The Third World War (38 page)

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p.

With a heavy concentration of air defence and, of no less importance, elaborate precautions on the part of French police and troops to avoid civil disturbance and disruption (see Chapter 22), the ships of the
CAVALRY
convoy could be expected to begin discharging into French ports, where US troops were waiting to take over their equipment, early on the morning of the 14th. Fully equipped units would then move by road and rail at best speed through France and Belgium into the area round Aachen.

At noon on that day. 13 August 1985, the Supreme Commander ordered the release of four divisions from the theatre reserve. They were to come under command to
NORTHAG
from 0001 hours, 14 August, for the purpose of opening an offensive from present forward locations in the direction of Bremen. This was to start not later than at first light the following day, 15 August. The operation, codenamed ‘Culloden’, was already far advanced in contingency planning.

It was known for certain, from high-level surveillance,
SIGINT
and deep agency reports on troop movements, that the enemy divisions now in action were from 7 Guards Army, brought up (as was also the case with 5 Guards Army) out of the Byelorussian Military District in the
USSR
. Behind the leading motor-rifle divisions in the first echelon of the assault force were two tank divisions. In greater depth still, but with their leading units still only some thirty kilometres in rear, were three more divisions, believed to be from the Twenty-Eighth Army out of the same military district. It was now known that the unsuccessful airborne assault, by 103 Guards Airborne Division, had also been mounted from there.

Of the Red Army formations met in action up to a week ago there was now little sign in the forward areas, though some were known to be dispersed well in the rear. Of those which had taken part in the initial assault on 4 August, no unit at all, on the unquestionable evidence of reliable local sources, now remained on Federal German soil. The Soviet practice of using divisions for three to five days in all-out assault, to very near the point of total exhaustion, and then extracting them for replacement by completely new formations, was clearly to be seen in action. On the Allied side most formations had already been in action more than once.

At 0400 hours on 14 August Warsaw Pact forces, after very heavy air and artillery preparation, but no chemical attack, opened the expected assault on the Venio position. Airborne attack in battalion strength on the flanks fifteen kilometres in rear, on Neuss and Roermond, proved fortunately to be of little more than nuisance value. Two German Home Defence Groups, one on each flank, each of nearly a brigade in strength, gave an excellent account of themselves in a role for which they had done-much training: after some very tough opposition the German reservist and civilian soldiers triumphed over both attacks. Allied air defence entirely prevented any heliborne follow-up. The crossings over the Rivers Rhine and Maas remained in Allied hands, under the control of severely harassed engineers, open at least by night and even sporadically by day. The enemy’s attempt to isolate by airborne action the forward edge of the Allied battle area was thus a total failure.

In the attack on the Venio position the forward concentration of Allied forces, four divisions deployed between two rivers on a front of thirty kilometres, with anti-tank defences that were strong and well disposed in depth, put any use of the enemy’s light lead forces on the usual pattern out of the question. The attack came surging in, at first shooting light, after thirty minutes’ intense artillery fire aimed at suppressing anti-tank defences, with three motor-rifle divisions up, each led by its tank regiment, the tank companies coming in first and motor-rifle companies following, mounted in their
BMP
, some 200 metres behind. Direct
ATGW
hits on leading
BMP
soon indicated that a mounted attack could only bog down. A dismounted infantry attack in great strength followed, under fire supports from tanks, SP guns and
BMP
, with heavy concentrations from the tube artillery and rocket launchers of the enemy’s divisional artillery, and air-to-ground attack pressed hard in spite of considerable losses in aircraft. The very heavy weight of the assault, wirh unit after unit piled on regardless of casualties, began to tell before long. Here and there NA10 defences, swamped by numbers, began to crumble. The enemy, within an hour or two, was seen to be gaining a clear advantage.

At the same time as the main assault on the Venio position, another attack was being made by one Soviet motorized division west of the Maas, southwards towards Roermond. Heavy Allied missile concentrations on crossings over the Maas and Lower Rhine, which were being kept open with great difficulty by Soviet engineers. took sufficient of the edge off this attack to enable one US brigade, operating with two Dutch regiments under command and anti-tank defences disposed in depth. which the enemy had found it impossible entirely to suppress, just to hold its own. Grourid was given, but sufficient of the network of
ATGW
remained in action to foil the enemy’s first attempt at doing to the Venio position on the west bank of the Maas, on a smaller scale, what the general Soviet offensive had been trying to do to A
FCENT
as a whole, that is, to roll it up from the rear by attack from north to south along the west bank of the Rhine.

An even stronger enemy attack than that west of the Maas developed at the same time east of the Rhine, where units of II British Corps, with a Dutch brigade and a strong and very recently regrouped German division, together with three German Home Defence Groups, the whole force under a German general-lieutenant, had up to now succeeded in preventing the movement of any but light forces across the hardly formidable water obstacle of the River Lippe. Three things had here contributed to an extremely important delay in the enemy’s advance:

flooding, which had done something to canalize movement from the northeast; the extensive use of mines; and close air support, exploiting the slight but growing advantage in the air the Allies now enjoyed and the evident superiority in electronic warfare which was contributing so largely to it.

Of great assistance in the battle of the Lippe, on the right flank of the critical fight for Venio, were the heightened protection from air attack electronic techniques afforded the Allied ground forces and, above all, the survival of effective anti-tank defences against all attempts completely to suppress them. What was of scarcely less importance here was ‘the action on the ground of Federal German reserve and territorial forces.

Even though a numerical superiority, at the chosen point of attack, of twenty or thirty to one in favour of the enemy could be greatly reduced, considerable advantage still remained to them. By nightfall on 14 August the forward edge of the Allied position east of the Rhine was back to a line from Paderborn to Duisburg. But for the tough fighting of the German territorial units, now reinforced by another complete group, even this could not have been held. What became known as the Battle of the Lippe was indeed something of a triumph for the reserve forces of the Federal Republic.

