The Third World War - August 1985

by John Hackett

  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 w
hich 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 d
ivisions 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.