Been having some interesting exchanges of views with Nico and others about the outcome of a Soviet attack on Western Europe during the Cold War.

Having studied the actual combat performance and effectivness of both the men and equipment of the opposing sides, during non cold war conflicts 'some' military experts and historians are of the view that NATO would have stopped a conventional attack on Western Europe. Others think that the Warsaw Pact would have prevailed.

So the question I put is this, From 1980 onwards and assuming that NATO was fully mobilised and prepared after a period of 'tension' would a Soviet conventional attack on the west have succeeded?.

The floor as they say is open.

aghart,
Succeeded in what goal?

i would say yes,aghart
the east german army was the whole time on a very high alert level ,also the russians there,and so they had perhaps the better experience
also the support lines were no problems for the russians
the strategy was to overrun the enemy ,not just attack on some tactical points !
just remember hitler´s plan ,fortess europe
this was perhaps the most important goal for the russians in a war against the nato

The attack would never have happened in 1980. By that time mutually assured destruction was a very potent deterent and both The USSR and the USA knew what the outcome would have been.

he said what if..but anywayz.....The results would be messy, even if one side one the "victor" would be in really bad shape as with the rest of the world.

"he said what if"

OK if the attack had happened in 1980 the earth would have become a very cold dark planet.

I'm still waiting to hear what the goal is - if you mean to break NATO forces in europe, then the USSR had a damn good chance of winning. If you mean successfully annexing europe and holding it - well, that's a whole other ballgame and I don't think they could have done it, not in the long term.

ok, conflict begins:

Russian armies begin a massive wave assault of tanks, an outstanding advantage over NATO tanks. NATO air superiority would be on top of things, making the russian assault slow.

I beleive the only hope the russians would have would be to get to the french ports before the americans could resupply. I mean, remember WW2? the US's manufacturing capability in wartime is superb, and at the height of the cold war...

SO it would come down to the submarines to destroy each other and the convoys in the atlantic, should the convoys fail to stop the russians flow into western europe, then i believe rather than an enourmous nuclear strike, there would be many smaller strikes, mainly tactical nukes on the battlefield, from atomic artillery to short range ballistic missiles so no nuclear winter, but a very ugly Europe.....I believe the West's technology would pull through in the end though, but hey, thats just me.

thats just the military side, as EI says, the Russians would have some major problems.

but when you think of it, neither side has much to gain, so i guess thats why were all alive =)

Originally posted by EI_Sparks
I'm still waiting to hear what the goal is - if you mean to break NATO forces in europe, then the USSR had a damn good chance of winning. If you mean successfully annexing europe and holding it - well, that's a whole other ballgame and I don't think they could have done it, not in the long term.

The goal would have been to defeat the NATO forces in battle and occupy at least West Germany and secure by treaty the total removal of US forces from all the European mainland, thus leaving the USSR as the dominant and only 'power' in Europe.


The attack would never have happened in 1980. By that time mutually assured destruction was a very potent deterent and both The USSR and the USA knew what the outcome would have been.


Not true. A conventional attack on West Germany would have been met with a conventional response from NATO. An upgrade to the use of tactical nuclear weapons in my view would be from one of two situations,

either the NATO forces were on the point of collapse and tactical 'nukes' were needed ( but would European governments agree to battlefield nukes being used on their turf? maybe conventional defeat would be prefereable, also would 'when push came to shove' the US go nuclear and risk an escalation to 'armagedon' just to save Europe.)

The other situation would be the Soviet armies being fought to a standstill and the soviets left with a choice of either retreat ( something they did not practice on field exercises) or the use of battlefield nukes to regain the initiative).

I agree that once even a small 'nuke' was used it may be impossible to stop the ineveitable escalation of nuclear use, but a totally non nuclear conflict was most definately a reality.

You're dealing with "conventional" countries, but what about those who already had nukes (as France did)? Would USSR have attack France? I guess that the answer is "no" and nukes are not the only reason : France already had "good" relations with USSR (better than lots of other western countries) and I agree with aghart when he gives the goal of that possible war.
As the question was "who would have won ?", my opinion is USSR if they would have just follow aghart's goal (for a first step...).
conventional defeat would be prefereable

Originally posted by Andre
Seems rather peculiar to predict the past war.

I know but here we can 'play war' and nobody gets hurt, much better than the real thing.

When I was in Germany I believed that the Warsaw Pact would win and win easily, I'm not so sure now though. I would have fought in this war that never happened and most likely would have been killed, so believe me, no one is more pleased than me that it never happened.