World War Three Estimated Death Tolls?

I know, if there was a global nuclear war, the death toll would be from between 100 million to 1 billion depending on who you ask, what day of the week it is, and which way the wind is blowing.

Which just proves that no one really has any idea.

But what about the following nonnuclear war (largely) World War III scenarios?

All taking place sometime between 1985-1991,

In all of them the major combat in Europe ends after no more than a month or so and the Soviet forces have to withdraw either due to military defeat, political collapse, economic collapse or any combination of those.

Scenario One- Conventional WWIII confined to Europe & the surrounding bodies of water - no chemical weapons used (Red Storm Rising scenario).

Scenario Two- Conventional WWIII in Europe, Korean peninsula, Middle East, North Africa, Cuba, and Vietnam and in all major bodies of water. no chemical weapons used (The War That Never Was scenario).

Scenario Three- Same has Scenario Two but heavy use of chemical weapons by the Soviets and North Koreans in the first week of the war with U.S. chemical retaliation.

Scenario Four- Same as Scenario Three but with nuclear weapons used against 2-4 land targets. (The Third World War: August 1985 scenario).
 

Delta Force

Banned
Soviet doctrine called for the use of thousands of tactical nuclear weapons the second that war broke out. This is because such weapons would be most useful during the opening stages of a conflict when they are most likely to successfully attack (use them or lose them) and most likely to cause the most damage to enemy forces, infrastructure, and logistics. You would have to butterfly it away, but I am not sure how you could go about doing so. The Soviets viewed an American nuclear response as inevitable, so given that assumption striking first and with everything available makes a lot of sense.
 
It's fascinating as hell to read about the strategic priorities of the Warsaw Pact and NATO, as both planned on the assumption that the other was going to view warfare, and nuclear weapons in particular, according to their worldview. NATO always saw nuclear strikes as an option completely separated from their defense plans, something they would ratchet up to if and only if a Soviet invasion could not be contained through conventional means. The Warsaw Pact, by contrast, simply viewed nukes as just another weapon in their massive arsenal and integrated its potential use heavily in their attack plans.

The best part about it is that both sides believed the other was trying to trick them out of their mindsets, which convinced them that they were even more right in their beliefs. The Soviets saw all of our conventional training and figured it had to be a trick, a massive ruse to get their armies to march over the border in nice big formations to get promptly nuked by NATO bombers, and focused even more on planning to nuke Europe into the world's largest glass parking lot.

I know this kinda bursts your idea bubble; believe me, I shed some big ol' denial tears when I read about it, *but* not all hope is lost. The key here is that the prevailing beliefs had the Soviet brass fully convinced that they could limit a nuclear exchange to just the European theater without much chance of intercontinental retaliation from the US (wowsers, right?) while the Soviet bureaucrats mostly realized this would NOT be the case and kept the armies in check. If you can somehow establish a doctrinal shift in Soviet strategic thinking over the course of the 60s and 70s that allows for better war planning dialogue between the military and the politicians, we MIGHT be able to pull off a massive non-conventional WWIII. Big thing is convincing the generals that NATO is actually on the level with their 'nukes as last resort' planning.
 
Butterfly this:

This is a fact.

The Soviets had an East German spy in the upper levels of NATO in the 1980s (don't remember his name). He was privy to all the top level NATO defense planning for a war.

So the Soviets in the 1980s would KNOW that NATO had no plans to use nuclear weapons aside possibly as a last resort.

Now, sure Soviet doctrine, war planning all that figured they would launch nuclear weapons from day one.

Now the butterfly.

Whoever is in overall charge then orders Soviet generals and admirals to prepare for a war based solely on conventional (and chemical) weapons and simply refuses to allow nuclear weapons to be employed.

And they take steps to keep any Soviet military personnel from being able to launch nuclear weapons without express permission from the Politburo.
 
