Russia's conflict with the West will lead to the use of nuclear weapons
In connection with Russia's special operation in Ukraine, Western analysts are increasingly talking about the danger of NATO being drawn into the conflict and even about the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons. Various scenarios are being worked out in the military headquarters.
But a similar option in the confrontation between NATO and the Warsaw Pact Organization (ATS) has already been played out in practice. 45 years ago, in May-June 1977, on the territory of the GDR, Poland and the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus, a major operational-strategic command and staff exercise on the ground with the possible use of nuclear weapons (NW) took place. His results are very instructive today.
The West-77 exercise was led by the USSR Defense Minister Marshal Dmitry Ustinov. The topic of the exercise was designated as follows: "Deployment of armed Forces groups in the western theater of operations, repelling the enemy invasion, putting operational reserves into battle. The development of the offensive in the conditions of the use of nuclear weapons."
With all the spatial scope, it was not huge masses of troops that really moved, but field control points and communication nodes. Combat work was carried out on maps by the commanders and staffs of the Allied armies and fleets of the ATS.
Operational groups of the General Staffs of the Polish Army (VP), the Czechoslovak People's Army (CHNA), the General Staff of the National People's Army (NPA) were involved in the exercise GDR, five front field directorates (formed on the basis of the VP, CHNA, the Group of Soviet Troops in Germany, the Belarusian and Carpathian military districts), the management of three separate armies (from the 3rd district of the NNA of the GDR, the Soviet Northern and Central Groups of troops), the management of the Baltic Fleet with operational groups of the Polish Marynark Military and Volksmarine GDR (part of the so-called United Baltic Fleet).
There are also 15 departments of combined arms, tank and air armies, strategic missile armies and air defense armies. In addition, the civil defense headquarters of the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus took part in the exercises.
DIRECTIONS OF THE MAIN STRIKE
According to the plot of the exercises, the "Western" (implied NATO forces) deployed 85 divisions, 3,700 combat aircraft and more than 450 warships in the Central European Theater of Operations (Theater of Operations) and in the adjacent waters of the Atlantic. 70% of the ground forces and aviation made up the first echelon of the aggressor, concentrated in West Germany and Denmark. It was believed that the enemy could have about 15 thousand tanks in this echelon alone.
The "Eastern", having revealed the preparation of the Western for the attack, began to secretly mobilize their troops, bringing them in terms of forces and means to approximately equal numbers with the aggressor, but having only 40% of the available group in the first echelon. So the "western" got one and a half superiority over the "eastern" in the first echelons as a whole, and in the directions of the main strikes – up to five times. The "Western" planned to seize the GDR and the western regions of Czechoslovakia and Poland in six to seven days, followed by a breakthrough to Brest and Kaliningrad.
The "war" began at 4.00 am on June 3 with a "powerful Western fire strike" on the territories of the GDR and Czechoslovakia. At 4.20, the "Western" invaded these countries, accompanying the offensive with massive raids of tactical and carrier-based aircraft. But the "eastern", despite a number of mistakes made by their staffs, not only stopped the onslaught of the enemy, but after a pause they themselves launched a decisive offensive against Hamburg, Hanover, Frankfurt am Main and Munich, advancing 100-150 km and simultaneously fighting to seize the Baltic Straits. In the Hanoverian direction, it became possible to dissect the forces of the "Western" and proceed to their defeat in parts.
To prevent such an unfavorable development, the command of the "Western" decided to launch a massive nuclear strike on the "eastern" ones. Realizing that the enemy would resort to this means, the "eastern" decided to forestall the enemy and themselves "inflicted" the first nuclear strike on him (it implied the involvement of 9K72 and Luna-M missile systems, Su-7B fighter-bombers of the armies of the GDR, Poland and Czechoslovakia). But, according to the plan of the exercise, this did not lead to the disruption of a nuclear strike by the "Western": they applied it literally in a minute.
