World War III, 1989: NATO vs Warsaw Pact 

Spoiler: Luxembourg beats both of them and Andorra conquers the entire world.

I think the best chance of Soviet success would be in about 1970. Not so much of a technological gap at this point, nuclear forces were about equal, still huge numerical advantage for the Warsaw Pact, US still has nearly half a million troops tied down in Vietnam, domestic situation in US is still quite volatile, Prague Uprising had been firmly suppressed, and Soviet morale, training, and discipline would be much better than in 1989.

I was stationed in Germany, our lifespan if the soviets ever attacked was very short. We were supposed to slow them down so Reforger could reinforce West Germany

dont even want to imagine the wasteland germany is going to be in this scenario :S

I live in Germany. I feel uncomfortable.

I think the only scenario in which turkey and Greece will work together is this one greetings from Greece

So basically Austria was forced to be neutral and they would still be invaded by both? Thats a very big middlefinger to us if u ask me.

Greece & Turkey working together. Wow that’s very likely.

Soviets invade Finland Simo Hayha: Breaks out sniper rifle Soviets: Sorry we bothered you, *goes home

Interesting presentation. I was a serving NATO Military personal in the 1980’s. One thing you didn’t discuss was the possibility of a soviet satellite countries mutiny. There was a strong belief on the NATO side, that given a chance, several of the smaller Warsaw Pact countries would change sides.

After the 1989 revolution, I talked to a Czechoslovak army officer about the WP's capabilities. He said that from the late sixties onwards, there was no realistic chance of an attack on western Europe because of the low level of loyalty of the Soviet Union's allies. i.e., there was a high risk of the Poles, Czechs, East Germans etc. either not fighting at all or switching sides.

You didn't consider me and my Leopard II being stationed on the in northern Germany most of 1989. As long as you didn't attack in the evening, early morning or weekend I was quite prepared to put up a stiff fight.

You should've considered the war scenario in the 1960s.

3:00 Turks and Greeks fighting together..., wow no wonder this didn't happen

Even though you stated why you wouldn't in the past, I think it would be cool to do a 1950's or early 1960's WW3 scenario, before the Sino-Soviet split to see if the difference of China could turn the tide.

West Germany by area. 32% forst, 53% agricultural, 25% urban = 110% :)

Next Idea: NATO vs WARSAW PACT NUCLEAR WARFARE

I think many countries of the Warsaw Pact would change sides if the war started in 1989.

The picture of the M60 Patton tank was taken in my hometown of Lake Charles Louisiana. On the lakefront park area.

One of the many constraints on the Soviet Army was its system of conscription and its sheer size. The Soviet population could no longer sustain the size of military that Soviets had created over the '70s. More and more Central Asians were being conscripted, and where they used to be limited to the Construction Troops and other non-combat organizations, now they were flowing into the combat units. The Soviets had to re institute Russian language classes they had dropped when the conscription period dropped to two years. The KGB, MVD, airborne, spetnaz, air force and navy (where conscripts had to serve three years) soaked up most of the technically competent, literate and committed/loyal ethnic Russians, leaving the tank and motorized rifle troops with what was left. Soviet tactics and operations had to be simple because they simply didn't have the quality conscripts to train in more than a single task in the two years they were with the unit. Conscripts with limited mental abilities and criminal records were swept up to fill the ranks. When the Soviets went to two years, DODSAAF was supposed to provide basic training through schools and youth organizations, but this was pretty much a failure between unmotivated cadre and a lack of resources. So conscripts came to the units untrained. A new batch came every six months as the time-expired conscripts moved on (one of the warning signs was if the Soviets DIDN'T release these men). This meant that 25% of a Soviet unit was made up of untrained or barely trained troops who could barely use their personal weapon. 25% would be at least partly trained and 50% would be fully trained to the rather simple tasks and standards. But 25% would be in short-timer mode. Training for new troops was often interrupted by fatigue duties. The Soviets had no real NCO core to maintain discipline and daily admin and ops. NCOs were just conscripts with more training, often still in their first year. Officers had to do junior NCO work. But they also had their own jobs to do, so they relied on the 25%, the "old sweats" to get things done. The "old sweats" assigned all the fatigue duties to the "new fish". They also acquired any money, or other assets and assigned the "New fish" to do individual menial jobs like cleaning boots and clothes for the "old sweats". If the "new fish" protested, they were beaten. The officers looked the other way. As an example of standards, a Soviet tank crew in a T-54/55 or T-62 was expected to master an engagement cycle, firing from the halt at stationary targets, of two targets a minute (the US Army standard with the M60A1 was six rpm). They might fire 10-12 live rounds a year (a NATO crew fired 100-120). The drivers might get 120-160 hours a year, compared to NATO troops who got at least 480. A lot training was on props and rote memory and confined to a single task. Tank crew members were rarely cross-trained onto another position. Living conditions can only be described as "Third World". Food was monotonous and unhealthy, hygiene and living conditions fostered contagious diseases like hepatitis, typhus and diphtheria. Troops had better equipment in many ways than earlier, even being issued sleeping bags, though this equipment was often left behind on maneuvers for lack of space. Training accidents, murders, suicides and such reached 7-8% and more of the force by 1987. The Soviets had problems with health and physical readiness of conscripts. Reservists received little refesher or sustainment training which probably helped since the Category C and Mobilization divisions were armed with 20 year old equipment. But except in GOSFG and some other high priority units, even CAT A divisions needed 10-15% of their force in reservists to fill to war strength.

