CivisOccidensSum
Banned
I'm thinking of writing a TL about the headline, but I'll be so bold as to first ask if there's any interest in it, before I dedicate lots of time to writing it 
Warsaw-pact invasion of Europe - from the Danish perspective
- Thread starter CivisOccidensSum
- Start date
Naturi
Banned
Soviet plans envisioned Poland being the main part of invasion force against Denmark. They hoped to avoid cases of desertion and Poles surrendering to troops in Germany-many Poles knew German or English(at least in numbers that were worrisome to Soviet planners), Danish was virtually unknown as was the culture and society. So the Polish Army was to be used against Denmark.
http://bellum.com.pl/iii-wojna-swiatowa-polski-plan-ataku-na-zachod/
BTW the plan included 12 nuclear strikes. The march was to be through northern Germany in 6 days.
http://bellum.com.pl/iii-wojna-swiatowa-polski-plan-ataku-na-zachod/
BTW the plan included 12 nuclear strikes. The march was to be through northern Germany in 6 days.
CivisOccidensSum
Banned
I can't read the link - since I can't read Polish Is there an English-language version somewhere?
Guess that does change things a bit, though...my plan was to have the NVA do an amphibious invasion from Falster and race towards Copenhagen.
With nukes in the game, it's all over....no way is Denmark going to keep up the fight after nukes are used - even though we would've wanted to, there's no government (left- or right-wing) that'd not surrender in the face of nuclear destruction...... 12 nukes for a country as small as Denmark DOES seem like overkill though?
One thing that bothers me, is that I can think of maybe 3-4 targets worthy of a tactical nuke, but not 12. It doesn't make sense to me that they'd PLAN on using tac nukes, because they'd know that once you start using nukes, THAT cat is out of the bag, and the road to Armageddon open.
I'm not saying that I don't believe it If that was the plan, that was the plan...but I can't see why they'd risk nuclear holocaust because of Denmark..
Hmm....maybe it'll have to be mostly a "how does the Polish occupation go?"-TL...
Is there an English-language version somewhere?Guess that does change things a bit, though...my plan was to have the NVA do an amphibious invasion from Falster and race towards Copenhagen.
With nukes in the game, it's all over....no way is Denmark going to keep up the fight after nukes are used - even though we would've wanted to, there's no government (left- or right-wing) that'd not surrender in the face of nuclear destruction...... 12 nukes for a country as small as Denmark DOES seem like overkill though?
One thing that bothers me, is that I can think of maybe 3-4 targets worthy of a tactical nuke, but not 12. It doesn't make sense to me that they'd PLAN on using tac nukes, because they'd know that once you start using nukes, THAT cat is out of the bag, and the road to Armageddon open.
I'm not saying that I don't believe it
If that was the plan, that was the plan...but I can't see why they'd risk nuclear holocaust because of Denmark.. Hmm....maybe it'll have to be mostly a "how does the Polish occupation go?"-TL...
CivisOccidensSum
Banned
See - that's the thing...I don't know exactly yet. A big issue for me is avoiding those darn ASBs whereever I can, which is also why I put this post out here
It has been said that the WP planned on hitting Denmark with 12 nukes. If this is true, then I cannot avoid that escalation. Then, the scenario will be more of a "How will the Polish occupation go?", as I said, than a "How will they take control?".
Though, if an all-out nuclear exchange DID take place between the WP and NATO, then we wouldn't really need more than a few weeks before the world has gone to heck in a haybasket. I guess I'm just having difficulties accepting the idea of either side risking that over Denmark....are we really THAT important?
Actually, if you look only at the map (without understanding the words) you can see that they planed to use nukes all over the front, not only in Denmark. I remember finding an english tanslation of this plan some years ago that spoke of more than 100 nukes for Germany!IIt doesn't make sense to me that they'd PLAN on using tac nukes, because they'd know that once you start using nukes, THAT cat is out of the bag, and the road to Armageddon open.
I'm not saying that I don't believe it
Also, Warsaw Pact plans usually started with the assumption that they would be counteratacking after the "evil imperialists" had struck first, presumably with nukes.
Naturi
Banned
And here you go
A Landing Operation in Denmark : New Evidence form Polish Archives
http://www.php.isn.ethz.ch/collections/colltopic.cfm?lng=en&id=16446
A Landing Operation in Denmark : New Evidence form Polish Archives
http://www.php.isn.ethz.ch/collections/colltopic.cfm?lng=en&id=16446
CivisOccidensSum
Banned
Ah yes...Roskilde (major transport hub) and Esbjerg makes sense...Another target I had in mind was the Karup Air Base...
