[mpipes]

Does Beta even mention Asia or the Persian Gulf?

Its supposed to be WORLD WAR 3; not the Napoleonic Wars round 2 in 2000 with those upstart Americans meddling after all.

As for the Soviet Navy, and please correct me if I am wrong, their doctrinal take was sea denial for 60 days. Their goal was to battle NATO for 60 days stimming the sea bridge. Once 60 days were up, they were strictly defensive with whatever tidbits of a navy the had left used purely as a defensive force for the SLBMs. No chasing after convoys or US battlegroups; strictly defense for the SLBMs with whatever was left.

If I am right about that, then I am with Olefin and the Soviets really knew that if they did not win within 30 days, it was not going to be pretty.

As I have said in other post, the Soviets knew their logistic and force limitations. They knew that a slugfest going on for a year or more against a united NATO was a disaster for them. I think GDW designers knew it as well, hence a timeline where war rages on multiple fronts and each side could survive the best "punches" of the other because NATO was splintered, the Soviets had ally issues, and the forces were so stretched.

Thus, the nukes start flying when NATO breaches "Mother Russia," as most military thinking believes the Russian's would. They have no intentions of the carnage of WWII repeating itself, and frankly, I have to agree with their beliefs and doctrine on that central, guiding principle that affects every level of their governmental and military doctrines.

A straight up united NATO v. USSR all alone war would end within 30 to 60 days or go nuclear, which - drum role please - probably ain't happening over an upstart Poland and a scrappy Sweden. Everyone is going to call game over, and go back to their original lines.

So again, how can Russia stop the reinforcements? Again, I sincerely think Russia knew they could only reliably disrupt reinforcements for 60 days. After that, the North Atlantic is a NATO lake, just as we knew the Baltic and the Black Sea were Russian lakes (ok, maybe not the Baltic, there it would be a near equal contest).