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
For those unfamiliar, this is what a massive commercial war game looks like covering the late 70s/early 80s

also has a neat map

http://www.spigames.net/MovesScans/Moves41/NextWarM41ALL.pdf

The article also goes into tactics and operational doctrine of the era.

I have that game although I havent gotten around to playing it ever.

Command: Modern Air/Naval Operations, a game that simulates modern warfare on a strategic scale, similar to Harpoon. I have CMANO (though not the latest Chains of War DLC that adds some features like cargo and aircraft damage) and I'd recommend it highly, especially to anyone who enjoyed Harpoon. It's available on Steam or through Matrix Games. It's not cheap, but it's fully worth it. Despite the "modern" in the title it is designed to simulate anything from 1950 to the 2020s.

There is (or was -- I can't find it in the latest scenario pack) a scenario called Duelists that was basically a remix of that Harpoon scenario pitting an Iowa SAG against a Kirov SAG. "Battle of the First Salvo, Eastern Med (The War that Never Was)" has a CVBG and an Iowa SAG against three Russian SAGs based around a Slava, a Kirov and a Minsk. As the title suggests, it's based on "The War that Never Was" which was just recommended, though unfortunately I haven't found a copy.

Thanks!

I played Harpoon a few times about 25 years ago.

"The War that Never Was" was a fairly good book.
 
I have that game although I havent gotten around to playing it ever.

"The War that Never Was" was a fairly good book.

Teams help with that one (at least two players per side), it is a "Monster Game" in terms of man hours to play. The Computer game "Operational Art of War IV" has enough scenarios from that era so that you can replicate a lot of it while not having to worry about cats, stacking limits of little cardboard counters and the like. (plus it handles the supply, attrition losses and friction losses for you)

I love that book. I lost it in a fire, but my kids have a copy they are supposed to send to me soon. (the first copy I had was a Fathers Day gift from them so its a little special in that regard)
 
Teams help with that one (at least two players per side), it is a "Monster Game" in terms of man hours to play. The Computer game "Operational Art of War IV" has enough scenarios from that era so that you can replicate a lot of it while not having to worry about cats, stacking limits of little cardboard counters and the like. (plus it handles the supply, attrition losses and friction losses for you)

I love that book. I lost it in a fire, but my kids have a copy they are supposed to send to me soon. (the first copy I had was a Fathers Day gift from them so its a little special in that regard)

I played TOAW a few times as well. I always liked the Korean War scenario more than the hypothetical WWIII one. My issue was that one of the key issues in a hypothetical war was the degree of surprise. I remember reading, I wish I could remember where, an American general saying that with 10 days notice of Soviet mobilization NATO would kick the hell out of the Soviets. Less than 2 days alert notice and NATO was going to need some, if not a lot, of luck. Somewhere between 3 and 8 is where things got interesting. His words not mine. Anyway, IIRC, TOAW gave you one scenario and short of doing a lot of customization which would be really time consuming, that was what you got.
 
First, beginning mid 1990s a massed tank assault in the face of these systems is suicide

Not really, it just requires differences in approach.

Regarding historical results.... these commercial games accurately simulated the various Arab Israeli Wars, as well as the Gulf War, so yes you can indeed apply historical results to test their accuracy. As the systems were close enough as to not matter (just add in better Soviet and NATO systems in terms of modernity) and there you go.

So they assume Arab-levels of (in)competency for the Soviets in the 1980s. I don't think I need to elaborate how bad an assumption that could prove to be. I imagine according to those same games, Allied Force should have seen the Serbs butchered in immense numbers.

The reality is that these games make underlying assumptions in building their simulation. Some of these assumptions are probably accurate. Others probably aren't. And yet others we just can't say for sure. It still does not make them very useful in predicting combat against the Soviets.

As to doctrine, the initial Iraqi doctrine in their war with Iran was indeed Soviet, as was Syrian doctrine in 1973. Both nations modified their doctrine after that to take into account local conditions. The Egyptians did as well, although notably before the October War which is likely why they did better than the Syrians did.

They weren't modified. They were abandoned altogether as the Arab forces found their forces totally incapable of even beginning to perform the tasks Soviet doctrine demanded of them.
 
