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!

Ho-hum! Whatever happened to the trigger line? You know. The one where if the reds reached it we'd start firing off the sunshine?

In the end it would have been all out nuclear war with something like 60,000 or so nuclear detonations. The view of myself and my comrades in arms, serving as we did at the time, on a primary target, it would have been better to be instantly vapourised in a first strike than to survive the holocaust. And don't forget that our generation actually believed that it was definitely going to happen.

Is that before / during or after his visit ?

Interesting its about war but he just interested in doing as lots of red blooded males do and getting to Amsterdam.

The hooter went off every week at Wildenrath in the late 70's/early 80s so we spent most of our lives locked in on base. Jokes aside, we would have been pulled on base at the drop of a hat if tensions had risen.

I guess survival chances will always be speculation. There was an interesting book called "Inside The Soviet Army" written by a soviet Army Officer, Victor Suvorov published in the early 80s. He talked strategy:

Phase 1 - 30 mins - Pre-emptive Nuclear strike on the NATO C2.
Phase 2 - 90-120 mins - Mass air attack by frontal and LRAF units
Phase 3 - 30 mins - Follow on missile attack
Phase 4 - 10 to 20 days - Offensive operations across all 3 major fronts. This would be the push to the Channel Ports and 3 days sits well in my recollection.
Phase 5 - 7 to 8 days - 2nd Echelon attack into NATO rear areas.

Most of the cold war warriors will recognise phases 1 to 3. Interestingly, none of the exercise scenarios ever followed that plot. We always had 2 days of a "nuclear free zone" before the inevitable happened and the AR5s came out.

I guess individual survival chances would have depended on location but anyone on a base would have been working in NBC conditions and subject to multiple attacks.

One thing about soviet kit is it's rugged. Given spares it'll go on for ever and a day, unlike our own kit in the 70s/80s. If you look at the numbers game at the time, it was truly horrific how outnumbered we would have been.

My view as line aircrew at Wildenrath in the late 70s? FWIW I'd have given us about 48 hours before we ran out of jets, NBC suits and ideas and walked home.

I can recommend an old BBC documentary filmed at Wildenrath in 81 and broadcast on the "Man Alive" series. Its still around on the internet in places. Some of the ground play is hilarious by todays standards but the individual interviews are quite illuminating.

There was another line of thought at Gutersloh in the 1980s which was that when they got to the west bank the Weser then we would let them have a bucket of sunshine.

Was still absolutely no use to us though :uhoh:

On top of this, there were all the standard horror stories about 3rd Shock Army, ie they took no prisoners and would cut your balls off first etc.

In conflict scenario everybody assumes that enemy will always get their 5hit together quickly and we mess up rather than the general cock up theory which is who ever "wins" (define what that means) just had the roll of the dices go in their favour.

I have a mate who's an ex-BAOR tank commander and has just returned to the UK after living in Ukraine for a number of years.

His Ukrainian ex-military mates had an interesting scenario for day one of the war. They confidently expected the Soviet conscripts to shoot all the officers and desert en-masse!

Who knows who's right? Thankfully we never had to find out.

Stuff
 

Moggiee - I thought that you, Spag, Ody, Soaks and Co had another plan. Take the Ruskies to a Schoolies party and load them up with Soak's martinis - in a pint glass - they'd never have found the Channel Ports after that!:D

Any chance of a link, please?

I think many of us didn't think too hard about the war strategy, merely accepting that instant death was highly likely. For me life was work hard, play hard, spend hard, drink hard. Oh the halcyon days of Kellar bar, schoolies, Mally girls, bratty wagon and excellent craic. :)

LFittNI,
I had a similar conversation with a Polish SU22 pilot whilst sat in one on a Polish airbase. His take was that they were totally untrusted by the Sovs and would be sent "up front" to soak up the AMRAAM shots before the PVO and EGAF took over. They were left in no doubt that they would have been shot down in the blink of an eye by the Sovs/E Germans if they showed the slightest sign of weakness. He shrugged and said that most of his crews would have probably ejected before the front - they had no interest in fighting the UK or US. He then described a recent exercise against Dutch F16As when his entire regiment had been "killed" for no loss and wryly smiled that ejection was better than a 'winder in the face or an atoll in the a**!!

I've heard this more than once too. The story being that the US greatly exaggerated the capability of the Sov's just to keep the Cold War rumbling on - of course in an effort to keep the mighty US defense industry going..

I don't think any of us worried about quality until Fulcrum and Flanker appeared but numbers worried the heck out of everyone. Any nuclear option, which was buried in Sov doctrine, was the killer.

Moggiee - I thought that you, Spag, Ody, Soaks and Co had another plan. Take the Ruskies to a Schoolies party and load them up with Soak's martinis
Or perhaps a Baron Special?? --- Who has the recipe these days??:}

I recall being told that their fighter/bomber radars wouldn't last too long as the mechanics were partial to drinking the coolant - mostly (or at least sufficiently) alcohol. Maybe a myth but has a ring of truth. I think the Suvurov book stated that the West ought to invade on New Year's Day, then after a pause stated that actually they were no less drunk on most other days.....

