Poll: World War Three.

[LtWigglesworth]

Unlike the absymal air launched SALCOs ATGMs the Soviets had, by the 80's, all Cobras had TOW-2s (B/C versions appeared in 87', but by then you had Apaches and Hellfires to worry about.) with a range of 2.5 miles, well outside the range of anything that wasen't 30mm. Same thing with Thunderbolt IIs and their AGM-65D Mavericks, hell practically every aircraft in the NATO inventory could carry Mavericks, each more then capable of destroying anything less then a T-80 outright on the first hit.

Finally, you have the B-52, the legend, it always carries the best and most ECM of any airborne aircraft outside the EF-111A or the EA-6B. It would of removed entire swaths of Soviet combat divisions from the fight at once, safely behind the ECM shield of friendly Ravens and Prowlers.

There wasen't a need for defense in depth for NATO, because the much superior US/NATO air assets were on call to pounch on any breakthroughs.

Captcha : Easy As Cake

You got that right, computer.

Interesting. TOW 2 is also SACLOS like those soviet missiles. And wireguided. The ordinary TOW could not penetrate the frontal armor of a T72, but iTOW could. Just. However iTOW and TOW 2 could not penetrate the frontal armour of the T72B, T64B/V, or T80B/V/U.

And the Maverick is powerful, but don't forget that this war would have the most intense air defences ever seen. And despite all the ECM and Air superiority that the US had over Serbia, the Serbs still downed the stealth F117 by a S-125. By missile that was deployed first in 1961. 1961.
As cool as B-52s are, in a high intensity conflict against the USSR they would be downed like flies. Sorry, but there it is.

EDIT. Error in mavericks delivery method

 

[Arfonious]

It would be sort of funny id Germany would win it, but depending on how the war will be fought I think that it'll either be no one or China

Also why is Sweden in the poll?

 

[Zantos]

Everyone knows that Britain would win, making everywhere else inhospitable except for Australia. Then it sets a plan in motion to conquer/destroy Australia by travelling through the centre of the Earth. Also Bryan Cranston is in charge, and Bill Nighy has an american accent.

Aside from that, I'm no historian, but I think that NATO had the better equipment. I reckon that'd give an advantage.

 

[Dwarfman]

How about a nice game of chess instead?

Heh! I was thinking of exactly the same movie. Very appropriate.

 

[Thaluikhain]

England has not been successfully invaded in close to if not over a millennia,

For some reason, nobody counts William of Orange.

...

Oh, and people seem to be comparing what we now know about Warsaw and NATO capabilities, without paying much attention to what people knew at the time. It doesn't matter that much if one side can defeat the other, if they don't know they can.

 

[LtWigglesworth]

It would be sort of funny id Germany would win it, but depending on how the war will be fought I think that it'll either be no one or China

Also why is Sweden in the poll?

Because everyone forgets the Swedes. They have the power of ABBA. They are not to be trifled with.

 

[Callate]

Fiji?

Ever been to Fiji? It's a country that doesn't grow enough food to sustain its own population and requires massive imports of diesel fuel just to cover its electricity needs (in the places that have electricity- many don't.) Everyone goes into "survival" mode, Fiji is as @#$%ed as anyone, and more than some.

Nuclear winter is a harsh mistress. Places in some of the Scandinavian countries might have half a chance, being prepared for relatively cold climates, assuming they avoided becoming a target. But like as not, in the event of a full-scale nuclear exchange, the predictable habitable climate of Earth is a goner- and with it, us.

 

[Callate]

can all the smart-asses stop saying "there would be no winner herp derp"

They can't help it, they think it makes them "edgy" and "hip".

...Yeah, because there's no cred to be had in mocking the prevalent opinion, right? [/sarcasm]

Google "nuclear winter". All the smart-asses say it because it's a perfectly reasonable conclusion.

 

[Lucky Godzilla]

can all the smart-asses stop saying "there would be no winner herp derp"

They can't help it, they think it makes them "edgy" and "hip".

...Yeah, because there's no cred to be had in mocking the prevalent opinion, right? [/sarcasm]

Google "nuclear winter". All the smart-asses say it because it's a perfectly reasonable conclusion.

Well if you read the OP, you would have noticed that the use of WMD's are out of the equation for this scenario. Realistic? No, but it does render those arguments irrelevant in this particular discussion.

 

[The White Hunter]

When the cold war ended and countries like Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary etc were looking to join NATO one of the major problems they faced was that their equipment and military training was not up to NATO standards, which to me suggests that in terms of equipment and training, Warsaw pact countries were inferior to NATO. I'm a bit more uncertain about Russia's capabilities however.

If I recall correctly, the export versions of Russian military vehicles were typically inferior compared to the ones Russia produced and fielded for themselves.

They were but the Russians own vehicles weren't of a particularly high standard either in that time period, certainly not compared to the tech NATO was starting to use.

EDIT: Oh except the helicopters. Russian attack helicopters were more advanced in the early eighties iirc. (I may not recall correctly)

OT: Cockroaches, or Switzerland.

 

[cerebus23]

the reason we developed the apache was because russia had all them tanks. the lb apache was about as good as it gets when you want to kill a lot of enemy tanks and have low losses.

it all came down to kill ratios, would the nato forces be able with their superior training and equipment be able to hold a 5 to 1, 10 to 1 kill ratio? or as near to kill ratio where you decimate a enemies forces to the point they roll over and give up.

just looking at the AA and air superiority back then we had sr 71s that were just about unshootable by anything they had, we had stealth craft that would have blown thru their AA defenses and obliterated them followed by the bombers, i think it is at lest on paper almost a complete blowout in the air wars for nato, which is very bad for their ground units if they cannot hold their own skies above their lines.

