Would NATO have been concerned about West German civilian casualties in a limited, conventional war?

[ArmedNeutrality]

In comparison to what? Dude, by the end of the 80s Soviets had 20 thousand T-72s by themselves, without anything that Poles and Czechs produced. And if we add T-64 and T-80 it would be another ~20 thousand of 2nd and 3rd generation tanks.

Also I must point out that T-55AM is very much on par with anything but the third generation of NATO tanks. You kinda forgetting that NATO inventory was also mostly M48, M60, Leo 1 and Centurions at the time. T-55 in the 80s is not this:

It is this:

The Soviets bankrupted themselves building massive inventories of tanks, all of which would require fuel.

How do you provide fuel, spare parts, spare engines, etc., for 30,000+ tanks that are supposed to be advancing west, when you also need to use scarce railroads to provide ammunition, food, medicine, and send wounded to the rear.

It is one thing to have tens and tens of thousands of tanks, an entirely different matter to be able to effectively employ them and provision them in the field.

Sending 10,000 tanks down a highway means a back-log of 50-100 miles for the column, if not 200-300 miles.

Sending them out cross-country style, spread out in successive waves, means excessive wear/tear, increased fuel requirements, and probably rebuilding or replacing the engine in a few hundred miles.

 

[ArmedNeutrality]

Point is that South Korea cant hold solo,so its another front the US has to send men to while needing to do a lot to prop up Europe.

And i still dont have a way to dodge the French unleashing the nukes if their lines start collapsing.

If neither side backs down then nuclear war seems inevitable.

ROK has had a near total/absolute advantage over DPRK in conventional forces for the last 20-30 years. Granted in the early 1980s this advantage was not as clear but it was developing.

If DPRK attacks ROK in 1982-1984, the result is not the easy/sweeping advance that DPRK made in 1950, but probably a grinding stalemate.

In a conventional match-up today, DPRK could not repel an ROK invasion of DPRK.

 

[ArmedNeutrality]

Or maybe the Western economies implode from so much of their work force and consumers being killed off or crippled while the Governments must finance the Greatest Conflict in Human History on budgets that were never that solid to begin with.
Not to mention that half of those Government's are seeing their economies simply blown up by bombers and ballistic missiles if not the fighting itself.

The Warsaw Pact economies might be smaller but they are nationalized and easily managed,Western economies are far more delicate and complicated things.

That is highly speculative at best.

WP economies all collapsed without the added pressure of war. The USA was able to finance Vietnam and the maintenance of American forces around the world without collapsing.

The Soviet Union could not even sustain the war in Afghanistan.

 

[gagenater]

ROK has had a near total/absolute advantage over DPRK in conventional forces for the last 20-30 years. Granted in the early 1980s this advantage was not as clear but it was developing.

If DPRK attacks ROK in 1982-1984, the result is not the easy/sweeping advance that DPRK made in 1950, but probably a grinding stalemate.

In a conventional match-up today, DPRK could not repel an ROK invasion of DPRK.

It's reasonable to assume that in any matchup between the late 50's and the collapse of the USSR that If things went hot in Korea while the 'main event' in Europe was going on that the North and South Koreans would each receive a few nukes to ensure that neither side has the opportunity to make a stunning advance and upset the balance of power elsewhere. Assume everyone and everything in Pyongyang, Seoul, and possibly a few key ports is vaporized. After that the war (if it still continues) will advance at such a slow pace that whoever wins the main event can just nuke the other side if their chosen one isn't winning.

 

[ArmedNeutrality]

It's reasonable to assume that in any matchup between the late 50's and the collapse of the USSR that If things went hot in Korea while the 'main event' in Europe was going on that the North and South Koreans would each receive a few nukes to ensure that neither side has the opportunity to make a stunning advance and upset the balance of power elsewhere. Assume everyone and everything in Pyongyang, Seoul, and possibly a few key ports is vaporized. After that the war (if it still continues) will advance at such a slow pace that whoever wins the main event can just nuke the other side if their chosen one isn't winning.

Disagree, nobody would pay much attention to the Korean peninsula, let alone waste nuclear warheads on Korea in a nuclear war, and certainly not risk escalating a conventional war into a global nuclear exchange because of conventional combat in Korea.

 

[CruelDwarf]

The Soviets bankrupted themselves building massive inventories of tanks, all of which would require fuel.

No, they actually did not. Expenses on the building of this stuff were minor because of the structure of the Soviet economics.

How do you provide fuel, spare parts, spare engines, etc., for 30,000+ tanks that are supposed to be advancing west, when you also need to use scarce railroads to provide ammunition, food, medicine, and send wounded to the rear.

Why do you need 30 thousand tanks advancing West at the same time. You simply have reserves and spares. And when NATO will run out of tanks at last, you will still have thousands of your own.

