Just before first light on D-day, and synchronized with the widest possible interference with US space reconnaissance satellites, an air operation of the very highest intensity, using both high explosive and chemical munitions, would be launched simultaneously against the Allied air force bases and control systems and the movement of AFCENT’s land forces to their main defensive positions. When the full shock of this had taken its effect, and a favourable air situation had been achieved, the weight of air effort would be shifted to direct support of a general offensive along the entire AFCENT front, exploiting both normal mass-attack tactics and deep penetration action, the latter intended primarily to pre-empt NATO anti-tank suppressive action. In ground action chemical weapons would be employed at army commanders’ discretion, with the emphasis on nerve gases, persistent or non-persistent. Airborne assaults on suitable targets, especially airfields, air defence sites, headquarters and obstacle crossings would continue. All ground force operations would have maximum tactical air support.
2 Guards Tank Army with two Polish divisions and some GDR troops would attack on the north of the NORTHAG sector, 3 Shock Army in the south of the same sector, followed by 20 Guards Army, with two GDR divisions under command.
8 Guards Army would attack on the CENTAG front, objective Frankfurt, 1 Guards Tank Army further south, objective Nurnberg.
One Polish and two Soviet divisions would move northwards through Schleswig-Holstein into Denmark, supported as necessary. The main thrust into AFNORTH would be out of the Leningrad Military District through Kola in the first instance. The follow-up would be by rail through Finland. All effective resistance in AFNORTH should cease by D + 6, though difficult country may delay the southward advance in Norway.
By first light on D + l armoured columns in the north must reach the Dortmund-Ems Canal, making good all Weser crossings north of Minden soonest thereafter. In the CENTAG area Giessen must be secured, to develop an attack on the Frankfurt-Mainz complex, already under heavy pressure from the east.
Air-portable formations operating on the ground out of Bremen airhead should secure river crossings into Holland for rapid consolidation by following armour. Airborne troops will be used to extend the depth of the penetration in Holland. It is imperative to seize the Hilversum radio and television complex
While strong pressure continues on CENTAG from the north-east and east, the main effort will now be in an offensive north to south along the west bank of the Rhine. This is expected to be decisive in the outflanking of CENTAG and destruction of AFCENT.
There must be maximum exploitation of refugee movement everywhere. Civilian casualties are wholly irrelevant and may even be advantageous. Towns and cities are to be bypassed wherever possible for subsequent attention.
Berlin will be contained. Its early capitulation can be counted on when AFCENT breaks.
Resistance can be expected to continue in difficult country, such as the Harz, Spessart, Schwarzwald and Thuringer Wald and the Bavarian high country. This can be masked and ignored. It is also likely to continue in Rhineland and Ruhr cities. Here it must be ruthlessly eliminated.
NORTHAG can be expected, when its forward defences have been penetrated, first of all to take up positions roughly east and west along the Teutoburger Wald, no doubt hoping to deny crossings across the Lower Rhine by a manoeuvre battle in depth. They will have insufficient troops for this, and there is no hope of their succeeding.
When the north-south offensive begins to develop NORTHAG can be expected to regroup, in an attempt to check it, on an east-west position west of the Rhine, between Bonn and Maastricht. No chances can be taken here. There will unquestionably be sufficient fresh Warsaw Pact formations and air resources to break through. At least three hitherto uncommitted divisions from 20 Guards Army will be available for a start. Success in this operation will lead to the rolling up of CENTAG from the rear and the collapse of the NATO defence of the Central Region.
This must be complete by D + 7, at which time the only permissible pockets of continuing resistance (disregarding Berlin, if it has not yet been ordered to capitulate, and Hamburg) will be in the Bavarian Alps.
On D-day three Soviet divisions, from Hungary and Czechoslovakia, will start moving through Austria into Italy. No Italian resistance is expected. This force may also, if necessary, furnish means of opening a flank attack on CENTAG through Bavaria.
It is to be assumed that political pressure on the French government, with the guarantee that Warsaw Pact action will proceed no further than the stop-line, will cause France to refrain from hostile action and withdraw II French Corps from Germany.
The collapse of AFCENT (as well as the elimination of AFNORTH and AFSOUTH) will reduce Allied Command Europe to impotence and cause the disintegration of the Alliance. The United States will accept a ceasefire on or very soon after D + 8, after which discussions can be initiated.
The neutralization of the Federal Republic of Germany, with the liquidation of hostile elements among the people and such population transfer as may be necessary, together with the dismantling of industrial plant for removal, or its destruction in situ, for all of which instructions have already been prepared, will proceed forthwith.
The plan for the invasion of the Central Region of NATO by the Warsaw Pact, of which this is a summary, assumed as a necessary condition a high degree of continuing control over the countries and peoples of Eastern Europe. This was quite likely to be threatened.
CHAPTER 11: Over the Edge
By 2 August 1985 the four corps composing the Central Army Group in the Central Region of Allied Command Europe were already in their forward position in the CENTAG sector. This ran from near Kassel in the north, at the junction with I Belgian Corps on the right of the Northern Army Group, to the Austrian frontier south of Munchen.
The four corps of the Central Army Group lay from north to south as follows: III German, V US, VII US, II German.
II French Corps, stationed with some supporting army troops in south-west Germany, was still not under command to Allied Command Europe. It was not even certain how the French government, given its pronounced left-wing orientation in the recent past, would, in the event of hostilities with the Warsaw Pact, regard its obligations under the Atlantic Treaty. Relations between the French General Staff in Germany and CENTAG, however, were close and cordial, and communication between the two, though discreet, was fairly free.
At the end of July the personnel of an armoured division, the first of the divisions earmarked for USAREUR, had been flown in from the United States. By nightfall on 2 August it had almost completed the drawing of its prepositioned combat equipment, including more than 300 XM-1 tanks. Some of its units, at least, had fired-in their guns at Grafenwohr before dispersal in the area north-west of Wurzburg, under command to V US Corps.
It was V US Corps’ sector, running north and south through Fulda, which was considered critical in CENTAG. The Demarcation Line with the East bulges out here in a bold westward curve towards the bend in the Rhine near Frankfurt-am-Main, at its closest no further from Frankfurt than 100 kilometres, with only another forty kilometres to the Rhine. Furthermore, in the hill country of the Thuringer Wald there is an important gap around Fulda itself, with the terrain becoming ever more readily negotiable as it opens down into the Rhine-Main plain. The distances are all short here. There is not much ground to trade for time and little opportunity for mobile operations.
The area forward of the Fulda valley favoured the defence, offering ample choice of good positions for tanks and ATGW, with considerable depth to their fields of fire. Unfortunately the distance from the Fulda valley to the frontier is no more than fifteen kilometres.
Behind the Fulda valley to the west is the high mass of the Vogelsberg, to the north the wooded country
