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
I say NATO in the early 80s thanks to 4th gen fighters and superior AWACS until the world goes boom and I still say NATO in the late 80s thanks to the horrendous state of the Soviet military and again Superior AWACS off course all this is pulled on horrendous losses to Soviet SAM along with the deep penetration raids by the F!!&
 
Tactical Surprise: (most likely)

After a period of deteriorating relations between the Soviets and NATO, a political crisis develops that leads to the Soviets turning to a "false flag" operation on the high seas (or an assassination) that blows up spectacularly in their faces, leaving them with no option but to blame the US, Germany, or [insert NATO country name here]. Emotions run high, the Soviet People are outraged at the "perfidious actions of the West" (more than the Kremlin wants them to be, really, pushing the crisis even further beyond their control) all the way up to Cuban Missile Crisis levels. While conventional forces begin to mobilize, the absolute sense of approaching war is not taken critically by the West. However, as intelligence shows signs of a general mobilization of the Warsaw Pact, belatedly NATO orders its forces to mobilize.

Seeing NATO mobilization, the Kremlin panics, and orders a conventional pre-emptive strike into NATO territory. Soviet forces have a decent level of supply, good air strength, but much of their forces are out-of-position. They are up against a level of weak defense but deployed all along the frontier. Invasion of Denmark is possible, if not advisable. A mass air strike against NATO airfields will find a much smaller but fully ready and MORE capable [good luck with Mig-23s (1) and Mig-25s (2) against F-15s and even Phantoms] opponent. Air parity will soon establish itself, but with much of the forward NATO forces on their own for the time being.

It'l be a grind, that's for sure.

1) A good example of trying to do something that you're really not capable of, like the Mig-19. As opposed to the excellent Mig-17 and Mig-15 (thank you Nene engine).

2) Terrific for very high altitude high speed interception. If you're trying to shoot down B-70s, the aircraft it was designed to defeat. Not so much for air superiority combat. B-70s couldn't shoot back. F-15s could.

For air warfare, its a near thing, but with what we now know of Soviet capabilities in a tactical surprise scenario the Soviets will perform well (as their armies advance) at the start, before NATO airpower comes fully to the fore. The ability to fly across the Atlantic will represent the chance for the US and Canada to send its air forces forward logarithmically faster than in WWII. Long term, the Soviets run out of planes before NATO does. On the ground, its much more difficult to make a call. But I'd say that the Soviets, freed of some of the supply limitations of a Strategic Surprise, will have a better time of making a good fight, but with the truth of the deleterious effect of the black market (3) being what it was on the Soviet military back then, they may not have the ability to make their opening successes stick.

3) Frex, the downing of that South Korean Flight KAL 007 was because the Soviets thought that it was an American spy plane, or that they thought that the South Korean 747 civilian passenger plane was being used for reconnaissance plane. They shot it down to cover up the fact that:

a) 10 days before KAL 007s flight, a North Pacific/Arctic storm had destroyed all of the far range air defense radars on the Kamchatka Peninsula, where KAL first overflew unmolested.

b) The Soviet general in the Soviet Far East told Moscow that all the damage had been made good within 48 hours.

c) He lied. All the spare parts for the radars had long ago been sold on the black market. (4)

d) KAL 007 made it all the way across the Sea of Okhotsk without being molested.

e) She was shot down only seconds from international airspace.

4) All to cover up the fact of Soviet black marketing and its effects on Soviet war making. Which is why, in the early 1980s at least, short of Strategic Surprise, I have a hard time with the concept of the Ten Foot Tall Ivan Ivanovich.

The more the Soviets try to mobilize, the more these shortcomings will be exposed. The question is, will anyone tell the Kremlin the truth? With KAL 007, Defense Minister Dmitry Ustinov told the Spy Plane Story to a (mostly) incredulous press. Did Ustinov lie himself, or had he bought the story told by the Soviet Far East Air Defense commander hook-line-and-sinker? I suspect that he didn't care anymore than the Soviet ADF general did.
 
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I appreciate that it ruins the story but about 2/3rds of the war through your first paragraph tactical nukes are launched ending that story pretty sharpish

My bad. I put in a number of EDITs after I posted. The OP made it clear it was a conventional scenario.

Also NORTHAG was a British Command so BAOR was slap bang in the path of any Pact thrust with CENTAG responsible for the Fulda and HOF gaps

Quite right, I should have mentioned the presence of the British and Germans, but AIUI the Dutch and Belgians would play major roles in blunting any major initial Soviet thrusts while the Germans and British deployed, and would suffer badly for it. Though not as badly as they would in the 50s...