Which is a nice red herring to my actual point that massed armor is superior to unmassed armor. The failure of massed armor lacking adequate support was a result of them lacking adequate support, not anything to do with the fact they were massed.



I own one of the versions of "How to Make War" he published around 2002. Suffice to say, I'm pulling stuff straight from there. Another instance is where he claimed that the Iraqis used the same doctrine as the Soviets... when in reality their doctrine was much more akin to that as the Anglo-French in misled-WW1.



How can you make the claim their historical results for historical decisions for a war that never happened, which by definition is not historical. I also don't see how what difference they make in supporting my assessments of Soviet capabilities (which, by the way, tend to be made with some assumptions I freely acknowledge may not have actually been the case had it come down to a shooting war so you can toss out that strawman for the moment) seeing as we don't have an actual NATO vs Warsaw Pact war with which to compare them against.

Plus, a lot of what I use for supporting my assessment does come from real life operations and I'm pretty sure that real life > any commercial wargame.

Actually your problem is that you don't define 'massed armor'. The Germans, who are the initial pioneers here, didn't used massed armor. They used massed combined arms mechanized formations that included armor, mechanized infantry, motorized artillery and engineers, along with air support, to achieve their dominance. They did not conduct the charge of the light brigade against Allied anti tank guns (mistakes that the Allies, and the Israelis in the early part of the 73 War made). The Allies used combined arms formations from the late war on, matching (mostly) German doctrine and capability. Give an example of a successful massed armored attack without supporting arms post 1940, aside from the Six Day War (the one exception).

Both NATO and the Pact had massed armor in the Central Front. In fact there is considerable discussion both then and now that the concentration of machines to space by the early 1980s made the situation more akin to World War I, Kursk or Normandy than dashing about Poland or France in 1940. That applies to the war in the air too. The alarmist predictions that the Soviets would reach the Rhine in two weeks we saw in the late 1970s always were overblown and had a lot more akin to invasion fiction than to sober assessment of likely Soviet capabilities.

What real life operations? In the last 60 years, the number of wars involving mechanized forces on a large scale are few. We have two between India and Pakistan, the PAVN invasions of South Vietnam 1972 and 1975, the Arab Israeli conflicts 1967, 73, plus Lebanon in 82, the Iran Iraq War, and the 1st and 2nd Gulf War involving the US et al against Iraq (and Iraq invading Kuwait with basically a combined arms corps to start the ball). That is it. Yugoslavia was mostly an infantry affair in rugged and urban terrain with mechanized forces limited to the few roads, while the various wars in Africa have been infantry affairs with occasional motorized forces making a difference when terrain allowed. The one mechanized invasion (Libya vs Chad) was a disaster for the mechanized force.

So what operations are we discussing here?

It should be noted that NATO did not conduct a full scale combined arms invasion of Serbia during the limited air campaign in the 1990s, so the relative combat effectiveness of Serbian (and NATO) troops were never tested in a full scale fight. If you like the Serbs I supposed you can claim they would have done well. We obviously don't know, although they were held back by the various other fragments of Yugoslavia long enough that they failed to achieve their desired results (holding Yugoslavia together or annexing permanently territory in neighboring Croatia etc)
 
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I played TOAW a few times as well. I always liked the Korean War scenario more than the hypothetical WWIII one. My issue was that one of the key issues in a hypothetical war was the degree of surprise. I remember reading, I wish I could remember where, an American general saying that with 10 days notice of Soviet mobilization NATO would kick the hell out of the Soviets. Less than 2 days alert notice and NATO was going to need some, if not a lot, of luck. Somewhere between 3 and 8 is where things got interesting. His words not mine. Anyway, IIRC, TOAW gave you one scenario and short of doing a lot of customization which would be really time consuming, that was what you got.

Matrix games has a few scenarios you can download for free, three of them are essentially "The Next War" with the 3 options for surprise, build up to crisis, and short build up to crisis. Its a bit time consuming so I have only played one of the (the surprise version) one time so far.
 
