The Third World War: August 1985

CHAPTER 15: The Storm Breaks on the Central Front

Active hostilities opened first of all in inner space, very shortly before 0400 hours, Central European time, on Sunday, 4 August 1985, with widespread and clearly very carefully prepared attacks on US communications and surveillance satellites. The Soviet interference capability was known to have developed considerably since the resumption of a programme temporarily discontinued in the USSR in 1971. The extent of its development came as an unpleasant surprise. Airborne relay stations of the US Air Force, already deployed, took up some, at least, of the communications load, though with a high initial degradation of efficiency. The sudden removal of large areas of satellite surveillance cover, however, was to be much more acutely felt than reduced communications capability. The latter could be largely replaced at short notice by other means. Satellite surveillance could also be restored in time, but that would take longer.

A few minutes later, at about 0400 hours, massive air and missile attacks, using both high explosive and chemical munitions, on airfields, headquarters locations, logistic areas and Hawk and Nike air-defence sites, heralded the opening of a major Warsaw Pact offensive on the Central Region of NATO. At the same time under-cover parties, as many as 300 or 400 in number, moved in to attack civil and military communications centres, government offices, fire, police, railway and generating stations, and key road and railway bridges. Almost simultaneously NATO forward troop locations came under heavy air and artillery attack along the whole length of the forward edge of the Central Region’s battle area.

Surprise was nowhere complete: NATO troops in forward positions were already alert. The expectation that an attack, however likely, would not take place just yet had some effect, at least initially, in reducing the effectiveness of protective and defensive measures in rear areas, but even here the numerous, widespread and carefully prepared strikes by under-cover parties met with gratifyingly little success. It was just not possible, as Kremlin planners had very sensibly realized, to prepare a sudden attack on so many points at once with complete surprise. They had therefore sought concealment in deception planning, particularly in terms of timing. It proved to be ineffective. A few discoveries of under-cover attacks on the very verge of delivery, together with other unmistakable signs of what was imminent, served to set off a general alert among Federal German police and territorial forces already standing by at short notice. Damage there was, even serious damage, but the first armed clash between the Warsaw Pact and the territorial defences of the Federal Republic resulted in at least 75 per cent failure and something of a boost to civil morale. (The attack on HQ NORTHAG noted above was, in spite of initial penetration of the HQ building and some casualties, a total failure, like very many others.)

Though Allied forces everywhere were already dispersed, as far as possible, in an anti-nuclear posture (with all its inconveniences), no nuclear attack was anywhere reported. Warsaw Pact forces, on the other hand, confident that nuclear release by the NATO defence was at this stage most unlikely, were able to operate with only that degree of dispersion required against conventional air attack, which was much less.

Chemical agents were used in the attack from the start, but only on some sectors of the front. They were not used against the two US corps, perhaps because USAREUR possessed integral and effective chemical offensive weapons of its own. US policy had consistently been that US troops would retaliate in kind if attacked with chemical agents but would not use them otherwise. The Soviet commanders seemed to have taken this threat seriously and did not use chemicals against any formation in CENTAG.

In the NORTHAG sector none of the national corps possessed a chemical offensive capability. This position had persisted in the 1980s despite the growing strength of the argument that possession of a retaliatory capability would be a relatively unsophisticated and economic means of discouraging recourse by the Soviet Union to chemical weapons, whose use by them would further add to the Warsaw Pact’s non-nuclear superiority. There was now widespread use by the enemy of chemicals to support attacks against NORTHAG, principally launched in BM-21 rockets. These equipments operated in battalion groups of eighteen which, when fired in unison, were able to land 720 rockets on a square kilometre within fifteen seconds. The warm weather was ideal for the use of non-persistent agents such as HCN. This has a hazard duration of only a few minutes at 10 °C in moderate wind conditions with rain, of at 15 °C in sunny conditions with a light breeze. Soldiers not wearing respirators within the target area died within a few minutes of inhaling the vapour. The agent evaporated so quickly that Soviet assault troops would be able to move through the target area with only minor precautions. Despite peacetime training, Allied casualties in forward areas as the offensive opened were considerable.

At the same time, major airfields were attacked with chemical agents (usually mustard, or G- or V-type nerve gases) delivered by missiles, each one of which could put down sufficient of a persistent agent to cause severe disruption over the whole airfield complex. Ground crew were forced to wear full personal protective equipment to carry out maintenance and aircraft refuelling and re-arming. This severely handicapped their performance and increased aircraft turn-round times significantly.

Major logistic installations and communication points, where large numbers of the civilians operating them had no protective equipment, received similar treatment. Physical removal of persistent agents was virtually impossible while further missile attacks maintained a high level of lethal contamination. Such attacks upon airfields and logistic installations caused more prolonged disruption than sustained high-explosive bombardment.

Even a minute quantity of a highly toxic agent such as HCN, either inhaled or absorbed through the skin, was capable of causing death within a few minutes unless prompt medical attention was available. Medical services soon overloaded with battle casualties were severely taxed to cope with casualties caused by chemicals as well.

Constant precautions and the wearing of appropriate personal protective equipment quickly reduced the casualty rate. Excellent personal protective equipment had been available to I British Corps since the middle 1970s and had been rushed into service by other European NATO countries just in time to prove its value. Without it, very heavy casualties would have resulted from chemical agents delivered against forward troops not only by rocket launcher and FROG missiles but also by conventional artillery and from spray tanks mounted on ground-attack aircraft.

The Warsaw Pact attack had also been preceded by very extensive ECM and anti-radar activity from the Eastern side. This was initially by no means ineffective, but was very soon seen to be quite dramatically inferior to the resources in electronic warfare available to the West.

