Soviet war plans vs. NATO 1956 - 1989. Anybody knows?

[Alp Guard]

I would be interested in the strategic plans by Soviet military leaders for an attack on Western Europe during the "cold war" period. Are they published or still secret? Is there am member of this forum to come up with maps or detailed plans? How did the Soviets analyse the strong and weak points of NATO strategy?

Sorry, if this has been discussed already.

[G. Trifkovic]

I'm interested as well:Any clues?

Cheers,

Gaius

[Acolyte]

Try using Google:
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/php/collections/ ... erview.htm
http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/WarPact.html
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... n-4102.htm
http://3ad.com/history/cold.war/article ... enario.htm
http://koz.vianet.ca/anup4f.htm
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/php/documents/co ... 1-engl.htm

Regards,

Acolyte

[PapageiStaffel]

Hi,

The Czechs have released in 2000 an invasion plan of the Czechoslovakia Popular Army made in 1964. The Czechs mission was to flank the 1st Western Front of the russian army. After several nuclear strikes, the czech divisions had to attack through the VII US Corps ( 7th Army), the german II.Armee.Korps and the french 1st Army.
Plan : about 10 days from the czech border to Lyon in France passing by the Bavaria, Bade Wurtemberg, Alsace and Burgundy.
Plan n°008074/ZD-OS64 dated of the 11th october 1964 made by the general Vostera.
Signed and approved by the president Antonin Novotny, the defense minister Bohumir ( wasn't the guy wanted to steal the ring from Frodo) Lomsky, general Rytir chief of staff of the Czechoslovakia popular army and the general Vitanovsky chief of the "operations" departement.
Info from the magazine "Batailles & Blindés" issue n°8 april/may 2005

So long.

[Acolyte]

According to this plan a Czechoslovak army was to crush 12 attacking NATO divisions - Warsaw Pact plans always assumed the imperialist NATO will attack first -, counterattack, storm through Bavaria and capture Lyon :roll:

[Musashi]

I would be interested in the strategic plans by Soviet military leaders for an attack on Western Europe during the "cold war" period. Are they published or still secret? Is there am member of this forum to come up with maps or detailed plans? How did the Soviets analyse the strong and weak points of NATO strategy?

Sorry, if this has been discussed already.

You helped me a today, so I feel to be obliged to help you in spite of that I am very busy.
This site will be an interesting lecture (a real gold mine) for you.




I found an article about plans of invasion of Denmark by the Polish Army [what a misunderstanding as we had never been in state of war with Denmark before, but we there were Soviet plans ].

A Landing Operation in Denmark
The Polish Military's Losses in the First Phase of a Warsaw Pact Offensive Were to Reach 50 Percent
by Paweł Piotrowski
first published in Wprost [Warsaw], no. 25, 23 June 2002, p. 82-84.

The idea of creating a new front within the Warsaw Pact in the northern segment of the western theater of war was born after the October 1956 watershed, when Poles replaced Soviet officers in the leadership positions of the General Staff of the Polish People's Army. To Gomułka's team, the creation of a national front manifested the sovereignty of the People's Republic. But Moscow viewed Poland's aspirations with distrust. Even though the Politbureau had approved the decision in 1958, it was not until 1961 that the Kremlin agreed to this form of involvement in the Warsaw Pact for Poland.

A Polish delegation went to Moscow then to collect a handwritten directive from the USSR's minister of national defense, Rodion Malinovsky, which spelled out the Polish Front's mandate. On the basis of this directive, the Poles drew up a front operational plan for their People's Army. The Soviet side charted the operational direction of the front and its basic parameters.

The Rhine
According to the Polish Front's operational plan, codeword OP-61, the First and Second Armies formed by the Pomeranian and Silesian Military Districts were to attack first. It was assumed that the attacking NATO forces (it was always the imperialists who started wars) would be stopped by Soviet units stationed in the GDR. At the same time, units of the Polish Front would reach their areas of concentration in northern Poland and the GDR, where a developed military infrastructure and ammunition, fuel, and equipment warehouses were located. The Polish attack would head from western Mecklenburg toward Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein. In two or three days, the attacking armies would break up NATO's Jutland Military Corps, reach the Elbe and the Danish-German border.

