Who would win in a 1980s air war: NATO or the Warsaw Pact?

Who would win in a 1980s air war?

  • NATO

    Votes: 222 92.1%
  • Warsaw Pact

    Votes: 19 7.9%

  • Total voters
    241
That goes both ways; the Soviets would also be able to move up supplies and reinforcements if the air forces are just cancelling each other out, and they have a lot more reinforcements they can move up.
Yes but presumably the Soviets / WP have the initiative and NATO has to react to them. I think realitive freedom from air attack is a bigger advantage for NATO overall who likely have to move forces from peace time locations.
 
I should point out that even during the period where the two sides air forces are "cancelling each other out", either side is liable to be able to still have a strike get through and release strike their targets. Under such circumstances what matters most is the ability to deceive your opponent as to the location and status of the targets they wish to and have struck.

I should further point out that even if the NATO or the Warsaw Pact loses air superiority, their aircraft will be able to continue flying to some degree. This would require a mental shift to aerial guerrilla warfare, rather than the wholesale sledgehammer of a air campaign that either side envisioned starting with but that is liable to be a natural adjustment as assets dwindle on one or both sides. So regardless of whether NATO or the Warsaw Pact ultimately wins the air war, in the end there is still liable be notable numbers of NATO or WP strike planes and helicopters operating over the front striking at enemy forces.
 
While being occupied and forcibly "socialized/communized" by the USSR would have been a terrible thing for >90% of the population, survival and an acceptable if reduced lifestyle was possible. Unlike the Nazis, the Soviets were not going to be exterminating 50-90% of the population (in the east) or select Untermenschen in the west. The USSR of the 1960s or the 1980s is not the Stalinist USSR that took over Eastern Europe after WWII. Naturally select segments of the population will be hit hard, but actually only a small slice would for sure be killed or sent to the GULAG. For the vast majority keeping your mouth shut, keeping your head down, and doing the minimum at work to avoid attracting negative notice will keep you and your family alive and out of the spotlight.

Doing all of the above means never talking about "rights", avoiding going to the church/synagogue/mosque, and even at home being careful about what you say. With your children being careful about trying to counteract what they will now be taught in schools. Naturally any guns you have will be gone, and having your house searched for "wrong" books on your bookshelves might be expect - hiding guns or banned books would very risky. Basically those who are below the line for "capitalists", known political activists, "senior" military active/retired will be left alone as the Soviets want a productive captured nation. Left alone means following the rules as outlined. Executions, GULAGs, and reduced rations will, of course happen but no Generalplan Ost.

I'd argue otherwise. Occupying Eastern Europe, installing friendly regimes or client states in Africa, Asia, and in a few cases Latin America is one thing. Occupying the "other superpower" is another. And if I failed to do so I apologize, but in the novel I spoke of the USSR had been taken over by a Communist-Bonapartist regime. The whole thing only came apart when an SR-71 nuked the super-laser site outside Tashkent, THAT'S IT! Now I remember. The book was called "The Tashkent Crisis" by William Craig.

Anyway, the leader of the military cabal was ready to go to WWIII with a strategic exchange regardless (buck fever), until his comrades deposed him.

Having the USA occupied unties the hands of the Soviets completely? There's no need to accept "Finlandization" or even a "Yugoslavia Solution". Why bother with half-a-loaf when you can conquer the whole baking industry? BTW, this book came out AFTER Russia's break with China, but only by a matter of months. The author chose not to make it an issue for the sake of the story. And Red China in 1971 wasn't the nuclear power it is today.

Don't try to straw-man me, Glenn. <snip> It's juvenile of you. So why are you doing underhanded stuff like straw-men? *cough!* Oh, boy, I need a cite for that one. <snip>

Easy...!:confounded:

I'm a professional military officer (one more year to retirement!) (1) so I'm sort of sold on the importance of C3I, Brother. (2)

1) Thank you for your service.:cool::):angel::cool:

2) Be nice to your brother.;) Family is family.:) Unless you're a Lannister.:happyblush

While I don't disagree with this, I just don't see NATO accepting any terms worse than perhaps "Finlandization" of any of their member states without at least using tactical nuclear weapons.

Hence, the novel using science-fiction to show an extreme vision where the USSR actually had the power to demand unconditional surrender. And if the character of the SecDef had actually been the POTUS...!:eek: Of course, Craig was looking to sell books, not get himself on a Secret Service Watch List!:eek:

In my view the people in charge have too much personally to loose, I have my doubts that to accept worse terms would be accepted by the population at large in many nations and the nuclear armed great powers have too much prestige on the line to accept anything worse and even accepting "Finlandization" is probably a stretch unless the government of the nation in question essentially decides to leave NATO.