In rather less than an hour after the opening of initial preparations for the land offensive, four powerful armoured thrusts, each on a divisional front led by an advanced group of mixed arms in regimental strength, had moved through swiftly prepared gaps in the frontier defences into the territory of the Federal Republic. The form of the attack, when it came, was by no means unexpected. Preceded by light forces operating as far ahead as the terrain allowed, the first wave in the main assault on each axis was made up of the T-72 tank regiments of the armoured divisions, operating on divisional fronts never more than eight kilometres wide and sometimes as little as two, depending on the nature of the ground. The leading tank battalions were closely followed by motor-rifle companies in their BMP armoured combat vehicles (sometimes no more than 100 metres or so in rear), whose chief purpose was known to be to suppress the opposing anti-tank defences. Following closely behind the tank divisions were the motor-rifle divisions, each consisting of one armoured regiment and three motor-rifle regiments, which were prepared to exploit the breakthrough which such a heavy concentration of armour in the lead could hardly fail to achieve. Turning off the line of march into encounter battles their purpose was to sweep opposition out of the way and thus allow the tank and motor-rifle divisions in the next echelon, piling on into the battle, to maintain the impetus of the advance.

The general offensive in Europe opened in accordance with the subsequently recovered plan whose substance has been given above. Though this plan was not, of course, known to Allied intelligence in detail until after the war, the pattern of the offensive caused no great surprise. SHAPE expected, for example, that heavy pressure would initially develop along the whole front, followed by major concentrations to break through at selected points as well as very numerous probing operations to find and exploit opportunities for deep penetration. It was realized that the verification by NATO commanders of the main axes of thrust at a very early stage would be of the greatest importance. Where, for example, would 3 Shock Army be directed? South-west, to follow through behind the initial onslaught by 8 Guards Army, in a drive for Frankfurt? This would tax CENTAG severely. Or westwards against NORTHAG? This could be more dangerous still. The considerable loss of satellite surveillance was a severe blow, even if in part offset by intelligence from other sources. Reconnaissance in any depth in such a hostile environment was difficult enough for special unmanned air vehicles relying on their small size and radar reflection to evade enemy defences. For manned aircraft, operating singly on deep penetration missions without the benefits of defence suppression and adequate electronic counter-measures, it was an extremely difficult and dangerous task. But the strategic importance of identifying the main axes of the thrust was such that it had to be tried, tried, and tried again, no matter what the cost.

The Allied tactical air forces and air defences, already on full alert, had responded to the opening of the offensive at once. They concentrated initially on both defensive and offensive counter-air operations to reduce Soviet air activity, and to strive for a tolerable air situation over the battle and behind the battle area in AFCENT airspace. COMAAFCE’s (Commander Allied Air Forces Central Europe) assessment of priorities in the first few hours of the conflict is discussed in detail in Chapter 20 on the air campaign.

The picture that began to be clarified in HQ AFCENT on the late afternoon of 4 August, out of the flood of information coming in, can be described as follows.

At the northern end of the Central Region Bremen airfield, so recently, ironically enough, protected by a US brigade, was in Soviet hands. It had been seized by one of the very few fully successful fifth-column actions, followed up by airborne infantry. A Soviet air-portable division, under very strong air cover, was now building up on the airhead thus formed. Three divisions out of 2 Guards Tank Army, slowed down but not stopped by the action of covering forces which had been furnished by the Americans to strengthen the forward defences of the Dutch, were fighting their way towards the Bremen airhead through I Netherlands Corps. One Soviet division out of 2 Guards Tank Army had turned up northwards in the direction of Kiel, followed, it appeared, by two Polish divisions, one armoured, one motorized. The 6 Polish Airborne Division was also known to be concentrated in the north, with special deep penetration troops from Neuruppin, units from the East German Willi Sanger Special Services organization and naval specialists.

The city of Hamburg, masked by a strong Red Army force to the south of it across the Elbe, was apparently being bypassed for the present. The Hamburg Senat had urged strongly that the Allies declare Hamburg an open city, which meant that no troops of any origin would be allowed to enter and, since its use was denied to both sides it would not be attacked by either. Under strong pressure from the FRG, this was soon agreed by the NATO Council. The Soviet attitude was not made known.

Refugee movement from the relatively thinly populated areas of north Niedersachsen was already considerable. There was here an unwelcome foretaste of what lay in store further south.

In the centre of the NORTH AG area a strong armoured column from what was almost certainly 3 Shock Army had been launched on a two-divisional front, with four more divisions in the follow-up. It was moving westwards, in the direction of Hannover. Movement behind it along the same axis was observed from 20 Guards Army.

On the Central Army Group front to the south of NORTHAG an armoured column from 8 Guards Army with two divisions up was driving at Frankfurt, which lay only 100 kilometres from the Demarcation Line, but with difficult country in the Thuringer Wald to be crossed on the way. Four more Soviet divisions were known to be following up the first two.

Further south on the CENTAG front another column, again with two divisions up and four following, almost certainly from 1 Guards Tank Army, was pressing towards Nurnberg.

Chemical attack, heavy in NORTHAG, not used in CENTAG, had a varying impact: the Americans, who did not have to face it, were, with the British, technically best prepared to meet it, the Germans and the British stood it best, the effect on the Belgians was mixed and that upon the Dutch on the whole rather bad.

The main result of chemical attack was less the infliction of casualties, which were never intolerably high after the initial attacks, than the severe constraint on physical activity occasioned by defensive precautions, particularly the wearing of respirators and cumbrous protective clothing. The performance of combat infantry was degraded under full precautions by as much as 60 per cent. Mobility was reduced in avoiding contaminated areas. The requirement for chemical reconnaissance took time and units were frequently forced for lack of it to fight in a contaminated environment. Similar constraints applied to headquarters. Staff officers under threat of attack had to work in protective equipment, including gloves and respirators, with a significant degradation in command and control.

