than question their entire worldview? Great living conditions, mountains of consumer goods, thriving art and social communities; this isn't a war from Medieval Europe where the poor knew the score; this is a battle of ideologies.

An example: a professor of mine worked for the government and in the eighties he was assigned to chaperone an important Soviet defector. He showed the defector around town to various stores and such to familiarize him with the area and to find what he needed. Midway through, the defector asked his handler, "When will you show me the ACTUAL stores?" The defector couldn't believe the grocery stores stocked so much (and that it was fresh), that department stores were full of top level goods, and long lines were nonexistent.

Toward the end of the Napoleonic Wars, Tsar Alexander was careful to limit interaction between his soldiers and the Parisians. Stalin was likewise in WWII. There is a major reason and that was the Russian leadership didn't want their people realizing how bad they had it.

Also a lot of their troops were colonial troops IOW they were Polish, Czech, Romanian etc. How hard are they going to fight? Probably not very. Will they turn on their colonial masters? Quite likely , at least some of them. Will there be a guerilla war behind the lines causing problems with supplies? Quite likely.
 
How long could World War III circa 1985 - 1987 actually last? Most estimates I’ve seen limit the duration of the conflict to somewhere between two weeks to maybe two months, as production would not be able to replace the massive amount of equipment that would be lost during the opening weeks of the war.

A few assumptions going in:

1. No use of nuclear weapons by major powers.
2. All countries involved have had roughly one year of sufficient warning to prepare for war (moving troops around, tooling up factories for production, etc.)
3. War will not stop until one side or another achieves victory.
4. Victory for NATO & cobelligerents is defined primarily as defeating a Warsaw Pact invasion of Western Europe and limiting expansion of Soviet influence elsewhere; conversely, victory for the Warsaw Pact is defined as establishing Soviet dominance of Eurasia by conquering Western Europe to the French border, limiting the influence of the United States as much as possible, and (in scenario 2) neutering the People’s Republic of China as a military force
5. Aside from the “no nukes” rule, the war cannot be prolonged by artificial means, such as limiting combat to a certain area or extended ceasefires that break down.

Two scenarios to work with:

Scenario 1 - “Limited” War: NATO vs Warsaw Pact only. Hostilities largely “limited” to a ground war in Europe and Turkey, with worldwide naval hostilities. Everyone else sits around eating popcorn and watches the giants try to kill one another.

Scenario 2 - Total War:
Everyone with a beef with someone decides to have it out once war breaks between the United States and the Soviet Union. The great armies of NATO and the Warsaw Pact do battle in Western Europe. China joins the war on the side of NATO, invading Vietnam and clashing with the USSR along the Sino-Soviet border. The LACOMs raise hell in Central and South America. The US and Cuba fight it out in the Gulf of Mexico. The Middle East is set aflame as the Arab-Israeli conflicts, the Lebanese Civil War, the Iran-Iraq war, etc. are all absorbed into the worldwide conflict. Africa, too, erupts into warfare as Egypt and Libya clash, the Front Line States invade South Africa, etc. The ANZACs and Japan are drawn into the mess, North Korea invades South Korea, and India declares on both China and Pakistan. Et cetera, et cetera; basically every power that could have been drawn into a Third World War is.
With a year to prepare (for both sides) I suspect NATO would at least avoid loosing a conventional war (so long as NATO actually fully mobilized their populations and economies for War. I have some doubts about how "total" a NATO mobilization might have been.) I suspect there would be some heated discussion within NATO about the pros and cons of attempting to invade the Warsaw Pact if they felt they were winning conventionally. I'm also very doubtful the war would have stayed conventional. That being said I could see a non nuclear conflict dragging on for years especially if NATO decides not to try to invade the Soviet Union and neither sides wants to stop fighting.

My $.02 worth. If nuclear weapons are some how "off the table" I suspect NATO would continue to remain coheisive enough to avoid loosing and would be able to "hold the line" and if needed re capture any lost territory. I have my doubts that NATO would have been prepared to invade and physically occupy the bulk of the Warsaw Pact (including the Soviet Union) to bring the war to a close.

Edit to add: Maybe eventually NATO pushes into the front line Warsaw Pact States to create a "buffer" or "Security Zone" to protect the Western European NATO states.
 
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WOW you never lived in that era. You would have been laughed out of the room if you had made such a statement then. NATO was a mess - perhaps in better shape than the WARPACK , but the sheer enormity of the imbalance of forces , meant NATO had a horrible task in front of them and the out come very grim.
With a year to get ready I expect a lot of "issues" could have been addressed.

With a year to prep I suspect the militaries of a number of NATO nations would look quite different. (Especially nations such as the USA, the UK and Canada that didn't have conscription.)

Pondering this a bit more..