During the Cold War, the most worrisome and most unlikely was the so called BOOB attack (bolt out of the blue), where you had a Klingon"it is a good day to die" moment and the war started. In reality the ability of the Soviets to start a war some random day was almost zero. There were too many indicators that would be noticed, now NATO/US could refuse to believe these were really a threat and fail to heighten readiness, but that is almost ASB. There would be differences between troop, materiel, and supply movements for even a major exercise and a real attack. The previous is for a conventional attack just looking at land forces - there are separate and pretty glaring indicators for air and naval preparation as well, and trust me those were watched very carefully.

For nuclear attacks, since the Soviets had air base problem, in that their major full service bases were not close enough to the USA for bomber attacks without a lot of tankage and they were always short on tankers. This meant they had to forward stage nuclear forces, and they also did not have the sort of airborne alert SAC had. Also, the chain of custody for nuclear weapons was more complex so bombs were rarely if ever pre-loaded on even "alert" aircraft so getting off the ground would take longer.

The part of Red Storm Rising that is quit accurate, IMHO, is how the various indicators of the Soviets ramping up their readiness add up.
 
During the Cold War, the most worrisome and most unlikely was the so called BOOB attack (bolt out of the blue), where you had a Klingon"it is a good day to die" moment and the war started. In reality the ability of the Soviets to start a war some random day was almost zero. There were too many indicators that would be noticed, now NATO/US could refuse to believe these were really a threat and fail to heighten readiness, but that is almost ASB. There would be differences between troop, materiel, and supply movements for even a major exercise and a real attack. The previous is for a conventional attack just looking at land forces - there are separate and pretty glaring indicators for air and naval preparation as well, and trust me those were watched very carefully.

For nuclear attacks, since the Soviets had air base problem, in that their major full service bases were not close enough to the USA for bomber attacks without a lot of tankage and they were always short on tankers. This meant they had to forward stage nuclear forces, and they also did not have the sort of airborne alert SAC had. Also, the chain of custody for nuclear weapons was more complex so bombs were rarely if ever pre-loaded on even "alert" aircraft so getting off the ground would take longer.

The part of Red Storm Rising that is quit accurate, IMHO, is how the various indicators of the Soviets ramping up their readiness add up.

Allowing for the fact that American intelligence capabilities improved quite a bit in the 1970's, it's worth noting that the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 caught NATO by surprise. Second, strategic surprise is not the same as absolute surprise. What matters is where NATO is in the REFORGER effort. Are those reinforcements on the ground in Germany at their POMCUS sites getting equipped. Or are they staging in Texas/Georgia etc? Are the Marines on the ground in Denmark, Iceland and Norway or are they still en route?

The one thing belief I absolutely share with ObsessedNuker is that Soviet Maskirova efforts would be effective here. We can debate their F-117 defense capabilities all day. But I do believe the Soviets would have had reasonably effective countermeasures to deal with American intelligence gathering efforts, particularly since their espionage efforts were so effective at gathering intel on our capabilities. See James Hall as one example.
 
Actually your problem is that you don't define 'massed armor'. The Germans, who are the initial pioneers here, didn't used massed armor. They used massed combined arms mechanized formations that included armor, mechanized infantry, motorized artillery and engineers, along with air support, to achieve their dominance. They did not conduct the charge of the light brigade against Allied anti tank guns (mistakes that the Allies, and the Israelis in the early part of the 73 War made). The Allies used combined arms formations from the late war on, matching (mostly) German doctrine and capability. Give an example of a successful massed armored attack without supporting arms post 1940, aside from the Six Day War (the one exception).

I have no example because you've constructed some kind of strawman which equates "massed armor" with "only massed armor". The reality is that massed combined arms mechanized includes massed armor as it does massed infantry, all acting in coordination. Artillery is more complicated in that the range of artillery guns and rockets means their able to mass their fire without having to mass the equipment, but the principle of operational concentration at least does remain the same.

Both NATO and the Pact had massed armor in the Central Front. In fact there is considerable discussion both then and now that the concentration of machines to space by the early 1980s made the situation more akin to World War I, Kursk or Normandy than dashing about Poland or France in 1940. That applies to the war in the air too.

