The worst cold war tl cliches

A general observation about cold war TLs - is it possible that we have an age problem here ? My impression is that many here were born after the end of the cold war and see the whole thing filtered through thriller novels of doubtful accuracy (like Clancy et al.)

Most definitely... I was very worried all through 1983, particularly when the former head of the KGB became the leader of the Soviet Union, the same guy who was behind an attempt to kill the Pope, while it wasn't long since it looked like the Soviets were really going to invade Poland and meanwhile the US President literally joked about launching a nuclear strike.

Worried enough to develop a provisional escape plan from the Houston Texas area in the event of war as oil refineries are a primary target.

Sometimes history is no substitute for living through the time period.

That by the way was BEFORE we learned about how Able Archer almost triggered a nuclear war
 
Bad shit always happens to the People's Republic of China in what seems like every Cold War TL. Whether it's a Sino-Soviet War (and the Sino-Soviet split is also always destined to happen) leading to nuclear destruction, Mao collapsing the country during the Great Famine or Cultural Revolution, a coup by Lin Biao or Zhou Enlai starting a civil war, or the whole state generally turning into a giant North Korea, the PRC always seems to get boned. Bonus points if there's a new warlord era or KMT reconquista.

Also, more specifically, the cosmic destiny of John McCain is to suffer. I've seen him mentioned by name a few times in various TLs, and it's always in the context of additional suffering.
 
Also, more specifically, the cosmic destiny of John McCain is to suffer. I've seen him mentioned by name a few times in various TLs, and it's always in the context of additional suffering.
Y'know, if I ever get around to writing a Vietnam timeline, there will be a line where he's chilling on a beach in Thailand or something. Hardly my favorite politician, but could use a break, getting tortured in so many different timelines.
 
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?

I agree with all except five. IIRC the number of people Stalin has responsibility for killing is pretty consistently estimated post-Cold War as being four to ten million which becomes ten to twenty million when the 1932-1933 famine is added in. It got significantly more accurate after the Russian archives could be opened up (the estimates during the Cold War were way too high). Hitler killed far more than that in a way shorter period of time.

I am interested in what you say about Tito because I have actually not been able to find great info on Yugoslavian repression. Could you hit me up with links? Thanks a bunch.
 

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.

This is a good accounting but I would add to that the Canadian and Iberian militaries. The Canadians had one of their Brigade Maneuver Groups permanently stationed in Germany and another at home. The Spanish Armed Forces added an additional five divisions and I believe six independent brigades if their Special Operations Command was at brigade strength (and I think that was just their active strength). I don't know anything about the ORBAT of the Portuguese Armed Forces but they trained quite extensively for conventional combat against the Soviets. There is also the Scandinavians, particularly Norway. They add a few more.

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.

With respect, I think you're wanking the Category C divisions. Yes, it is technically possible to move their Category C's in thirty days. If NATO wanted to they could as well, the problem is that the level of performance you will get out of them will reflect to a great degree the level of preparation their men had. Military skills atrophy heavily in a short period of time with no practice. Unpracticed reservists with T-55's going up against the best troops in the world isn't a great proposition.

You know, I have this funny idea of communism not getting discredited a lot in spite of a mostly conventional WWIII that has the USSR defeated, similar to how fascism isn't in the Losing the Peace TL; that would end up making the post war pretty crazy so to say (and I'm not talking about nukes mind you).

And I too am not fond of the Cold War being seen as a Grey and Gray affair; I'd like to think of it as a grey and black affair IMO.

If the Soviets started a conventional WWIII I think that would pretty thoroughly discredit Communism. Even today it isn't a widely loved ideology. Throw some more millions of deaths on the pile in an unprovoked offensive (NATO wasn't going to start anything so that's pretty much the only way it could happen) and I think it would be a hated to an only slightly milder degree than fascism.
 
With respect, I think you're wanking the Category C divisions. Yes, it is technically possible to move their Category C's in thirty days. If NATO wanted to they could as well, the problem is that the level of performance you will get out of them will reflect to a great degree the level of preparation their men had. Military skills atrophy heavily in a short period of time with no practice. Unpracticed reservists with T-55's going up against the best troops in the world isn't a great proposition.
They're not exactly shock troops, but you always want to get there first with the most men; even if the Category Cs took 60 days to get into the field, the US still wouldn't have reserve divisions in a position to stop them. By the time American reservists get on the scene, the Soviets will still have their 17-25 mobilization base divisions ready to reinforce the front. Fighting just to get back on the board is not great position to be in, especially considering the disadvantageous positioning of the West Germans.

It would be interesting if I could find studies on the Soviets' capacity for economic mobilization; IIRC, around 1970 military spending was about 8% of GDP, and they'd taken measures before WWII to make sure their heavy industry could be switched over to war production. This would mostly be a long war question, which nobody wanted, but still interesting to think about how many T-72s and BTRs they could build in the 90 days they'd want to limit the war to.
 
