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
So the French are a mere drop in the bucket compared to that threat and risk.

I don't think nukes work like that.

The French had sufficient stockpiles at the start of the decade to end the Soviet Union as a functional nation, and double the number at the end of the decade. The fact that the Americans had more nukes, and so did the Soviets did not in fact make them more scary. If the French decided nukes were the last hope for national survival, that was the end of the matter regardless of what the Uk or Americans thought.
 
One reason I feel so confident about NATO's chances is after playing innumerable times solitare and with opponents "Third World War" (GDW)(mid 80s era), "The Next War" (SPI)(1978, which has the most detailed air game with every air defense battalion or larger for both sides as a combat unit), "Objective Moscow" (SPI, same time frame), and even "Red Storm Rising" (the ground game companion to the naval game "Hunt for Red October") I have yet to see the Warsaw Pact airforces remain a creditable air attack threat after two weeks, even while retaining some interception capability. The NATO air forces are still at about half strength, which is enough to really screw over Pact ability to move supply forward and allowing them to hammer any Pact division trying to move up.

Granted these are wargames put out by American companies, but yet "Third World War" allowed with remarkable accuracy a gamer to predict exactly how the Gulf War was going to go in terms of Western effectiveness vs Iraqi effectiveness.

We will obviously never know, but we do know how effective an NATO style air campaign was in the Gulf War facing an army that had to move. Serbia was different, all the Serbs had to do was basically hide and avoid contact and survive until the end of the campaign. The Pact would have no such luxury here and we have a situation very much akin to the Gulf War.
 
Except Soviet techniques in Maskirovka proved well and able to prevent NATO from doing just that in Serbia...

Except the Serbs were not trying to carry out a modern full scale mechanized invasion and move up supplies to carry that attack out. They didn't have to worry about whether their bridges would be dropped at vital times, they didn't have to move combat divisions forward under the face of full scale air attack, and the sortie rate in Serbia compared to what happened in Iraq or would have happened in Europe in World War III compared to the size of the force engaged was much lower in scale.

Hiding in the woods only works if your goal is force preservation only and you can use your infantry to continue your atrocity campaign.
 
I don't think nukes work like that.

The French had sufficient stockpiles at the start of the decade to end the Soviet Union as a functional nation, and double the number at the end of the decade. The fact that the Americans had more nukes, and so did the Soviets did not in fact make them more scary. If the French decided nukes were the last hope for national survival, that was the end of the matter regardless of what the Uk or Americans thought.

If the Americans and British do not use nuclear weapons, and the Soviets avoid the same, any French threat would face severe pressure from its own side. For that matter, if the French use nuclear weapons and the Americans and British do not, there is no reason why the Soviets cannot carry out a selective attack on France. They have plenty of medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles to do that very thing.

The French would know this of course. Which is why I always felt that the French deterrent force was not much of a deterrent. If the Americans and British DO use nuclear weapons, and so do the Soviets, then the amount of weapons committed by the French are not that big an addition to the gasoline fire that used to be the Northern Hemisphere.
 
Granted these are wargames put out by American companies, but yet "Third World War" allowed with remarkable accuracy a gamer to predict exactly how the Gulf War was going to go in terms of Western effectiveness vs Iraqi effectiveness.

So it really tells us nothing, because the Soviets aren't the Iraqis.

Serbia was different, all the Serbs had to do was basically hide and avoid contact and survive until the end of the campaign. The Pact would have no such luxury here and we have a situation very much akin to the Gulf War.

Except the Serbs were not trying to carry out a modern full scale mechanized invasion and move up supplies to carry that attack out. They didn't have to worry about whether their bridges would be dropped at vital times, they didn't have to move combat divisions forward under the face of full scale air attack, and the sortie rate in Serbia compared to what happened in Iraq or would have happened in Europe in World War III compared to the size of the force engaged was much lower in scale.

Hiding in the woods only works if your goal is force preservation only and you can use your infantry to continue your atrocity campaign.

Except all this is false. The Serbs were conducting mechanized offensives against the local militias right up until the end of the war despite NATO air cover. They even managed to fly several dozen successful CAS missions with SU-24s despite the fact that NATO should have owned to the air. And they very much had to worry about protecting quite a large number of bridges and tunnels which their LOCs ran through... which they did successfully.

To claim that the Soviet deception techniques successfully used by the Serbs could not apply to massive armoured offensives ignores that those same tactics were originally developed to do just that in the 1940s.
 
