The Third World War - August 1985

by John Hackett

  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 Kingdo
m, 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.

  CHAPTER 16: Sea Power

  The course of events at sea, immediately following upon the Warsaw Pact incursion into NATO territory on 4 August 1985, is not easy to follow in detail. The overwhelming need to preserve secrecy about their intentions, and the full exploitation of surprise, were reflected in the sparseness of Soviet and Warsaw Pact records, when these became available. On the NATO side it was all that the exiguous staffs could do, once war seemed imminent, to begin to put into effect the complex Alliance plans which had been prepared for just such a contingency. The detailed record disappeared with the miles of telex tape which had to be disposed of as quickly as it accumulated; critical decision-making by telephone and closed-circuit TV was also lost to the record; only the main features of the naval and maritime air operations can be established with reasonable certainty.

  From the start-line to 2 Guards Tank Army, on the Elbe near Lubeck, to Flensburg, at the Baltic Exists, is 150 kilometres. By dawn on Monday 5 August, the Russians were there, and the Kiel Canal was in their hands.

  The reorganization of the main NATO naval command structure (see Appendix 3) had been the occasion for a thorough review of the maritime aspect of NATO strategy, its concept of operations and its plans. The NATO Joint Allied Command Western Approaches (JACWA) had called for reaffirmation by the NATO Military Committee, the NATO Council of Ministers, and finally the NATO governments, of three cardinal elements in NATO strategy. First, that there would be no change in the determination of NATO to offer the stoutest possible resistance on land, as far forward as possible. Second, that NATO would remain flexible in regard to the use of battlefield nuclear weapons. Third, that the primary maritime task of NATO would be to ensure the safe and timely arrival in Europe of seaborne reinforcements and supplies from North Africa and elsewhere.

  JACWA, in developing their plans, had to bear in mind certain considerations arising from the new command structure and relevant to NATO strategy. These were:

  1 The fundamental purpose of NATO, as a military alliance, was to preserve the territorial integrity, political independence and economic strength of its member states.

  2 The major member of the Alliance, the United States, had national security requirements of critical importance besides those of NATO. In particular, her strategic nuclear weapons were not, except for a few SSBN (submarines, strategic ballistic nuclear), committed to NATO.

  3 The British Polaris SSBN force, though it was committed to NATO, could in certain circumstances revert to British national control.

  4 The major problem of command and control (apart from disruption of the electronic environment in wartime) would be to conduct operations effectively across the interfaces between JACWA and SACLANT to the west and north, and between JACWA and SACEUR to the east and south.

  5 It had become glaringly obvious that if the margin of Warsaw Pact numerical superiority over NATO continued to increase in all arms, accompanied by technological equivalence and even advantage in some cases, the initial shock of Pact aggression in Central Europe might well carry its forces to the Baltic Exits and the North Sea coast. The lack of depth in the NATO defensive position on land, therefore, would necessitate, in the early stages of a conflict, the inclusion of the British Isles as the ‘rear area’ for the Central Front. Later, Britain would become a springboard for the counter-offensive. The closest possible understanding between command at sea and on land, between JACWA, SACLANT and SACEUR, would therefore need to be established and maintained.

  6 In order to get the essential seaborne supplies and reinforcements from North America safely to Europe when required, SACLANT and JACWA would have to co-ordinate their strategy and operations closely, and give each other full support at all times.

  7 The special character of the Western Approaches command, comprising naval forces (surface, air and submarine), maritime air forces and UK air strike forces, would have to be continually borne in mind. It was to be a 3-D team. The key point was that warships move at about 500 miles per day, aircraft at about 500 miles per hour; but whereas aircraft can stay on task for a few hours only, ships and submarines can stay at sea for weeks.

  8 It was forty years since there had been a major war at sea. How would the complex array of weapon systems, counter-measures and counter-counter-measures work when the shooting started? There would be surprises. The fog of war might well obscure valuable lessons to be learned from the first engagements with the enemy. The Operations Analysis teams would have to be given every opportunity to find out exactly what had happened. There would probably be heavy casualties on both sides. It would be just as important to know why we were successful as why we had failed.

  It had been the usual practice, in drawing up NATO plans, to consider first ‘the threat’. JACWA decided, instead, to begin by looking in some detail at what the Command would have to do, first of all during any period of warning that NATO might have of an impending Soviet or Warsaw Pact atta
ck, then during the first two or three days of hostilities. As far as the opening phase of a war was concerned, they considered how SACLANT and JACWA could achieve sufficient ascendancy over the Soviet Navy, in the Atlantic and elsewhere, to ensure the safe and timely arrival in Europe of the seaborne military supplies and reinforcements essential to sustain SACEUR.

  Turning over in their minds the broader aspects of maritime strategy, JACWA recalled a useful division of the maritime task which the British naval and air force staffs had once jointly set down in a War Manual. It contained lessons learned in the UK from the Second World War, not all of which had been applied. Maritime warfare, they had written (the word ‘maritime’ had been introduced in order to include the naval tasks of the RAF), comprises two separate but complementary functions:

  1 The management of sea use: the organization and movement of shipping; the loading and unloading of cargoes; the control and defence of ports; and the manning, training and maintenance of naval forces.

  This is predominantly a naval responsibility.

  2 Combat with hostile naval and air forces: offensive and defensive operations of all kinds in support of the maritime aim, including direct support of land forces.

  This is predominantly a joint naval and air responsibility.

  As to strategy, what were the forces involved? The naval and air general-purpose forces immediately available to NATO and the USSR, for operations in the North Atlantic and Western Approaches (to which the contribution of non-Soviet forces would be negligible), would normally be of the following order: