New Book: "Battlegroup!: The Lessons of the Unfought Battles of the Cold War" (Jim Storr)

[Aragorn2002]

20 minutes ago, Combatintman said:

He doesn't know, as stated in his post earlier in this thread.

 

I see. Sorry about that.

[Jim Storr]

1 hour ago, Aragorn2002 said:

He probably read the Kindle version.

But seriously, sounds like an interesting book, Jim. Will it actually be available on Kindle?

Clearly I didn't write it, so I can't apologize for any errors or typos.  I simply cut and pasted it, so I presume any such errors are in the original.  You may want to check the Wavell Room website.   

Jim Storr 

[Aragorn2002]

34 minutes ago, Jim Storr said:

Clearly I didn't write it, so I can't apologize for any errors or typos.  I simply cut and pasted it, so I presume any such errors are in the original.  You may want to check the Wavell Room website.   

Jim Storr 

No, didn't assume it was your error, Jim. 

Sounds like a very interesting book. Especially given the fact that CM finally has 'done' the cold war.

Did NATO in your opinion have a fair chance to stop the Soviets in a conventional war? Personally I don't believe that. Not without nukes. 

 

Edited January 13, 2022 by Aragorn2002

[Jim Storr]

Thank you.  

I think you'd be surprised by my analysis.  We now know the force balance in excruciating detail.  It was nowhere near as unfavourable as we believed.  To that, add that the Soviets were probably preparing for a war, but not preparing to go to war (that is, they weren't intending to start one.)  This next bit isn't in my book (I only found out after it went to the printers):  conversations with Soviet generals immediately after the end of the Cold War suggested that they had discounted the nuclear option because the Soviet population would literally be eating the consequences two weeks later.  That is, the entire food supply of the USSR would be contaminated with nuclear fallout, due to the prevailing winds. 

So: 

1.  The Soviet Army could not achieve the force ratios it thought it needed to succeed.  By default, that means that it thought that we would win a defensive war.  

2.  It didn't actually intend to start a conventional war; and 

3.  It didn't actually intend to start a nuclear war either. 

Given the forces actually available, the standards of training, and the degree of warning actually available, I personally think that NATO would have beaten the forces which the Soviets (and Warsaw Pact) could actually generate in a conventional war.  But I didn't necessarily think that at the time; and now I don't think that a war was likely to break out (in the 1980s at least).  

I hope that helps.  I think the book will largely convince you.  However I urge you to read the book and think about it; that's what it's for.  

Best wishes 

Jim Storr 

[Vergeltungswaffe]

I agree 100% with your assessment and also felt just the opposite back in the day.

[Jim Storr]

Thanks.  To be fair, I was very surprised when I crunched the numbers on forces available.  And although Soviet forces could, at best, do simple things very, very well that may well not have been enough.  But in all this, we shall never know.  In the bottom line, what I just wrote is my opinion based on my reading of the information available.  

Jim

[Combatintman]

4 minutes ago, Jim Storr said:

Thanks.  To be fair, I was very surprised when I crunched the numbers on forces available.  And although Soviet forces could, at best, do simple things very, very well that may well not have been enough.  But in all this, we shall never know.  In the bottom line, what I just wrote is my opinion based on my reading of the information available.  

Jim

Same here about the numbers - 3 Shock Army was certainly not the behemoth in the 1970s that it came closer to being in the 80s and I used to bang on about in threat briefs.  A troops to task analysis for the 70s clearly shows it was hugely under resourced and I doubt it could have achieved the oft quoted 3 to 1 ratio required in the 1(BR) Corps AO or in the 1 (GE) Corps AO for that matter.  Massive surprise when I found that out.

[The_Capt]

41 minutes ago, Jim Storr said:

Given the forces actually available, the standards of training, and the degree of warning actually available, I personally think that NATO would have beaten the forces which the Soviets (and Warsaw Pact) could actually generate in a conventional war.  But I didn't necessarily think that at the time; and now I don't think that a war was likely to break out (in the 1980s at least).

Interestingly this matches what we are seeing in-game.  Although the balance of capability at the tactical level is far closer than we expected, at least in the timeframe of the game (79-82), it is incredibly hard to attack US forces over prepared ground.  As we build NATO force in I do not see this changing.

I agree that a rational war was not likely to break out, but sometimes war is not rational.  I think there was opportunity for human error, misunderstanding and paranoia that would have led down the dark path.   

[Aragorn2002]

1 hour ago, Jim Storr said:

Thank you.  