It is one thing to have tens and tens of thousands of tanks, an entirely different matter to be able to effectively employ them and provision them in the field.

Sending 10,000 tanks down a highway means a back-log of 50-100 miles for the column, if not 200-300 miles.

Sorry, but from where do you get the idea that front-level combined arms assault looks like thousands of tanks running along the highway?

I wll just note that timelines for the Soviet counter-offensive required reaching the Rhine within a week. And yes, these plans involved copious use of chemical and nuclear weapons to clear the way. And as you can understand army which prepared for fighting on the nuclear-contaminated battlefield didn't care much about roads.

 

[ArmedNeutrality]

I wll just note that timelines for the Soviet counter-offensive required reaching the Rhine within a week. And yes, these plans involved copious use of chemical and nuclear weapons to clear the way. And as you can understand army which prepared for fighting on the nuclear-contaminated battlefield didn't care much about roads.

Yeah, and everybody thought WW1 would be over by Christmas.

Germans planned on finishing off the USSR in a campaign lasting no more than 12 weeks.

Timelines are usually broken/missed, and most plans don't survive first contact with the enemy.

 

[gagenater]

Disagree, nobody would pay much attention to the Korean peninsula, let alone waste nuclear warheads on Korea in a nuclear war, and certainly not risk escalating a conventional war into a global nuclear exchange because of conventional combat in Korea.

If it got bad enough that it started interfering with plans elsewhere they would.

 

[Anatur]

The Soviets bankrupted themselves building massive inventories of tanks, all of which would require fuel.

How do you provide fuel, spare parts, spare engines, etc., for 30,000+ tanks that are supposed to be advancing west, when you also need to use scarce railroads to provide ammunition, food, medicine, and send wounded to the rear.

It is one thing to have tens and tens of thousands of tanks, an entirely different matter to be able to effectively employ them and provision them in the field.

Sending 10,000 tanks down a highway means a back-log of 50-100 miles for the column, if not 200-300 miles.

Sending them out cross-country style, spread out in successive waves, means excessive wear/tear, increased fuel requirements, and probably rebuilding or replacing the engine in a few hundred miles.

Soviet tanks were lightyears ahead of Western ones in terms of fuel efficiency,not like the Soviets expected many tanks of the first echelons to last long enough for it to become a serious issue.
And the Soviets had proven historically that they can do logistics properly,at least they didnt run out of fuel while advancing into the Third Reich,unlike some people.

ROK has had a near total/absolute advantage over DPRK in conventional forces for the last 20-30 years. Granted in the early 1980s this advantage was not as clear but it was developing.

If DPRK attacks ROK in 1982-1984, the result is not the easy/sweeping advance that DPRK made in 1950, but probably a grinding stalemate.

In a conventional match-up today, DPRK could not repel an ROK invasion of DPRK.

I think you put to much faith in fancy tech.

That is a common mistake in history.

A 1950s artillery shell will kill you just like a 1980s artillery shell,same goes for bullets.
The sheer amount of men and firepower the North Koreans can call upon,not even counting all those tunnels they dug into the south and the sleeper agents,means the ROK will be hard pressed to hold them back without huge US support.
And by huge US support i mean the level of hundreds of bombers and tactical nukes raining down on the North Koreans to keep killing them off before their mass of men and machines overwhelms the South.

That is highly speculative at best.

WP economies all collapsed without the added pressure of war. The USA was able to finance Vietnam and the maintenance of American forces around the world without collapsing.

The Soviet Union could not even sustain the war in Afghanistan.

The Soviet Union collapsed from inept political leadership driving the nation into the ground and wasting most of its economic options.

In case of WW3 all such issues take a back seat to the needs of total war,which is surprisingly good at eliminating things like luxuries or wages.

Also Western Corporations are going to be hit hard by their markets being outright anihilated.
Literally thousands of corporations across the Western World will go bankrupt because their markets are dissapearing and their consumer base is shrinking.
Vietnam isnt a valid comparison since it barely touched the civilian economy,in WW3 Europe wont have a civilian economy.

Yeah, and everybody thought WW1 would be over by Christmas.

Germans planned on finishing off the USSR in a campaign lasting no more than 12 weeks.

Timelines are usually broken/missed, and most plans don't survive first contact with the enemy.

Neither the Kaiser nor Hitler had the ability to incinerate entire cities with conventional means in the span of a few hours.

NATO forces facing the Warsaw Pact that arent in bunkers or hidding will be obliterated.

Sure many Warsaw Pact troops will be obliterated by NATO counter-fire,but the Warsaw Pact got a hell of a lot more dudes to waste in the early battles,NATO does not.