On the opening day of the offensive Soviet ground-attack aircraft also used napalm against forward Allied units. Fortunately most were well spread out and casualties, where they occurred, although gruesome, were small in number. Attacks were also mounted against tanks and some tank losses resulted. Allied tank commanders had been taught to drive straight through any napalm attack and, generally speaking, tanks which continued to motor on in this way drove themselves out of trouble. The target against which napalm was used to greatest effect was soft-skinned, that is, unarmoured vehicles, which stood a poor chance of survival against it. Quite heavy casualties were sustained in soft-skinned transport in the opening days of the offensive.

Although Allied formations had no answer to napalm attacks other than to redouble their vigilance against low-flying aircraft, such attacks tended to lessen in frequency and intensity as the Russians found that the damage being caused, particularly against Allied tanks, did not warrant the high cost in aircraft. Although sporadic attacks continued throughout the following days the use of napalm was not regarded by the Allies as offering a major hazard.

No nuclear weapons, by the end of the first day, had as yet been used on either side. The Soviet declaration notwithstanding, SACEUR had felt obliged by the uncertainty of the situation to withhold some of his strike aircraft — chiefly F-111s, Buccaneers and Tornados — from the battle for possible nuclear action. Their absence resulted in a slight but significant increase in Soviet numerical superiority in the air.

Whether in the air or on the ground, it was chiefly forces of the Soviet Union which had been so far engaged. Three Polish divisions with some East German specialists were known to have moved into Denmark. One tank and two motor-rifle divisions of the East German Army had been in action against NORTHAG. No troops from any country other than Poland and East Germany in the Warsaw Pact had yet been identified in action.

Without any doubt the most important development of that first morning of open hostilities in Europe was the declaration by the French government of its intention to carry out to the full its obligations under the Atlantic Treaty. France was now, therefore, in a state of war against the Soviet Union and its allies in the Warsaw Pact.

II French Corps in Germany, some 50,000 strong, when assigned to Allied Command Europe and placed by SACEUR under command to the Commander-in-Chief, Central Region (CINCENT), was in the first instance put into regional reserve, with a warning to be in readiness for a move forward in Bavaria. Three further French divisions, of the smaller size which had resulted from a reorganization at the end of the seventies (8,200 men in armoured divisions, 6,500 in infantry), were under orders to move in from France forthwith. The mobilization operation, which would in due course produce fourteen divisions more, was already under way. Particularly welcome was the addition of the eighteen fighter-bomber squadrons of the French Tactical Air Force, even if only to be used — on the first day at any rate — in support of French formations. More important than anything else for the immediate future, however, was the availability of French ports and airfields and the massive and quite invaluable increase to the theatre’s depth, particularly in the matter of airspace.

The French nuclear capability was retained firmly and exclusively in French hands.

Though the intervention of the French gave a degree of encouragement to the Allies whose importance it would be hard to overestimate, the situation on the ground in the Central Region at nightfall on the first day was far from promising (see Situation Map). The covering forces along the entire forward edge of the battle area, with the exception of those to the east of Frankfurt between Alsfeld and Bamberg, had been driven back. In the north, sheer weight of numbers had enabled the enemy to push regiment-sized groups of all arms, very strong in tanks and armoured infantry, almost invariably moving mounted, with powerful tactical air support, round centres of NATO opposition that had been effectively pinned down south of Hamburg. These groups were now driving on to link up with the air-transported Soviet units which were deploying out of the Bremen airhead. Soviet airborne infantry units with light support were in their turn feeling forward to seize crossing points over the River Weser, against determined but not always well co-ordinated opposition from units of I Netherlands and II British Corps.

In the North German plain armoured units from I German and I British Corps, extricated with some difficulty from encirclement, were now regrouping north of Hannover to face the main threat pressing down upon them from the north and east. The North German plain was no longer the wide open tank-run it had still been held to be (perhaps even then no longer correctly) a decade or so before. Villages had become townships, offering opportunities for anti-tank delaying action which the Germans and the British had been quick to seize, developing tactical practices already referred to which had much in common. Operating in small and inconspicuous detachments, with Milan ATGW and the recently introduced (and long overdue) replacement for the Carl Gustav recoilless rifle, the British had shown a special aptitude for what they called ‘sponge’ tactics. It was remarkable how regularly distributed the villages and small townships of Niedersachsen were, with groups of habitations separated from each other by some 3,000 metres. The British practice, which was very like that of the German Jagd Kommandos, was to install a platoon of infantry, organized to man two Milan ATGW and otherwise armed only to protect itself, in the last houses of the village, with another village similarly garrisoned, very little further away than the effective range of a Milan missile, which was about 2,000 metres. The leading tanks of a Soviet column would be allowed through unmolested. The third, or fifth, or seventh would be attacked and destroyed with the first shot. If BMP were far up with the leading tanks, several of these would be sent up in flames as well. Before an effective clearance operation could be mounted against it the NATO platoon would then be withdrawn, perhaps by a previously reconnoitred route, for similar action in the next village. It was here that the German Jagd Kommandos were particularly effective, for most of the men in them were locally resident reservists.

Both in the urban development of the North German plain and, with appropriate adjustment, in the hill country of the Harz, these tactics began to show promise, even on the first day, of a significant capacity for the absorption of armoured impetus. The depth of the enemy’s penetration by nightfall on the 4th had certainly not been as great in the NORTHAG sector as he must have hoped. It was still great enough, nonetheless, to put the army group’s ability to retain its balance in some doubt.