In the second phase of the offensive, the Polish Front troops would cross the Elbe and reach the Rhine and Moselle Rivers across the plains of Lower Saxony and Holland. The General Staff's planning did not go beyond this line, since the front's subsequent goals would be set by the Warsaw Pact leadership. The Fourth Army deployed by the Warsaw Military District had a different mission. In peacetime, its units were heavily reduced (below 30 percent of the strength planned for the eventuality of war). Their equipment also differed significantly from that of the Pomeranian and Silesian Districts. Compensating for this disadvantage would be nuclear strikes accompanied by concentrated acts of sabotage and propaganda. The Fourth Army's mission was to mobilize quickly, deploy its troops over a distance of more than 1,000 kilometers (from northern Mazovia and Warmia to Hamburg), make the transition "from marching" to fighting and controlling the Jutland Peninsula, the Danish isles, and then occupy Denmark.

The Danish Straits
The Navy was to support the northern wing of the front attacking along the coast. The first exercises of this "teamwork between naval and land forces" were conducted in 1954. At that time, the naval forces were stronger than what was planned for mobilization. This changed in subsequent years, as less investment was made in the navy than in the other armed forces. After the Warsaw Pact was founded in 1955, cooperation was built up with the USSR's Baltic Fleet and the GDR navy. From the early 1960s on, these forces together formed the United Fleet. Its main goals were to dominate the Baltic Sea, cooperate on a landing operation on the Danish isles, and secure free access to the North Sea.

A landing on the Danish coast was prominent in plans being made in 1961-63. Selected for this mission were the Seventh Landing Division ("blue berets") and the Sixth Air-Landing Division ("red berets"). These units were being prepared for an air-sea operational landing on the Danish isles located between Great Belt and Øresund (including Zealand). The Polish divisions would be backed up by the Baltic Fleet, Soviet air-landing and marine units, and a landing regiment of the National People's Army of the GDR.

In 1962-73, Polish shipyards constructed 23 ships intended for the Second Brigade of Landing Ships stationed in Świnoujście. Plans were also made to buttress the landing forces with ships mobilized from the civilian fleet. After gaining control of Zealand, the landing forces could be used to launch an attack on southern Norway, around Oslo.

The Nuclear Sword
From the 1960s, the leadership of the Warsaw Pact attached great importance to equipping its armies with missiles, considered the best carriers of nuclear warheads. In 1961-68, the Polish army formed four artillery brigades equipped with operational-tactical rockets and fourteen artillery units armed with tactical missiles. In virtually every exercise, the concentrated use of nuclear weapons presaged success. In an offensive operation, the exercises assumed the use of nuclear strikes of various magnitudes (on the territory of the FRG alone, there were to be some 100 of them). Every attacking unit would use 30-40 operational-tactical missiles (with a 300 km range), 50-60 tactical missiles (with a range of up to 65 km), and conduct 6-15 nuclear bombardments.

If the enemy used nuclear weapons, the operational plans expected major losses. Estimates made in the early 1970s projected operational troop losses of 48-53 percent in the first front operation.

Plans for the Polish Front continued to be perfected until the end of the Warsaw Pact. It is fortunate that we managed to avoid seeing our troops march in the streets of Copenhagen or Hamburg, transformed into a radioactive desert. At the same time, the streets of Warsaw, Cracow, and other Polish cities would have looked similar.

A Polish Nuclear Attack
"It is desirable to consider (...) nuclear attacks on such centers as Hannover or Brunswick, Kiel and Bremen. The destruction of these cities will likely cause a complete disorganization of political life, the economy, etc. It will significantly influence the creation of panic in areas of nuclear strikes. The exploitation of the effects of strikes by our propaganda may contribute to the spread of panic among enemy armies and populations (...). In order to exclude Denmark from the war as quickly as possible, nuclear strikes should be launched at Esbjerg (an important strategic point in the NATO system) and Roskilde (Zealand Island), and subsequently a widespread special propaganda action aimed at deepening the existing panic should be conducted to warn Denmark's troops and civilian population of the consequences of further resistance and the threat that, in the event of continuation of the war, further atomic strikes will occur."
(Excerpt from a presentation by the commander of the Polish Front, General Zygmunt Duszyński, in 1961)

Paweł Piotrowski works as a historian in the Wrocław division of the Institute of National Remembrance, specializing in the military affairs of the Polish People's Republic.



