Red Army = most effective force !

[Alpha]

So, while researching, testing my scens, playing and comparing the OOBs i came to the conclusing, that the most dangerous opponent in the period about 1970 - 90 is the red army.

Quantity + quality will crush most opponents.

Other countries like the UK, Chechoslowakia and DDR (GDR) comes on the next places. Also the swiss army and the US marines are impressive. But they are quite small and would´t play a large role in a massive west-east conflict in Europe in above time period.

So do you think the game reflects reality quite good ?
I don´t considered air + marine forces of course, since this game is about the ground forces mainly.

[pdoktar]

US Marines is a small force.. wow. Think about the Marines role in the Pacific against Japan in WW2. So in a east-west conflict Marines would certainly play a huge role invading and protecting coasts and bases, islands (vital to SOSUS and aircrafts)and adding flexibility to theater command.

[Double_Deuce]

Alpha said:
So, while researching, testing my scens, playing and comparing the OOBs i came to the conclusing, that the most dangerous opponent in the period about 1970 - 90 is the red army.

Quantity + quality will crush most opponents.

Yes and No. Give me M60A3's with Thermal sights and a little bit of smoke to drop on the battlefield and I'll kill red units all day without many losses, except maybe to their artillery.

Soviet doctrine of the late 70's called for covering the battlefield in smoke so they could get in close and overwhelm us with numbers. By the early 80's we were counting on it so we could use the blanket of smoke against them since by then we could see through the smoke with our TTS sights and pick them off before they could get close enough to see us.

[narwan]

Double Deuce is absolutely right. While the red army MAY have a small edge in the seventies, prior to the appearance of thermals and NATO's 120mm guns, once these do make an appearance the tables are turned. Thermals dominate.

Also the squad size of most of the red armies mech and motorized troops is too small to be able to stay in the fight long enough. The small size and mediocre experience/morale of these units gives them far less combat power over a whole game than what their pure weapon stats etc seem to say.

Narwan

[baggypants]

Post deleted by baggypants

[Mobhack]

Absolutely agreed - that tiny window in the early 70s would have been the best spot for the Soviets to try for WW3. Only the chieftain, of the NATO tanks, really could deal with these with its 120mm gun.

The problem of course was low training, and poor low-level tactics. (use them under AI control to simulate such http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif)

Once TI sights and the XM1, Leo2 and Chally 1 arrive - it is just target practice time (esp if there is smoke about!). But even before then - liquidating the APCs at longer ranges to cause mass unhappiness in the accompanying tanks is a good tactic.

Me - I like an early 70s NATO army as a challenging fight (pre-TI sights and super MBT, and no MLRS in other words) vs USSR, allowing them t-72 and T-64 and BMP, etc.

As USSR - I like 1969-70 the best (T-64s, BMP, BRDM-sagger, sagger teams, SA-7, Gecko!!, Shilka!! (SA-6 Gainful in 70 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ).

1966 on is also quite good as the USSR - SA-7 shoulder SAM (and not too much NATO EW), shilkas as well!, plus the BMP-1, and T-62s, BRDM-sagger vs some chieftains (but only in 67) and USA has M60A1, FGR has Leo 1 etc, marders in 1970 (which can be a bit of a problem for BTR and BMP).

Cheers
Andy

[Alpha]

pdoktar said:
US Marines is a small force.. wow. Think about the Marines role in the Pacific against Japan in WW2. So in a east-west conflict Marines would certainly play a huge role invading and protecting coasts and bases, islands (vital to SOSUS and aircrafts)and adding flexibility to theater command.



I´m talking about ETO. I read documents saying about 3000 US marines would be available to europe in the 80ties. Of course they are of good use, but in the huge sceme of things a "smalL" factor. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

[Alpha]

baggypants said:

Many analysis of the period question if Czech troops could be used in a general attack on western Europe since they were more trained and deployed to prevent civil war and their colder relationship with the USSR since the crushing of the uprising in the 60's. It was also generally felt that all the Warsaw pact troops could not be deployed into western Europe without risking 'instability' in the USSR aligned nations of eastern Europe.




STASI (DDR Secret Service) papers analysis and Nato documents show that it was quite shure that the WP forces would fight reliable together with the soviets. Except Rumania. DDR,Poland...were all taken into account for the drive to the french atlantic coast http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif
Chechz, Hungaria for the southern front http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[wulfir]

I like to play against the Soviets/Russians.
In game terms I think they are probably the most dangerous opponent - any year.

Especially the combination of cheap scouts and BM-22s with ammo supply are difficult to combat - thermals are good but even the fastest tanks have trouble avoiding the BM-22 barrages. The only really effective solution I've found has been to use own CM armed systems and plenty of air...

[loktarr]

Wasn't the AI designed to play USSR?
It could be an explanation... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[whdonnelly]

So far, in my games, the Red Army usually does very well up until the mid 80s, for 2 reasons. Most NATO tanks don't seem to be able to take a punch very well, and the cheaper Soviet units always seem to allow enough reserve to mop up after the main engagement has worn out the units that open the fight. That last rifle company with RPGs is deadly to tanks and TOWs that just slaughtered the AFVs.
Maybe I need to work on my doctrine, but my NATO usually gets overwhelmed.
Will

[RVPERTVS]

Regarding soviet MBTs in the game: I can´t believe they don´t pack TIs until 1993..I know there's always Mobhack but, is that historically accurate? That´s an important soviet handicap against NATO tanks during the 80´s, so I don´t know if it´s "the" most effective army in the game.....I keep playing as the ruskies anyhow.

[PlasmaKrab]

The first Russian (not Soviet) tanks to use TI sights were upgraded versions of the T-90 and T-80UM series using nonstandard imagers based on the imported Catherine sensor technology (I think). SO it does look like the Soviets hadn't put much research into thermals until too late. As far as I can recall, some of the clip-on ATGM TI sights were based on domestic technology, but with the fall of the USSR, the service schedule turned out to be much the same.
The last generation of Soviet tanks (T-64B/72B/80B & T-80U) used much-upgraded night sights with cascaded image intensifier and active IR converted (shorter wavelength than TI), which were way cheaper than Western thermals and quite possibly better than represented in the game regarding range and resistance on obscurants (don't quote me on this though).

[Alpha]

Pls. post in the new thread created by me !

WP/Nato polls + discussions http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif)))

1. Infantry (now active !)

Later:

2. Missiles (AA/AT)
3. Arty
4. Tanks
5. Engineering/reliability of equipment
6. Training/hardness of troops

[Artur]

Very good initiative gents. I played a lot with NATO WP armies in the mid 80´s. IMO NATO rules because of the TI once NATO troops run out of smoke and the visibility is high then WP has advantage otherwise NATO kicks ***.

Artur.

[Kuklinovsky]

Dear guys!

Soviet Army wouldn't have encountered any difficulties in conquering Western Europe in the event of CONVENTIONAL war with NATO. It goes without saying for many self-evident reasons and both Soviets and NATO knew that very well. That is why NATO took cover under its nuclear umbrella in fear of Soviets. Well, the Soviets weren't sure if NATO could really use nukes in conventional war but price was to high for them to check it. Therefore Cold War had never changed into hot war up to the USSR's downfall.

Of course, from purely economic point of view such NATO military strategy was very effective tool because nuclear weapon is far more cheaper than conventional one. Thus NATO countries were able to be rich and secure but Soviets became more and more poorer due to necessity of maintaining huge and practically unuseful army. The end of this history is known...

One main lesson taken from this history is that if you build a powerful army you must use it better sooner than later. Otherwise you shall lose without one shot and go down in flames! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Smersh]

nvm. don't want to get into a cold war fight

[mr_clark]

In MBT I made the experiance that from the 70s to the early 80s and the massive increase of TI equipment in western forces the Red Army is indeed a formidable force. Though the training level is not too good you get decent hits with your equipment being close to always being the most modern on the battlefield.
Though against massive unsuported tank rushes ATGM (especially TOW) can be a real killer.
I love playing small '78 campaigns with, playing a company of first tier T-80s... It's amazing how the obsolete 90mm and non SABOT 105mm rounds bounce of the forward armor. (Well except those from the British and German guns...)
But well you have loads of arty to deal with that... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Marcello]

"Soviet Army wouldn't have encountered any difficulties in conquering Western Europe in the event of CONVENTIONAL war with NATO."

It depends on the timeframe.In 1979,likely. In 1989, not so much.

[Smersh]

It depends on the timeframe.In 1979,likely. In 1989, not so much.



do you mean strictly technically or also considering the political situation of the warsaw pact.

[Marcello]

"do you mean strictly technically"

With the caveat that evaluating armies purely on the basis of weapon systems matchup isn't advisable, T-64A vs M60A1 sounds a lot better than T-80B vs M1A1 (for the soviet side, that is).

[Smersh]

sorry, I meant both techniqually and materially(numbers)

[JaM]

Red Army was impressive force on paper, but situation on the field would be different. Most of the equipment was just cannon fodder,mayority of tanks used were still T-55,T-62.Later after 1986 they had more T-80B but there were Leopards-2, M1A1 and Challys.

[Mobhack]

Thier problems always seemed to be poor build quality, and lack of spares and repairs.

Vehicles were dumped outside in the open and left without maintenance to fester with the snow piling up in winter etc - only a few were actually fired up and used for training or some obsolete vehicles were actually used instead of the actual unit kit for training, so if the baloon actually went up then the conscript crews would have little clue about thier t-72s as they had trained on say T-54.

I recall buying some "Baikal" brand 12 bore shotgun shells back in the 70's. Allegedly for export (or a cunning KGB plan to make Westerners complacent about USSR ammo quality ?? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ) - About half the cost of normal shells, but I only bought a few boxes. 2 or 3 misfires out of maybe 4 boxes, the brass started to rust/discolour after a couple of outings, and the fouling in the barrel was bad (no plastic shot cup).

Andy

[Marek_Tucan]

Similar situation Mobhack describes was with T-35 heavy tanks already before WW2 - their units were training on T-26's and T-35 was being fired up just for parades.

[Kuklinovsky]

You are really a very funny fellowship but unfortunately not well informed at all! You stated Soviet Army was a rubbish because of blah, blah, blah...
Try not to watch only CNN, BBC or similar "objective and independent" news sources. Also US Gulf War propaganda seems to sound in your opinions.

Well, let's point out some basic facts:

1. T-80BV tank was superior to M1A1 tank because of better armor, better APFSDS ammo and comparable FCS and mobility. Moreover note that III World War would be waged in Central Europe not on the Iraqi desert.

2. In late 1980s Soviet tank arsenal in Central Europe was composed almost solely with T-64B/BV, T-72AV/BV and T-80BV tanks equipped mainly with reactive armor. Of course there were many thousands of old T-54/55/62 tanks in Soviet inventory but they were placed in other theaters of military operations such as Balkans, Central Asia and Chinese border. Due to constant modernization program these old tanks were clearly superior to the M-48A5, M-60A1, T-34, T-59, T-69 junk in Turkish, Pakistani and Chinese use.

3. Warsaw Pact had about three-to-one numerical superiority over NATO in Central Europe in land arms and about two-to-one in air force. NATO lacked any strategic depth and significant number of in-place ammunition reserves. Also conventional precision weapons weren't accessible for NATO up to the end of Cold War. In fact NATO air forces arsenal in 1980s still consisted of Vietnam era weapons. Its northern border with GDR, where main Soviet thrust was expected, was guarded by second rank Belgian, Dutch, Danish and German Landwehr forces. NATO reinforcements in CONUS were stationed a few thousands kilometers from probable battlefield. It was poorly trained National Guard units, armed with outdated arms and without any fast mobilization potential. In contrary Soviet reinforcements from Western USSR (about 40 divisions) could arrive into Germany in a week time-frame.

4. You seems not to understand Soviet military strategy of that time. It was based on COMBINED ARMS DOCTRINE. It means lack of symmetry inter alia. The best example is that Soviet tanks and gunships weren't primary tool to fight NATO tanks. They had another jobs to do. Anti-tank missions were ceded to the Soviet tactical air forces and MLRS using cluster anti-tank bombs and rockets to destroy western tanks columns and concentration areas. The main opponents of Soviet tanks were NATO ATGMs. That is why almost every Soviet tank was equipped with barrel launched ATGM designed especially to destroy NATO ATGM strongholds. Note that AT-8/10/11 missiles were faster than wire guided NATO anti-tank HOT/TOW/Milan ones. Besides Soviets had its artillery on the brain so that was their main tool to destroy discovered locations of NATO antitank defenses with high intensity barrage fires.
Remark: Soviet arty could fire FIVE TIMES MORE ammo tonnage than NATO arty in the same time period!