680 missile warheads and nuclear bombs were dropped on the troops of the "Eastern" and the United Baltic Fleet, and 400 more were dropped deep into the territory of the GDR and Poland. The calculation and analytical groups found that as a result of the strike of the "western" 31% of the combined arms divisions of the "eastern" were withdrawn from the battle - they completely lost their combat capability, 33% remained limited combat–ready and only 36% retained their combat capability almost completely. 24% of the missile brigades and divisions of the ground forces and up to 70% of the air regiments were destroyed. Huge zones of radioactive contamination, destruction and fires were formed.
The mediators estimated that the "eastern" lost twice as many divisions from nuclear strikes as the enemy, explaining this by the superiority of the "Western" in tactical nuclear means and pointing out the insufficiency of the "eastern" efforts to neutralize them with conventional ammunition before the start of the nuclear phase of the strategic operation.
But the "Western" also got hard from the "eastern" nuclear weapons. They lost 250 thousand servicemen, 23% of tactical aviation, more than a quarter of front-line command posts, more than a third of operational-tactical and tactical missile divisions, a third of anti-aircraft missile divisions.
Despite the severe consequences of the enemy's nuclear strikes, the "easterners", having brought the second echelons into battle, launched an offensive in the directions of Schwerin-Lubeck, the Jutland Peninsula (to seize the Baltic Strait zone), bypassing the Ruhr from the north (with the defeat of the Northern and Central enemy army Groups) and the Bavarian Mainburg, carrying out the forces of one division an airborne operation in Eastern Hesse (near the city of Fulda). At this, on June 8, Marshal Ustinov, considering the goals achieved, gave the participants of the exercise a hang-up.
When summing up the results, the chief of the Soviet General Staff, Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, noted that it "was conducted on a training operational-strategic background, which was based on one of the possible options for joint actions of the armed forces of the ATS participating states to repel aggression in the Western Theater of Operations, and at the same time with a significantly changed real combat composition and initial position parties. This was done deliberately so that commanders and staffs would move away from actions based on real plans and show more creativity and initiative in finding the best ways to solve complex operational tasks."
At the same time, Ogarkov emphasized the high staff culture of the officers of the NNA of the GDR. This is a traditional hobby of German military art.
HOT RESERVE
Speaking about the possibility of using nuclear weapons (seriously, and not in the style of chatter on some TV shows), it is worth remembering another teaching. We are talking about the strategic command and staff exercise "Decisive Blow" held back in 1970 with the participation of the Secretary General of the CPSU Central Committee Leonid Brezhnev, the Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin and the Minister of Defense of the USSR Marshal Andrei Grechko. On it, a preemptive, that is, the first (yes, yes!) full-scale strike of the Soviet strategic forces against the United States was conditionally practiced in response to irrefutable evidence of their preparation for the outbreak of World War III.
At that time, the USSR only had 1,361 intercontinental ballistic missiles as part of a ground-based group (45 times more than in 1962, during the Caribbean crisis). The strategic forces also included nuclear and diesel submarines with ballistic missiles and heavy bombers. Plus medium-range missiles and medium bombers aimed at Western Europe.
The General Staff then estimated that 87% of the US armed Forces and up to 72% of the US industrial potential would be destroyed as a result of the strike, 80-90 million Americans would die (then the US population was 203 million people). However, the price of this would be the transformation of the European part of the USSR into a zone of continuous radioactive contamination with a level of at least 300 X-rays/hour. The United States and the rest of NATO would also not sit idly by, and it's scary to think what would become of Europe in general. This to a large extent prompted the leadership of the USSR to start negotiations with the United States on the reduction of strategic offensive arms.
Nevertheless, the General Staff admitted the possibility of continuing the war even after the exchange of nuclear strikes. Although in the Brezhnev establishment, the highest posts were occupied by people who had passed the fronts of the Great Patriotic War or who led the economy in its conditions. And they understood the futility of hopes for the survival of the USSR (as well as its main enemy) in a global nuclear war.
