This is counter to both SIOP and what we've found out in the Warsaw Pact archives and from researchers who have been able to interview former Soviet officers and officials.
Just a back of the napkin calculation showed how silly the idea of any conventional forces surviving a full scale nuclear war. The US had around 5K warheads on ICBMs and SLBMs at the peak of the Cold War. This doesn't even count any nuclear bombs or missiles carried by bombers. Now look at a map and count the Russian cities with a population of over 150k. In 1962 (Cuban Missile Crisis), there were roughly 100 cities in the USSR at that size threshold. In a nuclear exchange, all of them are gone. Multiple times over. And most of those cities housed military forces either in them or nearby. So those are all targeted too. Every seaport, every airport, every dam, every major bridge, all targeted. The idea was to make "the rubble bounce." After a full exchange, neither the US nor the Soviets would have had anything left for a conventional conflict, with the exception of a few units that escaped the blast radius. But there would be no transport for these units, so they'd just die of starvation and disease.
>what we've found out in the Warsaw Pact archives and from researchers who have been able to interview former Soviet officers and officials.
I have asserted that one of the Soviet war plans made available to western scholars in the 1990s had a massive attack with conventional forces occur right after a nuclear strike. Are you saying that I am lying or severely mistaken in my interpretation of the news reports I saw about this war plan?
Also, if they ever implemented this plan, they could evacuate their cities and military bases beforehand. You didn't address this factor.
I also disagree that the US strategic nuclear forces could have destroyed all or even the majority (e.g. 75%) of the Soviets' conventional forces even if the Soviets had no advance warning or time to disperse anything into the countryside -- partly because the forces' being dispersed was their standard and routine posture.
I think you're basing your opinion of the overall Soviet warplan on a single plan. I'm sure the Soviets had plans for a conventional war in Western Europe. I'm sure they also had plans for invading Australia, just like the US has plans somewhere for invading Canada.
But the overwhelming record, both archival and from officers in the Warsaw Pact since the fall of the Berlin Wall was that nuclear weapons were always considered an essential component of attacking the West. Both tactical nukes and chemical weapons were planned for and considered integral for Soviet and Warsaw forces success.
As to your contention that the Soviet conventional forces would have survived in any coherent fashion after SIOP was initiated is wishful thinking. Fortunately, that timeline was never entered.
Just a back of the napkin calculation showed how silly the idea of any conventional forces surviving a full scale nuclear war. The US had around 5K warheads on ICBMs and SLBMs at the peak of the Cold War. This doesn't even count any nuclear bombs or missiles carried by bombers. Now look at a map and count the Russian cities with a population of over 150k. In 1962 (Cuban Missile Crisis), there were roughly 100 cities in the USSR at that size threshold. In a nuclear exchange, all of them are gone. Multiple times over. And most of those cities housed military forces either in them or nearby. So those are all targeted too. Every seaport, every airport, every dam, every major bridge, all targeted. The idea was to make "the rubble bounce." After a full exchange, neither the US nor the Soviets would have had anything left for a conventional conflict, with the exception of a few units that escaped the blast radius. But there would be no transport for these units, so they'd just die of starvation and disease.