"Soviet invasion plans - how far, how fast?" Topic

I was considering some scenarios for a U.S. – Soviet battle in West Germany in the 1980's. I don't know much about Germany but one possibility had the Soviets barreling down the E40 to Giessen, and then on to Koblenz. Eisenach to Giessen is about 140 km (87 miles in the States). On Google Maps, it looks like a mix of woods, open land, and small towns. Assuming that some planner decided to use that route, how fast would the Soviets be expected to cover that ground?

Just a guess, four days.

Really depends on how many roads are open and how much material is being pushed down those roads.

Add in some folks that don't want them to use the roads and it gets messier.

An advance of 20km a day (I think Optimistic) would suggest a week

20 – 30 kms. an hour is their normal daytime movement speed.

5 – 15 KPH at night.

6 kph when the troops are assaulting on foot

Of course, the defenders may attempt to slow the above a bit.

Use of nukes, chemicals, etc., in the attack and defense may speed, or hinder the advance, depending upon which side of the coin faces up, when you flip it.

Given their large numbers of troops and vehicles, and the numerical advantage they had over NATO, I would expect the initial advances to be shockingly fast.

Yes, Channel Ports in 4 days, or there'd be pistols in backs of necks…

What assumptions are you using?

If NATO knows it is coming and can get air superiority, they may never make it to Geissen. If it comes as a complete surprise, then a day or two to break through and then road march rates towards the Rhine until the nukes land.

I think we're just talking to their planned rate of advance, not what the actual would have been.

From the bit I've read, the nukes would be the surprise, and then road marches after that, preferably around hot zones, or through them as quickly as possible.

A expert told me that when the Soviets start moving it is very difficult to stop them. That's why pre-emptive strikes were considered first.

Interesting idea to speculate. 20-30 mile a day blitz to Le Havre, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Bremerhaven/Hamburg. That's probably the best they could hope for the bulk of their forces. Airborne/air assault/special forces would likely be expected to seize key air/port facilities in those cities for up to a week before relief. They would also have to seize multiple Rhine crossing points.
82D, 24ID, 10th Mountain, and whatever USMC div on the East Coast (tasked to defend Norway) would have likely already started movement to Europe so I don't think they could have ever done it. NATO would have detected mobilization of GSFG within hours, giving ample time for NATO to mobilize and Germany to mobilize their reserves (remember Germany maintained a fairly large standing army at the time so the numerical superiority of the GSFG would have not been that great). Even if there was any breakthrough, any dash to the sea would rely on an extended supply line easily threatened by forces remaining in Germany and several WARPAC allies (Poland, Czechs) of dubious loyalty.

Those wonderfully fast movement rates are great right up until someone takes out the bridge in front of you and your engineers are miles behind you on a road full of wreckage and craters. Oh, and someone just turned your fuel trucks into a bright glow on the horizon. Logistics has an unpleasant way of screwing up the best laid plans.

Armchair generalling Warpac strategy, from what I've read and heard they intended to get the first invasion wave into place, smash into the initial defences and what ever got through would form forward detatchments and barrel on until they couldn't, or they hit their final objective. Second wave units would follow the initial breakthrough, rinse and repeat. I can see these forward detatxhments ripping up the autobahns for a fair distance before being cold clocked.

don't forget the defenders. They have something to say about it, too. They would have deployed in depth before the Soviets kicked off. Numbers vs. quality. I'm glad we never had to face it.

Yea, their tactics sound like that of a flood, or a rising tide of water.

Follow the paths of least resistance, and keep moving inexorably forward, until all is swamped.

I've seen one of our members talk about the huge traffic jams you would get in the soviet rear areas during exercises as follow up waves would be pushing forward to their designated points whether or not the first wave had actually managed to move forward because the nature of the system meant that was all they were measured on.

The first wave may eventually get forward but can you imagine the chaos following behind preventing rapid exploitation?

The effectiveness of the defenders would rely on how much warning NATO would have. But unless the Soviets really get the drop on NATO it's probably more an issue of where the high tide mark ends up before someone starts chucking nukes.

The planning assumption was five days to be across the Rhine, you can work out the daily March rates from that. Bear in mind units are vastly more dispersed than in WW2 due to the nuclear threat, giving ample scope for manouvre and bypass. Soviet units were also loaded to the gills with bridging gear.

As noted above, it is all slightly academic as if the Sovs break through the NATO defensive zone behind the Weser, it is time for instant sunshine.

The Soviets expected to punch through the initial defensive line and drive the follow on echelons hard. Based on this, NATO could not expect the lines to hold in under a couple of miles once the punch had been made. They would need time to dig new positions and get reinforcements into the line. My guess of four days is based on the 20 miles each day since it would be expect the Warsaw Pact would smash several lines over those days.

Going after bridging units and fuel trucks would slow down the advance but the Soviets had a high volume of amphibious vehicles to use as well.

NATO had plans to deal with breakthroughs. That was what all the Lynx, BO105P, Cobras and Apaches were for. Similarly the airmobile units were well tooled up for these situations.

I read a while ago that a Russian officer claimed that the various WARPAC armies would be sacrificed to wear down NATO forces. The Hungarians and Czechoslovakians were considered the least reliable and had to be pushed forwards as quickly as possible. Rumania and Bulgaria were considered worthless and only good for tying up enemy forces in the Balkan region. The Poles were unreliable, but they had a job no Pole could possibly resist, invade Germany, while the East Germans were considered to be "our Germans" Finally they would send the various Soviet armies in ascending order of quality and the plan was to move up to the Rhine (before their logistics fell apart) and try to make a deal with France before Britain and the US could start to send their forces into Germany.

My point is unless there is no one on the roads (really, NO one) attacking forces given the time to do all the things that need to get done probably won't be advancing much more that walking pace over the course of a day. Sure some routes might see a big leap, but either the gaps are covered by terrain or someone with a radio to a bunch of artillery/air assets. What about civilian traffic? all road nets have bottlenecks, how quickly can you push how much through it?

OK, 40 km a day so for the OP 3 days

It would really depend how badly I roll