"Reliability of Warsaw Pact Forces" Topic

Back in the 80's I was a full timer in the National Guard. One of our company commanders had a masters in Soviet Studies and was working on his PhD. Spoke excellent Russian and had taken a number of classes concerning the Soviet military. Our MP battalion was tasked with rear area security and was scheduled to deploy to Europe. We even gamed several scenarios based on our mission. This captain added a lot of insight into Soviet doctrine.

This captain stated that there was some concern among Soviet planners as to the reliability of their Warsaw Pact allies, especially the Poles. He also stated that this concern could possibly effect the Soviet decision to go to war. He also stated that the Soviets would not "push the button" unless they were sure of their allies, but there was always the possibility of the Warsaw Pact defections, or at least, a lack of commitment and enthusiasm.

Any thoughts? How could this effect gaming the period? A sudden withdrawal of Soviet forces to deal with rear area problems of their own? Loss of logistical networks through Poland, thus supply problems. Etc.

There was an interesting discussion on this from the NVA perspective from a chap here who's father was a NVA Div commander.

A colleague who was assistant DA in Warsaw in the late 80s will confirm the fact that the Poles were "probably not reliable"!!

Tally Ho!

I've always thought that if the Soviets decided to go to war, they'd push their "allies" through first, and then follow up with their own forces.

Given that they were considering using nukes anyway, I suspect it isn't too far beyond the pale to threaten to use nuclear blackmail against them, if they didn't follow orders. Do as we say, or there will be dire consequences for you, your families, and countrymen.

Stalin was pretty brutal with his own people back in the day, so I suspect his successors probably could be as well, with people from other countries.

The Poles 'invited' to fight for Stalin against the Germans in 1944-45 fought hard enough…(against the Germans, I mean…) I suspect some clever and persuasive disinformation about West Germany's intentions before starting the war would ensure initial motivation was fine.

A friend of mine was Polish Airborne in the 80s.

He has always maintained that if war had broken out, the Polish army would have advanced east…

..there is an old joke that re-appears regularly along the lines of the Polish "choice" to shoot first a German through duty and then a Russian for pleasure….
It was certainly going around at the height of the Cold War…

At a Polish VFW I spoke to a person that was in the Polish army in the eighties. He said the barracks buildings were one Polish then one Russian, alternating in a row. At reveille, the barracks would empty and occasionally a not so mini-riot would occur with the Poles and Russians trying to beat the snot out of each other.

Now THERE'S a game!!

The guy Nick refers to is Jurgen, user name Flecktarn. He seems to have left, his account is locked. A real shame as he had lots of good info, having served in Bundeswehr in Afghan. I remember the discussion about the NVA (East German Army) but I can't find it.

Yes Flecktarn was good value, he is missed.

I had a chat back in 1987 with our officers…they had good opinion on DDR forces, not so good on Poles, marking them as more or less competent but unreliable, low on Bulgarian troops competency, but high on their reliability, and reverse for Hungarians. Romanians were average both in competency and reliability, Czech – competent, and more or less reliable.
Well, it was their personal feeling, don't know what our HQ thought at that time…

Barin, you make an interesting point. As a commander, what would you prefer to have next to you:competent but unreliable or incompetent but reliable?

I guess I'll prefer less competent but reliable troops. In this case, you know what to expect from your own troops and your allies, and try to balance it. Didn't work often between Germans/Hungarians/Romanians in WWII, but there were several reasons for that.
On the other hand, having a competent ally which can betray you at their convenience sounds really troublesome – unless I can somehow deploy/use them in a way, that makes this betrayal really hard.
I've played Warhammer FB where we had 2 x 2 players engagement, and we were rolling if the army abandons their ally and join opponent eash turn. Was a total mess, how you can plan if you're not sure whom are you going to fight next ;))

Our German partnership unit flying PAH 105s out of Celle had unofficial contacts with an NVA MI 24 Hind unit on the other side of the fence. The BW guys told us that the NVA flyers said they would not attack west into Germany unless NATO attacked east first.

This was just prior to the wall coming down though and the political climate was changing in the DDR.

10 years prior though, I'm not certain that would have been the case.

I have a good friend who was a Rifleman in a Polish MRD in the 80's. He says they were treated very poorly by their Soviet allies, and regarded with outright disdain. Their treatment in all things ensured that if it came to blows with NATO, Polish troops would be extremely difficult to command and would 'break' very quickly, especially if doing so would uncover a Soviet flank or provide a breakthrough opportunity.
I would say Polish troops could safely be considered 'unreliable' in that scenario.

Generally, Poles didn't want to go to army. Well I also wasn't happy about it, right after 1st course of University – but at that time, unlike in 90s, we just knew we had to. Some of my University and school buddies volunteered for Afghanistan.
Poles were proud if they could cheat the authorities (by pretending to be too ill for the service, having lots of children, etc). I know that pretty well – our sister company in Warsaw has like 16 males and none of them was in the army.
Also, local legislation was very strict on compensation of all things ruined/lost/wasted, so former conscripts sometimes have to pay back to the state some years after they demobilized…

Very interesting comments and could add a twist to any battle and has to be incorporated to campaign games. How Polish divisions existed in the 1985-1988 timeframe?

Does anyone have a complete OOB for the Russians for that time period? I have one that has part of the Soviet forces but not a complete list. Category level would be great as well.

How Polish divisions existed in the 1985-1988 timeframe?

Found this on the internet:

link

Damon.

Cold war joke.
Western Journalist: Do the Poles (or Czechs, or Slovaks, or…) look on the Soviets as friends or brothers?
Local Pole/etc.: Brothers, of course! You can _choose_ your friends.

Thanks for all the comments. It makes you wonder what if the Poles (and possibly other WarPact nations) decided, after hostilities began, they wanted no part of any conflict with the West. How would the Soviets handled such circumstances? Would the NVA be used to deal with the Polish army (possibly along with Soviet troops from some of the western military districts)? Since most of the logistic network supporting operations in western Europe went thru Poland, even a short term disruption (assuming the Poles could quickly be dealt with) could cause supply problems for Soviet forces deployed in West Germany. How long could the Soviets operate without re-supply?

Would some Soviet forces operating against NATO forces in West Germany have to be re-oriented towards the east?

As mentioned earlier these factors (and others) should be included in any campaign scenario. Just how is an interesting question.

As others pointed, if attacked, these countries will be fighting. With proper propaganda they might even be fighting for some time during the offence (see Warsaw treaty armies handling Czechoslovakia in 1968). Still, the questions remain how eager they will be in a fight, will they try to defect or not (there's still martial law, treason accusations, etc).

I agree that in the 1960's the Warsaw Pact armies were more reliable. But over the next twenty years things changed. In those years the political and social changes were working against the Soviets. I doubt that there could have been a repeat of 1968 in the early 80's.

Probably the best period of time for the Soviets would have been from the 1960's through the mid 1970's. Early on they had the advantage in manpower, equipment, reliability of their client states and a central organization.

In the early 1960's many NATO armies were still using WW2 equipment (or stuff not far removed from that time). The NATO economy (especially West Germany) was still comparatively weak. Not the best time to resist the Soviet steamroller.