The outcome of a conventional World War III in 1985
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Khanzeer
Banned
Soviet navy had very little chance of interdicting the NATO sloc in 80s or ever , nothing is getting past GIUK gap
You're Norwegian info is spot on.Reforger was estimated to take a month before assembly produced anything meaningfull. I've seen the estimates. It was the same for US armed forces reinforcements in Norway. Anything heavy will not be ready until a month in even with prepositioned equipment. Best book I've read on the subject is Gullow Gierseth "landsforsvarets krigsplaner under den kalde krigen" which details these things down to the regional level.
This was true for the rest of Europe as well.
Translation: Under Best possible circumstance (likely to take longer) the forces available in Troms would be available after mobilization is as follows.
The Brigade in Northern Norway: Standing.
Brigade 5: 2 days
Brigade 6: 2 days after 1990
Brigade 7: 7 days
UK/NL landing force: 7 days
AMF(L): 6 Days
NAL MEB/CAST Brigade group (these are the ones with prepositioned equipment in question): 30 days
Brigade 15: 2 days (grouped in the Ofoten-Hinnøya area)
Brigade 15: 2 days
You are incorrect with mainland REFORGER reinforcements though. It was days, not a week or a month. They practiced it. The gear was there ready and waiting: the Americans would have done it in days.
Everything WOULD have gone nuclear. You're arguing about a circumstance that never would have happened.
https://books.google.de/books?id=B5...hVLKcAKHWDJBYw4ChDoAQg_MAg#v=onepage&q&f=true
Also the author writes only from the POV of the 5. GDR-army, some details give me the feeling, that already in 1983, something was deeply rotten in the WP-forces.
The 5. GDR would have attacked in the sector of the Dutch Corps. To reach some (not really impressive) numerical superiority, the 5. would depend of 2 Mob.divisions, formed with reservists and armed with obsolet weapons. And this troops would be the first wave, so I assume, they expected the first wave to get slaughtert and they trusted the german reservists not enough, to let them wait in the Hinterland.
Also the author writes only from the POV of the 5. GDR-army, some details give me the feeling, that already in 1983, something was deeply rotten in the WP-forces.
The 5. GDR would have attacked in the sector of the Dutch Corps. To reach some (not really impressive) numerical superiority, the 5. would depend of 2 Mob.divisions, formed with reservists and armed with obsolet weapons. And this troops would be the first wave, so I assume, they expected the first wave to get slaughtert and they trusted the german reservists not enough, to let them wait in the Hinterland.
ferdi254
Banned
If you add up the troops available on both sides for a mad dash out of the barracks in fact NATO had superiority and in how far the WP would have been able to mobilize reservists is more than doubtful.
Yes F117 in 1985 and destroying just 5(!) bridges will make all troops north of the Hartz without supply.
Yes F117 in 1985 and destroying just 5(!) bridges will make all troops north of the Hartz without supply.
I do not agree with that.
Clancy gave NATO enough warning to:
a) Smash pretty much all Spetsnaz ops in Germany. Had this not been accomplished you could expect NATO to have been in serious trouble. I believe "Red Line" by Walt Gragg describes how vulnerable NATO communications were, if the Soviets had managed to take out some key installations in Europe. Killing off some NATO generals may have also helped the Soviet war effort alot. And of course all sorts of assymetric warfare would be helpful too, like troops with portable SAMs sitting outside NATO bases. Additionally in Red Storm Rising the Soviets used their air mobile troops to take Iceland and nothing more than that. Many NATO war planners feared that the Soviets would use them in continental Europe. This is well described in fiction.
b) Smash the bridges. And actually almost all the bridges. This had a dramatic effect on the Soviet momentum of attack.
c) Kill off the front-line Soveit airforce. I believe several hundred Soviet aircraft were destroyed on the ground during the opening moves of Red Storm Rising.
Put all together, I believed Clancy actually HAD to that in order to write a novel, where NATO could managed to stop the Soviet assault within Germany. Without these factors the Soviets would have been in Frankfurt in a (couple of) week(s) or so...
