Making the Red Army Live Up to the Hype

burmafrd

Banned
By the summer of 1984 there was no chance of a WP conventional victory. Personally, it was doubtfull by mid 83. Before that, it would have been possible but fraught with close calls. I do agree the best time for WP attack would have benn early to mid 70's.

One thing that has been established beyond all doubt was that the Reputation of the Red Army far exceeded its abilty. Alcoholism, the commissars, poor training, poor maintenance, etc made it a lot less then it seemed to be. This has been shown by the numerous studies done after the berlin wall fell and the USSR imploded. The terrible weakness of the soviet economy was also then much in evidence.
 

The Sandman

Banned
Just take the Red Storm Rising scenario and butterfly away the spy who gets himself captured after being hit by a car and spills the details of the Russian plan. With complete tactical and strategic surprise, the Russians probably win the war.
 
I would advised caution to everyone before issuing strong statements about the fallacies or invincibility about the red army. Can we back this up with peer-reviewed materials?

We need some solid information before reasonable discussion becomes possible. Even Jane's and FAS are not exactly reliable sources about the capability of the red army, we need stuff from IISS, cold war era US intelligence reports and books written for expert consumption but remains publicly accessible. Tom Clancy is exactly the very wrong person to look at for answers, he is a fiction author and is known to have taken poetic licenses.
 
IMHO history, from the Israeli's to the last Gulf war, has shown that the Western way of fighting is superior to the Russian/Chinese one.
At least, the Chinese seem to think so, as they're very busy upgrading a small part of their army, at great cost, to Western standards.

If Russia could switch to the Western way of fighting, having a smaller professional force instead of the untrained gangs of conscripts, they'd do so in an instant.
But apart from lacking the money to convert all of their forces to Western standards, they also can't afford this politically, as this would confirm the superiority of the Western system.
You make it seem the Soviets fought the way they did against the Germans by choice; it wasn't.



Are you seriously suggesting all the Western continental NATO members were more badly equipped than all the Soviet/WP 1nd line forces?

I always thought during the 80s the minor Western NATO members like my own country, but also Norway, Denmark, Belgium etc had quite a welltrained military with excellent equipment.
After all, the F-16, MLRS, artillery, Leopard, M113 etc etc were around in numbers.


I would advise anyone not to reach any conclusions based on the Arab-Israeli wars or the Gulf War. Due to certain political and cultural aspects, it would not have mattered a bit if Arabs had American, British, French, Russian or Martian equipment and doctrine, they would still have lost. The Egyptians currently have American equipment and training and (while much better than their reputation indicates) would most likely still lose to the Israeli's in a conflict. Does that mean American equipment and doctrine is crap??????????????? Besides, America lost in Vietnam....=> America is useless??? Hardly.

Secondly, does anyone really believe a third world army filled with sullen conscripts (the Iraqi Army) can fight the American army in a conventional war? The Gulf War was as much a one-sided campaign as is possible. It failed to show American superiority of arms as much as America's current failure in counter-insurgency indicates the American war machine is crap. It just proves that a conventional mechanized army is good at some things and poor at others.

Regarding the Western style vs. the Russian style, the last time it was actually put to the test, Russia scored a resounding victory. Meanwhile, the West tried to learn as much as it could from beaten German generals so they could duplicate the German style. A style the Russians had already proven they were well able to defeat with the application of overwhelming force based on force allocation formulas.

China is reorganizing its armed forces because its old doctrine of the people's defence (massive light infantry armies bleeding an invading opponent by a thousand cuts) no longer suits their defence needs. History has conclusively shown that a small, high quality army cannot defeat a large conscript army if the conscript army is willing to accept the casualties necessary to drown the enemy with their own dead. The American Civil War, the Eastern Front and Vietnam are examples of this.

But such conscript armies need wide political acceptance and call for a major mobilization of the entire nation. China is reaching a period in which the availability of a small, high quality, expeditionary force probably suits their needs better. It's main challenges are not a potential invasion of China but rather the need to project power to secure resources and threaten Taiwan.

