Operation drop shot war-best possible USSR performance

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RousseauX

Donor
The armor will not be incinerated or the cities. Their will be pockets of radiation and a lot of dying people, but they will bounce back, just like WW-II. Do you know what happened to the Prince Eugen after it was nuked....nothing , just radio active for some months.

w
like the vast majority of an armored division in any 1950s army are 10ks of infantry + a few hundred tanks, yeah maybe your tanks survive but the nukes destroyed the supporting infantry and logistics like trucks/fuel depos/ammo dumps/command and control that keeps the tanks running so even if tanks keeps on fighting they run out of ammo/fuel in a day or so

Their will be pockets of radiation and a lot of dying people
I think you are really underestimating how powerful nukes are, for one, just having lots of people die is very detrimental to the war effort because a lot of people like skilled factory workers or economic planners who dies when moscow goes boom and can't be replaced easily. For another, even low kiloton nuclear weapons dropped on factories will destroy machinery etc

allies always seem to underestimate their enemies ability to fight on and bounce back. that is there weakness and undoing.
The western allies came out victorious at the end of the 3 rounds of wars 1914-1991, so I don't think that's true
 
yeah maybe your tanks survive but the nukes destroyed the supporting infantry and logistics like trucks/fuel depos/ammo dumps that keeps the tanks running so even if tanks keeps on fighting they run out of ammo/fuel in a day or so

I agree with everything you post, but not on the idea that T-54s survive as combat-worthy stuff. They are irradiated, i.e. pretty unhealthy for the crews to sit in, and their radios are gone, if they are beyond 700 meters from ground zero of a 15 Kt explosion (that's the yield of the W-9 warhead, which being a long-range artillery round, could be fired timely at concentrations of enemy tanks). If they are between 700 and 300 meters, the crews are dead and the external fixtures of the tanks are damaged. If they are under 300 meters, the explosion destroys the tanks too.
 
maybe in your dreams but that's about all!

But of course, how silly of me to forget. The invincible Soviet supermen and their Warsaw Pact "Brothers" have no need for logistics, or morale, or a future! Or even to eat!
 
Given the historically pooor accuracy of bombers and reconnaissance , the real question should be will it hit the center of the CEP...NO, so it may well land in the outer ring [more than 1 CEP AWAY] will the blast radius be sufficient still to even reach the target?

ODDS are they will be near misses most of the time with small enough warheads [100-200kt] to neutralise and damage but not destroy the targets. In that regard bombing might help to neutralise the rest but not destroy. Clearly the Americans forgot the lessons of the previous war and believed there own propaganda.

Don't forget how quickly the Russians recovered from Barbarossa...they had factories relocated and functioning within a matter of weeks/months. Why would you risk calculating anything more or less. or did they have inflated egos THEN, as they do today?


If the yanks are dumb enough to waste their precious few nukes on the hundreds and hundreds of regiments, they will definitely lose Europe and world. .....

ooh right that's what they seem to do these days...:rolleyes:
 
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With the mass hysteria of the MIG-21/SAM-2 & SAM-3 at the end of that decade ; its clear the Soviets got wind of 'operation drop shot' and took steps to counter it. Knowing their spying -they must have found out about it ahead of time? Is there anything in post cold war Russian history about this?
 
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like the vast majority of an armored division in any 1950s army are 10ks of infantry + a few hundred tanks, yeah maybe your tanks survive but the nukes destroyed the supporting infantry and logistics like trucks/fuel depos/ammo dumps/command and control that keeps the tanks running so even if tanks keeps on fighting they run out of ammo/fuel in a day or so

I think you are really underestimating how powerful nukes are, for one, just having lots of people die is very detrimental to the war effort because a lot of people like skilled factory workers or economic planners who dies when moscow goes boom and can't be replaced easily. For another, even low kiloton nuclear weapons dropped on factories will destroy machinery etc

The western allies came out victorious at the end of the 3 rounds of wars 1914-1991, so I don't think that's true


This scenario is predicated on the success of a Pre-emptive strike destroying the USSR ability to wage strategic war. Given the poor nature of cold war recon & Intel -I doubt they know the exact location of most of these industries military bases; except to scant info that could get them close enough to risk trying, but not close enough to guarantee success?

But would it not be safe to assume the Russians know that too? and could take steps to 'bait and switch'?

Weren't the soviets masters at deception?
 
If the yanks are dumb enough to waste their precious few nukes on the hundreds and hundreds of regiments, they will definitely lose Europe and world. .....

ooh right that's what they seem to do these days...