I remember very well our target and how to get there; I don't remember being told what to do next...

I well remember 1975 setting nuclear alert in USAF F-4s at RAF Lakenheath with one B-61 on the center-line and two wing tanks. In the map case was one eye-patch to be worn over the eye of your choice so that you would have one good eye after the first nuclear flash you inadvertently saw. In addition we had our trusty 38 revolver (we always thought to be used after witnessing the second nuclear flash). In general the targets we were hitting were weapons storage facilities and it was not uncommon to be the third or fourth weapon targeted against the facility. The first two were generally missiles.

Of course as we flew through the German countryside we were assured that all our compatriots were going to make their time-on-target within the established 3 minutes to assure de-confliction along the route. And of course we had to plan for a radar delivery when we knew that the first nuclear detonation would provide so much interference that we were very unlikely to see anything on our radars.

We also wondered about some “agent” with a hunting rifle setting off the end of the runway on common ground simply knocking us off as we taxied for take-off. But at least we could get our jets in the air in 15 minutes. And yes we did have a few “contingency plans”.

So were we.

Except when I became targetting officer I discovered 5 aircraft on the same target and the time spread betweenn TOT was no more than 10 minutes not including the +/-3

One would have been 4 miles out as another was going bang, given the +/-3 is could have been the other way around and they would never know.

At least it was a pretty good way of dividing the defences even if it was planned murder of our own crews. I tackled the planner and he said it was what he found when he took over and he was planning deconfliction.

Later I did find two identical routes/targets with 10 between then or a minumum of 4 minutes between bangs which was fair.

Who would blink first?
 

It is a common assumption that the Soviets would be the first to make use of tactical and sub-strategic nuclear weapons, yet as I pointed out above, historiography indicates otherwise.

it appears that the Soviet leadership expected that the US and NATO (near simultaneously) would be the aggressors. This was backed up by debrief reports from defectors (eg Oleg Gordievsky in the early 1980s) and the sheer US overage of tactical nuclear weapons (8:1 overage) and strategic weapons (c 6:1) in the mid 1960s. (see Marc Trachtenberg's 'A Constructed Peace').


The 1968 NPT was effective in stopping state-led proliferation (except, as it happens North Korea) and the 1972 ABM treaty between the US and Russia delayed deployment of ABM systems by about 5 years. SALT I and SALT II did impose practical limitations on strategic nuclear weapons in the 1970s and 80s (respectively) but each of these well-meaning gestures were scuppered by peripheral conflicts such as Angola, Nicuaragua, Afghanistan etc.

Technical advances - such as reducing both yields and the CEsP meant that by the 1970s, the crude and inflexible function of the deterrent gave leaders fresh options and thus lowered the 'nuclear threshold'.

The worry of senior politicians (eg Sir Geoffrey Howe) and the security services was a mis-reading of intentions. Thus Soviet (and a lesser extent US) paranoia conflated with a range of 'precise' tactical weapons could have resulted in a 'pre-emptive' strike by USSR (in the correct legal sense) as they believed that NATO was about to attack them. This came to a head during the NATO CPX ABLE ARCHER in 1983, when the "Centre" under terminal-ill Andropov issued bizarre instructions to its Rezidentz to garner information on diverse subjects as late-night working in government buildings, increase collections at blood-banks, and the flight of bankers and clerics to 'safe' areas. (See Chris Andrew's tome Defence of the Realm pp 720 et seq).

Soviet target set information was briefly available in the mid 1990s however archives are well and truely locked down now, although some Western historians managed to gain access, such as Haslam. The theft of KGB archives by Mitroyken in c 1991 also give an indication that Russian J2 was sadly lacking, with long-closed facilities and infrastructure being targetted by Spetznaz and by tactical weapons - conventional and nuclear.

So, in sum, we could have expected some troop concentration areas and airfields being targetted by tactical nuclear weapons - but targetted doesn't always equate to be hit. The Russians had major problems with guidance and fusing systems - partly because of the fear of engineers and technicians to report problems and faults with systems. Now imagine you are on TACEVAL and your IED inject is a Soviet UXN...'Cordon Party: establish a safe perimeter of, oh, 10 miles...'

Baron Special
 

Hum,
Despite all this loose talk of war plans and contingencies, remember that the recipe for the Baron Special is [I]really [I] secret. This fact was stubbornly adhered to at the rotary mate's court martial when the JP entrusted with the formula refused to divulge it. Presumably the answer now resides in Lincolnshire.

I can remember Tony Geraghty commented in his book on BRIXMIS about the number of occasions they were highlighting or not as the case maybe when things were looking like spilling over based on distant readings of the situation.

Guess one of those situations where people see intent in a couple of separate unconnected actions could set someone off even though they unconnected...............maybe something like a Soviet Tank Division transiting out of East Germany and train breaks down close to a dispersal area with apparent massing of forces. At same time another loco with incoming unit does something similar while some Airbases start showing lots of activity and base work prior to arrival of new boss. Do something quickly and they assume you knew of the transit and it being a targeted weakness etc or have some patience and 24 hrs later situation back to as normal as paranoia allows.