The worst cold war tl cliches

It drives me up a wall when people's analysis of a conventional war in Germany boils down exclusively to comparisons of equipment; 'this tank is better than that tank, this jet is faster' etc. etc. etc. I attach a lot more importance to thinks like reserve pools, divisional firepower, number of maneuver battalions, and divisional slices. No amount of POMCUS and Abrams-wanking can measure up to the Soviets' 100-20 superiority in divisions against the major NATO powers and 40 million trained reservists.

Are you counting Soviet Category B and North American and Western European Reserve divisions and brigades in your comparison. The Soviets did not have 100 Category A divisions, even if you include the Pact Category A types.

They only had 175 divisions in total (around 225 if you count the Pact nations), and around half of those divisions were Category C units, with equipment as much as 30 years old and men assigned to them who had not been in the army for 10-20 years and who never did any kind of refresher training. Plus a fair number of divisions were in Siberia keeping an eye on the Chinese.
 
That the Soviets would attack first/invade, in and of itself. No one ever reasoned on the huge, undescribable trauma that was WWII for the Soviet Union and its leaders, old man who had lived through it, often losing friends and relatives to war, genocide, hunger, illness and internal political repression.

From this perspective the peace propaganda of the eastern block makes more sense. But I feel that most East Germans were sick of the word peace at one point, because it was constantly used by the GDR to legitimize its existence.

In Italy actually we simply shrugged, or were even pleased. The bad blood towards Germans was forgotten surprisingly quick here, once they began to came here unarmed and with pockets full of clinking Marks. The tourist Wehrmacht was appreciated more than its military avatar.

To be fair Italy fought on the side of the Wehrmacht for four years and only betrayed Hitler when the Allies invaded Italy. Italy was ok with all German actions and war crimes until it became clear that the Axis would lose the war. And even then Mussolini found enough cronies to build up his Social Republic and continue the fight.
 
I personally hate the America being destined to lose Vietnam or it plays out the same. Any Sino-Soviet War TL on principle, and on a related note Mao is somehow an irrational ideologue and willing to start out right war.
 
They only had 175 divisions in total (around 225 if you count the Pact nations), and around half of those divisions were Category C units, with equipment as much as 30 years old and men assigned to them who had not been in the army for 10-20 years and who never did any kind of refresher training. Plus a fair number of divisions were in Siberia keeping an eye on the Chinese.
How many divisions did NATO have?
 
How many divisions did NATO have?

depends on which year of the Cold War we are discussing...

Generally the US had 12-18 active divisions (plus 3 Marine) plus 18 National Guard/Reserve Divisions (plus 1 Marine). The British generally had 4 plus several reserve brigades. The French varied, but usually 10 small divisions/fat brigades plus several reserve. The Germans has 12 or so, plus a similar number of large brigades. The Dutch, Belgians and Danes had about 10 between them (active and reserve). Canada had a brigade plus several brigades at home (active and reserve).

If the Americans keep about 6 divisions to deal with North Korea (plus the 2 already in theater) that still means that in total NATO has about 60-70 divisions of Category A or B quality (active and first line reserve divisions) and NATO divisions. The Soviets can muster about 90 Category A and B types, at best.

I am not including the Italians, Greeks, Turks for the Central Front, but if you include them as well that is another 25 or so divisions.

In effect rough parity, with the burden of the offensive on the Soviets, and this makes no allowances for equipment, nor the substantial differences in capability that NATO air forces had over Pact air forces.

James Dunnigan in his first volume "How to Make War" back in the early 1980s figured out the best case scenario was a Soviet bolt from the blue attack, in which case the advantages of surprise would give them around 3:1 odds. A similar bolt from the blue attack by NATO would give NATO similar odds.

Which explains a lot right there why vast sums were spent on intelligence by both sides throughout the Cold War.
 
Are you counting Soviet Category B and North American and Western European Reserve divisions and brigades in your comparison. The Soviets did not have 100 Category A divisions, even if you include the Pact Category A types.

They only had 175 divisions in total (around 225 if you count the Pact nations), and around half of those divisions were Category C units, with equipment as much as 30 years old and men assigned to them who had not been in the army for 10-20 years and who never did any kind of refresher training. Plus a fair number of divisions were in Siberia keeping an eye on the Chinese.
The total soviet division count varies between 161-200 depending on the year, for up to 250~ WP divisions. The count I'm using counts the Soviet divisions in Eastern Europe, European Russia, and part of their strategic reserve. It includes all categories of division, but even the Soviet category C divisions would be ready to go much more quickly than American reserve divisions, which would require 90 days of mobilization before deploying overseas, compared to Soviets needing ~30 days for their Category Cs. These divisions could be manned mostly with men discharged in the past two years; the US Army estimated it would only take 5% of the Soviet reserve pool to bring their formations all up to strength. Some of them would be be in 3-5 years out range, but all would be young men with relatively recent time with the colors. This isn't counting their ability to form new divisions on their mobilization bases from reservists and 2 million man annual classes.
 