Finally! There needs to be way more ww3 fiction, so many what ifs and decisiveness

Finally been waiting so long!

I once knew an old Polish guy who lived under communist rule in Poland and was an officer, am not exactly sure in what, and he told me that if war ever broke out between the Warsaw Pact and NATO he was going to do everything he can to give away Soviet plans to NATO intelligence and he said that if he ever got desperate he would begin sabotaging Soviet supplies. He mentioned Soviet supplies specifically not necessarily Polish supplies because he sort of despised the Soviets but yet he was an officer, (Still not exactly an officer of what but oh well).

Outstanding work, again, you guys do excellent research.

The things I'd do to that puppet....

Could you do the same. But for the 1950 to 1970

You're forgetting that by 1989 the USSR and the Pact were both dissolving. The Soviets could not longer keep up the arms race, and the Pact countries were of dubious loyalty. The Soviets would have had to spend considerable resources to just ensure that the Pact did not rebel.

Binkov, Thanks for this deeply interesting video on Cold War scenario. Very good and original channel on Military matters-well done! I

Ahh I have been waiting so long for this Channel to cover things like Hypothetical Alternate History Conflicts and possibly even reenactments and illustrations of Legendary military campaigns Hiel to Commissar Binkov!

Finally, I’ve been waiting for long!!!!

Great animation + narration. Just a reminder that by the 1990's the USSR was on the brink of collapse and the economy was near garbage.

7:43 Those percentages don't add up to 100. They add up to 110

I have been waiting for this FOR WEEKS Yay

Impressive like always.

What amazed me about this video, is that both sides had so many soldiers fully mobilized and ready within a day. Thats an amazing achievement. tbh. See 1:50

You missed some important points, in 1989 it would very questionable whether countries in eastern blocks would stick with Soviet Union. They are likely to remain neutral or even switch to NATO. (Poland, Hungary etc)

The actual video starts at 00:38

Polish army main target was Denmark. Greetings from Poland

I really enjoyed it. I spent two years with the US 2nd Cavalry (78-80) as a front line unit covering the Hof Gap. I was mostly an M60A1 RISE tank driver, but filled in as a loader for gunnery at Graf. It was accepted that we would cease to be a functioning unit at +1 hour after the Soviets crossed the frontier. That is why we had "escape and evasion" training.

You missed one big factor, the US and NATO using laser guided bombs. That completely changed modern warfare and were an incredible shock to Soviet planners. Any Soviet ground forces without air cover would be decimated by precision strikes. And the F-117 stealth fighter would destroy Soviet air defense because it was an unknown quantity at the time and it's vulnerability to particular frequencies had not been discovered and developed. So it would be unopposed at night. In fact the general superiority that NATO forces had at night would be a big factor as well, as the American forces in Iraq said "we own the night". NATO could advance and counter attack at night and reinforce it's positions during the day.

This is very similar to Tom Clancy's works like "Red Storm Rising" - even with greater numbers, the Soviets could not push through Germany because of a lack of air superiority, insufficient supplies and NATO's technological edge. Great work as ever Commissar!

Bulgaria had a big rocket arsenal capable of destroying most European Turkish and Greek bases, so a quick advance would have been unlikely.

I like how Bulgarian tank says "Bulgaria hits, Bulgaria crushes"

Such a good video to watch and rewatch. Could you make another simulation for the 60s?

What you are forgetting is the amount of unrest within Warsaw Pact member nations; we are right at the end of the Cold War here, and all member states were turning against communism: it wouldn’t be unlikely for larger member states, such as Poland, Hungary, Czechia and East Germany to revolt, not only reducing soviet numbers and increasing NATO numbers, but also many soviet divisions in East Germany could find themselves cut off from supplies

NATO VS Wakanda

This is poor speculation.I was a soldier in one of Warso Pack army, where accents and priority were different and variation made in many way!

