[Webstral]

In fairness, the difficulties of trans-Atlantic or cross-Channel movement were not new to NATO. The Soviets would have needed massive advantages in numbers because in an invasion of the FRG they would have been attacking a force using tanks with superior gunnery ranges and a superior ability to depress the guns. Keeping massive numbers of AFV moving forward requires massive amounts of fuel. Interdiction be damned--the roads can only take so much traffic before breaking up. Mines (including FASCAM), EW, and chemicals all conspire to slow the tempo on the battlefield and generally work against the attacker more than they work against the defender. While I may have chastened ShadoWarrior about assuming anything about the Apache on every battlefield, in the FRG the Apache would have had happy hunting. Tanks can't stay hidden in the trees forever.

I agree that the beating Iraq took does not mean we'd have handled the Pact the same way. However, given that the Pact would have been on the offensive, the burden of coming out into the open would have been on them. The Soviets might have been able to develop local superiorities of 15-to-1 here and there, but there are drawbacks to this. I'll go back to FASCAM and the nature of the terrain in southern Germany as an indicator. Large numbers of AFV bunched up behind engineers trying to clear lanes through fields of FASCAM would have been superb targets for ICM and attack aircraft.

Anyway, I think the efficacy of Western systems rather took us by surprise. Granted, the mass of Iraqi units suffered from low morale. However, I wonder if the average Soviet, Polish, and Czech draftees would have any particular enthusiasm for an offensive war in the FRG.