US vs Soviet Union conventional strength

[Nik]

I was just trying to emagine such scenario and in my opinion in such scenario Soviets would have upper hand..

Don't read to much into it, the soviets their their own bunch of problems.
On one hand, their WP allies were not armed up to the same standards but lagged behind in the arms race. On the other hand, the WP equipment was essentially soviet, so build up could at least use all available equipment and ammunition, something the NATO with its differing vehicles would have problems (at least the ammunition was standardized).
Another problems lay in the logistical planning, i.e. the soviet division had fewer logistical assets as its nato counterpart, as a division would fight in its wave as long as combat worthy, then it would halt and wait for another division taking over. This would have ensured that the soviet would have had troubles to bring all their units to bear at once.
I'm also not sure how far the tradition of Dzy .. eh Desh, eh Hazing by older Recruits would have impeded unit cohesion and combat worthiness.
Minor nitpick: The T72 and T80 (an evolution of the T64) were contemporary designs, with the main difference that the T80 had a gas turbine and was faster. Armor, Optics and armament were the same.
Troop strength: Found this on the wiki. Basically, in 1980 the WP could muster 70'000 tanks, whereas the Nato could muster 30'000. a 1:2 superiority.
At that moment, the NATO had just begun to introduce its newest tanks (M1 and Leopard 2), whereas the Soviet armies already had the T72/80 in service. That means that the comparison would look different two years later.

[Darkhorse]

Are you aware that Soviet pacific fleet ha no capabilities to do anything close to that??(they couldn't pass Japan and South Korea and they never intended to) not to mention supplying army so far from any friendly area, they had no... nah it is worthless to explain...

You don't need much capability against a soft target like Australia. I've already said, I didn't think they would do that. I was answering the guys question, and its a possibility.

For your info France was member of NATO for almost half of Cold War, and was also included in all planing for the Soviet invasion. Thus officially not in NATO structure in case of any hostility they would be included in fighting.

They left in 66 and joined in 2009. They missed the "hot part" in the 80's. Whether they were part of the NATO plan or not, and I'm sure they would pitch in. But the UK was more important than France. At least the UK's army was fully professional (France relying on conscripts)

Cold war was mainly Between USA vs USSR

Didn't deny this.

British forces were to small for us to call them major player..

No, just no. They weren't. BAOR = 80,000 men at its peak. The Cold war ending saw an reduction in British army sizes by 120,000. There's 160kish soldiers now (after 20 years of reductions) So we can estimate 1989 strength of roughly 280-300kk, which had already been scaled down throughout the 1980's. It wouldn't be so far out to say that there were more British soldiers in Europe than American. In the middle of the 1980's there were 55,000 British troops in North Germany. That is a very large deployment. We were responsible for North Germany and Norway, 2 vitally important places. And of course the W.German army was larger, the war would have been on their doorstep.[/quote]

British on the other hand were of great significance only in battle for Atlantic because of their fleet, Position, SOSUS line, etc. while in land war in Western Europe they wouldn't be of much significance. Germany and France would be more important..

More like important in both. Thats not to say the French and Germans weren't important, because thats wrong. But you really underestimate the role and importance of the British in Europe in this period. Not for a second as important as the US or USSR. But definitely being among the second group.

[Armija]

Yes, but Australia, although strategically unimportant to the USSR, would provide a great morale boost for USSR forces, and weaken the resolve os NATO forces (Even though Australia has never been in NATO). It may even split NATO command as to how, if, or when to liberate Australia, and any attempt to do so would mean a sizeable chunk of British and American naval and ground forces would be kept away from Europe.

Australia compared to Europe is a soft target as well.



The British Army was very very severely scaled down. When the BMP-1 was first introduced, it shocked the world, it sparked massive development into IFV's in NATO. And by all means, the BMP family are good vehicles. But they are outclassed by AIFV's, Bradleys, Warriors, AMX-10's and Marders. M113's and FV432's can, and were, armed similarly to the BMP family (In terms of cannon or missile armament). Soviet APC's (not IFV's) were terrible. The T-72 was inferior to its counterparts. As we have seen time and time again. Whilst Soviet models were considerably better than the export models we have seen get trounced, and the Soviets would perform better. I wouldn't expect a too different result. Chieftain was by far the best tank in the world until the Leopard 2 came about, Abrams, and Challenger series. And there was a lot of them.