5. As for supposedly inadequate training of Soviet troops: First, Soviet society was far more militarized that any Western one. It means beginning of constant military training in the first class of high school, long before call up into Soviet Army. Second, in those days Soviets had plenty of resources for military manoeuvres at all tactical and operational levels in contrary to present Russian Army. Look at "WEST '81" military exercise for example. Third, as we know only US Army and British Army were professional armies in the 1980s. The rest of NATO armies were conscript armies exactly like USSR army was.

I think I put a bit all above questions across to you. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[Marcello]

Similar situation Mobhack describes was with T-35 heavy tanks already before WW2 - their units were training on T-26's and T-35 was being fired up just for parades.




Apart from the future planned conversion to SPA, looking good on parades was pretty much the only good thing that "thing" was good for.



Thier problems always seemed to be poor build quality



My father's Brezhnev era export Belarus tractor would probably disagree that.Very reliable, rugged and easy to repair.The casting of some components is a sight to behold. Just an anedocte, mind you, but at least a bit more relevant to the matter of quality of soviet mechanics than shotgun shells.


Red Army was impressive force on paper, but situation on the field would be different. Most of the equipment was just cannon fodder,mayority of tanks used were still T-55,T-62.Later after 1986 they had more T-80B but there were Leopards-2, M1A1 and Challys.



As I noted previously timing is critical. Broadly speaking with the T-64 and the T-72 the soviets aquired an half generation lead over NATO, introducing the 125mm gun and composite armor while the west was still using 105mm guns and conventional cast/rolled armor.In its days the T-64A was the best tank in the world, by far.By the time western 3rd generation MBTs came online there were a lot of them in service, even if the bulk was still T-55/T-62.I would note that cannon fodder is a relative term. The Leopard 1 had less armor than a WW2 era Panther and a Leo1 driver I know was pretty explicit in telling me that they harbored no illusions about their fate had they been hit.A T-62 would have killed them just fine.
During the 80's the soviet were stuck playing catch up.

[Marek_Tucan]

Marcello said:
Apart from the future planned conversion to SPA, looking good on parades was pretty much the only good thing that "thing" was good for.



Definitely http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif The TR-28 was, OTOH, rather combat-capable as it seems, esp. the uparmored version...



My father's Brezhnev era export Belarus tractor would probably disagree that.Very reliable, rugged and easy to repair.The casting of some components is a sight to behold. Just an anedocte, mind you, but at least a bit more relevant to the matter of quality of soviet mechanics than shotgun shells.



OTOH ammo quality is closer to mil affairs http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif As for Belarus tractors, found also diametrally different reviews, anyway here they were absolutely ignored in comparison with our industry http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif



As I noted previously timing is critical. Broadly speaking with the T-64 and the T-72 the soviets aquired an half generation lead over NATO, introducing the 125mm gun and composite armor while the west was still using 105mm guns and conventional cast/rolled armor.In its days the T-64A was the best tank in the world, by far.By the time western 3rd generation MBTs came online there were a lot of them in service, even if the bulk was still T-55/T-62.I would note that cannon fodder is a relative term. The Leopard 1 had less armor than a WW2 era Panther and a Leo1 driver I know was pretty explicit in telling me that they harbored no illusions about their fate had they been hit.A T-62 would have killed them just fine.
During the 80's the soviet were stuck playing catch up.




Upon its introduction T-64 would have a counterpart in Chieftain, designed with defensive battleas against vast numbers in mind, whose gun would do a nasty thing to T-64. Later on the T-64 would be faced with modern 105mm ammo, losing many advantages.
As for Leo vs. T-62, true Leo's armor was weak in most aspects (though front turret, made to be enough to stop BM-20 in 1980's versions, would severely hamper also 115mm sabot performance) but OTOH 105mm gun was more than match for 115 in terms of penetration and accuracy and most of all ROF. Leo would outgun T-62 with ease.Add to that better FC and rangefinder... Think of it as comparison of WW2 Marder and T-34/76. Marder got better gun, but weaker armour. If Marder is on defense and 34's are on offense, Marder does excellently, but not so well when the roles will turn.


Edit: Re: Kuklinovsky, I recommend you to visit tank-net and search through "my **** is bigger than your" type of threads. You will find that many of things you take for granted weren't so, for example quality of 125mm AP ammo. There IS a reason why for a long time primary AT round in Soviet tanks was HEAT despite its crappy accuracy.

[Marcello]

"Vehicles were dumped outside in the open and left without maintenance to fester with the snow piling up in winter etc - only a few were actually fired up and used for training or some obsolete vehicles were actually used instead of the actual unit kit for training, so if the baloon actually went up then the conscript crews would have little clue about thier t-72s as they had trained on say T-54."

I don't know about that. What I have heard (second hand accounts from a tanker in the 3rd Shock Army, mid 80's) is that they trained frequently and on their T-64s.By then they were falling behind the west, and they suspected as much despite what the zampolit told them about western weakness. But the stories about tanks left to rot sound like Cold war era propaganda BS.Maybe some old junk in some Category C unit or some local screwup. I have seen pictures of T-62s with their own garage even when the type was already well obsolete.
As noted previously during the 80's the soviets tried to upgrade their 2.5 generation tanks to keep up with 3rd generation western MBTs that were coming online. As I understand things later got worse. By the time the Gulf war came around against M1A1 HA with M829A1 rounds the soviets could field only limited numbers of T-80U/UD with BM-32 rounds.The T-80s lacked thermal sights, Kontakt-5 coverage had lots of gaps and the BM-32 was nothing to write home about.The frontline tank fleet was mostly made of earlier models with light ERA at that point.

[Smersh]

yes, lets be careful to turn this into a cold war flame debate. nobody wants that.

by the time of the gulf war, the soviet union was at the edge of collapse, and the warsaw pact was disolved. Not exactly a time to be building up to date MBTs in large numbers.

But I agree, with Kuklinovsky.Througout most of the 80s, the warsaw pact held a definite advantage.

The large number of modernized t-55s and T-62s could still knock out much of the older armour in nato forces, which made up the bulk of nato tank forces. From what I have red, Kuklinovsky is right in saying the major threat soviet military planners feared was ATGMs.

[Marcello]

"Upon its introduction T-64 would have a counterpart in Chieftain, designed with defensive battleas against vast numbers in mind, whose gun would do a nasty thing to
T-64."

King Tiger clause applies: IF you can get it there. To be honest I have heard fairly nasty horror stories about early T-64 reliability but AFAIK it was reasonably debugged by the T-64A/B. The Chieftain had good armor and firepower, mobility was more problematic.The T-64 was more balanced hence why I gave it the "Best" rating. The Leo1 Marder comparison has merits but I would say that the Marder isn't the first thing that comes to mind if I try to come up with the opposite of expendable.

"There IS a reason why for a long time primary AT round in Soviet tanks was HEAT despite its crappy accuracy."

Against steel armor it had good penetration which retained even at the maximum range, it could be used against soft targets and was cheaper to produce. AFAIK at least for the 125mm gun HEAT rounds accuracy wasn't that terrible. Of course that meant that when NATO introduced very effective against HEAT composite armor the soviets had one unpleasant problem to deal with.

[Kuklinovsky]

I must add some explanations:

1. Some myths about Gulf War: US Amy fielded in Persian Gulf its brand-new equipment and arms like M1A1HA tanks with M829A1 ammunition. This weapon was relocated from West Germany or even hurriedly upgraded in Saudi Arabia because many of new stuff weren't in service until 1991! In contrary Iraqis had only downgraded export model tanks like T-54/55/59/69 of Soviet and Chinese origin and limited number of export T-72G "monkey model" without laminated armor and with ridiculous BM-12/15/17 APFSDS rounds withdrawn from Soviet service almost twenty years before! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Moreover during entire "1980s" time-period USSR had better APFSDS rounds than NATO. So there was no "crappy HEAT rounds" problem for USSR to solve. Simply Soviet regulations ordered to fire HEAT rounds against older Western tanks and APFSDS rounds at newer NATO tanks.

2. Soviet had advantage in armor up to the end of Cold War! They fielded T-80U in 1985 which was equivalent of US M1A1HA made five years later. Unfortunately well known Gorbatchev's military cuts prevented its wider deployment in GSFG as T-64B replacement. Anyway in 1991 Soviet T-80U had better armor than M1A1HA thanks to its second generation or "heavy" ERA and comparable APFSDS BM-42M round with almost identical penetration level like M829A1 (600mm RHA at 2 km). Also T-80U possessed long-range laser guided supersonic AT-11 ATGM designed to fight Western anti-tank gunships also. Its mobility was better than M1A1HA because of lower weight. M1A1HA was superior due to TI device but both tanks FCS were practically at the same level.

3. Maybe Chieftain was a match for T-64A BUT a small explanations is needed here: Britons manufactured a few hundred Chieftains and Soviets almost TEN THOUSAND T-64s! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

4. As for older but modernized Soviet tanks like T-55AM/T-62MV: Simply compare them with older Western designs like AMX-30, Leo-1A3, M-60A1 which were in wide use during 1980s in many NATO countries. I am sure this balance won't be favourable for Western tanks!

PS. Mr. Tucan: You needlessly recommend me some amateurish tank forum to read. I prefer far more up front professional sources like declassified CIA, DIA and Soviet analysis or reports about above issues! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[narwan]

Oh no, not the myth of Soviet superiority again. People always seem to forget that the number of toys you have doesn't matter, it's the amount you can take to the party that counts. The thre most important elements would have been logistics, logistics and logistics.

Fact: WP forces would have to depend on only a couple of roads to advance into the west and more importantly, to support their advance into the west. Consequence of the Iron curtain. There were very few crossborder connections available to carry anything close to the amount of WP troops already in theatre and their supply. Take out those points at their bottlenecks and the party is over for the WP. No more fuel, ammo, food, water and bad tabbacco for the troops on the front. No more reinforcements, especially if you drop a couple of bridges in east-germany and Poland.
Personally I think WP forces would not have gotten very far.

Heard an interesting one about this recently, seems the westgermans had mined these chokepoints with nuclear demolitions. Seems they were prepared to take out these points permanently and stall the WP advance within a few miles of the border... Anyone got some more on that?

Narwan

[Smersh]

I've red reports of nuclear mines being used by NATO as well. No doubt, had WP forces come into contact with them, tactical nuclear weapons would have been free to be used on the battlefeild. Resulting in a much more destructive conflict.

I would love to have tactical nuclear weapons in SP http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

logistics of course always play a role in warfare, especially on the offensive. But I think its a myth to think that only a few blown bridges would have hindered a WP advance.

again, lets be careful not to get too aggressive and nationalistic on this thread.

[Marek_Tucan]

Marcello said:
King Tiger clause applies: IF you can get it there. To be honest I have heard fairly nasty horror stories about early T-64 reliability but AFAIK it was reasonably debugged by the T-64A/B. The Chieftain had good armor and firepower, mobility was more problematic.The T-64 was more balanced hence why I gave it the "Best" rating.



I won't use T-64B in here as it's more of a counterpart (both on timescale and in capabilities) to Leopard 2.
Remember also that the mobility issue may not be as severe concerning Chieftain, esp. in terrain - in its design there applied also many experiences with Centurion in Israel and Centurion, though not with good power-to-weight ratio or speed, was found better for harder terrains than other tanks in Israeli service.



The Leo1 Marder comparison has merits but I would say that the Marder isn't the first thing that comes to mind if I try to come up with the opposite of expendable.



True, I might have rather used something like US turreted tank destroyers http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif



Against steel armor it had good penetration which retained even at the maximum range, it could be used against soft targets and was cheaper to produce. AFAIK at least for the 125mm gun HEAT rounds accuracy wasn't that terrible. Of course that meant that when NATO introduced very effective against HEAT composite armor the soviets had one unpleasant problem to deal with.



From what firing trials (even in our very own army) seem to indicate, the accuracy of HEAT was about three times worse at 2000m than accuracy of crappy old BM-15 APFSDS and often effective HEAT range is stated to be 1500m compared to 2000m for APFSDS.
True T-64 was pretty safe (in theory) against HESH ammo used by most of NATO but then in Chechnya a Chechen T-72 got destroyed by baseline HE from another T-72 (took seven rounds, though before the engine compartment was hit for a coup de grace, but the tank was pretty incapacitated even before that).

[Marek_Tucan]

Smersh said:
logistics of course always play a role in warfare, especially on the offensive. But I think its a myth to think that only a few blown bridges would have hindered a WP advance.




