Surviving the Fulda Gap
 

I was recently reading a post on another forum by a crusty old A-10 driver.

He stated that the view among his community, should the balloon ever go up, was that most of them were not going to come back from the Fulda Gap.

What was the view of the Jag, Phantom, Tornado and Harrier mates? And in the case of the latter, how sustainable was it really going to be to operate out of dispersed sites in the event of war?

Sometime ago, I was also in conversation with an F-15 pilot stationed at Bitburg during the 1980s. He said that they were confident that East German Intelligence knew the names and addresses of every pilot in his squadron, and that the first indication of a pre-emptive attack by the Soviet Pac would be a bullet through the head as they slept at home. As such, USAFE would try and get the pilots on base as soon as there was any intelligence to suggest that something was in the offing. Did RAFG units view things similarly?

He stated that the view among his community, should the balloon ever go up, was that most of them were not going to come back from the Fulda Gap. - he was probably right, but there were other choke points

What was the view of the Jag, Phantom, Tornado and Harrier mates? And in the case of the latter, how sustainable was it really going to be to operate out of dispersed sites in the event of war? - I reckon the Harrier would have probably been the last thing flying out of RAFG. The dispersed sites were pretty-well camou'd and practised.

Sometime ago, I was also in conversation with an F-15 pilot stationed at Bitburg during the 1980s. He said that they were confident that East German Intelligence knew the names and addresses of every pilot in his squadron, and that the first indication of a pre-emptive attack by the Soviet Pac would be a bullet through the head as they slept at home. As such, USAFE would try and get the pilots on base as soon as there was any intelligence to suggest that something was in the offing. Did RAFG units view things similarly? - crews were expected on base PDQ but that would not prevent what you describe, and I think that was a 'little' melodramatic (you did say 'F-15 pilot':)). 'They' certainly knew who we all were thanks to the RAF News, BFBS and station 'civilians' etc

I remember when our F3 squadron was given a secondary role of AD over Central Europe, and our life expectancy was apparently 24 minutes in the event of a 'big push'. That's progress I thought, 4 minutes better than WWI in 70 years.
I also remember that a Harrier engineer I knew wasn't worried about using supermarket diesel in the bona jet. It only gave the engine 10 hours life I think, but they didn't think any of the aircraft would last that long.

Is that where "Mind-the-Gap" came from?

Forget the conventional aspects of the balloon going up, digging anymore than skin deep into the scaling for COLPRO etc was quite enlightening.

Had things turned seriously hot most of those responsible for getting the a/c into the air would have had little access to anything more protective than an S10 and some CARM chucked over a 12x12.

Few of us TSW lads, due to the light scales we were supposed to operate our TART and APFC equipped FRPs to, would even have had use of some CARM."Self-service on this pump" would have been the order of the day no doubt...

Bearing in mind that the Soviet Union was aiming to get as far as the channel PDQ, (36 hours?) I don't think much would have been left either side of the gap.

Our dispersed SH sites were observed by Soviet folk, even in peacetime. As a helicopter pilot, the thought of going into the melee of WW3 in a completely unarmed aircraft didn't fill me with much hope about my chances of going home outside of a box, if ever.

The opinion on 230 in the late 1980s was that if 50% of the Sqn were still around at hooter +1 week, then were doing pretty well :(.

Some of us had cosy little lairs pre-dug, close to the IGB and handily placed for the main E-W routes and no plans to return to Blue-held territory ;)

How pessimistic was that! I've survived Hooters plus many weeks. :E

Who didn't have a personal out plan?
I still remember a lot about small airstrips in remote areas of Europe!
Heard a fighter pilot telling a tanker crew he'd let them him hear the growl of his 'winder,and order 'take me to Bermuda!'. Tanker mate was only too pleased. 'Great. I get to escape too, and I can claim I was protecting a valuable asset in the unlikely event we win, whereas you will face a firing squad."

Dunno

Figure if he has the wherewith all to get to Bermuda unharmed then he would have a plan B.

In event of big nuke fight the fact he was still around may get his actions overlooked especially as he says he was ordered by Station to get assets out of harms way and officer was X where only communication with will be via a Medium.

