First off, I realise this scenario is extraordinarily unlikely but wars do have a habit of not playing out as expected.
It was generally, and probably correctly, expected that a NATO/WP conflict would have gone nuclear within days or weeks at the most (although WP warplans suggest they intended to liberally use nuclear weapons from the outset). I did read a rather interesting fictional scenario set during such a conflict in the early 80’s where the conflict was mostly kept at sea and both sides quickly came to a tacit agreement not to use nukes after reinforcement conveys and attacking submarines basically annihilated each other during the opening engagements, and the realisation that such a loss rate was totally unsustainable.
So given this scenario, that conflict has begun but it remains conventional what would have been the likely course of events, weapons, equipment and trained personnel would most likely be used up and killed during the initial phase of the war, what happens then? Do the Soviets dust off their WW2 era and early Cold War stockpiles (they were notorious for not throwing military equipment away), does the West gear up their production capacities for simple, quickly and easily produced weapons and vehicles? etc?
I’m personally more interested in the time of the ‘Second Cold War’ of the post-detente era, especially as by this point weapons and training were more specialised and expensive than ever, but I’m just hoping this question gets at least some replies.
btw this is also inspired by a book on the Vietnam war I read once which stated that during the B52 raids on North Vietnam the loss of only one or two aircraft per mission made the US rethink the strategy, despite its effectiveness. In a WW3 scenario the stock of B52’s would be used up pretty quickly, and they couldn’t really be replaced in any sort of short time-frame.