Red Dawn: Would You Fight?

[CaptainMattJ.]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Right, let's start at the top.

China invading the US?

No. Not going to happen. The PLAN isn't powerful enough to support the supply routes needed to sustain an invasion of America. Furthermore, the attrition rate would not be worth the effort of invading.
In WWII, the Japanese contemplated the United States, but only briefly, they realised it would be a doomed effort, because the IJN couldn't support such an invasion and the IJA would struggle to control the areas under its control. The same problems are put forward by China invading, or indeed ANY nation invading the US.
So, a combination of nations? The Russians and Chinese perhaps?
Nope, still not enough and again supply problems would make any invasion grind to a halt not far from the seaboard.
The enemy carriers would be a key target for US attack, as would any coastal airfields that are captured. Robbed of key air cover, the enemy ground forces would be subjected to daily air attacks from every corner, up to and potentially including tactical nuclear weapons, chemical and biological devices. Their landing zones would be bombarded mercilessly from air and sea and their supply ships sunk in droves. Mass desertions would begin as the invading army ran out of ammunition and food (although some could continue functioning for a short period using captured food and weapons from the local populace, but eventually they too would be faced with an opposition they couldn't counter).

The only advantage the enemy would have in the initial attack would be the element of surprise...however, this is not Pearl Harbour any more, the US has a better intelligence network and it's not easy to hide a carrier fleet from things like RORSATs.
They could use merchant ships as a cover, firing ballistic missiles into an altitude high enough to create mass EMPs across America, this would create pure chaos, but primarily amongst the civilian populace, the military would fare better and eventually be able to counter the invasion for reasons mentioned above. However, the effect on the civilian populace would be pretty devastating and there would be a LOT of deaths from lack of medication and health care, and a lot more from people failing to adjust to a situation where there is no electricity. However, the retaliation against the enemy nation would be just as devastating and perhaps lead to a full scale exchange, in which case a lifetime without electricity would be the civilian populaces smallest problem.

Once the element of surprise is lost then so is any invasion of America. It's too big, too well armed and the populace too prone to uprisings. The Soviets couldn't have done it, the Japanese couldn't have done it, we tried and failed at it, so the Chinese certainly wouldn't consider it. Besides, the Chinese don't generally act against nations outside of their sphere of interest. If they wanted to attack America they might missile the shoreline cities from SSGNs or perhaps detonate bombs in cities through espionage and gangs...I imagine the triads might be willing to assist the PRC, but an actual invasion...no, it's not their doctrine. If you lived in Vietnam or Taiwan, then I'd say that you might have something to worry about, but in America? Nah, ain't happening.

Still, it makes for a good film for the masses that don't know any better, stirs up the patriotic spirit and all that.


By the way, Red Storm Rising, as excellent a novel as it is, is inaccurate in one major factor. The absence of nuclear weapons. The Soviet and NATO war plans of the period involved the liberal use of nuclear weapons from almost day one, particularly the Soviets. They would be used to clear a way through NATO defences and paralyse their airforce and command structure. Of course, as soon as the first mushroom went up, NATO would retaliate, the escalation ladder would be climbed and eventually World War III would consist of a handful of Soviet and NATO troops wandering around a nuclear wasteland.
All this within about three or four days.
Obviously this makes for pretty poor reading material, so most games, books and films take the nuclear weapons out of the picture until such a time that the armed forces have had their fill of action.
There is a chance that neither side would want to use nuclear weapons first, however generally speaking within a week or two of fighting, someone would have resorted to it. Either NATO to stop the Soviets, or the Soviets to make a breakthrough as their invasion begins to overstretch and run out of steam. Failing that, West Germany would have surrendered before the nukes came out, fearing the total destruction of Germany as a whole. Better Red than Dead and all that.

It's still a good book, and certainly one of Clancys finest, alongside HFRO, and certainly if a number of factors fell the right way then it could be a realistic look at a Soviet invasion of West Germany, however it would take a great number of things to fall the right way for the original plans to be altered so much.
Take a read of 'Chieftains' by Bob Forrest-Webb, you're probably best doing it through something like Kindle because the going rate for the original book is a stupid amount of money, but it has a fairly realistic look at WWIII, that is to say, it doesn't end well.