Naturi
Banned
A Landing Operation in Denmark
The Polish Military's Losses in the First Phase of a Warsaw Pact Offensive Were to Reach 50 Percent
by Paweł Piotrowski
first published in Wprost [Warsaw], no. 25, 23 June 2002, p. 82-84.
The idea of creating a new front within the Warsaw Pact in the northern segment of the western theater of war was born after the October 1956 watershed, when Poles replaced Soviet officers in the leadership positions of the General Staff of the Polish People's Army. To Gomułka's team, the creation of a national front manifested the sovereignty of the People's Republic. But Moscow viewed Poland's aspirations with distrust. Even though the Politbureau had approved the decision in 1958, it was not until 1961 that the Kremlin agreed to this form of involvement in the Warsaw Pact for Poland.
A Polish delegation went to Moscow then to collect a handwritten directive from the USSR's minister of national defense, Rodion Malinovsky, which spelled out the Polish Front's mandate. On the basis of this directive, the Poles drew up a front operational plan for their People's Army. The Soviet side charted the operational direction of the front and its basic parameters.
The Rhine
According to the Polish Front's operational plan, codeword OP-61, the First and Second Armies formed by the Pomeranian and Silesian Military Districts were to attack first. It was assumed that the attacking NATO forces (it was always the imperialists who started wars) would be stopped by Soviet units stationed in the GDR. At the same time, units of the Polish Front would reach their areas of concentration in northern Poland and the GDR, where a developed military infrastructure and ammunition, fuel, and equipment warehouses were located. The Polish attack would head from western Mecklenburg toward Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein. In two or three days, the attacking armies would break up NATO's Jutland Military Corps, reach the Elbe and the Danish-German border.
In the second phase of the offensive, the Polish Front troops would cross the Elbe and reach the Rhine and Moselle Rivers across the plains of Lower Saxony and Holland. The General Staff's planning did not go beyond this line, since the front's subsequent goals would be set by the Warsaw Pact leadership. The Fourth Army deployed by the Warsaw Military District had a different mission. In peacetime, its units were heavily reduced (below 30 percent of the strength planned for the eventuality of war). Their equipment also differed significantly from that of the Pomeranian and Silesian Districts. Compensating for this disadvantage would be nuclear strikes accompanied by concentrated acts of sabotage and propaganda. The Fourth Army's mission was to mobilize quickly, deploy its troops over a distance of more than 1,000 kilometers (from northern Mazovia and Warmia to Hamburg), make the transition "from marching" to fighting and controlling the Jutland Peninsula, the Danish isles, and then occupy Denmark.
The Danish Straits
The Navy was to support the northern wing of the front attacking along the coast. The first exercises of this "teamwork between naval and land forces" were conducted in 1954. At that time, the naval forces were stronger than what was planned for mobilization. This changed in subsequent years, as less investment was made in the navy than in the other armed forces. After the Warsaw Pact was founded in 1955, cooperation was built up with the USSR's Baltic Fleet and the GDR navy. From the early 1960s on, these forces together formed the United Fleet. Its main goals were to dominate the Baltic Sea, cooperate on a landing operation on the Danish isles, and secure free access to the North Sea.
A landing on the Danish coast was prominent in plans being made in 1961-63. Selected for this mission were the Seventh Landing Division ("blue berets") and the Sixth Air-Landing Division ("red berets"). These units were being prepared for an air-sea operational landing on the Danish isles located between Great Belt and Øresund (including Zealand). The Polish divisions would be backed up by the Baltic Fleet, Soviet air-landing and marine units, and a landing regiment of the National People's Army of the GDR.
In 1962-73, Polish shipyards constructed 23 ships intended for the Second Brigade of Landing Ships stationed in Świnoujście. Plans were also made to buttress the landing forces with ships mobilized from the civilian fleet. After gaining control of Zealand, the landing forces could be used to launch an attack on southern Norway, around Oslo.
The Nuclear Sword
From the 1960s, the leadership of the Warsaw Pact attached great importance to equipping its armies with missiles, considered the best carriers of nuclear warheads. In 1961-68, the Polish army formed four artillery brigades equipped with operational-tactical rockets and fourteen artillery units armed with tactical missiles. In virtually every exercise, the concentrated use of nuclear weapons presaged success. In an offensive operation, the exercises assumed the use of nuclear strikes of various magnitudes (on the territory of the FRG alone, there were to be some 100 of them). Every attacking unit would use 30-40 operational-tactical missiles (with a 300 km range), 50-60 tactical missiles (with a range of up to 65 km), and conduct 6-15 nuclear bombardments.