If you are indeed Dutch, you probably know that the Dutch armed forces were indeed a high quality force. But a very brittle force. It had the most modern equipment available such as F16's and Leopard 2's but usually only in small numbers. Backing this spearpoint were indifferently maintained reserves equipped with obsolete equipment. For every F16 and Leo, there were also NF5 and Centurions.....
 

burmafrd

Banned
Anyone trying to take lessons from a war fought 60+ years ago is frankly not someone to take seriously. Not only has the world changed, but so has virtually everything else. Russia won because Germany made enough mistakes to let her win. Russia won because instead of waiting untill after the war to start genocide on the russian people Hitler was stupid enough to start it right away. I could go on but to claim that Russia was anything other then lucky to win that war is to dream. Its a very stupid thing to rely on quantity in this day and age considering the cost of any kind of weapon system keeps mounting. A well trained volunteer force will ALWAYS have the edge over anything that the Red Army had (penal battalions, KGB barrage battalions forcing soldiers to attack by shooting others, etc).

I would remind certain posters that this whole quantity vs quality is always variable depending on the situation. In many battles in the old west the Indians outnumberd the soldiers but still usually lost.
That is just as valid a conclusion as taking one from WW2.
 
I would advise anyone not to reach any conclusions based on the Arab-Israeli wars or the Gulf War. Due to certain political and cultural aspects, it would not have mattered a bit if Arabs had American, British, French, Russian or Martian equipment and doctrine, they would still have lost. The Egyptians currently have American equipment and training and (while much better than their reputation indicates) would most likely still lose to the Israeli's in a conflict. Does that mean American equipment and doctrine is crap??????????????? Besides, America lost in Vietnam....=> America is useless??? Hardly.
The Arab nations are a military failure. Even though countries like S.A. spend insane amounts of money on purchasing Western equipment, that does not automatically mean they have switched to the Western doctrine.
Countries like Egypt and Iraq were set up with the Soviet doctrine and I haven't seen any proof yet of them changing that.

I made the M-E and Gulf War comparisons to compare doctrine, not equipment or numbers. I agree it's an unfair comparison if I'd compare them without taking into account the force-difference between Allies/Iraqis. By comparing their doctrine, you can still make a (much) more honest comparison. Besides, even during GWI and II there were battles between comparable amount of forces and even the results were pretty much the same as without numerical superiority.
see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_73_Easting

Secondly, does anyone really believe a third world army filled with sullen conscripts (the Iraqi Army) can fight the American army in a conventional war? The Gulf War was as much a one-sided campaign as is possible. It failed to show American superiority of arms as much as America's current failure in counter-insurgency indicates the American war machine is crap. It just proves that a conventional mechanized army is good at some things and poor at others.
AFAIK the Western counter-insurgency tactics are second to none.
That is, as long as you have morals and ethics on the battlefield and care about what civilians (in any country) think about you.

The Soviet/Russian way to deal with that is much cheaper and faster, but a lot messier and brutal, also for your own troops. Look at Chechnya for an example.
According to the Russian organisation of mothers of conscripts, from 2500 to 5000 Russian conscripts a year were lost during the Chechnyan conflict. That's almost the same every year what the Americans have lost in total since 9/11.

Regarding the Western style vs. the Russian style, the last time it was actually put to the test, Russia scored a resounding victory. Meanwhile, the West tried to learn as much as it could from beaten German generals so they could duplicate the German style. A style the Russians had already proven they were well able to defeat with the application of overwhelming force based on force allocation formulas.
When was that last put to the test? Are you seriously giving the East Front as an example of the superiority of the Soviet system over the current-day Western one???
I doubt it's even honest to name the German doctrine and the Western one in one sentence, let alone see them as one and the same. :rolleyes:

IMHO the last comparison between Western doctrine and Soviet doctrine was in Afghanistan. I assume the conventional army the Afghan alliance had was Soviet in doctrine?

