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Subject: Its 1988 and mechanized warfare in the fulda gap goes nuclear.
MrCarrot    12/16/2008 10:47:35 AM
Hi guys something that has always fascinated me but is largely underepresented in fiction and analysis is the nuclear ORBAT and nature of deployment of the opposing forces. For instance in Red Dawn Rising, or the BBC's WW3 both fun fictional scenarios stop either preventing a nuclear attack or at the start of one. Now this differs slightly from the over analyzed ICBM salvos/first strike etc. scenarious. What happens when 50% of your nuclear armed strike fighter package (F3s, F15s) etc. are engaged in normal warfare scenarios? How quickly could nato and the warsaw pact get birds on the ground re-armed and rolling before ICBMs and SLBMs start raining down? How effective would interception packaged be when a great deal of the numbers are tasked with dealing with anti-CAS operations etc. So in short how damaging would actual open warfare be on the efficiency related units to peform a MAD role? And what would a mid 80s time table actually look like (or is it all just pushing the red button and emergancy action messages go out 30 mins later 25% of everyone is dead)?
 
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JFKY    Keith...   12/18/2008 11:05:25 AM
Yes true to a point...but this is a posting for 1988...not today.  And cluster bombs are no great shakes for hardened a/c shelters...it is Paveways and JDAMS that are the threat...and it still takes several hundred tons of them to temporarily place an field out of action...a few hundred pounds of B-28 could pretty well terminate an air field...nuclear weapons are inherently much more destructive than their conventional counter-parts.
 
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verong       12/18/2008 12:42:00 PM

Yes true to a point...but this is a posting for 1988...not today.  And cluster bombs are no great shakes for hardened a/c shelters...it is Paveways and JDAMS that are the threat...and it still takes several hundred tons of them to temporarily place an field out of action...a few hundred pounds of B-28 could pretty well terminate an air field...nuclear weapons are inherently much more destructive than their conventional counter-parts.


Hey there,
 
There were cluster bombs then. They just were not believed to be so worthy until desert storm. Nukes have many more adverse side effects than cluster bombs ie radiation. where with cluster bombs you can clear the area where they are used and make the place safe for inhabitation with maybe an occasional casualty from a missed bomblet whereas look a cernobol long term casualties in mass due to radiation
 
Sincerely,
 
Keith
 
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JFKY    Keith I   12/18/2008 1:02:54 PM
Dude there have been cluster bombs since the Second World War, the Luftwaffe deployed them.  They were accounted quite useful, having been used in WWII, Korea and Vietnam.
 
But:
1) Cluster munitions do NOT affect HAS' very well or other hardened structures, being more of an annoyance than a real threat; and
2) It takes hundreds of tons of conventional munitions to shut down an air field, or less than 1,000 POUNDs of nuclear weapon.
 
Any way, the POINT of the thread was not that nuclear weapons have many unpleasant radiological and political side effects, but that it makes a great deal of sense for NATO or the WTO, bearing in mind the question is for c. 1988, to focus on nuclear weapons delivery at the expencse of conventional weapons delivery.
 
E.G., it made sense to recall a Tornado, and re-load with a Nuclear payload, rather than allow it to continue its conventional strike operations...the reason why, is obvious..."Nuclear weapons exist and they are incredibly destructive."  (Bernard Brodie).  Because they are TREMENDOUSLY destructive, NATO and the WTO focussed on their use and delivery....it ignores the non-battlefield implications of their use.  That renders the thread relatively useless for a discussion of nuclear weapons in the broadestest sense, but that's not it's point.  It's point was to discuss why nuclear delivery roles had primacy over conventional delivery roles.
 
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JFKY    NGI   12/18/2008 6:19:38 PM
Well at least the good guys win...heck even the French and the Germans fight...sorry couldn't resist that.
 
It's a fun book...Better than Hackett's work, though that's not bad, either.
 
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verong       12/18/2008 10:56:09 PM

Well at least the good guys win...heck even the French and the Germans fight...sorry couldn't resist that.