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As a matter of fact, there WAS a lot of talk in the mid-80s of a "Stealth Fighter", designated the F-19. Spurious, of course, but the DOD put out some disinformation to allow airplane model makers to develop a "F-19 Nightrider" kit, with a design as unlike the real F-117 as you could possibly imagine. Think of a design that looks like a backwards manta ray with radically ROUNDED & OVOID (not flat & angular like the F-117) edges. In the overall shape of a B-70 Valkyrie, but fighter-sized.

I swear, it looked like it had the aerodynamics of an armadillo!

So, did the Soviets get a good laugh at that model kit themselves? Or did the Kremlin order their design people to "get to work"? The latter is not out of the question. When the Soviets back-engineered the B-29 they air-pirated from their "ally", Stalin's orders were so encompassing regarding making their "Boeing/Tu-4" a complete copy that Tupolev was forced to include the bullet holes put in the air-pirated B-29 by the Soviets! So much for air-pressurization on the Tu-4, I guess.:rolleyes:

I have seen the TU-4 story in a couple of sources myself
 
Except that is false. The Serbs were conducting offensives against the local militias right up until the end of the war despite NATO air cover. They even managed to fly several dozen successful CAS missions with SU-24s despite the fact that NATO should have owned to the air.

More to the point, you were citing NATO success against targets such as commandand control assets, logistics nodes, and to disrupt and delay follow on echelons. That was all part of the extended battlefield of AirLand Battle. However, in these areas camouflage and decoys would have been exceptionally useful. The successful tactic for hiding bridges, for example, would have been handy in Soviet rear areas for deflecting NATO interdiction strikes.

The Serbs were not using mechanized forces to slaughter village militias, they were using infantry, mortars, and artillery hiding in the rugged terrain of Serbia. This is not the same thing as trying to move several hundred armored and a similar number of soft skinned vehicles through a relatively limited road network in an approach march to assembly areas and then into to the attack. No one argues that interdiction campaigns against what the Serbs were doing are relatively ineffective (as Vietnam and for that matter Korea showed).

But moving up a mechanized force by road is a completely different affair.

As to bridges, the most important targets are the rail bridges, which the Soviets were particularly dependent on, not having the vast numbers of tractor trailers available to NATO (even in the 80s), or a highway network as sophisticated as that in the West. Decoys don't work when you have to hide a railway bridge.

As to vehicle bridges, they have to be heavy enough to hold armored vehicles, and those too are hard to hide. This isn't Vietnam where you only need to hide a bridge big enough for a truck, and it should be noted that in 1972 during the Easter Offensive American air power did exactly what I am stating to PAVN mechanized forces as they moved.
 
Right bear with me, I'm doing this from memory.

In 2000, I was in WH Smiths on my lunch break purchasing a UK daily tabloid newspaper (not the Daily Sport before you ask) when I happened to look up and spotted either The Economist or New Scientist and read the article about how the Serbs shot down the F-117.

"Shag me sideways and call me Marge" but until then I was under the impression that Stealth aircraft where invisible to Radar. NO! THEY ARE NOT!!!

From what I gathered from the article, the Serbs being tipped off by a French informer at NATO HQ plus bombing the same area more or less continually where advised by the Russians to drop their entire Radar system in that area and just go passive apart from one Radar emitter on full power.

As the aircraft came into range the emitting Radar system couldn't see bugger all from his returns, but the rest who where on passive kept getting intermittent traces from the returns of the aircraft's angled sides which looked like a nocturnal bird.

After some time they then launched between 3 or 4 Infra-Red homing missiles into the F-117's area armed with proximity fuses.

All it needed was for one missile to be close enough for the missiles warhead to explode which it did bringing the F-117 down.

As I said I'm going from memory so if I've got some details wrong, apologies.

Regards filers.

From memory I too recall that the Serbs used infra red homing on the F117. Note that they had information from open source media on what to look for regarding the F117 (faint echos) and were using tech not available in quantity for Soviet forces in the 1980s (infrared homing missiles are a later development).

Plus of course the Soviets might have heard of the F117 and stealth technology in particular, there is no information that it was leaked to them by Soviet spies of that era (we would likely know by now) so the Nighthawks would have been a rude surprise.
 
If the Americans and British do not use nuclear weapons, and the Soviets avoid the same, any French threat would face severe pressure from its own side. For that matter, if the French use nuclear weapons and the Americans and British do not, there is no reason why the Soviets cannot carry out a selective attack on France. They have plenty of medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles to do that very thing.

The French would know this of course. Which is why I always felt that the French deterrent force was not much of a deterrent. If the Americans and British DO use nuclear weapons, and so do the Soviets, then the amount of weapons committed by the French are not that big an addition to the gasoline fire that used to be the Northern Hemisphere.

