With the recent events in Ukraine, do you think the USSR could've rushed into the Fulda Gap?

Russia has proven to be a massive paper tiger and a cargo cult of a developed nation, but can the same be said for the USSR? Could they have pushed through the Fulda gap in time before NATO reinforcements arrived en masse?

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Probably not. I have no faith in Soviet logistics or in the quality of their troops.

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >Unironically believing Russia is losing
    ngmi

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      believing Russia is losing

      >ngmi

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        did someone hack into this guy's webcam? otherwise i can't imagine why would someone take such a humiliating picture of themselves

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >unironically believing in russians
      Ivan your drunk again. go to bed

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      If this is winning, I'd hate to see what losing is like!

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    It should be noted that the Soviet invasion of Western Europe called for tactical nuclear strikes on NATO strongpoints so their mechanized spear head could just keep rolling. Russia has never been capable of winning a conventional war by itself or without cheating.

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I actually think Russia's more competent now than the USSR in the 70s or 80s. They've had some level of military reform and are actually starting to value force preservation. So the only question is whether the much greater Soviet manpower would be enough to get them past the gap. My guess is yes, though they'd have some problems afterwards, based on how the initial bumrush in Ukraine got pretty far despite its poor execution

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >are actually starting to value force preservation
      sure doesn't look like it since they still keep throwing T-72s, T-80s and T-62 at Ukrainian missile as if there was no tomorrow, or infantry cover for that matter

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    No. Nuclear arms was all the USSR had going for it. That was literally their one and only deterrent against the West.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      This is correct. Hundreds of BMPs rolling through radioactive wastes if Germany mopping up the rest.

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    No.

    Even according to Russian and Warsaw Pact commanders they could not. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb285/ZB-79.pdf

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >>The Warsaw Pact had very optimistic operation plans. These plans assumed that the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean would be reached in a short time. All participants from the former Warsaw Pact confirmed that these plans had little foundation in reality.
      >> Mention was also made of the logistical problems that would have slowed any advance considerably
      >> In addition, night operations would have been difficult if not impossible
      >> the reserve troops were poorly trained
      >> Th e ideologically tinted glasses
      of the decision-making political elite had blinded the top leadership

      Russia has learnt nothing.

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The peak of Soviet power coincided with the early Brezhnev regime, AKA the mid 60s. But Brezhnev was an incompetent vatnik moron and within a few years things started really going downhill

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Depends on when. Around the 70s their parity with the west started slipping irrecoverably. In any scenario I think they'd make good initial gains but then sputter out about 100km in (North/Center mainly) after the shock wears off and additional American metal starts arriving from across the Atlantic.

  9. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I think they could have. Russia isn't the "true" successor of the Soviet state.

  10. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Yes and easily. Their doctrine was to proceed an invasion with a bombardment of nukes. That would destroy unit cohesion and communication to the point the fresh Soviet units could penetrate. Probably won't matter since after that strike we go to a full nuclear exchange but meh.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      precede, as in be before
      proceed as in follow up

  11. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    And this is the part of the thread where I mention the old tank commander detailed to the Gap who told me his life expectancy was determined to be between 3 and 7 minutes upon commencement of hostilities.
    He was a good American.

  12. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >Russia has proven to be a massive paper tiger
    it hasn't

    Even Russia still probably can do it if pol limitations come off
    Less power then USSR, but no that much will to fight in modern Europe besides CIS countries, not sure even about finns and polacks

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      glove status?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Vatnik, as soon as you stick your nose into the baltics not only will you be dealing with locals guerillas and regular army gutting you "feint of Kyiv" style but poles coming in from the south and finns commencing air strikes from the north. At minimum. Both of them know very well they will be attacked next if they play chicken.

      You are alone, despised, high on copeganda and already lost over a quarter of your teeth.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Finland has no obligation to help the Baltic's. They're not in NATO yet.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          delusional moron, you attack one EU country = you attack the whole EU.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      What /misc/ limitations russia has on?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      All it would take would be a few F-35s dropping every rail bridge behind the FLOT.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        The frick is a FLOT?

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Forward Line of Departure. Aka the starting line for your forward-most elements at the beginning of an attack.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Aww frick, misread it with [...]

            It's Forward Line of Own Troops. Same thing, except also when not attacking.

            Ty. It's hard to follow folks sometimes if you can't speak .mil.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Aww frick, misread it with

          Forward Line of Departure. Aka the starting line for your forward-most elements at the beginning of an attack.

          It's Forward Line of Own Troops. Same thing, except also when not attacking.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >but no that much will to fight in modern Europe

      People said the exact same shit about Ukraine in early February. How's that work out?

