Re:Reasons to Fear Another ‘Great War’
by mikeash on Tuesday November 13, 2018 @09:23AM
(#18441113)
ICBMs wouldn't get used against military forces in the field. Shorter range missiles and other tactical weapons existed for that. ICBMs were for destroying military bases, factories, and cities. Their accuracy in the early 1960s sucked, but it was good enough for that job.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
That's the very point — while US were to be wasting megatons on Soviet cities without a plan B, Soviet paratroopers would be already landing on their lawn, and their main force moving down whatever left of enemy land force with a rain of short range tactical nukes.
The Soviets had no ability to land any significant force in the US. They would have poured forces into Western Europe, but both sides had so many tactical nukes there that the whole place would have ended up flattened.
Yes, I meant that they would've rolled over the Europe while US were trying to shoot them from another side of the globe.
Right, so the outcome would have been: USSR wrecked by US strategic forces, Europe wrecked by medium-range forces on both sides, US hurt by Soviet strategic forces but largely intact. I didn’t mention Europe but that’s otherwise what I said.