In the NORTHAG sector, as elsewhere in the Central Region, another serious problem was emerging. An immense, sprawling swarm of civilian refugees from the towns and villages of Niedersachsen was already beginning to cause the difficulties that had long been foreseen — and feared. It was greatly to the Soviet advantage to increase disorder wherever possible, while trying to keep clear the main axes of their advance. Ground-attack aircraft maintained a ceaseless rain of machine-gun fire along these axes, with small anti-personnel fragmentation bombs, the Soviet intention clearly being not so much to cause casualties (though they minded little about these) as to drive refugee traffic off any roads they intended to use. Armoured engineer equipment moving with leading tanks swept derelict civilian vehicles to one side without noticeable loss of momentum to the advancing columns. The tanks themselves were driven without hesitation through groups of people vainly struggling to get clear, charging on at high speeds over human wreckage already pulped by vehicles ahead of them. Some side roads soon became jammed, and Allied troops were being seriously impeded by a chaotic mass of pedestrians and vehicles which it was nearly impossible, in spite of heroic and efficient work by German police and Home Defence units, to control.

In the CENTAG sector, with III German Corps on the left under pressure and pinned down, it had become clear by early afternoon on the 4th that a major thrust directed towards Hersfeld was developing on the left of V US Corps, with a secondary effort through Fulda towards Hanau, along the Kinzig river valley and the ridges running south-west to the Rhine-Main plain. The covering force of reinforced US armoured cavalry had used its anti-tank weapons and artillery admirably from first light onwards, making good use of favourable terrain to slow the enemy’s advance. It had even been found possible to turn the great numbers of the enemy’s vehicles to his disadvantage by blocking defiles which it then took time to clear. In this the F-15 aircraft of the US Air Force, having already established a clear superiority in air-to-air action, were particularly effective, operating in a secondary ground-attack role.

In the CENTAG sector, too, very good use was being made of German Jagd Kommandos, deployed far forward in well-sited localities. In CENTAG, however, the emphasis was laid more on the actual stopping — or at least delaying — power of the armoured covering force. The terrain, for one thing, was in general closer, more thickly wooded and more up-and-down than in the north, and thus more favourable to the defence. For another thing, it was dangerously short of depth. There was no ground here to be traded for time.

Time-consuming actions had been fought, with very considerable loss to the enemy, before Fulda at Hunfeld, in front of Schlitz, and south-east of Hersfeld. Fortunately for the defence the weather was clear and the maximum range of ATGW could be exploited. The covering force on this part of the CENTAG front exchanged losses with the attackers at a rate in their own favour of nearly five to one, but they were obliged in the process to yield some fifteen to twenty kilometres.

With III German Corps on their left fighting hard and giving very little away, the brunt of the attack on 4 August in the CENTAG area was met at about 1600 hours by the armoured division on the left of V US Corps. Four Soviet tank regiments ploughed into the two brigades on the left of the division, the motorized infantry companies, mounted in their BMP, coming along close behind the leading tanks. Another tank regiment and a motorized infantry regiment followed up. With nearly 100 T-72s leading, the Soviet attack ran into a network of anti-tank fire which the enemy’s heavy artillery preparation for nearly an hour before, and the best efforts of his tactical air support, had been unable entirely to suppress. The leading US battalions were forced back several kilometres through their own anti-tank defences, but as these reduced the impetus of the assault it was possible to regain some, at least, of the ground lost. By nightfall the two leading Soviet divisions had gained, in the event, a few kilometres, but with very high losses. Pressure continued through the night. When the attack was resumed with a new ferocity at first light on the 5th, by two fresh Soviet divisions which had passed through the first in the hours of darkness, it was met by the combined strength of two US divisions, of which one was from those most newly arrived, and brought to a halt, at least for the time being, after relatively shallow penetration, just forward of Alsfeld. The V US Corps front now extended from Alsfeld in the north to Schluchtern in the south.

On its right, further south, VII US Corps had faced a major attack on the opening day, following exactly the same pattern, on the Meiningen-Schweinfurt axis along the River Main near Wurzburg. Again, ground had been lost, but the effectiveness of the anti-tank defences had prevented a decisive breakthrough.

Further south still, II German Corps was fighting a stubborn rearguard action in the area of Nurnberg, giving away no more ground than was absolutely necessary in the expectation of the early arrival of the French. There was little enough they could do. The action of covering forces in the Bayrischer Wald had gained too little time to prevent the Russians from bouncing a crossing over the Danube. As night fell powerful armoured columns of the Soviet 1 Guards Tank Army were bypassing Munchen to the north. The next hope of stopping them, at this southern end of the Central Region, would be along the River Lech.

In spite of the splendid news from France, with the First French Army moving eastwards to strengthen the southern flank and the French Tactical Air Force already in action ahead of it, the day, 5 August 1985, ended in uncertainty and gloom.

It was by now clear that at any one of half a dozen points at once, on either army group front in the Central Region, the Russians could develop a high degree of local superiority in armoured and armoured infantry attacks, under massive artillery and air-to-ground support, and would press any advantage with the utmost vigour and complete disregard of casualties. Soviet momentum was maintained by heavy concentrations of armour and firepower on narrow fronts; flanks were largely ignored. With the weight of the attack and the determination — even the recklessness — with which it was pressed wherever it took place, penetration at one or more points was inevitable. Swift exploitation by troops of the second echelon would then follow hard on the heels of the first. Immediate counter-attack from the Allied side was in the early stages rarely possible. The Russians made no attempt to consolidate ground. It was hard to find a moment, however fleeting, when they could be caught off-balance. Counter-attack often simply ran head-on into the armour of the next wave and was smothered almost before it had got under way. Even the concentrated fire of Allied divisional and corps artillery could for the most part only attenuate somewhat the force of attacks pressed with such violence and in such numbers, with so high a disregard for loss. Air-to-ground attack, in this first forty-eight hours, was nothing like as plentiful as the corps and subordinate commanders would have wished, but the Allied air forces were, on CINCENT’s express order, being used to counter the enemy’s air forces both in the air and on the ground in an endeavour to establish a tolerable air situation in addition to their continuous pounding of ‘choke points’ now in rear of the main battle.