I actually don't disagree. The possibility of either side winning a rapid maneuver victory in 80's is there, to varying degree at varying times, but possible is not the same thing as probable. The most likely outcome regardless is a massed attritional struggle that takes some weeks or months to resolve. My stances has never been, my stance is that the technical superiority of individual pieces of NATO equipment and the new NATO doctrine developed during the 1980s does not guarantee NATO victory, which seems to be a sentiment many people are expressing here, any more then the potential of appropriately applied maskirovka guarantee a Warsaw Pact one. It's just that for some reason, people keep taking the argument that NATO victory isn't necessarily inevitable as a argument that Soviet victory is inevitable. I honestly find it a bit perplexing, since the result either way is likely nuclear apocalypse 9/10 times.

The alarmist predictions that the Soviets would reach the Rhine in two weeks we saw in the late 1970s always were overblown and had a lot more akin to invasion fiction than to sober assessment of likely Soviet capabilities.

Eh, it was probably probable enough for the 70s when NATO's conventional forces were still suffering from decades of neglect while the rot in the USSR hadn't seeped into the army just yet. For the 80s, it dwindles into a extremely unlikely scenario for the Soviets at best and "totally unrealistic" at worst.

What real life operations? In the last 60 years, the number of wars involving mechanized forces on a large scale are few. We have two between India and Pakistan, the PAVN invasions of South Vietnam 1972 and 1975, the Arab Israeli conflicts 1967, 73, plus Lebanon in 82, the Iran Iraq War, and the 1st and 2nd Gulf War involving the US et al against Iraq (and Iraq invading Kuwait with basically a combined arms corps to start the ball)... while the various wars in Africa have been infantry affairs with occasional motorized forces making a difference when terrain allowed. The one mechanized invasion (Libya vs Chad) was a disaster for the mechanized force.

Of these, only the Indo-Pakistanis Wars and Vietnamese I'll explore further for the moment. The wars involving the Arab armies may have had the Arab forces organized as combined-arms formations, but only extremely rarely did they act as combined arms formations and never for very long. I will note that the Libyan experience in Chad has been closely mirrored in much more recent times by Iraq in 2014 against ISIS initial incursion and Saudi Arabia's 2016 experience in Yemen, yet in these latter two cases the forces were equipped and trained along US instead of Soviet lines. I'll leave it to you to draw conclusions from the identicalness of the results. You probably could add to that the initial Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, although that was a very brief thing and only one side was properly a mechanized combined-arms force for that.

Now, the Indo-Pakistani Wars, I admit I only know some surface details. Both sides used a mix of NATO and WP (or derived there-of) weapons and both sides associated with WP and NATO militaries so I am unsure how to really draw lessons from that.

The Vietnamese experience in 1975 isn't helpful. Although the South Vietnamese mechanized forces were equipped and trained along US lines, they were largely a corrupt, demoralized mess and so weren't in the greatest condition to withstand the VPA offensive. There was a notable exception in the 18th Division, which fought a quite bitter and successful prolonged holding action before it was overwhelmed. However, the 1972 example is interesting because of how the involvement of American air power interacted. Much is made of the massive air strikes that eventually halted the NVA's Easter Offensive in 1972 yet it is often forgotten that this halting took over a month and was then followed by six more months of bloody stalemate where the South was unable to roll back Northern gains. Although a few key cities were eventually retaken, half of the four northern provinces was permanently lost to the Communists, and would prove a "dagger to the heart of the South" in 1975. And this in conditions where American's held air superiority at worst.

That is it. Yugoslavia was mostly an infantry affair in rugged and urban terrain with mechanized forces limited to the few roads,

Not for the Serbs, who made extensive use of their mechanized forces against the locals. The reality is that it's the Serbian experience which is taught in NATO academies as the ur-example of how to successfully preserve mechanized forces against enemy air power both defensively and offensively.

So what operations are we discussing here?

I've relied most heavily on the Serbian experience in illustrating the potential of a successfully executed Soviet air defense because it's the one NATO military academies themselves rely on.

should be noted that NATO did not conduct a full scale combined arms invasion of Serbia during the limited air campaign in the 1990s, so the relative combat effectiveness of Serbian (and NATO) troops were never tested in a full scale fight. If you like the Serbs I supposed you can claim they would have done well.

Oh, they would have lost quite badly. They would have done more damage then the Iraqis did in losing, but that doesn't change the fact they would have lost decisively.