This scenario is predicated on the success of a Pre-emptive strike destroying the USSR ability to wage strategic war. Given the poor nature of cold war recon & Intel -I doubt they know the exact location of most of these industries military bases; except to scant info that could get them close enough to risk trying, but not close enough to guarantee success?

But would it not be safe to assume the Russians know that too? and could take steps to 'bait and switch'?

Weren't the soviets masters at deception?

They Americans Have 5000 nuclear warheads and nuclear artillery and land mines they weren't exactly rare and were building another 2000 or so.

Its also kinda of hard to hide industrial facilities the Americans know were Soviet oil is the Americans know were Russian steel production is where they produce tanks where they have railyards and marshaling points it's kinda hard to hide all this stuff. The Soviets know the same about the US what is hard is to find test sites and new aircraft and finding out how many are there it's the reason why the bomber gap and missile gap happened.
 

SsgtC

Banned
The bomber gap was primarily a domestic policy plan. Yes, originally it was believed that the UUSR had more jet boomers than the US. But it was shortly disproven by U2 flights. It would have died then and there, but the USAF realised that as long as the public believed it existed, they could get funding for whatever they wanted

The Soviets know the same about the US what is hard is to find test sites and new aircraft and finding out how many are there it's the reason why the bomber gap and missile gap happened.
 

RousseauX

Donor
This scenario is predicated on the success of a Pre-emptive strike destroying the USSR ability to wage strategic war. Given the poor nature of cold war recon & Intel -I doubt they know the exact location of most of these industries military bases; except to scant info that could get them close enough to risk trying, but not close enough to guarantee success?

But would it not be safe to assume the Russians know that too? and could take steps to 'bait and switch'?

Weren't the soviets masters at deception?
just put a couple of bombs in every major soviet industrial city should do it, yeah the USSR will prob have backup factories in the urals or something but it's not like you need to destroy 100% of all industry if you just take out 50% it's pretty much a slam-dunk victory right there

also keep in mind there's a lot of reasons why you can't just hide industry: modern factories depend on shit like workers living nearby/rail-hubs/transportation/raw material/supply chains connecting everything, you can't hide a city of millions of people. You could hide really specific parts of weapon production process like Germans did with V-2s but you can't do it on large scale.

also supply chains means you only really need to cripple part of the supply chain to cripple the whole thing I mean if you destroy ball bearing factories then the entire aircraft production process start falling apart. Sure the USAF prob don't know exactly where they are but if you have enough bombers dropping enough nukes on enough cities it doesn't matter chances are you are gonna hit enough to cripple production.

also certain industries are not movable/are not hidable at all like oil production in the caucausus cuz you can't move the oil under the ground
 

RousseauX

Donor
Don't forget how quickly the Russians recovered from Barbarossa...they had factories relocated and functioning within a matter of weeks/months. Why would you risk calculating anything more or less. or did they have inflated egos THEN, as they do today?
The first 24-72 hours of a nuclear first strike even before ICBMs are gonna be way worse than 4 years of Barbarossa for any country

think about it in OB the germans needed weeks to drive tanks to soviet industrial zones so you can relocate if given weeks-months but nuclear strike happens in matter of hours

also the germans can't drive to the urals where the industries are relocated to: B-52s can hit urals within a few hours of moscow or minsk
 

RousseauX

Donor
ODDS are they will be near misses most of the time with small enough warheads [100-200kt] to neutralise and damage but not destroy the targets. In that regard bombing might help to neutralise the rest but not destroy. Clearly the Americans forgot the lessons of the previous war and believed there own propaganda.
tactical nukes don't have to destroy 100% of a soviet division if you neutralize it and destroy like 25% of it then it's good enough
 

RousseauX

Donor
I actually really have to give it to @PSL for courage at the thought of nuclear strikes but I'd definitely not bet against nukes if this was geopolitical poker
 

RousseauX

Donor
Oh yeah first U-2 flight was in 1956 if the US didn't know the exact location of soviet bases before they definite did soon after
 
The period 1954-1964 was the peak of American power versus the Soviet Union in every category except combat divisions and if you count 1st and 2nd Line NATO divisions that can be deployed to Europe vs Soviet (and Pact) 1st and 2nd Line divisions there simply isn't all that big a Soviet advantage. As was assumed Dropshot would happen somewhere between 1956-58, the principal Soviet capability is to ruin Europe with nuclear weapons but the United States had the ability to obliterate the Soviet Union as a functioning state, perhaps even as an inhabitable land mass.

