Dayton Kitchens
Banned
Well, for a start, Iran wasn't still under the Shah in OTL's 1985.
Well, in IOTL, Soviet personnel quality and maintnence standards had been declined too the point where a NATO victory in the conventional phase of the war becomes not just possible, but likely.
It will be murderously bloody though, even if they find the pixie dust to keep it conventional.
600-900 million world wide inside of six months, depending on the details.
In terms of the conventional conflict, I actually would go with Hackett's numbers given the aforementioned problems the Warsaw Pact was suffering by then.
For the 79-83 time frame, I would say 1.5 times more with somewhat greater NATO casualties and somewhat lesser Warsaw Pact casualties. '83-'87 time frame I would say twice as many total dead, although how I would distribute them I am unsure.
So something they had no expectation of happening at all. Especially since even once the intel is apparent, much of NATO can't actually do all that much until the individual member states agree.
.
What I should've said was "actionable intel". That is NATO learns of Soviet intentions sufficiently for comprehensive action to be taken by the alliance.
So you would go:
Hackett scenario in the 1989-1991 timeframe. 7.5 million killed total in a brief war.
Hackett scenario in the 1979-1983 time frame. 11-12 million killed in a brief war.
Hackett scenario in the 1983-1987 time frame. 15 million killed in a brief war.
And by the way, regarding the Shah of Iran, in his "sequel" which basically updated the original, Hackett accounted for the Shah of Iran falling from power, Egypt continuing to be allied to the United States, and Jimmy Carter not being elected for a second term. He made oblique reference to both Reagan (not named outright) and Thatcher (called by a different name) in "The Third World War: The Untold Story".