1979 : Armoured Warfare, the Warzaw Pact vs NATO.

Something of a 'what if' I guess.

Imagine a war breaking out between the Warzaw Pact and NATO in 1979 and an engangement between tanks taking place. What sort of tanks and equipment, AT weapons etc., would be available to the opposing sides ? How would a tank vs tank engagement be fought ? How would the different types of tanks and AT weapons compare to eachother ?

 

Oh boy.

Ok, let's focus on MBT's first.

M1 Abrams vs T-72.

 

You have:

NATO:

M1 Abrams (105mm gun - good armour)
Leopard 1 (105mm gun - adequate armour)
a few Leopard 2s (120mm gun - good armour)
AMX 30 (105mm gun - light armour)
Cheiftain (120mm gun - good armour)
Centurian (105mm gun - adequate armour)

Warsaw Pact:

T-55 (100mm gun - obsolete)
T-62 (115mm gun - old design)
T-64 (125mm gun - old design)
T-72 (125mm gun - good armour)
T-80 (125mm gun - good armour)

And a host of APCs, etc...

Yes, the older Soviet designs would be used - Warsaw Pact countries were given equipment based on how 'trustworthy' they were felt to be, so none had top-ranking stuff like the T-80.

And using examples like the Arab-Israeli wars as general performance indicators is not very revealing, as downscraped export models never perform terribly well.

Basically, the NATO forces have equipment equal or better than the Soviets, and have the advantage of defense.

 

Timing is critical for M1 Abrams

From http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m1.htm

Edit: same goes for T-80: Apparently production deliveries started 1984.

 

I should have done a bit of research before I started this topic, I though 1980 would rule out the Abrams.

The scenario has been reset to 1979.

The standard main battle tank of the US Army is the M60. No Abrams.

 

Production of Leopard 2 started in mid 1979, so I think that one has to be ruled out to.

So for Mbt's it would be:

Chieftain
M60
Leopard 1
AMX 30

opposed to Warsaw pact:

T 54/55
T62
T64
T72

 

And Centurions - used by a number of smaller European nations like Denmark.

IIRC by 1979 the M-60 had been up-gunned to the 105mm.

So, still, most NATO tanks are roughly equal or superior to most Warsaw Pact tanks. The Warsaw Pact has more, but NATO has the defensive advantage.

Then you get all the AT systems etc...

 

The M-60 always had a 105mm main gun. The later version, the M-60A3 had improved stabilizers, laser range finders and a few other upgrades. I believe there were also some better ammo available.

M-48A5 was also around.

The M-551 Sheridan was still around in limited numbers as well.

US A-T would be TOW, possibly Dragon, and recoiless rifles.

 

I don't think a majority of the warsaw pact countries would have stood a chance , countries like say East germany would put up a fight , but they wouldn't have determined or commited troops , they would probably switch sides , bulgaria and Rumania would be chewed up , Poland, hmm poland , poland , i dunno , they were anti-russian and anti-german , but they hated the germans even more i would guess , I guess they would put up some formidible action but would switch sides once Nato offered them sovereignty if they switched sides, Albania and yugoslavia would probably stay out due to the fact that they were part of a different pact with China , all in all it would come down to the russians and Nato , while the warsaw pact countries are fighting , it will give russia a chance to prepare itself fully , Nato would be outnumbered most definitely , but once the Nato made ground in russia they would be hurled back , and the whole thing would be somewhat like a tie but russia would claim victory and the warsaw pact would eb inihilated. (I really didn't put effort into this statement)