If we're operating along these lines, the best conventional chance for the Soviets comes with a 'standing start' invasion i.e. throwing what they already have in place across the border without warning. Given how much of their training and equipment was designed for an N/B/C battlefield, they'd probably take advantage of that and heavily saturate their avenues of attack with nerve gases and such, maybe even launch some disruptive biological attacks with Spetsnaz infiltrators farther along the way in population centers to help aid the initial chaos. Major emphasis would be placed on delaying forces attacking the U.S. zone of operation in the south and keeping them pinned down while the primary attack waves attempt to wipe out the British and Dutch forces in the north. A lot would depend on where NATO draws their nuclear line in the sand. For the sake of overall survival, the best chance to go without launching nukes has the Red Army stopping at the Rhine instead of driving on to Antwerp. NATO loses it's primary Central Front defensive buffer but doesn't feel so desperate as to feel the button is the only option left, and Mother Russia finally gets all of Germany under its control at long last. We'd be looking at casualty figures in the hundreds of thousands at their lowest, and would continue to lose people to aftereffects of the biological strikes especially in refugee camps and convoys.

That's if we focus on just the European front and limit worldwide encounters to naval standoffs and strategic bombing strikes. Once again, keeping this non-nuclear means that the Soviet Union needs to be limited enough in its aims that the US doesn't feel like its back is to the wall. The moment they feel that things can no longer be contained by the forces they have deployed worldwide, missiles are leaving the silos. If you haven't read it already, I'd highly recommend checking out Red Army by Ralph Peters, minus the biological and chemical strikes he pretty much lays out the above scenario, plus I threw in some work by William R. Trotter.
 
Well though people talk about some of the liberties that Tom Clancy took in Red Storm Rising to produce a NATO victory, Ralph Peters took some in Red Army to produce a Soviet victory.

And even the Soviet victory was not a battlefield victory per se. It was the West Germans giving up just as NATO was about to launch a massive counterattack.

That said, I assume that while a complete "bolt from the blue" attack would be the Soviets best chance victory, I also assume that is the least likely scenario as only a massively tense geopolitical situation (and probably a preexisting conflict) would actually provoke the Soviets to attack.

Thus, I always assumed that NATO would have at least a week to get REFORGER started.
 
I've done some of my own figuring

Scenario One: I figured about 3,000 civilian fatalities per day in mainly West Germany and the Low countries over the course of a 30 day war a lower total of 100,000 in the Warsaw Pact nations.

I also figured about 150,000 NATO military fatalities or roughly 5% of the total number of soldiers engaged in total.

I figured 400,000 Warsaw Pact military fatalities due to them being the attacking force and lesser methods of handling casualities. That amounts to about 6.25% of the total engaged.

But chaos, destruction of infrastructure, and disease are present in all military conflicts. So I increased by base estimated by a standard 50%.

So the combined European war, no chemical weapons scenario come to about 1.2 million fatalities in a 30 day war.

Scenario Two- the numbers increase dramatically due to in all likelihood at least 500,000 killed on the Korean peninsula and another 100,000 across the Middle East. Once again the typical 50% adjustment makes the death toll for Scenario Two roughly 2.1 million in a global, nonnuclear, 30 day war.

Scenario Three- same as above but with extensive chemical weapons used. The civilian death toll (especially in western Europe) soars to 500,000 or more and that in the Warsaw Pact to at least 200,000. That owes mainly to the likelihood that the Soviets would heavily hit airbases and ports which are all in areas of great civilian populations. The increase on the civilian side of WP nations is less as I believe U.S. chemical retaliation would be somewhat weaker and the U.S. would probably make some effort not to hit heavy concentrations of East German civilians.

Military fatalities on both sides would increase somewhat though perhaps not as much as expected due to the fact that chemical weapons would reduce the pace of airstrikes and cause logistical problems for large ground formations. Call it 200,000 NATO military fatalities and 500,000 WP military fatalities.

Combined with increased fatalities in the Korean Peninsula and the number killed worldwide would probably be at least 3.5 million.

Scenario Four- the above plus 2-4 nuclear strikes (Birmingham, England and Minsk in the famous Hackett scenario). Though other targeted pairs such as Norfolk, Virginia/Murmansk or San Diego/Vladivostok are also possible.

While some have suggested that such limited "nuclear demonstrations" would not be workable, let me point out that even Secretar of State Alexander Haig (who was also a four star general and former NATO Supreme Commander) suggested in 1982 the possibility of a "nuclear warning shot" in a future conflict. And I assume he knew what he is talking about. The "warning shot" scenario also worked its way into "World War 3: The Movies (on Youtube) though it led to an all out nuclear exchange.