Excellent analysis. Thanks.

If you were to simulate WW2 France would have won.

China vs Taiwan with 2 scenarios 1: Taiwan alone 2: US helps Taiwan

Since all of this video presupposes a straight numbers game. I'll throw one number out there to start. All military planners in the modern era state that a numerical superiority of 3-1 is necessary to achieve victory by an offensive force. Using your numbers the Soviet Union would fall short of those numbers from the start of the war. You used km advanced in for the Soviet Army from WWII. This is spurious and ignores the effectiveness of Soviet forces contemporaneous to this time period. Soviet effectiveness in Afghanistan during the 1980 war resulted in massive casualties on the part of the Soviets; against an enemy much weaker than and less capable than NATO forces. Soviet conscripts (in Afghanistan) had shown themselves to be much less effective than NATO reservists and US National Guard (in Iraq). NATO forces trashed Iraq in 1991. Iraq had been liberally supplied and trained by the Soviets. The primary gun of NATO tanks was still the 105 mm. The Israelis had used said weapon system in 1982 and reported kills on T-72s at ranges approaching 2 miles; it is unlikely that even frontline T-80s would have fared much better. (An Israeli kill requires a brew up which is a much higher standard than real life operations requires) Your numbers also ignores a really important number. Operational Readiness. I spent the early part of my adulthood in the US military eye ball to eye ball with the Soviet military. In my career I seldom saw the Soviets able to maintain better than 50% OR for an extended time. Some frontline units could maintain 75% OR for very short periods of time. By contrast US Army commanders could get relieved of command if they had less than 90% OR. The standard was 95% OR. I am talking about the late 1980s to mid-2000s. I don't know what the standards were before or after. In 1989 the Soviets would have been facing the US Army the best army in the world at the time (bar none). The Soviet loss rates would have been horrendous. Any US Brigade could obliterate a Soviet division in short order in 1989 in a straight fight. But it would not have been a straight up fight. In 1989, US artillery would have used Block-I GPS satellites and counter battery radars to nullify much of the Soviet numbers in artillery. Plus much of the NATO artillery was better protected SP guns. NATO air forces had a higher percentage of new fighters with all weather and night time capabilities. Soviet air forces lacked all weather capabilities and had less capable night fighting abilities. Since the embarrassments of the 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israeli Wars the NATO air forces had done extensive research on how to defeat Soviet SAMs. The First Gulf War is ample proof of their improvement in this area. Even if the Soviet frontline forces had 75% of their SAM systems operational it is quite likely they would have lacked the effectiveness they had had in those earlier wars. Large numbers of NATO aircraft were designated and crews trained for deep interdiction missions that would have made resupplying and maneuvering first and second echelon Soviet formations difficult to impossible let alone the follow up forces in the third and fourth echelons. As to the comments about reactive armor making Soviet tanks equal to NATO tanks...that's laughable. An APFSDSDU (aka the silver bullet) from a 105 mm doesn't even notice reactive armor (reactive armor has little to no effect vs kinetic perpetrators). If all NATO tanks fired HEAT this comment might have been believable but they didn't in 1989 anymore than they do now. It is highly unlikely, given the constraints used by Binkov, that the Soviets could have overrun Frankfurt let alone Bonn. Within a month of the Soviets pulling the trigger they would have been back on their start lines having lost as much as 50% to 75% of their tanks and IFVs, 75% to 85% of their air forces, 50% to 75% of their artillery, and likely 20% to 25% of their Infantry. NATO losses would have been around 20% to 25% in tanks and IFVs, 30% to 35% in the air forces, and 20% to 25% in infantry. NATO was formed to defend its borders through defense in depth and counter offensive. Most NATO losses would occur during offensive operations, but the Soviets would already have taken massive losses and would have been incapable of putting up an effective defense in Germany. NATO would have stopped offensive operations once the borders were secure. There was no NATO mandate to go on the strategic offensive. That would have been unnecessary. Special Forces operating in the Eastern Block countries would have trained freedom fighters (probably most effective in Poland and East Germany) that would have had great successes against the retreating Soviets (a la Afghanistan). The fall of the Soviet Union would have likely occurred in late 1989 or early 1990 instead of in 1991 as the Russian people would have had little to fear from a thoroughly defeated Red Army. EDIT: Clarification

Now y'all need to do a World War III, 1968 NATO vs Warsaw Pact

Vídeo starts at 0:33

The notifications that i waited all this time 😁

You did not account for that every Warsaw pact country has actually considered itself occupied by Russia and would rebel almost instantly

Did you get influence for this video from World in Conflict: Soviet Assault

WORLD IN CONFLICT

Although you've already given your probable conclusion, I'd love to see videos on World War III at other points in history - maybe one for every 10 - 15 years of the Cold War.