I think you'd be surprised by my analysis.  We now know the force balance in excruciating detail.  It was nowhere near as unfavourable as we believed.  To that, add that the Soviets were probably preparing for a war, but not preparing to go to war (that is, they weren't intending to start one.)  This next bit isn't in my book (I only found out after it went to the printers):  conversations with Soviet generals immediately after the end of the Cold War suggested that they had discounted the nuclear option because the Soviet population would literally be eating the consequences two weeks later.  That is, the entire food supply of the USSR would be contaminated with nuclear fallout, due to the prevailing winds. 

So: 

1.  The Soviet Army could not achieve the force ratios it thought it needed to succeed.  By default, that means that it thought that we would win a defensive war.  

2.  It didn't actually intend to start a conventional war; and 

3.  It didn't actually intend to start a nuclear war either. 

Given the forces actually available, the standards of training, and the degree of warning actually available, I personally think that NATO would have beaten the forces which the Soviets (and Warsaw Pact) could actually generate in a conventional war.  But I didn't necessarily think that at the time; and now I don't think that a war was likely to break out (in the 1980s at least).  

I hope that helps.  I think the book will largely convince you.  However I urge you to read the book and think about it; that's what it's for.  

Best wishes 

Jim Storr 

Okay, thanks, Jim, I will.

[arkhangelsk2021]

1 hour ago, Jim Storr said:

1.  The Soviet Army could not achieve the force ratios it thought it needed to succeed.  By default, that means that it thought that we would win a defensive war.

Yeah ... that's actually consistent with what I've read once very long back. There was this book that's on the Conventional Forces of Europe treaty and experts from both sides submitted essays. The American one was about how much the Soviets outnumbered them. The Soviet one was basically "No no no, think of your bombers, think of your qualitative advantage. Think of how many old tanks we have, especially in the Warsaw Pact armies. The simulation actually says that if we launched offensives we'll both make it 100 kilometers, give or take, before being stopped." I remember being much more impressed by the nuanced Soviet essay than the American one.

BTW, I did end up reviewing the book I did finish reading:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RYDOBZXA6386B/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B07RSGPHJ5

(don't know why they concluded I live in the US. I don't)

And yes, Middeldorf is available in Russian:

https://www.amazon.com/Russkaya-voennaya-kampaniya-mirovoy-Vpervye/dp/595245321X

Edited January 13, 2022 by arkhangelsk2021

[Megalon Jones]

Since it’s been determined that 8GA couldn’t stack the prerequisite force strength in Fulda to mount a serious offensive,  what would be the possibility of shifting parts of REFORGER  units north from CENTAG into NORTHAG?

I’m enjoying the read so far.

[dbsapp]

2 hours ago, Jim Storr said:

Thank you.  

I think you'd be surprised by my analysis.  We now know the force balance in excruciating detail.  It was nowhere near as unfavourable as we believed.  To that, add that the Soviets were probably preparing for a war, but not preparing to go to war (that is, they weren't intending to start one.)  This next bit isn't in my book (I only found out after it went to the printers):  conversations with Soviet generals immediately after the end of the Cold War suggested that they had discounted the nuclear option because the Soviet population would literally be eating the consequences two weeks later.  That is, the entire food supply of the USSR would be contaminated with nuclear fallout, due to the prevailing winds. 

So: 

1.  The Soviet Army could not achieve the force ratios it thought it needed to succeed.  By default, that means that it thought that we would win a defensive war.  

2.  It didn't actually intend to start a conventional war; and 

3.  It didn't actually intend to start a nuclear war either. 

Given the forces actually available, the standards of training, and the degree of warning actually available, I personally think that NATO would have beaten the forces which the Soviets (and Warsaw Pact) could actually generate in a conventional war.  But I didn't necessarily think that at the time; and now I don't think that a war was likely to break out (in the 1980s at least).  

I hope that helps.  I think the book will largely convince you.  However I urge you to read the book and think about it; that's what it's for.  

Best wishes 

Jim Storr 

That's very consistent with what I said here several times.

Food supplies contamination is an interesting detail.

It's quite obvious that USSR didn't plan war and was hardly capable of winning if it begun due to severe force inbalance and huge Western advantage.

But I was really surprised (not really) how well Western propaganda made people believe that they are threatened by mighty and unstoppable Soviet Union. 

[Aragorn2002]

1 hour ago, dbsapp said:

That's very consistent with what I said here several times.

