Would the Soviet Union invading the Fulda Gap have done substantially better than Russia in Ukraine? Take your pick of year.
Has your opinion changed since the Ukraine invasion?
Looking at battles like Vuhledar I'm inclined to think the Soviet army would have stalled pretty quickly despite it's numbers, but then I'm a civilian and retarded. I realize there's a lot of differences between then and now such as Russia having a fraction of the numbers, no drones, less precision guided weaponry, etc, but even so it seems surprisingly easy for well-prepared defenders to fuck up huge numbers of Russian vehicles and infantry in the modern day. For example, are you certain that Soviets wouldn't have lost whole battalions to mine fields the way Russians have or that they wouldn't just use retard human wave tactics? They had a lot more quantity of stuff but I understand their logistics wasn't that good overall and their troops were just conscripts of perhaps slightly better caliber than what Russia has. Would we have seen rolling waves of Soviet armour succeeding where Russia is failing right now?
1953-1960 ruskies might have pulled it off, especially since they had veterans who actually fought in massive-scale tank battles still alive and in service
anything after that, not likely
lmao fucking no. Russias army IS the soviet army. What is left of it. Same school officer core formed around same, top heavy, army structure. If anything modern Russhitia is a improvement over them as the vatnik union had really funky ideas like only giving supplies to units that made progress.
I guarantee you the german campaign would have been even bigger shitshow then modern ukraine. Not only because more meat and metal to throw around but even more unrealiable "allies" like the various eastern euros enslaved in puppet states or outright occupied into their failed empire. Would have to fight both the west while rebellions and guerillas popping up in the rear
1945-1947 USSR could actually mop the floor and pull off 2 weeks to Paris, problem with this date is that the US would've probably turned Europe into a nuclear hellscape to prevent that from happening. After the 40s I would say it's 50-50 and after the 50s it wouldn't work at all. There's no real ideal timeframe for it, between 1945 and the collapse of the Soviet Union the US pretty much always outmatched them enough either conventionally or in terms of nuclear armaments for an offensive like this to fail.
Although I don't see the US actually being victorious (aka dealing conventional defeat to the Soviets without having to restort nukes) until the late Brezhnev era and I can still see that conflict potentially going nuclear with a Soviet first strike so I don't know if it would really be a win in the long term, but initially it would definitely look like a solid US victory.
>Russias army IS the soviet army.
>What is left of it.
Imagine contradicting yourself while going from one word to the next.
army IS the soviet army.
>>What is left of it.
>contradiction
reading comprehension of a toddler
>1945-1947 USSR could actually mop the floor and pull off 2 weeks to Paris
After all the bleeding from WW2 and so far from friendly territory?
Why do people think they were so crippled by WW2?? They were arguably at their strongest ever 45-50s. Manpower was not an issue
because they were? this is an absolute fact, they were absolutely devastated and lost double digit % of their population
Who cares?
anyone who understands logistics, i.e. not you
Russians are least likely to care about Russian lives.
They were fighting a war on their own border though. America was half a world away.
>inb4 superior american logistics
Everyone, especially America, knew that at the end of the war Russia was significantly better mobilized for war in Europe than the us ever could be.
America was supplying soviets for their war on their border just years before. Take your "everyone knew" bullshit and shove it, tard.
This meme doesn’t change the situation at the end of the war. The Soviets were better positioned for war in Europe by far. see picrel from NATO’s own 1954 report
>meme
This "meme" won soviets their war. NATO estimates assume soviets were more competent and organized than they really are, which they have been doing throughout the cold war.
What I posted has nothing to do with competence or organization. Stick to the point
The point is NATO estimations were wrong and soviets couldn't sustain themselves, let alone continue offensive operations against NATO. They'd starve and run out of fuel long before they could reach the frontline in mass.
And you know this how? Nvm I just don’t agree with your premise . You can have the last word. Bye
I know this because that's how russians always were. They had massive famines and without huge demobilizations would literally fall apart as a country.
NATO estimates were always predicated on good faith in the Soviets abilities to live up to their claims. Since they were a paper Tiger, those estimates are worthless for accessing their actual capabilities. Still, it was smart of NATO to train/exercise/prepare as if they were facing a competent adversary
The Soviets were well mobilized, but their Oder-Berlin offensive also cost them 250k+ of their best trained soldiers from their best equipped units in the west.
They had over a million men deployed and ready in Siberia/China, of course, so by 1946 that situation had already cahnged massively.
