The Third World War (18 page)

In peacetime there were under
AFNORTH
, which took in Schleswig-Holstein, Denmark and Norway, the assigned forces of Norway and Denmark and one German division. There were plans for reinforcements from the UK, Canada and elsewhere, if they could be got there in time, in an emergency.

Under
AFCENT
were the Northern and Central Army Groups,
NORTHAG
and
CENTAG
, the first under a British, the second under an American, commander. Also under
AFCENT
was
AIRCENT
, which provided centralized control of the two Allied air forces supporting
NORTHAG
and
CENTAG
.

Under
AFSOUTH
, commanded by a US admiral, came the assigned Italian and Turkish forces (and, as long as she remained a member, the forces of Greece) with the US Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean also earmarked though not assigned. There was an overall air command (
AIRSOUTH
) but two subordinate naval commands and separate commands for ground defence in Italy, under an Italian general, and, in the southeastern part of the area, including Turkey, under an American.

In spite of the great importance of the flanks the critical area of
NATO
on land was clearly the Central Region, covering the Federal Republic of Germany up to (but excluding) Schleswig-Holstein and the Federal frontier with the Low Countries. It was in the Central Region that NATO’s greatest concentration of ground and tactical air forces was gathered, facing those of the Warsaw Pact across the Demarcation Line which separated West and East Germany, then followed the Czechoslovak frontier down to neutral Austria on the southeastern flank.

All the regular forces of the Federal Republic (organized in three corps and twelve divisions, with sixteen armoured and fifteen armoured infantry, two mountain and three airborne brigades) were assigned to
NATO
in peacetime. The six Territorial Army brigade-sized groups established for Home Defence were not, until a lengthy argument came to an end in 1985; then these too, with the three Territorial Commands of five Military Districts, came under
SACEUR
. They were to play an important part in the war, though they could have been even more effectively used if they had come under Allied command rather earlier. Two German corps (II German and HI German) were under command to
CENTAG
, the other (I German) to
NORTHAG
. About half the Federal German Army (the Bundeswehr) of some 350,000 were conscripts on a fifteen-month term of service.

Germany had, however, paid considerable attention to the problems of mobilization and of making reinforcements speedily effective. In the mid-1970s a Standby Reserve had been created, which the Defence Minister could call up in emergency without prior recourse to Parliament, and plans had been made for a number of cadre formations to be quickly expanded to war strength. The Territorial-Army of about half a million men not only provided the Territorial Commands referred to above, but also defensive, support and communications units throughout the country, relieving the regular forces of all but the forward tasks. The training of reserves was reasonably good, taking advantage of the local and professional knowledge possessed by reservists and of the fact that the more difficult combat posts requiring highly skilled men could be filled by regular personnel, with reservists to assist them. Equipment was also good. Over half the Bundeswehr’s tanks were the new Leopard II with Chobham-type armour, giving much better protection against
ATGW
, and the advanced, smooth-bore, 120 mm gun. New
ATGW
were issued widely, to the Territorial Army as well as to regular forces. Artillery was modernized, and included new US SP (self-propelled) guns and the FH-70 medium gun jointly developed with Britain and Italy, thus providing for largely standardized ammunition. Helicopters provided
ATGW
support and battlefield mobility. New multiple rocket launchers enabled minelets to be sown in the face of advancing enemy tanks. All in all, the Bundeswehr was a well-found force, with the advantage of being on its own ground and highly motivated to defend its own homes.

The United States Army in Europe numbered some 200,000 men, all but 10,000 of these in the US Seventh Army in Germany, whose C-in-C was also
COMCENTAG
. The reintroduction of the draft in the United States, to which reference is made elsewhere (see Chapter 14), had by 1985 rescued the US Army from a highly dangerous position in relation to reserve manpower. If we do not count the Berlin Brigade the US Seventh Army was organized in two corps, V US and
VII
US. The four divisions and three additional brigades on station in the late seventies had been augmented by two more brigades, upon each of which the balance of a complete division could be built up in an emergency. The tank strength available to US forces in the Central Region (including tanks in the stockpile) approached 3,000, of which the greater part was by early 1985 the new XM-1, a remarkable tank, with a low silhouette, Chobham armour and advanced new armour-piercing ammunition.