China is reorganizing its armed forces because its old doctrine of the people's defence (massive light infantry armies bleeding an invading opponent by a thousand cuts) no longer suits their defence needs. History has conclusively shown that a small, high quality army cannot defeat a large conscript army if the conscript army is willing to accept the casualties necessary to drown the enemy with their own dead. The American Civil War, the Eastern Front and Vietnam are examples of this.

But such conscript armies need wide political acceptance and call for a major mobilization of the entire nation. China is reaching a period in which the availability of a small, high quality, expeditionary force probably suits their needs better. It's main challenges are not a potential invasion of China but rather the need to project power to secure resources and threaten Taiwan.

I don't understand you anymore. Do you agree a small professional force can beat a numerical superior qualitatively lower force or not?

Anyways, the point is moot; Russia can't afford to put large amounts of conscript armies in the field any more, even if they have all the money in the world. The Russian population is half the American one.

If you are indeed Dutch, you probably know that the Dutch armed forces were indeed a high quality force. But a very brittle force. It had the most modern equipment available such as F16's and Leopard 2's but usually only in small numbers. Backing this spearpoint were indifferently maintained reserves equipped with obsolete equipment. For every F16 and Leo, there were also NF5 and Centurions.....
I suggested clearly so in my last post. Then there's my name...
Why wouldn't I be Dutch? :confused:
Although it's ofcourse very popular to be Dutch, so I could understand other nation's people trying to impersonate as us. ;)

Your example is the proof for my point; we chose for small amounts of high quality troops. We tried untrained conscripts in 1940 and it didn't work that good...
The fact that the Dutch forces are abysmal small compared to anything, especially compared to the Russian forces, is no proof the Soviet doctrine is better.

And as early posters remarked; the Centurions would have done nicely against secondline troops.
 
Anyone trying to take lessons from a war fought 60+ years ago is frankly not someone to take seriously. Not only has the world changed, but so has virtually everything else. Russia won because Germany made enough mistakes to let her win. Russia won because instead of waiting untill after the war to start genocide on the russian people Hitler was stupid enough to start it right away. I could go on but to claim that Russia was anything other then lucky to win that war is to dream. Its a very stupid thing to rely on quantity in this day and age considering the cost of any kind of weapon system keeps mounting. A well trained volunteer force will ALWAYS have the edge over anything that the Red Army had (penal battalions, KGB barrage battalions forcing soldiers to attack by shooting others, etc).

I would remind certain posters that this whole quantity vs quality is always variable depending on the situation. In many battles in the old west the Indians outnumberd the soldiers but still usually lost.
That is just as valid a conclusion as taking one from WW2.

The WWII Eastern Front comparison is the ONLY real life comparison between the Soviet doctrine and NATO tactical doctrine. Assumptions that Western quality can beat Soviet mass are just that; assumptions. Nobody knows.

NATO guestimates fluctuated between "we're doomed" if NATO wanted to acquire a shiny new toy and "we're so much better" if they needed to justify a new toy or reassure the public. Same with WP.

But because it is unknown, looking at the last time small, high quality troops when up against the Soviet juggernaut certainly helps. Trying to base American/Western superiority on the Gulf War or Arab-Israeli bashes is simply stupid.

Your well trained, high quality volunteer force would probably suffer the same fate as Nazi Germany's equally highly trained and superiorly equipped Tiger battalions....Victorious in their combat zone but bypassed by Soviet troops and then cut to pieces during a headlong retreat.
 
The Arab nations are a military failure. Even though countries like S.A. spend insane amounts of money on purchasing Western equipment, that does not automatically mean they have switched to the Western doctrine.
Countries like Egypt and Iraq were set up with the Soviet doctrine and I haven't seen any proof yet of them changing that.

With Western equipment comes Western doctrine. It is practically impossible to use a different doctrine, as former WP nations are discovering since they joined NATO.