  13. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    There was a pretty narrow window during the late 70s and early 80s where the USSR had the technological edge if not parity with the West in several fields. However, by the late 80s, any chance of the USSR prevailing in a conventional conflict against NATO were pretty much gone.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >There was a pretty narrow window during the late 70s and early 80s where the USSR had the technological edge if not parity with the West in several fields
      Which fields? I know their rockets were better and they had more nukes but that was it really.

  14. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >Could they have pushed through the Fulda gap in time before NATO reinforcements arrived en masse
    Quite possibly. Remember that the technological gap is quite recent, it was only in the last few years of the Soviet Union that the US's advantage in tech started making it into fielded weapons in sufficient amounts to matter. GW1 was the coming out party for that stuff, there was a real concern for how well it would work in a real shooting match. In the 60's and 70's the US and Soviet equipment was much more comparable, and those 10k rusting tanks in siberia weren't rusting in siberia, they were still in active service.

  15. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The Soviet army isn't the Russian Army. I day they had a good shot up until 1980 of at least conquering Germany, but I very much doubt they could push into France even in the 70's - the war would have to be short by necessity and the Soviets were awarw that they couldn't win a protracted war with the US.

    Also the Fulda Gap would not be the focal point of their invasion, it would unironically be a feint attack. CENTAG had NATO's best army in relatively superior numbers, well dug in and fortified into terrain that practically defended itself. The 8th Guards army wouldn't last more than a week.

    Rather the focus of the Soviet offensive would be on the North German Plain which was held by the BAOR, Germans, and Dutch. Good fighters in their own right but nowhere near the juggernaut that the US Army was/is. The terrain up there is much better suited for tanks, nuclear weapons (make no mistake, there would be liberal usage of NBC before boots even crossed the IGB), and more critically it's where the close Atlantic ports are receiving all those reinforcements.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Also it really matters how the war starts. Lot of worst case scenarios for NATO assume a "bolt from the blue" attack where the Soviets would suddenly attack full force seemingly without warning or by faking a withdrawal. In that scenario the majority of NATO's combat power would be knocked out very quickly which would make that "7 days to the rhine" actually feasible.

      In a more realistic scenario though where there's ample anticipation and buildup? IMO it's an irradiated meatgrinder and both sides die on the Main. Maybe the Neckar.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Ironically, the whole reason the Americans wound up stuck with the worst tank terrain, and Brits and continentals got stuck defending the hardest terrain, was entirely the fault of the Brits themselves, all because they insisted on taking the easternmost beaches on D-Day in order to guarantee that they would end up garrisoning the parts of Germany closest to their Belgian allies... so that if the occupation of Germany turned sour, they (the Brits) could run away the fastest. They deliberately stuck the US with the parts of Germany they didn't want to occupy, and *tried* to make the US deal with policing France after the war (the US promptly handed the country over to Charlie Frog and NOPE'd out of that mess).

      When Stalin stabbed everybody in the back (gosh, who could have ever seen *that* coming?), the sectors were already set, and it would have been too difficult to swap them around. So, the US wound up with the *worst* terrain for tanks, and the Brits wound up with the *best*. Good job, old sport.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Except the Brits were the 'weaker' of the two. The USA had much better power in AIR POWER than tanks. So that made 100% sense. You give the best terrain to the weaker guys and you balance it by being the stronger force.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Checked, but what I'm getting from this is its all belgiums' fault.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >so that if the occupation of Germany turned sour, they (the Brits) could run away the fastest
        Source : Anus, Yours (2022)

  16. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Depends "when" 60s USSR? Maybe.
    80s USSR? Absolutely not!

  17. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    > blocks your rush

  18. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Modern Russia has nothing to do with the USSR.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Fricking this. I mean, couple of decades of rust, corruption, splitting, looting, and political and economic upheaval leaves just about any society in a very different situation than the one they started from.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        And you don't think the USSR had any of those?
        In the 80's they were reduced to trading warship to Pepsi.

  19. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    No, current corruption and incomeptence to westerners is only new cause they dont speak russian and havent heard all the stories during the height of russian military might. Which voincides with chernobyl that was a catastrophe similiar in scale and incompetence to ukraine

  20. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Probably. Many of the things that allowed the Ukrainians such success during the current invasion were not available during the Cold War (Top attack ATGMs, Starlink, cheap GPS munitions, etc).

  21. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    No, but not because of anything having to do with modern Russia. There was a conference where they got together a bunch of NATO and WP officers together and discussed what WWIII would have looked like. It wouldn’t have been the popular Hollywood conception where 99% of everyone dies almost immediately in a 45 minute war. But it also wouldn’t have been the grand maneuvers often seen in war plans.

    It would have been a massive clusterfrick. With units becoming degraded incredibly quickly. Every route on multiple continents becoming packed with refugees. Communications breaking down. No casevac. Supply lines that are purely theoretical.