It was only rarely that the attacks of Soviet tanks and armoured infantry could be stopped. Tanks would almost always get through, and fresh waves of attacking armour would move in behind them. Equipment for equipment, sub-unit for sub-unit, man for man, the NATO defence was by no means inferior to the attacking forces. In one important respect at least, that is in almost every aspect of the whole field of electronic technology, NATO was already showing up better. On the first day, however, the defending formations were simply being swamped by numbers, dominated and driven on by blind faith in the doctrine of the total offensive.

But even on the first day weaknesses began to appear in the way the Russians fought their battle. The handling of armoured infantry provides an example which deserves attention, for it was to be of critical importance.

The BMP, improved but still essentially the same machine, had originally been evolved as an armoured infantry combat vehicle for use in exploitation of nuclear action. Its chief purpose was to move in swiftly to overwhelm, by mainly mounted attack, whatever NATO defences still survived the nuclear attack, travelling in close company with the tanks whose further action would resolve the battle. To maintain the impetus of the armoured advance some protection of the tanks by infantry was indispensable. But the BMP was itself highly vulnerable to anti-tank attack. The precision-guided missiles now deployed by NATO in very considerable numbers showed that mounted attack was often suicidal. The toll of BMP on the first day was heavy.

The Red Army had long recognized that in the non-nuclear battle mounted action for motor infantry was not always feasible, though it was certainly worth trying, particularly in the first assault. The alternative was to dismount the infantry for an attack on foot against such NATO anti-tank defences as survived the suppressive fire of artillery and air forces. In the event, well-located Allied missile launchers survived, even on that first day, in considerable numbers. Dismounted infantry had no hope of keeping up with tanks moving at their best speed. When motor-rifle infantry were prevented by anti-tank fire from going in mounted, therefore, the whole attack slowed down.

We have seen how Soviet tactics for the penetration of hostile defences in the non-nuclear variant of the land battle had latterly come to depend upon manoeuvre at least as much as on massed frontal attack. Manoeuvre by mounted infantry demanded both tactical surprise and effective suppression of anti-tank defensive fire. In the battle of the Central Region neither, for the Warsaw Pact, was complete, even on the first day.

Professor J. Erickson, one of the best informed and soundest observers of the Soviet military scene, had said in 1977: ‘Above all the Soviet command will pay the closest attention to the loss-rate in the first 10–15 km of the advance…’ These were prophetic words.

A battle drill to deal with the differing requirements of each combined arms tactical engagement had proved, for the Red Army, impossible to find. When should the infantry dismount? How were the varying speeds of tank, BMP, SP gun and foot soldier to be related? How was the fire of tank, BMP, SP gun, divisional artillery and helicopter gunship, with tactical air support thrown in, to be co-ordinated? The command responsibilities formerly held in the Red Army at division now devolved in greater measure than before on the regiment, which was akin to the Allied brigade, but the heaviest load of all lay on the battalion commander. In a reinforced motor-rifle battalion with a minute staff of four officers, one NCO and eight men, he would be attempting to control a force some 700 strong, with a company of thirteen tanks, a battery of six guns (or even a battalion of eighteen), a mortar battery, anti-air weapons, an ATGW platoon, reconnaissance and engineer elements, thirty BMP, sixty light machine guns and 356 assault riflemen. It was a tall order.

The Allied maxim was a simple one, even if to follow it demanded fortitude: stay put, keep your head down, and go for the commander. He was not all that difficult to locate. The information coming in from many sources, processed in JTIDS and almost instantaneously disseminated, could often pinpoint centres of command at divisional and regimental level. They had then to be attacked, which was rather less easy.

At lower levels the problem was simple. Junior commanders on the NATO side had been taught to look for the command tank. Its behaviour pattern at company level, for instance, gave it a quite unmistakable signature. The temptation to take the easiest shot first was one to be resisted. Take out the command tank; this would not stop the attack but it would at least blunt the follow-through. Battalion command was harder to break, but to take that out was even more rewarding.

Few junior commanders, in the heat and confusion, the clamour and horror, the fear and growing weariness of those battles on the first days, would perhaps have thought of putting it quite that way, but what they were trying to do was to uncouple the parts of an interdependent whole. This would not stop the onrush. To do that in the case of 3 Shock Army would have meant the elimination (or at least the neutralization) of some 120 artillery batteries and 2,800 armoured fighting vehicles (AFV). To hold a single breakthrough on one axis would have meant accounting for some thirty batteries and 800 AFV. What was already just beginning to happen, however, if not on the first day at least towards the end of the second, was the emergence of a hope in those Allied commanders whose nerves were strongest that, if wedges could be driven between the main elements of the Soviet combined arms operation, the enemy might just be prevented from breaking all the way through to the Rhine. There was also now a growing awareness on the other side that to reach it in nine days might not be easy.

What was also beginning to emerge was that a battle seen superficially at the outset as a mainly armoured offensive against an anti-tank defence was becoming more and more a contest between firepower and counter-measures. In an older terminology it would have been called an artillery battle between battery and counter-battery; in newer terms it was seen as a battle between rival arrays of electronics.

On the 5th, after a night in which the pressure had been hardly less than by day, the advance went on. In the north the enemy secured crossings over the Weser north of Minden and leading elements were reported moving west towards the Netherlands. I Belgian Corps had been pushed back west of Kassel; I British Corps was still fighting in the outskirts of Hannover and, in the built-up areas and the hill country of the Harz, exploiting with German reservist Jagd Kommandos the advantage of the ‘sponge’; I German Corps was established east and west along the Teutoburger Wald; II British Corps was extending its left westwards to the Dutch frontier, behind which reserve formations were hastily preparing defences in low-lying country now being flooded.