That said, I added at least. 1.5 million fatalites to Scenario Three giving a number of 5-6 million killed in Scenario Four.

By the way, in American political scandals, there is the say "It isn't the crime. It's the coverup".

In war scenarios, there should be the saying "It isn't the war. It's the aftermath".

If World War One and Two showed anything it was that the conflicts sparked in the immediate aftermath of a global war could be horrendous themselves.

The "spin off conflicts" of a World War Three could include a nuclear civil war in the old Soviet Union, massive conflict in the Balkans, and Lord only knows what in the Middle East. The death tolls from these conflicts could rival and even dwarf a Third World War itself.
 

CalBear

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Once nukes are used against NATO/Soviet civilian targets it is all over. Hackett wrote his scenario from the NATO war-fighting perspective. He was very wrong due to the Soviet strategic system. You would get a full launch on warning.

Game over.
 
Once nukes are used against NATO/Soviet civilian targets it is all over. Hackett wrote his scenario from the NATO war-fighting perspective. He was very wrong due to the Soviet strategic system. You would get a full launch on warning.

Game over.

Nah. Once again, Hackett was not aware that an East German spy was in the upper levels of NATO dutifully reporting NATO war plans to the Soviets.

So the Soviets would know full well that the west was not going to launch nuclear attacks.

And "launch on warning" was never a real policy of either the U.S. or the Soviet Union.

The idea that each side is going to launch literally thousands of nuclear warheads just because a couple of nuclear weapons are detonated somewhere has been largely a Cold War and post Cold War fallacy.
 
If World War Three stays conventional...

On the one hand, everybody has bigger and faster weapons and plans to make "lightning strikes" and wrap stuff up within a week or two, it seems.

On the other hand, this could end up being like if everyone is presuming that they're above average, then, well, someone is going to find a discrepancy between presumption and reality. (Those who aren't at least mild math fans: It is statistically impossible for everyone to be above-average. Going into a war, it is impossible for everyone to be at advantage. Etc.)

I'm thinking that a short time after a major player runs into unforeseen difficulties, they pull out that extra level of brutality to Get It Done, and I think that's when the numbers start to get eye-popping.

Predicting a relatively short war is assuming that people are going to make "rational' decisions like, "I'm clearly beaten, I better sue for terms" in order to keep the carnage at minimum level. I think that patriotism and desperation and related factors will lead to some very fierce resistance no matter what the "reality" is.

I think a lot of people in Western Europe are going to be very, very opposed to Soviet conquest of their homeland. It's possible that this mindset will include the leaders of affected countries.

On a related note: No matter what official decisions are made at a national policy level, an unpredictable number of people are going to choose to resist occupation by any means necessary. To make a war-ending deal stick, the winning leadership would be smart to be very, very choosy about what specific goals are best for long-term security and for not guaranteeing a very ugly backlash in the near to medium future.

Soviets versus NATO: On the one hand, yes, quantity has a quality of its own. On the other hand, NATO has Defensive Advantage and, to some extent, a quality advantage that could potentially make a number of Soviet military objectives very, very difficult to attain.

"Crimson Revolution" Time? As we've seen OTL, the people of the Warsaw Pact nations didn't take their sweet time when they thought they had a whiff of a chance at overthrowing their Soviet rulers. If Moscow's tanks are occupied, then, hell, what better opportunity to stick it to the USSR by taking to the streets and pulling a "Braveheart" or two? At the very least, I'd give Poland at the very, very most a week before it turns itself into another front against the Soviet Union. I'm presuming other Warsaw Pact citizenries would be chomping at the bit, and yes, the blood would flow, but the chance would feel real and I think they'd take it.

Soviet leaders would be stuck between a rock and a hard place. They're certainly not going to dare to ask NATO for a time-out or a Mulligan so they can go back and subdue revolting patches of the Warsaw Pact. And they'll be fucked to a notable degree with the area between Western Europe and Russia being disrupted so vividly by the components of their iron curtain. They'd have to painfully reallocate some military resources. And, sure as shit, NATO forces will exploit this.