Here's some more recommended reading:

http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/fie...a-austria.html

http://www.jrnyquist.com/may14/ussr_war_plan.htm

http://www.pprune.org/archive/index.php/t-447673.html

QFR

This is the unfortunate reality of a war with a nuclear power. However, there is a chance people could come to their senses about the damned things. Considering they've made 50 megaton nuclear bombs, they could potentially cause global nuclear winter with just a few nukes. The fact that you'd be ending a war while also dooming everyone on the planet (including yourself) should be deterrent enough against nuclear weapons getting involved (at least, the large ones. Tac nukes and possibly a MIRV low-yield nuke may be used but wont cause as much global devastation).

So it is possible nukes on a large scale may not be used, and that a war would probably end with the soviet invasion being pushed back to the border and suing for peace.

[August]

The common belief among the troops during the late 1970's when I was stationed over there was that without tactical nukes we'd be steadily beaten back by the vastly larger Soviet military machine and that after a week we'd be lucky to hold any of the continent at all. With tactical nukes on the other hand we had a chance to hold if the Soviets.

The big question would be whether the Germans would be willing to let their country be destroyed in order for us to hold long enough to let the REFORGER plan work. Between nukes and the Soviets expected use of Chemical weapons, not to mention the intensity of the conventional combat in German cities and towns I always figured that they'd eventually throw in the towel as in alternate ending of the book "The Third World War: The Untold Story" by John Hackett.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by August

The common belief among the troops during the late 1970's when I was stationed over there was that without tactical nukes we'd be steadily beaten back by the vastly larger Soviet military machine and that after a week we'd be lucky to hold any of the continent at all. With tactical nukes on the other hand we had a chance to hold if the Soviets.

The big question would be whether the Germans would be willing to let their country be destroyed in order for us to hold long enough to let the REFORGER plan work. Between nukes and the Soviets expected use of Chemical weapons, not to mention the intensity of the conventional combat in German cities and towns I always figured that they'd eventually throw in the towel as in alternate ending of the book "The Third World War: The Untold Story" by John Hackett.

The Russians would have started any WWIII in Europe with nuclear attacks on day one, hour one, against NATO critical targets like airbases and CCCI, maybe even armour concentrations - but especially airfields. The POMCUS sites probably also would have been nuked, and Atlantic harbours along the continental coast. The first offensive in that war already would have been a nuclear one, no doubt.

Seen that way, all that conventional yearly exercises and cold war on the continent - was just a stage play.

An armed society is a polite society

Mogadishu is well known for the good manners of its residents.

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

The Russians would have started any WWIII in Europe with nuclear attacks on day one, hour one, against NATO critical targets like airbases and CCCI, maybe even armour concentrations - but especially airfields.

Unlikely and unnecessary.

Unlikely as it's not a good idea to nuke areas that you will soon be capturing and occupyingand unnecessary because the Russians had plenty of conventional assets to do the job and do it better. After all between them and the Warsaw Pact they had something like 9 Airborne divisions. They would do a much better job of denying nato the use of their airbases while still leaving them usable once the front line passes them.

If anyone would use nukes on the first day or two I'd think it would be NATO. The time to use them would be when those Soviet tank and motorized divisions are bottled up in choke points like Fulda. By day 3 or 4 their effectiveness would be greatly reduced.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by CaptainMattJ.

QFR

This is the unfortunate reality of a war with a nuclear power. However, there is a chance people could come to their senses about the damned things. Considering they've made 50 megaton nuclear bombs, they could potentially cause global nuclear winter with just a few nukes. The fact that you'd be ending a war while also dooming everyone on the planet (including yourself) should be deterrent enough against nuclear weapons getting involved (at least, the large ones. Tac nukes and possibly a MIRV low-yield nuke may be used but wont cause as much global devastation).

So it is possible nukes on a large scale may not be used, and that a war would probably end with the soviet invasion being pushed back to the border and suing for peace.

The problem is the ladder of escalation, the outbreak of war is the first step on the rung. Now, the war would go one of three ways. Either the Soviets would push NATO back and at some point they would cross a line which NATO would deploy nuclear weapons to stop the Soviet advance, or a stalemate would occur that would require nuclear weapons to resolve, or the Soviets would advance, fail at logistics and be pushed back hard, in which case they would probably in fear of a repeat of 1941, use nuclear weapons to stop the NATO advance.
On most of the war plans put forward by the Soviets though were based around NATO launching a nuclear first strike, which, as we know, was not NATO policy, however the Soviets lived in worry of a repeat of Barbarossa and built a massive intel network to determine if NATO was going to fire first. This level of fear almost sparked WWIII in 1983, and both sides lived on a knife edge of worry that the other would launch a first strike.