On the CENTAG front the first of the newly arrived US divisions, which had already fought such a valuable action, had been withdrawn from V US Corps to join the strong Canadian Brigade Group in army group reserve. The First French Army, taking II German Corps under command, had now assumed responsibility for that sector of the region which ran from Nurnberg south to the Austrian frontier, coming for the time being under command to CENTAG, with which French ties, as has been seen, were close.

By the evening of 5 August further enemy attacks had opened a salient on the left of III German Corps, in the extreme north of the CENTAG sector on the Corps boundary with the Belgians, and a Soviet thrust was developing towards Giessen. This was checked by flank action from the V US Corps between Alsfeld and Schluchtern. It was perhaps significant that the leading divisions in the enemy’s assault were now more often motor-rifle than tank divisions, and powerful probing for weak points was tending more and more to replace the massive armoured assault of tanks in the first wave. The Allied tactic, at unit level, which was essentially a matter of striving wherever possible to separate the tanks from their supporting infantry, was clearly paying off.

Further south the anti-tank defences of VII US Corps, with strong artillery and increasing tactical air support, had just been sufficient to contain a major attempt to break through south-east of Frankfurt where pressure was again building up. From Nurnberg southwards the situation was confused, but what information was available suggested that the First French Army with II German Corps was still more or less in control along the Lech.

Over the next five days of bright, clear weather, as growing French strength in the south did much to stabilize the right flank, it became increasingly clear that the main effort would continue to be made in the north. The boundary between the two army groups had been moved up to give the Kassel area, with command of the much weakened I Belgian Corps, to CENTAG. After very hard fighting had held up a determined attempt to push down to Frankfurt through Giessen, COMCENTAG now believed that he had a good chance of holding an area whose forward edge would run from Kassel down through Alsfeld to south of Wurzburg. If the Soviet 3 Shock Army had been put in behind 1 Guards Tank Army the outlook would have been different, but it had been committed to the attack in the north.

By 7 August the continued enforcement of chemical defensive measures upon NORTHAG was beginning to cause concern, and pressure from field commanders for some form of retaliation grew. In theory a nuclear response had always been considered a possibility, at least by the British, but at this stage SACEUR was in no doubt that such a response would be an irrational risk. He was, however, prepared to see chemicals used in retaliation; indeed, authority for their use had already been delegated to local US commanders. SACEUR thus felt able to offer some chemical support to NORTHAG. It presented no problem to COMAAFCE to allot a squadron of US Air Force F-4 Phantoms equipped with spray tanks to 2 ATAF, while a quantity of US 155 mm chemical ammunition was released to the gunners of the British and German divisions of NORTHAG. This capability was put to immediate use.

The Phantoms attacked second echelon and reserve Soviet divisions with extensive and heavy concentrations of persistent lethal agents. These attacks forced Soviet units into unplanned moves. The personal protective equipment used by Soviet soldiers was not suitable for prolonged wear and under continued attack by persistent gases grew almost intolerably irksome. It was less easy for NORTHAG formations to use the US 155 mm chemical ammunition. It only slowly became available, for the logistic problem in drawing the ammunition from US locations caused delay, while Allied forces were unskilled in its technical and tactical use. The overall effect of the use of chemical agents against the Soviet offensive was nonetheless welcome. Protective clothing and equipment taken with Soviet prisoners was found to be rougher, clumsier, worse-fitting and considerably less effective than that of the Allies — which was itself a great improvement on what had been available only two or three years before. Red Army troops suffered in consequence more serious casualties from the same weight of attack. Their less flexible command and control procedures were more easily impeded. On balance, Soviet commanders considered a chemical exchange to be to their disadvantage, and since the Allies adhered to the rule of only using chemical agents in retaliation their use on the battlefield, as distinct from the rear areas, soon declined.

Refugees were posing an acute and growing problem in the south, as in the north. Large numbers of people from Augsburg and Ulm had moved in the direction of Stuttgart, and a rapidly increasing mass of frightened people was building up in the vicinity of Karlsruhe. The same sort of thing was also happening where crowds fleeing from Nurnberg and Wurzburg, augmented by refugees from smaller places, were bearing down on Mannheim. From the Frankfurt area there was a good deal of movement in the direction of Wiesbaden and Mainz. The general picture was one of a widespread and virtually uncontrollable flow from east to west, much of it on foot with possessions piled on vehicles drawn by animals or pushed or dragged by hand, with a chaotic jumble of motor vehicles of every description, more and more of them abandoned as petrol supplies gave out. At the Rhine crossings the pressure was tremendous; to keep the bridges open was putting increasing strain on Federal German police and territorial troops. Disorder was increased by determined Soviet air attack, both at low and medium levels, of which some at least always got through the defences. The importance of maintaining freedom of movement across the Rhine for the Allies, and of blocking it for the Warsaw Pact, was fully realized on both sides. By the fourth day some success began to attend the strenuous efforts of Federal German police and territorial troops to establish control over refugee movements and divert them into areas of open country east of the river. This did much to relieve pressure on the Rhine crossings but could not prevent serious interference with the movement of troops and other essential military traffic.

To the north of the Central Region AFNORTH was proving a tougher proposition for the Warsaw Pact than many in the West had expected, perhaps because few had much experience of the very great difficulty of movement from north to south in Norway. By 4 August the Allied Command Europe (ACE) Mobile Force of seven battalions with supporting troops had been put in by air and deployed north of Narvik. A Royal Marine Commando came in from Britain by sea and other Allied reinforcements arrived by sea and air to strengthen and support Norwegian national forces deployed in north Norway.

Advanced elements of a Soviet motor-rifle division crossed into Norway from the Kola peninsula on 4 August. A second was already moving westwards through Finnish Lapland, directed on Narvik. The fact that the Soviet and Finnish railway systems were integrated meant that no movement problem hampered the early follow-on of eight to ten more Soviet divisions. Soviet air superiority was complete.