 

It's a fun book...Better than Hackett's work, though that's not bad, either.



yeah and die from the nukes radiation effects. the point is that nuikes are allmost a last resort to total failure of your military not a single battle at the outset
 
Sincerely,
 
Keith
 
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JFKY    Keith...   12/19/2008 12:55:14 PM
Again this isn't a thread about the viability of nuclear war-fighting strategies.  The guy asked why would NATO or the WTO take weapons off their conventional role?  I explained that...nuclear weapons are very destructive, so destructive as to trump any conventional weapon.  An F-4 with a Shrike, MIGHT take down one radar...an F-4 with a TIGER (A proposed nucler ARM) and a B-28...can take down a whole air defense SYSTEM.  ONE Tornado can destroy an air base...not hundreds of sorties.  Given that disparity in firepower and the need to deter or deliver it, NATO and the WTO would gladly take some dual-capable weapons off-line in order to, as I say, deter their use or to deliver them in the event of catstrophic need.  This is not hard to grasp...it is merely a dfiscussion of a small "why" question...it is NOT a discussion of limited nuclear war v. flexible response or anything like that.
 
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verong       12/19/2008 1:17:24 PM

Again this isn't a thread about the viability of nuclear war-fighting strategies.  The guy asked why would NATO or the WTO take weapons off their conventional role?  I explained that...nuclear weapons are very destructive, so destructive as to trump any conventional weapon.  An F-4 with a Shrike, MIGHT take down one radar...an F-4 with a TIGER (A proposed nucler ARM) and a B-28...can take down a whole air defense SYSTEM.  ONE Tornado can destroy an air base...not hundreds of sorties.  Given that disparity in firepower and the need to deter or deliver it, NATO and the WTO would gladly take some dual-capable weapons off-line in order to, as I say, deter their use or to deliver them in the event of catstrophic need.  This is not hard to grasp...it is merely a dfiscussion of a small "why" question...it is NOT a discussion of limited nuclear war v. flexible response or anything like that.


Hey there,
 
I was in the US Army at the time and stick to what I say. the US Army planned to use nukes up front. I was on a NBC recon team in the 1st CAV aco 13 sig bn and know it was a bad policy, and yes I went to REFORGER 1987, so I know alot about the subject in my various capacities though I was only an PFC at the time! you know how to do homework on a field exercise????
 
Sincerely,
 
Keith
 
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FJV    Errrr   12/19/2008 3:05:16 PM
Maybe a dumb question, but. 
 
How are we gonna supply all those tanks planes and infantry with all the major ports in Europe nuked?
 
 
 

 
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verong       12/19/2008 3:45:50 PM

Maybe a dumb question, but. 

 

How are we gonna supply all those tanks planes and infantry with all the major ports in Europe nuked?

 

 

 




my whole point is that nukes were likely to be used up front. I think a unit in Germany that was sig had a 30 minute life expectancy from the begining of the Warsaw pact move into western Europe. not such a dumb question huh!!!
Sincerely,
 
Keith
 
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JFKY    Keith   12/19/2008 5:05:43 PM
From a NATO point of view nuclear weapons were much more likely to be used in the REAR...WTO airfields and a number of marshaling yards in Poland, plus fuel storage areas and command & control nodes...the goal was to NOT use nuclear weapons on the BRD.
 
And that is a nice story people like to tell, the average life expectancy of the new Lt. is "X" minutes/seconds or the average life expectancy of a major unit is 30 minutes, but really after 1972/75 the life expectancy of a major NATO and after 1968 the life expectancy of a major WTO unit was days or weeks...their "death" was SUPPOSED to be due to conventional attrition.  Neither the WTO or NATO expected an early first use of nuclear weapons in "The Next War in Europe"
 
Again that begs  the question asked..."Why would you pull a Tornado off a conventional strike role?" 
 
NOTE: We weren't going to supply those units in the event of theatre nuclear exchange...after Germany and Poland were irradiated, probably the fighting spreads to France &/or Britain, and a "Theatre strike" on THEM is a STRATEGIC strike and then the Force De Frappe or Poseidon/Trident force attack the USSR...which at that point probably uses many more weapons on France/Britain AND the US, all prompting a more general nuclear exchange.  Which pretty much ends technic civilization in the Northern Hemisphere.  But again, this is a sideline to the original question.
 
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