Agreed.

The book was however explicitly about the US v. the USSR. And the Soviet cabal expressly forbid the US government from saying anything until the arrival of Soviet occupation troops (by the time Tashkent went boom there was a Soviet naval force complete with occupation troops closing for New York City). The level of deception the US practiced to keep its allies "out-of-the-loop" would probably have destroyed all of its alliances post-crisis anyway. Especially with the Israelis, who HAD figured out how their nukes were destroyed.

Not that post-crisis politics was a concern of the author.

Sure, NATO would be able to sustain the air war longer than the WP, but that's not enough for them; they need to win it quickly and decisively, if they're going to prevent their ground forces from being overrun and destroyed. If the two air forces just cancel each other out for a week or two, that works largely to the WP's advantage.

All this depends on the nature of surprise enjoyed by the Soviets. If Strategic, the NATO air forces are going to be destroyed on the ground Six Day War/Pearl Harbor style anyway. If Tactical, then yes, this is a good description. If no surprise at the end of an extended buildup by both sides...? Then that's fighting the war the way NATO wants to. A head on collision of massive forces, with little progress being made by either side, while there is even a chance in the event of a NATO counter-offensive of entering East Germany itself! If NATO ever takes a Warsaw Pact city...the political ramifications in Moscow could be devastating.
 
I'd argue otherwise. Occupying Eastern Europe, installing friendly regimes or client states in Africa, Asia, and in a few cases Latin America is one thing. Occupying the "other superpower" is another. And if I failed to do so I apologize, but in the novel I spoke of the USSR had been taken over by a Communist-Bonapartist regime. The whole thing only came apart when an SR-71 nuked the super-laser site outside Tashkent, THAT'S IT! Now I remember. The book was called "The Tashkent Crisis" by William Craig.

What precisely was stopping the US from telling the USSR to back down before the US decided that if it's lost anyways, it might as well drag the USSR down with it? And then launching a full first strike. I mean apparently the laser can fire every thirty seconds, and lets assume that every shot has perfect accuracy. That knocks down about 30-34 ICBMS before the next dozen plaster the entire operating site. Everyone loses in the end, and all because you didn't offer your rival a way out that would save face.
 
An SR-71? What, did they have it do a kamikaze run?

Pretty much. The Soviets decided to use nuclear-equipped SAMs to take it out, and IIRC the aircrew were volunteers. But as it turned out, the SR-71 was a decoy. The actual strike force was a suicide team helicoptered in from Iran. They were made up of an American Special Forces member commanding a team of anti-communist Soviet exiles. None survived, while the SR-71 got out without a scratch, the missiles aimed for it went off short of target, and all the SAM sites around the laser facility were melted when the team's bomb was detonated, just as they were about to be captured.
 
But the West had something like 15,000 jets

Now there's an extreme overestimate. Total number of NATO tactical strike aircraft slated to Europe in 1984 comes out to just under 3,000 jets from the outset, plus potentially as much 1,750 further aircraft as reinforcements from the United States and Canada. The same Soviet aircraft works out to around 7,000 tactical strike aircraft from the outset, plus as much as 2,500 potential reinforcements from the USSR.
 
What precisely was stopping the US from telling the USSR to back down before the US decided that if it's lost anyways, it might as well drag the USSR down with it? And then launching a full first strike. I mean apparently the laser can fire every thirty seconds, and lets assume that every shot has perfect accuracy. That knocks down about 30-34 ICBMS before the next dozen plaster the entire operating site. (1) Everyone loses in the end, and all because you didn't offer your rival a way out that would save face.

The laser wasn't for hitting incoming ICBM's, it was for hitting cities.(2) As I said, this was very much a story designed for showing what MIGHT be a scenario for forcing the USA to surrender, OR how the US government might reply to such a science-fiction level threat. Mind, at the time, the threat wasn't seen as being so "Flash Gordon" as it would today. The use of something called the FBOS, or Fractional Orbiting Ballistic System, was supposed to use nukes in orbit to nail ICBMs post-launch when at apogee. The problem with THAT idea was that they could just as easily be used for a first strike capability that gave the other side only minutes warning. It was one of the few new weapons systems that Brezhnev did NOT immediately fall in love with, but rather was ready to sign a treaty eliminating them ASAP before even SALT I. The ABM Treaty.

1) TBH, the author had the US administration so terrified of a "Soviet Reaction" that they never even considered making the threat of either a US First Strike OR a US Second Strike. Like I said, this was in an era where EVERYTHING wrong in the world was all the fault of the United States. The writing came off the pages literally shrieking of the "Vietnam Syndrome", which while bad enough in 1971 was only going to get worse when Saigon fell.

