With 14.7 million military deaths in WWII, and 35 million total deaths in WWII, I would suggest that the Soviet Military had already been through a meat grinder. They lost over a million second lieutenants. Think who gets to become a second lieutenant. A bright young man with some education and signs of responsibility. That is the price they paid for their early alliance with Hitler against Poland.
Yes, and after all that, they still didn’t change their tactics.
Brezhnev’s general staff figured that they could use a massive chemical weapons barrage to initiate their invasion of western Europe, followed by an extended North-South linear front, all buttoned up in butyl rubber chemical suits.
Just like Napoleon’s advance on the Danube river, prior to the encirclement of Ulm. They intended to bypass the major cities, as they represented strong points.
But because of the butyl rubber suits, they had only two weeks to make it all the way to the coast. Every day later than two weeks would cost them 10% of their force lost to heat exhaustion.
This timetable was a deadly weakness, because all NATO had to do was delay their advance by any possible means. It figured on small units being everywhere: in front of the advance, within it, and behind it, disrupting everything.
A meat grinder. And while this was going on, the REFORGER reinforcements would be enroute, blasting their way through the North Sea fleet in a vicious naval battle.