By World War II standards these two formations were only armies, as they contained four corps each. NORTHAG consisted, from north to south, of I Netherlands Corps (I (NE) Corps), I German Corps (I (GE) Corps), I (BR) Corps, and I Belgian Corps (I (BE) Corps). Its commander was the British commander of the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR). CENTAG consisted, from north to south, of III GE Corps, V US Corps, VII US Corps, and II (GE) Corps in the extreme south of the Federal Republic of Germany. The commander of the U.S. Army Europe and Seventh Army commanded CENTAG.

(Taken from this source - http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/int/nato-ag.htm)

Also a plane down during peacetime flying is not necessarily down during wartime flying

I'm sure that 30 years ago I could have quoted this chapter and verse by memory, but not anymore, sad to say. I always thought of the use of Army Group was due to the idea that in a protracted conflict they actually would grow to WWII era army group size.

(to be continued)

EDIT 1: In a Strategic Surprise scenario you ARE talking "peacetime". At least for the side attacked. Even in a Tactical Surprise scenario, it'll be a strain in the early 80s.

Mind, as I've said, anything post-1984 the Warsaw Pact is toast. Even a Strategic Surprise becomes extremely problematical (VERY unlikely) with what we now know of our humint penetration of the USSR, plus electronic and satellite recon.
 
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I say NATO in the early 80s thanks to 4th gen fighters and superior AWACS until the world goes boom and I still say NATO in the late 80s thanks to the horrendous state of the Soviet military and again Superior AWACS off course all this is pulled on horrendous losses to Soviet SAM along with the deep penetration raids by the F!!&

Weren't a lot of the NATO air forces still using older aircraft though? I agree with you on your views except on the early 80s. Even the US still had a lot of older aircraft, and the RAF was still on the idea (unwise considering the air threat) of the Low Level Counter-Air Mission. (to be continued)
 
Weren't a lot of the NATO air forces still using older aircraft though? I agree with you on your views except on the early 80s. Even the US still had a lot of older aircraft, and the RAF was still on the idea (unwise considering the air threat) of the Low Level Counter-Air Mission. (to be continued)

Personally, I think there were enough fighting Falcons, Eagles and Mirage 2000s to at the very least make any idea of Soviet raids into France or over the Rhine a very very bad idea if not being able to inflict serious losses on Frontal Aviation squadrons
 
Personally, I think there were enough fighting Falcons, Eagles and Mirage 2000s to at the very least make any idea of Soviet raids into France or over the Rhine a very very bad idea if not being able to inflict serious losses on Frontal Aviation squadrons

Absolutely. I wasn't even thinking of France, any more than the UK. The Rhine is another matter. I don't think the Soviets will be able to resist trying to hit Reforger sites and strategic Rhine bridges. And just HOW Early 80s are we talking? As of January 1st, 1980, Reagan wasn't president yet. All we had was the Carter military buildup (though a good one) that only just started in very late 1979. And that's just regarding military appropriations. They wouldn't be getting on line until almost Reagan's presidency.
 
More about aircraft the early 80s its just matter of how many aircraft can NATO shot down before NATo breaks out the tac nukes and then end of the world
 
While blue-on-blue is a potential problem for NATO, the Soviets have similar problems with their own tactical air defense platforms. Soviet wargames apparently saw 25% of aerial targets engaged by their ground-based air defense be friendly, with a whopping 60% during Zapad-83.
 
We have solid real world examples (the most famous of which is Kursk, which represents not only the largest tank battle in history, but also the largest air battle) of what happens when two sides start a battle with vast, competent air forces and extensive air defense networks as would have happened in a WW3 scenario. The result is the two air forces largely cancel each other out and neither side's air power plays much of a part in the decisive ground battles. That isn't to say they have no impact... they'd certainly have an impact, possibly even a helpful impact. What they probably wouldn't have is enough of a impact to be decisive.

The conventional war would have been decided on the ground. The air war would be a distant third place behind the ground war and the sealift effort.

I would argue that the air war, like the sea lift effort, becomes incrementally more important each day the war lasts. For the first week the two air forces will be too busy hammering each other to really affect ground operations. But as air losses pile up and radar stations and SAM batteries get taken out, it will be a lot harder to intercept interdiction efforts or ground support operations. Further, those interdiction efforts will have a greater impact 2 to 3 weeks in when initial fuel and munition stockpiles are depleted and it only takes a downed bridge or destroyed depot or two to stop a ground offensive. Those Soviet tanks arent going very far if their fuel supplies are destroyed.

Finally, particular to the late 1980s, I think could safely assume NATO air efforts and their ability to disrupt C3 could have had the potential to be decisive. Soviet officers werent exactly known for tactical initiative. How do they respond when communications with HQ is cut or HQ is destroyed? Although Iraqi forces performed far worse in Desert Storm than what could be expected of Soviet forces, it provides a template of what could have happened in certain instances. And it doesnt take a whole lot of instances to affect the outcome - one blunted breakthrough or failed pincer movement could be the difference.
 
