"How surprising would surprise be if the Cold War went hot?" Topic

I am curious as to how much of a surprise an attack would have been if the Soviets attacked out of barracks? The reason I ask is that I remember reading somewhere that it would take the better part of a day for the Soviets to clear the obstacles of the Inner German border and shake out into attack formation. Again, I don't remember where I read this but I would imagine that this does buy NATO some reaction time? And even going on the attack out of barracks I would think that there might be some point the intent looks obvious? Also, while it seems this type of attack might have some initial benefits I would think there would be a huge logistical trade off, initial supplies wouldn't last more than a few days correct?

Probably a surprise attack would mean Special forces going after high value targets to cause confusion first.

I suppose in the end "surprise" is:

"Time required to prepare attack" minus "time required to detect attack and prepare defence".

In mechanized warfare, even a few hours can make a big difference.
Of course, a sudden build-up and seeming inevitability can also result in the nuclear weapons being released.

I've no great interest in the Cold War but I do remember a knowledgeable friend of mine saying that towns in Germany were 1 kiloton apart.

There are various levels of surprise. The other guy had certain tasks they had to perform before a "surprise" attack and we watched for those various indicators. When we saw certain things happen, we responded. For example if we saw a division near the border go on alert, we might place the corresponding border force on higher alert. The trade-off of surprise is the less time to mobilize, the less resources available to attack with. The Soviets could have achieved tactical surprise by attacking out of their barracks, but then they wouldn't have had the artillery and 2d echelon forces necessary to win. They also probably didn't have enough fuel to go more than 30-50 kms, since their logistics hadn't been mobilized either.

Which is why everyone gets nervous and pays attention, "just in case," whenever the opposing side is having an, "exercise."

An, "exercise," allows one to get the tasks done that have to be done ahead of an invasion in time under the guise of, "this was scheduled – we are not up to anything…"

Trying to figure out if there ever has been a straight out of barracks surprise attack in the modern era?

The Soviets were notoriously poorly organised. Getting a set of units from different barracks into a strike column quickly and with surprise was never on. Their doctrine was to have highly organised strikes precisely because they couldn't do things on the fly.

Imagine ordering a surprise attack to discover that your senior brass had been on the turps all weekend and were away from their posts. Things like that mean you have to plan your "surprise" attack quite heavily. Every person that knows is one more person that can leak the information. Both sides had plenty of spies in the other side, together with electronic surveillance.

True surprise requires political refusal to accept the possibility and so not mobilising in preparation, as with Stalin in 1941 refusing to take all the advice he was given.

Probably difficult, but not impossible, and since NATO would be caught flat-footed, you wouldn't need all that overwhelming artillery either, initially.

I think an attack during an exercise to be far more likely, though I suspect we watched them a lot more closely during those.

As someone mentioned previously, attacks during the holidays might really work well, e.g. especially those between Christmas Eve and New Years Eve/Day.

I could only see it happening if before hand major NATO and constituent HQs were attacked by "terrorists".

Otherwise while NATO forward elements might take higher casualties than planned they should be able to slow down the initial echelon long enough for REFORGER etc to kick in. When it comes to logistics NATO was far ahead of the WARPAC.

Wouldn't this also depend on the time period?
A lot more methods of detection in 1980 than in 1950.

When it came to combat readiness I suspect NATO forces were more capable of attempting a surprise attack than their opponents.

Would the Israelis be the closest to having launched an out of barracks offensive, with the Six Day war?

NATO would probably be able to mobilize more quickly, in the long-run, once hostilities started, but the Soviets could be pretty far across the frontier by the time that started (better logistics, and all).

I think the Spetznatz would hold off until the balloon went up, so as not to tip their hand, and then act, to disrupt and delay forces moving towards the front lines.

Yes, I suspect you are correct Weasel, that as time goes on during the Cold War, NATO only gets stronger.

US Armored Cav on the frontier patrolled pretty regularly, even back in the 1950s and 1960s, and by the time they had Mohawks with side-looking radar, and ground-based radar in the 1960s, it would be harder to catch them with their pants down.

Wouldn't this also depend on the time period?
A lot more methods of detection in 1980 than in 1950.

True, but people were more twitchy and attentive in 1950 than in 1980.
Constant vigilance breeds complacency.

Responses to an attack are discussed above.
As for the question, how surprising would it be, I would have to say not very. The entire Cold War was each side waiting for the other to do just that.
The only surprise was that no one ever did.

Well, in the 1950s, NATO was so outnumbered, they might have been steam-rolled, if they didn't use nukes.

With all the prep to execute a modern military mobile combined arms offensive. Which relies on a heavy logistics tail. With all the build up and manuever of many units to front, forward supply placement, etc. … It might not have been too much of a surprise. With modern high tech capabilities it would not be like the German Ardennes Offensive in '44. Where heavy units seemed to appear and show up out of no where in some cases. But as noted, if the USSR wanted to have any chance to make it to the French Coast and claim Western Europe. They would have had to do it in the 50s. But again, only if Nuc's were not used. If so … then everybody "loses" …

If they were smart, they'd hold an exercise, or ten, then make sure to replenish all their supplies and stage their equipment where needed so they could attack at a moment's notice, and then just do that when desired.

Yes, of course but a lot of big FTXs, would draw attention as well. However, if they ran these exercises frequently. It might just cause you to lower your guard. As it would be, "just another Russkie FTX, where they get to play soldier" !

Given that a war would likely be a pre-emptive strike when one side thought war was inevitable in any event, the odds of significant surprise on either side are maybe smaller than we'd expect.

A runs a big exercise.
B gets nervous and puts troops on alert
A gets nervous and ups the troop concentrations just in case

etc. etc. until someone makes the wrong call and all hell breaks out.

So there might be a pretty high chance that both sides will be in reasonable states of readiness.

There is also the issue of why the hell would they want to?

They had internal rebellions against Soviet rule every decade in the Warsaw Pact, as the Germans, Hungarians, Czechs and Poles all tried to go alone. The Yugoslavs even managed to more or less break free.

Having conquered Germany and France, the Soviets knew they couldn't hold it.

After about 1960 there was the real prospect that if they ordered a major Warsaw Pact strike that no-one else would turn up. The Poles in particular have never been hugely big on dying for Russian objectives, and they were on the main supply line.

For gaming purposes? Because someone has to and people grew up expecting that it would happen :-)

Realistically? We can presumably take the fact that it never happened, to indicate that nobody wanted it to happen but lining up enough tanks on both sides of the border helps avoid a bloody-minded opposition.