The year is 1989 and in just 2 years the Soviet Union and its mighty Warsaw Pact would collapse
politically, seeing an end to the Cold War and a defacto NATO victory- but what would
have happened if the Soviet Union had seen its own coming demise and made a desperate
bid to defeat NATO?
The rules of this wargame will include no use of nuclear weapons and assume that China-
with simmering hostilities against the Soviet Union- remained neutral, limiting the conflict
to strictly the Soviet Union, its Warsaw Pact allies, and NATO.
Overall the Warsaw Pact enjoyed a numerological advantage over NATO in most military categories
except naval forces, with a standing force of 6 million active-duty personnel vs NATO's
4.5 million active-duty personnel.
The Warsaw Pact also had an advantage in number of tanks- approximately 70,000 vs NATO's 50,000-
although NATO had twice as many modern tanks: 5300, mostly American M1 Abrams, German Leopard
2s and British Challengers, vs 2600 Soviet T-80s.
NATO tanks had better computers and sensors, which would have made them lethal in nighttime
fighting- but sheer numbers would have been on the Warsaw Pact's side, with the bulk of
its forces being made up of older T-80B, T-72B and T-64B models which still had the punch
to knock out even a modern NATO tank.
The largest advantage enjoyed by the Warsaw Pact was in the realm of artillery, with over
45,000 artillery pieces vs NATO's 18,000.
Though NATO's forces were on the whole technologically superior to the Warsaw Pact's, the overwhelming
amount of artillery on the communist's side would have severely blunted that advantage
via fire suppression alone.
In the air, the Warsaw Pact also outnumbered NATO, with 14,000 planes vs NATO's 11,000.
NATO however fielded far more modern planes, enjoyed better missile technology, and pilots
had an order of magnitude more training flight hours per year- 180 hours vs 120 hours or
less.
The Warsaw Pact countered these advantages with a huge deployment of ground-based SAM
batteries- as seen in wars of the period from Vietnam to conflicts vs Israel, Soviet anti-air
missile systems enjoyed an average kill rate of 3-5%, which while not great, the sheer
number of SAM systems employed by the Warsaw Pact, about 1,400, would have posed a significant
challenge to NATO air forces.
So how would a potential war have played out?
Despite its firepower advantages, the Soviet Union and allies knew that they would never
win in a protracted war of attrition vs NATO, who outclassed them in sheer economic might
with a combined GDP of approximately 10 trillion US dollars vs the Warsaw Pact's 2.5 trillion.
Therefore any war would have to be quick, with projections at the time showing that
a multi-year conflict would eventually result in a complete NATO victory
With focus on a quick and decisive campaign, the Soviet Union would immediately launch
an offensive across the German front while putting Warsaw Pact forces in Romania and
Bulgaria on a defensive footing to prevent a flanking maneuver by Italian, Greek, or
Turkish forces.
Though Greek and Turkish forces alone outnumbered Bulgarian and Romanian forces by 2:1, difficult
terrain and a lack of a decisive numerological advantage would have favored a defensive battle
for the Bulgarians and Romanians.
On Turkey's eastern front, the Caucuses were a natural barrier to land invasion into the
Soviet Union, and a force of approximately 100,000 Soviet soldiers could have easily
held against a Turkish attack thanks to the difficult terrain.
An attempt to flank these forces over the Black Sea would have been catastrophic due
to the presence of the Soviet Black Sea fleet- so instead of joining a European offensive,
Turkey would have been tasked with keeping the Black Sea fleet bottled up to prevent
it from reaching the Mediterranean.
Trying to break out of the Black Sea would have spelled complete disaster for the Soviets,
as they would have been forced to try to break through Turkish defenses on the narrow Bosphorus
Strait.
In the end, most of the fighting would have remained in Germany, though the longer the
war continued the more US naval reinforcements would arrive and with access to the Black
Sea firmly in Turkish control, the decimation of the Soviet Black Sea fleet would be a forgone
conclusion, allowing Turkey to land forces at Odesa and Sevastopol and opening a second
front in the Soviet Union's vulnerable southern border.
Initially though Soviet forces would quickly overwhelm NATO defenses in Germany.
On the eve of war Soviet forces would open with a withering ballistic and air-launched
cruise missile attack against West Germany's air bases.
With about 1500 ballistic missile launchers, and most of them near the front, the majority
of NATO's air fields in West Germany would be quickly rendered useless and require days
to repair.
However, this would not put as big a dent in NATO's ability to launch sorties as the
Soviets hoped as NATO planes had on average 25-50% greater range than Soviet planes, and
88% of all NATO fighters had in-air refueling capabilities vs approximately 3% of Soviet
fighters.
With better and more fuel-efficient engines along with a robust aerial tanker fleet, NATO
planes were designed for longer-range sorties exactly because of the vulnerability of West
German air fields to sudden Soviet offenses and missile strikes.
In the first week of the war NATO would be pushed back dozens of miles by overwhelming
Soviet firepower.
