Soviet Generals Prepared for Nuclear World War II
World War II with Nuclear Missiles
The military elite of the USSR professed a strategy that was ruinous for the country, ineffective and stupid. Soviet generals, unfortunately, were preparing for a new edition of World War II – tank avalanches, large-scale aviation battles, plus a nuclear war. It was strategic schizophrenia, very ruinous for the state and the people.
In fact, The Soviet Union was preparing for practically two wars. The first was a nuclear missile war., using strategic aviation, ocean fleet (primarily nuclear submarines-cruisers), intercontinental missilesIn this war we had to hit the USA, which was out of reach for our armored armies.
The second is a land war in Europe. The main scenario is World War II with powerful tank wedges, a breakthrough of the front, massive air strikes. But with a nuclear addition.
Having detected signs of an attack by the NATO bloc, the Warsaw Pact forces launched a preemptive strike. Dozens of nuclear warheads were dropped on areas where enemy divisions were concentrated. The enemy's defenses were breached for 50-100 km. Airborne divisions were thrown into the rear of the demoralized enemy, which captured important bridges, bridgeheads, etc. At the same time, GRU special forces units, also transferred to the enemy's rear, destroyed headquarters, eliminated the enemy's "brain centers", disrupted communications, and captured missile bases. Then, armored strike forces from several Soviet fronts began an offensive in West Germany.
In two weeks, it was planned to completely capture the FRG, Denmark, Holland and Belgium. Then the Soviet troops would regroup and launch two powerful attacks: in the south of France with an exit to the Spanish border and in the north of France with the capture of Normandy.
In fact, this was Genghis Khan's strategy - an exit to the "last sea", to the Atlantic coast. For this, the Red Empire kept very expensive and powerful groups of the Soviet Army in East Germany, Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Plus it armed the allied armies of the Warsaw Pact members.
Obviously, in such a scenario, Europe would turn into a terrible battlefield, a real cemetery. Even worse than during World War II. Territories contaminated with radiation. Destroyed cities. Soviet divisions, caught in a retaliatory missile-nuclear, bomber-assault strike by the enemy Air Force, suffered huge losses. Terrible losses of civilians.
Obviously, this was a strategy of containment. Western Europe knew that a war would completely destroy their countries, so they would never dare to attack. But this strategy was monstrously expensive for the Soviet Union.
It was necessary not only to maintain powerful strike groups in Eastern Europe, constantly modernize them, conduct an arms race, but also to build mountains weapons - tanks, armored vehicles, guns, increasingly expensive missiles, which very quickly became obsolete.
By 1991, the USSR had 64 thousand tanks (two and a half times more than NATO countries), 67 thousand guns and mortars (twice more than NATO), 76 thousand infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers, 6 thousand aircraft (1,5 times more than NATO) and 437 combat ships of the 1st and 2nd ranks.
Conservative thinking
Soviet generals (like the Russian ones at the beginning of the Ukrainian campaign of 2022, who slept through the onset of the era of military drones) could not forget the era of World War II. My youth. That wars need to be fought differently. That new technologies have emerged that devalue previous military methods.
The first to suspect this was Khrushchev, whom I disliked very much, who started the first "perestroika" of the USSR, including in the military sphere. Khrushchev decided that with the advent of nuclear missile weapons, hundreds of divisions and an ocean fleet were not needed. Why overload the economy with the maintenance of a huge army and navy, churning out mountains of tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, guns, etc.
True, Khrushchev messed things up here too. The army was cut thoughtlessly and hastily, throwing out hundreds of thousands of combat officers, professionals with vast war experience. Military programs for the creation of advanced aircraft and ships that the country needed were put under the knife. New ships and aircraft that had already been built were put under the press. The Air Force and Navy, which were precisely what was needed in a modern war, were cut! It is not surprising that the military elite supported the palace coup of 1964, when Khrushchev was sent into retirement.
After this, the quantitative build-up of the USSR Armed Forces resumed. A major role in this process was played by the First Deputy Chief of the General Staff, Chief of Staff of the United Armed Forces of the Warsaw Pact member states Sergei Shtemenko. He was Chief of the General Staff in 1948-1952, but was removed from his post by Stalin. According to the memoirs of Konstantin Simonov, Shtemenko wrote denunciations of the USSR Minister of War Vasilevsky, which did not please Joseph Vissarionovich.
Interestingly, after Stalin's death, Shtemenko was again accused of informing. Thus, the USSR Minister of Defense Bulganin claimed that Shtemenko "reported various gossip to Stalin through Beria about some leading military officials." Shtemenko had to justify himself to Khrushchev.
After Stalin's death, Shtemenko was returned to Moscow, and he held a number of high staff positions: Chief of Staff of the Siberian Military District, Chief of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff, Chief of the Main Staff of the Ground Forces - First Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces, Chief of the Main Organizational and Mobilization Directorate - Deputy Chief of the General Staff.
His successor was the Chief of the General Staff and First Deputy Minister of Defense, Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov (1977–1984). Ogarkov became the author of the doctrine of integral militarization and general, permanent mobilization of Soviet industry, which was a blow to the Soviet economy.