Depends. Look at what problems did the Germans have during Market-Garden when they needed to get reinforcements to Nijmegen and weren't able to use Arnhem bridge. Or trouble with getting reinforcements to Normandy over destroyed railroad and road network. Sure the destroyed chopeoints won't prevent all reinforcements/stuff from coming in but it would severely slow down this and will create more chokepoints susceptible to air or TacNuke strikes.

Anyway, all too glad the Cold War didn't break into Hot one as it would be for sure bloody for both sides.

[Marcello]

"I won't use T-64B in here as it's more of a counterpart both on timescale and in capabilities) to Leopard 2."

I was commenting on mechanical reliability.Supposedly T-64 was very unrealiable initially (possibly some literally self destructed due to autoloader malfuctions, or so went the tale) but the issue was more or less sorted out by the time the main production versions A/B came online.I agree that the T-64B is later.

"Remember also that the mobility issue may not be as severe concerning Chieftain"

I agree that in principle the Chieftain had sufficient mobility.What concerned me was its reliability, that was my point with "if you can get there" comment. Unless of course all the claims about chronic engine overheating and transmission breakdowns were somewhat exaggerated.

[Marcello]

For what is worth I got the impression that the soviets took river crossing very seriously.All the APCs,IFVs and armored cars that could be made amphibious were so, even at the expense of others characteristics like armor protection.The tanks were capable of deep fording, even with all the limitations and the risks of such practice.Dedicated ambhibious tanks for establishing bridgeheads.Fast deployement GSP ferry to make tanks cross rivers when fording was was not an option.PTS-M and similar vehicles to ferry artillery, trucks and large amounts of foot infantry etc.

[Marek_Tucan]

The river crossing aspect is partly true but IRL it was being viewed as "not much practical" IRL... BMP's had sometimes a disturbing tendencies to sink and with deep fording I don't know whether our armz ever rained with combat schnorkels due to the risk of having no escape route while underwater (combat schnorkel wasn't passable for the crew).
Also there aren't so manz river banks suitable for deep fording/amphib crossing - it's about the same as with landing beaches on the sea coast.Plus of course trucks etc. would still need bridges.

[Marcello]

Of course deep fording was rather unhealthy and while the others vehicles were amphibious some were just barely so.
I suspect that there was an underlying attitude along the lines "even if few percent are lost but the rest get through is worth it" but I cannot prove it. The banks will need preparation and only a few places will be suitable.
The point however is that just blowing up a couple of bridges in front of them will not be a show stopper. Ultimately of course it will come down to engineers bridging assets.

[Smersh]

The point however is that just blowing up a couple of bridges in front of them will not be a show stopper.



exactly,


Anyway, all too glad the Cold War didn't break into Hot one as it would be for sure bloody for both sides.

yes, who knows where even a conventional conflict could have escalated to.

[pdoktar]

Funny thing is that nobody didn´t start a war. If Red Army had such huge advantages, it´s kind of interesting that they didn´t even try to pressure the West more politically or something like that. Maybe the war wouldn´t be worth it anyhow, so the Soviet Union building policy of arms went to total waste, hence the collapse of the Soviet empire. They lost the cold war, so it doesn´t matter anymore what their equipment was like in 1980.

And doesn´t the game represent them as quite potent combat vehicles, considering the debate going on about their true quality?

[Marcello]

"Funny thing is that nobody didn´t start a war. If Red Army had such huge advantages, it´s kind of interesting that they didn´t even try to pressure the West more politically or something like that."

I could ask a very similar question.Why didn't the US nuke the USSR in the late 50's-beginning of the 60's, when they enjoyed overwhelming nuclear advantage? Why didn't they even try to pressure the USSR more?
Which brings us to the answer to your question: nukes make people a bit more cautious.

"And doesn´t the game represent them as quite potent combat vehicles, considering the debate going on about their true quality?"

There is some fudge factor inherent to how ERA is handled the game.The T-64/T-72/T-80 have also peculiar armor schemes that is difficult to accurately represent.

[pdoktar]

Yes, the game engine has it´s limitations, particularly with ERA and especially Kontakt-5 which is directly calculated to the armor values of say, T-72BM etc. Still, comparing to similar weastern units, like M1 and Leo2, T-80 and T-72 fares quite well, so in game terms there is no gap between the quality of western and eastern armor.

And thinking of nukes, there were many proxywars between the Soviet Union and US, but nukes were not used, so you can say that the whole buildup in Europe was indifferent, as nukes would be involved there anyway. Maybe conventional war couldn´t be fought in Europe altogether, so it didn´t anymore matter, who had the best conventional forces there.

[Marcello]

The problem (at least this is what I remember, I haven't played much lately beyond testing) is that game ERA seems to be triggered less frequently than what would happen in the real world.But when it works it stops pretty much anything, instead of merely degrading the incoming round.
Another problem is the protection scheme.In the real world the armor protection of any tank will be different from zone to zone.
The upper glacis of an Abrams has a different composition from the lower half which in turn will offer a different amount of protection depending on the level of fuel inside the tanks.
Neverthless on western MBTs and T-55/T-62 there is a certain degree of uniformity.On T-72/T-64/T-80 the philosophy seems to offer maximum protection only in the areas most likely to be hit, at expense of the others like the lower glacis plate. And that are not the only weak spots.Think to the lack of ERA bricks behind the searchlight on T-80U.And these two are only examples.

[pdoktar]

Yep. ERA cell defeats HEAT round completely, when going off. So ERA-armored BMPs defeat a heavy non-dc-atgm several times, before being destroyed. Dual-Charge will usually defeat normal ERA, but Advanced ERA have bigger chance of defeating DC-warheads.

If normal ERA would be directly calculated to the HEAT armor values, how would you model it with DC-ATGM?

As there are KE, CE and ERA armor already in game, the ERA should be somehow calculated into CE or (A-ERA)KE armor, so that it, for example, wouldn´t stop a normal large (HEAT 60+) warhead if it hit a BMP that has normal CE armor of 10.

BMP-3s surviving a 120mm Sabot just because there´s a message "Advanced ERA stops penetrator" is very funny indeed.

Going off-topic, but for what it´s worth..

[Marcello]

"As there are KE, CE and ERA armor already in game, the ERA should be somehow calculated into CE or (A-ERA)KE armor, so that it, for example, wouldn´t stop a normal large (HEAT 60+) warhead if it hit a BMP that has normal CE armor of 10."

But if I understand what you are proposing, that would not simulate ERA tiles depletion under multiple hits.

[pdoktar]

Yeah that would not do it. But we should figure a way of doing this, if it´s even possible for the game engine.

[Mobhack]

Any HEAT hit on a reactive surface will delete a point of ERA - whether the ERA defeats the warhead or not. With large HEAT warheads - 2 points can be removed.

Cheers
Andy

[Marek_Tucan]

Complete simulation of ERA would be very complex - it would need to account for the ERA effect (ie penetration degradation), for the ERA generation, for portion of surface covered by ERA and for number of tiles on said surface... A solution might be using two or three digit code (say "ERA" value 193) where first digit would be generation (as is now, 0 = gen. 1, 1 = gen. 2 or better), second would be no. of in-game "tiles" and third would be ERA effect divided by 10 (in this case the "3" would translate into 30 increase against HEAT and some increase - say 15 - against KE). But then forcing the game C++ spaghetti to decipher this would be (as I do imagine) extremely hard...

[Smersh]

conventional forces where extremely important during the 'cold war' since it was expected that war could start at any time. Both the USA and USSR spent huge amounts of resources building complex and expensive defense systems.

the 60s idea that nuclear weapons and the air-forces would completly replace ground conventional weapons never took place. Besides many of the tanks and apcs could operate in a nuclear environment. nuclear weapons and planes can't occupy or hold any terrain.

we are lucky militaty leaders never decided on a direct confrontation, I think they understood what nuclear war would mean.

yeah, there are several limitation the old sp code is showing.

[PlasmaKrab]

I'm not sure that "generations" would do it all re. ERA stopping power. Bear in mind that some modern "new-generation" ERA packs are lighter and less efficient to suit lighter vehicles.
Anyhow, I think that "generation" and "effect" variables would be redundant. Better get back to 2 variables and raise the number of "generations", each one with an upper limit of penetration/warhead size that it can stop. E.g. instead of having figures from 1 to 19, why not reaching up to 49 or 59, with more different ERA levels, from basic early-80s stuff to Kontakt-5 or similar, with several shades in between?

Just my 2c on an off-topic subject that cannot possibly be modeled in the game, I don't even know why I bothered http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[pdoktar]

You bothered because you care, as we all do. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Listy]

Kuklinovsky said:
2. Soviet had advantage in armor up to the end of Cold War! They fielded T-80U in 1985 which was equivalent of US M1A1HA made five years later.



Ok I'll bite, seeing as I just sprayed my breakfast all over the place in fits of laughter.

How is a 46 ton tank, better than one nearly twice it's weight? I'd also like to ask what evidence you bring to support this?

[Marek_Tucan]

Listy said:
I'd also like to ask what evidence you bring to support this?



No evidence needed, it's as self-evident as the fact T-34 was best tank of WWII and Sherman was just a total failure http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Nightblade]

Last time i played a post year 2000 small generated battle, i understood why i should not buy anything expensive for such low battle points/small map if i was playing usa/usmc and have red army as opponent.

After deploying my 4 SEAL platoons (4 SEAL platoons are a total of 8 squads and 4 pathfinders) with 3 CH-46 for quick insertion in objective, i had the surprise to see nearly a hundred of infantry and APC to run and quickly overwhelm my poor small platoons.

And despite using lots of smoke grenade to create some ambush for this insane amount of APC in the objective zone, while this helped really against infantry, with the incredible bad luck at assaulting APC those SEAL had (despite the SEAL squads are classed as engineer in the game), in less than 10 turns, mostly everyone was dead.

After checking a bit more after game, the 4 SEAL platoons + 3 CH46 were costing me 1860 BP, with such an amount of BP , using red army you could buy 14 Mech platoons (42 squads and +/- 35/40 APC).

So if you plan to play with small battle points against an army that comes with cheap to buy units, never ever buy expensive units if you plan to have a chance, or just do not let the AI to buy what he wants, buy things yourself for it.

[Marek_Tucan]

The SEAL and other specials are more for scen design than for "real" battle http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Or for PBEM with agreed limits to the other side...

[Marcello]

"How is a 46 ton tank, better than one nearly twice it's weight?"

I suppose that if by "equivalent" he means that it would not be a Gulf War style one sided massacre he might be right.Consider however:
1) no thermal sight;
2) several weak spots in the front armor;
3) ammunition performance likely insufficient to deal with M1A1 HA;
4) various odd ends, like unprotected ammo storage, insufficient main gun depression etc.;

[pdoktar]

Marek, hope you were sarcastic, as T-34 WAS the best tank in the WWII. At least I consider it as the mother of all modern tank designs... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[pdoktar]

Yep, Nightblade, you can easy count out your Chinooks from that force core points in a real firefight. Besides, as Russia has less than 70 exp points as core experience, the red army units become even cheaper to buy in numbers. Overwhelming numbers, and as their tech advances, troop quality doesnt matter that much anymore, especially in "one-shot-one-kill" units.

All in all I consider the red Army to be a first-class foe in winSPMBT after 2000. Just remember, that an Oob designer has a lot to say with every country. (And the guy who put up Russia, did a very comprehensive work, considering WinSPMBT picks and tactics)

[Listy]

Marek_Tucan said:
No evidence needed, it's as self-evident as the fact T-34 was best tank of WWII and Sherman was just a total failure http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif



**grumble mutter grumble**

You trying to start a fight with me old fruit?

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Smersh]

I played a 1969 battle against the chinese as the soviet union, and I had the same thing happen to me. for my 2 bmp comapanies, the chinese had bought 3-4 mech companies. some chinese units would literally dismount 50m from my own dismounted infantry, after my units ran out of return fire shots.

[Mobhack]

If you plan to use special farces, then these are best used in a scenario, and not a generated battle.

Generated battles are for normal line forces meeting normal line forces.


Special farces (SAS, Spetznatz and so on) are provided as a tool for the scenario designer. They don't appear on the normal battlefield (or if they do, they belong to the army-level commanders, and not you as "Lt Col Regular Guy" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

The scenario designer can then plan a situation where the eliteness of the special farces can be balanced by the setup (lack of time and so on and so forth).

Cheers
Andy

[Nightblade]

If you buy yourself the units/equipment the AI will use against your army, you can easily solve this problem and then create a possible "to win" or "to lose" battle according to the armies setup you decide.