With most of its forces stationed near West Germany, the Warsaw Pact could funnel more
troops faster than NATO to the front, whom would have to mobilize forces from Great Britain,
Spain, Portugal and the US.
With the US holding the majority of NATO's firepower, it would take 15 days minimum to
deploy the first American light infantry brigades into Europe, so the Soviets would enjoy a
2 week decisive advantage over NATO.
Yet their offensive would be slowed by the natural terrain of Germany which features
dozens of rivers, and the influx of troops along with a mass civilian exodus would congest
roads also slowing down the Soviet advance.
Soviet military doctrine would further slow down an offensive, as their units featured
very few logistical support personnel as it was Soviet thinking at the time that most
units would be entirely decimated and would simply be replaced by new units- as supply
lines lengthened a lack of logistics personnel would have been a critical vulnerability and
caused even more slowdowns of the Soviet advance.
In the air, neither side would enjoy much success initially.
NATO planes would have been able to target and fire on Soviet planes from much longer
distances, but Soviet planes were generally better at close-quarters dogfighting.
Unclassified Soviet documents show that though initially the Soviet Union thought it could
win an air supremacy war, by 1985, and eclipsed technologically by NATO, Soviet doctrine shifted
to focusing air power in smaller areas rather than trying to establish theater-wide supremacy.
This would have tied up Soviet fighters in specific geographic areas protecting them
from NATO attack, but would also prevent them from launching strikes against NATO logistical
facilities or troop formations, leaving NATO troops free to resupply, and ready for counter
attacks.
The Soviet Union would instead have relied on its overwhelming SAM air defense advantage,
but most of their platforms were not very mobile and would have taken days to weeks
to reach the front.
American stealth aircraft such as the F117 would prove to be stunningly effective against
Soviet-built air defenses in Desert Storm just 2 years later, but it would take time
to move them to the European theater from their US bases and would be too few in number
to decisively alter the course of the war on their own.
In the North Atlantic the Soviet fleet would operate under a 'Fortress Fleet' doctrine,
keeping close to their coastal fire support and acting as a defensive measure against
sea invasions by NATO.
A string of seafloor sensors and coordinated anti-submarine assets made a nearly impenetrable
wall across Greenland, Iceland and the UK for Soviet subs, leaving American reinforcements
with little threat of attack as they crossed the Atlantic.
The Soviet Union might attempt a surprise invasion of Iceland in order to break the
anti-submarine defense line, but only at the risk of leaving key Barents Sea naval facilities
defenseless against NATO invasion, threatening the German front and presenting an unacceptable
risk.
NATO forces would likely attempt a land offensive across the northern tip of Norway in a bid
to open a second front and relieve pressure in Germany, but heavy snow and mountainous
terrain would make any advance slow and difficult while greatly favoring the Soviet defenders.
On the other side of the world, the Soviet Union would face considerable threat from
US forces in the Pacific, who would attempt offensives against Kamchatka.
While far less strategically important to the war effort due to its less economically
developed nature, a land-invasion of eastern Soviet Union would provide a corridor for
advances into the heart of the nation.
The Soviets would thus be forced to divert manpower from the European front to fend off
an American invasion.
Having signed a mutual defense treaty with the US, Japan would provide a fortified base
of operations for an American invasion, and though unable to mount offensives on its own
due to the self-defense nature of its military, Japanese forces could eventually reinforce
Americans making landfall in the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Pacific Fleet would also operate under a 'Fortress Fleet' doctrine, keeping
close to coastal firepower as it could not match the US navy.
With 5 supercarriers in the Pacific, the US would eventually succeed in making landfall
in Kamchatka, though only at great cost to its navy and marines both.
Ending the first year of the war the Soviet Union and its allies would have seized the
majority of Germany and this would have presented the most opportune time to bid for a seize-fire,
hoping for a lack of will to continue fighting from NATO nations.
Though both sides would have all but exhausted their air forces, it would have provided an
opportunity for NATO industry to replace its entire inventory with wholly modern fighters
and strike aircraft, completely swinging the balance of power in the air and leaving Soviet
forces vulnerable.
Facing a combined economic might over 3 times greater than its own, and with new fronts
opening up in its vulnerable Pacific coast, if the Soviet Union could not force peace
by year's end it would have faced certain defeat.
Still, win or lose, by year's end war between the Soviet Union and NATO would have casualties
reaching in the millions- a second year's worth of fighting may have seen casualty numbers
higher than in any other 1-year period of fighting in history, making a Soviet Union/NATO
war the most deadly in human history.
Even with NATO's ability to win a long-term conflict, the cost of pushing deep into Warsaw
Pact territory would have been prohibitive, and an end to the war would simply have seen
old borders restored at the cost of tens of millions of soldiers and hundreds of millions
of direct and indirect civilian casualties- begging the question of who in the end could
ultimately claim victory?
So, who do you think would win in a NATO / Soviet Union showdown?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
Also, be sure to check out our other video called Russian Soldiers vs American Soldiers!
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