Texan Reacts to If the War Came Episode 8-Free War 

There are actually a triology of books, written in the mid 1980's, by the pseudonyme Harry Winter, called 'Operation Garbo', about a fictional Soviet attack on Sweden. Its written like a novel but with great indepth, and it resembles this serie so much. I think it is only available in Swedish, otherwise I would recommend you to read it. Besides that, this is a really interesting serie, and your reaction are as always really on spot.

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I love this series and your commentary! I've learned later that Sweden was quite a militarized country during the Cold War, but growing up during that time, the Cold War situation was normal as one didn't know of anything else. Also I suspect that a lot of regular infrastructure like you saw in, maybe episode 7, about schools being prepared to be wartime hospitals. Also I suspect that the Stockholm subway system may have been built with dual purpose in mind, designed like for cities twice its size. Regarding what happened to those underground bunkers etc I guess they didn't disappear, but that many of them aren't maintained anymore. Some urban explorers and military nerds like to ... explore ... I think some older gentlemen actually got in trouble for collecting too much info and making it available on some forum, as a hobby.

Thanks for reacting to these videos. I have been enjoying hearing your comments.

04:42 No and that is the point . You can hit the enemy any were at any time .

Operation Garbo is a very good books for a younger swede to know a little more about the cold war if it would become a hot war . If you want to read one about a possible scenario about WW III do read Tom Clansy's Red Storm . Great video as usual .

Believe it is in our constitution to never give up in a war .

Had to watch this again, thanks for a great series and commentary :) What an incredible story

Regarding frontlines compare the situation early on in Ukraine around Sumy and Kharkiv. You had brigades and the whole range of territorials-millitias fighting in the "pockets" created when the russians "took" the highways. Lots of fuel and supply trucks burned ... I also belive Swedish cold war doctrine was centered around doing away with a strict idea of a front and a rear. The existance of long range weapons mean that no area is ever safe, armored and air born units was expected to be used in depth. Soviet doctrine(as well as NATO) was focused on engaging and beating concentrated units from the other side on the north european plain. The strategic situation also forced the soviets to focus on geting to the atlantic coast ASAP, hence seting them self up for the situation cited above. When the enemy refuse to line up on the battlefield both super powers have a dubuis track record(vietnam/afghanistan). Melker also did another video showing of what could be called plan C/D. A low tech, low supply resistance of bike infantry, that would be able to fight as long as they had ammo. No fuel is no excuse for giving up. The storage sites were not randomly placed. Along one of the designated transport routes, you would find both fuel and ammo storages. Every municipality, governmental organisation and big corporation had people hired to plan for war time operations, this included the state church. The question is not if plans existed, but if they would work ;) The story of the BRIO toy factory in Osby, Skåne is good example. In case of mobilization the factory would be emptied, and used as a regional/midlevel supply dump. The movement of supplies required plans, but this also created the need for all kinds of other plans for defence and stores of barbed wire, guard units and logistical personel. Everything was at least war gamed on a desk now and then. The less secret stuff was rehersed in practice involving at least key personel. (Storing gear in a toy factory is also a brilliant psy-op set up. Hearts and minds would be lost/hardend if someone could be shown bombing your favorit toy manufacturer) Thanks for closing up the series!

Nice to see the light infantry anti-tank platoon, since that is my pedigree. The plan, that we trained for, is that any unit being cut off "behind" the frontline, would continue as a guerilla unit behind enemy lines.

06:00 Oooh yes indeed 😁

Sweden even had a nuclear program in the basement... Like, semi finished nukes and probably knowledge about how to get them ready if those kind of decisions were to be made.

Sovjet knew what was in Sweden and would never waste large important resources for invading us, the resources was more needed elsewhere. Probably just important key areas would be invaded.

It seems like the only one that did not take the lesson from the Finnish winter war was the Soviets/Russians.

There can be a front line and guerilla warfare behind enemy lines, at the same time, since everyone is involved in the defence.

👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

From what I understand, there have been defence agreements with the US at least since Sweden gave up it's nuclear weapons programme at the request of the US. Unfortunately of course, it's not a publicly available agreement so who knows for sure. It did at least include technology sharing, which is known publicly, which is a major reason to why Sweden can do what it can do in it's own defence. I still hope that our politicians of the time were not silly enough to give up the tech fully, so that if needed, nuclear deterrence could still be an option, should other bilateral and multilateral options fail.

I dont know if somebody mentioned this to you already. But I remember when I was a boy I already had a tag. You know like soldiers have that you can break off with my ssn and name and I think bloodtype. Somebody can fill in on this, if I am hallucinating or something. I was born in the earl 70:s

Every able man in my generation did at least 9 month millitary training, and we had repetition training periodicly until you were 40 (i think) and then we have the national guard. So i think it would have been hard to invade Sweden and still is i think..

Everyone fights, none quits. No order to surrender was ever going to be given if Sweden were to be attacked.