 

[The White Hunter]

England has not been successfully invaded in close to if not over a millennia

947 years. And isn't millenia plural? Otherwise you are correct, apart from internal wars between composite nations of the UK and civil war.

Britain has gotten good at war. Particular covert shit.

 

[Callate]

can all the smart-asses stop saying "there would be no winner herp derp"

They can't help it, they think it makes them "edgy" and "hip".

...Yeah, because there's no cred to be had in mocking the prevalent opinion, right? [/sarcasm]

Google "nuclear winter". All the smart-asses say it because it's a perfectly reasonable conclusion.

Well if you read the OP, you would have noticed that the use of WMD's are out of the equation for this scenario. Realistic? No, but it does render those arguments irrelevant in this particular discussion.

"...unless existentially threatened."

Having lived through the eighties, I think the likelihood that one or both sides would come to such a conclusion in the face of a massive conventional build-up was quite high.

 

[The]

Obviously the UK because we've got Captain Price.

Nope. Russia, cause they've got Reznov.

 

[HellbirdIV]

I voted Sweden, but I think both Sweden and Switzerland would win because we'll just keep on truckin' neutral.

 

[II2]

I'll let other people take the reins on this debate...

Since this is a gaming forum, I don't feel saying that Wargame: European Escalation is a pretty good videogame RTS/RTT game on how it might play out, starting from some minor territorial dispute turned hot that pulls in other protectorates, allies and enemies. The single player campaign is a very grounded and plausible escalation scenario, as the title implies.

Lacks a bit of technical polish, but the gameplay is solid and a lot of fun.

 

[Proverbial Jon]

I like to think it would be like the war between the Kaleds and the Thals in Genesis of the Daleks. A war of attrition so long that all modern weapons and ammunition have been used up and we must all resort to the most basic of weapons.

I'll get my trusty spork.

 

[Daverson]

Probably NATO. The only real problem they'd face is munitions - simply put, the main issue with NATO's missile defence systems were that the USSR had more missiles than the US had anti-missiles. It's not too far a stretch to assume the Pact might have been willing to take these methods to their logical conclusion.

Especially worrying when you consider the logistical issues of using a 2 million dollar missile against a half million dollar tank, even you do hit, that's still a net win for the enemy.

 

[TornadoADV]

Unlike the absymal air launched SALCOs ATGMs the Soviets had, by the 80's, all Cobras had TOW-2s (B/C versions appeared in 87', but by then you had Apaches and Hellfires to worry about.) with a range of 2.5 miles, well outside the range of anything that wasen't 30mm. Same thing with Thunderbolt IIs and their AGM-65D Mavericks, hell practically every aircraft in the NATO inventory could carry Mavericks, each more then capable of destroying anything less then a T-80 outright on the first hit.

Finally, you have the B-52, the legend, it always carries the best and most ECM of any airborne aircraft outside the EF-111A or the EA-6B. It would of removed entire swaths of Soviet combat divisions from the fight at once, safely behind the ECM shield of friendly Ravens and Prowlers.

There wasen't a need for defense in depth for NATO, because the much superior US/NATO air assets were on call to pounch on any breakthroughs.

Captcha : Easy As Cake

You got that right, computer.

Interesting. TOW 2 is also SACLOS like those soviet missiles. And wireguided. The ordinary TOW could not penetrate the frontal armor of a T72, but iTOW could. Just. However iTOW and TOW 2 could not penetrate the frontal armour of the T72B, T64B/V, or T80B/V/U.

And the Maverick is powerful, but don't forget that this war would have the most intense air defences ever seen. And despite all the ECM and Air superiority that the US had over Serbia, the Serbs still downed the stealth F117 by a S-125. By missile that was deployed first in 1961. 1961.
As cool as B-52s are, in a high intensity conflict against the USSR they would be downed like flies. Sorry, but there it is.

EDIT. Error in mavericks delivery method

The F-117A was killed as much by sloppy and lazy mission planners as it was a smart Serbian ground commander who saw the situation, had shepherded his forces from destruction and then using tactics used by the NVA in Vietnam (bracket firing) he managed to damage the Nighthawk enough that it crashed.

The surest way to lose a battle is to underestimate your enemy. As for penetrative values for the TOW-2, nothing besides the estimated 900mm has been made publicly known and people seem to think each tank is only getting hit once. The tanks that CAN resist a direct TOW-2 hit are the Guard and Home Division tanks, not the monkey models that WARSAW got, which would be easily destroyed.

As for the threat to the B-52, I'm sorry, but no, even with it's own ECM, flying in the typical Vietnam stacked formation would make it immune to anything besides the S-300, which in the 80's were much less mobile then today and were at high risk of getting kissed by AGM-86s, BGM-109s and ATACMs. So during the opening moves of the Soviet Spearhead, their ground forces would be bomb fodder for the B-52.

 

[vonmanstein]

So, having seen a large discussion of this subject on other forums, I was interested as to what this community thinks.

The question is, In the event of the cold war turning hot, who would win? Any answer accepted!
A couple of qualifiers to frame the discussion.
1) Timeframe: Mid 'eighties.
2) WMDs: No tactical use, no strategic use unless one superpower was existentially threatened.

Other things such as warning times, background and locations are up to you lot to set!

I personally think that If there was a Warsaw Pact (WP) attack that occurred with less than a weeks warning then the WP would have reached the french border in a matter of days, and then either kept rolling or discussed a ceasefire depending on the political and domestic situations in WP and NATO nations and the survival rates of NATO forces.
EDIT: Added cockroach to options. Maybe. If the webpage is feeling generous.

when you say cockroach you mean Britain, right?