But directly post-war in Europe, 10th of May 1945, the Red Army was practically unable to advance furhter west, and would have had extreme problems to hold anywhere west of the former Soviet border, mostly becasue all the people they had 'liberated' fucking just plain hated their guts and would have slit their throats at night in a hearbeat.
No that simply isn't true, people loved the idea of living in the communist utopia of East Berlin so much that they were sneaking over the border just to get in for their free Lada, flat, and vodka ration
wait
I might have that backwards
They were unable to fight a war on their own border without American and British lend lease and constant western allied harassment of German logistics… so no, they would have been massacred if they had fought the western Allie’s in 1945
>lend lease won the war
I swear only here people believe this shit. How many phd theses and accredited historians have to dunk on you to make you shut up. I know Russia is the enemy now and the Soviets were the enemy then but you dont have to look stupid 24/7 parroting this line
Please for the love of fuck SHIT UP. There isn’t a single non-vodkaboo historian who can discount how BANKROLLING THE ENTIRE LOGISTICS of a nation allowed it to fight. You’ve been BTFO here, on PrepHole and on every forum in the world where this is discussed. No one here is going to accept your fucking delusions
https://oaktrust.library.tamu.edu/handle/1969.1/DISSERTATIONS-16416?show=full
> Without Lend-Lease, the Soviet Union would most likely have survived, but would not have arrived at the gates of Berlin in the spring of 1945.
>https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/mharrison/public/lendlease.pdf
picrel. also read the that or at least skim it if your serious about learning its a good read full of actual hard data
This is absurd. YOU people literally never give any rebuttal other than "lol vodkamoron" or the "Zhukov" quote and the Khrushchev one. For Zhukov
https://www.realhistoryonline.com/operations-battles/lendlease-ww2/
>K. Zhukov himself refuted the above quote, as stated in the report of V. E. Semichastny to Khrushchev No. 1651-s dated June 17, 1963:… I believe that I have never seen or read a more untrue story than the German generals wrote. So this, I say, is definitely a strained thing. Apparently, the person who spoke or reported about this, conveys his own opinion and attributes it to me. The same goes for American aid. I say, spoke a lot, wrote a lot of articles, at one time spoke publicly and gave an appropriate assessment of American assistance and victims in the Second World War. So it’s the same thing pulled from somewhere.
And remind what Khrushchev was doing during ww2? Was he a logistician? Was he a general? I have as much authority to comment on how we did in Afghanistan as Khrushchev does about ww2. You people never have an argument. You never explain where exactly the Soviets would of lost if not for lend lease. You never post any article or book or pdf proving me wrong. I would love to be proven wrong, really! I just know its not possible.
>“muh Shermans were yooseless!!”
Lend lease was huge and shaved years off of the war and saved millions of American and Commonwealth lives. But did it win the war? Did it save the Soviets from capitulation? No.
>would of
Easiest way to trigger a fifth columnists or a turdworlder is to point out how lend lease hard carried the USSR. They’ll impotently seethe about how, “it’s a heckin memeliefalsie!” while doing nothing to substantiate the claim. At best you’ll get vague references to Vasily Dicsukovitch and his claims that the USSR would have won by 1946 without Western support, or fallacious claims that “muh Shermans were yooseless!!”
It’s the easiest way to derail a concern troll or shill, as they’ll be too angry to stick to shitting up a thread
Hold on bro, let me boot up HOI4 real quick and check my no lend-lease run as the USSR, yeah it looks like lend-lease was completely worthless, just like Dr. Zakharov (Moscow U 4 lyfe) said.
Well I mean it’s true. Operational they hadn’t changed since 1939. Look up the vyberg offensive. It’s this massive offensive against an outnumbered, outgunned Finland and they were neither able to fully breakthrough their lines or collapse their army. They progressed by throwing waves of poorly trained men (constantly grouped together, using zero cover or concealment) and unsupported tank rushes, which succeeded in capturing forward positions but would then get stuck in place by Finnish fighting retreated or counterattacks. Virtually all ground they took was from large but low yield advances like this, except in the rare case where their massive air and artillery advantage caused the Finns to route. They lost so much manpower and material for what should’ve been massive gains, not land they controlled prewar. This was in 1944.
I firmly believe, using late war Soviet performance as a baseline, that they would’ve bled themselves dry before achieving any significant breakthroughs against American forces in 1945 if it came down to that.
