The Cold War: A MILITARY History (42 page)

The UK

The main British contribution was 1 (BR) Corps, which was part of NORTHAG. During the Cold War few countries reorganized their army as frequently as the British; on some occasions the reorganization was due to changing national, political or economic circumstances, although on others the reasons baffled friend and foe alike.

In the 1950s 1 (BR) Corps consisted of three armoured divisions and one infantry division, but in the 1960s this was reduced to three all-arms divisions. Then, in 1976, it underwent a fundamental reorganization, in which the brigade level of command was eliminated and command over units was then exercised by four divisional headquarters. By 1982, however, these changes, which had been achieved at considerable expense, were seen to be fundamentally flawed and were totally reversed (at further expense), this time to three, much stronger, armoured divisions, two of
them
with three armoured brigades and one with two armoured brigades and an infantry brigade. (The infantry brigade was stationed in the UK in peacetime.)

To implement the 1976 changes a fourth divisional headquarters (HQ 3 Division) was taken over to Germany, while to implement the 1982 changes a different divisional headquarters (HQ 2 Division) was returned to the UK. In the UK this divisional headquarters retained its war role in Germany, being committed to the new task of rear-area security of 1 (BR) Corps, for which it fielded three motorized infantry brigades, one of which was regular and the other two from the Territorial Army.

As a quite separate commitment, the British provided the United Kingdom Mobile Force (UKMF), which consisted of the 1st (UK) Infantry Brigade (four motorized infantry battalions, one armoured reconnaissance battalion, one artillery battalion and an armoured squadron) and an air-force component of three fighter squadrons. In addition, since by NATO rules communications and logistics were a national responsibility, the force required a large logistics tail, bringing the UKMF total to well in excess of 15,000 men. This force was stationed in peacetime in the UK, and in war would have had to mobilize (approximately one-third was from the Territorial Army) and then move either to Jutland, where it came under command of the Danish Commander LANDJUT, or to northern Italy.

The USA

The United States made a major contribution to NATO land forces on the Central Front, with the US army undergoing a number of reorganizations during the years of the Cold War. In the military excitement of the 1950s, the post-Second World War army in Europe was converted into the ‘Pentomic Army’, equipped with battlefield nuclear weapons and organized on the basis of a ‘rule of five’ – i.e. five battalions to a brigade, fire brigades to a division, and so on. In the 1960s the Vietnam War, not surprisingly, took priority in all US military thinking and Europe was something of a backwater, regaining its precedence only in the early 1970s. Conscription ended in 1973, although legislation for the ‘draft’ remained for use in an emergency, but US manpower in Europe actually increased over the years, from 197,000 in 1975 to over 227,000 in 1988, of whom 204,700 were army personnel stationed in the FRG.

US ground forces were commanded by the Seventh (US) Army and organized into two corps, 5 (US) Corps in the north of the former US zone and 7 (US) Corps in the south, both of which came under CENTAG in wartime. Most US units were stationed in the FRG in peacetime; however, some elements were ‘dual-based’, which meant the manpower was stationed in the USA in peacetime but in war would make use of a full duplicate set of
equipment
located in Germany.
^fn1
Each corps also included an armoured cavalry regiment, which was permanently based in the FRG. In addition to these divisions, there were seven artillery brigades, four independent artillery groups and nine surface-to-surface-missile battalions (three with Pershing II, six with Lance), as well as numerous engineer, aviation, communications and logistics units permanently in Germany, with many more in the USA, earmarked for the Central Front in war.

The US goal was to have ten full divisions in western Europe within twenty-one days of a deployment order. This would have enabled them to field two full-strength corps in CENTAG, one full-strength corps (3 (US) Corps) in the north as CINCENT’s reserve, and one division (2 (US) Armoured Division) as part of NORTHAG.

France

In 1945 the French army occupied a zone in south-west Germany abutting on the French border, where it remained throughout the Cold War, first as an occupying power, then under a bilateral treaty with the Federal Republic on the admission of the latter to NATO, and finally under a new bilateral treaty following France’s withdrawal from the NATO integrated command structure. From that time, however, France’s forces in the FRG were no longer assigned to NATO, and their precise role in war was never totally clear, although, as described elsewhere in this book, while the French relationship with NATO underwent a number of changes, the relationship was always closer than was depicted in the media.

