Second Battle for Berlin: December 1996

[Graebarde]

Originally Posted by Adm.Lee

Wandering back to Berlin and a possible Soviet assault, there may be forces that we are not accounting for. My best friend back then was stationed in Berlin, and he'd noticed that there were a lot of German police in the city, well-stocked with antitank weapons and organized into platoons and companies. In his opinion, there was at least a shadow battalion of German light infantry to help defend the city.

He altered his copy of SPI's Berlin '85 game to account for these, and it was very much a standoff of the Soviets.

In some playings of either VG's NATO, or GDW's TWW games, I've flown the German parachute brigades into the city to help stall a Soviet or Polish attempt to attack it. Even without those reinforcements, it's generally a 3-week battle of attrition to take West Berlin, and that will shatter a Soviet or Polish army that one needs much more at the front.

It wasn't only in Berlin that the German's had the paramilitary forces. I think you're spot on with the idea the Berlin Police would become light infantry. Berlin would be a hard nut to crack for WP. It would definately eat up resources for the WP unless they just backed off and turned it into rubble with a nuke.

[Raellus]

If the Soviets are adopting a more conservative strategic approach to the fighting in Europe, why would they launch a full scale attack into W. Berlin? Why not just besiege it and pick away at the periphery? The Soviets know how costly urban fighting can be. The first Berlin Blockade didn't work because the U.S. was able to supply it by air. This would not be possible in a T2K WWIII scenario. I would imagine that a decent siege would require fewer forces and result in fewer casualties than a full scale urban assault. Thoughts?

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Originally Posted by Raellus

If the Soviets are adopting a more conservative strategic approach to the fighting in Europe, why would they launch a full scale attack into W. Berlin? Why not just besiege it and pick away at the periphery? The Soviets know how costly urban fighting can be. The first Berlin Blockade didn't work because the U.S. was able to supply it by air. This would not be possible in a T2K WWIII scenario. I would imagine that a decent siege would require fewer forces and result in fewer casualties than a full scale urban assault. Thoughts?

The Soviets are trying to destroy NATO. They've gotten the edge on the Germans at this point and are smashing everything they can.

Frankly I'm surprised there's been no mention of the USSR using non-persistent chemical weapons. Given the number of low and enclosed spaces in a modern city that'll make defending urban areas a LOT less tenable.

[HorseSoldier]

And there's always the specter of political imperatives overriding military strategy for a symbolic objective like Berlin.

[Webstral]

I know it looks like I hijacked the thread about Berlin to talk about the bigger picture. However, I think decisions about Berlin fit into a larger context.

The challenge with predicting how the Soviets react to any stimulus is the fact that very few people make the important decisions. Personality and background become very important. All of the outcomes we have described certainly are possible. I argue for what is likely and supports the existing chronology, but a variety of outcomes at any juncture is possible.

Apart from the fact that the chronology doesn’t support a nuclear action in December 1996, I think there is good reason for the Soviets to hold off on nuclear action. They have a massive conventional military. Although there are some real short term challenges presented by the situation in East Germany, the situation is very far from lost. Even if NATO captures East Germany, the place is so thrashed that it will be a generation before it’s any use to them. In the meantime, there’s Poland. Why else did Stalin capture Poland and install a communist regime except to give the Soviet Union room to fight? Massive treasure and effort have gone into building a conventional military capable of winning an all-out conventional war in the medium term. Why throw all that away for a premature roll of the nuclear dice? Better to use Poland the way Poland was always intended to be used—as a buffer and battlefield—than risk nuclear destruction in Russia before a clear necessity has been demonstrated. It’s never too late to annihilate the world, but it’s possible to move too early.

Berlin is a special case. Urban fighting is consumptive of manpower. As stated, though, Berlin has a political value. I can see the Soviets going either way. The generals would argue that letting mechanized forces become bogged down in street fighting is wasteful. The Party people would argue that taking West Berlin and ruining it in the process will drive home the costs of war to the West regardless of the outcome of the fighting. The Party types would argue that the Westerners need to be shown that the Reds are neither afraid of suffering casualties nor afraid to inflict them as necessary.

The use of chemical weapons is an important issue deserving of discussion. Loss of life is going to be gargantuan. This presents the Soviets with some problems. How can they claim to be defending fellow communists from capitalist aggression while slaughtering East German civilians by the hundred thousand?

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Originally Posted by Webstral

The use of chemical weapons is an important issue deserving of discussion. Loss of life is going to be gargantuan. This presents the Soviets with some problems. How can they claim to be defending fellow communists from capitalist aggression while slaughtering East German civilians by the hundred thousand?

Probably throw out some lie about the civilians in Berlin being effective hostages of the illegal military clique of counterrevolutionary running dog lackey junta puppet regime, or blame the chemical weapons use on NATO outright.

At this point they've bombed entire populations out of existence all through Manchuria, why should they care what the world thinks about a few hundred thousand more dead? Forty-five years prior they killed 30m of their own and the world didn't bat an eye. Blame it on NATO (one way or the other), win, write history any way they want.

[Webstral]

Originally Posted by raketenjagdpanzer

Forty-five years prior they killed 30m of their own and the world didn't bat an eye.

I’m not sure the world knew what was happening inside the borders of the world’s least open society.

Originally Posted by raketenjagdpanzer

At this point they've bombed entire populations out of existence all through Manchuria, why should they care what the world thinks about a few hundred thousand more dead?

As a practical matter, not all dead people are equal. I know it's awful to say, but dead peasants in Manchuria play differently in the West than dead Germans. With the Black Winter behind them, the West Germans have at least a scrap of credibility in the idea that they are liberating fellow Germans who are being held thrall by foreign masters. If the Soviets are ready to go to war with all of NATO, then they don't need to care what the voting population of NATO countries thinks. If they want to limit the conflict, then the answer "F*** you, we'll gas as many people as we damned well please," is of limited utility. The French may not love the Germans, but they don’t want to see millions slaughtered by nerve agents, either. There comes a point where public opinion in the West will swing in favor of what the West Germans are trying to accomplish just because the TV screens have been filled with images of East German children dead from nerve, blood, or blister agent exposure.

The Soviets can’t help but be mindful that Western assistance brought unwelcome results in China from late 1995 onward. I’ve never gotten back to Operations Tchaikovsky I and II, but in a nutshell Western volunteers take to the skies to help defend southern China against the SAF. Western-made SAM and radar begin appearing in southern China, too, manned by people who do not look Asian. (Think Flying Tigers) Once they start using chemical weapons in the DDR, the US almost certainly will provide the West Germans with the means to respond in kind. The replacements flooding into the DDR will be especially vulnerable because they will either be new recruits rushed through training or reservist rushed through a refresher. My sphincter tightens just thinking about getting onto a chemical battlefield in second-rate Soviet gear after hasty training. The Soviets might not care about East German casualties, but the East Germans will. It’s going to be hard to keep the East Germans sitting on the sideline while the one party who starts the war with chemical weapons uses them willy-nilly. Also, once the Luftwaffe drops the Oder River bridges in the initial offensive, an air bridge is going to be needed to bring in men. Persistent lethal agents here will very badly disrupt the reinforcement effort. Also, it stands to reason that once the US provides the West Germans with the means of chemical warfare, targets in Poland and Czechoslovakia will be available for action. Polish and Czechoslovak morale will be affected. Heck, if the Soviets use chemicals against targets in West Germany, it stands to reason that similar targets in Belarus are open for chemical attack. It all gets sticky very, very quickly.

For this reason, I see chemical use in Europe operating much the same way as in China. After an initial surge of gratuitous use, the Soviets see good reason to curtail use. Non-lethal agents continue to enjoy widespread use, since they impose many of the same burdens on combat troops as persistent agents minus most of the negative side effects. But lethal agents have serious downsides on the battlefield and politically. They might just change public opinion in France, Italy, etc.