Weren't a lot of the NATO air forces still using older aircraft though? I agree with you on your views except on the early 80s. Even the US still had a lot of older aircraft, and the RAF was still on the idea (unwise considering the air threat) of the Low Level Counter-Air Mission. (to be continued)

As of 1979 the Dutch, Danes, Belgians, and Germans still had a lot of F104s. On the other hand, the Soviets still had a lot of older models too, and a great big chunk of the Pact air forces were Mig 15 and Mig 19 converted to fighter bombers.

That changed pretty quickly in the 1980s for NATO, but even as late as the mid 80s the Pact air forces still had a lot of older Migs.
 
When discussing an air war I think we should consider what is on the ground. The soviets but also NATO would have filled the skies with triple a and missiles. Both had a lot of fixed and especially mobile air defence systems. New and old, that ordnance is filling the sky and hitting anything it can.

True, but NATO didn't have anything near the quantity of AA assets that WARPAC forces had. Some of them were also of questionable quality - most of the larger SAMs (Nike, Hawk, Rapier, Crotale, etc.) seem to have performed okay but MANPADS like Redeye and Blowpipe did not have a good hit record. Apart from the Gepard, I can't think of any NATO SPAAG after the M42 Duster - the M163 and M167 might or might not have been okay, ISTR they lacked radar but that might just have been for cueing, but the M167 wasn't all that mobile.

Many WARPAC AA systems weren't that great either, but there were a LOT of them at all levels. Some seem to have been fairly decent, such as the ZSU-23/4 and SA-9 & 13. I suspect that WARPAC doctrine expected a sky that was at best neutral over the battlefield, whereas NATO seemed to expect to receive a friendly sky and air support.
 
The biggest problem for NATO is that an F15 can shoot down about as many MiGs as it has missiles (well, OK, probably half as many). But if the USSR has more planes than that, the Eagle's in trouble.

Suppose an Eagle has 8 missiles. Shoots down 4 MiGs, but is now out of missiles. If there are 3 MiGs left that haven't fired yet, the Eagle is probably toast.

Also. Sure the Eagle can land and rearm and refuel. As long as the supplies hold out. Which in this kind of warfare, might not be very long.

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Plus. How the frip do you keep the war 'conventional' and 'in the air'? If the Soviets start losing, they'll loose their nukes. Heck, they probably STARTED by firing nukes.
 
Not to mention that by the 80's everyone knew that to use nuclear weapons was to commit national suicide, no matter what shelters you had.
 
Nah - Paris like so many other places would be a radioactive crater if things had gotten that bad - so they would have to drink their coffee else where
When discussing an air war I think we should consider what is on the ground. The soviets but also NATO would have filled the skies with triple a and missiles. Both had a lot of fixed and especially mobile air defence systems. New and old, that ordnance is filling the sky and hitting anything it can.

That's just deliberately missing the point of the joke. The point it's making is that by the time the air war is decided, the ground war is also already decided and hence so too is the conventional war as a whole. Whether the result of the decision in the conventional war is an escalation to nuclear weapons or an occupation of either end of Europe is irrelevant to that.
 
One of the points in Clancy's Red Storm Rising that is very important, in terms of strategic surprise, is that the ability of Soviet forces to go to war on very short notice without any visible mobilization is quite limited. If preplanned a large scale exercise can provide some cover, but surging submarines through the GIUK Gap, moving supplies/fuel forward to sustain a true offensive (as opposed to even a live fire exercise), and many other actions would differentiate the "exercise" as preparatory not normal. IMHO in the 80s the various NATO air forces were better quality wise and with pilot training than the Soviets, and AWACS make a big difference for the NATO pilots. The rather rigid GCI procedures that the Soviets were used to means control of intercepts is more readily degraded than on the NATO side. WP airbases, while not being overrun, would certainly be subject to air and missile attacks and Durandels and CBUs will do a good job of shutting down bases for a while. Finally a lot of Soviet fighters will be kept inside the USSR for PVO use, and this includes protecting a lot of area not just against NATO in the west, but the south (Turkey/Greek bases), the Pacific area, and even watching the Chinese. This subtracts from the raw numbers, OTOH the USA does not need to keep as big a percentage of its force at home.

Like much of the other bits of a conventional WP/NATO war, it comes down to NATO having a positive kill ratio over the WP tanks, aircraft & so forth and the WP probably having more supply issues, but will the ratio be enough to overcome the numbers advantage the WP has.
 