Yes, overwhelming Soviet numbers were a huge threat and I've never denied this.

I'm basing my arguments on a 1980's scenario. You can reuse the same ships and planes for a limited amount of time to speedily get these units and vehicles into action. Even if it took 6 weeks per division, NATO had extremely large troop movement plans and in exercises they worked, the British could get troops from the UK to Germany in a matter of days, which is exactly what the Saxon was designed for. They'd be landing in friendly territory, and therefore are able to get organised. Britain has never used the M-113 as an APC. Only as a mounting for the Rapier system.

BAOR 10 times its current levels, 220,000 men. Soviet invasion force would be hundreds of thousands, not millions. The BAOR never reached those levels, but combined with American units in Germany, and German units, it would surpass the 200k mark. That's a problem for ANY enemy.


Or, alternatively, ASW patrols would have a field day, and NATO subs in the Atlantic and based in the UK would be released too..

Yes, all true, never denied it. but the Soviets had similar plans. It was a deterrent.

and vice versa.

This thread is about COLD WAR not last 3-4 years of it... and during Cold War or atleast 90% of it Soviets had superiority in quality of weapons and they had vast superiority in quantity all the time so all that equipment you mentioned above (although quite impressive) was there just in last few years of Cold War, if at all in significant quantity, while Soviet BMPs were there in tens of thousands during good part of Cold war, thus your statements of NATOs superiority in quality are baseless..
M-113 was forming and was basis for vast majority of NATOs armored vehicles (excluing tanks) during Col War, while Saxon APC had entered service in 1983 and was builded in few hundreds before end of Cold war and was of almost no importance to global planing.

Regarding Soviet forces they would be there in millions belive me army which has 100.000 armored vehicles plus artillery plus logistics plus other services has number of personel of atleast 2-3 millions. if not much more..

[Armija]

You don't need much capability against a soft target like Australia. I've already said, I didn't think they would do that. I was answering the guys question, and its a possibility.



They left in 66 and joined in 2009. They missed the "hot part" in the 80's. Whether they were part of the NATO plan or not, and I'm sure they would pitch in. But the UK was more important than France. At least the UK's army was fully professional (France relying on conscripts)



Didn't deny this.



No, just no. They weren't. BAOR = 80,000 men at its peak. The Cold war ending saw an reduction in British army sizes by 120,000. There's 160kish soldiers now (after 20 years of reductions) So we can estimate 1989 strength of roughly 280-300kk, which had already been scaled down throughout the 1980's. It wouldn't be so far out to say that there were more British soldiers in Europe than American. In the middle of the 1980's there were 55,000 British troops in North Germany. That is a very large deployment. We were responsible for North Germany and Norway, 2 vitally important places. And of course the W.German army was larger, the war would have been on their doorstep.

More like important in both. Thats not to say the French and Germans weren't important, because thats wrong. But you really underestimate the role and importance of the British in Europe in this period. Not for a second as important as the US or USSR. But definitely being among the second group.[/QUOTE]

You are obviously British soo any more arguing regarding Britain is pointless.

You do not understand scale of such potential clash if that war happened US ME wars an deployment of forces there would be children play it would dwarf anything that World has ever seen including potentially tens of millions of soldiers.

[MaximiIian]

Back in the Cold war, if the Soviets and the Americans fight an all purely conventional war, how might it turn out? This is just a comparison of their conventional military strengths.

Throughout the Cold War, the US consistently overestimated Soviet capabilities and the USSR consistently underestimated their own. Using the oft-held notions of yesteryear as a metric for this question would probably be inaccurate. A conventional war would probably be very hard-fought, very bloody, and probably end in a stalemate before the sides escalated it to tactical nuclear warfare (which would inevitably escalate to strategic nuclear warfare).