This way, sf or other kind of very expensive units can be very well used in generated battles without a problem and prevent the frustration such 100 vs 1 situation usually lead into when the AI buy very cheap units in nearly invicincible amount.

[Smersh]

Doing that means no suprises. although, I've done that occiasonly to give the ai, in my mind, more realistic buys.

[Sarunas]

I wish this War Nerd guy posted on this furum more. A really funny article:

http://www.exile.ru/2005-April-08/war_nerd.html


If you're anything like me, you probably spent a lot of the 80s imagining what would happen if the big NATO-Warsaw Pact war in Central Europe came along. It's still hard for me to believe sometimes that the whole showdown just faded away without a shot fired.

Back in Reagan's day, everybody was dreaming about High Noon at the Fulda Gap, and reading what-if novels like The Third World War, by a British general, John Hackett, or Clancy's Red Storm Rising. (By the way, Hackett's book is still the best of the lot, if you ask me. He's got a bigger picture, covering everything from South Africa to the NW Atlantic, and he doesn't shy away from harsh stuff like English cities being wiped out in a Soviet first strike. Red Storm Rising is a fun, fast read but like I've said before, I'm not much of a Clancy fan. He's a hardware geek, no grasp of strategy, and a lying pig to boot.)

After the Soviets went out of business, I thought we'd get some really solid info on what the Warsaw Pact forces had planned, especially what their nuke and irregular forces (SpetzNaz teams) had in mind in the way of first strike and sabotage. Probably "we" did, meaning the intel community. But whatever they got, they didn't pass along much of it to us civilians out there.

Well, a reader named Dima Sverin just sent me a (translated) interview with ex-Soviet general Matvey Burlakov, the last commander of the Soviet Southern and Western Forces, HQ'd in Hungary. Burlakov was a "Colonel-General," a very, very high rank, and in this interview with a Russian newspaper he pretty much spills all, as far as I can tell.

There's some great stuff. In fact he sounds like a great old guy. I've heard from some guys who've worked with the Russian officer corps that they're pretty cool guys, mostly, ready to drink you under the table and talk strategy non-stop while you're lying there. The only problem is if you're a Russian conscript-then officers don't seem so cool anymore, which might explain why the conscripts go AWOL every week in Russia, shooting up half their barracks before being hunted down themselves.

The first thing you notice about Burlakov's interview is how much the Soviets relied on tanks. When he talks about the war, the way it could've happened, he talks tanks: "The height of the Cold War was the early 1980s. All they [the Soviet leaders] had to do was give the signal and everything would have gone off. Everything was battle-ready. The shells were in the tanks. They just had to be loaded and fired."

If you get the impression the General was pretty confident about his chances, you're right. He says if the Soviet leaders had just given the word, "We would have burned and destroyed everything they [NATO] had."

After he says that, it's like Burlakov gets a little nervous that he might be sounding too aggressive, because he adds, "I mean military targets, not civilians."

Now that bit, about how they wouldn't have targeted civilians, is classic bull****. A huge conventional war in Germany would have killed millions of civilians, no matter how you war-gamed it. But I'm inclined to believe the old general when he says the Soviet tank armies would've kicked ***. The NATO forces were in a hopeless deployment: jammed into West Germany, an indefensible strip of heavily-populated territory. No strategic depth available, meaning the advantage was with whoever struck first. Once the population realized the Russians were coming, every Beemer and Merc in Germany would have hit the roads, those same roads our tanks were supposed to use. In that chaos, the Bundeswehr would have dissolved into a bunch of terrified locals looking for their families.

Burlakov is not too respectful, to put it mildly, about the West German military: "We had a sea of tanks on the [Soviet] Western Group. Three tank armies! And what did the [West] Germans have? The [German] workweek ends Friday and then you wouldn't find anyone, not a minister or a soldier. Just guards. By the time they realized what was happening, we would have burned up their tanks and looted their armories."

There you see it again, that obsession with tanks. The conventional wisdom right now is that the MBT's day is ending, but luckily we never saw what would happen if those three tank armies had poured through the Fulda Gap on some fine Sunday morning. (You definitely get the feeling that the plan involved attacking on a weekend, don't you?) With Soviet soldiers at the controls, and Soviet air support limiting USAF missions, a T-72 would have been a totally different machine from the Arab-crewed junkers littering the Middle East.

Of course it all depended on striking first. So would the Soviet Army have sucker-punched us? Burlakov says, "Of course! What else? Wait for them to strike us?"

The journalist asks again, like just to make sure: "We [the Soviets] would have struck first?" and the General says again, "Of course!"

And he makes it real clear that he's not just talking about conventional first strikes. The interviewer says, "But [Soviet] Foreign Minister Gromyko said that the USSR would not use nuclear weapons first!"

I love Burlakov's answer: "He said one thing and we [the Soviet staff] thought another. We are the ones responsible for wars."

One of the funnier bits is Burlakov explaining what R&R meant for Soviet soldiers serving in Socialist Hungary. As some of you guys probably know, the Soviet Army (and the Russian one now) don't exactly believe in coddling their soldiers. No unions like the Dutch allow, no PX and Mickey D's like we give them. By all accounts, being a private in a Russian army is a lot like being in maximum security, only the food isn't as good. Burlakov sounds like he's almost proud of the way he kept his cannon fodder under control: "We practically didn't let them [Soviet soldiers] into the towns in Hungary. A tour of Budapest and then back to the barracks! We were afraid...our soldiers might have done something bad."

I'm not sure what "something bad" means but since I've heard that Soviet recruits often went months without even seeing a woman, I can imagine. Maybe somebody should send a copy of that policy to the US commander on Okinawa. Might solve some of our PR problems with the locals.

As long as he's talking about the Soviet war plan, Burlakov is downright cheery. But when the interviewer starts making him describe how it all fell apart after Gorbachev took over, he starts sounding like a bitter old man.

He's still so shocked at Gorbachev's withdrawal of Soviet forces from Europe that he says somebody was drugging Gorbachev: "They [I have no idea who he means by 'they'] fed him something, they brought him a cup of something like tea with milk..." Of course that sounds like paranoid crap, but you can see why Burlakov would have to invent a story like that to explain Gorbachev's backdown. In fact Burlakov seems to be aware that he needs to invent a "they" and a spiked tea, because nothing else makes sense for why Gorbachev up and surrendered the way he did.

Poor old Burlakov, watching his baby, this incredible "sea of tanks," just rot away because the politicians won't give the order to attack. It happens to most generals; it's a lucky one who ever gets to use the army he helped build. Watching it all crumble without a fight-that's gotta be one of the roughest ways for a general to end his career.

I mean obviously it's a GOOD thing, in the long run, that the nuke Super Bowl everybody was planning for didn't happen. I understand that. But it's gotta be tough to spend your whole life planning the one big push, and then, when you're sure you could win and you're just waiting for the green flag, something goes wrong on the home front, and suddenly your sea of tanks is effectively destroyed as a war-fighting force. Without firing a shot.

That's where you see how generals don't actually have that much power after all. Burlakov may woof, talking about how "we," the generals and not the pols, "are responsible for war." But his pitiful end shows how not true that is. Like he says, "everything was ready." But without somebody to give that green light, the best tank is just scrap metal.

[Siddhi]

a perspective from a neutral country "green slime"

reg. "russian tanks rusting outside"
never heard of such a thing. most tank barracks in the world have a bunch of old tanks standing around in a lot for basic training purposes, or even simply as a memorial. the idea that a category A or B unit, which spent all of their recruits time in mind-boggling "make work" tasks, would let their critical combat equipment go to hell is just wrong. until the mid 1980s, where corruption/embezelement of supplies as well as "moonlighting" of NCOs became an increasing problem, soviet and some WP (especially GDR ans CSSR) readyness was first rate, better in our view then most NATO equipment.

- tank training for soviet and cssr was absolutly first rate, and superior to many NATO countries, especially in gunnery and formation keeping (battle drill). given the two-year enlistment periods common nearly no tanker trained in one tank and was expected to fight in another, although o/c this is not valid for C formations whose expected mob time included training with "new" equipment. B-formations still had refresher courses and were familiar with their equipment

- "warsaw pact advancing along two roads" i have no idea what that is supposed to mean. norway, perhaps, and wouldn't have that been 1 road unless they crossed finland?

- "logistics, etc." this is the biggest myth of all - that soviet logistics was a nightmare or a mess. o/c after 1985 everything slowly went downhill, but the soviets beforehand were true masters of the art - more importantly, they were ther first to employ "computurised" logistic systems - basically big calculators - first at front then at army level, from 1975 onwards. these systems were so advanced they AUTOMATICALLY could issue (print orders ready for signing or teletype reley) movement and priority orders on supply coloums and MSRs. the fact that they were less "flexible" then NATO is completly irrelevant - if you do not resupply a regiment but simply pull it from the line and put in another you do not need flexibility. this approach was brilliant as while they knew it cut combat capability in some ways (lack of experienced NCOs, commanders, etc.) in allowed the "same" factors to be considered fresh each time in the battle management computers, i.e. they knew exactly what equipment would be how worn out over how much time, and could therefore pre-order supplies, unlike the NATO system, which was "pull" rather then "push". finally the WP has a defence mobilisation scheme that only countries such as norway, austria and sweden have - every vehicle could be commandered for the front - effectivly the entire country could go to "war industy" at the flip of switch.

- "small-unit inflexibility" who cares? when the vast majority of your engagements are going to be regiment-size, that is what you train for. that they are "set-piece actions" is only marginally negative, if at all, if it is a true combined arms assault. that fire strikes "could not be adjusted" or similar is complete nonsense. battilion-sized task groups could immidetly form after breaking the line and were perfectly able to fullfill their main mission - push deep and disrupt.

i can't really comment on technical/ equipment matters as others prolly know more about it here, except for one minor detail: the older t-72 varaints vibrated so much that crews routinely fell asleep on the march and would roll of the roads - none combat attrition rate for an tank regiment road march was many times higher then for nato equiviliant (brigade without supply arm).

between 1975-85 the WP would have given NATO a serious challange, and depending on circs, it would have been a tight thing. given that the most likely "threat of war" scenario was due to Operation RYAN (look it up if you don't know it) in the 1982-83/84 timeframe i think everyone in the west should be a lot more thankfull that it never happened.

[narwan]

Siddhi said:
- "logistics, etc." this is the biggest myth of all - that soviet logistics was a nightmare or a mess. o/c after 1985 everything slowly went downhill, but the soviets beforehand were true masters of the art - more importantly, they were ther first to employ "computurised" logistic systems - basically big calculators - first at front then at army level, from 1975 onwards. these systems were so advanced they AUTOMATICALLY could issue (print orders ready for signing or teletype reley) movement and priority orders on supply coloums and MSRs. the fact that they were less "flexible" then NATO is completly irrelevant - if you do not resupply a regiment but simply pull it from the line and put in another you do not need flexibility. this approach was brilliant as while they knew it cut combat capability in some ways (lack of experienced NCOs, commanders, etc.) in allowed the "same" factors to be considered fresh each time in the battle management computers, i.e. they knew exactly what equipment would be how worn out over how much time, and could therefore pre-order supplies, unlike the NATO system, which was "pull" rather then "push". finally the WP has a defence mobilisation scheme that only countries such as norway, austria and sweden have - every vehicle could be commandered for the front - effectivly the entire country could go to "war industy" at the flip of switch.





Just to be clear, I never said nor intended to say that soviet logistics was a mess. What I pointed out was the limitations of implementing the whole logistics oepration. You can have a finely tuned organisation, in the end it's the road space and other infrastructure that determine how much of and how well you can implement your organisation.

A historical case in point is the german advance in ww1 in august of '14. It is often said that the germans would have won if they had had those divisions there in the west of france that they had send to the eastern front to face the russians instead. What is forgotten is that there was literally no room for those divisions. A german infantry division on the march through belgium and france needed an awful lot of road space. So much that often the end of the column ended a days advance more or less on the same positions that the leading units had started of from that morning. The roads in belgium (the east of belgium being the bottleneck) and france were already packed with moving columns of troops and supplies (of which there were often shortages due to the congestion of the roads).
From a battlefield point of view those additional divisions could have made all the difference, from a logistical viewpoint it made more sense to send them elsewhere.