The Arab nations also started switching but face many difficulties. For one, the standard of recruit is not high enough to maintain the high-tech Western equipment which is why so many Westerners are still involved. Another problem is cultural. There is a famous example of an American instructor teaching an Arab officer how to maintain a weapons system, expecting that officer to then teach and supervise his men. The officer didn't do that however because it would diminish his value and importance if his men also knew what to do. As long as he was the only man in the battalion who knew how to maintain the equipment, his position was secured.....

I made the M-E and Gulf War comparisons to compare doctrine, not equipment or numbers. I agree it's an unfair comparison if I'd compare them without taking into account the force-difference between Allies/Iraqis. By comparing their doctrine, you can still make a (much) more honest comparison. Besides, even during GWI and II there were battles between comparable amount of forces and even the results were pretty much the same as without numerical superiority.
see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_73_Easting
No, you can't. A NATO force would not have had the same advantages/force multipliers as the Desert Storm/Eternal Crusaders had when facing the WP in Europe. NATO expected to run out of aircraft after 40 days of combat (IIRC) at which point the Soviets would have had air dominance. And Soviet/WP units would have had a proper SAM umbrella as well as their own (probably low tech yet still effective) C3 and counter C3 gadgets. During Desert Storm/Eternal Crusaders, the West ruled the battlefield because Saddam's army was obsolete. It had a lot of tanks but not the additional stuff you need to field a proper force (a mistake many third world countries make).

AFAIK the Western counter-insurgency tactics are second to none.
That is, as long as you have morals and ethics on the battlefield and care about what civilians (in any country) think about you.
That would depend on what you consider effective. I agree that Western powers do try to limit civilian casualties as that plays poorly on national TV but enough civilians get killed for them to fail to see the difference. More than 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died. That's more than during Saddam's reign of terror. And no end is yet in sight. Nobody even knows how many Afghans have died because the US can't be arsed to find out, probably because they are afraid it would lead to bad press. Every year, America claims the situation is under control in Iraq and Afghanistan and that their (latest) counter-insurgency plan is working. Yet the attacks continue and central authority has not been established. It would seem that American troops mostly huddle in heavily defended bases and use firepower to keep the insurgents off them (reminds me of Vietnam). They are not winning, probably not even containing the problem.

When was that last put to the test? Are you seriously giving the East Front as an example of the superiority of the Soviet system over the current-day Western one???
I doubt it's even honest to name the German doctrine and the Western one in one sentence, let alone see them as one and the same. :rolleyes:

IMHO the last comparison between Western doctrine and Soviet doctrine was in Afghanistan. I assume the conventional army the Afghan alliance had was Soviet in doctrine?
I suggest you look up NATO doctrine and its history. It is indeed based on the German tactics used on the Eastern Front as that was the only available data regarding fighting the russians. Many German generals cooperated in this, even giving workshops and joining in wargames. At a tactical level, the Germans were often capable of beating the Russians. They overstated this and blamed Hitler for every defeat. But that doesn't explain some major defeats, also on the local/tactical level.

As to the German/Western system, most Western armies copied the German system during WWII (combined arms/battle groups) and the German "auftrags" tactics instead of their own "orders" tactics and more formal organizations. This trend only accelerated after WWII when the threat of the Soviets was understood.

Afghanistan certainly wasn't a clash between both systems. It was the Soviet army fighting an insurgency, supported by some American arms and money. Unless you are suggesting the Western model consists of semi-civilized tribesmen armed with Kalashnikovs and Stingers fighting in mountainous terrain.

I don't understand you anymore. Do you agree a small professional force can beat a numerical superior qualitatively lower force or not?
Yes, as long as the numbers remain small enough.
10 Western soldiers (squad) can probably defeat 100 Russian conscripts.

100 Western soldiers (company) can probably defeat 1000 Russian conscripts.

1000 Western soldiers (strong battalion) will probably not be able to defeat 10,000 Russian conscripts as divisional support weapons increase their combat power.