However, if, through whatever accident on the border, a shooting war began before the birds flew, then it is likely that they would be unleashed at some point in the war at some form. Potentially nuclear mines first, then escalating up to TBMs, Scuds and Honest Johns. Then someone would launch a strategic first strike in order to protect their airfields and silos, after all, in the early days before the BMEWs went up, you could expect to get about ten minutes warning if you were lucky that missiles and bombers were inbound. That's ten minutes, to open the silos and fire back, ten minutes to scramble the bombers, ten minutes to evacuate the President/Premier to a safe location. Of course, steps would have been taken as soon as war broke out to move the leadership to a safe place. The US had an absolutely fantastic system to ensure continuation of government after a nuclear exchange, and their command and control network through airbourne stations was, and indeed, still is, second to none.
The Soviets relied more on human intelligence, they identified a number of specific steps the US would go through before they launched a nuclear strike, which would enable them to launch their strike before the US finished going through the steps to launch theirs. Unfortunately this particular intelligence network in the US/NATO nuclear forces (codenamed RYAN) was around when the US and NATO went through a full scale nuclear attack exercise, which was relayed back to the Kremlin and almost caused them to launch a first strike.
Either way, someone would figure that the other guy was going to launch a strategic attack first, and get their shot in first, and once the birds are launched, contrary to what you might see or read in some fiction, there are NO self-destruct codes (there's just too much of a risk the enemy would hack the codes and shut down the entire strike), once they're gone, they're gone and there's no calling them back. Of course, as soon as the enemy sees that you've launched, they'll launch and, well, everyone knows what happens after that.

I won't deny that it's possible that a conventional war would happen, but I see it as being very unlikely, because the losing side would be too tempted to use their ultimate trump card in protection of their nation and people. There would also be the case that if NATO or Soviet aircraft went after nuclear weapons sites they might elect to 'use it or lose it' that they had nothing left to lose. Remember, the people who make the decision will spend the exchange in a bunker deep underground, with plenty of food, water, comfortable bedding and men around them to protect them (or, possibly coup them, but that's another kettle of fish entirely), they would not go through the same sort of consequences that their people would. It's possible that the President/Premier might decide to stay at Ground Zero and not have to face the nation post-strike, in which case the next person in the chain of command would take over, but needless to say, whoever it is that is in charge of the post-strike nation will be doing it from a bunker hidden somewhere deep underground or from an aircraft trying to avoid the nuclear explosions. Not on the ground where life will be rather grim. So the mindset is a little different, there's a bit less to lose from launching, and if the fate of your nation depended on stopping the enemy from invading then you would gladly push the button with the amount of pressure on you and the hawks around you telling you that there is no other option but to use the nuclear weapons that you have. Perhaps just one weapon to begin with ("What use is a deterrent if you're not going to show that you're willing to use it Comrade/President?") but the response that that one weapon received might escalate into a full scale exchange, or it might stay as a limited exchange. There are literally hundreds of scenarios that could spiral either into a full exchange, a limited exchange or no exchange at all. However, those that spiral into a full or limited exchange are greater in number than those that do not.

Out of the two, I think the Soviet Union would have been slightly more likely to push the button if their backs were against the wall, because they share a land border with Europe, whereas the United States has two oceans between it and the Soviet Union and thus is less likely to be invaded. However, there is the wild card of France which may begin a nuclear exchange by itself since its nuclear force operated outside of the NATO command chain, because it was not willing to gamble that the US would 'trade Washington for Paris'. With the French launching then it would be debatable if the UK would follow suit, and if the UK fired then the US would face the choice to either abandon its allies to their fate (and never be forgiven) or invite the same fate upon itself, and most likely would take the latter option, the sheer amount of pressure on the president to do so would make it appear that he has very little other choice, despite the hordes of CND and peace protesters that would no doubt be camped outside the White House at the time.