The part of Red Storm Rising that is quit accurate, IMHO, is how the various indicators of the Soviets ramping up their readiness add up.

I don't much like Red Storm Rising now a days. I prefer The Third World War and it's Soviet-mirror, Red Army. However, all three of these books commit a bit of a sin in my eyes of giving one side all of the "lucky breaks". The difference is that Red Storm and Third World War give them to NATO while Red Army gives them to the Warsaw Pact. I can forgive Red Army a bit more for it, because it was doing so in response to the first two giving NATO all the "Lucky Breaks", but it's still a real stretch on the SOD either way. In reality, both sides are liable to get their share of "Lucky Breaks", with the results being a wash on the whole.
 
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The troop and other movements needed for the Czech invasion were much smaller than for an invasion west, and the air force and navy really had no need to do anything to get ready. In a build up to war if the Soviet Navy does not send an abnormal number of submarines out from the bases in the Kola area and in the Pacific, they won't be in position to attack major REFORGER convoys in time and will have to transit under wartime conditions subject to attack. I can guarantee you 100% this will be observed. VVS air units will need to be forward deployed, train traffic from the USSR to Germany will be up. Some of this can be hidden via maskirova, others you try to hide by timing movement to avoid satellites if you can, although that imposes penalties in terms of how long it takes to get everything in place.

If things work well for the Soviets and combination of maskirova and a diplomatic two-step to slow the NATO mobilization down (including sponsored political demonstrations in NATO countries) NATO won't be ready even if they realize what is coming. One thing that matters is what time of year this happens, and whether or not this was long planned or a crisis that is escalating and the Soviets decide to go for it.
 

Ak-84

Banned
[URL='https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/members/obssesednuker.4102/' said:
ObssesedNuker[/URL]]Of these, only the Indo-Pakistanis Wars and Vietnamese I'll explore further for the moment. The wars involving the Arab armies may have had the Arab forces organized as combined-arms formations, but only extremely rarely did they act as combined arms formations and never for very long. I will note that the Libyan experience in Chad has been closely mirrored in much more recent times by Iraq in 2014 against ISIS initial incursion and Saudi Arabia's 2016 experience in Yemen, yet in these latter two cases the forces were equipped and trained along US instead of Soviet lines. I'll leave it to you to draw conclusions from the identicalness of the results. You probably could add to that the initial Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, although that was a very brief thing and only one side was properly a mechanized combined-arms force for that.

Now, the Indo-Pakistani Wars, I admit I only know some surface details. Both sides used a mix of NATO and WP (or derived there-of) weapons and both sides associated with WP and NATO militaries so I am unsure how to really draw lessons from that.

The Indo-Pakistani Wars

USE OF ARMOUR AND MECHANIZED FORCES
There were six major Battles in which armour and mechanized forces were involved;
Battle of Chamb '65
Battle of Lahore '65
Battle of Chawinda '65 (the largest tank battle since WW2 at the point)
Battle of Khem Karan'65
Battle of Chamb '71
Battle of Shakargarh '71

Lessons are as follows
* Determined air support will have very major results on the ground. Even if the order is "damn the losses , hit them", it tends to affect the ground battle and losses are not as great as expected. See Pakistan Air Force's assaults on Indian drive on Lahore in 1965, hundreds of armour vehicles were destroyed on the Lahore Amritsar road. Or at Shakargarh when the PAF attacks again managed to prevent an Indian breakthrough, which looked inevitable at one point. Indian AF had some success at Ramgarh in 1971, but that was not a large multi corps engagement.

* Natural and artificial obstacles tend to make armored assaults difficult to continue, and bridging equipment or no bridging equipment tends, the momentum of the thrust to cause a traffic jam as the rear echelons reach forward. This also makes them very inviting targets for enemy air and artillery; see the aforementioned Battle of Lahore, where the Indian assault came up against the BRB-Canal or the 1971 Chamb battle, where the Pakistan 23 and 12 Division assault petered out as it reached the Tawi river, the Indians did not take advantage though.