Dead officers tell no tales.

But surely the actual sites were different from the training sites (we didn't use "real" locations for the GR3s in peacetime).

One analysis I remember had a rather different scenario with the 36 hrs to the Channel coast certainly an objective.

It suggested that they would punch one air corridor through the FEBA which would see that the SAM belts on a narrow front were shot out or neutralised. The follow on forces would ensure that any resupply was ineffective and others, such as Fencer, would flow through that gap and attack the rear echelons from the west.

This would mean that front line AD units remote from the central penetration route might simply be out of the game and air assets held against a change of axis.

Quote
One analysis I remember

A lecture by a visiting American who told the gathering that within 5 years of a neuclear exchange the USA would be back to 50% of peace time industrial production !! During the moments of derision that followed( even the Boss didnt buy this ) I realised that THEY thought THEY could win and that UK was the decoy !!

sorry chaps thread creep

What would either force be actually fighting for???

Why would you want to 'win' land obliterated by nuclear weapons???

I bet a politician came up with the idea.

It would be like going to watch chelsea play football, a pointless horrible exercise.

It would have made little difference. My point was that the USSR had the ways and means to find us wherever we went. It was a bit obvious, to be honest...

And look who's running them.

Understandably there were allsorts of scenarios being projected with regard to combat life, but after GW1 I would have thought that cast serious doubts on the ability of Red Kit to perform. Even if it was in better hands.

Probably urban legend but I recall reading a quote that a NATO officer gave, when asked what is the average distance between West German towns.

"About 5 kilotons" came the reply.

One thing that the West largely was ignorant of (or chose to ignore) was the level of paranoia amongst the plethora of Soviet (and satellite) intelligence services.

Legals and Illegals operating ourt of Soviet Missions were so concerned about filing reports that were against the prevailing orthodoxy that INTREPS and resulting ORBATS were heavily inflated and assessments of force generation times (and COAs) were wildly optomistic - and in complete agreement with the prevailing factions(s) within the Politburo. This came to a head in 1983 when the Soviets mobilised theatre nuclear forces and armour when they mis-read the intentions of NATO's annual ABLE ARCHER exercise (For clarification, read 'Defence of the Realm by Chris Andrew - or anything by Socviet defectors, for that matter).

Thus, had a conflict started (and the Politburo under Brezhnev and Chermanyenko were convinced that 'The West' would intiate conflict) the overage or ordnance would have been massive and NATO would have been in a degree of disarray, especially on the issue of Nuc Ops. However, it was also clear by c 1980 that most of the WARSAW PACT would have been reluctant to have taken part (and were scaled obsolescent equipment, accordingly); the majority of fighting would have been conducted by the 3rd Shock Army and follow-on Russian forces. Logistics modelling, however, showed that their mobility would have been severly hampered by lack of re-supply. Soviet plans called on advancing forces to forage for food and fuel. The West Germans had a sophisticated denial plan that would see fuel and munitions dumps destroyed, along with commercial depots, petrol stations and strategic infrastructure - often with pre-placed charges.

Now let's hope those have been removed...

Interesting thread, this.

Elsewhere in this forum I've described the post-Berlin-Wall-coming-down circumstances which led me to be sitting in the cockpit of a Mig-21, being briefed by a Czech Air Force Colonel who just wanted to practice his English (pretty chaotic military and political environment at that time.)

I was actually more interested in the technicalities of the aircraft, but he did say that, yes, it would have been the Russians who would have been leading the thrust westwards (he mentioned three specific routes, as I recall).

Satellite state air forces would have been shoved around all over the place--in his case, his unit expected to be sent either south to cover Austria/Italy, or north to join Polish units "on the Baltic coast". He thought the satellite forces would be just used for "mopping up", and seemed totally confident that the sheer weight of the Russians would have been sufficient, which it probably would have been.

His opinion of Russian tactical nukes' usage was very high--as a compensation for poorly trained personnel elsewhere. The assumption was that NATO would have had to go for first-use in face of the overwhelming numbers, and that he and his satellite chums would have been happy to keep as far away as possible.

He mentioned that he hoped to be able to see Amsterdam at some point--hopefully not smoking too badly!