The novel's SecDef was making arguments so severely defeatist and self-flagellatory for the US in general that in any other administration in any other such crisis would have gotten him arrested. As it was by the time the SecDef demanded that the USA surrender, the author got himself out of that problem by having the SecDef promptly die (right in front of the Chairman of the JCS) of a heart attack.:rolleyes:

The Soviet laser facility was ringed by their most up-to-date SAMs (nuke-tipped, which the Americans didn't know about) and hoards of ADF interceptors. Also KGB & GRU troops. The problem with the Soviet Plan was that they didn't allow for suicide attacks.

2) Hence, the idea for the very much science-FICTION idea of Soviet giant "reflector" satellites to overcome the curvature of the Earth, and make possible the idea of a force threatening annihilation by a bunch of "crazy bolsheviks". The US already knew that the previous Soviet General Secretary had been deposed, (3) so the POTUS and his administration feared the worst.

3) By a known hashish addict.:eek::rolleyes: But he was only a civilian figurehead employed to put a non-military face before the public.

Though the author never said so in so many words, he left it apparent that the war plans set forth by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (4) were going to be followed if the SR-71/Special Forces strike failed. BTW, I just remembered, the SR-71 strike wasn't a decoy so much as a backup in case the strike team failed. The SR-71 turned tail only when the team's nuke went off. Oh, there were other Soviet laser sites under construction, but by the time they would be on-line so would be the Americans'.

4) His character was initially depicted as some kind of Curtis LeMay type (not Strangelove, and certainly not Jack D. Ripper). Very right wing, very much an "I told you so" throughout the story. But as things got worse and worse, he became more and more sympathetic. Even up to his becoming good friends with the new SecDef. Finally, the POTUS was following the C-of-JCS' ideas, which had been considered "insane" earlier in the story.

If the final strike failed, the reader was left with the idea that the US was, as you say Alanith, going to hit the Tashkent laser facility with as many ICBMs as they felt were necessary to obliterate the threat. And for every shot that laser got off one more target would be hit in the USSR. Though the author's having the VPOTUS "written out of the loop" by leaving him on a pre-scheduled diplomatic visit in Manila was way too much. Vice-President Richard Nixon wouldn't have been treated this badly by Eisenhower in the event of a nuclear crisis.

AISI, you're right. Even in this novel, the Soviet Cabal turned on their leader when presented with the prospects of a nuclear exchange. The super-laser just means "increasing the heat" to the conflict. Inevitably the Soviuets either back down, or its WWIII. IIRC, the end result was that the US strike on Tashkent was considered a "trade-off" for the Soviet strike on Israel.
 
Last edited:
I should point out that even during the period where the two sides air forces are "cancelling each other out", either side is liable to be able to still have a strike get through and release strike their targets. Under such circumstances what matters most is the ability to deceive your opponent as to the location and status of the targets they wish to and have struck.

I should further point out that even if the NATO or the Warsaw Pact loses air superiority, their aircraft will be able to continue flying to some degree. This would require a mental shift to aerial guerrilla warfare, rather than the wholesale sledgehammer of a air campaign that either side envisioned starting with but that is liable to be a natural adjustment as assets dwindle on one or both sides. So regardless of whether NATO or the Warsaw Pact ultimately wins the air war, in the end there is still liable be notable numbers of NATO or WP strike planes and helicopters operating over the front striking at enemy forces.
I can buy carefully planned strikes against pre planned targets being carried out under the circumstances you outline but I have my doubts either side would be willing to carry out large scale armed reconnisance / free ranging interdiction campaigns without first gaining air superiority.
 
I can buy carefully planned strikes against pre planned targets being carried out under the circumstances you outline but I have my doubts either side would be willing to carry out large scale armed reconnisance / free ranging interdiction campaigns without first gaining air superiority.

Maybe the Soviets could, being the stronger ground power at least at the outset, but for the same reason NATO can't. Whether it would matter is a different question with no obvious answer.
 
Maybe the Soviets could, being the stronger ground power at least at the outset, but for the same reason NATO can't. Whether it would matter is a different question with no obvious answer.
If the Soviets gain a sufficent level of surprise and they are able to hit NATO road and rail traffic more or less at will via air strikes I see things going very badly for NATO. I'm doubtful the Soviets could achieve this given a competent effort by the NATO air forces. That being said if NATO losses to many aircraft launching and providing fighter escorts for their own deep interdiction strikes, coupled with losses due to a successful Soviet surprise attack who knows what might happen.
 
