Plus, I think making fun of the Red Army for not being able to control Afghanistan is so 1980’s. And rather hypocritical, considering the last 12 years.
No, i am familiar with Suvarov.
What i meant was, in the post cold-war 90’s onwards time, when we had some limited access to archives, interviews with ex-soviet generals, that sort of thing. That the USSR doctrine was massive first use of WMD in the battlefield role.
Can’t remember any specific cites i’m afraid, but as i say i’m sure i recall reading about this in various places over the years.
Nobody.
That seems somewhat foolish if true. The Soviets were aware that they had an advantage in a non-nuclear war. They had more ground troops and shorter supply lines. They combined military practicalities with an appeal to world opinion by pledging they would never use nuclear weapons first and calling for other nations (namely the United States) to do the same. The United States, knowing that such a policy favored the Soviets, had to awkwardly refuse to make such a promise.
So why would the Soviets plan on eliminating their advantage by using tactical nukes? Or even chemical weapons?
Use of chemical weapons as area denial agents. Not use of Tactical nukes as they never believed in the difference between tactical and strategic nukes.
Not true. Cockroaches would have won.
I had read a long time ago—probably from authors strongly influenced by “Suvorov”—that the Soviets were gung-ho to use chemical weapons, trained with them extensively, and so on. Like you, it didn’t make sense to me either, once I thought about it. Beyond the points you make, the Soviets would have been on the offensive, against a much more lavishly equipped power, desperate to get its assets to Europe. Time would have been of the essence to force the European NATO powers to capitulate before the U.S. could fully reinforce them. So why then would the Soviets have used the one weapon that would have been guaranteed to slow down their operational tempo?
From everything that I’ve read, operating in an environment where agents like Sarin, Soman, and VX have been used is a gigantic pain in the ass. The most basic tasks of hygiene, resupply, and maintenance require specialized equipment and take multiples of time longer to perform. Though Europe is not as climatically challenging as SW Asia, ask servicemen who served during Desert Shield or OIF, how much fun it was to try and accomplish anything in MOPP-4. Use on airfields or on other fixed facilities that were giving the Soviets fits, O.K., I can see it. General use on the battlefield? No.
Interesting that, by 1984, in a National Intelligence Estimate on the subject of Soviet offensive use of chemicals, the CIA had moved away from the idea that the Soviets were inevitably going to lead off an attack with the general use of chemical weapons.
My guess as to the OP is that, if the Soviets had attacked anytime before, say, the early 1980s, NATO would have gone nuclear in very short order. Gwynne Dyer, in his “War” documentary, mentions a NATO exercise, WINTEX-CIMEX '83, that modeled a WP invasion. From the companion book, War: The Lethal Custom, at pages 365-66:
In the infamous Able Archer '83 exercise, SACEUR requested limited nuclear use 4 days after the modeled invasion of Germany, and 3 days after WP use of chemicals. FWIW, George Washington University has a large, online accessible, collection of declassified notes, memoranda, lessons learned, and other materials used by NATO during this period.
Later in the 1980s, I am guessing that NATO would have done quite well, and may have even repulsed a Warsaw Pact attack without needing to go to the use of NBC weapons. I remember a conversation I had in 1989 with a USA officer, a major, IIRC, concerning modelling an invasion of South Korea by North Korea. He was surprised that a high school student was that interested in what he did for a living and humored me, I suppose. Anyway, he told me that, in staff exercises modelling it, they anticipated kill ratios in the 10-1 range, easily, and that they were not expecting to need to use either chemicals—we still had them then—or nukes to halt the NK’s progress. He anticipated a similar situation, though doing not quite as well, should the Soviets try something similar. He may have been completely full of it, but he seemed confident in his statements. Take that with as many grains of salt as you like.
I do think though that the strategic situation would have been unstable. Both sides, paranoid that the other was getting ready to escalate to NBC, would have misinterpreted warnings of impending use, and I think the war would have rapidly gone out of hand to at least a counterforce exchange of strategic nuclear weapons. The trigger would be the fear that the other side was up to something—Pershing 1 strike, stealth bomber attack, someone’s apartment in D.C. abruptly turning into a mushroom cloud, etc—and getting ready to strike, not either side’s actual status on the conventional battlefield.
I was gonna go with Aliens. Or Predators, not sure.
Oddly enough (or not) I youtubed up part 5 last night. One of the things he notes was never properly addressed was where all the water needed for chemical decontamination was supposed to come from. I agree with you that the further along you go in the 1980s the better NATOs chances are, both due to NATOs capabilities and the approaching fall of communism that we can all see coming in hindsight. It’s odd that questions of the sort posed in the OP tend to be asked of the 1980s, when things were at the least favorable for the Warsaw Pact. In 1983 in his documentary Dyer was following around the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment; it was still using M60A3s, M-113s and AH-1 Cobras. Earlier in the thread it was asked of the Soviets "What of their equipment was actually better?” there’s a perfect example right there, the BMP. Some will no doubt want to point out the many deficiencies of the BMP and how much better the Bradley is as an IFV. They would be right, but the problem is the Bradley wasn’t the BMPs contemporary, the M-113 was. The BMP was fielded in the mid-60s, the Bradley in the mid-80s. Excepting France with the AMX-10P and West Germany with the Marder, NATO stuck with battle taxis for their infantry carriers for two decades.
That youtube link was pretty good, i’ll take a look at the rest over the weekend, but for anyone with an interest in cold war stuff that video’s worth watching.
I hear there are a few hiding in New York City. Not 6 million, no, but a few.
I’d also recommend the series Cold War, which is posted on YouTube.