As early as 1978 the United States had taken steps to build up its air reinforcement capacity, so that by 1983 five divisions (two to be built on the brigades mentioned above) could be airlifted to Europe within ten days, to join up there with their already stockpiled equipment. Plans were put into operation at about that time to disperse stockpiles, so as to reduce their vulnerability and make ammunition and other stores more quickly available to forward troops.

The XM-1 was typical of the advanced equipment that began to reach the US troops in Germany in the late seventies and early eighties. At the same time new
ATGW
began to come into service, including ‘fire and forget’ missiles, with fully automatic terminal guidance, for use from helicopters. The US Army had always laid great emphasis on the use of helicopters, which fulfilled a variety of roles, not least the provision of battlefield mobility. Artillery had been strengthened by the introduction (if only in small numbers) of the cannon-launched guided projectile (
CLGP
), which gave it a real anti-tank capacity. To the greatly increased firepower were added improvements in target acquisition through the use of
RPV
(remotely-piloted vehicles) giving instantaneous information. Close air support, with the emphasis on anti-tank action, was much improved with the deployment of the A-10, which began in 1978. The equipment of other tactical aircraft with
PGM
(precision-guided missiles) gave a much enhanced stand-off capability against land targets. Finally, the air defence of troops in the field was steadily thickened with the introduction of new
SAM
(surface-to-air missiles) and automatic guns.

The British forces assigned to
NATO
and stationed in Germany were embodied in the British Army of the Rhine, whose C-in-C was also
COMNORTHAG
. Excluding the 3,000-strong force in Berlin, they numbered 52,000 at full peacetime strength and were now organized in four armoured and one artillery division with an additional brigade-sized formation (5 Field Force), all under I British Corps. Earmarked for deployment from the UK in an emergency was the newly formed II British Corps, adding another 30,000 men. Main battle tanks, including those in stockpile, now numbered 1,000, all Chieftain with the improved engine, though not all with Chobham armour.

Other equipment, though initially introduced very slowly, enabled most major weapons to be modernized by the early 1980s.
ATGW
, built jointly with France and Germany, spread throughout the regular and
TAVR
forces of the V K after a rather hesitant beginning. At long last the air defences of British troops in the field became as good as those of the Bundeswehr and US forces in Europe. Improved reinforcement arrangements, made possible by the increase in the availability of equipment and reserves, gave commanders the additional advantage of being able to replace battle casualties quickly. With the new equipment and new organizations and tactics to match, morale in the British Army of the Rhine, not at its highest in the 1970s, was now fully restored.

Of the Dutch forces in the Northern Army Group (I Ne Corps) only one armoured brigade and one tank and one reconnaissance battalion were located in Germany, the rest being held back in Holland. Of the 75,000 men which constituted the whole strength of the Dutch Army, more than half (43,000) were conscripts, doing no more than fourteen months’ service. It had long been hoped in
NATO
that the Netherlands would be persuaded to station more of its assigned forces further forward, nearer to their emergency defence positions. The international tensions of late 1984 succeeded where previous arguments had failed and, though the false detente of the following spring tended to put the movement into reverse, the centre of gravity in the deployment of I Netherlands Corps in the summer of 1985 was further forward than it had ever been before.

The position of the Belgians was not dissimilar, though the conscripted element in the army (23,000 out of 62,000) did only eight months’ service if posted to the Federal Republic of Germany, where there were stationed in peacetime one corps and two divisional headquarters, with one armoured and two infantry brigades, as opposed to ten months if serving in Belgium. I Belgian (I Be) Corps, with some 300 Leopard \ tanks, like I Netherlands Corps, with some 450, was under command to
NORTHAG
. Both corps had received a good deal of new equipment, notably
APC
,
ATGW
and air defence weapons. In both cases, however, the supply of new weapons to the reserve formations and battalions that would reinforce them was limited, as was the training carried out by reservists-In addition to the major national formations Allied Command Europe also included the Canadian Brigade Group which had become by late July the equivalent almost of a small division. An all-regular force, its quality was high. Old hands in other Allied countries (particularly among the British), who recalled their experience with Canadian troops in the last world war, saw with satisfaction that in their technical skills and their robust and disciplined approach they were, in the changed circumstances of today, as good as ever. The Group was stationed in the
CENTAG
area, not far from the French divisions.