Not to mention most of the aircraft the US will keep at home are rather different to the ones being sent to the front with the F106 being the backbone of NORADs forces IIRC
 
One of the points in Clancy's Red Storm Rising that is very important, in terms of strategic surprise, is that the ability of Soviet forces to go to war on very short notice without any visible mobilization is quite limited.

And another thing Clancy says in the same book is that their ability is at least greater then that of NATO's. Meanwhile, what actual military historians with the benefit of hindsight have had to say is that the Category-A forces inside Eastern Europe could have been on the move within just a few hours of the order being given up until the late-80s, while the Category-B divisions would take rather longer to wind-up.

Like much of the other bits of a conventional WP/NATO war, it comes down to NATO having a positive kill ratio over the WP tanks, aircraft & so forth and the WP probably having more supply issues, but will the ratio be enough to overcome the numbers advantage the WP has.

The last time the American military put stock in kill ratios meaning anything to such a degree was Vietnam. That war taught the American military a harsh lesson in doing so.

I would argue that the air war, like the sea lift effort, becomes incrementally more important each day the war lasts. For the first week the two air forces will be too busy hammering each other to really affect ground operations. But as air losses pile up and radar stations and SAM batteries get taken out, it will be a lot harder to intercept interdiction efforts or ground support operations.

The thing is that exhaustion of the material and supplies works both ways. Not only will the Soviets have fewer aircraft and SAMs to intercept NATO aircraft, but NATO will have fewer aircraft and munitions to do the still quite innumerable CAS and interdiction missions. CAS alone was projected to inflict double-digit attrition rates upon NATO attack aircraft, something which isn't sustainable beyond a few days. And then there's the potential effectiveness of Soviet deception measures, assuming they are properly implemented, in causing NATO to waste munitions and overestimate their own efforts.

Finally, particular to the late 1980s, I think could safely assume NATO air efforts and their ability to disrupt C3 could have had the potential to be decisive. Soviet officers werent exactly known for tactical initiative. How do they respond when communications with HQ is cut or HQ is destroyed? Although Iraqi forces performed far worse in Desert Storm than what could be expected of Soviet forces, it provides a template of what could have happened in certain instances. And it doesnt take a whole lot of instances to affect the outcome - one blunted breakthrough or failed pincer movement could be the difference.

That depends. A Soviet forward detachment would generally operating independently under it's own commander, a necessity given that their missions required such independence, so it wouldn't be affected at all. The effect on the main body of Soviet forces would be more severe on the one hand but the C3 structure among them would be more redundant on the other.

To be honest, the biggest potential fail point for the Warsaw Pact in all this isn't Soviet equipment or Soviet doctrine or numbers... the former is roughly comparable with NATO while the latter two are in their favor. Rather, the biggest potential fail point is in Soviet personnel, particularly down at the level of the enlisted and non-coms, and the issue only gets worse as the 80's. This isn't as much an issue for the air force when it comes to the shooters, as those guys are all officers, but when it comes to the support services keeping those aircraft maintained, on target, and protected? Yeah, a lot of those are exactly the source of potential problem that could derail the Soviet war effort.

Or as America's greatest fighter ace once put it, "It's the man, not the machine."
 
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But as I noted, your numbers don't seem to be true. In the Iraq War, American Carrier Air Wings managed an average sustained sortie rate of just over one sortie per aircraft per day. Similarly, in Afghanistan in 1982 the VVS managed a average sustained sortie rate of just under one sortie per aircraft per day. The difference is marginal.

Don't forget that those USN carrier aircraft were operating alongside a huge number of assets based in Saudi/Kuwait (depending on which Gulf War you're referring too) so probably didn't need to carry out more than one sortie a day. When you've got hundreds of F-15s, F-16s, F-18s, Tornado F3 and Mirage also doing air defence plus B-1B, B-2, B-52, Harrier GR.7/9, Jaguar, Buccaneer, A-10, various helicopter types and dozens of ships carrying TLAM to carry out attack and virtually zero threat from enemy air forces you don't need to push your pilots and aircraft as much as you would during a war against the Soviet Union.

I'd be fairly confident that, if needs be, a competent NATO air force is getting their aircraft up more than once a day.
 
I'd be fairly confident that, if needs be, a competent NATO air force is getting their aircraft up more than once a day.

Indeed, the number I was citing in both cases was the average sustained sortie rate. There have been cases where CAW's have managed to achieve a "surge" rate of 4 sorties per aircraft per day, but those were in on-paper peacetime exercises where the strike planners often cheated and took shortcuts that would be impossible during real operations. In practice, a Nimitz-class carrier is said to have an upper limit of 150-160 sorties per day under a "surge rate" which works out to around 2 sorties per aircraft per day. At such a surge rate, a CAW could achieve 3 alpha strikes in a single day, which is pretty high.
 
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