This is what I mean by nukes not working that way.

If the French decide their chance for national survival is unsustainable short of using nukes, pressure from their own side is hardly relevant. If France and Russia get into a nuclear exchange, they are both gone.

These are not relative levels of power and damage. They are nearer to absolute. There is not meaning to the "addition to the gasoline fire". It has consumed everything meaningful long before. If three people can kill you by shooting you in the head, and one of them can also fire ten shots into your corpse afterwards, if he really a bigger threat than the others?
 
How many were ICBMs?

French forces mid 1980s
4 SSBN (1 on patrol, 1 ready to sortie if need be) w 16 Polaris each
2 CV w 1 squadron of strike aircraft each, aircraft can carry a relatively short range cruise missile with a nuclear warhead
18 IRBMs (Pluton missiles)

so no ICBMs, but all of their missiles could hit targets in European Russia

Plus of course battlefield missiles and tactical strike aircraft as well as a force of 62 Mirage IV bombers that could reach targets in European Russia.

We of course have no idea how reliable any of these systems were, because the missiles were always fired under controlled conditions (an issue that applies to EVERYONE, even now). I have seen guesses estimating 50-75% reliability regarding missiles, with outlier guesses both higher and lower.
 
This is what I mean by nukes not working that way.

If the French decide their chance for national survival is unsustainable short of using nukes, pressure from their own side is hardly relevant. If France and Russia get into a nuclear exchange, they are both gone.

These are not relative levels of power and damage. They are nearer to absolute. There is not meaning to the "addition to the gasoline fire". It has consumed everything meaningful long before. If three people can kill you by shooting you in the head, and one of them can also fire ten shots into your corpse afterwards, if he really a bigger threat than the others?

see reliability issues above

As to would the French do it? Who knows. It is a course of absolute desperation after all. Even the Nazis didn't threaten to destroy all of the French major cities and most of its population.. So would the French do it? Would the Soviets believe that they would? Good thing we never found out.

As to the bigger threat... the Americans are unique in that they can destroy the Soviet nuclear forces and conventional forces and still have enough left over to destroy the Soviet urban centers. Even in the face of an attack launched against them to the same degree.

The French cannot threaten that. Its pure Balance of Terror in this case, cities vs cities, and that is a major question here.
 
The Serbs were not using mechanized forces to slaughter village militias, they were using infantry, mortars, and artillery hiding in the rugged terrain of Serbia. This is not the same thing as trying to move several hundred armored and a similar number of soft skinned vehicles through a relatively limited road network in an approach march to assembly areas and then into to the attack. No one argues that interdiction campaigns against what the Serbs were doing are relatively ineffective (as Vietnam and for that matter Korea showed).

The Serbs employed about about 800 AFVs in Kosovo in concert with mechanized infantry, heavy artillery, attack helicopters. and even occasionally fixed air support in spite of NATO air presence. And they suffered minimal losses in doing so, with only 22 AFVs lost to NATO air power. Their supply lines running back into Serbia were likewise perfectly preserved as was command and control. Had NATO not changed the mission to attacking Serbia itself, and just stuck to its initial mission, it would have completely run out of bombs long before the Serb army took any serious losses.

The reality is that many of the tactics used by the Serbs would have been fully applicable, even to a Soviet armoured thrust. It was what they had been developed for, after all.

But moving up a mechanized force by road is a completely different affair.

It's funny you should say that since that is where the bulk of Serb movement occurred. NATO generally avoided the roads, as that is where Serb SAMs were most frequent.

As to bridges, the most important targets are the rail bridges, which the Soviets were particularly dependent on, not having the vast numbers of tractor trailers available to NATO (even in the 80s), or a highway network as sophisticated as that in the West. Decoys don't work when you have to hide a railway bridge.

I find it amusing that you keep saying that decoys can't do something when that something is exactly what the Serbs managed to do. What the Serbs actually did was build an entire decoy bridge out of radar reflective material right next to the real one. Being far more visible the decoy bridge was hit first. The Serbs then removed the decoy, and laid black bagging all over the center of the real bridge, so that from above it looked like the entire center section had been blown out.

Worked like a charm. NATO didn't realize the bridge hadn't actually been blown until their lead recce units entering Kosovo were rolling over it. Which was a bit of a shock.

Now a days, NATO military academies use it as a exemplary case study in camouflage and deception. The upside though is it instantly solved a lot of anticipated logistical headaches though, since it was an awfully important bridge and NATO needed it to bring their own tanks across.
 
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How many were ICBMs?