Food supplies contamination is an interesting detail.

It's quite obvious that USSR didn't plan war and was hardly capable of winning if it begun due to severe force inbalance and huge Western advantage.

But I was really surprised (not really) how well Western propaganda made people believe that they are threatened by mighty and unstoppable Soviet Union. 

Yeah, it was all one big misunderstanding...

Which did cost hundreds of thousands of people their lives, but let's forgive and forget. Fortunately you lot learned from your mistakes...

Edited January 13, 2022 by Aragorn2002

[Combatintman]

38 minutes ago, Megalon Jones said:

Since it’s been determined that 8GA couldn’t stack the prerequisite force strength in Fulda to mount a serious offensive,  what would be the possibility of shifting parts of REFORGER  units north from CENTAG into NORTHAG?

I’m enjoying the read so far.

It is exactly what happened at the back end of the Cold War - every exercise I did between 87 and 89 with the UK's 2nd Infantry Division had III (US) Corps "saving our limey @r$e$".  There's' a paper about Field Marshal Bagnall's  thinking and reforms which led to a rethink of how 1 (BR) Corps would fight its battle and, when he became Commander NORTHAG, enacted similar reforms on a wider scale.  This in turn led to a persuasive argument which would see some REFORGER assets being assigned to NORTHAG rather than CENTAG.

The paper is sat on my hard drive - it is called Deterrence and the defence of Central Europe : the British role from the early 1980s to the end of the Gulf War.  I've attached it below if you can't find it online - a good read once you've finished @Jim Storr's book.

 

Bagnall Analysis.pdf

Edited January 13, 2022 by Combatintman

[Phantom Captain]

5 hours ago, The_Capt said:

 As we build NATO force in I do not see this changing.

 

Can you say more please?  No??  Big tease....

I see what you did there.

[Vergeltungswaffe]

That was a tiny bone, totally denuded of flesh, but it's still exciting.

[Aragorn2002]

8 hours ago, Phantom Captain said:

Can you say more please?  No??  Big tease....

I see what you did there.

Completely missed that one! Thanks for your alertness.

[The_Capt]

13 hours ago, Phantom Captain said:

Can you say more please?  No??  Big tease....

I see what you did there.

Not much more but there will be hints dropped along the way.  I will say that we are not looking at 4 years until the first CMCW DLC, much less than that.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

February allegedly.....I make that eighteen days! 

We iz countin! 

[John Kettler]

Jim Storr,

Haven't read your book, but am impressed with what you've said in this thread in response to issues raised. Would like to point out the Soviets were deadly serious in their war plans vs NATO. As a case in point, a sharp-eyed intelligence analyst was poring over a purloined Red Army combat exercise map and came to a shocking realization. The alleged area and the actual one depicted on the map didn't match. The sanitized map was really for Minden, FRG, and the combat exercise was an attack rehearsal. Read that myself in a SECRET plus intelligence journal during, I believe, the late 70s or early 80s. The analyst's find was both a cause for congratulation for him and dyspepsia for those read in about his deeply disturbing discovery. Other intelligence analysts discovered the Soviets had done meticulous map analysis to find all the terrain from which long range ATGM attacks could be made by ground units or attack helicopters, with pre-planned artillery and MRL concentrations on all of them. 

Other factors to consider include large scale Soviet use of jamming and broadband obscurants (absorbs light, IR and radar) in 1968 to screen the invasion of Czechoslovakia (confirmed by that guy I mentioned who had a CIA sponsor and who had done multiple "favors" for the Agency into denied areas, at least one resulting in a bullet-riddled exfil helicopter), Soviet identification of critical NATO AD facilities, nuclear weapon storage, POMCUS and plans to attack and neutralize same via Spetsnaz and other means, including persistent nerve agents, mask-breaking chemical agents to force unmasking for subsequent attack by nonpersistent agents such as AC (hydrogen cyanide), targeted attacks on NATO aircrews, to include BW sickeners apparently used successfully against nuke sub base at Faslane.