I agree mostly. The immense casualties and poor ratios while gaining ground are par for the course with Soviet deep battle and this worked/would of worked for fighting basically anyone except for us. This isn't really an indictment of the Red army though. I mean, The US was (is?) a different beast to fight entirely. There hasn't been an army on the planet that could defeat us in a protracted conventional war for about 100 years now. Even if the T44 and later T54 were better and the air war was somewhat close* it wouldn't of made a difference in the long run and I'm not even thinking about the nukes.
Learn to read moron
Learn to write moron
I'm literally a low iq retard. Now refute my sources
Soviet deep battle wasn’t all that effective honestly. Any enemy, even a far smaller one such as Finland in my example, could beat their forces and render deep battle useless if they fight properly. Germany could’ve and was doing a good job considering their simultaneous losses on other fronts as well as pre existing supply and intel issues. Bagration comes to mind as a good example of what their deep battle is supposed to look like. but frankly they could’ve done way better, gotten way farther, and gotten a positive casualty ratio against Germany considering their massive overmatch. At the start of Bagration they had a nearly 3:1 numerical advantage as well as 7:1 air and tank advantage. But they were rather dogshit at fighting and thus could only go as far as Poland even as Army group center collapsed. What they did excel at was pushing mobile reserves through breakthroughs and surrounding units, which is good and what id say is a good understanding of modern warfare, not trying to deny them that. But that was their strategy working to perfection and they still received nearly double the casualties they inflicted and did not go as far as they theoretically could’ve. The Soviet deep battle late war wasn’t that different from their 1939 strategies pre purge, it’s just by 1944 they had the means to actually exploit when they did breakthrough. Which could be attributed to the assistance rendered from the Allies but that requires more reading on my end to confirm
>phd theses and accredited historians
Cite a single one of your sources, any of them. I could use a good laugh.
stalin and zhukov said they would have lost otherwise so
I disagree with this, by 1945 the USSR was scrapping the barrel in terms of manpower, this is the real reason Lend-Lease was so useful, it allowed the soviets to redistribute healthy young men from certain parts of the economy towards their military.
1945 Western Allies could have marched to Moscow easily, wouldn’t even have to nuke them
Bro what? I’m saying this as someone from a former Soviet nation who’s father was in the military, we are close enough to be following everything closely and we speak to Russians daily so we know a lot about what it’s like there. Russia of today is like a shit parody of the USSR, or more so wants to be. It’s military is the same. It went from authoritarian but well organized (well most of the time, depends in era, not so much during liberalization of the last decade) to a nation of criminals and gangsters who are now legitimately part of every institution, the entire culture reflects that, same with the military, it’s all dog eat dog shit now, no more collective spirit that’s why you see so many issues with their military. Officers don’t give a fuck and just want to get money or lots of troops and troops just want to survive and get home. This is why you see hazing, theft on a massive scale and general disorganization and chaos.
To really hammer this home because it’s very hard to get unless you are from the area. The post-Soviet poverty and crime (and I mean extreme levels of crime, almost everyone knew a mob member or had a friend or family member involved) created this cultural zeitgeist that replaced the old communist one. The entire culture now is criminal/poverty/survival-of-the-fittest culture barely held together by Russian nationalism.
Soviet soldiers in the 50's and 60's in the baltics were selling their ammunition to people who later turned out to be partisans
The Soviet Union since it’s inception has been a corrupt shithole where competent generals are executed to prevent coups from possibly happening. They’ve always been a joke and have just 1 noteworthy military victory… made possible by UK and USA lend lease
The Soviet Army died in 1989-1990, a 30 year old soldier would now be 63-4, a 20 year then would now be 53-4.
So...no...the RF military is not the "Soviet Army." People age anon.
Two more weeks to the River Rhine *~~))
mmmmm, roast capitalist piggies *~~)
The Russian Army is not the Soviet Army at all
The Soviet Army proved its competency very often
>The Soviet Army proved its competency very often
Sinking subs and pilots drank on coolant, dedovschina and hazing, conscripts shooting 3 rounds a year, SAMs shooting down airliners and letting planes land on red square, that competence?
>Would the Soviet Union invading the Fulda Gap have done substantially better than Russia in Ukraine? Take your pick of year.
Unironically there almost certainly would have been nukes involved in such a scenario, hence why we never saw it play out thankfully. If we assume no nukes at all, I think it is fair to say that Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces would be able to push west in a more coherent fashion than what we have seen from the Russians and their proxies in Ukraine. The casualties, both civilian and military, from a non-nuclear Cold War engagement would still be astronomical from a modern-day perspective
Compare NATO planes vs russian planes. NATO would have had total air superiority over the front at all times, this their tanks would have been easy prey.