That was just how it was. As Eisenhower, the US President, had as the official policy "Massive Retaliation" (involving massive nuclear attack) if the Soviets attacked, it is pretty easy to see why there was no war.

One has to consider the personalities of the time, not just the weapons.
 
Their are no tactical nukes in this plan- only 300 ABOMBS and if you waste them all chasing tank brigades you will only end up using them to break up the first major invasions of Europe and that's all folks. The soviets at that time had a couple of hundred nukes of their own and could destroy all the cosmopolitan areas of Europe plus some American coastal cities.

Most of the allied bombing of WW-II was a failure , they had to bomb the same targets again and again. The whole process took a year and still required invading PLUS 6 months of bloody warfare.

YOU WILL NEVER PULLOFF SUCH A FANTACY IN COUPLE OF DAYS UNLESS ITS IN YOUR DREAMS.

You lot are coming off sounding like the social Darwinism of Douhet and all the other idiot air-war enthusiast. The soviet people suffered far more hardship under the Nazi war and endured in spite of an impossible situation.
 
Their are no tactical nukes in this plan- only 300 ABOMBS and if you waste them all chasing tank brigades you will only end up using them to break up the first major invasions of Europe and that's all folks. The soviets at that time had a couple of hundred nukes of their own and could destroy all the cosmopolitan areas of Europe plus some American coastal cities.

Most of the allied bombing of WW-II was a failure , they had to bomb the same targets again and again. The whole process took a year and still required invading PLUS 6 months of bloody warfare.

YOU WILL NEVER PULLOFF SUCH A FANTACY IN COUPLE OF DAYS UNLESS ITS IN YOUR DREAMS.

You lot are coming off sounding like the social Darwinism of Douhet and all the other idiot air-war enthusiast. The soviet people suffered far more hardship under the Nazi war and endured in spite of an impossible situation.

What year are you picking for Dropshot? The historical operations plan anticipated 1957

By 1955 the US had 2400 nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union has 200 while by 1960 the US has just over 19,000 of them, the Soviets around 2400 (the pace picked up a bit after relatively cheap thermonuclear weapons became an option)

The US has 299 of them in 1950, which would be an ugly situation for the West except for the fact that the Soviet Union is still in bad shape from World War II and the Soviets have only 5 of them.

according to this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_nuclear_weapons_stockpiles_and_nuclear_tests_by_country

which is drawing as a source this
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2968/066004008
 
Oh yeah first U-2 flight was in 1956 if the US didn't know the exact location of soviet bases before they definite did soon after

OK how on earth are they going to locate all these targets with a few U-2 over flights, when thousands of over flights on the Nazi over several years failed to locate most of the Nazi factories and their connected "ring" sites. Soviets were very good at deception and spying so they will probably know about this attack with enough time to disperse the strategic & tactical forces as well as the most important parts of there arsenal.

If you have read any CIA top secret Intel on the soviets during this time it comes off sounding comical ....all Soviet post war weapons are knock off of Nazi wunderwaffen on post war models.

Doesn't generate much confidence.


BTW the Dropshot plan stated 29000 bombs & 200-300 NUCS not 2400!!!!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Dropshot
 
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RousseauX

Donor
OK how on earth are they going to locate all these targets with a few U-2 over flights, when thousands of over flights on the Nazi over several years failed to locate most of the Nazi factories and their connected "ring" sites. Soviets were very good at deception and spying so they will probably know about this attack with enough time to disperse the strategic & tactical forces as well as the most important parts of there arsenal.

If you have read any CIA top secret Intel on the soviets during this time it comes off sounding comical ....all Soviet post war weapons are knock off of Nazi wunderwaffen on post war models.

Doesn't generate much confidence.


BTW the drop box plan stated 200 nucs not 2400!!!!
the allies knew where nazi factories were and even figured out correctly where V2 factories were, the problem was that conventional bombs required a lot of accuracy which strategic bombers had trouble delivering, this isn't an issue with nukes when a couple bombs over moscow or leningrad is gonna put a lot of factories out of commission.

I mean think about it conventional 1000 lb bombs pretty much need to hit the exact buildings a factory is in and if if the building is protected you pretty much need to drop it right on top of this really small building in the middle of a city. that's really tough for a b-17 to do when under fighter/flak attack.

With nukes it doesn't matter if you hide it or whatever as long as the nukes goes off in the general vicinity of factory it's out of operation.

If you have read any CIA top secret Intel on the soviets during this time it comes off sounding comical ....all Soviet post war weapons are knock off of Nazi wunderwaffen on post war models.
I don't think you have read CIA top secret intel just my personal hot take
 
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