* If an armored thrust is going to succeed, it needs to do so before the enemy is organized, or dug in infantry will beat be next to impossible to dislodge, even with own Infantry in support. See for instance the failure of the Indian Army at Chawinda in the first few days (before substantial reinforcements came in). Or Pakistani attempts to break forward from Khem Karan. On the other hand copious amounts of artillery and air support can break an enemy; see Pakistani initial assault at Chamb '65 or Operation Round Up at Chawinda; after 12 days of fighting see Indians decided to adopt defensive positions, to use them as bargaining chips in the coming ceasefire; Pakistani counterattack succeeded. In 1971, after their failure to breakthrough at Shakargarh, they did the same, this time PAF could not provide support and Pakistani counter attack was blunted.

* Ideally Artillery should be coordinated at the top levels; at Corps or Field Army, not below. While its tempting to permit "initiative" and "flexibility", having that leads to artillery not being there when you need it (Lahore '65, both sides) or having way too much where you don't while having a dedicated HQ coordinating artillery plan (IV Corps Artillery for Pakistan at Chawinda, and Army North Arty at Chamb '71 for Pakistan, throughout '71 War for India) can make relatively very small number of tubes to have an outsized effect.

* There will be a big temptation for HQ to split up and use Armour and Mech forces piecemeal; taking out a brigade or regiment from an Armoured Division and attaching them elsewhere.While its easy to say during wargames that you won't do it, its a lot harder when for instance one sector is close to being overrun and the Cdr there is screaming for help, you will be tempted to send him that Regiment from the Armoured Division held in reserve, or if in another sector you think Own forces are close to a breakthrough; yes you will want to give them an armoured brigade on attachment.
 

Ak-84

Banned
Actually, now that I think of it, the Indo-Pak conflict is really the only conflict that was Germane to what might happen in errrrr Germany. The Arab-Israeli Wars were fought on a postage stamp sized area in the Sinai and the Golan. No rivers, no real obstacles; at all.No need to sustain Armoured advances across long distances. Arab incompetence has been raised again and again, but lets not forget the famously lousy Israeli logistics system, which survived only because of the small size of the battlespace, and copious American help.
 
I doubt we'd see many MiG-25/31 family aircraft flying over Europe in a WWIII scenario. Those planes are the USSR's primary bomber and cruise missile interceptor. They're gonna be kept home for defense of the Motherland

If the air war in Central Europe was going badly the Soviets would reach for available resources to experiment with new tactics. The Foxhound was a logical candidate.

I could see them MAYBE being used at the tail end of an air battle to try and ambush NATO fighters on their way back to base once the NATO birds have expended all their missiles.

I would suspect the tactic is to group Foxhounds with Floggers and Fulcrums such that the Foxhounds use the AA-9's as covering fire for the advance of the others into close range. (An Eagle cannot fire BVR with AIM-7 and evade an AA-9 at the same time).
 

James G

Gone Fishin'
I would suspect the tactic is to group Foxhounds with Floggers and Fulcrums such that the Foxhounds use the AA-9's as covering fire for the advance of the others into close range. (An Eagle cannot fire BVR with AIM-7 and evade an AA-9 at the same time).

Such an idea would mean mixing pilots from different services - VVS and PVO - together over a battlefield, with SAMs below wanting to be 'friends' to all, and pulling off something very complicated. That's not how the different Soviet branches worked. They didn't train for anything like that and so that lack of preparation, despite the intense inter-service politics that also makes this impossible, is all that mattered.
 

Wimble Toot

Banned
If you ignore the OP's artificial limitation that NEITHER side uses tactical nukes = if/when NATO drops tactical nukes (whether air-dropped B61s/WE177s, or Cruise/Pershing launched W80s/W85s) on their airfields, railheads and ports then it's all over for WarPac. Both sides will then go strategic, and it's all over for humanity and any species with less than six legs.

Under the criteria of the OP, WarPac Air Forces has a sixty-to-eighty percent chance of success in central Europe.

If it chooses it moment to attack wisely.
 
Such an idea would mean mixing pilots from different services - VVS and PVO - together over a battlefield, with SAMs below wanting to be 'friends' to all, and pulling off something very complicated. That's not how the different Soviet branches worked. They didn't train for anything like that and so that lack of preparation, despite the intense inter-service politics that also makes this impossible, is all that mattered.