•Armoured infantry. 3,500 strong, together with a regiment of sixty tanks, an artillery regiment of 155 mm SP howitzers, anti-tank and anti-air missiles, support troops and a tactical helicopter squadron.

•II Br Corps was moved to Germany in July 1985.

Though France had not been a member of
NATO
since 1966 II French Corps, of two divisions, with corps and some army troops nearly 50,000 strong, continued to be stationed in Germany, with close military liaison with
CENTAG
. Three mechanized divisions in France formed . the balance of the First French Army, to which the French divisions in Germany belonged. The equipment of the five divisions in the First French Army was modern and good and included battlefield nuclear weapons held inside France, under French control. Little of the equipment was standardized with
NATO
however, raising potential problems in supply. In addition to the Forces de Manoeuvre, of which the First French Army was part, France disposed of Territorial Defence Forces (Defense Operationelle du Territoire, or
DOT
) some 50,000 strong. These had a very important role, among others, in the defence of key points in metropolitan France against disruption by sabotage and against civil disorder.

On the southern flank, Italy (twelve months’ service for 120,000 conscripts in an army of 218,000) disposed of twelve divisions (three armoured) with a mixed inventory of tanks. Though Greece’s membership of the integrated military organization had been somewhat conditional since 1974, she continued to have some military links and had modernized most of her mainly conscript army (28-30 months’ service) of twelve divisions (one armoured), largly with French equipment, and, it must be admitted, with an eye on Turkey rather than the forces of the Warsaw Pact. Turkey (twenty months’ service) could field twenty-two divisions (one armoured and two mechanized) in an army of 375,000. Differences between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus, sharpened by competition for Aegean oil, had by the beginning of the eighties grown somewhat less than in the years before. The curtailment of military aid from the US to which this had given rise (it was resumed in 1982) had inevitably reduced the war-fighting capability of both countries, though this had latterly begun once more to improve. Turkish equipment was generally somewhat elderly and in an indifferent state; mobility was limited and it had not been possible to reach a high level of training.

To this brief account of
NATO
ground forces must of course be added something of how the tactical air forces stood, since in any battle their operations would be indivisible. Here not only the aircraft stationed alongside the ground forces have to be reckoned with, but also those that could operate in a given sector from immediately outside it, as, for example, from the United Kingdom or the western Soviet Union, or from aircraft carriers that might be in the vicinity, or—though this applied more to Soviet forces—medium bombers that could be flown from relatively distant airfields.

An accurate tally of air strength is therefore not easy, because of its inherent flexibility, but, taking ground-based fighter aircraft as the main yardstick,
NATO
deployed for operations in the critical central sector— excluding French forces—some 2,800 aircraft, compared with approximately 4,500 deployed by the Warsaw Pact. This numerical disparity had long presented a problem and still did. It was a problem compounded by the relative ease of reinforcement enjoyed by the Warsaw Pact, by an insufficiency of forward airfields on the Allied side, and by some difficulties in inter-operability, caused by the variety of different aircraft in use in
NATO
air forces-There had, however, been a marked all-around improvement in
NATO
tactical air strength in the previous few years. Several first-class new aircraft had been introduced, embodying the most up-to-date technology. For the air superiority role the American F-15 was better than any other fighter, both in its performance and in its armament. It was admirably complemented by the lighter F-16. Both were greatly assisted in their task by the ability of
AWACS
(airborne warning and control system), belatedly introduced in the 1970s, to detect intruding aircraft and control the operation of our own, For strike missions the Tornado, with its ultra-low flying capability, presented the Warsaw Pact with severe problems, as did the Jaguar and the smaller Alpha Jet and Hawk ground-attack fighters. The adoption of increasing numbers of aircraft developed and built in co-operation by two or more allies was beginning to give more flexibility to
NATO
air operations, with a higher degree of inter-operability.