While I don't debate the existence of a complex supply system, or the abundance of bridging equipment and engineers, nor the waterfording capabilities of many soviet AFV's, what I do debate is their ability to advance all those troops, their supplies and reinforcements along the limited infrastructure available. This is NOT just about bridges, what some people seem to think. You can just as easily take out large sections of roads, crossroads etc with modern engineer and demolition equipment so as to make them unusable (as roads etc) for quite some time. Which is what matters, time. Every minute and hour lost means more pile up of vehicles and the more they pile up the harder it becomes to 'un-pile' them. You might say, well they can just go around it right? Tracked vehicles and all terrain wheeled vehicles can, but trucks will quickly become stuck (all that traffic going over non hardened ground will soon turn it into ploughed fields, hard to croos with trucks). So as soon as you have column of trucks stuck/slowed, everything behind it, including tracked and AT wheeled will get stuck in the traffic jam too.

It's simply a matter of the amount of traffic density that the exisitng infrastructure could handle, then add deliberate delays and blockings and you'll come to what is realistically possible in terms of nr of manouvre units and supply chain. Add in doctrine (fast or slow advance, high or low ammo expenditure (artillery especially) etc, etc) and the number gets higher or lower, basically the faster you want to advance, the lower the nr of troops.

In my opinion, assuming a reasonable disruption by NATO, a WP advance would have stalled quite quickly after initial succes.

Narwan

[Smersh]

In my opinion, assuming a reasonable disruption by NATO, a WP advance would have stalled quite quickly after initial succes.



How big would the initial success be, How much territory could have been occupied in that golden period?

[Marek_Tucan]

Formation keeping isn't much worth in combat http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Syrians on Golans in 1973 were keeping formations pretty well AFAIK, made them just good targets http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

To put Czechoslovakian war readiness a bit into perspective, my father served a long time as active duty officer in Signal corps. In wartime, each of their stations was supposed to have a Motor Rifle company or at the very least platoon for defense.

Guess how many times they did actually train it in the 15 years he spent with the Signals.

Another great anecdote from a joint training with the Rooskies. Russian tank brigade was to attack alongside our Mototr Rifle Brigade. True the Russians were showing the battle drill OK (ie they were driving in nice tight formations that would make any A-10 pilot scream with joy) but atleast their command post (where my father was providing comms for liaison officer) was in quickly built bunker with a good view on the battlefield and objective. Czechoslovakian CP was a big white tent with another big white tent alongside where waiters in smokings were serving drinks.
Our defense ministers were all too often interested in such important issues like forbidding the officers to wear any other combat boots than the officer's (these got shallower patterns on their soles so generally sucked in mud etc.) and the thing was pursued with more vigour than any combat training - my father was one of two officers of his unit who circumvented this by having standard soldier's boot soles mated with their oficer's boots - he said he could've laughed his ...erm, bottom off when, while climbing a rather steep and muddy slope in autumn, they were the only two who managed to do it without repeatedly falling face-down into mud.

And there were many other similar cases. So while the unit's training might be good, training of cooperation wasn't as good and the higher echelons weren't much prepared to fight a war, they were more interested in playing soldiers.

EDIT: Dunno how the tank gunnery training looked like, but rifle training was performed (atleast with father's unit) scarcely and with a very limited ammo allowance - this was being circumvented by various tradeoffs of insignia and other souvenirs with Russian troops who had very loose regulations in this field and had generally as many free rounds as they wanted. Still, there were some "active" higher officers who were trying to uncover such mischiefous wrongdoings and make sure the soldiers didn't fire more than the official allowance.
Also, during one gunnery training session (organised in a military area Milovice IIRC) my father got an invitation from their fellow Soviet Signal unit and contrary to our practise (where Signal troops were training only with a rifle and officers also with pistols), they had everything from pistol up to RPG training fires so my father spent a happy afternoon there trying out AK-74, PKM and RPG. He was invited also for the next day when MANPADS training was to take place but unfortunately they were parting too soon so he wasn't able to get there.

[narwan]

Smersh said:


How big would the initial success be, How much territory could have been occupied in that golden period?



Not that much. Measured in kilometres from the border I'd say you'd be counting in double digit numbers, with maybe in one or two 'schwerpunkts' in the (very) low triple digits. In some area's the territory gained might not even reach 50km depth.
And it wouldn't be a golden period either. WP losses would have been massive, much higher than NATO's losses (who would have had the advantage of defending). Whether they would be able to hold on to that territory is dubious, but too speculative to make any clear claims on.

But again, that's just my opinion.

Narwan

[Smersh]

I hold the opposite view. I beleive west germany could have been over-run and occupied within a week. If the objective was to re-unify germany by force, then I think thats very possible. on the other hand a full-scale invasion and attempt to incorporate the whole of europe would be a stretch, although not maybe not impossible.

losses of course would be high, but if tactical nuclear weapons where used losses on both sides would be much higher, in addition to big envirinmental destruction.

In the end success and failure depends on alot of factors,strategic and tactical suprise,strategic objectives, western will, nuclear weapon use, etc.

[Listy]

From what I worked out from talking to people who served in BAOR, is that it would come down too, if we run out of bullets to send down range before the Godless Commie Hordes(TM) ran out of spares to keep their tanks mobile.

They where of the opinion that if it didn't involve so many casualties, it wouldd be the worlds biggest comedy routine. Then it'd all be down to whose nerve broke first, and started hurling Brick bats at each other.

BAOR's main role was that of speed bump, and there was one fiction book which ended with BAOR getting Tac nuked by it's own side.

[Marcello]

"You can just as easily take out large sections of roads, crossroads etc with modern engineer and demolition equipment so as to make them unusable (as roads etc) for quite some time."

I don't know. You can put some demolition charges on the key points of a bridge and continue to use it until the last minute, then blow it up. Railroads are easy to take out too. But how would you destroy a paved road? Explosive charges? You will need to drill a lot of holes. Buldozers?
Tarmac and the underlying layers seem pretty hard for your typical dozer blade to negotiate quickly. At any rate every time I have seen it removed specialized equipment was used.And that hardware was comparatively rare.
I will also note that from what I remember from their doctrine the soviets emphasized the use of forward detachments to seize key passage points.That could be bad news for a bunch of engineers trying frantically to fill a road with holes.

"Tracked vehicles and all terrain wheeled vehicles can, but trucks will quickly become stuck"

I will note that most soviet vehicles have comparatively long unrefueled cruising ranges (like in the case of river fording it was accomplished with trade offs, see BMP-1 rear doors). The T-62 and the BMP-1 can, on paper, do more than 600Km. The T-55 can, on paper, do 600km, and so on.Those are not a trivial distances in Western Europe. I suspect that it was done on purpose to enable them to quickly seize NATO airbases and other key objectives without the hassle of dragging fuel trucks along. Which is not to say that trucks will not be needed but that "reasonable disruption" might be called in question. Again the specific historical period is important.

[baggypants]

Post deleted by baggypants

[Marek_Tucan]

The road range is problematic the moment you have to go off-road. Even more problematic the moment you have to fight, as that includes lots of dashes to the nearest cover, reversing etc. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[narwan]

Many roads, especially highways, have viaducts that can be easily blown up. Where off ramps from highways don't use viaducts they are usually on a some what elevated level. You don't have to drill through the tarmac if you can just go through the side through the packed earth. Highways are quick, but hard to get on and off, especially if the off-ramps are taken out. Units on it will be sitting ducks with very little cover or escape options.
Then there's for example the clever use of mines and booby traps to block routes around choke points, digging of deep trenches to block trucks, blowing up (high) buildings next to roads to block them, and then we're not even mentioning the use of nuclear demolitions or persistent chemical agents. Soviet AFV's may be protected from their nasty lingering effects, their trucks aren't.
There are so many ways to block the handful of vital roads from east germany into the west.
For me it wasn't until I started travelling between east and western europe in the early 90's and saw with my own eyes that I realised just how little infrastructure there really was connecting east and west. And not just across the border but also behind the border on the eastern side. Even without NATO harrassing them getting troops and supplies across the border would be a logistical nightmare.

Narwan

[Smersh]

how quickly could all this be carried out if an attack came as a suprise? on a random sunday morning in the 70s-80s.

soviet doctrine of combined arms offensive also calls for paratroopers to land in key areas, to hold roads, bridges etc. in addition to the forward elements Marcello brought up.

[narwan]

Smersh said:
how quickly could all this be carried out if an attack came as a suprise? on a random sunday morning in the 70s-80s.

soviet doctrine of combined arms offensive also calls for paratroopers to land in key areas, to hold roads, bridges etc. in addition to the forward elements Marcello brought up.



What surprise? If an attack was launched from the barracks many, maybe even most, WP units already in theatre wouldn't even reach the border on day 1, assuming that all units were combat ready. The limited access to the border again being a very big problem. A surprise attack like you suggest is usually a lot more disruptive for the attacker than it is for the defender.
Personally I do not think that the WP would have been able to pull off a suprise attack. If only for the simple reason that far too few of their units were with some consistency combat ready. Bringing a sufficient number to readiness is not something which goes unnoticed. It's quite a big deal. The WP simply was not capable of pulling off such a surprise attack.

And NATO defensive plans called for countless security units and defense in depth, not to mention an extensive anti-aircraft screen to counter the well-known soviet doctrine. Again, a massive paratroop and airlanding operation is not something you can just pull out of a hat. It takes a lot of preparation. It is not compatible with the concept of a surpise attack. Either yo have a suprise attack, which means few forces available to begin with and nowhere near enough for serious paratype operations or you take your time to preapre in which case a surprise attack is no longer in the cards. Can't have it both ways.
Your scenario does read well and quite a few novels have been written around that idea, but I find it far fetched and unrealistic. It too ignores the massive logistic preparation needed BEFORE you can even contemplate launching an attack. That is not something which would have gone unnoticed (and which takes weeks at least, probably longer).

The whole assumption that the WP could pull off a quick surprise attack with anywhere near the troops needed for success and get them there on time is in my opinion inherently flawed.


Narwan

[Marek_Tucan]

There were for example about four major roads between Czechoslovakia and West Germany. By the 1980's moreover the borders were subject to patrols of SLAR equipped aircrafts - hard to hide tank columns from them.

[Marcello]

"Drains, covered sewer entrances and culverts can be packed with explosives to disrupt paved surfaces if you don't have time to pierce the surface."

Sewer entrances are available only inside cities. Culverts and such will not be conveniently sited in the best places for demolition. You need to plan in advance for identifying the locations and which demolition team must go where, they must be reasonably accessible in order to emplace charges (not filled with water or too small to enter etc.) and when all it is said and done it will be a limited damage that engineers can repair quickly. I have no idea if it was even taken in consideration.

"There was also the debate that certain NATO forces had stockpiles of arms that would have been released to the German population in major cities, arming hundreds of thousands of civilians."

It sounds pretty useless to me.Most of the people will either be fleeing towards NATO lines (from what I have heard, NATO planners considered it a big problem, as they would have created traffic problems for NATO columns plus those civilians had to be fed and sheltered putting further strains on logistics), hunkering down or otherwise too shocked to mount anything resembling a guerrilla campaign in the first few days when it will matter most.

"You don't have to drill through the tarmac if you can just go through the side through the packed earth. Highways are quick, but hard to get on and off, especially if the off-ramps are taken out. Units on it will be sitting ducks with very little cover or escape options."

There are others places that highways can be entered or left, especially for the combat vehicles. Service areas may have connections with the road network, there are often dirt roads within reach of highway in cultivated areas etc.. This quite beside the fact that taking out a significant numbers of off-ramps is quite a lot of work.
It is not like drilling thought the tarmac is the only problem. Even in the earth you still need to dig a lot of deep holes, or otherwise the damage will not be sufficient.The practical experience with bombing runways that I am aware of has shown that paved surfaces are more difficult to damage and quicker to repair than many (included myself before I found out) imagine.

"digging of deep trenches to block trucks"

If you have ever seen digging trenches in paved roads, you would realize that is not very practical.

"blowing up (high) buildings next to roads"

Outside urban centers that would be a pretty rare option.

"and then we're not even mentioning the use of nuclear demolitions or persistent chemical agents"

Nukes, well you are opening the pandora box. Using chemical weapons would be the best Christmas present you could give to the soviets. You can then sit back and enjoy the show of soviet chemical warheads missiles falling on NATO airbases,with the effect of massively cutting down NATO air forces sortie rate. This was a substantial concern for NATO planners back in the days.

"The road range is problematic the moment you have to go off-road. Even more problematic the moment you have to fight, as that includes lots of dashes to the nearest cover, reversing etc"

I got the impression that when the soviets specified design ranges for their vehicles, they did so with certain key objectives in mind. Yes, those 600 something km might be cut down to 400 something practice but I think this was aknowledged. If anybody has a map with NATO airbases at hand I think we might find something interesting.

[Marcello]

I also doubt that a surprise attack was feasible. A short notice attack was probably all they could hope for even under the best circumstances.