Read Red Storm Rising for an interesting take.

[Darkhorse]

And during the COLD WAR, the ENTIRETY of it, the UK maintained a battle ready and large presence in Germany, which a peak of 80'000 men in the 1960's, operating with American and West German units and were responsible for the defence of Norway. NATO didnt wake up in 1980 and go HOLY WE NEED NEW VEHICLES. They already have effective vehicles in service. The M113 is the 2nd most produced armoured vehicle in history (only the Universal Carrier has a higher production number), and both the M113 and FV432 could, and were fitted with similar armaments and armour to Soviet APC's and even the BMP. Yes, the BMP, shocked the worlds armies in 1966, and it was a superior vehicle. But by the time it got into decent numbers NATO vehicles such as the AIFV and Marder were coming into service. So my comments aren't baseless.

They couldn't use millions. A million perhaps, but no more. Logistically the Soviets couldn't support millions and millions for any sustained time. Cmon, the Germans had to pay to move Soviet troops OUT of the country because the Soviets were that broke. They may well have been better off in the 60's 70's and 80's than they were in 1989, but massing millions of men and tens of thousands of vehicles would break their back.

[Darkhorse]

You are obviously British soo any more arguing regarding Britain is pointless.

You do not understand scale of such potential clash if that war happened US ME wars an deployment of forces there would be children play it would dwarf anything that World has ever seen including potentially tens of millions of soldiers.

No, you are not reading my posts.

I am not for a second saying that the British role in the cold war was in any level as important or similar to the US or USSR. I am not saying for the second that the British were anything more than a second player in the same league as W Germany.

What you are saying, or at least implying is that the British were unimportant in NATO and their cold war operations were unimportant. When quite clearly they were vital. No one else could have filled the gaps if the British weren't there. No one. Not even the US.

[Rolling Thunder]

This thread is about COLD WAR not last 3-4 years of it... and during Cold War or atleast 90% of it Soviets had superiority in quality of weapons and they had vast superiority in quantity all the time so all that equipment you mentioned above (although quite impressive) was there just in last few years of Cold War, if at all in significant quantity, while Soviet BMPs were there in tens of thousands during good part of Cold war, thus your statements of NATOs superiority in quality are baseless..

All right, what did the Soviets have that was superior?

The tanks? Don't make me laugh. Soviet electronics and engineering was decades behind NATO comparisons. Even if the chassis were of the same quality, the Soviets were still vastly outclassed.

Superior small arms? Like what? The AK-47 got it's distinction for being the first assault rifle in the world. Then the AR-15 outdid it, as the AK-74 proved by copying the American cartridge design. The USSR had the PKM. Germany had the MG3, the Americans had the M60 and everyone else had the FN MAG, all of which are as good or better than the PKM series.


The planes? Uh, no. The MiG-21/23 series was laughably outclassed by Britain at it's inception (the English Electric Lightning), and the American Phantom (hideous dog of a plane though it was) sealed the nail in it's coffin. The F-15/F14/F-18 series craft are all a match for the MiG-29 and Su-27 and have similar capabilities.

And let's get down to the crux of the matter. Soviet commanders, Soviet infantry, and Soviet soldiers in general, were poorly trained, poorly led and had all the morale of damp tissue paper. They knew, if they went into Western Europe, they would take catastrophic casualties because the only advantage they had was numbers. They were a bunch of conscripts assaulting into prepared defensive positions manned by professional soldiers. In short, they weren't going anywhere beyond the border.




Also, France was in NATO. France is a founding member of NATO.

[Armija]

They couldn't use millions. A million perhaps, but no more. Logistically the Soviets couldn't support millions and millions for any sustained time. Cmon, the Germans had to pay to move Soviet troops OUT of the country because the Soviets were that broke. They may well have been better off in the 60's 70's and 80's than they were in 1989, but massing millions of men and tens of thousands of vehicles would break their back.