Something generally not mentioned in open source material I've seen is the Air Operation, which may be broadly though of as the aviation equivalent of a huge breakthrough attack on the ground, with the objective of knocking out the SAM defenses not only in the corridor but able to fire into the corridor, smashing the AD C3I,  the airbases, reserves, attacking critical sites and so on in the aerial equivalent of Liddell Hart's expanding torrent concept. The Air Operation was to be an all-out attack on NATO AD, so ruthless that the lead aircraft in were going to be those flown by trainees and specifically intended to draw SAM fire and exhaust NATO SAMs before the real attack arrived. The air operation would've had massive aerial jamming support and certainly would've used broadband obscurants as well. Speaking as someone who did extensive research into rapid runway repair and runway attack, I can tell you that in the lates 70s and early 80s the Soviets had highly effective dibber bombs for blowing up runways and both rockets and guided weapons capable of defeating the TAB V HAS (Hardened Aircraft Shelter) NATO had standardized. Have seen with my own eyes a satellite pic of a gaping hole blown into a full scale Soviet replica of a TAB V HAS by a 240 mm free rocket. Going the other direction, we concluded their HAS (think the ones Saddam Hussein had) was almost completely immune. Our assessment was that the best we could do against a closed shelter has maybe jam the door. By 1990, though, the US had the laser-guided I-2000, which was specifically designed to destroy hardened targets like the Soviet HAS.

Of particular note is that my nightmare scenario for conventional war in Europe was of Soviet gutting of NATO's long range antiarmor attrition strategy via broadband obscurants to eliminate most early kills/disablements, thus preventing crucial attrition of the attacker, leading to the terrifying specter of a close range knife fight by outnumbered NATO forces.

While these things do not, per se, directly affect the land battle, NATO was critically dependent on its air power, on a only a couple of AD C3I sites, on only a few POMCUS sites, and, I believe, one primary nuclear weapon storage facility and so on. IOW, NATO AD was highly brittle, with a linear SAM defense. In the mid 80s, with a colleague I did a SECRET plus threat laydown of every SAM site, C3I site, mobile SAM garrison, air base (including breakdown by number and type) and such for East Germany, and the whole country was one big interlocking SAM envelope, not some Maginot Line affair. And this was without factoring in overlapping coverage from other friendly countries.

Suvorov/Rezun is extremely controversial here, chiefly because of his arguments Stalin planned to attack Germany but was pre-empted by Hitler. What seems to be forgotten is that not only was he a T-55 Tank Company CO, but was also one not just for any Motorized Rifle Company in BTR-60 PBs, but practically the first Soviet unit into Prague in an attack coming out of the Carpathian Military District in which he later served in the GRU. As a Soviet Threat Analyst, I found his works about the Red Army and the GRU of such importance that I kept all of them in my office at work and referred to them frequently. And during my time on the job, I witnessed his to some outrageous claims about the true size of various Soviet mobiles SAMs, the TVDs and Soviet objectives should war break out become part and parcel of not just the Pentagon pubs Soviet Military Power and Russian Military Power but saw them reflected in the SECRET level figures, too. I also saw him successfully and effectively back his claims regarding. the BM-27, Vasilek and Baby Grad, too in an exchange on International Defense Review. there, he not only cited his sources but provided pen and ink sketches!

Regards,

John Kettler



 

[Aragorn2002]

18 minutes ago, John Kettler said:

Would like to point out the Soviets were deadly serious in their war plans vs NATO.
 

i agree. The Cold War wasn't some silly game, but a real threat. It cost billions and billions and many lifes, caused unspeakable misery and damage and the only reason why the Soviets didn't attack was that it would cost them more than they could pay. We in the West should learn more lessons from it, instead of neglecting our military once again and leave the initiative to an evil and merciless enemy, who never brought anything else than bad news.

I can't find the Storr's book for a normal price, but his conclusion that the Red Army never was a realistic threat also doesn't convince me to pay the price asked for it.

[dbsapp]

Would like to point out NATO were deadly serious in their war plans vs Soviet Union. 

The Cold War wasn't some silly game, but a real threat. It cost billions and billions and many lives, caused unspeakable misery and damage and the only reason why the NATO didn't attack was that it would cost them more than they could pay. We in Russia should learn more lessons from it, instead of neglecting our military once again and leave the initiative to an evil and merciless enemy, who never brought anything else than bad news.

[Rinaldi]

"It was such a nice thread" clucked Ethel, 89 "what a shame what happened to it."

[Aragorn2002]

19 minutes ago, Rinaldi said:

"It was such a nice thread" clucked Ethel, 89 "what a shame what happened to it."

Just a minor argument between dbsapp and me. Nothing personal, just living in different worlds. And I made him laugh. That's always good.

So nothing dramatic and no insults that prevent this thread from continuing. 

Edited January 21, 2022 by Aragorn2002

[dbsapp]

"But I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad."
"How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn’t have come here".