 

[ArmedNeutrality]

Neither the Kaiser nor Hitler had the ability to incinerate entire cities with conventional means in the span of a few hours.

NATO forces facing the Warsaw Pact that arent in bunkers or hidding will be obliterated.

Sure many Warsaw Pact troops will be obliterated by NATO counter-fire,but the Warsaw Pact got a hell of a lot more dudes to waste in the early battles,NATO does not.

BRD military [with reserves] was about 3-4 times larger than the forces of DDR [which may have something to do with the fact that BRD had more than 3x the population of DDR].

France had a greater population than Poland.
BRD had a greater population than DDR.
Italy had a greater population than Bulgaria and Romania combined.

We could do a comparison, overall the NATO [including USA] had a population more than 2x greater than WP [including the USSR in this].

The WP actually has no hope of winning a protracted war of attrition and if the situation devolves into a stalemate, if the WP advance falters and grinds to a halt in central Germany, the WP is in a world of hurt.

 

[Anatur]

BRD military [with reserves] was about 3-4 times larger than the forces of DDR [which may have something to do with the fact that BRD had more than 3x the population of DDR].

France had a greater population than Poland.
BRD had a greater population than DDR.
Italy had a greater population than Bulgaria and Romania combined.

We could do a comparison, overall the NATO [including USA] had a population more than 2x greater than WP [including the USSR in this].

The WP actually has no hope of winning a protracted war of attrition and if the situation devolves into a stalemate, if the WP advance falters and grinds to a halt in central Germany, the WP is in a world of hurt.

West Germany and France have the bulk of the Warsaw Pact bearing down on them,that includes the USSR.

Italy is safely locked behind neutral Switzerland,neutral Austria and neutral Yugoslavia,so they cant do anything without shifting their men through France into Germany or sending troops to Greece to bother Bulgaria.

And the overall NATO population doesnt mean much since its nowhere near as millitarized.
We already went over this,Commie conscripts have far longer conscript terms and more training,not to mention their entire societies are millitarized.
The Western conscripts will be of worse quality and it will impact their nations a lot more to mobilize so many people and throw them into certain death.

 

[ArmedNeutrality]

Training is also another issue, WP tank gunners only fired 3 rounds per year in training, compared with 120 per year for US tank gunners.

WP pilots received 60 hours of flight time per year, while US pilots were receiving 240 hours per year.

If you want to see what happens to an air force that drastically cuts flight hours in training, look at the 1944-1945 Luftwaffe and look at the 1944-1945 pilots of Imperial Japan.

http://www.alternatewars.com/WW3/the_war_that_never_was.htm

 

[ArmedNeutrality]

And the overall NATO population doesnt mean much since its nowhere near as millitarized.
We already went over this,Commie conscripts have far longer conscript terms and more training,not to mention their entire societies are millitarized.
The Western conscripts will be of worse quality and it will impact their nations a lot more to mobilize so many people and throw them into certain death.

WP training was vastly inferior to NATO training.

Look at the training given to tank crews, American tankers fired 120 live rounds per year, WP usually fired 3 live rounds per year, doing almost all of their training in simulators.

US pilots received at least 240 hours of flight training, in the air, each year. Soviet/WP typically only received 60 hours in the air each year.

 

[ArmedNeutrality]

The Soviet military in the 1970s-1980s had a suicide rate that was 18x the rate of the US military. This strongly suggests huge problems with morale and major psychological issues in the general society that the conscripts were coming from.

 

[Anatur]

Training is also another issue, WP tank gunners only fired 3 rounds per year in training, compared with 120 per year for US tank gunners.

WP pilots received 60 hours of flight time per year, while US pilots were receiving 240 hours per year.

If you want to see what happens to an air force that drastically cuts flight hours in training, look at the 1944-1945 Luftwaffe and look at the 1944-1945 pilots of Imperial Japan.

http://www.alternatewars.com/WW3/the_war_that_never_was.htm

You are talking about the US,the only semi-capable millitary in NATO which still got stalemated in Korea and violated by jungle guerilla's.

The Soviets still have huge quantities of AA which will whipe out most of those expirienced pilots,while the NATO armies actually have problems fighting without total air superiority.

Same goes for NATO tankers,the expirienced ones will be dead fairly early on.

After a month or two of this combat the NATO expertise pool will start plummeting rapidly while the Warsaw Pact one wont really change all that much,it will improve with the Soviet Armies taking over for the shattered Warsaw Pact ones.

WP training was vastly inferior to NATO training.

Look at the training given to tank crews, American tankers fired 120 live rounds per year, WP usually fired 3 live rounds per year, doing almost all of their training in simulators.

US pilots received at least 240 hours of flight training, in the air, each year. Soviet/WP typically only received 60 hours in the air each year.

