Red Army = most effective force !

[Marcello]

"Tell that to British XXX. corps veterans from op Market-Garden"

I am not aware of the specific configuration of that area but from what I have seen of the Netherlands when I was there, I would suspect that going off road may be a somewhat trickier proposition than in the rest of Europe. Plus driving around antitank guns isn't like driving around a blown up culvert.

[PlasmaKrab]

Marcello, I think we can write off the advance planning argument in the Cold-War-Germany scenario, don't you? If we are assuming a fixed NATO forward defence against a Soviet push, then the NATO demolition/obstacle work would have taken place on friendly ground.
Granted, after the attack alert it wouldn't probably have remained friendly for very long, but remember that engineer units on both sides had literally decades to think up and plot contingency plans including what to blow up, where and when. I don't think charges were planted in advance (though the shelf life of modern explosives would certainly have allowed it), but possibly some emplacements had already been drilled and readied.
Come to think of it, and given the defense policy and the political climate in FRG, I wouldn't rule out that some strategic infrastructure was designed with the task of permanently blocking them in mind.

[Marek_Tucan]

It's similar to Czechoslovakia in 1938 - all bridges were prepared for demolition (in sense that there were picked places where to put them to have greatest effect, how large amount to put there and larger bridges got already prepared special "demolition chambers"). During the mobilisation, all that was needed was to proceed along the plans and place explosives where needed.

[Marcello]

I have no doubt about the bridges were set up for quick demolition. That is pretty basic.
What I have reservations about is the other stuff it has been talked about, such as demolishing the off-ramps etc. In South Korea they have massive concrete blocks ready to be dumped on the roads and tricks like that.But it is all prepared in advance and ready to be operated on short notice. Was something like that done in Germany? I might be wrong but not that I am aware of.

[Shan]

I believe there are many myths about the WP that still persist in the West. As Siddhi mentioned, it's important to distinguish between Category A, B and C units - and so on: it would be important to get some knowledge about the Soviet + WP doctrine and organization first - some 'dry' reading unless you're a real freak or you had officer training on that subject anyway, but I really appreciate my old copy of a manual on that subject - quite useful,then you know exactly what+ where TVD West was and so on, and dont have to rely on 3rd-hand sources or the over-rated western intelligence reports from the 80s that still persist on the internet... but such manuals aren't printed any more (I would guess), better get one on the flee market or via e-bay!

[baggypants]

Post deleted by baggypants

[Smersh]

I'm not exactly a expert on NATO tactical or strategic defense strategy, its been a few years since I've red anything about it. But, is what you guys keep talking about, essentially sabatoging and destroying transport and other infrastructure, what NATO defense strategy called for? I find it hard to beleive West Germany would carry out a sort of modern 'scourged earth' plan.

Arming civilians I think would have lead to increased civilian casaulties, by makeing it difficult for soldiers to distinguish combantants from non-combatants. Its not difficult to imagine military age men universally being arressted or targeted.

this again brings up the fact that any probable conflict would be extremely painful and destructive for all sides.

[baggypants]

Post deleted by baggypants

[Listy]

baggypants said:
I don't recall estimates on how many civilians would have been expected to take a weapons handout, it was just one of many planning rumors you heard about back then, but not being armed is no guarentee of survival if you are a civilian in such a situation.

The Soldiers I've seen comment where all very clear on that. The local Germans where ready to have a crack at Ivan, as a large chunk of them had already had one go round with the rooski's the first time round.

[narwan]

baggypants said:
You're correct about West german reservations about a 'scorched earth' trade land for casualties type of defense in depth. They wanted to stop the attack on the border but to do that they were ready to accept making every crossing, canal, river, rail or road for a 20 kilometers strip nothing but rubble.
'Blowdown' would have been the detonation of small (1.5kt-1kt) nuclear warheads in dense forest areas to 'blowdown' the trees and block large areas. The West Germans were against it but the U.S. wouldn't rule it out.

The germans were indeed more than willing to reduce the border area (20 or more kilometres deep) into a wasteland, if need be a nuclear one, to stop or decisively slow a WP advance. It would appear their hesitance to use nukes was more a public mask than reality since they seem to have prepared a fair number of critical points with nuclear demolitions which were to be destroyed upon the beginning of hostilities.

Siddhi:
If you give the WP T80's you should give the dutch Leo 2's. Their appearance in the respective forces is nearly simultaneous (and by the late 80's about half the dutch tank force was Leo 2's). You should also keep in mind that while nearly the entire dutch IFV force was made up YPR-765 PRI's half (or more) of the WP mech units were in BTR's. BTR's are useless against the YPR's, while the YPR has no problem taken out BTR's or BMP's. In the armor vs chain gun equation it also has the edge over the bmp-2. Then there are the vast amount of YPR SP-ATGM's. Those were meant to deal with the tanks you mentioned. In order to do that with little risk, they have the unusual ability of elevating their launch platform up to about 30 feet so they can fire over hill tops, trees, walls and buildings without exposing themselves. Not something you can easily model in the game, but impressive and effective. It's also the dutch who had the fast moblisation scheme, the fastest and most effective of all of NATO. by the middle to late 80's the dutch had one of the most modern and well organised armies of NATO. The only real drawback was the lack of a decent combat helicopter.
And there's off course the US corps destined for the north german plain. Only a single brigade is stationed there in peace time but all equipment for the rest is allready in theatre, only the troops need to be flown in (REFORGER). Again, if the WP had enough time to assemble the large forces needed to take on the dutch and german corps on the north german plain, then Nato would have had time to at least begin with REFORGER...
The north german plain was defended by germans and dutch, not belgians. The belgians are actually further to the south in the much thicker wooded and hilled terrain, which their infantry heavy army is designed to make best use of. Directly south of the dutch and germans is the BAOR whose northern most forces cover the southern edges of the plain.

The north german plain was not a walk over.

And as to the many roads, thats true, once you get some distance away from the border. The whole point is though that there is very little cross border infrastructure (and access roads to the border on both sides) which would have been the bottleneck chocking all WP troops actually crossing into west germany.

Narwan