NATO air advantage would mean jack shit until the 80s and even then Soviet air defence was nothing to scoff at
>until the 80s
This is the important part.
>a single low-flying civilian aircraft
>in peace time
What are you saying? That they should've mobilized the air force and the air defence branch to shoot him down with extreme prejudice.
They didn’t because there weren’t enough civilians on board, they need to at least be passenger liner sized for the Russian bloodlust to kick in.
>be cold war
>spot plane on radar
>it's not one of yours
>it's in your airspace
you send someone to identify the plane, ask it to leave, force it to land or intercept it
>should've mobilized the air force and the air defence branch to shoot him down with extreme prejudice
Yes, they tried that, at least when they weren't falsely identifying him as a friendly which also happened on multiple occasions. Repeated failures on the part of the Soviets is the reason why he wasn't just shot down over the Baltics and instead flew through Russia proper and circled Moscow multiple times. The terrible handling of the situation lead to a huge wave of layoffs that affected even the highest levels of the Soviet Army... it was a unmitigated disaster both internationally and domestically.
>yeah, lets allow the civilian cessna to land next to kremlin
>whoops, it had a W87 warhead loaded on backseat, enjoy 300 kilotons of decapitating strike
That’s not truly at all and highly depends on the era. Up until the f-16 soviet fighters were very very competitive, and often better outright, especially for these conditions. And I say this as a big Air Force fan
HOWEVER, in the fulda gap, you kind of have to talk about a-10s, designed specifically for it. And also, the planned defense of the fulda gap was, initially, essentially nuclear defensive war (ie nukes all over the front, flattening our own soldiers to block the Soviets) , so the whole question is really not well-defined
>Up until the f-16 soviet fighters were very very competitive
Lol
>and often better outright
LMAO
Mig-21 was a better fighter than the f-4
As someone who actually knows how planes work, I can safely say the USAF has outclassed the Soviets for the entirety of human history… and there were no points where we were even close
NATO is afraid of the reputational damage that will occur if they send planes to Ukraine today which will inevitably get shot down by Russia
This classic vatnig projection illustrates why Russia has not deployed T-14 or their “stealth” fighter.
>ould the Soviet Union invading the Fulda Gap have done substantially better than Russia in Ukraine?
No because given teh cold war nuclear stockpiles and disposition then as now but with even faster escalation any direct military conflict between NATO and the USSR/Russia (which is not actually occurring right now) would result in rapid escalation and the complete destruction fo Russia and teh elimination of its people via radioactive fire.
>Soviet Union invading the Fulda Gap
That actually happens in pic related movie.
Doesn't end well.
This movie and Threads were fucking great. The military build-ups and escalations happening in the background in The Day After was genuinely fascinating to try and follow, while the little updates and details about bombing operations against that Soviet base in Threads was chilling.
Maybe it's because you knew those events *had* to spiral out for the films to actually get going with the premise, but damn was it good storytelling.
Decently well thought out premise for the escalation in both films, and different scenarios, to boot, rather than just having some random bolt-from-the-blue situation for the civvies involved.
Just read Red Storm Rising lol
Pretty much this, or Team Yankee.
Fulda Gap was always a pinning attack, it's too narrow to make a breakthrough. The real advance would happen on the North German Plain defended by Northag.
The 'classic' plan, like the 7 Days to the River Rhine from the late 70s, was an all out attack along the entire line, and it includes landing operations by the Baltic fleet against Denmark and a push by the Southern Group fron HUngary into Austria and Yugoslavia.
The main thrust in Germany is set north of the Harz hills in the North German plains and basicaly aism to reach the River Rhine in the NEtherlands ASAP, and then push south from there while the forces from Austria puish up along teh Danube.
Germany was supposed to be occupied by Day 3, the Netherlands and Denmark by Day 6.
They expected the thrust into the Fulda Gap to get stuck for at least the first few days, which is why tehy planned to strategically outflank this position.
The thrust southwards through Yugoslavia was suposed to basically reach the Po plains in Italy.
It's literally the worst kind of Deep Operation fantasy you can imagine, and it completely ignores that the plan would result in a tactical nuclear response from NATO forces within 48 hours, and a strategic rsponse by French forces within roughly 4 to 5 days.