Vastly inferior to NATO proffesional training.
Vastly superior to non-existant NATO conscript training.

And like i said,in WW3 most of those OG pilots will be dead after the first few months meaning that the side which has the infrastrastructure and organization to crap out "ok" pilots and tankers will have the advantage over the side over-reliant on its golden boys.

The Soviet military in the 1970s-1980s had a suicide rate that was 18x the rate of the US military. This strongly suggests huge problems with morale and major psychological issues in the general society that the conscripts were coming from.

Do you really want to go over the suicide rate of the modern US army?

Besides,psychological issues mean very little in the heat of combat,and the Soviets proved in WW2 that they could use just about anyone for combat.

 

[ArmedNeutrality]

You are talking about the US,the only semi-capable millitary in NATO which still got stalemated in Korea and violated by jungle guerilla's.

Korea was a conventional war, what are you talking about jungle guerillas for? Are there even any jungles in the Korean peninsula?

NATO was not stalemated by guerillas in Korea, the stalemate came about after China poured huge numbers of conventional infantry and tanks into the Korean peninsula because the USA had completely destroyed the armed forces of DPRK and the USA was almost to the Yalu River.

China intervened in the Korean War because the USA and South Korea had destroyed the DPRK military and the remnants were routing in a chaotic disorderly retreat.

 

[ArmedNeutrality]

Also the overall advantage in terms of units on hand, and category 1 divisions that were already mobilized [most Soviet war plans did not incorporated category 2 or 3 divisions because they did not expect to be able to mobilize them in a timely manner] the WP only has about a 1.3 to 1 advantage in manpower over the NATO, which is hardly "overwhelming" it is not even half of the 3 to 1 advantage usually desired before attacking a determined well-equipped foe who will mount a vigorous defense.

 

[keynes2.0]

Italy is safely locked behind neutral Switzerland,neutral Austria and neutral Yugoslavia,so they cant do anything without shifting their men through France into Germany or sending troops to Greece to bother Bulgaria.

Italy could always go on the forums and complain until the game devs put the ability to load tanks on trains back in. Then suddenly they are hella imba again.

And like i said,in WW3 most of those OG pilots will be dead after the first few months meaning that the side which has the infrastrastructure and organization to crap out "ok" pilots and tankers will have the advantage over the side over-reliant on its golden boys.

Unless they are dying because Zeus decides to strike every plane in the air down with a lightning strike, the quality of training will be incredibly important in deciding which side exhausts it's trained pilots first.

And given how difficult jet fighters are to pilot and how short a war was expected to be, I don't think that "ok" pilots are going to be replacing them very quickly.

 

[Anatur]

Korea was a conventional war, what are you talking about jungle guerillas for? Are there even any jungles in the Korean peninsula?

NATO was not stalemated by guerillas in Korea, the stalemate came about after China poured huge numbers of conventional infantry and tanks into the Korean peninsula because the USA had completely destroyed the armed forces of DPRK and the USA was almost to the Yalu River.

China intervened in the Korean War because the USA and South Korea had destroyed the DPRK military and the remnants were routing in a chaotic disorderly retreat.

The North Koreans inflicted 9 defeats on the US before Pusan,and then later the Chinese drove them back to the paralel with nothing but PPSh's and light mortars.

The jungle guerilla's are the Vietnamese who almost overran US ground forces many times had it not been for redicolus quantities of US bombs.

Also the overall advantage in terms of units on hand, and category 1 divisions that were already mobilized [most Soviet war plans did not incorporated category 2 or 3 divisions because they did not expect to be able to mobilize them in a timely manner] the WP only has about a 1.3 to 1 advantage in manpower over the NATO, which is hardly "overwhelming" it is not even half of the 3 to 1 advantage usually desired before attacking a determined well-equipped foe who will mount a vigorous defense.

And yet there were still Soviet plans which flat out stated "throw Warsaw Pact at NATO,throw first echelon Soviet Armies at NATO,flood WP nations with 2nd and 3rd echelon Soviet armies".

If anyone can mobilize huge quantities of men in WW3 its the Commies,it sure as hell isnt NATO.

Italy could always go on the forums and complain until the game devs put the ability to load tanks on trains back in. Then suddenly they are hella imba again.

Italy can at best send its proffesional army to help out,but given how a risk to Italy wont be readily apparant can we trully trust the Italians to conscript every man they got and send him to die for Paris?

Last time they didnt even want to die for Rome...

 

[ArmedNeutrality]

My prediction for an early 1980s WP offensive against NATO, with the offensive being opened by DDR and Soviet forces into central Germany, the Soviets make impressive gains for 1-3 days [while suffering horrendous losses in terms of men and equipment] and then the situation bogs down into a general stalemate.