On the other hand, in order not to make it too easy for NATO, Clancy gave the Soviets other edges: Iceland taken with minimal casualties, neutralizing one carrier battle group early on, France staying out of the conflict, all quiet in the Balkans.
ferdi254
Banned
Clancy had the WP clandestinely bring their troops to top readyness. The WP forces for the frontline attack were roughly 0.8 mio against 0.9 NATO IOTL. The readiness of WP tanks directly from the factory was 70%.
M1 and Leo 2 against T72 and T80.
5 times the flight hours, training shots... on the NATO. An abysmal road network in the GDR. All bridges in the west were set up for easy demolition. History shows that the Spezsnats threat was way below what people thought.
And as I asked already is there any example of a successful airborne troop deployment into contested airspace?
M1 and Leo 2 against T72 and T80.
5 times the flight hours, training shots... on the NATO. An abysmal road network in the GDR. All bridges in the west were set up for easy demolition. History shows that the Spezsnats threat was way below what people thought.
And as I asked already is there any example of a successful airborne troop deployment into contested airspace?
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The ability of the WP to launch a BOOB (bolt out of the blue) attack on NATO was basically zero. There were a lot of indicators that would be noticed and set off alarm bells. Issues with staffing, training, logistics and so forth need to be addressed by the WP - a scenario where on 2-3 days prep they attack out of the barracks, while technically feasible, really is not in the cards as a winning strategy. The issue on the NATO side is how do they respond when the indicators are screaming "WP coming". To use an obvious example, if NATO has 2-3 weeks of "warning" but holds off on things like REFORGER and activation of reserves then the "warning" time is wasted and the WP troops do well. IMHO the Soviets will be doing their best to obfuscate the build up, claim it is troop rotations/readiness exercise etc. Obviously if the tension level has been ramping up, NATO will be more likely to respond promptly. If things are basically quiet, response will be slower.
With some of the stupid shit I've read about what happened in warfare. This is the most realistic element. Remember the NATO forces did have months of warning that something was going on (The Soviet atomic disarmament) plus the training schedules (and reorganization of the Soviet farming system to free up men). The hit Spetznaz agent was the final nail and even then half of NATO refused to fight even when confronted with it.
Plus the Stealth Fighters were the only reason the air force and bridges was knocked out so quickly. Once their AWACS were out the air force was probably struggling just to survive.
Khanzeer
Banned
Seriously thats why I despise Clancy
how are Soviets supposed to take Iceland and if I remember they brought mig29 s there too right ? In 1985 they barely had 110 in service
He totally overestimated Soviets in some way and grossly underestimated them in others
He was a great entertainer but his scenarios were extremely misleading and unrealistic
how are Soviets supposed to take Iceland and if I remember they brought mig29 s there too right ? In 1985 they barely had 110 in service
He totally overestimated Soviets in some way and grossly underestimated them in others
He was a great entertainer but his scenarios were extremely misleading and unrealistic
French forces fought fully in Red Storm Rising. They lost a carrier in that naval air battle and were mentioned multiple times during the story as being involved: prisoners from the Pharris transfered to them, French ports seeing convoys arrive and Mirages over Germany all spring to mind. You must be thinking of a different tale.
I recall that France didn‘t commit as many troops in Gernany, as it was supposed to. Or did I get that wrong too?
I don´t remember something like. The problem with the book is, thats its mostly about Iceland and naval warfare: Germany is to some degree just a sideshow. We get a closer look at Alfeld, we hear something about Hamburg, but we get nothing (strangly for a american book) nothing about the Fulda Gape and the Nürnburg corridor, places were most likely the bulk of french forces would be used.
RSR was supposed to be about a modern Battle of the Atlantic. TC met Larry Bond when he bought Harpoon to help with Red October. They gamed out the key battles in RSR together. LB helped write RSR (He says he wrote very little). TC wrote great modern sub combat.
I read something about the WP-exercise "Sojus-83", which was following an "attack out of the barracks"-scenario. Preparation would need to start D-11, moblisation of GDR-reserves D-6, leving barracks D-1. At some places like Jutland, attacks couldn´t start before D+2. This seems all like a rather risky gamble, which would fall apart, if the strategic surprise failed. It seems already 1983 the Soviets were running out of ideas to defeat NATO.