Actually its a resounding "not a snowballs in hell".
The Russians did not have any air-dropped conventional weapons capable of doing anything to a nuke cilo. Not a single thing. No bunker busters, penetrators, LGB's, nothing.
The ONLY way the Russians were going to take out nuke cilos is with nukes.
In a conventional war in the 80's, Nato gets its nose broken badly in the opening round, then gets back up and doesn't stop till it gets to the bearing straights. The Russians would have gone nuclear at the start.
Well, I would hardly consider France's deterrent to be "theater" weapons. In fact, it might make more sense for a Soviet offensive in 1975 to leave France's nuclear devices alone.
I guess I should clarify what sort of scenario I had in mind:
For some reason, the USSR decides to invade Western Europe with limited aims in mind, I don't know why...but it's mostly a feasibility exercise anyway. It seems to me, and to experts like CalBear, that the USSR has a conventional advantage in Western Europe at this time. If the war is kept conventional, the Soviet Union has a possible opportunity of defeating the NATO ground forces and ending any significant
conventional threat to its domination of Europe. I want to clarify here that NATO knows that the attack is coming, but that its caught off-guard a little bit.
The problem with this is that it is pretty well-known that NATO would resort to tactical nuclear weapons if faced with conventional defeat by Warsaw Pact forces. The goal, then, is to eliminate NATO's ability to respond with 90% of their tactical/low-level theater weapons, so as to make a NATO "shot across the Army Group" highly dangerous in terms of escalation opportunities, while allowing Warsaw Pact forces to continue to advance even in the face of tactical nuclear weapons.
Attacking strategic weapons is a no-no. I guess I didn't state that quite clearly, but going after hardened silos such as those containing France's ultimate deterrent is right-out, since while they may be located "in-theater", they are also never going to be used against Warsaw Pact conventional forces. For that same reason, massive conventional attacks against SSBN bases are also ruled-out, since the weapons on the French and UK SSBN's are, again, not likely to be used on Warsaw Pact conventional forces, and would rightly be considered attacks on
strategic nuclear delivery systems. Attacking V-bomber bases and Mirage IV bases is probably also not going to happen, for similar reasons.
It doesn't really fit here, but I would say that it might be worth considering whether or not France is even involved. Possibly France tension with the rest of NATO could be exploited to leave them out of the struggle in the first place? It would certainly make the task easier...even if it is unlikely.
So where does that leave us?
1. Ground-based missiles/artillery. Going with a date of 1975, the following theater/tactical-level weapons are in Western Europe:
- Honest John
- Lance
- Sergeant
- Pershing Ia
- Artillery (SP Howitzers, Field Guns, etc)
- (Possibly: Pluton, French missiles)
I haven't been able to come across numbers for most of these, but they seem to be quite numerous. The Pershings are almost theater/strategic-level, but since they were targeted at Warsaw Pact locations where a "second echelon" of conventional troops would be mustered, I think they can be targeted as well.
There are 180 Pershings spread out in Germany. Assuming that these are "mostly" prepared for action, I think it's safe to say that these are extremely important to target, especially since the delivery systems and warheads are not divorced as in several other systems.
The short-range NATO rockets such as Honest John (being phased out in 1975), Lance (being phased in at the 1975 date), and Sergeant (practically gone, final phase-out 1977) are next on the list, since they are mostly intended (if not entirely so) for delivering tactical nuclear weapons. I wonder whether these delivery systems had their nuclear devices with them. I would imagine that in a crisis devices would be rushed to the weapons...if the Soviets' Spetsnaz units can hinder these warheads' movement from storage locations, that
could really minimize these systems' utility. Hitting France's Pluton's would be really hard, but perhaps France isn't in the equation anyway. If anyone could give me deployment numbers on these systems, I would be very happy!
As for artillery, its going to be impossible to destroy all nuclear-capable artillery. The "good" news is that any disruption in getting warheads out to the devices will limit the number that can be used, and that the conventional onslaught will probably see many of these delivery systems destroyed in conventional combat during the first few days of war.
2. Land/sea-based aircraft.
Basically, an ass-load of NATO conventional aircraft are dual-use, and these dual-use aircraft are not going to be really easy to destroy, especially using conventional weapons only (i.e., the point of this exercise).
I've run out of steam here, but does this shed any more light on the situation I'm thinking of here? Any contribution is appreciated.