If the Soviets gain a sufficent level of surprise and they are able to hit NATO road and rail traffic more or less at will via air strikes I see things going very badly for NATO. I'm doubtful the Soviets could achieve this given a competent effort by the NATO air forces. That being said if NATO losses to many aircraft launching and providing fighter escorts for their own deep interdiction strikes, coupled with losses due to a successful Soviet surprise attack who knows what might happen.

Hard to pull off. Both sides spent a lot of money and resources making sure exactly that kind of thing wouldn't happen. It would be just as hard to surprise the Soviets. So hard that we almost had a war because they thought we were going to launch a surprise attack against them (Able Archer)
 

GarethC

Donor
Re: the French nuclear deterrent:

If GSFG gets across the Rhine, can they be stopped conventionally from conquering France?

If France is conquered, what will be the fate of the individuals in the French nuclear chain of command? Of their families?
 
For the French nuclear personnel, naturally they will be squeezed dry if they are thought to have any useful information, of course "pressure" applied to families in front of them could help them recall important details. As for the longer term situation, I am certain the Polish officers and intellectuals who visited the Katyn Forest could give answers (and not just for nuclear folks but others as well).

As to the first question, if things have gone so wrong as to have the Soviets cross the Rhine, stopping them somewhere in France conventionally is highly unlikely, the next stop lines are the Channel and the Pyrenees.
 
It depends on what the Soviets want from France. If they want to turn France into a communist state in their bloc, they're going to have to remove most of the French government and armed forces, and possibly elicit a desperate fight to the bitter end complete with strategic nuclear weapons, but if they just want to Finlandize the place and make sure NATO doesn't use it as a staging area to liberate West Germany, the French might prefer that to their certain destruction.
 
It depends on what the Soviets want from France. If they want to turn France into a communist state in their bloc, they're going to have to remove most of the French government and armed forces, and possibly elicit a desperate fight to the bitter end complete with strategic nuclear weapons, but if they just want to Finlandize the place and make sure NATO doesn't use it as a staging area to liberate West Germany, the French might prefer that to their certain destruction.

History sadly says otherwise. If an aggressor has reached its strategic goals even faster and with less cost than they had planned, the chances of a reasonable offer of peace being made are highly unlikely.
 
History sadly says otherwise. If an aggressor has reached its strategic goals even faster and with less cost than they had planned, the chances of a reasonable offer of peace being made are highly unlikely.
Again, it depends on the situation; sure, if they want to bring Western Europe under their yoke, neutralization wouldn't make sense. However, if their real strategic goal (say a Red Storm Rising scenario where they want oil, though in this case perhaps to deny it to America and undermine the capitalist economy), they're going to have bigger fish to fry. In that case, a potentially costly occupation and regime change wouldn't make sense; same goes if the Chinese have gotten opportunistic, and the Far East divisions need reinforcement. The Soviets expected a war with the United States to be a global conflict; if they don't maintain economy of force, they risk blowing an early lead by getting bogged down installing a communist regime in France.
 
Again, it depends on the situation; sure, if they want to bring Western Europe under their yoke, neutralization wouldn't make sense. However, if their real strategic goal (say a Red Storm Rising scenario where they want oil, though in this case perhaps to deny it to America and undermine the capitalist economy), they're going to have bigger fish to fry. In that case, a potentially costly occupation and regime change wouldn't make sense; same goes if the Chinese have gotten opportunistic, and the Far East divisions need reinforcement. The Soviets expected a war with the United States to be a global conflict; if they don't maintain economy of force, they risk blowing an early lead by getting bogged down installing a communist regime in France.

True. But when in history has logic taken over when a militaristic regime gets hit with a virulent strain of buck fever?

I just had an interesting thought...How goes Soviet food production with their entire fishing fleet being sent to the bottom? Its always the little things. And a Nazi style system of national looting of Western Europe only works for a while. In WWII, by late 1942, the cupboards in Europe were bare. The Nazis couldn't "loot" any more no matter how hard they tried. One exception being Italy, which got looted post-surrender.

TBH, I'm wondering if there were any short stories written before WWII about the Nazis carrying all before them, only to have the remaining powers surrender, since "of course", they didn't want to be devastated. I had a friend who was making the argument to me that every nation in Europe should surrender if attacked by the Soviets so that their country wouldn't be "devastated" to use his words. When I raised the issue of the difference between devastation and RAPE, he just shrugged it off and repeated himself. I could understand Denmark and Czechoslovakia not resisting in WWII (it was totally hopeless for them). But just how far do you take that?

I remember one 1980s book, "The Third World War", in which Austria, Yugoslavia, Greece, and Italy surrendered without firing a shot!

And speaking of getting bogged down...Afghanistan.
 
Top