The Third World War: August 1985

We should have welcomed the phased array artillery-locating radars for counter-battery use, and above all a general issue of the cannon-launched guided projectiles with initial laser guidance, which are effective against tanks. As you know, however, although these items have been accepted into service, full funding for production has so far been withheld. We are rather more fortunate in the provision of artillery-delivered scatterable mines, for delivery once the pattern of an attack has been revealed. These are now coming into the theatre.

For air defense it is satisfactory that our inventory of third generation air defense missiles is virtually complete to scale, with Patriot for medium and high altitude, Roland for medium and low, and Stinger for low as well, replacing Redeye.

We need more anti-tank helicopters with a day-and-night and a 3,000-meter stand-off capability. There are some, but we need more. We also need, as has often been pointed out, many more ATGW, to be mounted on special purpose vehicles and preferably under armor on MICV [Mechanized Infantry Combat Vehicles], in order to withstand the enemy’s suppressive fires, which we understand are certain to be very intense. What we really need in US divisions in the Central Region is an aggregate of at least 1,000 major anti-tank weapons in each, made up of 300-plus mounted in tanks and 700 ATGW to be otherwise deployed. We have the tanks. We do not, in these numbers, have the ATGW.

At corps and division level we have been greatly in need of much improved intelligence, reconnaissance and target acquisition systems. Improvement in these last two years there has been. Signal intelligence has benefited from better methods and much better equipment. We have a good range of remotely-piloted vehicles for surveillance and target acquisition, together with some provision of airborne moving target radars, both helicopter and fixed wing, and radar locators. The degree of visibility we now have over the battlefield will greatly help the interposition of our smaller forces on the main axes of enemy effort and the development of effective battlefield interdiction operations.

The effectiveness of our intelligence on the battlefield has sharply increased with the introduction of the Joint Tactical Information Distribution System [JTIDS]. We are still running this system in. It has never yet taken a full operational load and we shall not know how best to exploit it until it has. But in this, as in other fields where electronics are of vital importance, we are conscious of an enormous potential which is a powerful source of confidence at every level.

I am glad to be able to report improved operational procedures and capabilities for joint air-land warfare. Joint action is now effective in reconnaissance and surveillance operations, to a lesser extent in suppression of enemy air defenses, battlefield interdiction and electronic warfare, but above all in joint control of close air support using artillery forward observers with laser designators.

The drawdown of theater stocks in support of operations elsewhere by other nationalities (of which those by the Israelis were at one time typical) have long since been made good, as you know. Prepositioned stocks of equipment for reinforcing units are complete, and there will be little difficulty in bringing up to combat level, for example, the heavy divisions expected at an early stage. One of these is even now in process of being lifted in. Ammunition stocks are now up to scale and, even more important perhaps than that, negotiations with the FRG, actively pursued in 1980 for the re-siting of certain major installations east of the Rhine, were successfully concluded nearly two years ago, and vital stocks are now no longer so likely to be denied to forward troops by interruption of lines of communication. Similar advantages will be generated by the substitution of a theater line of communication through the Low Countries for that through Bremerhaven in north Germany, though this is not yet complete and the new air defense problem it has thrown up has not yet been completely resolved. Movement towards fuller integration of Allied logistic systems has made progress. We are fortunate in having fewer problems here in CENTAG in this respect than they have in NORTHAG.

I have further to report continual improvement in command and control systems, in air defense and control, and in measures to avoid surprise.