Anyways, the point is moot; Russia can't afford to put large amounts of conscript armies in the field any more, even if they have all the money in the world. The Russian population is half the American one.
Only up to certain point. The core value of a conscript army is the willingness to go for total war, e.g. the use of all national resources. I am sure Russia would have considerably less problems raising a large army and sending it to war than a Western nation. Would America have been able to continue its war on terrorism if it had a conscript army? If everyone ran the risk of going to Afghanistan or Iraq instead of the just the poor?

Why wouldn't I be Dutch? :confused:
Although it's ofcourse very popular to be Dutch, so I could understand other nation's people trying to impersonate as us. ;)

Your example is the proof for my point; we chose for small amounts of high quality troops. We tried untrained conscripts in 1940 and it didn't work that good...
The fact that the Dutch forces are abysmal small compared to anything, especially compared to the Russian forces, is no proof the Soviet doctrine is better.

And as early posters remarked; the Centurions would have done nicely against secondline troops.
Hold your horses, no insult was intended. Just because you are named Flying Dutchman doesn't automatically mean you're Dutch. Bill Nighy isn't ;)

Your example however is badly flawed. The Netherlands indeed had a somewhat large but poorly trained and equipped force in 1940. It didn't do so well, partly because Dutch soldiers were not conditioned for all out war. The only troops to really fight hard were the marines in Rotterdam. But had the Dutch formed an alliance with Belgium, France and the UK and formed a unified defense, it would undoubtedly have done much better.

After WWII, it did not opt for a small force of high quality soldiers. It had national conscription and no elite forces to speak of, except for some commandos. The only difference was it did get some good equipment although usually not enough to equip both the standing troops and the reserves.
 
With Western equipment comes Western doctrine. It is practically impossible to use a different doctrine, as former WP nations are discovering since they joined NATO.

The Arab nations also started switching but face many difficulties.
You confirm in your own words (with only making bold by me) the Arab nations don't use the Western doctrine (yet) and if they do, it's not in the same way as W-Europe and the USA do. :)
That means you can't pin Arab defeats on Western doctrine, I'm still however not convinced you can't partly pin Arab defeats vs Israel on their Soviet doctrine.
Although OTOH, even in '48 with British doctrine the Arabs failed miserably against an outnumbered enemy without high quality weapons or training.

No, you can't. A NATO force would not have had the same advantages/force multipliers as the Desert Storm/Eternal Crusaders had when facing the WP in Europe. NATO expected to run out of aircraft after 40 days of combat (IIRC) at which point the Soviets would have had air dominance. And Soviet/WP units would have had a proper SAM umbrella as well as their own (probably low tech yet still effective) C3 and counter C3 gadgets. During Desert Storm/Eternal Crusaders, the West ruled the battlefield because Saddam's army was obsolete. It had a lot of tanks but not the additional stuff you need to field a proper force (a mistake many third world countries make)..
Wouldn't the Soviets also be out of planes after those 40 days?
If after 40 days neither side has won, I think we're in for a rehash of WWI. Your remark is really not relevant IMHO.

That would depend on what you consider effective. I agree that Western powers do try to limit civilian casualties as that plays poorly on national TV but enough civilians get killed for them to fail to see the difference. More than 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died. That's more than during Saddam's reign of terror. And no end is yet in sight. Nobody even knows how many Afghans have died because the US can't be arsed to find out, probably because they are afraid it would lead to bad press. Every year, America claims the situation is under control in Iraq and Afghanistan and that their (latest) counter-insurgency plan is working. Yet the attacks continue and central authority has not been established. It would seem that American troops mostly huddle in heavily defended bases and use firepower to keep the insurgents off them (reminds me of Vietnam). They are not winning, probably not even containing the problem.
If you think the Western way of dealing with guerilla war/insurgency etc is bad, what is the alternative you're suggesting?
As I wrote in my last post, using the Soviet way of dealing with guerilla wars is only going to end up with more deaths, both on the civilian side and on your own conscripts.

