WWIII: 1976

How would the USA reacted if East Germany decided to immitate North Vietnam and force a unification of Germany. I'm not interested in the political impossibilities or the ASB-ness or any of that. I'm interested in how such a war would play out.

How good was NATO hardware in the mid-70s compared to their far greater number of Warsaw Pact counterparts?

Would the M-60 have been anywhere nearly as effective as the M1A1?

Without stealth aircraft to knock out the highly centralized CinC and disrupt SAM operations, how long would NATO airforces last? I remember reading about an extrapolation was run using the losses in Vietnam as a template. It said the USAFE would last about 17 days.

What would the naval war look like? I can't imagine a whole lot different from a 1980s version. Were F-14s out in sufficiant number yet to make a difference in fleet defense?

More over, what would morale in the USA do to the war effort? By treaty, American forces would have to come to the aid of West Germany, but what would the attitude be after the humiliating loss in Vietnam?
 
Soviet military strategy dictated the usage of tactical nuclear weapons from day one in order to neutralize NATO airbases and ground formations, thereby creating the all important gaps that were critical to their emphasis on the armored breakthrough.
 
Is this just East Germany, invading, or the entire WarPac?
If it's the entire Warsaw Pact, then yes, nukes fly. However, if it's just East Germany, then they'll probably get beaten back. It would be interesting to see how the Soviets react in that case.
 
Fiiiiine I'll play properly.


First of all, would East Germany be able to do this independent of the USSR in the first place? Weren't the Soviets quite heavily based in East Germany?

Either way, I'm almost certain that this would be seen as the beginning of a greater Soviet invasion no matter what. IIRC, the Soviet military was estimated to be more than capable of overrunning NATO forces on the continent relatively quickly and would make significant games. The air battle over Germany would be HUGE.

I can imagine many in the USA would be petrified and be heading for bomb shelters. Honestly though, nukes are going to fly very quickly because keeping it completely conventional will not last very long at all.
 
Yes, a German War would make for an interesting story. I might have to think about that.



Fiiiiine I'll play properly.


First of all, would East Germany be able to do this independent of the USSR in the first place? Weren't the Soviets quite heavily based in East Germany?

Either way, I'm almost certain that this would be seen as the beginning of a greater Soviet invasion no matter what. IIRC, the Soviet military was estimated to be more than capable of overrunning NATO forces on the continent relatively quickly and would make significant games. The air battle over Germany would be HUGE.

I can imagine many in the USA would be petrified and be heading for bomb shelters. Honestly though, nukes are going to fly very quickly because keeping it completely conventional will not last very long at all.


I was thinking of it just being (or starting with) East Germany, but yeah, a general Warsaw Pact invasion too. I always figured that if the Soviets wanted to win a (mostly) conventional ground war, the time between Vietnam and Reagan might have been their best bet. When the 80s hit, all that new hardware came online, and if the results of the Gulf War were any indication (we're only outnumbered two-to-one there.....), well, I can picture some in Moscow glad they didn't try to fight NATO.

I can see the point made concerning tactical nukes, but that would spiral out of control fast (which is why I didn't want nukes included since both sides blowing each other away isn't a very good strategy). Either that, or it might make Bonn throw in the towel quick. I heard it once said that WWIII would have been fought to the last German.
 

Kongzilla

Banned
I seriously thought neither side wanted to go nuclear by the 70s as the NATO forces had figured out how to contain and halt Warsaw pact forces.
 

Pomphis

Banned
Yiu are aware that the NVA had 6 divisions and the bundeswehr 12 ? And that there were 20 soviet divisons in east germany ? And that given NATO deployments any invasion would either have to spare significant parts of western germany or hit allied (from north to south: british/dutch/belgian/US) forces right at or soon after the border ? (The french and canadians were a bit further back, so they could conceivably left alone at first without major problems.)
 
The only way the East Germans would do this if with Soviet approval. The WP was not like NATO and did not allow for independent, i.e. non-Soviet approved, policy or action.

As was pointed out by others, all evidence available today (available Soviet military records, doctrine and training) strongly indicates that nuclear and chemical weapons would have been deployed at the outset of any 1970s WWIII scenario. The solely conventional battle favoured by various authors has little basis in reality. Some of them are good stories, but that's all they are.
 
As soon as the WP get close of the french borders, France nuke germany to nuclear wasteland. Don't laugh, that was the France battle plan in a war against the USSR.
 
By the 70's the days when a Soviet conventional offensive would sweep NATO aside were over, by the 80's the West had the advantage.

Nukes would have to fly because conventional warfare would not allow a victory by either side.
 

Andre27

Banned
I seriously thought neither side wanted to go nuclear by the 70s as the NATO forces had figured out how to contain and halt Warsaw pact forces.

And just how was that?

Airpower was parity at best.

1976 is too short to incorporate the lessons with SAM from the 1973 Yom Kippoer war so that will severely limit NATO.

Soviets tanks were ahead of western designs especially the T-64 and T-72 and there were a lot of soviet tanks.

The only plus is that by 1976 the warshaw pact forces were nowhere near to challenging NATO naval forces on equal footing so supply would not be an issue.

Still with several of the scenario's, the best one i see is conventional war with soviet victory in Europe. Other scenarios (chemical weapons -> full scale nuclear war) only go from bad to worse.

As despicable as nuclear weapons are, they are the only thing which prevented WW3.
 
DDR vs FDR

While the DDR is on the offensive and winning, I could see the SU/WP forces holding station, and even if DDR start losing, they will hold station until if/when the FDR cross the border between the two countries - at that point, there's no way the SU/WP can avoid it being trumpeted as an atempt at forcible facist reunification.
SU get involved, Nukes fly, fade to black.

If the FDR Forces can hold at the border, (they would have to accept the loss of West Berlin I think), then I could see Hoenecker or whoever ordered the invasion "retiring" and a "Peace"* Candidate taking over. I think there would be a significant purge in the DDR as well.

I think that could be interesting.


*Peacefully supporting the SU in whatever they decide to do, including going to war. Peacefully...
 

Pomphis

Banned
DDR vs FDR

If the FDR Forces can hold at the border, (they would have to accept the loss of West Berlin I think),

Again: the bundeswehr was more than twice as strong as the NVA. And west berlin was garrisoned by a US, british and french brigade each. How exactly would east germany invade west berlin without shooting at US/british/french troops ? And if you deploy the at least 2 or 3 divisions required to assault a major city defended by roughly a division which has trained defending it for a long time, there are even fewer troops left for the assault on west germany proper. 1:2 odds are no good for an attack. 1:3 or 1:4 are suicidal.
 
As soon as the WP get close of the french borders, France nuke germany to nuclear wasteland. Don't laugh, that was the France battle plan in a war against the USSR.

I wonder how France would react to West Germany simply being neutralized, like a northern European Yugoslavia. Having yet another buffer state would benefit both the USSR (that's the proper abbriviation, not SU) and France.
 
About Berlin, don't forget that the Federal German Police in Berlin were rather well equipped for coppers with G3 assault rifles in their boot (trunk) the number in question were easily the equivalent of a full light infantry brigade plus, they also had fast response detachments too. Having said some of the NATO kit at the time was hideous such as your afore mentioned M60 more so the spectacular mess that was the Starship fitted with Shillelagh 152mm gun missile system, truly awful. US forces also had the Sheridan and that pile of poop the M114. US forces were also beset by the Nam hangover which wouldn't be doing them many favours. UK forces at the time were rather over stretched too with Northern Ireland as an ongoing commitment. This really was a pain as it took several units away at a time from operational tours of BAOR thus affecting its capability. Have a look at TMP Cold War pages.
 
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