World War III as seen through Soviet eyes.

Believe it folks.
I certainly do.
Talk about the mother of all contingency plans?
Read on.

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The nightmare of nuclear war in Europe - a spectre that haunted the world for half a century - stood revealed yesterday in terrible detail.

In a historic break with the past, Poland's newly elected government threw open its top secret Warsaw Pact military archives - including a 1979 map revealing the Soviet bloc's vision of a seven-day atomic holocaust between Nato and Warsaw Pact forces.

Opened: Top secret Warsaw Pact military archives

I found this article rather educational and a definate reminder of how things were planned based on hypotheticals, aka: contingency plans during the Cold War.
The article goes on to mention:

On the map, western Europe lay beneath a chilling overlay of large red mushroom clouds: Warsaw Pact nuclear strikes, using giant warheads to compensate for their relative lack of precision.

Soviet bombs rain down on cities from northern Denmark down to Brussels, the political headquarters of Nato. Large red clouds blot out cities such as Hamburg, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Munich and Baden Baden, Haarlem, Antwerp and Charleroi, above the Franco-Belgian border.

On the map, smaller blue mushroom clouds showed expected Nato targets - most of them relatively precise attacks - including strikes on Warsaw and Prague.

And now for the map:



Thoughts and comments welcome.







seekerof

[edit on 26-11-2005 by Seekerof]

Its is chilling to see some of these plans. However, I would have expected tactial nuclear strikes closer to the East German side to hit infrastructure targets and as the article says, resupply points.

Thats some cool stuff, I wonder how it would look on a global scale.

Well, its not exactly surprising. The important thing is that it never happened. Why?

Because the Russians were a powerful, yet rational foe, an enemy to respect. We were hell bent on annihilating them, and they us. Thats simply how the cold war was. But because the Russians were rational and honestly did not want full scale nuke warfare anymore than we did, not a bomb was ever dropped in revenge.

In todays world, we no longer have that luxury. Today's enemies more and more are comrpised of either religous or ideological fanatics who value their causes and dogmas more than millions of human lives, or simply enemies in cultures that do not value any life, not even their own.

It sounds strange, but that nuke map made me a bit nostaligic for the days when our enemy was clear and equal to us. Dont get me wrong, the whole idea of Europe under so many mushroom clouds is more than unsettling, especially since I have lived in some of those cities and have loved some of their inhabitants, and I shudder to think of the centuries of culture, art, and life that would be turned to dust.

But the map, as I said, harkens back to a time when the world was far more stable and secure than it is now, with nuclear weapons still being the weapons of a select few advanced countries.

Now, when we look at that map, in todays climate, with all the nuts and homicidal morons with nukes out there, I see a melange of different mushroom clouds from many different sources hurled indiscriminately at any target for no tactical reason whatsoever.

Still, the cold war couldnt last forever. It had to end sometime, and for the first couple years after the cold war was over, the world could breathe a sigh of relief.

But how brief that relief was. The world is far less stable than it was.

Originally posted by Skadi_the_Evil_Elf
It sounds strange, but that nuke map made me a bit nostaligic for the days when our enemy was clear and equal to us...

That doesn't sound strange at all. At least back then, if there was a problem, you knew your enemy and the possibility existed that a dispute could be settled through diplomatic relations. Can't do that with many of todays enemies.

I want to know how Switzerland really believed it could remain a neutral country in any such war in Europe.

What did they think the Soviets were just going to let them be if they ever made a grab for Western Europe?

[edit on 28-11-2005 by ShadowXIX]

I wanna know why you would want to be neutral in a conflict like this. If this scenario did happen, and say the Soviets defeated NATO. Switzerland would be subject to Soviet rule. It would have been in thier interests to side with NATO, I dont get it. It was a Scary time, I'm kinda glad I was too young to really understand the threat during my childhood. All I got to say is thank god for Ronald Reagan, great man.

Read Red Storm by Tom Clancy, that helps bring our minds how WW3 would have been fought it the Cold War turned into a hot one in the 80s.

Originally posted by deltaboy
Read Red Storm by Tom Clancy, that helps bring our minds how WW3 would have been fought it the Cold War turned into a hot one in the 80s.

Little correction... It's Red Storm Rising.

Also, in that book there was no nuclear exchange, which there was no chance of had a war actually broken out. Western Europe would have been over run by the Soviets if NATO did not use tactical nuclear weapons.


In any case, nice find Seekerof

Originally posted by American Mad Man


Little correction... It's Red Storm Rising.