In regards to weapons used, the fifty megaton weapon that you mention was a one-off prototype, and was horrendously ineffective. When it initiated it fired most of its energy upwards into the atmosphere and did a lot less damage that was expected, furthermore it was a big and bulky monstrosity of a weapon which had to be used by a specially converted bomber (a little like the first two atomic weapons) and was more a show of force than it was an actual weapon.
The more likely weapon yield would be in the range of kilotonnes rather than megatonnes, however multiple warheads would be used on cities to ensure maximum destruction. Although some cities could potentially be spared, warheads are not perfect, some would overshoot their targets, some would fail to detonate, some would even be knocked off their paths by the detonation of other warheads potentially. But the major cities would have so many warheads targeted on them that it wouldn't matter if one missed, because the other twenty three probably wouldn't.
The megaton weapons would come by bomber, and would most likely be used against Command centers, airfields, ports, rail yards and possibly cities as well. Potentially TBMs could also use megaton weapons but they would be in the low yield (3.5MT from a PGM-17 Thor missile vs 25MT from a B41 nuclear freefall weapon) but they would most likely use kiloton weapons and/or chemical and biological weapons.

Either which way, it would be messy, and that's an understatement, and I believe that it would have been an almost inevitable outcome of a NATO/Soviet conflict which both sides would have been preparing for since even before the first shot was fired or missile launched. Both sides had systems in place to get missiles launched at the first possible warning that the other had fired and to continue firing even if the leadership was knocked out (the US had a SIOP and the USSR had a 'Dead Hand' system). In fact the only thing that would stop the firing would be if they run out of weapons or if individual commanders refused to fire, in which case they would probably be removed and someone else would fire.

As Joshua put it, the only way to win is not to play...and that, plus negotiations treaties and proxy wars, kept us all from blowing ourselves to smithereens for fifty years.

[yubba]

An armed society is a polite society,,it all comes down to who has the biggest stick and the resolve to use it,,so, who would you steal from,, the guy with barb wire fence, bars, and gun turrets, or the house down the street with the white picket fence..peace through strength.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by yubba

An armed society is a polite society

Wyatt Earp called. He said that simply wasn't true.

[yubba]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

Wyatt Earp called. He said that simply wasn't true.

I guess he hadn't seen the movie Tombstone.

[nikimcbee]

Time to re-install World in Conflict.

http://worldinconflict.uk.ubi.com/

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by nikimcbee

Time to re-install World in Conflict.

http://worldinconflict.uk.ubi.com/

Try Wargame: European Escalation too.

[Raptor1]

The notion that, in a NATO/Warsaw Pact scenario, a nuclear exchange would only occur after days of mostly conventional conflict, when one side or the other would have been pushed to the brink of defeat or through gradual escalation is pretty unlikely. Assuming a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, the Warsaw Pact would almost certainly have used tactical and strategic nuclear weapons from the very first moments of the offensive in order to cripple NATO combat forces, command and control, logistics and nuclear retaliation capabilities. The notion of withholding nuclear weapon use solely on the basis of NATO being nice enough not to use them either would most likely (and, quite probably, rightfully) have been rejected outright by Soviet leadership in the event of war, so using them right at the very beginning, when they are most effective, to destroy NATO's ability to fight and its ability to harm the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact with its own nuclear arsenal would have been seen as vastly preferable to wasting the initial advantage by waiting until the slow escalation to a strategic nuclear exchange which would have (almost inevitably, otherwise) occurred.

Even assuming the Warsaw Pact wouldn't have gone with a first strike at the beginning of the invasion, for some reason, the war would have quickly turned nuclear anyway, because NATO was fully prepared to resort to tactical nuclear weapons even without the Soviets using them first. For example, in the early 1970s, NATO disbanded most of its chemical weapon stockpiles in West Germany, so to counter the tens of thousands of tons of chemical weapons the Soviet Army had piled up on the Central Front, its doctrine instead called for the use of tactical nuclear weapons in response to Warsaw Pact employment of chemical weapons. Since the Soviets would have almost certainly used chemical weapons, the escalation to the use of tactical nuclear weapons by both sides would have been immediate, and strategic weapons would have followed in short order. Red Storm Rising conveniently got around this with the East Germans convincing the Soviets not to use chemical weapons because of the expected civilian casualties.

As Oberon said, while a purely conventional war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact would have been, in theory, possible, I think the chances of it actually happening were extremely slim. There were simply far too many scenarios in which either side would have used nuclear weapons and which would have resulted in a strategic exchange for it not to have happened.