[Marek_Tucan]

There are others places that highways can be entered or left, especially for the combat vehicles. Service areas may have connections with the road network, there are often dirt roads within reach of highway in cultivated areas etc.. This quite beside the fact that taking out a significant numbers of off-ramps is quite a lot of work.




Tell that to British XXX. corps veterans from op Market-Garden http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif And also the argument isn't it would stop combat troops. But what would mechanised spearheads do wtihout fuel and ammo? Plus of course any traffic jam among supply vehicles caused by road disruptions would be a very juicy target for NATO aircrafts. Let's spray the jam with cluster bombs and Gators...



I got the impression that when the soviets specified design ranges for their vehicles, they did so with certain key objectives in mind. Yes, those 600 something km might be cut down to 400 something practice but I think this was aknowledged. If anybody has a map with NATO airbases at hand I think we might find something interesting.



VT-55 recovery tank has a road range of 270km, off-rorad range 100km in straight line (and it has lower consumption than basic T-55 as it is lighter).
In combat, I'd expect the fuel last for 200-300 kilometers in T-55 with fuel drums and a road range of 600km. If you take into account the combat consists not only from movements forward, but also sideways and back, it would cut down the real range of penetration into NATO lines further. And the advance would slow down again when field commanders find out the number of supply trucks coming to them is so low.

[Marcello]

The problem with the road disruptions methods which have been listed here is that:
A) they are often substantially time consuming;
B) require a certain amount of advance planning to be effective;
C) they are often quick to repair.
For some you will have the additional problem of denying road use to your own side earlier than desiderable. Were they contemplated or are these just ideas that are being tossed around?
Again I have been taken aback by how little disruptive and easily fixed the damage caused by runways bombing was in many cases.

[Marcello]

"Tell that to British XXX. corps veterans from op Market-Garden"

I am not aware of the specific configuration of that area but from what I have seen of the Netherlands when I was there, I would suspect that going off road may be a somewhat trickier proposition than in the rest of Europe. Plus driving around antitank guns isn't like driving around a blown up culvert.

[PlasmaKrab]

Marcello, I think we can write off the advance planning argument in the Cold-War-Germany scenario, don't you? If we are assuming a fixed NATO forward defence against a Soviet push, then the NATO demolition/obstacle work would have taken place on friendly ground.
Granted, after the attack alert it wouldn't probably have remained friendly for very long, but remember that engineer units on both sides had literally decades to think up and plot contingency plans including what to blow up, where and when. I don't think charges were planted in advance (though the shelf life of modern explosives would certainly have allowed it), but possibly some emplacements had already been drilled and readied.
Come to think of it, and given the defense policy and the political climate in FRG, I wouldn't rule out that some strategic infrastructure was designed with the task of permanently blocking them in mind.

[Marek_Tucan]

It's similar to Czechoslovakia in 1938 - all bridges were prepared for demolition (in sense that there were picked places where to put them to have greatest effect, how large amount to put there and larger bridges got already prepared special "demolition chambers"). During the mobilisation, all that was needed was to proceed along the plans and place explosives where needed.

[Marcello]

I have no doubt about the bridges were set up for quick demolition. That is pretty basic.
What I have reservations about is the other stuff it has been talked about, such as demolishing the off-ramps etc. In South Korea they have massive concrete blocks ready to be dumped on the roads and tricks like that.But it is all prepared in advance and ready to be operated on short notice. Was something like that done in Germany? I might be wrong but not that I am aware of.

[Shan]

I believe there are many myths about the WP that still persist in the West. As Siddhi mentioned, it's important to distinguish between Category A, B and C units - and so on: it would be important to get some knowledge about the Soviet + WP doctrine and organization first - some 'dry' reading unless you're a real freak or you had officer training on that subject anyway, but I really appreciate my old copy of a manual on that subject - quite useful,then you know exactly what+ where TVD West was and so on, and dont have to rely on 3rd-hand sources or the over-rated western intelligence reports from the 80s that still persist on the internet... but such manuals aren't printed any more (I would guess), better get one on the flee market or via e-bay!

[baggypants]

Post deleted by baggypants

[Smersh]

I'm not exactly a expert on NATO tactical or strategic defense strategy, its been a few years since I've red anything about it. But, is what you guys keep talking about, essentially sabatoging and destroying transport and other infrastructure, what NATO defense strategy called for? I find it hard to beleive West Germany would carry out a sort of modern 'scourged earth' plan.

Arming civilians I think would have lead to increased civilian casaulties, by makeing it difficult for soldiers to distinguish combantants from non-combatants. Its not difficult to imagine military age men universally being arressted or targeted.

this again brings up the fact that any probable conflict would be extremely painful and destructive for all sides.

[baggypants]

Post deleted by baggypants

[Listy]

baggypants said:
I don't recall estimates on how many civilians would have been expected to take a weapons handout, it was just one of many planning rumors you heard about back then, but not being armed is no guarentee of survival if you are a civilian in such a situation.



The Soldiers I've seen comment where all very clear on that. The local Germans where ready to have a crack at Ivan, as a large chunk of them had already had one go round with the rooski's the first time round.

[Siddhi]

[/quote]

How big would the initial success be, How much territory could have been occupied in that golden period?

[/quote]

depending on operational/ and some strategic suprise being achieved by the WAPA, assuming moderate WP air superiority for the first few days, and moderate SF action, all within the 1980-85 timeframe, i would give the WP good chances in breaking NORTHAG completly. the belgiums and dutch are good soliders and each have national distinctive charachteristics (IIRC the belgiums could mobilise very quickly, and the dutch had a very smart supply system), but the real question would have been if they could retreat fast enough to keep their armies intact. if NORTHAG was smart and the germans did not insist on saving Hamburg AND the dutch and belgiums could save their army in a retreat they, together with BOAR and the germans, could probablly have stablised the line at Hannover by D+3/5. OTOH the chance that the dutch or belgiums would simply disintigrate given the equipment pairing (old Leos against T-72/80s/ BMPs) was simply very large in such great terrain. CENTAG and US VII Corps OTOH would probablly have stopped them within 20-50km, at least until the second echalon would hit.

@on supply and obstacles.
austria was "obstacle mad" and prepped everything imaginable for demolition, also it had the heaviest fortified lines in europe (possible exception of the swiss), and still the ability of solid engineers and good planning to overcome these hindrances are not that great, IF terrain and weather play their part. having said this the germans were perfectly willing to blow everything to hold the WP, this included even "over the road canals" (water cannals that are in effect "reverse bridges" over a roadway, if you know what i mean) - the questions is how often you are actually able to do this: demo lines are very easily cut by arty fire, especially 120mm airburst (i have no idea why, angle maybe?), also you can simply kill the demo team instead, there are a lot of options, the point being that at 10-25% faliure rating for each obstacle you will have a lot of obstacles left open that you PLAN on being closed, it makes your reserves very hard to position. as PLASMACRAB correctly pointed out, most of not all transportation infrastructure build in many european countries (incl. germany) post war had very definte national defence guidelines, there are dozens of interesting websites and pictures on the web for anyone that is intersted. NARWAN i talked to a HV District commander (Tromso) some years ago and he also confirmed that you, like austria, had pre-mined basicaly everything he said however the main problem was not the 51st(?) MRD advancing out of Kola but was the SOV airborne and marine forces landing in your area and capture the mob locations.

BAGGYPANTS talked about the high casulties needed to "breach" obstacles with speed - i agree. the only real cliche that is certainly right was the WAPA acceptance of casulties compared with western armies - you can see it in what they consider the minimum for combat effective (a MRR)= 30-40% (!!) while IIRC in the US it would be 50-60%.

if the WP was unlucky and the terrain was really muddy and wet, fine, little off-road movement of supplies possible, but in the NORTHAG area the monster ZIL trucks were perfectly capable of driving over fields, and most trucks have a recovery winch anyway. furthermore you cannot compare germany WWII with germany of today, there are MANY TIME more roads and villages today and the armies really are SMALLER then they were then (the amount of vehicles actually in use is not disimilar).

logistics is a science, not (or not only) an art, and people learn how to do it for YEARS. as i mentioned, the WAPA had some very easy solutions to complex problems, and traffic management for WAPA was very easy as they have their own "Kommandanten Force" troops that were its own command and purly in charge of managing traffic and logistic flow, unlike the west, that left it all the poor MPs who would be complelty overwhelmed. just imagine an expected 3-6 MILLION german refugees heading west in their own personal autombiles, all within 1 week, and you can see that the main thing getting in the way of the WP tanks could very well be VW Beatles...

[narwan]

baggypants said:
You're correct about West german reservations about a 'scorched earth' trade land for casualties type of defense in depth. They wanted to stop the attack on the border but to do that they were ready to accept making every crossing, canal, river, rail or road for a 20 kilometers strip nothing but rubble.
'Blowdown' would have been the detonation of small (1.5kt-1kt) nuclear warheads in dense forest areas to 'blowdown' the trees and block large areas. The West Germans were against it but the U.S. wouldn't rule it out.





The germans were indeed more than willing to reduce the border area (20 or more kilometres deep) into a wasteland, if need be a nuclear one, to stop or decisively slow a WP advance. It would appear their hesitance to use nukes was more a public mask than reality since they seem to have prepared a fair number of critical points with nuclear demolitions which were to be destroyed upon the beginning of hostilities.

Siddhi:
If you give the WP T80's you should give the dutch Leo 2's. Their appearance in the respective forces is nearly simultaneous (and by the late 80's about half the dutch tank force was Leo 2's). You should also keep in mind that while nearly the entire dutch IFV force was made up YPR-765 PRI's half (or more) of the WP mech units were in BTR's. BTR's are useless against the YPR's, while the YPR has no problem taken out BTR's or BMP's. In the armor vs chain gun equation it also has the edge over the bmp-2. Then there are the vast amount of YPR SP-ATGM's. Those were meant to deal with the tanks you mentioned. In order to do that with little risk, they have the unusual ability of elevating their launch platform up to about 30 feet so they can fire over hill tops, trees, walls and buildings without exposing themselves. Not something you can easily model in the game, but impressive and effective. It's also the dutch who had the fast moblisation scheme, the fastest and most effective of all of NATO. by the middle to late 80's the dutch had one of the most modern and well organised armies of NATO. The only real drawback was the lack of a decent combat helicopter.
And there's off course the US corps destined for the north german plain. Only a single brigade is stationed there in peace time but all equipment for the rest is allready in theatre, only the troops need to be flown in (REFORGER). Again, if the WP had enough time to assemble the large forces needed to take on the dutch and german corps on the north german plain, then Nato would have had time to at least begin with REFORGER...
The north german plain was defended by germans and dutch, not belgians. The belgians are actually further to the south in the much thicker wooded and hilled terrain, which their infantry heavy army is designed to make best use of. Directly south of the dutch and germans is the BAOR whose northern most forces cover the southern edges of the plain.

The north german plain was not a walk over.

And as to the many roads, thats true, once you get some distance away from the border. The whole point is though that there is very little cross border infrastructure (and access roads to the border on both sides) which would have been the bottleneck chocking all WP troops actually crossing into west germany.

Narwan

[narwan]

Marcello said:

There are others places that highways can be entered or left, especially for the combat vehicles. Service areas may have connections with the road network, there are often dirt roads within reach of highway in cultivated areas etc.. This quite beside the fact that taking out a significant numbers of off-ramps is quite a lot of work.
It is not like drilling thought the tarmac is the only problem. Even in the earth you still need to dig a lot of deep holes, or otherwise the damage will not be sufficient.The practical experience with bombing runways that I am aware of has shown that paved surfaces are more difficult to damage and quicker to repair than many (included myself before I found out) imagine.

"digging of deep trenches to block trucks"

If you have ever seen digging trenches in paved roads, you would realize that is not very practical.



If you reread my post you'll see I said digging deep trenches (easily done even with commercial diggers) to block trucks driving around blocked roads not in order to block the roads. So that'd be next to roads and in fields, not the roads themselves. Also a good and very quick way to make those exit points a lot harder to make work.


Marcello said:
"blowing up (high) buildings next to roads"

Outside urban centers that would be a pretty rare option.




But since there are plenty of those not rare at all. The large number of roads and urban centres are being used as advantages to the WP so also take into account the drawbacks. Devastated towns are hard to advance through.

On the whole your argument seems to be that it would be hard for NATO to demolish things effectively while it would be fairly easy for the WP forces to overcome them. I think you've got it the wrong way around. It is much, much easier to demolish and block than it is to clear and circumvent.
It's also being stated that the WP had prepared and developed for this, etc. Well so did NATO, the germans in particular.