You obviously have no idea on matter....
You do not understand the size of such conflict..
They had millions of soldiers back in 1945 and were sustaining them together with thousands of tanks and other equipment for years in constant fighting.. back than when their capacities were 5% of what they could do at 1980es..
Don't joke with me and do not think that wars these days in Iraq or Afganistan have any similarity to how that would look..

Total war man TOTAL WAR...

Everybody here is under false impression of latest wars and stories of fast clean quick victories while actually they cant understand that those had happened in wars between world's first superpower together with allies which themself are strong countries against broken back 16th century state or not less broken back and exhausted regime which didnt had support of 80% of its population..

WW3 which if happened would not look anything like that. Quality of troops would not be so important since it would lead to full mobilisation in both east an west and even most professional armies would be filled with 90% of newly recruted conscripts so that story about professional armies VS conscripts is BS..
Sheer size and quality of oposing forces would make coordinated and flawless actions impossible and such conflict would look much more like WW2 with large chaotic battles with tens of thousands of casaulties on both sides every day. It would be war of material how Soviets liked to describe it not the war of technology..
First line state of art weapons on both sides would get expended in mather of days and both sides would start using their stocks of older and less sophisticated weapons.

[Darkhorse]

You don't understand Logistics.

Armies in modern times are far more mechanised and with many more different types of vehicles than there was 2WW. It's logistically harder to support. And its far easier to support an operation when you start on your own ground. Even Bagration only utilised bout 1.3million Soviet soldiers.

Also, France was in NATO. France is a founding member of NATO.

France left in 1966.

All right, what did the Soviets have that was superior?

The tanks? Don't make me laugh. Soviet electronics and engineering was decades behind NATO comparisons. Even if the chassis were of the same quality, the Soviets were still vastly outclassed.

Superior small arms? Like what? The AK-47 got it's distinction for being the first assault rifle in the world. Then the AR-15 outdid it, as the AK-74 proved by copying the American cartridge design. The USSR had the PKM. Germany had the MG3, the Americans had the M60 and everyone else had the FN MAG, all of which are as good or better than the PKM series.


The planes? Uh, no. The MiG-21/23 series was laughably outclassed by Britain at it's inception (the English Electric Lightning), and the American Phantom (hideous dog of a plane though it was) sealed the nail in it's coffin. The F-15/F14/F-18 series craft are all a match for the MiG-29 and Su-27 and have similar capabilities.

And let's get down to the crux of the matter. Soviet commanders, Soviet infantry, and Soviet soldiers in general, were poorly trained, poorly led and had all the morale of damp tissue paper. They knew, if they went into Western Europe, they would take catastrophic casualties because the only advantage they had was numbers. They were a bunch of conscripts assaulting into prepared defensive positions manned by professional soldiers. In short, they weren't going anywhere beyond the border.

Yeah, pretty much this.

[Nikos]

Moved to Alternate History.

-Capt. Quint

[Mangalore]

...
But as naval power, clearly US rules, and probably make SU navy to stay just around its harbours. Few US carrier groups will manage to assure a landing everywhere in Europe, and even if SU will manage to conquer west of Europe (not impossible even without use of WMD), ...

That's actually a pretty wrong impression of the SU navy. It's sole purpose was to go out there and wreck as much havoc among the NATO convois as possible for as long as possible. The navy was essentially built with the expectation that few of those ships would come back, the goal being to inflict overproportional damage onto the NATO navies. Those ship designs sport overly heavy missile complements for their tonnag for a reason. Even if they didn't survive as long as their missiles were in the air they hoped to inflict nasty damage on their opponents.

That plus subs exclusively built to hunt and destroy whole carrier groups shows a navy designed for attack, not for defense.

The Soviets knew how important it was to strangle any attempt of the USA to move its reinforcement across the Atlantic and if that proved impossible to make it as costly as possible.

[Armija]

You don't understand Logistics.

Armies in modern times are far more mechanised and with many more different types of vehicles than there was 2WW. It's logistically harder to support. And its far easier to support an operation when you start on your own ground. Even Bagration only utilised bout 1.3million Soviet soldiers.