I suggest you look up NATO doctrine and its history. It is indeed based on the German tactics used on the Eastern Front as that was the only available data regarding fighting the russians. Many German generals cooperated in this, even giving workshops and joining in wargames. At a tactical level, the Germans were often capable of beating the Russians. They overstated this and blamed Hitler for every defeat. But that doesn't explain some major defeats, also on the local/tactical level.

As to the German/Western system, most Western armies copied the German system during WWII (combined arms/battle groups) and the German "auftrags" tactics instead of their own "orders" tactics and more formal organizations. This trend only accelerated after WWII when the threat of the Soviets was understood.

Afghanistan certainly wasn't a clash between both systems. It was the Soviet army fighting an insurgency, supported by some American arms and money. Unless you are suggesting the Western model consists of semi-civilized tribesmen armed with Kalashnikovs and Stingers fighting in mountainous terrain..
I was talking about the invasion by the Americans in 2001. Apart from insurgents, they also met a conventional, Soviet style I was suggesting, army fielded by the Taliban/warlords.
I'll look up how much NATO doctrine is German and how much is American/British/French.


Yes, as long as the numbers remain small enough.
10 Western soldiers (squad) can probably defeat 100 Russian conscripts.

100 Western soldiers (company) can probably defeat 1000 Russian conscripts.

1000 Western soldiers (strong battalion) will probably not be able to defeat 10,000 Russian conscripts as divisional support weapons increase their combat power.

Only up to certain point. The core value of a conscript army is the willingness to go for total war, e.g. the use of all national resources. I am sure Russia would have considerably less problems raising a large army and sending it to war than a Western nation. Would America have been able to continue its war on terrorism if it had a conscript army? If everyone ran the risk of going to Afghanistan or Iraq instead of the just the poor?
Only the poor going to Iraq and Afghanistan? :rolleyes: AFAIK they also have (career)officers going overthere and isn't McCain's son in either one of the two?

Sure America would have been able to wage a war with conscripts, AFAIK they did so in Vietnam too. And Vietnam was a conflict with a lot less popular support than the Americans now have/had for their WOT.

Hold your horses, no insult was intended. Just because you are named Flying Dutchman doesn't automatically mean you're Dutch. Bill Nighy isn't ;)

Your example however is badly flawed. The Netherlands indeed had a somewhat large but poorly trained and equipped force in 1940. It didn't do so well, partly because Dutch soldiers were not conditioned for all out war. The only troops to really fight hard were the marines in Rotterdam. But had the Dutch formed an alliance with Belgium, France and the UK and formed a unified defense, it would undoubtedly have done much better.

After WWII, it did not opt for a small force of high quality soldiers. It had national conscription and no elite forces to speak of, except for some commandos. The only difference was it did get some good equipment although usually not enough to equip both the standing troops and the reserves.

I was making a joke. :eek: No offense taken.

The Marines in Rotterdam were mostly depot-troops; reserves and new volunteers. They on the average weren't well-trained or well-equipped. At most they had a lot of esprit de corps, as the Dutch Korps Mariniers is one of the oldest formations around (together with the British).

You're also confusing high quality troops with special forces I think.
What else would your remark about commando's mean?
 
To repeat my point on the previous page while NATO probably had the advantage in terms of doctrine that was more than offset by the massive Soviet numerical superiority.

Remember the numbers e.g. 1975:

BAOR (80,000)+UK based forces+ TA (after a month or two) total= 225,000

US Army Germany (175,000)+US based forces (200,000) + National Guard and Reserves (300,000)(after two or three months*)

Bundeswehr 200,000+(Reserves 250,000 after month or two)

Rest of NATO (excluding Italy, Norway, Greece and Turkey, which while important wouldn't have been involved on the main German front.): 75,000+(250,000 post mobilization).