The relative strengths of ground troops in AFNORTH did not, however, give a true measure of the Warsaw Pact advantage. It was less than it looked. The strength of the defence lay in the very great difficulty of deployment for offensive action, even with a favourable air situation. It was, in fact, only the action of a Soviet amphibious force in effecting a landing south of Bodo on 10 August that was to compel a southward redeployment of Allied forces to protect the land line of communication through north Trondelag and Nordland. By 15 August a firm Allied defence was based on Trondheim, which was unlikely to be seriously threatened so long as a delaying action continued to be successfully fought in the north.

To the south of the Central Region, HQ AFSOUTH, with a hastily put together Italian government in exile, had moved on 6 and 7 August to Spain. The Italian peninsula was now entirely under Soviet control, though with no great strength in Red Army troops.

The Italian and US air elements based in Italy constituting 5 Allied Tactical Air Force, after their initial operations, found themselves overtaken by the virtual disintegration of the NATO Southern Region. The wings and squadrons were faced with a fleeting chance and those aircrew who had serviceable aircraft took it by flying to Spain and the south of France where they were subsequently used as a general reserve of tactical air power for the central battle, chiefly in the south of the Central Region.

Holland came under Soviet occupation as far south as the River Maas by 10 August, the seat of government having removed to Eindhoven. The last remnants of a Dutch defence of the frontier had been dispersed in an action near Lingen on the 8th, and thereafter only floods caused by the opening of the dykes and an active civilian resistance had stood in the invaders’ way.

On 10 August the right-hand corps of the Northern Army Group, I British, was still in being, though battered, in the area round Paderborn. Its anti-tank defences had been its salvation. The tactics of the ‘sponge’ had been highly successful. Small infantry detachments manning ATGW were still lying up in built-up or hilly country, waiting for the vulnerable flank, always trying to reduce the impetus of the enemy’s advance by hampering the follow-up and interfering with supply. The concentration of attack at all levels, by every means, on communications, command and control was paying off handsomely. One guided missile could destroy one tank. A single hit on a divisional command post could impose confusion and delay upon a hundred. Even where physical disruption was not possible (and, with the methods currently in use, nodal communication points could quite often be located and destroyed) interference with communication almost always was. It was remarkable how far such interference could reduce the effectiveness of an enemy accustomed to close control by superiors.

To the left of I British Corps, I German Corps was still established along the Teutoburger Wald, offering so great a threat to the enemy’s advance from east to west as to invite a major effort very soon to push it out. On its left, in turn, stood II British Corps, forced back to positions south and west of Munster, with one US brigade under command on the west bank of the Rhine. The remnants of I Netherlands Corps, which had taken very heavy punishment in the past few days, were strung out further west towards Nijmegen.

By the evening of the 11th, I German Corps had been put under such severe pressure from the south and west as to be no longer able to hold the high ground on either side of the Minden Gap. NORTHAG’s main preoccupation was now the defence of the Ruhr and Rhineland and the prevention of a breakthrough on the west bank of the Rhine in the area of Venlo.

In the Central Region the Warsaw Pact invasion had not, it is true, achieved the swift and overwhelming success planned for it. If it had not been completely successful, however, the shortfall so far lay only in the timetable. Allied Command Europe was facing a serious position which was now growing critical.

It was on 13 August that SACEUR made known two decisions which can now be seen, among the many difficult problems before him in those momentous days, to have been truly critical to the outcome of the war in Europe. The first was a final refusal to endorse any of the urgent requests of his subordinate commanders for the release of battlefield nuclear weapons. The second concerned the commitment of reserves.

Speculation would be idle on how long any Warsaw Pact offensive into the Central Region of Europe could have continued under the thunderous threat of national revolt, soon to be looming, as we shall learn, in the Red Army’s rear. What is beyond doubt is that the Allied counter-offensive, shortly to be opened by the forces of the Central Region northwards towards Bremen, was to set up a completely new operational situation for the Pact to face on the land battlefield. To bring this under control was clearly not impossible for the Pact forces. Of the huge military resources available to the Warsaw Pact, relatively little had as yet been lost. But regrouping would be needed on a considerable scale. There was already a growing uncertainty in the rearward political infrastructure, with increasing threats to the security of lines of communication, and a discernible decline in confidence in the reliability of non-Soviet formations. Divisions expected to follow up for the maintenance of offensive momentum were more and more being kept where they were, to safeguard the very lines of communication along which they should have moved. These and other related factors were to combine to render less and less stable the basis on which the operation of containing the Allied counter-offensive and regaining offensive momentum, once this had been lost, would have to rest. A real check to the forward impetus of the invasion of West Germany could not therefore be regarded as only a temporary setback. It was likely, in all the circumstances, to mark the beginning of something much more important.

It was the Supreme Allied Commander’s decision, at a time of great uncertainty, to commit his theatre reserves that made this all-important check possible.

The Allied position in the Central Region at nightfall on 12 August was not very good (see Situation Map). The French command in the south — now the Southern Army Group (SOUTHAG), with II French Corps and II German Corps under command, together with a division’s worth of Austrian troops — was under heavy pressure along the line of the Lech. Here and there it was losing ground. North of the present boundary between SOUTHAG and the Central Army Group (CENTAG), which now ran from Karlsruhe through Bayreuth, with its three corps and some eight divisions, was in a similar situation. It was just holding on to an area whose forward edge ran from west of Kassel to Wurzburg and was hourly expecting attack by fresh formations.

A great blow to CENTAG during the day had been a direct hit from a missile on its Main HQ in the field. The mobile tactical HQ further forward was unharmed, but unhappily the commanding general was in Main HQ at the time and was killed outright. He was replaced by the commander of V US Corps, whose vigorous defence in the Fulda area on CENTAG’s left, the hinge of the whole army group’s position, had been of such vital importance.