If the enemy used nuclear weapons, the operational plans expected major losses. Estimates made in the early 1970s projected operational troop losses of 48-53 percent in the first front operation.
Plans for the Polish Front continued to be perfected until the end of the Warsaw Pact. It is fortunate that we managed to avoid seeing our troops march in the streets of Copenhagen or Hamburg, transformed into a radioactive desert. At the same time, the streets of Warsaw, Cracow, and other Polish cities would have looked similar.
A Polish Nuclear Attack
"It is desirable to consider (...) nuclear attacks on such centers as Hannover or Brunswick, Kiel and Bremen. The destruction of these cities will likely cause a complete disorganization of political life, the economy, etc. It will significantly influence the creation of panic in areas of nuclear strikes. The exploitation of the effects of strikes by our propaganda may contribute to the spread of panic among enemy armies and populations (...). In order to exclude Denmark from the war as quickly as possible, nuclear strikes should be launched at Esbjerg (an important strategic point in the NATO system) and Roskilde (Zealand Island), and subsequently a widespread special propaganda action aimed at deepening the existing panic should be conducted to warn Denmark's troops and civilian population of the consequences of further resistance and the threat that, in the event of continuation of the war, further atomic strikes will occur."
(Excerpt from a presentation by the commander of the Polish Front, General Zygmunt Duszyński, in 1961)
Paweł Piotrowski works as a historian in the Wrocław division of the Institute of National Remembrance, specializing in the military affairs of the Polish People's Republic.
The Polish Military's Losses in the First Phase of a Warsaw Pact Offensive Were to Reach 50 Percent
by Paweł Piotrowski
first published in Wprost [Warsaw], no. 25, 23 June 2002, p. 82-84.
The idea of creating a new front within the Warsaw Pact in the northern segment of the western theater of war was born after the October 1956 watershed, when Poles replaced Soviet officers in the leadership positions of the General Staff of the Polish People's Army. To Gomułka's team, the creation of a national front manifested the sovereignty of the People's Republic. But Moscow viewed Poland's aspirations with distrust. Even though the Politbureau had approved the decision in 1958, it was not until 1961 that the Kremlin agreed to this form of involvement in the Warsaw Pact for Poland.
A Polish delegation went to Moscow then to collect a handwritten directive from the USSR's minister of national defense, Rodion Malinovsky, which spelled out the Polish Front's mandate. On the basis of this directive, the Poles drew up a front operational plan for their People's Army. The Soviet side charted the operational direction of the front and its basic parameters.
The Rhine
According to the Polish Front's operational plan, codeword OP-61, the First and Second Armies formed by the Pomeranian and Silesian Military Districts were to attack first. It was assumed that the attacking NATO forces (it was always the imperialists who started wars) would be stopped by Soviet units stationed in the GDR. At the same time, units of the Polish Front would reach their areas of concentration in northern Poland and the GDR, where a developed military infrastructure and ammunition, fuel, and equipment warehouses were located. The Polish attack would head from western Mecklenburg toward Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein. In two or three days, the attacking armies would break up NATO's Jutland Military Corps, reach the Elbe and the Danish-German border.
In the second phase of the offensive, the Polish Front troops would cross the Elbe and reach the Rhine and Moselle Rivers across the plains of Lower Saxony and Holland. The General Staff's planning did not go beyond this line, since the front's subsequent goals would be set by the Warsaw Pact leadership. The Fourth Army deployed by the Warsaw Military District had a different mission. In peacetime, its units were heavily reduced (below 30 percent of the strength planned for the eventuality of war). Their equipment also differed significantly from that of the Pomeranian and Silesian Districts. Compensating for this disadvantage would be nuclear strikes accompanied by concentrated acts of sabotage and propaganda. The Fourth Army's mission was to mobilize quickly, deploy its troops over a distance of more than 1,000 kilometers (from northern Mazovia and Warmia to Hamburg), make the transition "from marching" to fighting and controlling the Jutland Peninsula, the Danish isles, and then occupy Denmark.