By nightfall the centre of the Venio front, between the Rivers Rhine and Maas, had broken. The two British divisions defending the position, with one German and one Belgian division, had been driven apart, and penetrations of up to twenty kilometres had been reported.

Pressure from the enemy to exploit his advantage continued during the hours of darkness. A full-scale assault was resumed at first light. Repeated requests from II British Corps for nuclear fire support continued to be refused by
AFCENT
on the Supreme Allied Commander’s orders, but very heavy artillery concentrations, from both tube and missile systems, together with tactical air support on a scale not yet seen on the Allied side, was having a marked effect in slowing down the enemy’s advance. It had been possible during the night, moreover, to stabilize in depth a number of defensive localities, where the anti-tank network was found to have remained, to a surprising and encouraging extent, still in being. The enemy’s suppressive action had been very far from fully effective. His advancing armour and mechanized infantry now found itself obliged to move through a system of interlocking
ATGW
positions which was still formidable.

What has been said before deserves to be said again. More and more. as the fighting in the Central Region had developed during the last few days, was the superiority of Allied electronic technology being seen on every side, both on the ground and in the air. Now is not the time to speak at length on the improvement in electronic techniques, in which the West had so very far outstripped the East over the last few years, techniques in which a dramatic reduction in the size and complexity of electronic components, as well as in their failure rate, had been accompanied by a phenomenal reduction incest. It is sufficient to say that, almost unnoticed, the West, unhampered by industrial collectivism under state control and with the stimulus of commercial competition, had established a lead over the East. This had long been uneasily observed there but was now seen to be far greater even than had been suspected. Its results were manifest in every sphere: in the exploitation of the attack and reconnaissance capabilities of F-I5 aircraft and remotely-piloted vehicles (
RPV
), for example; in the deadly impact of precision-guided missiles (
PGM
), which were immune to interference; in the netting of tactical electronic units; in the reduction of vulnerability to interference with communications by proliferation of channels; and in countless other ways. Allied electronic countermeasures and counter-counter-measures were at the same time reducing the effectiveness of hostile air and missile attacks without prejudice to their own.

The operation of carefully co-ordinated intercept and interference systems against communications was proving invaluable in the ground battleabove all. The location of hostile launchers and their swift destruction by terminally-homing PGM; the jamming of hostile sensors;

the diversion of missile attacks; the application of a wide range of electronic countermeasures, behind an elaborate and effective barrier of counter-counter-measure’s, to reduce the enemy’s capacity to retaliate; and not least a policy of concentrated attack on the enemy’s command and control mechanisms—all this was paying off handsomely. The Soviet system of operational command was particularly sensitive. It was too inelastic to withstand continued and determined efforts to seek out and destroy headquarters installations. The inability of regimental commands to handle a fluid situation when deprived of signals communication with divisional headquarters was now more marked than ever. Forward radio intercept of transmission from penetrating Soviet columns was picking up with growing frequency requests for fresh orders in an unexpected situation.

Anti-tank defences, well disposed in depth, and in a highly favourable electronic environment, could do a great deal to offset a heavy numerical inferiority on the ground, particularly when the Allied tactical air forces were proving more effective than those of their opponents. It could hardly be a complete substitute for adequate strength in guns and armour on the battlefield, however. The commander of II British Corps had not lost all tactical control within his area of responsibility. His corps was still an operational entity, but it was split and penetrated, and between groups now no longer able to support each other the enemy’s advance went on. Though anti-tank defence detachments took a very heavy toll, missile resupply to the launchers was proving more and more difficult. One by one
ATGW
crews were pinned down and overrun by motorized infantry in
BMP
, now for the most part, in a development of high significance, attacking mounted. By the late afternoon of 14 August leading elements of a Soviet tank division were approaching Julich.

During the preceding night, however, a French armoured division had been moving into the area around Maastricht. This was part of a French corps previously intended for the Southern Army Group, but switched by
SACEUR
to this location at the urgent insistance of
AFCENT
(after hasty discussion with the French government and swift intervention from Washington) late on the 13th. By first light on the 15th, though not yet in contact, this French division was in a useful and well-balanced position. Still rather thin on the ground as its units moved up. it was nevertheless in touch on its right with the left flank of a force of two US brigades, with which German Territorial units were operating in support, deployed and largely dug-in east and west of Dilren.

1 he peacetime location of HQ A
FCENT
at Brunssum, not far away. had now been finally abandoned, command having been long exercised from a field headquarters whose present location was near Liege. It was into the area of Aachen that the advanced parties of the newly arrived US Corps, the disembarkation of their heavy equipment in French ports now virtually complete. be’gan to arrive just before dawn on the i5th.

To the east of what was now becoming known as the Krefeld Salient two British divisions and one German were fighting with their backs to the Rhine. Their fire on the enemy’s flank, exploited by the timely manoeuvre of armoured squadron groups, coulcfnot stop his southward advance but did much to slow it down. On the other side of the Rhine, on the east bank, 14 August was a critical day.
NORTHAG
was at all costs determined to hold firm in the area south of the Lippe, to get the offensive now in preparation for the following morning off to a fair start. Against the weight of opposition pressingdown from the north this was far from easy, but the battle that was now being fought, in great part by German troops both of the regular army and of the reserve, on German soil, was everywhere recognized to be of critical importance to the whole future of a free Germany. The Battle of the Lippe was above ail a stand by Germans, to give the bestchance of success in the counteroffensive for which Allied formations of six nations were now advancing to their assembly and dispersal areas in preparation for the attack. At nightfall the lines of approach for Allied units were stil! clear. They were kept clear till dawn.