I'm thinking that even if NATO lost contiental Europe (which I doubt would have happened) with a year to prep the UK could have been made virtually immune to a conventional invasion. Worst case the UK, the U.S., Canada and other western nations that aren't occupied mobilize their populations and economies, exploit their technological advantages and eventually re take Western Europe and push the Warsaw Pact back to far enough to create a buffer zone.

In the long run without nukes I don't see the Soviets and their allies being able to stop this from happening.

Edit to add:

Given a year to prep it wouldn't surprise me if the U.S., UK, Canada and Australia quietly drafted their own contingency plans to at least hold the UK and eventually re take Western Europe.
 
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nbcman

Donor
With a year to get ready I expect a lot of "issues" could have been addressed.

With a year to prep I suspect the militaries of a number of NATO nations would look quite different. (Especially nations such as the USA, the UK and Canada that didn't have conscription.)

Pondering this a bit more..

I'm thinking that even if NATO lost contiental Europe (which I doubt would have happened) with a year to prep the UK could have been made virtually immune to a conventional invasion. Worst case the UK, the U.S., Canada and other western nations that aren't occupied mobilize their populations and economies, exploit their technological advantages and eventually re take Western Europe and push the Warsaw Pact back to far enough to create a buffer zone.

In the long run without nukes I don't see the Soviets and their allies being able to stop this from happening.

Edit to add:

Given a year to prep it wouldn't surprise me if the U.S., UK, Canada and Australia quietly drafted their own contingency plans to at least hold the UK and eventually re take Western Europe.

The UK was immune to a conventional sea-borne invasion with zero prep. There is no Red Sealion short of an extremely unlikely occupation of the UK after a Soviet nuke strike on NATO with no retaliation by NATO and a UK/NATO surrender. A year for NATO to prep would have made it more likely for NATO to roll the WARPAC forces back than the WARPAC forces overrunning the West.
 
When these soldiers discover the other system is better, do you really believe they'll merely be jealous rather than question their entire worldview?

Yes. That was pretty much the reaction of Soviet soldiers historically, when they encountered the much greater living conditions within Germany. It was a similar story with Communist Chinese soldiers in Korea who were able to catch glimpses of how much better their American counterparts lived by the masses of supplies they captured during their advance from the Yalu to the 38th. Very few of them were moved to question their own system any more then they already did. Most of them were instead driven to even greater heights of resentment and bitterness toward the enemy.
 
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The UK was immune to a conventional sea-borne invasion with zero prep. There is no Red Sealion short of an extremely unlikely occupation of the UK after a Soviet nuke strike on NATO with no retaliation by NATO and a UK/NATO surrender. A year for NATO to prep would have made it more likely for NATO to roll the WARPAC forces back than the WARPAC forces overrunning the West.
I agree that this is probably quite likely :)

Still it's hard to know for certain what the Warsaw Pact might do with their year to prep and what NATO might (or might not do) with their year. I'm thinking if during the one year prep period the U.S., UK, Canada and others don't have confidence in their ability (along with the rest of NATO) to hold the continent they could quietly shift focus to defending the UK and eventually re taking the continent.

I just don't see the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia etc ever accepting a Soviet controlled Western Europe and in the long run without nukes I don't see how the Soviets and their allies can win.

IMHO the one year prep period should allow enough forces to be built up in the UK to allow the West to always keep enough forces in the UK to preclude a Warsaw Pact invasion even if things go really badly for the west on the continent.

Edit to add:
In a world where nukes were somehow unavailable, I suspect the dialogue in London, Washington, Ottawa, Canberra etc.. would include comments along the lines of:

"If the Soviets can take Continental Western Europe and eventually assimilate their resources they will eventually be coming for us next. This cannot be allowed to happen under any circumstances.."
 
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Anchises

Banned
It’s actually rather easy. As I said, Soviet indoctrination did instill a unreasoning fear of the outside world into Soviet troops. That is precisely the sort of fear which is incredibly easy to turn to some degree of hate, even if one is the agressors. The rest of Communist ideology plays pretty much no part in it and was largely lost on the bulk of Soviet soldiers anyways. You're right in that it won't be Nazis-level of hate, but one doesn't necessarily need Nazis-level of hatred to inspire a base modicum of desire to fight.

That unreasoning fear would work if the Eastern Bloc was invaded. How is fear of the outside world going to motivate troops who are overrunning/plundering NATO territory. Without a pathological hatred of your enemy its kind of hard to maintain a good morale while slaughtering and plundering during an invasion. Sure there will be a lot of propaganda about the "existential fight" but that might not be enough in the 80s. The people were completely estranged from the socialist system.


Ironic that you say that, given that ther consensus is that GDR forces actually were the most loyal of the Soviet client states. Of course, the ironic flip-side to that is that they were the least trusted by the Soviets themselves.