Fro memory, they were split between ballistic submarine forces with a large range, intermediate-range land-based missiles, and supersonic bombers. In 1973, the most pessimistic French projection was the ability to destroy ten Russian cities, probably far more. In 1985, they had 10x the number of nukes they did in 1970.
 
The Serbs employed about about 800 AFVs in Kosovo in concert with mechanized infantry, heavy artillery, attack helicopters. and even occasionally fixed air support in spite of NATO air presence. And they suffered minimal losses in doing so, with only 22 AFVs lost to NATO air power. Had NATO not changed the mission to attacking Serbia itself, and just stuck to its initial mission, it would have completely run out of bombs long before the Serb army took any serious losses.

The reality is that many of the tactics used by the Serbs would have been fully applicable, even to a Soviet armoured thrust. It was what they had been developed for, after all.





It's funny you should say that since that is where the bulk of Serb movement occurred. NATO generally avoided the roads, as that is where Serb SAMs were most frequent.



I find it amusing that you keep saying that decoys can't do something when that something is exactly what the Serbs managed to do. What the Serbs actually did was build an entire decoy bridge out of radar reflective material right next to the real one. Being far more visible the decoy bridge was hit first. The Serbs then removed the decoy, and laid black bagging all over the center of the real bridge, so that from above it looked like the entire center section had been blown out.

Worked like a charm. NATO didn't realize the bridge hadn't actually been blown until their lead recce units entering Kosovo were rolling over it. Which was a bit of a shock.

I am glad you are amused. I enjoy entertaining people like you.

800 AFVs, most of which are IFV/APCs? That is exactly 2 divisions, spread across an area that would be covered by a pair of Soviet Combined Arms Armies in a big war in Europe, in terrain dissimilar (mountains in Germany on in WEST Germany, not East Germany), and the Serbs were using prewar supply stocks and didn't have to move them up very far.

You are assuming dissimilar situations are the same.


The Soviets were never 10 feet tall. The First Chechen War made that abundantly clear. That war was fought by equipment from the 1980s, using conscript troops with a similar organization and discipline from the Cold War.

The Serbs also had the advantage of plenty of time to study the Gulf War and what did and did not work, as well as the Vietnam War (and they had similar terrain). The Soviets are moving across the North European Plain, not skulking in the woods launching battalion level attacks against towns instead of regimental and division level attacks against forces organized similarly.
 
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800 AFVs, most of which are IFV/APCs? That is exactly 2 divisions, spread across an area that would be covered by a pair of Soviet Combined Arms Armies in a big war in Europe, in terrain dissimilar (mountains in Germany on in WEST Germany, not East Germany), and the Serbs were using prewar supply stocks and didn't have to move them up very far.

Both Germany's terrain is actually similar: mostly forests with some plains areas and mountain ranges, with the former being where the bulk of fighting will occur. While there would be a lot more Soviet forces, the Soviets also have correspondingly greater amounts of resources to put into such deception. And what you says for Serb stocks go for Soviet stocks too. Nobody actually expected the conventional phase of the world war to last past a month and it's quite possible that the Soviets could decide the whole thing solely with their advance forces in Germany, without ever having to rely upon their rear-echelon forces.

You are assuming dissimilar situations are the same.

Nah, that's you what with your assumption that Soviet competence in the air battle will be on Iraqis levels.

The Soviets were never 10 feet tall. The First Chechen War made that abundantly clear.

Now we're moving into straw man and dissimilar situation territory, what with the First Chechen War involving a force that had suffered from around a half-decade of total neglect and whose soldiers had gone through a internal national collapse so bad it would literally kill 10 million people.

That war was fought by equipment from the 1980s, using conscript troops with a similar organization and discipline from the Cold War.

HAHAHA! If you think the organizational quality and discipline of the Russian Federation in the 1990s were remotely comparable with that of the Red Army in the 1980s, I have a bunch of bridges in Brooklyn to sell you. The RF in the 90s couldn't even properly feed it's soldiers, much less properly organize and train them.
 
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The Serbs employed about about 800 AFVs in Kosovo in concert with mechanized infantry, heavy artillery, attack helicopters. and even occasionally fixed air support in spite of NATO air presence. And they suffered minimal losses in doing so, with only 22 AFVs lost to NATO air power. Their supply lines running back into Serbia were likewise perfectly preserved as was command and control. Had NATO not changed the mission to attacking Serbia itself, and just stuck to its initial mission, it would have completely run out of bombs long before the Serb army took any serious losses.

The reality is that many of the tactics used by the Serbs would have been fully applicable, even to a Soviet armoured thrust. It was what they had been developed for, after all.