Originally Posted by raketenjagdpanzer

Blame it on NATO (one way or the other), win, write history any way they want.

There’s only so much chemical use you can blame on NATO. NATO isn’t going to lay down persistent agents at a half-dozen Luftwaffe bases in West Germany for the sake of blaming it on the Soviets. NATO isn’t going to gas the Bundeswehr rear areas, either. The West Germans, who are invading to reunite the country, are not highly motivated to kill half the population of East Germany—even if they had chemical weapons.

[mikeo80]

A few thoughts on WMD and the Soviet Union in T2K.

I think it is evident that the Soviets do not give a tinkers damn about world opinion on who they kill. In both V1.0 and v2.2, the Soviets cross the nuclear threshhold first. China is devistated first. Then, once Nato gets right up to Soviet border, Europe is started on.

The nuclear exchange between the US and the USSR is not detaled as to who fired what and when at the respective mainlands. We are only told that "small" nukes are used against each other. The really BIG ones used to dig out missle silos and what have you are left on the ground.

Given this background, IMHO, if the Soviets thought that persistant chemical or biological weapons would give them an edge, the order would be passed QUICKLY from the C4I of Moscow to what ever unit needed to pull the trigger.

My $0.02

Mike

[Webstral]

Originally Posted by mikeo80

I think it is evident that the Soviets do not give a tinkers damn about world opinion on who they kill.

I think that’s an interpretation. The Soviets may not care about the humanitarian outcome of their actions, but these are people who are constantly thinking about the big picture in terms of their security and relationship with the rest of a hostile world. At the risk of oversimplifying the equation, if the use of chemical weapons yields an advantage on the battlefield equivalent to 5 divisions but brings in other nations who field 15 divisions, then the use of chemicals can be seen to be a disadvantage. The generals don’t think this way, but the Party people do. The real question is, what is the perception at the top?

Originally Posted by mikeo80

In both V1.0 and v2.2, the Soviets cross the nuclear threshhold first. China is devistated first. Then, once Nato gets right up to Soviet border, Europe is started on.

Well, of course the Soviets go nuclear first. I don’t know the v2.2 history at all, so I’ll just talk about v1. In the v1 chronology, the trigger for nuclear action is the crossing of the Soviet-Polish border by German troops in July, 1997. The subject of regime change is never brought up in the v1 chronology, but over the past few years there seems have been some consensus about the idea that in late 1989 Gorbachev gets replaced by a new cabal of neo-conservatives in Moscow. I believe that another regime change occurs when the Americans cross the East German border. The new regime fights the war conventionally through 1997. Once NATO forces cross the Soviet border, the regime leadership decides that they have to do something drastic before there’s another coup. In short, the Kremlin goes nuclear to save their own skins.

Note, though, that while the Chinese get hit hard right off the bat, NATO gets gentler treatment. NATO has the ability to hit back just as hard. So even when the Soviets cross the nuclear threshold, the intent is to use just enough nuclear firepower to shift the balance in their favor. They don’t launch an all-out attack on the US because in the end they don’t want to see the Soviet Union reduced to a glass parking lot. The Soviet Union falls, but this is a result of miscalculation, not an all-out nuclear exchange.

The same logic can be applied to chemical weapons. Where the use of chemical weapons yields an advantage, the Soviets will use chemical weapons. Where the use of chemical weapons yields a disadvantage, the Soviets will refrain. As long as the Party is calling the shots, they will consider items like the likelihood of bringing other members of NATO into the war. Soviet doctrine may call for the use of chemicals and nuclear weapons from the get-go in any war, but this is part of the reason why they never invaded West Germany: they believed the use of WMD would get out of hand almost immediately and render the point of the war moot. When presented with the invasion of East Germany by only West Germany, the Soviets are faced with a situation for which there may not be a well-considered doctrine. However, we can count on the Soviets to ask themselves whether a given action is going to be to Soviet advantage on balance or Soviet disadvantage.