Another point is the opening of hostilities itself, the assumption is, I assume, that firing will be initiated by the WP with the comencement of the cross border attack and/or preparatory artillery strikes. I doubt it would happen that way. The war would be on before any troops crossed the border. NATO wasn't stupid and would know full well what the massing of WP troops near the border would mean. Stern warnings and ultimatums would be given. When those were not met, (conventional) cruise missile and air strikes on the forces in east germany were extremely likely. I won't sepculate ont he results of those, the point is that in my opinion there would likely already be a shooting war before any WP ground forces crossed into NATO terrirtory. That would make the intial attack much harder still.

Narwan

[Siddhi]

narwan:

- good point on the technolgical equipment of the dutch, as to pointing out my reversing the belgium and dutch army traints. are you sure the dutch had leo-2s as well as massed heavy IFVs in BEFORE 1985? also, again without notes in front of me, I don`t think ANY of the category A MRR regiments deployed on the IGB at that time had more then a single BN of BTRs,if that, and the BMP is a great piece of equipment, if only for it's low profile and manuverability.

- the abilty of VII Corps (? i forget) to deploy to NORTHAG in time is seriously questionable. IIRC it would take 10 days for REFORGER to completete the first phase, the NATO Rapid Reinforcement Plan would take 30 days at least. The ability of the soviets in particular to get their units up to war strength much quicker is a very complicated debate, but in my view, true. The biggest mistake in my view is your appraisal of the political component - the ability of NATO to actually mobilise in time is by no means certain, it requires substantial political will and in RL would also require bruxelles to agree IN TOTAL for it to go ahead. In terms of "pre-emptive strikes", i think you can forget it - there is no way that such on order would be sanctioned by NATO unless there had been tensions for a long time (over a month) and enough time for political consensus to be built.

- on fortifications and obstacles. i have to admit this is actually one my old duties, and something i know a bit about. it short: it's all a bit different, people have spent over 50 years working on the problem, there is quite a lot of give and take - effectivly it comes down to terrain however. obstacles in the hills/mountains is one thing, the north german plain is another.

- as to germans willing to nuke on their border: sorry, completly, irrefutably, wrong. Not even Kohl would have agreed to it, according to him, and he was by far the most aggressive.

[narwan]

Siddhi said:
- good point on the technolgical equipment of the dutch, as to pointing out my reversing the belgium and dutch army traints. are you sure the dutch had leo-2s as well as massed heavy IFVs in BEFORE 1985? .



Yes. Starting with the second production run (which was in 1980 I think) the dutch were getting Leo 2's. The first batches received (not a lot yet) went to the heavy recon battallions (two operational with Leo 2's in 1984). Later whole tank battallions were equiped/operational. That started in 1984 and by 1988 half the armor battallions were Leo 2's (the rest Leo 1's). While not an exact match that closely resembles the operational introduction of the T80.

By 1984 half the mech battallions had the heavy IFV, the rest a wheeled APC. By 1988 all mech battallions in the three mech infantry divisions of the dutch corps had the heavy IFV (and two of a reserve brigade aswell). Dutch recon units (of which they had a lot) also mostly employed the heavy IFV in 1984 with some lighter IFV's (M113 with 25mm gun) added.


Siddhi said:
also, again without notes in front of me, I don`t think ANY of the category A MRR regiments deployed on the IGB at that time had more then a single BN of BTRs,if that, and the BMP is a great piece of equipment, if only for it's low profile and manuverability.




In 1989 the soviet divisions still used the TO&E of 1 tank regiment, 1 bmp regiment and 2 btr regiments for the motorised rifle divisions. That includes the divisons in east germany. Add in the tank divisions whichhad no btr regiments or battallions and you end up with more or less a 50-50 spread between BTR's and BMP's. There were some reports of maybe some divisions having two bmp regiments and 1 btr regiment but I've yet to see that substantiated. Seems there weren't enough bmp's to achieve that.
No debate on the bmp being a good piece of equipment, the dutch heavy IFV is so too.


Siddhi said:
- the abilty of VII Corps (? i forget) to deploy to NORTHAG in time is seriously questionable. IIRC it would take 10 days for REFORGER to completete the first phase, the NATO Rapid Reinforcement Plan would take 30 days at least. The ability of the soviets in particular to get their units up to war strength much quicker is a very complicated debate, but in my view, true. The biggest mistake in my view is your appraisal of the political component - the ability of NATO to actually mobilise in time is by no means certain, it requires substantial political will and in RL would also require bruxelles to agree IN TOTAL for it to go ahead. In terms of "pre-emptive strikes", i think you can forget it - there is no way that such on order would be sanctioned by NATO unless there had been tensions for a long time (over a month) and enough time for political consensus to be built.



I did make reservations about the US reinforcing the north german plain myself. As I said earlier, even without them the north german plain is far from a walk over.
I also don't believe in the argument that NATO would be politically weak in replying to a soviet threat and build up. I believe that they full well realised that a weak response only calls the one thing you're trying to avoid over yourself.
You're questioning NATO's ability to mobilise, well I'm pretty sure that the WP had as much if not more problems themselves. I recall you yourself mentoning such a thing about the Hungarians a while back? The soviets would certainly need the troops of their allies in an attack so the political and mobilisational problems are not exclusive to NATO.
And such a 'pre-emptive' strike is extremely likely in my view. If there are large troop concentrations on one side of the border and aircraft with stand-off weaponry patrolling on the other side what would happen if those aircraft would light up targets on the other side with their radar (let's say anti sam missiles). I doubt the soviets would hold their fire, not all of them anyway. Only one sam needs to be fired to start a shooting war. Let's say no sam was fired. What would happen if a single NATO missile was fired (with for example the option to self destruct before hitting the target)? Now the WP troops would certainly open up. Again a shooting war with opening missiles being fired within seconds of each other with both sides accusing the other of firing first, which would happen in any case. I have a hard time not to see an air war preceding the ground war.


Siddhi said:
- on fortifications and obstacles. i have to admit this is actually one my old duties, and something i know a bit about. it short: it's all a bit different, people have spent over 50 years working on the problem, there is quite a lot of give and take - effectivly it comes down to terrain however. obstacles in the hills/mountains is one thing, the north german plain is another.



The north german plain isn't really a plain at all. It's riddled with rivers, canals and streams. There are hills, some wooded land and plenty of urban centres. And very wet ground. If it is rainy, much of the ground would get 'swampy' to swampy to be of much use to heavy vehicles. In other words, while not as good defensive terrain as further south, it still offers plenty of options to defenders.


Siddhi said:
- as to germans willing to nuke on their border: sorry, completly, irrefutably, wrong. Not even Kohl would have agreed to it, according to him, and he was by far the most aggressive.



Which is what I always thought too. With the end of the cold war not only Soviet plans started to surface. From some of these that appeared in germany it would seem the germans were in fact willing to go so far. Remember that demolition charges are very low yield with very little non local effects. They had about a dozen locations were these were called for. (If anyone can come up with some online references to these I'd be grateful since I don't have them myself).
The germans employed the strategy of forward defense (also well known). Can't do that without being ready to lay waste to that forward area... They knew that if they were succesful in that, it would/might save the area's behind from damage. In that view it makes sense.

Narwan

[Marcello]

"If you reread my post you'll see I said digging deep trenches (easily done even with commercial diggers) to block trucks driving around blocked roads not in order to block the roads. So that'd be next to roads and in fields, not the roads themselves. Also a good and very quick way to make those exit points a lot harder to make work."

Which requires digging hundreds of meters or kilometers of deep trenches.With the commonly available commercial equipment that is a very time consuming affair, not something that can be done on the fly. The only way such task can be carried out in a reasonable timeframe is with chain escavators, like the soviet PZM series. From what I have seen this isn't the sort of equipment that your typical local construction firm will generally have in the inventory.

"On the whole your argument seems to be that it would be hard for NATO to demolish things effectively while it would be fairly easy for the WP forces to overcome them. I think you've got it the wrong way around. It is much, much easier to demolish and block than it is to clear and circumvent."

But in reality many of the actions you are describing are actually construction activities. You are calling for building obstacles requiring extensive digging and earth moving. Such activities are actually very time consuming and as they would require damaging infrastructure, infringing private property etc. it would be unlikely that they would be carried out until the war was a sure thing.By then it would be too late to carry them out in an extensive manner.

"Well so did NATO, the germans in particular"

I have no doubt that they were prepared to blow up bridges,laying minefields (much faster than trench digging) and such. What I have a lot of reservations about is much of the rest, like blowing up off ramps and so on.If they were in the plans and the necessary preparations (pits for the demolition charges etc.) had been made, by any means tell me so. If they are just ideas being tossed around, then they are not very practical.

[Marcello]

"I believe that they full well realised that a weak response only calls the one thing you're trying to avoid over yourself."

Just because it makes sense in strategic terms that does not mean the political realities of the NATO countries would make it feasible.

[narwan]

Marcello said:
Which requires digging hundreds of meters or kilometers of deep trenches.



No it doesn't. It is a common misconception that in order to significantly disrupt a supply network you need to take out every link. You don't. You only have to take out one (the weakest being the easiest target).
The capacity of a supply system is determined by the lowest capacity point along the entire chain. For example, if you have two long stretches or road of equal width, length, material, incline etc. The only difference is that one of them has an extremely sharp bend halfway. That one will have a lower capacity for the simple reason that traffic will need to slow down in order to make the turn. It doesn't matter that all the miles before and after the bend it has the same capacity as the other road. It's the choke point (the bend) that determines the capacity of the entire line. Does that mean that taking out one point suffices to make a supply chain collapse (temporarily)? Sometimes it does. A lot of WP division would be moving over very few roads in the northern sector. That means they can't easily switch roads for supply chains without disrupting each others supply. So one bridge taken out along a supply route can halt the flow along that entire supply chain. Until it's replaced. By an engineer bridge which will have a much lower capacity and which in turn can be taken out again.
Besides the capacity of a network there's the question of the absolute time which it takes for one specific unit of supply to cross the whole chain. The road example again; if you add some more curves and bends after the first one which are not as sharp you won't add a 'weaker' link than there already is. Those additional bends will cause each vehicle to slow down somewhat though again adding to the time for that vehicle (and it's load) to get to its destination. So each additional weakening of links will reduce the capacity of the part from the previous (and weaker) link.
Delaying is the whole point of obstacles and blockages. Going around them may look like a TACTICAL solution, strategically it doesn't solve the problem of being delayed. It takes time to go around, especially in war with all its uncertainties (and certainties...).

Think of the emergency exit of a public building. If it doesn't have the capacity to let through everyone on time casualties will occur. Not just because of the emergency itself (a fire for example) but also because of the crowding in front of the exit (in supply terms it means that traffic jams will happen in front of choke points and those jams themselves will reduce the capacity further). Now imagine that exit being closed (a bridge blown up or other weak link taken out). Someone can go around with a key and open it from the outside but not only will additional casualties have occurred (and huge traffic jams created) it may very well be too late all together. The door needs to be open at exactly the time you need it. Not five minutes later. Same with supply.
Logistics is NOT a simple and easy affair which tags along the combat elements. It governs the combat elements. And it is very susceptible to disruption.

Narwan

[Marcello]

"No it doesn't."

Ok, let's see if I get this.You are proposing to create obstacles on the roads and in order to prevent said obstacles to be easily bypassed you are proposing digging trenches

"to block trucks driving around blocked roads"

Right?

Now, it seems pretty evident to me that this requires a a trench long, deep and wide enough that either going off road and driving around it or filling it to create a passage would be a significant nuisance and time wasting, thus creating a bottleneck. A ten meters long trench simply will not do the trick.
The little problem is that this might require a significant amount of time with commercial equipment. And time is a commodity very in short supply in such scenario.
Never mind you need to plan in advance so that unit X knowns that in wartime is going to commandeer two bulldozers from Schmidt & Co to dig a couple of hundreds of meters of trenches on both sides of Autobahn Y at Km Z.
The rest of your post is true,if a little overstated, and at the same time totally irrilevant to the practical solution of the problem described above.
Now:was it actually planned? I have not got any indication that it was.Neither you have told me.
Yourself quoted the use of nuclear demolition mines:if conventional demolition was so quick and effective as you make it to be why bother with them?
Finally when the problem was keeping columns bottled on roads minefields were the standard solution AFAIK. Not digging trenches. Laying mines is much faster and simpler.

"It is much, much easier to demolish and block than it is to clear and circumvent."

It depends exactly on what sort of blocks are being talked about.The israelis spent a couple of years building the
Bar-Lev line. The egyptians breached it in matter of hours.