It's funny you should say that since that is where the bulk of Serb movement occurred. NATO generally avoided the roads, as that is where Serb SAMs were most frequent.



I find it amusing that you keep saying that decoys can't do something when that something is exactly what the Serbs managed to do. What the Serbs actually did was build an entire decoy bridge out of radar reflective material right next to the real one. Being far more visible the decoy bridge was hit first. The Serbs then removed the decoy, and laid black bagging all over the center of the real bridge, so that from above it looked like the entire center section had been blown out.

Worked like a charm. NATO didn't realize the bridge hadn't actually been blown until their lead recce units entering Kosovo were rolling over it. Which was a bit of a shock.

Now a days, NATO military academies use it as a exemplary case study in camouflage and deception. The upside though is it instantly solved a lot of anticipated logistical headaches though, since it was an awfully important bridge and NATO needed it to bring their own tanks across.

The Soviets were excellent at camouflage and deception. However, the Serbs had years to study Desert Storm and develop countermeasures for the F-117. In this scenario, the Soviets will have no opportunity to prepare or learn. Countermeasures arent identified, tested, and then shared immediately, particularly in a "fog of war" battlefield environment. Plus they have to do this while dodging Wild Weasels, F-111s, F-16s attaching in various packages. By the time the Soviets learn the lessens necessary to take down an F-117 there is a good chance many of their assets are already eliminated.
 
The Soviets were excellent at camouflage and deception. However, the Serbs had years to study Desert Storm and develop countermeasures for the F-117. In this scenario, the Soviets will have no opportunity to prepare or learn. Countermeasures arent identified, tested, and then shared immediately, particularly in a "fog of war" battlefield environment. Plus they have to do this while dodging Wild Weasels, F-111s, F-16s attaching in various packages. By the time the Soviets learn the lessens necessary to take down an F-117 there is a good chance many of their assets are already eliminated.

Except the Serbs didn't actually learn anything from Desert Storm in terms of Maskirovka. They used nothing that wasn't already existant in the Soviet handbooks in the 1980s. There were creative applications, but nothing that was actually conceptually new.
 
Both Germany's terrain is actually similar: mostly forests with some plains areas and mountain ranges, with the latter being where the bulk of fighting will occur. While there would be a lot more Soviet forces, the Soviets also have correspondingly greater amounts of resources to put into such deception. And what you says for Serb stocks go for Soviet stocks too. Nobody actually expected the conventional phase of the world war to last past a month and it's quite possible that the Soviets could decide the whole thing solely with their advance forces in Germany, without ever having to rely upon their rear-echelon forces.



Nah, that's you what with your assumption that Soviet competence in the air battle will be on Iraqis levels.



Now we're moving into straw man and dissimilar situation territory, what with the First Chechen War involving a force that had suffered from around a half-decade of total neglect and whose soldiers had gone through a internal national collapse so bad it would literally kill 10 million people.



HAHAHA! If you think the organizational quality and discipline of the Russian Federation in the 1990s were remotely comparable with that of the Red Army in the 1980s, I have a bunch of bridges in Brooklyn to sell you. The RF in the 90s couldn't even properly feed it's soldiers, much less properly organize and train them.

I always enjoy the march of the debate terms

The bulk of the fighting is in West Germany (Hartz Mountains and hills around Fulda plus Bavaria) but East Germany, where the bulk of transport takes place, is all plains, particularly where the highways and railroads are.

Actually, if the Soviets are as effective as the Iraqis I would be surprised. The Iraqis actually had combat experience fighting the Iranians, who used ballistic missiles and tactical strike aircraft for the entire duration of their war. No one has attacked the Soviets since World War II, and the last full scale test of one of their air defense systems was against the Israelis in Lebanon (where it failed badly). The Iraqis also had French radars and weapons too, something the Soviets did not have.

The bulk of Soviet immediate stocks are in eastern Europe. They are attacking into Central Europe. That is hundreds of miles of transportation distance, and most of their reserves are actually in the Soviet Union, which is much further away. Their fuel production is further away still and has to be moved forward by vehicles once it reaches the forward area.

The Soviets would have to move thousands of tons of fuel forward daily. A scale that makes the Serbian effort the same as comparing a motorcycle to a tractor trailer in scale. The rest of the logistical effort matters, but that fuel issue is very important.

A dispirited conscript in the 1990s is little different from a dispirited conscript from the 1980s and the issues of training did not change from that time frame. The big problems were lack of money for parts and fuel, which the collapse of the Soviet Union did markedly wreck.
 
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