If we take nukes out of the equation how many troops can the NATO and the Warsaw Pact could throw into the meatgrinder before they ran out of men.
 
If we take nukes out of the equation how many troops can the NATO and the Warsaw Pact could throw into the meatgrinder before they ran out of men.
Dunno about NATO, but depending on how you count it, the Pact has 155-184 divisions in three strategic echelons for war in Europe; assuming a wartime division slice of 25,000, somewhere around 4 million men. The Soviets would still have about a million <5 year reservists left over, plus annual classes of ~2 million 18 year olds from which they could form new divisions.
 
They're not exactly shock troops, but you always want to get there first with the most men; even if the Category Cs took 60 days to get into the field, the US still wouldn't have reserve divisions in a position to stop them. By the time American reservists get on the scene, the Soviets will still have their 17-25 mobilization base divisions ready to reinforce the front. Fighting just to get back on the board is not great position to be in, especially considering the disadvantageous positioning of the West Germans.

It would be interesting if I could find studies on the Soviets' capacity for economic mobilization; IIRC, around 1970 military spending was about 8% of GDP, and they'd taken measures before WWII to make sure their heavy industry could be switched over to war production. This would mostly be a long war question, which nobody wanted, but still interesting to think about how many T-72s and BTRs they could build in the 90 days they'd want to limit the war to.

The Soviets/Russians kind of have a history of overestimating how much superior quantity will matter while when the quality of the other side is far better. Quantity over quality didn't work in the Crimean War, Russo-Japanese War, in WWI, against Poland, against Finland, the Soviet military in WWII only really started winning when it qualitatively improved, and post-USSR that model really didn't work in the Chechen Wars and Georgia (they got victory of sorts in Georgia and the Second Chechen War but it was way harder than it should have been and even that only came after a lot of qualitative improvement work post-First Chechen War). Given that track record I'm not really optimistic about the value of shoving poorly-prepared troops in obsolete equipment at the front lines.
 
The Soviets/Russians kind of have a history of overestimating how much superior quantity will matter while when the quality of the other side is far better. Quantity over quality didn't work in the Crimean War, Russo-Japanese War, in WWI, against Poland, against Finland, the Soviet military in WWII only really started winning when it qualitatively improved, and post-USSR that model really didn't work in the Chechen Wars and Georgia (they got victory of sorts in Georgia and the Second Chechen War but it was way harder than it should have been and even that only came after a lot of qualitative improvement work post-First Chechen War). Given that track record I'm not really optimistic about the value of shoving poorly-prepared troops in obsolete equipment at the front lines.

The Russians were basically at numerical parity in the RJW, and outnumbered badly in Crimea.
 
The Russians were basically at numerical parity in the RJW, and outnumbered badly in Crimea.

It isn't my best area by wiki cites the amount the Russians fielded as being quite a bit higher than the allies and it says they did outnumber the Japanese in the RJW by >12% in total number of troops mobilized and ~8% in number active at any given time. They both cite specific sources that look good enough and it's late at night, so pardon my lack of a better source.
 
Well in ancient and medieval times up until maybe I dunno 1700 or something it probably worked-10,000 peasants given a spear will overwhelm a hundred elite soldiers.

But it doesn't work in an era of mass produced bullets. The Russians thought they could send more men into the fray "than the germans had bullets" which cost Russia something like a million men
 
The Soviets/Russians kind of have a history of overestimating how much superior quantity will matter while when the quality of the other side is far better. Quantity over quality didn't work in the Crimean War, Russo-Japanese War, in WWI, against Poland, against Finland, the Soviet military in WWII only really started winning when it qualitatively improved, and post-USSR that model really didn't work in the Chechen Wars and Georgia (they got victory of sorts in Georgia and the Second Chechen War but it was way harder than it should have been and even that only came after a lot of qualitative improvement work post-First Chechen War). Given that track record I'm not really optimistic about the value of shoving poorly-prepared troops in obsolete equipment at the front lines.
The Soviets remained tactically inferior for the duration of the Great Patriotic War, but it didn't matter because they had established a massive superiority of forces and dictated the initiative through superior strategic/operational planning, and they did win the war with Finland (not something to write home about, but neither is losing the territory you wanted to keep). They never could have survived WWII if it wasn't for their numerical superiority; despite the entire strength of the pre-war Red Army being wiped out in three months, by October 1941, it was larger than it had been on 22 June. Modern warfare pours blood out like water, and you need to be able to replace your frontline forces once they're destroyed. For basically all of military history, superiority in numbers has been one of the most important advantages one could have; Hannibal ultimately couldn't counter the 25 legions the Romans had in the field, and even Napoleon couldn't overcome the Sixth Coalition's superiority once they'd figured out the right strategy. NATO had a very good reason for its willingness to strike first with nuclear weapons while it still had superiority.
 
