they order a full system release over the loss of a few submarines?

Not a full system release. A nuclear strike on the attacking forces. Not the same thing.

Uhm… you’re joking right!?

The Soviets had a tremendous conventional advantage. The Warsaw Pact held an overall 2:1 advantage in conventional forces, and a 3:1 advantage across the entire length of the Central European Front.

As a quick example, the Warsaw Pact had three times as many tanks as NATO (29000 vs 10000), they had a 2:1 advantage in artillery, 3:1 advantage in anti-tank missiles and a 1.5:1 advantage in armored fighting vehicles. And more than a 2:1 advantage in fighters and attack aircraft.

Again, some research before posting might be a good idea.

Hahahahaha…. Yeah… NATO figures. Most of those figures that show superiority of numbers in favour of the warsaw pact ignore French forces in the region, as well as the substantial US naval forces including carrier group air power and marine forces. It also assumes third line Soviet units are included but third line NATO forces are not included. Basically the time it would take to mobilise the third line Soviet units would be about similar to the time required to bring similar forces from the US. Reality is there would have been rough parity in forces in Europe… But NATO doesn’t like to admit that.

the Warsaw Pact had three times as many tanks as NATO (29000 vs 10000),

Actually it was closer to 30,000 for the warsaw pact vs 25,000 for NATO, with a large proportion of these vehicles obsolete and the majority of the WP tanks being on Soviet Soil and unlikely to get anywhere near the front line any time soon. (many were facing the Chinese in the far east).

and the ‘Fulcrum A’ wasn’t a particularly impressive bird anyway.

With helmet mounted sight it was the most capable dogfighter in the world at the time.
Considerng the performance of BVR missiles at the time like Sparrow that is rather important.