    All of the officers were skeptical of if they would have been able to meet any of their planned objectives.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >he's not posting the conference transcript
      But yeah this anon is right. I've read the document he's talking about and yeah it was going to be an absolute shitstorm. IIRC one of the funny things mentioned in the document (if it wasn't, it was another similar document from the time period I've read) was that the Soviets didn't trust the East Germans or Polish even a little and were fully expecting to have to compensate for their armies being Hungary-on-the-eastern-front-tier with prodigious use of tactical and strategic nukes. Like, far more than what they'd use during a well executed offensive.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        It’s up here

        No.

        Even according to Russian and Warsaw Pact commanders they could not. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb285/ZB-79.pdf

        If I’d have realized I would have linked it.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        It’s up here [...]
        If I’d have realized I would have linked it.

        Rereading it this stood out
        >The biggest problem that I saw that we had in the United States was ammunition. We would all be in our wartime headquarters at the vari- ous places, and we would run the games against the Warsaw Pact, and in those games in the early 1980s – of course we were the ones who had structured the games – what would happen is that for a couple of weeks we would hold the Warsaw Pact attack very close to the forward defence on the borders of Germany. Then, as you got towards 30 days out, we began to run out of tracks for tanks, we began to run out of ammuni- tion, and we had about 30 days’ supply of ammunition for our NATO forces. Most of it would then have to come from 12 ammunition factories in the United States. All of it had to come by boat because ammunition is so heavy. You could fly some of it over, but you need to move most of it by boat. Most of the factories were down in New Orleans, Texas, Mobile, and all those places down there, so the boats would have go to right by Cuba. So we looked at that and said “My God!” and that’s one of the reasons Cuba became so very important. We wanted to protect our supply lines. So it changed. I don’t think our problem was equipment in the 1980s; we were getting all that. Our problem was being able to fight a conventional war for an extended period of time. So things had gotten a lot better, but still what happened – and as I quoted General Rogers there, he’d say “We can only go to a certain point and I’m going to have to go to my military leaders there and say I’m going to have to use nukes.”

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >I want to clarify the issue that could be unclear for all of you and which Tadeusz Pióro talked about a little. He stated that we had 16 divisions in 1964. However, there was a reference in the document saying that a division had to be formed after the mobilization, which usually lasted for three or four days; and there was a need for coordination, which took a week, or ten days, and then, the division had to be transported to the front. When a division is formed, soldiers do not know each other, a commander does not know his soldiers. Under such conditions, it is extremely difficult to manage the troops and give orders.
          Unfortunately, the strategies do not take into account the natural conditions or human psychology. For example, if there had been floods in Czechoslovakia, it would not have been possible to move troops in any direction. In winter, on slippery roads, tanks would get stuck. I used to be a tanker myself. There were many occasions when we were stuck, and we had to stop the further movement of troops. In foggy weather, movement of troops is not possible, because it is easy to get lost. It is possible to perform military operations during night-time, but it is very difficult and frequently results in friendly fire. We did not train for combat on Sundays or during night-time, because compared to the equipment of the Western troops, our night vision equipment was of very poor quality. We were not able to operate during the wintertime, because the blanket of snow often reached 50 centimetres. When a tank moved through the snow, it created a snow barrier in front of itself and stopped every 100 or 200 metres. Natural obstacles such as dense forests and swamps should also be taken into account. How could you carry out an offensive if you know about all these difficulties and you are not sure of the preparedness of troops!

          I think the also has bearing on the current conflict.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Those comments about spare parts and ammo seem very pertinent to the Ukraine conflict. Both sides have an inexhaustible need every type of combat equipment that borders on the absurd with absolutely obsolete items being pressed into service. Not to mention using things like humvees on the assault because ukies don't have enough apc's. I doubt any nation has enough material for a total war level of violence.

  22. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Probably not. By 1957 west Germany was a part of NATO and was absolutely armed to the teeth, Russia would have needed a massive buildup to punch through which would telegraph what they were doing to NATO forces. Russia most likely would be stopped before connecting to any other countries border.

  23. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Well, back in the 1980s when Germany still had Armed Forces worthy of being respected, Russia was already as corrupt and inept as today, and by extension so was the rest of the Warsaw Pact. So I believe that the Soviet troops would've flailed about helplessly against an impenetrable German wall of ordnance.

  24. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    How would that have worked in practice? I feel like the second the Soviet army stops killing university students and tries to fight a real war all of its satellite states take the opportunity to revolt.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Revolutions aren't about the spark that ignites them, they are about dry tinder that's built up over time that the spark falls on. An assault in late 70's or early 1980's might set off Poland, but probably the rest of the Pact would still be relatively stable at that time period. By late 80's probably another story.

  25. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    If you think about it, the recent events are just USSR fighting itself. And losing.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      But also winning.

  26. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Probably in the 50s and 60s, probably not after

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