I would not rule out a small sized, say, a squadron sized, of MiG-25's / MiG-31's, detachment for killing high value aerial targets. After all, unlike US Navy, USAF and US Army the Soviet armed forces mainly focused on fighting the enemy rather than other services, as the Army and Strategic Rocket Forces were big bad boys anyway.
 

James G

Gone Fishin'
I would not rule out a small sized, say, a squadron sized, of MiG-25's / MiG-31's, detachment for killing high value aerial targets. After all, unlike US Navy, USAF and US Army the Soviet armed forces mainly focused on fighting the enemy rather than other services, as the Army and Strategic Rocket Forces were big bad boys anyway.

You're correct. I put it too bluntly. They would probably try it because they were told to. But getting it to work amongst all the inter-service politics would be difficult / very hard. Tactics would be different too. And those SAMs down below will go skywards at anything up above.
 
* Determined air support will have very major results on the ground. Even if the order is "damn the losses , hit them", it tends to affect the ground battle and losses are not as great as expected. See Pakistan Air Force's assaults on Indian drive on Lahore in 1965, hundreds of armour vehicles were destroyed on the Lahore Amritsar road. Or at Shakargarh when the PAF attacks again managed to prevent an Indian breakthrough, which looked inevitable at one point. Indian AF had some success at Ramgarh in 1971, but that was not a large multi corps engagement.

Those loss figures sound very high for an air attack. What are they based on?


Actually, now that I think of it, the Indo-Pak conflict is really the only conflict that was Germane to what might happen in errrrr Germany.

I can see that being the case to an extent. One would have to consider how the terrain differs though, as I understand the Indo-Pakistanis border is seriously more rugged and much poorer in infrastructure compared to Central Germany.

Arab incompetence has been raised again and again, but lets not forget the famously lousy Israeli logistics system, which survived only because of the small size of the battlespace, and copious American help.

I never gave much thought to Israelis logistics, beyond the obvious "their generally supplied by the Americans", but on the surface what you say about that makes a lot of sense. My previous understanding about the Israelis is their biggest weakness was that they could be too trigger-happy...
 
Actually, now that I think of it, the Indo-Pak conflict is really the only conflict that was Germane to what might happen in errrrr Germany. The Arab-Israeli Wars were fought on a postage stamp sized area in the Sinai and the Golan. No rivers, no real obstacles; at all.No need to sustain Armoured advances across long distances. Arab incompetence has been raised again and again, but lets not forget the famously lousy Israeli logistics system, which survived only because of the small size of the battlespace, and copious American help.

The Indian campaign against the Pakistani Eastern Command in 1971 is a campaign that deserves a lot more study than I have seen. I have only read one really good detailed account of it (in this book https://books.google.com/books/about/Blitzkrieg_to_Desert_Storm.html?id=kyvfAAAAMAAJ) The Indians made excellent use of air mobile, mechanized and light infantry forces with excellent engineer support to carry out a very impressive campaign.

Regarding Israeli logistics... to be fair the Soviets brought in a lot of ammunition and spares to the Syrians and Egyptians too in 1973. It seems that relatively poor nations cannot afford massive ammunition stockpiles. It should be noted that NATO and the Warsaw Pact did not have stockpiles for more than a few weeks fighting (based on what they assumed they would use) and everyone was surprised on how quickly the ammunition and spares were used up.
 

Ak-84

Banned
Those loss figures sound very high for an air attack. What are they based on?
The memoirs of General Harbaskh Singh, who commanded the Indian Forces in the Western Theatre in 1965. He was famously critical of the IAF though, so keep that in mind (his observation about the Air War, "the IAF was conspicuous by its absence", which is not totally fair, but not an inaccurate assessment either, at least for some sectors)

I can see that being the case to an extent. One would have to consider how the terrain differs though, as I understand the Indo-Pakistanis border is seriously more rugged and much poorer in infrastructure compared to Central Germany.
Actually, the Punjab region where these battles were fought is flat either as a pancake or river valleys, in other words, a lot like C Germany. It also has extensive road and rail links, in 1965 inherited from the Raj for the most part but also improved upon. Its only gotten better since. It was the Breadbasket of the sub-continent afterall.
 
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