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From: orb@whuts.UUCP (SEVENER)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Adverse effects of the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons...
Message-ID: <516@whuts.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 27-Jan-86 18:43:52 EST
Article-I.D.: whuts.516
Posted: Mon Jan 27 18:43:52 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 6-Feb-86 10:22:33 EST
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Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
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> From Matt Rosenblatt: 
> A few questions for Mr. Sevener:
> 
> 1.  When the Germans sliced through Russia (and France) in World War II,
>     how did German manpower (active and reserve) compare with Soviet
>     and French/British manpower?  Was it numerical superiority of men
>     that won battles for the Germans, or numerical (and technical)
>     superiority of weapons, mainly tanks?
> 
 
I believe it was predominantly a matter of Germany's swift and adept
use of the latest technology at the time (namely tanks) coupled with
weak Russian resistance.  One notes that the tiny island of England did
much better in holding out under conditions of regular V-2 raids.
I don't suppose that Russia's morale is vastly improved.

> 2.  Does the Soviet Union (forget its Warsaw Pact allies) have more tanks
>     in European Russia and the European socialist-bloc nations than NATO
>     has in Europe?  Does the Soviet Union have more tanks in Europe than
>     all the NATO countries, including the USA, have WORLDWIDE?  Is the
>     Soviet numerical advantage in tanks slight, i.e., close to the 1:1
>     ratio it takes to stop a NATO attack, or is it closer to the 4:1 ratio
>     it takes to launch an attack on NATO?
> 
> 3.  Do you think the USA tank production base, even if undamaged in a war,
>     could do again what it did in World War II, viz., grind out enough
>     tanks to ship to Europe in time to stop the threat from the East before
>     it overran both Europe and the British Isles?
> 

 
Both of these are really rather foolish replies which demonstrate the
typical obsession with "winning the last war".  The fact that tanks were
the latest thing and quite effective in WW II (when they were fairly new)
hardly means that they occupy the same status today.  One might as well
argue that the Indians had a vast superiority over the European colonists
because they had zillions more arrows than the Europeans had bullets.
While the Warsaw Pact has an undoubted superiority in sheer quantity of
tanks, it is also true that NATO has 400,000 sophisticated high-technology
anti-tank weapons.  NATO also has an air force which is vastly superior
technologically as well as superior in terms of sheer quantity.
 
The US also has a navy - the Soviet Union barely has a navy and what navy
it has is very restricted due to a lack of ports.  One can note the
technological sophistication of the Soviet navy when their subs get
stuck in fjoords in Sweden and the Swedes have no problem
whatsoever in tracking them :to the Soviet Union's great embarrasment.

As another poster pointed out, besides the likely recalcitrance of
the Soviet's Warsaw Pact allies, one must also factor in the enormous
productive capabilities of Western Europe.  Which of the Soviet Union's
Warsaw Pact allies ever had enough armed forces to control colonies
around the world?
 
Again I will pose the question : if the Soviet Union is
so bent upon territorial expansion why have they never invaded
Yugoslavia?
 
Finally, Gorbachev's offer *includes* a proposal to decrease conventional
forces as well as nuclear forces.  I have not seen the details but I
would imagine his offer on conventional force reductions favors the
Soviets.  But all the same, as with the rest of the package, it
makes a good start and demonstrates a realization at the very start
that nuclear arms reductions in Europe would also foster a desire
by NATO countries for conventional arms reductions as well.

    tim sevener   whuxn!orb