Should have post the whole thing awww well thanks for the correction.

Also, in that book there was no nuclear exchange, which there was no chance of had a war actually broken out. Western Europe would have been over run by the Soviets if NATO did not use tactical nuclear weapons.

Tom Clancy made the reasons in the book why nukes were not exchanged between the opposing sides and why the Soviets did not overrun Europe so easily. Remember the fear of nukes. Its like a self deterring policy about the use of nukes. MAD. Thats why Clancy wrote this type of warfare that did not include nukes, but the world was close to going into a nuclear holocaust.


In any case, nice find Seekerof

Being one of the many people who grew up at this time the early to mid eighties were indeed a very scary time in terms of WW3 actually happening.
TV programs like the BBC's "Threads",the US Film "The Day After" as well as old Ronnie Reagans infamous "we begin bombing Russia in five minutes" slip up all make me glad we managed to get through it without any screwups.
Especially as the Russians were extremely agitated about the US swing towards first strike nuclear war plans and the rapid build up in quality and quantity of US forces,the Pershing 2 and Cruise Theatre level missiles being an example.I think it could have taken one accident or misunderstanding to have kicked it all off....

So basically, Germany, Holland, Norway and Belgium would have had the crap bombed out of them.

What about France?

Damn those pesky Soviets.

Originally posted by Leveller
So basically, Germany, Holland, Norway and Belgium would have had the crap bombed out of them.

What about France?

Damn those pesky Soviets.

Is there a global map?

Originally posted by ShadowXIX
I want to know how Switzerland really believed it could remain a neutral country in any such war in Europe.
[edit on 28-11-2005 by ShadowXIX]

This is a good question, but having lived in Geneva and seen their infrastructure of nuclear shelters I think they were counting on being the only ones left!

Seems like a fairly reserved attack. England and France haven't been touched, neither has Norway. It seems that they expected a limted nuclear exchange which wouldn't escalate. There was an article in Time magazine around 1993 which had a far more detailed map of the Warsaw Pacts attack plans and nuclear targets.

There are a few interesting books on how a NATO/Warsaw Pact war may have been fought.

The Third World War and The Third World War:The Untold Story both by Sir General John Hackett.
Also Team Yankee by Harold Coyle. this one follows a platoon of M! tanks in Central Europe duringthe first 2 weeks of the war.

Here are a few interesting links i found...

skeptically.org...
homepage.mac.com...
www.fas.org...

I once found a complete list of American Sites to be hit by Soviet Missiles. My home city of Charlotte was on that list, kinda scary. The list seemed endless, but I am having trouble tracking that list down again, anyone care to help me out?

Originally posted by Denied
Is there a global map?

No, or not one that has been revealed as of yet.
Assuming here, till more detailed information is released and/or published from the Polish WARSAW archives, it appears that the current map is one portraying a massive ground assualt by the Soviets and WARSAW Pact against NATO, coupled with a tactical or full nuke attack, or the NATO reaction [ground response coupled with a tactical or full nuke response] to a Soviet-WARSAW Pact ground assault and the Soviet-block counter-reaction [tactical pr full nuke response].

France and the UK have no nuke hits because they are not immediate front-line tactical targets or considerations. More than likely, they would be secondary. The majority of land forces for both NATO and the Soviets and WARSAW Pact were:

Soviet-WARSAW Pact: Poland
NATO: Germany

Hence the majority of illustrated nuke attacks, be they representations of tactical or full nuke strikes remains unknown or unclarified.





seekerof

[edit on 30-11-2005 by Seekerof]

I find it interesting that this plan for ww3 took place in the late 70s, right at the end of the Space Race. The Soviets had a few first generation Almaz space stations (salyut 1-5, Cosmos 557) between 1971 and 1977. I wonder how they factored into the plan for this large scale bombing of Europe. Did your article have any mention of the space stations role? Does anyone else know anything about the space stations and the plan for the third world war?

All in all, just don’t read anything by Tom Clancy if you are interested in facts not fiction. Same goes for da Vinci’s Code and other bull crap money making schemes targeted to amuse easily entertained simpletons.

The “plan” has nothing to do with a “mother of all contingency plans”. It’s just a scrap of a tactical scenario, they had a short life time and were updated continuously.

There are a literally tons of such “plans” on all sides, nothing shocking or new about it.

I belive world war 3 will happen. All the peaces fit to gether. The war in the middle east is the start of it All.