The Third World War: August 1985

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.