The total soviet division count varies between 161-200 depending on the year, for up to 250~ WP divisions. The count I'm using counts the Soviet divisions in Eastern Europe, European Russia, and part of their strategic reserve. It includes all categories of division, but even the Soviet category C divisions would be ready to go much more quickly than American reserve divisions, which would require 90 days of mobilization before deploying overseas, compared to Soviets needing ~30 days for their Category Cs. These divisions could be manned mostly with men discharged in the past two years; the US Army estimated it would only take 5% of the Soviet reserve pool to bring their formations all up to strength. Some of them would be be in 3-5 years out range, but all would be young men with relatively recent time with the colors. This isn't counting their ability to form new divisions on their mobilization bases from reservists and 2 million man annual classes.

just making sure we are comparing apples to apples

The trouble with the Cold War era is available forces vary so broadly over the course of it, as do the commitments of the two central antagonists.
 
From this perspective the peace propaganda of the eastern block makes more sense. But I feel that most East Germans were sick of the word peace at one point, because it was constantly used by the GDR to legitimize its existence.
Well, Soviet propaganda was in fact extremely peaceful (especially compared to Kyselyov's "Modern Ash" of modern Russia). The whole day - "we are peaceful people but if the enemy ..." "If only there was no war"
"May there always be Sun, let the sky will always be, let there always be Mother, let there always be I"
 
depends on which year of the Cold War we are discussing...

Another factor that varies according to which year you're talking about is just how useful the troops are. A front line A category US soldier of 1976 was not the same beast as the same thing in 1986, which was not the same as in 1996. The details vary for other nations, but the principle of troop quality varying holds for every nation.

But then, I generally fall about with laughter when I read WW3 descriptions.
 
Well, Soviet propaganda was in fact extremely peaceful (especially compared to Kyselyov's "Modern Ash" of modern Russia). The whole day - "we are peaceful people but if the enemy ..." "If only there was no war"
"May there always be Sun, let the sky will always be, let there always be Mother, let there always be I"

Yes, but it was proven wrong so often that it was not more than - propaganda.
 
Before the USSR collapsed, just about the only person who predicted it was Heinlein.
After, the cliché became 'Its collapse was inevitable'.

Very strange.
Predicting yet Andrei Amalrik, though he was counting on a war with China, and ten years later he wrote that he hurried with conclusions. As for modern "inevitable defeat" - modern imperialism it is necessary to convince people of its exclusivity and best advantage. In general, Andropov once said that "we do not know the society in which we live," complemented by "Western sociologists do not have about it the slightest idea." Few people understood what "Real Socialism" is, it is considered either as a distortion or as a specificity. Few could examine it from the inside.
Even Heinlein visiting the Soviet Union made a lot of false conclusions (a link to a couple of curiosities).
 

Anderman

Donor
The fact that Socialism is not a feasible economic system was already made during the 1920 by Ludwig von Mises and other economist of the Austrian school of economics.

But the failure of Socialism is not quite the same as the Soviet Union disappearing.
 
1) Reagan wins in 1976 = Reagan loses in 1980. It's pretty damned hard to beat an incumbent, and Reagan was running a damned good campaign, knew how to play media, and simply connected with people better.

2) Democrats are kind at heart and want to do the right thing, while the Republicans are at best socio-paths anxiously waiting to snuggle up to literal Fascists (something that had no party distinction in Washington) or are outright would-be Fascists themselves. Don't get me started on the wish-fulfillment TLs where the author just goes "I have a Republican as President, so what would be the stupidest thing to do?", regardless of whether or not a Republican would ever practice that position. Thus, Republicans are simultaneously anarcho-Capitalists, Westboro Baptists and the Stanford Prison guards writ large.

3) That minor Communist regimes were "decent". To put this in perspective, Pinochet is a by-word for horrendous actions by Right-wing dictators. How many people died under his coup and slaughter of Chilean democracy? 3000 (3000 too many). How many did Tito, a guy who gets a bizarre amount of respect kill? The median estimate is 100-250k. So even the minor Communist dictatorships were not vanilla authoritarian regimes; they were seriously violent.

4) South Vietnam is just irredeemably corrupt and destined to fall because its a Right wing authoritarian dictatorship in Asia. Somehow, South Korea and Taiwan avoided this fate.

5) My biggest: World War 2 is Black Vs White morality, while the Cold War is grey morality. On the allied side in WW2, the two biggest mass murderers in history on raw numbers (Stalin and Mao) were present, not to mention Chiang, the Latin American dictatorships, Colonial Britain and France and Jim Crow America; there was even a democracy in Finland fighting for the Axis. Yet, somehow, when even the worst regimes on the West's side in the Cold War didn't have a body count reaching over one or two million, and the West are fighting for global influence against the single most destructive ideology ever practised on Earth (in raw numbers) it's considered a grey morality zone. The fact that the Soviets treated Ukrainians horribly and the Ukrainians wanted them out does not make the Nazis any better, so why do the various revolts against despicable Latin American dictators mean that there was some righteousness to the Soviets?
 
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