At that point a further escalation is practically guaranteed.
Pic related, the northern prong.
Here's a fake version, teh huge central attack is overly optimistic because terrain there is really not great for rapid tank advances.
>Attack Austria
>Attack Yugoslavia
holy fuck the soviets where retarded, what a great thing to take it from a struggle of Capitalism Vs Communism and turn it into "Warmongering USSR, must be stopped" by literally everyone.
They maintained their Southern Group of Forces in Hungary to do exactly that.
The plan was to take the lowland ares of Austria, then push along the Danube to put more pressure on the Americans in southern Germany, and push through Slovenia into northern Italy to threaten the industrial areas there.
I mean, what can go wrong, pushing through 'we invented fucking partisan warfare' Yugoslavia and past 'we will sit in our mountians and harass you until you nuke us or go away' Austria, surely our lines of communication will be secure ;^)
While at the same time the NATO plan was to blow every bridge and crossraods in Germany, and bomb every bridge west of the Vistula river.
Reminds me of the Kyiv offensive with all the lines and triangles.
did they know that Austria made the Alpenfestung real and covered the country with hundrets of modern maginot line style hidden fortresses to bind such pushes as long as possible?
>Would the Soviet Union invading the Fulda Gap
wasn't the fulda gap a lie and the soviets were going to rush in someplace else?
>Would the Soviet Union invading the Fulda Gap have done substantially better than Russia in Ukraine?
No, in many ways it would have been even more challenging. The terrain isn't conductive to a mass armor assault, there were plenty of places for saboteurs, partisans, et al. to hide, and that area was defended by the best US divisions in the world. That's before we even start talking about nukes.
The Fulda Gap is not the main Soviet vector of attack. I'm not joking when I say that the attack there would unironically be the feint or diversionary attack. The main effort would almost certainly be against the relatively weak Belgian Corps and the BAOR, as the most important strategic targets were along the North German Plain and the coast.
What everyone's already figured is that the meme "7 days" plan is a fucking fantasy in a typical war scenario. Especially as the years got into the 80's, the only way the Soviets could achieve that would be complete and total surprise against NATO, or the "bolt from the blue" attack. Which itself would have resulted in a nuclear response.
>Would the Soviet Union invading the Fulda Gap have done substantially better than Russia in Ukraine? Take your pick of year.
Maybe if they attacked during the Vietnam War period like at the height of our operations there.
But so many eyes where watching the Soviets anything but a bolt-from-the-blue style attack would have been telegraphed and prepared for.
(even large drills with diplomatic warnings led to increased tension)
I'd assume the USSR would at least have a plan beyond 'they'll just surrender' and it would be an actual war, not a very special operation so they wouldn't essentially invade in their peacetime configuration.
So barring nukes, I'd give that scenario a higher success chance than this current mess
Yes, because the soviet union was a collection of multiple states. Russia does not have the industrial and military might that the Soviet union had. Russia only inherited the nukes and political power of the Soviet union, anything else was scattered in other post soviet blocs. Unironically enough, Ukraine was the Soviets brain child when it comes to their MIC.
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb285/ZB-79.pdf
This should be required reading for these threads. Most of the NATO and PACT plans for winning world war 3 were fiction designed to impress politicians who had no understanding of how difficult or destructive such a conflict would be. The war would’ve devolved into a shitshow quickly. Make of that what you will OP.
We didn't have precision weapons back then like we do now so the kinds of tactics the Ukies used wouldn't work. It would be a far more symmetrical fight, and the Russians would have a lot more fighters...
Many wonder about how the tank and air battles over Central and Western Europe would go but I've always wondered what would be going down in the North Atlantic/Norwegian Sea. Thousands of submariners would be suffering horrible deaths, US carriers could be sunk by lone Soviet subs, nuclear depth charges being detonated. All sorts of shit. It would be the most epic naval campaign in all of history.
sorry guys im drunk and ive been playing a fuck ton of Cold Waters
>US carriers could be sunk by lone Soviet subs
lol, soviet subs were massive loud trash
yeah you right. wtf was i thinking saying that.
Pretty much anything would be substantially better than Ukraine, but it still would have been a complete disaster. The Russians are good at posturing and bullying their neighbors with implied threats, and they should stick to that instead of getting into slugging matches to relive the glory days of the Great Patriotic War.
Good day Sirs!
It's time for your lunch break, ok very good now.
I'm pretty sure the Soviet Union circa WW2 could fight off an invasion of modern day russia.