[Smersh]

NATO would have about 48 hours or less warning of a Soviet attack. I don't think enough logistical damage and scortched earth could have been performed in that time to seriosly stop an offensive, even if there was strong enough political will (which is questionable).

You have to remember that Soviet strategy depended on total and overwhelming commitment to win a possible war within a week or two. again I don't think a few blown bridges and cratered highway would have stopped the 'show'.

But we should also consider that CPSU remained against a war of conquest in Europe, and there wasn't much support among the general population for one either. So, talking about a unprovoked suprise WP attack is a little unrealistic. I can only see war between NATO and WP happening a result of a smaller European conflict escalating into a general war.

[PlasmaKrab]

People, just found an essay regarding nuclear weapons drawdown that sheds a different light on that "nuclear demolition charges" business:

[ulr]http://www.npec-web.org/Essays/Paper050202BerlinRuehlTheFutureofUSTacticalNuclear Weapons.pdf[/url]

These things are mentioned in the beginning (lumped together with nuclear mines) but further down (middle of page 18) a paragraph states that the concept was tried out in the 60s but never implemented whether in Germany or in Turkey, where it could have been useful too.
Would it turn out that it was one of those crazy early-cold-war nuke projects?

[Smersh]

that paper clearly shows, the western European member's of NATO reluctance to use any, including tactical nuclear weapons .

I think both sides in case of a possible conflict would be reluctant to use even tactical nuclear weapons for fear of escalation.

[Siddhi]

ok, some more down-time at work so i can contribute a little to this. i wish i could tell you what i do, it would make some of the coversation a little easier. nonetheless some interesting points here.

regarding obstacles (again):
as mentioned, i am completly indocterinated in the use of obstacles (this is not the correct term in english, i know, in german we have three different words for it)on the operative-strategic and tactical level. i am pretty well appraised therefore as to how practical they are (very) but also what counter-measures are available.

firstly, one link with some pics that show you an overview of different types of "sperren":
http://www.lostplaces.de/cms/verschiedenes/vorbereitete-sperren-wallmeister.html

"digging a trench" is by far the least economical action in a operative-strategic enviornment; it is too easily filled in. to point out: most tanks can be equipped with dozer blades realtivly easily, on the attack in advanced echalon for instance even the hungarians would have put a blade on one tank in EACH PLATOON. this has serious repercations on mobility and therefore these tanks would probally have dropped out in a break-through, however by that time you do not need the blades anymore as you do not obviously build obstacles in your own rear area (it would hinder resupply or retreat). trenches are ONLY used in the tactical enviornment (anti-tank ditch) and in this capacity are superior to mines. generally speaking ALL obstacles are used in foremost in a tactical (say defensive) enviornment, and are covered by fire (even if only a squad).

the most often used "obstacle" is the "stecksperre" which is effectifly iron rails put into slots in ground. these have to be removed manually.

demolitions were everywhere, EVERY SINGLE BRIDGE, TUNNEL, etc. in austria and germany was built with this in mind, all transport infrastructure has defensive component in mind. OTOH, smaller rivers, streams etc. present no problem for WAPA, they can often be forded relativly closely to the actual briding site (forded i mean water leavel under 1m). deeper/fast rivers or more importantly concreted river banks were more of a problem, however every "spearhead" force would have had engineering capabiltiy to deal with this, those engineering bridges, which were perfectly adequate for supporting attacking "breakthrough" forces over small rivers and cannals that dominate in the north german plain. their carry capacity (actualy transit capacity) is only marginaly less then a "normal" two lane 50T carry capacity brige that represent the vast majority of bridges in the AO we are talking about, i.e. only one tank per transit. for resupply it is a larger problem, but the solution was to built onld "barge bridges" (pontoon bridges), the ratio was always at least 2 pontoon bridges to an actual bridge. all of these efforts are taken into account when one says an average advance of 40-70km per day, if there were not such concerns advancing speeds (such as in iraq, would be much, much higher. larger rivers, and more "broken" terrain (hills and woods) are a much bigger problem.

the point is not that obstacles are irrelevant - far from it - i'm a great believer in them. however one has to be aware of the whole picture. in our case for instance, despite having the heaviest fortified lines in europe, vienna would still not have been defendable as the terrain to east is basically the same as in the north german plain. obstacles without fire cover are quickly delt with, and fire cover in "open" terrain (compared with southern germany, most of ausrtria, norway, etc.) is quickly delt with and also a real "sucide" mission that most armies in the west did not really take seriously.

- mobilisation times
the hungarians had a problem with political will in the first case, and the mission they were assigned to (south west austria). later in the decade also most of their units were category B regarding mob time, in the earlier 1980s however they would still have been able to at least field one tank division immidietly to support the 4 sov division
advancing over vienna. the readyness of the czechoslovakian and especially GDR units was higher, espeically the later, and they were a fair match for the "minor" nato countries.

-equipment
this is something i am less aware of so here a question. the fabled "assault breaker" system that was designed to overcome penetrations was abandoned, if i remember correctly, and the function was taken over much latter by apache-armed hellfire tank-killers. was this realistic? i only know that for TOW equipped helis it was a losing proposition, a they would max get two shots of before having to withdraw. could the early apache really fire hellfires so quickly as to present an "assault breaker"?

also, air force: i also remember that a problem was the "lack of primary airfields" for NATO in germany. this presupposed that the main AFBs would all be hit in the opening days and rendered temporarily unsuitable. the alternative strips (civilian airfields and highways) had a much lower sortie and supply rate, but how much lower, were there any actual loadout restrictions (e.g. no LGMs?) how long could NATO have sustained operations from such limited conditions and supply constraints?

- on "arming the population"
interesting that you mention it. in austria we had during this time a full "regular" call up of 270,000 men. However we had enough arms arms (including some old WWII equipment! some of which is however great) and uniforms to arm over 1 million men. If it really had come to that a "general call-up" would have been ordered and all men with military training under the age of 45 would have been recalled and put into "general reinforcement" pools. these men would have to "re-trained" so this would only be a proposition in the "long-war" (over 30 days).

more interesting is the "total defense strategy" employed by us, the norwegians, swedes and finns (to various degree). Like the Finns (SiSi)and Norwegians (HV - Homegaurd)we had dedicated "stay-behind" forces - so called "jagdkampf battillione" that were up between 15-30,000 men. these guys spent their entire conscript training actualy training commando tactics, i.e. no "active" service at all, and would have been resupplied by a blizzard of bunkers and caches.

in terms of using civilans (incl. ex service without mob requirement) - completly out of the question. a.) they would be a liablity and a danger b.) protecting the civilian population is the whole point of the army. OTOH in occupied territories it was expected that some would join the "jagdkommando" force on their own -if they could find them they were clearly good enough to join.

[narwan]

Marcello said:
Ok, let's see if I get this.You are proposing to create obstacles on the roads and in order to prevent said obstacles to be easily bypassed you are proposing digging trenches



Nope. Never said the obstacles would be easily bypassable. On the contrary, if they were they wouldn't exactly match the definition of an obstacle now would they? The whole trenches thing which you seem to get hung up on was nothing more than a simple side remark as part of a list of possible ways to create blockades. Which means it was only one of many options and that clearly implies that in mnay situations there would be other and better alternatives. But in some it could be of great use. My reference to blocking trucks is simply to reitterate that we're talking about blocking supply units, NOT combat units.


Marcello said:
Now, it seems pretty evident to me that this requires a a trench long, deep and wide enough that either going off road and driving around it or filling it to create a passage would be a significant nuisance and time wasting, thus creating a bottleneck. A ten meters long trench simply will not do the trick.



Well, you clearly imagine a piece of terrain where 10 meters wouldn't do the trick. What's important though are those few places were 10 metres (or 20 etc depeding on what is effectively feasible in a situation) would do the trick! The whole point of the 'art of obstruction' is to do it where it counts.


Marcello said:
"It is much, much easier to demolish and block than it is to clear and circumvent."

It depends exactly on what sort of blocks are being talked about.



Exactly. The right type of block for the right type of place. Glad you agree.


Marcello said:
The israelis spent a couple of years building the
Bar-Lev line. The egyptians breached it in matter of hours.



A defensive line is something completely different, as is breaking a line in combat. You will also know then that after the breakthrough the egyptians had a very hard time keeping the troops on the other side supplied.

Narwan

[narwan]

Smersh said:
NATO would have about 48 hours or less warning of a Soviet attack. I don't think enough logistical damage and scortched earth could have been performed in that time to seriosly stop an offensive, even if there was strong enough political will (which is questionable).

You have to remember that Soviet strategy depended on total and overwhelming commitment to win a possible war within a week or two. again I don't think a few blown bridges and cratered highway would have stopped the 'show'.

But we should also consider that CPSU remained against a war of conquest in Europe, and there wasn't much support among the general population for one either. So, talking about a unprovoked suprise WP attack is a little unrealistic. I can only see war between NATO and WP happening a result of a smaller European conflict escalating into a general war.




True, the whole debate of a WP vs NATO conflict in europe does sidestep the cause and lead up to a war. Many scenario's can be imagined and much of the subsequent combat would depend on it.
Unprovoked is a tricky term though. I can see an WP attack as a reaction on severe economic setbacks within the SU (possibly influenced or engineered by the west). That could imo have led to a WP attack, and very possibly one they were not ready for themselves. Many possibilities and the ones we all have in our respective heads probably have a great influence in how we see a further conflict develop.

For example I don't believe in a WP surprise attack, which your 48 hour warning time would amount to. They simply would not have enough forces available in such a short time. As far as I know it would have taken them at least a month to prepare and get ready (that month refering to noticeable preparations, in other words indicating to the west that something was afoot). So either no surprise but a lot of troops or surprise and very few troops. While they'd need both to have a chance of defeating NATO... That at least is the context in which I see such a conflict.

Narwan

[Smersh]

If Soviet commanders gave NATO a month in advance to prepare defenses they would not attack in the first place.

[narwan]

Smersh said:
If Soviet commanders gave NATO a month in advance to prepare defenses they would not attack in the first place.



Also true. Which would mean a conventional attack would have been extremely hard to pull off.

[Smersh]

Even during conventional war situation units where still expected to advance 25 to 30km a day.

in a nuclear environment 70 to 100km a day.

[narwan]

For those interested, here's more detailed info on the dutch (fast) mobilisation scheme. While in peace time only 1 brigade and 1 heavy recon battallion were stationed in germany, this system allowed the rest of the active troops to be ready for deployment in no more than 24 to 48 hours (in theory only 24, I'm assuming an additional 24 hours to allow for 'mix ups' etc).

The system; conscripts served a term of 14 - 16 months, all which were normally spend within the same company or specialist platoon. A new intake of recruits is formed into a training company (one of a combat battallions three line battallions). That training company is promoted to ready status after about 4 months of training. The other two companies are already at ready status by virtue of experience. Bringing in a new training company coincides with the release of the most senior company. That senior company is placed on 'short leave' being immediately available for recall in times of tension. They would take over the equipment of the training company. This way the battallion would have three 'experienced' companies to work with. And those companies would consist of personnel who had trained and worked together all along. It provides for a very high degree of cohesion but (and that's the big drawback of this sytem) in peacetime would give the battallion commander only 2 experienced companies to work and excercise with.
After handing over the equipment to the short leavers the training company would form the battallions replacement pool. This pool could if need be, be called upon immediately to fill any gaps in the three line companies (due to sickness, late arrival, etc) decreasing the time needed for the battalion to be combat ready. Likewise, the battallion had some degree of redundancy in the equipment pool so that vehicles under maintenance or awaiting repair would not slow down deployment. Once repaired and ready these would also be available as replacements.

Out of the 10 brigades in the dutch army corps 6 were at ready status as described above (including the one permanently stationed in germany) as were most of the corps troops. The other four brigades and remaining corps troosp were at reserve status, meaning they were to be filled out by companies that had recently (no more than 2 years earlier) completed short leave status. These would take a bit longer to be ready for deployment but not by much as the equipment etc was kept at ready status.
Then there were troops available for 'regular' mobilisation, those who signed off more than 2 years earlier. These would form security formations (including 2 brigades not included in the 10 above) and replacement pools.

So while the dutch had few forces permanently in germany, they had a further 5 brigades, 3 heavy recon battallions and support troops at ready status just across the border from germany. Part of the agreement within NATO to allow the dutch to station these on their own soil was that they be ready for deployment at very short notice (from peace time conditions). And they were. Note that these were not considered 'mobilisation' troops as all their personnel was on active duty. A mobilisation order would only be needed for the reserve status units.

Narwan