Quote:
Originally Posted by Raellus
Web, are you comparing the NATO campaign across Poland to the rapid U.S.-led coalition victories against Iraq in '91 and '03?
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I am thinking about Operation Desert Shield. Obviously, there are staggering differences between the circumstances of Desert Storm and the 1997 NATO offensive in Poland. Nevertheless, I think the comparatively slow pace of the NATO advance deserves some attention. Even vis-a-vis the Anglo-American operation in East Germany, the Poland operation made slow progress. There's more to the story than just logistical problems. The pattern ties into the number of divisions the Soviets husbanded in Belarus while the fighting was raging in Poland. I'm not certain if the GDW authors saw things this way, but I see a clear intent to launch a mobile counteroffensive after the Polish Army and some-second string Soviet formations had bled the NATO invaders white in a mines-and-earthworks defense reminiscent of the Chinese defenses in Manchuria. I think Soviet nuclear use in the West initially was intended as a sort of set-up punch to soften the NATO forces for the main armored blow that would come from the husbanded armored forces in Belarus. The Soviets quickly discovered, though, that the NATO troops adapted the massive defensive belts for their own countermobility purposes. As a result, the counteroffensive that was supposed to carry the Soviets back to the Oder in a trice bogged down. The NATO troops fell back partially because the supply situation once again was intolerable but principally because the use of nukes had caused the civilian leadership in the West to abandon their plan of knocking the USSR out of the war and settle instead for reunifying Germany (and laying waste to Poland). But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Webstral