Nominally sure. I really doubt that GDR conscripts would have been reliable in the event of a "Bruderkrieg" where a west german citizenship waits for them if they surrender. Sure STASI, Border Guards and the functionaries where fiercely loyal but the common conscript?

Eh? WP Command Structure very much managed to bridge the rivalries. Admittedly, it did so by subjugating all of them to that of the Soviet command structure specifically, but that still did the job.

And how well is that going to work in a war where the Command Structure is stretched to the limit. Infighting and disciplinary problems are not unlikely if your allies can't stand each other or you.

These statements are semi-contradictory. West Germans in particular probably aren't going to feel particularly merciful to the enemy whose invasion is tearing up their land. That said, neither side is probably going to be hateful enough to commit mass butchery/mass starvation of PoWs. Eastern or Pacific Fronts this will be not. Of course, the degree of mass mechanization and speed of combat (both sides were expecting whole divisions on either side being rendered combat ineffective in the space of days) raises the question of how much opportunity either side would have for mass surrenders.

That is a legitimate question but I still think that certain formations could mass surrender. Don't get me wrong, NATO formations might do the same if the initial thrust is to overwhelming but WP troops are much more likely to use chances to surrender.

I'd certainly expect second line forces to engage in plenty of looting, possibly to the degree that it is detrimental to responding to orders. But those aren't the sort of forces who are carrying the weight of the fighting. Revolts from WP are going to depend more on the overall political-military situation: the more the Soviets are winning, the less liable they are too occur.

Agreed.

Now as to who is better in the overall military fight... well, the base rule of thumb is that the later in the decade it is, the worst off the Soviets are and the better off NATO is. On the whole, early-80s, Soviets win majority of the time. Mid-80s, it's a coin toss. Late-80s, NATO wins majority of the time. The timeframe specified by the OP is the mid-80s so that fight could go either way. At least, in the short-term.

Agreed. I personally think that NATO in the mid 80s would be slightly ahead of the Soviets.

Over the long-term, a multi-year non-nuclear war (which I regard unlikely: within the first few months, at most, there are going to be strong pressures to escalate win, lose, or stalemate) that doesn't have a decisive element in the first year is going to be dictated more by non-military factors such as the economies of the respective sides. And in that specific aspect you have this strange asymmetry where the NATO economies is larger overall then the Communist Bloc but the WARPAC economies greater militarization and centralization allows them to punch above their weight more when it comes to military production. Some things also depend on that first year of war: the Soviets successfully overrunning continental Western Europe gives them a bunch more resources and denies them to NATO. Conversely, a successful NATO liberation of Eastern Europe does the same to the Soviets and likely deals a fatal political blow to the USSR itself. A WW1-esque grinding stalemate in Central Germany is the odd duck out there. Things are further altered by the prevailing global situation: does China sit this one out or backstab the Russians? How do things go in the Koreas and Middle East? These would fundamentally be secondary campaigns to the main show in Europe, but secondary campaigns can still have a scale-tipping impact on the primary one.

I think it is kind of hard to say how the war would have actually went.

Like you say, the Soviets will certainly have the short term advantage because theoretically they have geared their economy towards a rapid mobilization but if the whole thing degenerates into a stalemate the Soviets might have trouble to support their population.

If NATO pushes them back through Eastern Europe this would be a death sentence for the WP.
 
With a year to get ready I expect a lot of "issues" could have been addressed.

With a year to prep I suspect the militaries of a number of NATO nations would look quite different. (Especially nations such as the USA, the UK and Canada that didn't have conscription.)

Pondering this a bit more..

I'm thinking that even if NATO lost contiental Europe (which I doubt would have happened) with a year to prep the UK could have been made virtually immune to a conventional invasion. Worst case the UK, the U.S., Canada and other western nations that aren't occupied mobilize their populations and economies, exploit their technological advantages and eventually re take Western Europe and push the Warsaw Pact back to far enough to create a buffer zone.

In the long run without nukes I don't see the Soviets and their allies being able to stop this from happening.

Edit to add:

Given a year to prep it wouldn't surprise me if the U.S., UK, Canada and Australia quietly drafted their own contingency plans to at least hold the UK and eventually re take Western Europe.

Given a year prep, there likely would be no war at all and a deal cut to avoid conflict in the first place.
 
This is post Reagan's Evil Empire speech. He would fight to the last German and Pole to bring down the "Evil Empire". He might accept a negotiated end of the Soviet Union.
 
This is post Reagan's Evil Empire speech. He would fight to the last German and Pole to bring down the "Evil Empire". He might accept a negotiated end of the Soviet Union.

Let's not exaggerate, Reagan's bark was far worse than his bite. The US didn't fight any major wars during Reagan's two terms IIRC.
 
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