Total D-Day force= 530,000

Total D-Day plus 2 months (assuming zero casulties and all available units sent to Germany)= 1.6 million
Most of whom would be recently activated and minimally trained reservists no better than their Soviet counterparts (who had to uindergo regular training camps)with nothing much coming down the pipleline (no 3rd or 4th echelon troops). Some of whom would be without equipment to to NATO's habit of selling off suplus gear to 3rd world nations.


G(roup)S(ovier)F(orces)G(ermany)= 500,000+ 350,000 in Western Military District's, who could reach the front with all their equipment via one day long train ride; unlike US and UK based forces who would require days if not weeks including multiple tranfers.

D-Day plus 2 months= 5 million and rising; all fully equipped, some with Korean War vintage gear but better than nothing.

Now there is no denying that frontline NATO units had a qualative advantage, but a 5 or 6 to 1 advantage?

Also that qualative advantage would disappear as soon as NATO starts fielding units made up of recent conscripts or reservists 10 year's out of the army, with 20 year old equipment, and if they wanted to keep the front whole they would have to.

After the last M48 has gone down under a mound of Category C T55's (M60's having be swarmed by the T72's, T64's and late model T55's) they'll be yet another Battalion to drive on the Pyrannes.

*In 1975 the US National Guard was mostly filled with people like G.W.Bush who had joined to avoid going to war.
 
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Sorry to double post but this thread has really got my back up.

NATO airpower despite its obvious advantages over Frontal Aviaton would in the short term have suffered a repeat of Yom Kippur on a larger scale, i.e. inital raids get savaged by the largest, most advanced (Soviet SAM's were a lot better than NATO until Patriot) SAM network in history, they are forced to switch to SEAD.
Which considering their inherent advantages (a moving SAM is a useless SAM, a stationary SAM us vulnerable) is a battle that they should win but it will probably be a long time after the leading Soviet Tank Divisions smash through the tattered remains of the NATO front.
With the NATO front smashed and the Red Army exploiting for all their worth the lead units will leave the SAM umbrella and get savaged, but so what. There is nothing left on the ground to stop them and unless you use Nukes 1970's airpower simply can't stop an army on its own.
 
http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0162-2889(198522)10:1<111:RTCBNR>2.0.CO;2-6

"Redressing the Conventional Balance" International Security, 1985

By most assumptions, WP would at most have 2:1 advantage in conventional forces. Counting in divisional formations, at M-day the divisional count would have been in 1983 30 NATO vs. 32 WP; at M+90 about 60 vs. 120. This does not take into account NATO's superiority in various corps assets which would have, by highest probability, lead into situation in which NATO's manpower numbers would have been much higher than WP's.

WP did have about 2:1 advantage in artillery tubes but this was more than adequately dealt with by NATO's better artillery procedures.

As for tanks, see the previous link.

As for the air forces, WP's air defense was formidable but you don't seem to take into account NATO's air defenses which were also very well equipped and extensive.

As for personnel, one has to remember, that vast majority of NATO forces were comprised of conscripts, who, as a rule, were better soldiers than volunteer personnel when adequately trained. Thus West German, Dutch, French etc. forces have to be considered to be qualitatively at least as good if not better than most of the US and British forces who were not recruited, in general, from the best and the brightest after transforming to volunteer forces.
 

burmafrd

Banned
Our All Volunteer military is much better then the draft era. I have a lot of friends who were in the military before and after and are unanimous on this. It did take some years to sort out-but by the early 80's the quality was increasing and training due to the funding increases really took hold.

As a rule of thumb all volunteer forces vs conscripts if training and equipment is roughly equal put your money on the volunteers.
 
Our All Volunteer military is much better then the draft era. I have a lot of friends who were in the military before and after and are unanimous on this. It did take some years to sort out-but by the early 80's the quality was increasing and training due to the funding increases really took hold.

There's a reason why US armed forces were strongly behind so called Universal Military Training scheme. US Selective Service resulted in a PR disaster during the Vietnam War. In essence there were so much holes in it that a lot of people could avoid it, AFAIK.
 
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