The Americans also calculated such options and independently came to a similar conclusion. Like, for example, Robert McNamara, who headed the Pentagon in 1961-1968 and was considered a hawk in the Soviet mass media.
But negotiations were negotiations, and military thought was supposed to "spread through the tree" of all possible events in a "special period".
What other consequences of the use of nuclear weapons were discussed? This is evidenced by the modern work "The History of Russia's Military Strategy", prepared by the Institute of Military History of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. In it, in particular, the following forecast is given:
"Both in the theater of operations and in the interior of the country, an extremely difficult situation will arise: huge territories will be devastated, and all major cities will turn into ruins, vast areas, the atmosphere and water spaces will have deadly levels of radiation. And the composition of the Armed Forces will be reduced hundreds of times. But even in such conditions, the possibility of continuing the war was allowed... The purpose of such actions may be to seize the remaining vital areas of the enemy in the theater and force him to surrender."
As for the theaters of military operations, they, from the point of view of the USSR General Staff, were not limited to Europe and Asia. In addition to the western, the Soviet military doctrine identified nine more continental theater–European Northwest and Southwest, as well as Southern, Far Eastern, North American, South American, Australian, African and Antarctic. Plus four oceanic – Arctic, Pacific, Atlantic and Indian. All of them were in one way or another included in the areas of responsibility of the Armed Forces of the USSR and its allies.
The possibility of using Soviet-made military equipment supplied as military aid to third world countries was not excluded. Its capture could have been carried out by the forces of the GRU special forces, Airborne forces and Marines. And the use is carried out in advance by military personnel (including those secretly called up from the reserve during the threatened period). Ships of the merchant and fishing fleets, as well as Aeroflot, could be used for their transfer. It is appropriate to note here that its logos and civil registration numbers were carried by many aircraft of the military transport aviation of the USSR Air Force - for example, the An–22 "Antey" heavy winged trucks, which were not actually listed in Aeroflot.
On the basis of Soviet weapons supplied, say, to Angola, it was quite possible to form three motorized rifle divisions of the Soviet army – after all, this country received at least 700 units of T-34–85, T-54, T-55, T-62 and PT-76 tanks alone. Plus about 1,200 armored combat vehicles (IFVs, APCs, BRDM), a hundred BM-21 jet systems, even more 122-mm howitzers, anti-aircraft barrel and anti-aircraft missile defense systems. Angolan MiG-21, MiG-23 fighters, Su-20 and Su-22 fighter-bombers, Su-25 attack aircraft, Mi-8 and Mi-24 helicopters would be enough for a mixed aviation division of five-six regiments. And from the delivered warships (six missile boats, 205M Ave., five torpedo boats, 206 ave., two raid minesweepers, 1258 ave. and three medium landing ships, 771 ave.), it was possible to form a Luanda separate brigade of ships protecting the water area. The same applies to a number of other African countries that were in the military-technical clientele of the USSR.
Some American experts also did not rule out an apocalyptic turn of events. They even assumed that the West's compulsion to surrender could be ensured by the strategic reserve of the USSR's nuclear forces, which was not involved in the exchange of global strikes in the form of several nuclear submarines with ballistic missiles. Their presence in the "hot reserve" would allow putting pressure on Western leaders during negotiations on the post-war world order.
If necessary, as those experts believed, the Union could release – as a "last chord" – one boat rocket. So that the enemy would have no doubts about the final determination of the Soviets to end capitalism.
Well, then it would be possible to proceed to the realization of the triumph of communism promised by the XXII Congress of the CPSU in the vastness of the globe. Communism is cave-military, since the nuclear winter does not imply any other format of existence. With a harmonious correspondence of abilities and needs – the latter would be reduced to elementary survival.
These lessons should not be forgotten by those military experts and overseas politicians who are eager to play "nuclear war" on TV.
Konstantin Chuprin
Konstantin Nikolaevich Chuprin is a journalist; Oleg Valentinovich Falichev is a military observer.