The new Commander of the Central Army Group and Commander of the United States Army in Europe was already a familiar figure on television screens on both sides of the Atlantic. It was an appointment as popular with the American public, to whom he had in a few short days of intense exposure become something of a folk hero, as it was in the command he now took over.

To the north of the Central Army Group NORTHAG was deployed in a great bow, with a position running first of all northwards from west of Kassel to within twenty kilometres of Hannover, which was now in enemy hands. Thereafter, the forward edge was much as it had been for the past few days, running south-west along the Teutoburger Wald to Osnabruck, then westwards to the Rhine near Wesel. It was here on the left that most ground in NORTHAG’s sector had been lost, in spite of a determined defence by II British Corps, disposing of one US brigade and some Dutch units in addition to two divisions of its own. West of the Rhine the key Venlo position was still holding. There was no doubt at all that it would soon come under very heavy pressure.

In theatre reserve SACEUR was holding the heavy US division withdrawn in pretty fair shape from V US Corps on the second day of the battle, the second US reinforcement division now less one brigade, two more US divisions married to their prepositioned equipment in the first few days of August, one fairly strong German division, one rather weaker British division, the Canadian Brigade Group of almost divisional strength, and some other troops amounting to about a division all told.

These, adding up in the aggregate to only some seven divisions’ worth, were all nominally under command of the Central Army Group, but with the firm instruction that none must be committed by CENTAG without the Supreme Commander’s authority. They were located largely in Hessen and the Rhineland. Most lay east of the Rhine. The main Rhine bridges, surprisingly enough, were still in service, though only through a major effort on the part of Allied air defence and truly heroic work by army engineers.

Pressure on the Supreme Allied Commander from subordinate commanders to release troops from this reserve had already been considerable, and was now growing. To all requests, however pressing, SACEUR had invariably replied that army groups must manage with whatever local reserves they could find. Inevitably there had followed urgent insistence on the release of battlefield nuclear support, as the only possible way of preventing collapse, if no reserves were to be made available.

The Supreme Commander knew the mind of his Commander-in-Chief, the President of the United States. The President would go to almost any lengths to avoid nuclear attack on the cities of the United States. It was not easy to see how this could be avoided once the battlefield nuclear exchange had begun.

Among the European Allies, opinion on the use of battlefield nuclear weapons in this confused and highly dangerous situation was divided. Understandably the Federal Republic was against it. The United Kingdom was in two minds. The Belgians were in favour, the Dutch against. The French reserved absolutely the right to decide their own nuclear policy but undertook not to use any of their considerable nuclear armoury, battlefield or strategic, without prior consultation.

Meanwhile, Warsaw Pact air attack, conventional and chemical, on the home countries of the Allies, begun on 4 August, continued unabated, though with varying intensity. In the Federal Republic and to a lesser extent in the Low Countries it was hardly to be distinguished from tactical interdiction. In France and the UK it was more strategic in character.

French ports, communication complexes and military installations had suffered considerably from it, though not to the same extent as targets in the UK, which were more important to the US war effort and more readily accessible. There had been no bombing of French cities and it seemed probable, for the present at least, that France would not use her strategic nuclear capability unless there were. But the United Kingdom, in spite of the best efforts of its air defences, was taking a pounding as the battle in the Central Region approached a climax.

It was perfectly clear to SACEUR that if there was any possibility at all that the military position could be held back from total disaster without nuclear weapons it was his plain and compelling duty not to press the President for their use. He was also aware that if he did press for nuclear release his request would almost certainly be granted.

SACEUR was alone and on the spot, and he knew it.

Shortly before midnight, Central European time, on Monday 12 August, the President came up on a voice channel. Satellite communications had not yet been fully restored and visual channels were still far from reliable, but it may also have been that the President preferred an exchange by speech alone.

‘Can you do it?’ he asked.

The question was a very simple one but nothing more was necessary.

There was a momentary pause.

‘It all depends,’ the Supreme Commander answered, ‘on what is happening in the Atlantic — and whether the air bridge holds.’

‘The air bridge still seems to be holding,’ was the response. ‘We shall know what has happened in the Atlantic in a very few hours.’

What was known already was that four transatlantic convoys bringing from the United States almost the entire heavy equipment and the remaining personnel of two complete corps, already largely lifted in by air, had set out on 8 August and had very soon run into persistent and determined Soviet attack, both from submarines and from the air. Losses were already heavy. Nearly a fifth of the transport shipping had been sunk, with considerable loss to escorting naval forces. Many survivors had been rescued but the sum of the equipment lost — the XM-1 tanks, SP guns, APC, soft-skinned transport, electronic equipment and, above all, munitions, especially for air force weapons and anti-tank and anti-air missiles — represented for the time being a quite serious, if happily only temporary, setback to the Allied war effort.

The personnel for these reinforcing formations, numbering in all some 70,000 officers and men, had already for the most part been moved in over the air bridge to the United Kingdom and northwestern France. Considerable use had been made of impressed civilian air transport, and here too there had been losses. Nearly a tenth of the passenger-carrying aircraft bringing over US military reinforcement personnel had been brought down into the sea. The rescue rate of survivors had been high, but this nevertheless represented a setback too.

Troops on the ground in Western Europe were now waiting for the equipment, in all its huge complexity — from a main battle tank to some tiny triumph of electronic micro-processing — without which they could not even approach the battlefield, let alone fight on it. How much of what was wanted would arrive, and what formations SACEUR would be able to put into the critical battle now being fought for the future freedom of the Western world, depended largely on how soon the shipping making its way eastwards across the Atlantic could be brought under land-based air cover from Great Britain and France, within the UK Air Defence Region.