Just imagine the world without nuclear weapons. A protracted ww2 most likely ending in '47. And an all most immediate ww3 in the 1950's on the lines of this video. Einstein found the answer to global wars by discovering the means to develop weapons that can wipe out humanity.

No way fighting would last that long. All ammo would be used within 4 to 6 weeks tops.

You should do do China vs Soviet Union during sino-soviet split.

Canada vs Australia. Now that would be quite an odd war

There were so many parallels that could be drawn between this war and WW1

The southern flank is an old story played in both WW1 and WW2. Neither worked for the Allies. The British ended up losing 2 divisions at Doiran and never attempted fighting the Bulgarians again. The Turkish border in 1989 was impenetrable fortress ex. nuclear weapons. In fact, that’s why the strategic rocket forces had intermediate ballistic warheads in the town of Sandanski on the Greek border. The Bulgarians had prepared for all kinetic scenarios hence they had stationed 3 armies (most of their available forces in the “star” formation (Elhovo, Topolovgrad, Sliven) there was 3 armored division in the town of Sliven designed to push back any initial Turkish advance. That was always perceived to be a stalemate with trench fighting unless the Alexander Lebed’s Soviet 14th army had engaged from Transnistria and pushed the Turks back across the Golden Horn.

First,love ya,commissar.Always will be a subscriber

Japan vs China

Should have considered many of the Pact troops switching sides, hardly anyone there wanted to be a part of it, especially the population.

would love to see these done again with an earlier timeframe

IT'S FINALLY HERE :DDDDD

Great video as usual. For future reference, the USMC uses the division model instead of the brigade model like the army does

Interesting! But where did you find your number sources?

Considering how Ukraine is resisting Russia in urban warfare today I would assume that we those 12000 in Berlin could survive longer than a day

China vs India

Clicked this so damn fast.

In 1989 Czechoslovakia´s revolution in November ended communism goverment, so i think they wouldn´t join Warsaw Pact, more like they will try to stay neutral or switch sides to NATO :)

Who is here after Ukraine invasion

Azerbaijan vs Armenia pls

Also,2nd ranger bat is in Seattle.Dad was a Ranger.Ther would be 2 major theaters

Great video

I'd love to watch this cold war scenario in 50's, 60's and 70's

Spain vs Portugal

This is no surprise. The soviet union under Gorbachov was at its weakest. But for most of the cold war their land army had the clear upper hand. It wasn't until the mid 70s that the US tried to challenge them conventionally

i love how he forgot to color west berlin as blue

How do you model this Binkov?

if this is 89 then shouldn’t the american tanks have a much larger edge of russian tanks- as seen in gulf war the m1 decimated the t-72s and the t84s (i think its t-84 somone correct me if i’m wrong)

Finally!

I did Summer Sales in 1989, by day six we were supplying targeting information for NATO commanders en route to Berlin. Conventional would not have happened and the Soviets approach then was very much different to what most people imagined. Ever wondered why they placed so much emphasis on NBC capable vehicles ? They pre identified 106 targets in West Germany for tactical nuke strikes and they would simply drive their tanks through what was left.

All I'm saying is you need to look at Iraq and Iran War to look at how Iraqi, then look at the gulf War and look how we fought and how we just cut right through them

Finally!!!

Tom Clancy had the best breakdown of a possible war TBH

0:32 the videos starts

Cool! Would love to see one of the Allies v The Soviet Union 1945 after the fall of Germany. I think Churchill wanted the war to continue against the soviets, but roosevelt dissuaded him.

by 1989 the soviets had become a shell of themselves as the economy and logistics were far more lacking than you say overall id put money on NATO but only if it was 1989

I can say that Soviet would have shorts of supply due to sabotages in Poland.

Hey do you think that you have enough data to do a 1945 version of this?

Well this kind of aged like milk- see u guys next month or something when we get drafted

50 views, 50 likes. Never tell me the odds!

This is the plot of World in Conflict. Love the mission where you control Norwegian Rangers. A bit of corrections though 1. Spain was in NATO as of 1989, they joined in 1982. 2. Albania was not part of WP in 1989, they chose to support China in 1968. 3. You forgot to mention Afghanistan, Vietnam, and the Philippines. The Soviets would have most likely redistributed their forces in Afghanistan to fight in Europe, while there will be most likely firefights from Soviet Naval forces in Cam Ranh Bay and US Navy ships from the Philippines.

What website or download do you use to make these videos???

There’s a really good alternate history book series called World War 1990 which is worth checking out