Now, would the Soviet leadership fold and say okay we made a mistake let's give up within a month, or, does the leadership that decided to take a chance on World War Three choose to fight like hell and so on?

I bet that there will be a number of points when each side will think they have an opportunity to press for The Win and end the war on their terms. I also bet that some of these thoughts will be based on incorrect assumptions and that the failure of the inspired initiatives will manifest in extra days and weeks and months of warfare.

As the shit gets worse, will anyone feel like betting against "strategic bombing" making a comeback? Dial in retaliation, etc., etc.

World War II lasted about six years and over 60 million people died as a result.

I think World War III could last at least a couple years, and, with weaponry being more advanced, I'm thinking we could see tens of millions dead this time too.
 
Conventional wisdom has been that it would be impossilble to sustain heavy conventional operations beyond a month at most.

Though I wonder just how long (especially if you had a six-twelve month run up to the war) for massive conversion of civilian economies to war time production how long you could fight?

Now, the Soviet economy doesn't have all that much "mobilization potential" given that they were already virtually on a war footing.

So you might get a multi-year conflict if you had the initial Soviet attack halted within a month or two...but then it took years to switch to the offensive and actually force a Soviet retreat into Russia itself.

Personally, I think once Russians see the war as a "war of national survival" then you get a huge outpouring of patriotism and willingness to work and sacrifice for even the communist government.
 
By the way, I dug out one of my issues of the military history & wargaming magazine Strategy & Tactics. It focused on two "Wars That Never Were".

One being the Soviets invading West Germany in the latter part of the Cold War and the other being allied war plans in case World War I went on into 1919.

It said that based on newly released Soviet documents (this was in the 1990s) that from about 1979-1988, the Soviets had the official doctrine of fighting a "conventional only" war against NATO.

After 1988 until the end of the Cold War, the Soviets moved nuclear weapons back into their planning because they did not believe they could win a conventional war in Europe and also started making defensive plans (something alien to previous Soviet thinking) because they were worried about a NATO invasion to "liberate" Eastern Europe.
 
As far as chemicals go, the best use of them is initially against depots, airports, marshalling yards etc. Using chemicals on the FEBA works against the Soviets because their chem gear was not as good as NATO, and was more restrictive (greater heat retention etc). NATO forces were generally well trained for chem warfare - so all chem usage on/near front lines does is to slow the Soviet advance, whereas hitting rear supply/transport nodes screws with NATO's ability to fight and has no direct downside for the USSR.

The biggest loser in any chem scenario are civilians, especially if nerve agents are used. It will get very ugly, and one of the major problems will be that contaminated casualties will, initially, end up contaminating some medical facilities and providers and soon the need to decon even suspected contaminated casualties (ones with "conventional" injuries) will make things worse. If persistent nerve agents are used, unprotected civilians who have no way to detect the presence of such agents......
 
As far as chemicals go, the best use of them is initially against depots, airports, marshalling yards etc. Using chemicals on the FEBA works against the Soviets because their chem gear was not as good as NATO, and was more restrictive (greater heat retention etc). NATO forces were generally well trained for chem warfare - so all chem usage on/near front lines does is to slow the Soviet advance, whereas hitting rear supply/transport nodes screws with NATO's ability to fight and has no direct downside for the USSR.

The biggest loser in any chem scenario are civilians, especially if nerve agents are used. It will get very ugly, and one of the major problems will be that contaminated casualties will, initially, end up contaminating some medical facilities and providers and soon the need to decon even suspected contaminated casualties (ones with "conventional" injuries) will make things worse. If persistent nerve agents are used, unprotected civilians who have no way to detect the presence of such agents......

That is the way I saw it in the scenarios I've looked at.

The Soviets would hit places like the U.S. air base at Frankfurt with chemical weapons.

U.S. would retaliate but only to a lesser extent against Soviet troops near the Forward Edge of the Battle Area or at areas where Warsaw Pact troops are concentrating in the field. This is because virtually all the FEBA would be in West German territory and the U.S. has a solid reason to avoiding spraying an area with high concentrations.
 
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