I understand logistics very well
You dont.
USSR had biggest reserves of oil on planet, had biggest weapons producing industries which was faaar out of range of US conventional forces, had all needed raw materials in huuge quantities.
Forces in WW2 indeed needed less logistics to operate but Soviet industrial capacity was much much smaller at that time.
Peace time logistics, movement, economics or even limited war economics are nothing to compare to a Total war it would be.

Bagration and forces included in that operation were just part of Soviet forces in west. Soviets had millions more deployed and sustained in there who were at that same time fighting in another sectors.

[Darkhorse]

The Soviets couldn't afford to maintain a presence in Eastern Europe, they had to be paid to remove themselves. Their insane nuclear programme and sheer size of their military, plus a bloody conflict in Afghanistan financially broke the Soviets back. How on earth can they logistically support an operation on this scale for any sizeable length of time while in that state, whilst running those programmes?

The fact Bagration only involved a proportion of Soviet troops shows that the Soviets could not support any more, or, could not fit any more troops into the theatre without them becoming a hindrance. And at the same time maintain its other operations.

[Nik]

Care to back those numbers up (like provide some sources for your claims), or are you just hollering around?

At the end of WWII, the Soviets indeed had the biggest land army, but were also scrapping the bottom of the manpower barrel, and quickly scaled their forces down from 14 million to 3 millions (raising again to a stable conscription based system of 4-5 million). If long time manpower is an issue, the first step is to look at the population levels, and guess what, they are not that far from each other --> comparable troop levels.
As for production: The SU had built up and respectable heavy industry in the thirties, but if we take WWII as a comparison, the US and the UK built as many combat vehicles as the SU, and in addition the biggest trade fleet in the history of mankind (the liberty ships), the biggest warfleet in history, supplied vehicles to all their allies (including the SU) and came out of the war with an industry relatively intact. So just claiming the soviets to have the bigger industry is a little outlandish to me.

[Armija]

The Soviets couldn't afford to maintain a presence in Eastern Europe, they had to be paid to remove themselves. Their insane nuclear programme and sheer size of their military, plus a bloody conflict in Afghanistan financially broke the Soviets back. How on earth can they logistically support an operation on this scale for any sizeable length of time while in that state, whilst running those programmes?

The fact Bagration only involved a proportion of Soviet troops shows that the Soviets could not support any more, or, could not fit any more troops into the theatre without them becoming a hindrance. And at the same time maintain its other operations.

You really don't understand anything.
I will just repeat it to you:

[/QUOTE]Peace time logistics, movement, economics or even limited war economics are nothing to compare to a Total war[/QUOTE]

In Total war only things that matter are: raw materials, Industrial capacity and manpower. Economy as in peace does not exist in that case...

[Darkhorse]

You cant fight a war without money, without economy. You are the one who is failing to understand. A recent example. Look what Afghanistan did to the Dutch and that's a small, localised war. You can only get into so much debt too. Making these things, producing or extracting these materials. Even conscripts are paid. Its not free.

[Armija]

You cant fight a war without money, without economy. You are the one who is failing to understand. A recent example. Look what Afghanistan did to the Dutch and that's a small, localised war. You can only get into so much debt too. Making these things, producing or extracting these materials. Even conscripts are paid. Its not free.

Small local war IS NOT EQUAL TO TOTAL WAR... nah you cant comprehend..

[Luger]

The Soviet industry did a fine job collapsing, even without Total war

Look what Afghanistan did to the Dutch and that's a small, localised war.

Did what?

[Darkhorse]

Small local war IS NOT EQUAL TO TOTAL WAR... nah you cant comprehend..

TOTAL WAR

LARGER SCALE

MORE THING NEEDED

MORE PEOPLE NEED TO GET PAID & AND MORE THING/MATERIALS NEED TO BE PURCHASED

COSTS MORE MONEY

YES YOU GET ECONOMIES OF SCALE, BUT IT STILL COSTS A NATION VAST SUMS OF MONEY IT USUALLY DOESN'T HAVE.

Why do you need to pay for it? Otherwise the people of your country starve.

Don't insult me for your blatant ignorance. Good day to you sir.