The Danish Straits
The Navy was to support the northern wing of the front attacking along the coast. The first exercises of this "teamwork between naval and land forces" were conducted in 1954. At that time, the naval forces were stronger than what was planned for mobilization. This changed in subsequent years, as less investment was made in the navy than in the other armed forces. After the Warsaw Pact was founded in 1955, cooperation was built up with the USSR's Baltic Fleet and the GDR navy. From the early 1960s on, these forces together formed the United Fleet. Its main goals were to dominate the Baltic Sea, cooperate on a landing operation on the Danish isles, and secure free access to the North Sea.
A landing on the Danish coast was prominent in plans being made in 1961-63. Selected for this mission were the Seventh Landing Division ("blue berets") and the Sixth Air-Landing Division ("red berets"). These units were being prepared for an air-sea operational landing on the Danish isles located between Great Belt and Øresund (including Zealand). The Polish divisions would be backed up by the Baltic Fleet, Soviet air-landing and marine units, and a landing regiment of the National People's Army of the GDR.
In 1962-73, Polish shipyards constructed 23 ships intended for the Second Brigade of Landing Ships stationed in Świnoujście. Plans were also made to buttress the landing forces with ships mobilized from the civilian fleet. After gaining control of Zealand, the landing forces could be used to launch an attack on southern Norway, around Oslo.
The Nuclear Sword
From the 1960s, the leadership of the Warsaw Pact attached great importance to equipping its armies with missiles, considered the best carriers of nuclear warheads. In 1961-68, the Polish army formed four artillery brigades equipped with operational-tactical rockets and fourteen artillery units armed with tactical missiles. In virtually every exercise, the concentrated use of nuclear weapons presaged success. In an offensive operation, the exercises assumed the use of nuclear strikes of various magnitudes (on the territory of the FRG alone, there were to be some 100 of them). Every attacking unit would use 30-40 operational-tactical missiles (with a 300 km range), 50-60 tactical missiles (with a range of up to 65 km), and conduct 6-15 nuclear bombardments.
If the enemy used nuclear weapons, the operational plans expected major losses. Estimates made in the early 1970s projected operational troop losses of 48-53 percent in the first front operation.
Plans for the Polish Front continued to be perfected until the end of the Warsaw Pact. It is fortunate that we managed to avoid seeing our troops march in the streets of Copenhagen or Hamburg, transformed into a radioactive desert. At the same time, the streets of Warsaw, Cracow, and other Polish cities would have looked similar.
A Polish Nuclear Attack
"It is desirable to consider (...) nuclear attacks on such centers as Hannover or Brunswick, Kiel and Bremen. The destruction of these cities will likely cause a complete disorganization of political life, the economy, etc. It will significantly influence the creation of panic in areas of nuclear strikes. The exploitation of the effects of strikes by our propaganda may contribute to the spread of panic among enemy armies and populations (...). In order to exclude Denmark from the war as quickly as possible, nuclear strikes should be launched at Esbjerg (an important strategic point in the NATO system) and Roskilde (Zealand Island), and subsequently a widespread special propaganda action aimed at deepening the existing panic should be conducted to warn Denmark's troops and civilian population of the consequences of further resistance and the threat that, in the event of continuation of the war, further atomic strikes will occur."
(Excerpt from a presentation by the commander of the Polish Front, General Zygmunt Duszyński, in 1961)
Paweł Piotrowski works as a historian in the Wrocław division of the Institute of National Remembrance, specializing in the military affairs of the Polish People's Republic.
CivisOccidensSum
Banned
Isn't the tacit prerequisite in the article here, that nukes had already been used elsewhere in the theatre, by NATO? In SUCH an event, it would make sense for the WP to lob a few our way, as a "GTFO!"-statement. But to use them first against DENMARK seems....seems too far-fetched for even the most rabid ideologues, IMHO.
I'm now imagining some neo-feudal post-apocalyptic Denmark in which the armed ruling class all speaks Polish and the abused peasants/proles all speak Danish.
Since the Danes are a Germanic people, Hurgan would be pleased.
Since the Danes are a Germanic people, Hurgan would be pleased.
CivisOccidensSum
Banned
The plans to invade, or the plans to use nukes?
Because my original idea was to have this happen in the early 80's, and if they kept the "Let's invade Denmark", but did away with the "..and let's glass it too!", that'd be optimal for what I envisioned.
Clipper747
Banned
I'm thinking of writing a TL about the headline, but I'll be so bold as to first ask if there's any interest in it, before I dedicate lots of time to writing it
Absolutely. I'd be very interested to read it.