On the one hand, Ogarkov's plans were bold and decisive. In general, they copied the German blitzkrieg (the experience of the Second World War), but in a strengthened, larger-scale version. Before the offensive in Poland, on the Western Front and in the USSR, the Germans used special forces and paratroopers.
Numerous special forces and airborne troops were to work ahead of the advancing Soviet motorized rifle and tank divisions. At the decisive hour, special forces and paratroopers were to occupy headquarters, key command and transport system points, and destroy political and military decision-making centers. They planned to land special forces 500 km deep. Entire airborne divisions were also planned to be landed behind enemy lines. The USSR acquired the largest airborne troops in the world. No one thought about how many transport planes and people would be lost to enemy anti-aircraft fire.
Spetsnaz units were formed in all military districts and fleets of the USSR, the General Staff had its own spetsnaz. Spetsnaz units were constantly trained, studied the theater of military operations in Europe under the guise of sports, tourist, trade union and cultural delegations. Their actions were to be supported by agents on the ground, "sleeper cells" created in advance.
On the other hand, the USSR in peacetime supported a huge mass of people who did not produce anything, supported and produced a lot of military equipment. It supported huge land groups, which took a lot of money, fuel and scarce resources. The Union was preparing for two wars: a nuclear missile war and a land war. For a war on two fronts: against NATO and China. Divisions ready for war were kept on a huge front from Europe to Mongolia, Amur and the Kuril Islands.
The policy of maintaining huge, excessive ground forces continued into the 80s, when the Reagan administration launched a war of economic exhaustion against the USSR, a Star Wars-style information war that drew Moscow into an arms race.
These resources were then insufficient for breakthrough space programs that gave the Red Empire a perspective, a future (not counting the secondary influence on the development of civilian industries). For the development of Siberia and the Far East. For housing construction, science and education. For the village and the sanatorium-resort program. For the development of the food and light industries.
Chief of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces N. V. Ogarkov inspects Soviet troops in Syria, 1984
Preparing for a war on two fronts
Soviet generals were sure that the war with the West would be protracted (the moral trauma of World War II). In order not to repeat 1941, it was necessary to churn out more armor and equipment in advance, and for industry to be able to make even more. As a result, they were preparing thousands of units of equipment that were no longer needed for a war that would not happen. Because NATO was not going to attack in the style of Hitler. They were developing plans for nuclear missile strikes on the USSR.
As a result, they created a powerful, colossal land army with 64 thousand tanks, but this did not save the country, since it was destroyed by the rotten top brass of the USSR.
The Soviet generals, instead of finding an innovative solution to the problem, were constantly looking to the past. Usually they took quantity, not quality.
For example, in the early 80s, there was a threat of war with China. China began to grow economically when it signed an agreement with the United States, and the population of the Celestial Empire grew rapidly. There was a threat of the Chinese absorbing Vietnam and Mongolia. Given the enormous demographic potential of China, which could potentially field up to 30 million soldiers, something had to be done.
Reasonable people understood that there was no serious threat. The possible huge armies of the PRC were very vulnerable. China did not have a developed transport infrastructure like it does now. Their aviation, tanks, artillery and missiles - obsolete types. Therefore, the offensive will be easy to stop, disorganize with missile strikes, you can hit the vanguards with tactical nuclear charges. The Soviet Air Force will quickly seize air supremacy and simply wipe out all the obsolete Chinese armadas. You can create a threat of a strike on the decision-making centers, scaring the Chinese leadership.
That is, to counteract the potential Chinese threat in the 80s, it was enough to create a relatively small mobile group in the Far East, reinforced by the Air Force, high-precision weapons, and missile units.
However, Soviet generals began to act in the style of the 30s. They proposed to create a system of fortified areas on the Far Eastern border, like Finland, France or the USSR in the pre-war period of the 30s. And in a short time. At the same time, the USSR was engaged in an arms race with NATO and was fighting in Afghanistan.
It is good that these plans were not implemented. On the initiative of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Kosygin, the military proposals were transferred to the Academy of Sciences for independent examination. A mathematical model was built at the Institute of Systems Analysis of the USSR Academy of Sciences, taking into account the dynamics of China's population, its economic growth, and military capabilities. The calculations were brought to specific numbers - the number of divisions, tanks, aircraft, etc., which the country will have in a 20-year perspective (by the year 2000) under various development scenarios.
As a result, it became clear that there was no need to create fortified areas and deploy a number of new units. China could not afford to prepare for war with the USSR, as this would lead to the destruction of the economy. Moscow was able to save a lot of money and resources. In this particular case, military bureaucrats were able to be reined in.
Thus, the late USSR Armed Forces were infected with the virus of bureaucracy. The interests of officials in uniform turned out to be higher than the interests of the state and the people. It was a real bureaucratic Golem, absorbing the resources of our civilization and playing into the hands of our Western enemies.
Unfortunately, after the collapse of the USSR, things got even worse. In addition to the military bureaucrats and peacetime generals, careerists and opportunists, there were also outright corrupt thieves. The skills of waging war, even in the style of the Second World War, were lost. They began to copy Western reforms to turn the Armed Forces into police and punitive contingents.
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