Mit freundlichen Grüßen,
Krzysiek

[Acolyte]

Armoured attack through the Alps?!

I've also read that the Hungarian People's Army was to nuke Austrian and Northern Italian cities and THEN capture them :roll:

[Eugene (J. Baker)]

Armoured attack through the Alps?!

I've also read that the Hungarian People's Army was to nuke Austrian and Northern Italian cities and THEN capture them :roll:

at least its better than capture and THEN nuke

[Alp Guard]

Thank you, Musahi and all the others. These are the plans I wished to see!

[Acolyte]

Another mistery...Austria, Germany, the Benelux states and France face an all-out attack, but NATO member Italy is spared? As far as I know, the Hungarian army, which was probably the worst in the Warsaw Pact besides the Bulgarian, was meant to occupy Northern Italy according to the same plans.

As far as I know, the Soviet Navy was to enforce a naval blockade of all EU states in case of war. The eurocrats were aware of that. This may explain the massive farm subsidies in the EU - enormous amounts of food needed to be stored in case the Soviets attack.

[Lupo Solitario]

Another mistery...Austria, Germany, the Benelux states and France face an all-out attack, but NATO member Italy is spared? As far as I know, the Hungarian army, which was probably the worst in the Warsaw Pact besides the Bulgarian, was meant to occupy Northern Italy according to the same plans.

As far as I know, the Soviet Navy was to enforce a naval blockade of all EU states in case of war. The eurocrats were aware of that. This may explain the massive farm subsidies in the EU - enormous amounts of food needed to be stored in case the Soviets attack.

that's a trouble for me, too. I'm looking for cold war plans involving Italy but it's a terrible research. If you have any info about it...

The only point that I found is that WP plans for italy seem involve passing thru Austria and not Yugoslavia, as (officially) Italian Army thought during Cold War...

thanks for all

[Acolyte]

that's a trouble for me, too. I'm looking for cold war plans involving Italy but it's a terrible research. If you have any info about it...

The only point that I found is that WP plans for italy seem involve passing thru Austria and not Yugoslavia, as (officially) Italian Army thought during Cold War...

thanks for all

I don't recall seeing much info on that, and it's not online. As far as I know, the Hungarians were to capture some important Northern Italian towns after occupying Slovenian territory.

[G. Trifkovic]

As far as I know, the Hungarians were to capture some important Northern Italian towns after occupying Slovenian territory.

Hmmm....I doubt they would attack SFRY (it was a tricky case)-any mention of Yugoslavia in various attack-plans?

Cheers,

[Lupo Solitario]

that's a trouble for me, too. I'm looking for cold war plans involving Italy but it's a terrible research. If you have any info about it...

The only point that I found is that WP plans for italy seem involve passing thru Austria and not Yugoslavia, as (officially) Italian Army thought during Cold War...

thanks for all

I don't recall seeing much info on that, and it's not online. As far as I know, the Hungarians were to capture some important Northern Italian towns after occupying Slovenian territory.

So confirm that war plans against italy supposed the occupation of Yugoslavia before...as italian army supposed, interesting!

Anyway I give some data from italian viewpoint. The italian army in cold war waited for a WP invasion alternatively thru Austria or Yugoslavia (the so-called Slovenian corridor) but the main war hypothesis was for an invasion thru Yugoslavia. ANother point was which would have been the yugo attitude. I remember an article on italian military review at mid-80s which counted yugo army as added to WP forces.
It's also true that italian army had as additional mission (always officially negated) the possibility of an italo-yugo border clash, overall for the 1953-75 period. Many assets of italian army are very strange in a general clash hypothesis but totally comprehensible in an only italo-yugo confrontation. Taking the "via-yugo" hypothesis of invasion as the main one was useful also to justify an eventual anti-yugo deployment. On the other side, fact that italy kept alive the largest NATO mountain troops bunch was justified mainly by a "via-Austria" invasion hypothesis.

your opinion?

Lupo

[Acolyte]

The WP was to invade Yugoslavia as well in case of an all-out European war. Yugoslavia was not a Soviet puppet state after all. As a result I doubt they should have been added to WP forces.

Thanks for the info anyway! All in all, the whole WP war plan was pretty bizarre.