The major field formation was always the First French Army (FFA), but its internal organization underwent a number of reorganizations over the years. Once French nuclear weapons became operational, the ground forces were organized to serve as a ‘trigger’ for French nuclear intervention, but they were subsequently reorganized to enable them to play a more positive role in the land battle. The most significant factor on the ground was that, if NATO defences in West Germany failed to halt an attack, there was little likelihood that victorious Soviet forces would halt on the Franco-German border; it thus made sound sense for French ground forces not only to defend the border, but also to bolster NATO defences to the east of that border. For this reason detailed plans were made for French counter-attacks, particularly in the NORTHAG area.

By the 1980s the FFA consisted of three corps:

In addition, the
Force Action Rapide
(FAR) consisted of four divisions (one light armour, one marine, one airborne, one alpine) and the Foreign Legion Operational Group. These were designed to conduct intervention operations outside Europe in peacetime, but would have been available for national defence in time of war.

DEFENDING THE CENTRAL REGION

NATO ground forces in central Europe believed themselves to be facing an aggressive-minded enemy, which, if it attacked, would do so in a series of rapid drives, led by tanks and highly mobile infantry in armoured personnel carriers, with the aim of eliminating NATO forces as rapidly as possible. NATO also believed that the Warsaw Pact would attack along six main axes:

The defence of the Central Region against these threats was not an easy task. Western Germany stretched approximately 700 km from north to south and was some 300–400 km wide, which meant that, from a military point of view, it was seriously lacking in depth. The original strategy for the defence of the Central Region was based on a thin ‘crust’ of conventional forces, penetration of which would have resulted in the virtually automatic use of nuclear weapons.
¹
This was subsequently changed in December 1967 to the strategy of ‘flexible response’, which required a credible conventional defence, sufficiently strong to contain any attack as far forward (i.e. as near to the IGB) as possible. Both these strategies were, however, within the overall concept of ‘forward defence’, which, not surprisingly, was insisted upon by the West Germans and required that Warsaw Pact forces be held as
far
to the east as possible, even though this was not necessarily ideal from the operational point of view.

The task of defending central Europe fell to NATO’s Allied Forces Central Europe (AFCENT), which was originally located in France and commanded by a French general, but in 1967 it moved to Brunssum in the Netherlands, at which time a German general took command. The command was divided into two – Northern Army Group (NORTHAG) and Central Army Group (CENTAG) – commanded by a British and a US general respectively. The headquarters of AFCENT, NORTHAG and CENTAG were fully integrated NATO organizations, but below them were a number of corps, each of which was almost totally national in organization. This provided a certain degree of strength, but also caused NATO a number of difficulties, not least because nations retained the right to organize, equip and train their troops according to their national requirements, standards and traditions; nations were also, to a large degree, able to decide on their readiness and mobilization plans. As a result, there was no such thing as a standard NATO division in size, organization or tactics, and when more than one nation used the same equipment it was frequently as much by chance as by design.

There was a major anomaly in that, while Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein were the vital northern flank to the Central Region battle and overlooked the exits from the Baltic (also an area of vital interest to the Central Front), they came under CINCNORTH (in Norway) rather than under CINCENT. Two major threats faced Denmark, both of which emanated from areas of vital interest to the Central Region: a Soviet/East German overland thrust through Schleswig-Holstein, and an amphibious attack by East German, Polish and Soviet marines along the Baltic coastline.

NORTHAG

NORTHAG headquarters was at Rheindahlen, just outside Mönchengladbach, Germany, and was a fully integrated NATO headquarters, commanded by a British four-star general. It was responsible for the defence of the Federal Republic from the southern border of Schleswig-Holstein in the north, to a line running approximately from Kassel to Bonn. Its area of responsibility thus included the North Sea coast with its vital ports of Bremerhaven and (in depth) Antwerp and Rotterdam, the North German Plain leading to the Ruhr, and the Harz mountains in the south.

The army group comprised four corps and a reserve division:

CENTAG

CENTAG headquarters was located at Heidelberg under the command of a US army four-star general, with four corps forward: