1980's USSR VS 2018 NATO and Vice Versa?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Due to shenanigans the mid to late 1980’s Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact states have materialised and replaced the equivalent current population and territory that it controlled during its existence, 2018 Russia and former Soviet/Warsaw Pact states have been sent back to the 1980’s in exchange.

The leaders think it would be an excellent opportunity to launch the invasion of Western Europe that was so feared and discussed during the Cold War. How does it go? Would 1980’s troop and equipment levels be enough to overwhelm a much less prepared 21st century Western Europe and would 21st century technology be enough to give Russia an edge against the Cold War era West?

Assume for the sake of argument that the Soviet/Russian leadership and population is at least initially willing to go along with the invasion. Its also likely that things would quickly go nuclear but it would take some time before the Big Red Button was pushed and in that case would 1980’s USSR have a numerical if not technological edge over the modern era West? So for the purposes of this thread the conventional phase of the war lasts for three weeks before nuclear weapons are used (if you feel this is too limiting feel free to experiment, I’m just trying to negate ‘they all nuke each other, The End’, replies).

I’m currently reading ‘The Red/Black/Blue Effect’ trilogy by Harvey Black about a mid 1980’s NATO/Warsaw Pact conflict which inspired this thread.

2

IIRC there was some study done in the 1980’s where every single scenario of the Soviets invading Western Europe always involves the Soviets either winning by driving deep into France or complete nuclear war within two weeks. Even with complete air and naval superiority with prepared defenses NATO lacked the sheer manpower to put up a formidable against the Soviets.

3

NATO is fucked in either scenario.

4

The Soviets struggled to invade Afghanistan.
(The Afghan invasion) has sometimes been referred to as the “Soviet Union’s Vietnam War” or the “Bear Trap” by the Western media. The Soviets’ failure at the war is thought to be a contributing factor to the fall of the Soviet Union.

Western Europe would be a far harder challenge.

5

Yeah and NATO pacified Afghanistan in 3 weeks…oh wait.

6

I think the Soviets get wrecked. It’s be like the Highway of Death all over again, but obviously on a much bigger scale.

F-22s and F-35s vs 30-40-year-old junk
We have more and better satellites and more ISR assets vs Soviets barely we’re in the process of deploying their first GPS system
Etc

7

I think it would be an ugly standoff that could last for months or longer if nukes weren’t involved. Once the nukes are launched it’s all over at that point. It would be a suicide mission for either the Russians or NATO to launch an attack against each other thinking they are going to win outright.

8

How? With prayers and incense? NATO forces are lightly deployed with little by the way of heavy armour and arty. The USSR is backed up almost all the way to Moscow. The US has also ended pre positioning the REFORGER stocks and the ASW capability is much reduced.

The NATO troops will inflict horrendous losses on the forward assault elements and be eventually overrun.

9

This is the sort of thing that made me wonder, sure the F-22 for example is incredibly advanced but its not magic and there aren’t very many of them, the USSR is going to throw massive numbers of inferior but still potent aircraft at them (I believe in the late 1980’s the Su-27 was being fielded for example). So it wouldn’t take that much to reduce or remove that one aspect of NATO’s superiority.

As an aside it reminds me of a rather well done treatment of a 1980’s World War Three scenario I watched recently, in it the order goes out that NATO military commanders have three days to begin to slow or stop the Soviet invasion before massive use of nuclear weapons is authorised. Feeling they have nothing to lose NATO throw’s all their aircraft pretty much at once at the Warsaw Pact forces who respond in kind resulting in a monumental air battle on which hangs the fate of the world. Probably not realistic but it was certainly a striking image.

NATO wins air superiority and ground forces begin driving towards Moscow, and the Soviet leadership ends up pushing the button in response anyway.

10

?
Have you seen NATO ORBAT these days? How are they going to do that.

11

That’s pretty much alarmist bullshit from about 1979.

Post Cold-War, it was generally realized that had the Soviets attacked, it would have been an absolute bloodbath for them.

NATO had spent a LOT of money arming themselves, working on tactical doctrine, and practicing through large scale wargames, how to defeat the Soviet Army if they attacked. Plus, NATO had large advantages in terms of logistics, naval capabilities, and air forces. And at the time, nobody but the highest levels of NATO and the French goverment knew it, but the French military WAS integrated into the NATO plans and would have slotted straight into NATO forces in case of war, evening up the odds a whole lot.

Basically if the Soviets couldn’t have forced a breakthrough early on and exploited it successfully, they would have been slowed and stopped pretty quickly, and been vulnerable to NATO counterattacks. Think “Team Yankee”/“Second World War” (by Hackett) as a fairly likely course of events, minus the nukes, perhaps.

If somehow the 1980 Warsaw Pact armies and logistical support were teleported to today, and were told to attack vs today’s NATO forces, I think it would be much the same thing, although with a bit of a different strategy.

NATO commanders would be smart to trade space for time- today’s NATO forces are more mobile than those of the past, and have drastically better satellite and air based intelligence (think Joint Stars and the like), so NATO would be able to pick and choose when and where to fight. Plus, technological advantages like say… today’s F-16s vs. MIG-23s would mean that our air forces would run rampant in the skies and over the battlefield. Stuff like the Sensor Fuzed Weapons/Skeet submunitions would *wreck * Soviet tank columns just like Iraqi ones, only on a larger scale. JDAMs, JSOWs and a host of older weapons (originally developed to wreck Soviet tank columns of course) would be deployed.

After a little while, the stateside BCTs would be deployed to Europe, and reservists/National Guard would be called up and deployed as well.

I suspect that the disparity in technology and air power would be enough to blunt the Soviet spear though.

12

Incorrect. They invaded Afghanistan just fine. What they had trouble with was bringing their adventure to a successful conclusion.

13

Well I was talking about a television program about a fictional Third World War in the 1980’s, it was a straight NATO/Warsaw Pact fight without any of the time-travel stuff I mentioned in the OP.

I’m pretty sure this is it: YouTube? v=q1m7opOGSmQ (the title is wrong, it covers a hypothetical mid to late 1980’s conflict, not 1998)

Broke the link in case there are any copyright issues.