[Tenbinza]

If neither side had used nuclear weapons it is highly probable that Russia could have invaded Western Europe before the Americans could react sufficiently to stop them.

After that - who knows? It would be extremely hard for America to land troops in Western Europe or Russia (due to the sea) and visa versa - so probably some kind of stalemate would occur.

[Soyuz]

Also, consider soviet air defense systems, with vast network of the most powerful and advanced radar systems with powerful surface to air missiles (s-300s, 9K22 etc) as well as its own airforce equiped with very powerful interceptors (such as mig-31s). That was pretty much a brick wall to anything from small cruise missiles to even "stealthy" aircrafts.

Cant say same about NATO airdefence which was quite lame in comparison

[Steevee]

(Original post by Bagration)
But the USSR would have annexed most of America's strongest allies, whereas the USA would only have been able to touch Cuba. Strategic and diplomatic victory for the Soviet Union.

Would it though? We have to assume any non-Soviet country would have sided with the USA, and although the Soviet Army was huge, it was not well trained nor well equipped, it was not uncommon for units to be fighting with weapons from WWII. The USA would have had control of the seas and various staging outposts around the world. Russia did not have the infrastructure for large scale ground based war, nor the reasources really. It could not have kept a war going for long without significant early victories to fuel itself, and those victories would have been hard won.

The USA would essentially have had a continent to itself, untouchable, and South America would have come swiftly to heal. Those two are virtually self sustainable really, perhaps oil would have dryed up a bit though. But then there is every reason to assume that with naval control the USA could have severly impacted Russian oil drilling, along with any shipping, nessecating mainly overland transport for the USSR, which would have hampered it's war effort. So I think assuming the USSR did not roll over Europe in one quick advance it woulkd have become bogged down, ill supplied and unready to take the rest of Europe. As I said, I don;t think there would be an outright winner, yes the USSR may take some parts of Europe, but bearing in mind it's situation already, a major conflict may have been enough to trigger yet another revolution within it's borders, or complete economic and social meltdown.

[Soyuz]

"it was not well trained nor well equipped, it was not uncommon for units to be fighting with weapons from WWII"

Can you elaborate on this?

[shadow12345]

USSR...

[Soyuz]

"Russia did not have the infrastructure for large scale ground based war, nor the reasources really. It could not have kept a war going for long without significant early victories to fuel itself, and those victories would have been hard won. "

Russia is much more self reliant than any NATO countries including USA. Russia has always had extreamly vast number of resources from oil to precious metals (which is why so many countries tried to invade it in past).

Russian military infrastructur was hell of a lot more organised than NATO ones. Even modernised quicker in many areas..

[Soyuz]

Soviet had much more large scale training regimes (along with east block partners) than NATO did. VVS (frontal aviation) went through more rockets and bombs in training in the 1980s than US army did in vietnam war.. There was absoloutly no shortage of fuel and parts and ammunition in all of the branches of soviet military. Anyone with good knowledge of soviet military history knows this...

[Pax Amerifauna]

Cockroaches would've won; evidently they can survive that much radiation.

[Soyuz]

"Russian military infrastructur was hell of a lot more organised than NATO ones. Even modernised quicker in many areas"

I ment Soviet :P

[Clyde Cash]

There was a BBC documentry film that was only shown only once on tv then it was banned I beleave you can get in on DVD tho its called "Threads" , back in the 80,s the documentry caused uproar within the general public as the journalst who made the film had gotten a hold of a leaked copy of the "united kingdom cival defense plan" and had based the documentry on it, some of the things the goverment has in store for us should we be attacked by nuclear weapons is pretty out of order, the number one priorty was the reninstaltion of govenrment, not to help anyone affected by fallout or injured, and that meant not feeding the population either, every civial servent form army down to traffic wardens would be armed to protect goverment instaltions and also to force any survivers to work to rebuild im return for food. movement around the country was severly resticted the penalty should you be caught trying to flea being put in the work camps was being shot in the back while you ran away. the documentry also dealt with +30 years from when the UK got nuked, no one could read or right and a new kind of slang english had developed as well as most people becoming blind soon after birth, somthing to do withthe atmosphere being messed up. the whole documentry is really depressing but amazing to show what the powers that be have in store for us.

Also it was generaly thought that the russians would beat us, I saw on TV that in the 80,s berlin would have lasted 20mins max in toe to toe fight with the russian due to the amount of soliders and armour the soviets had on the border between west and east germany.

[j.alexanderh]

(Original post by Clyde Cash)
There was a BBC documentry film that was only shown only once on tv then it was banned I beleave you can get in on DVD tho its called "Threads" , back in the 80,s the documentry caused uproar within the general public as the journalst who made the film had gotten a hold of a leaked copy of the "united kingdom cival defense plan" and had based the documentry on it, some of the things the goverment has in store for us should we be attacked by nuclear weapons is pretty out of order, the number one priorty was the reninstaltion of govenrment, not to help anyone affected by fallout or injured, and that meant not feeding the population either, every civial servent form army down to traffic wardens would be armed to protect goverment instaltions and also to force any survivers to work to rebuild im return for food. movement around the country was severly resticted the penalty should you be caught trying to flea being put in the work camps was being shot in the back while you ran away. the documentry also dealt with +30 years from when the UK got nuked, no one could read or right and a new kind of slang english had developed as well as most people becoming blind soon after birth, somthing to do withthe atmosphere being messed up. the whole documentry is really depressing but amazing to show what the powers that be have in store for us.

Also it was generaly thought that the russians would beat us, I saw on TV that in the 80,s berlin would have lasted 20mins max in toe to toe fight with the russian due to the amount of soliders and armour the soviets had on the border between west and east germany.

Lol you mean this quite benign-looking (if rather dark) drama: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads

[Lightnix]

If it'd gone nuclear I expect world peace would be achieved. Peace in the sense that radioactive debris tends not to initiate wars.

[Allie-23]

no. both countries would be 100% dead and the rest of the world would be dieing from cancer

[Soyuz]

Life expectancy of NATO tanker in cold war buffer zone was around 15-20 mins, not much longer for soviet tankers either..

[Swanbow]

(Original post by Bagration)
I don't know about this. Soviet VDV Paratroops were six divisions strong as well as 15 independent air assault brigades capable of crossing the channel. So even though Russian Navy wasn't capable of landing forces in Britain, their airborne corp was extremely strong, larger than the British Army, and in fact fully mechanised.

I wasn't aware that their paratroopers were mechanised, however did they have enough armour to support them once they landed? Mind that the United Kingdom would probably be flooded with American reinforcements for Europe. But Air supremacy like you said would be key.

[Derfel]

Nobody would have won, can't remember where I saw the quote but it was "The nuclear arms race is like standing in a tub of petrol, it doesn't matter who had the most matches, one is enough". Whichever side one would have been obliterated soon after and the countries would be inhabitable.

[stifa]

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." – Albert Einstein

Both would probably nuke each other to kingdom come before we would declare any "winner". I think this was the sole reason it never went hot.

[Alicexxx]

You can't win when both nations are armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons.

[thunder_chunky]

Neither. It would have been a nuclear holocaust.

[JOR2010]

If the war had been fought before 1953 and the H-bomb, then it is likely that there would not be global destruction on the scale people talk of. America would most likely have won, although outnumbered in terms of mobilised frontline troops, America had a plan to knock out two thirds of Soviet industry with nuclear bombing campaigns, and at the time, the Soviets were still playing catch-up to the Americans with the Nuclear Bomb. Militarily, America would have won, as it had the support of dozens of countries, and had the world's largest economy.