The Soviets remained tactically inferior for the duration of the Great Patriotic War, but it didn't matter because they had established a massive superiority of forces and dictated the initiative through superior strategic/operational planning, and they did win the war with Finland (not something to write home about, but neither is losing the territory you wanted to keep). They never could have survived WWII if it wasn't for their numerical superiority; despite the entire strength of the pre-war Red Army being wiped out in three months, by October 1941, it was larger than it had been on 22 June. Modern warfare pours blood out like water, and you need to be able to replace your frontline forces once they're destroyed. For basically all of military history, superiority in numbers has been one of the most important advantages one could have; Hannibal ultimately couldn't counter the 25 legions the Romans had in the field, and even Napoleon couldn't overcome the Sixth Coalition's superiority once they'd figured out the right strategy. NATO had a very good reason for its willingness to strike first with nuclear weapons while it still had superiority.

The numerical superiority was important but there are numerous things you are IMHO overlooking. The Soviets received MASSIVE aid from the wealthiest countries in the world who not only supplied them but actively fought their enemies and kept large portions of their forces occupied. This aid actually was a major contribution to the Soviet numerical superiority because without the allied aid of food and weaponry they would have had to have far more men farming and working in the factories rather than fighting. This allowed them to maintain a far higher teeth to tail ration than would normally have been possible. They also had areas in which they were technologically superior to the Germans. The T-34 was the best tank produced during WWII, their artillery in some ways was arguably better, etc.

Also, in between attrition of German combat veterans and Soviet improvements I wonder how late in the war the Reich had tactical superiority.

Those things aren't in play in a NATO war scenario.
 
Kick
I didn't volunteer. I reported @Sorairo last night, but the mods didn't do jack shit about a guy whitewashing history of fascist and other right wing dictatorships. I then felt it was my duty as a civilised person and an opponent of fascism to point out that what kind of innacuracies he was spouting about Yugoslavia that came straight out of pens of people who were literally members of fascist groups. Not to change his mind, but to show whoever might see the thread how wrong his statements were.

I live in a country where the spread of the same lies he's spouting has contributed to a situation where people openly gather in their thousands to celebrate a genocidal pro-nazi regime that Tito fought and brought down. I don't want to stand aside and let this go unanswered unlike the mods who are mostly American and have different priorities when it comes to surpressing far-right propaganda.

Or you could just fuck off and have a normal discussion instead of trying to run people off the board.
 
The numerical superiority was important but there are numerous things you are IMHO overlooking. The Soviets received MASSIVE aid from the wealthiest countries in the world who not only supplied them but actively fought their enemies and kept large portions of their forces occupied. This aid actually was a major contribution to the Soviet numerical superiority because without the allied aid of food and weaponry they would have had to have far more men farming and working in the factories rather than fighting. This allowed them to maintain a far higher teeth to tail ration than would normally have been possible. They also had areas in which they were technologically superior to the Germans. The T-34 was the best tank produced during WWII, their artillery in some ways was arguably better, etc.

Also, in between attrition of German combat veterans and Soviet improvements I wonder how late in the war the Reich had tactical superiority.

Those things aren't in play in a NATO war scenario.
The Germans in WWII were also much more mobilized than NATO would be, and began the war with the initiative, occupying most the Soviet Union's most valuable territories after destroying Red Army 1.0. In a WWIII scenario, much of the most important conventional ally in Central Europe is going to be sitting behind enemy lines in a matter of weeks, if not days; given the memory of WWII and its destructiveness, the Continental allies would be tempted to spare themselves the devastation.
 
RE: Clancy specifically, I have to chalk up to him my initial optimism in NATO's ability in a conventional war, and juvenile concentration on technology and firepower for 'silver bullet' solutions to strategic problems.

The later chapters of Red Storm rising are pretty in-depth about issues of getting fresh troops and munitions to the fronts and dealing with the loss of your flashy new equipment-- in fact, one of the main characters ends up commanding a ship from the mothball fleet.

I have issues with how 'meh' character dialogue is in his novels, but Clancy certainly doesn't make tech a cure for all issues. Think about how badly some of the US carrier groups and AEGIS cruisers get taken out in quick order.

Also, it's not like he was wrong, a conventional 1988 WWIII would have been game, set, match for NATO.
 
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Also, it's not like he was wrong, a conventional 1988 WWIII would have been game, set, match for NATO.
Personally doubt it; numerical inferiority, more complicated alliance politics, and weak forward positions are serious millstones to have around your neck. Tech is good to have, but better organization and capacity to mobilize are more reliable advantages.
 
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