The Third World War - The Untold Story Read online

  THE THIRD WORLD WAR;

  The Untold Story

  Sir John Hackett

  First published by Sidgwick and Jackson Limited in 1982 in Great Britain

  Copyright © 1982 by Sir John Hackett

  ISBN 0-283-98863-0

  Abbreviations

  AAFCE Central Europe

  AAM Air to Air Missile(s)

  ABM anti-Ballistic Missile

  ACLANT Allied Command Atlantic

  AEW airborne early warning

  AFCENT Allied Forces Central Europe

  AFNORTH Allied Forces Northern Europe

  AFSOUTH Allied Forces Southern Europe

  AFV armoured fighting vehicle(s)

  AI Air Intercept

  AIRCENT Allied Air Forces Central Europe

  AIRSOUTH Southern Europe

  ALCM air-launched cruise missile(s)

  ANC African National Congress

  ANG Atlantique nouvelle generation (French ASW aircraft)

  APC armoured personnel-carrier(s)

  ARM anti-radiation missile

  ASEAN Association of South-East Asian Nations

  ASW anti-submarine warfare

  ATAF Allied Tactical Air Force

  ATFS automatic terrain following system

  ATGW anti-tank guided weapon(s)

  AWACS airborne warning and control system

  BATES battlefield artillery target engagement system

  BMP boevaya mashina pekhoty (Soviet infantry combat vehicle)

  BTR bronetransporter (Soviet APC)

  CAFDA Commandement Air de Forces de Defence Aeriennes

  CAP combat air patrol(s)

  CCP Chinese Communist Party

  CENTAG Central Army Group

  CEP circular error probable

  CINCEASTLANT Commander-in-Chief, Eastern Atlantic

  CINCENT Commander-in-Chief, Central Region

  CINCHAN Commander-in-Chief, Channel

  CINCNORTH Commander-in-Chief, Allied Forces Northern Europe

  CINCSOUTH Commander-in-Chief, Allied Forces Southern Europe

  CINCUKAIR Commander-in-Chief, United Kingdom Air Forces

  CINCUSNAVEUR Commander-in-Chief, US Navy Europe

  CINCWESTLANT Commander-in-Chief, Western Atlantic

  CMP counter-military potential

  COB co-located base(s)

  COMAAFCE Commander Allied Air Forces Central Europe

  COMBALTAP Commander Allied Forces Baltic Approaches

  COMECON Council for Mutual and Economic Aid

  CPA Czechoslovak People’s Army

  CPSU Communist Party of the Soviet Union

  CW Chemical Warfare

  DIA Defence Intelligence Agency

  DIVADS divisional air defence system

  EASTLANT Eastern Atlantic

  ECM electronic counter-measures

  ECCM electronic counter-counter- measures

  ELINT electronic intelligence

  EMP electro-magnetic pulse

  ENG electronic newsgathering

  ESM electronic support measure(s)

  EWO electronic warfare officer(s)

  FBS forward based systems

  FEBA forward edge of the battle area

  FNLA Angolan National Liberation Front

  FRELIMO Mozambique Liberation Front

  FRG Federal Republic of Germany

  FROG free-range over ground (SSM)

  FY fiscal year

  GAF German Air Force

  GDR (DDR) German Democratic Republic (Deutsche Demokratische Republik)

  GLCM ground-launched cruise missile(s)

  GNP gross national product

  GRU Glavnoye Razedivatelnoe Upravlenie (Soviet Military Intelligence)

  GSFG Group of Soviet Forces in Germany Group

  HARM high speed anti-radiation missile

  HAS hardened aircraft shelter

  HAWK homing killer all the way (SAM)

  HE high-explosive

  HOT high-subsonic optically teleguided (ATM)

  ICBM inter-continental ballistic missile(s)

  I/D interceptor/destroyer

  IFF identification friend or foe

  IGB inner German border

  INLA Irish National Liberation Army

  IONA Isles of the North Atlantic

  IR infra-red

  JACWA Joint Allied Command Western Approaches

  JTIDS Joint Tactical Information Distribution System

  KGB Komitet Gosudarstrennoi Bezaposnosti (Soviet secret police)

  LAW light-armour weapon

  LRMP long-range maritime patrol(s)

  MAD mutual assured destruction

  MCM mine counter-measures

  MIDS multi-functional information distribution system

  MIRV multiple individually targeted re-entry vehicle(s)

  MLRS multiple-launch rocket system

  MNR Mozambique National Resistance

  MPLA Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola

  MRCA multiple role combat aircraft

  MRUSTAS medium-range unmanned aerial surveillance & targeting system

  NAAFI Navy, Army & Air Force Institutes

  NADGE NATO air-defence ground environment

  NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization

  NCO non-commissioned officer

  NORTHAG Northern Army Group

  NPA National People’s Army

  OAS Organization of American States

  OAU Organization for African Unity

  ODCA Organization Democratica Cristiana de America

  PACAF Pacific Air Force

  PLA People’s Liberation Army

  PLSS precision location strike system

  RAAMS remote anti-armour mine system

  RDM remotely delivered mine(s)

  REMBAS remotely monitored battlefield sensor system

  RPV remotely-piloted vehicle(s)

  RWR radar warning receiver

  SAC Strategic Air Command

  SACEUR Supreme Allied Commander Europe

  SACLANT Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic

  SADARM seek and destroy armour (ATGW)

  SAF Soviet Air Force

  SALT Strategic Arms Limitation Talks

  SAM surface-to-air missile(s)

  SHAPE Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers in Europe

  SHQ squadron headquarters

  Sitrep situation report

  SLBM submarine-launched ballistic missile(s)

  SLCM submarine-launched cruise missile(s)

  SLEP service life extension programme

  SNAF Soviet Naval Air Force

  SOTAS stand-off target acquisition system

  SOUTHAG Southern Army Group

  SP self-propelled

  SRF Strategic Rocket Forces (Soviet)

  SSBN submarine(s), strategic ballistic nuclear

  SSGN submarine(s), guided missile nuclear

  SSM surface-to-surface missile(s)

  SSN submarine(s), nuclear

  START Strategic Arms Reduction Talks

  SURTASS surface-towed array sensor system

  SWAPO South-west Africa People’s Organization

  TACEVAL tactical evaluation

  TACFIRE tactical fire direction

  TACTASS tactical towed array sonar system

  TAWDS target acquisition and weapon delivery system

  TERCOM terrain contour matching (guidance system)

  TNF theatre nuclear force(s)

  TOW tube launched optically tracked wire guided (ATGW)

  UKAD United Kingdom Air Defence

  UNIFIL United Nations Force in Lebanon

  UNFISMATRECO United Nations Fissile Materials Recovery Organization


  UNITA National Union for the Total Independence of Angola

  USAF United States Air Force

  USAFE United States Air Force Europe

  USAREUR United States Army in Europe

  VELA velocity and angle of attack

  V/STOL vertical/short take-off and landing

  WESTLANT Western Atlantic

  ZANLA Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army

  ZIPRA Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army

  Foreword

  Earlier this year, at Eastertide in 1987, we, a group of Britons deeply aware of how narrowly such freedoms as the Western world enjoys had been able to survive the onslaught upon them of the enemies of freedom in August 1985, completed a book about the causes, course and outcome of the Third World War. In the prologue to that book (a short piece of writing of which every word stands as firmly today, six months later, as it did then, and perhaps deserves re-reading) we wrote: ‘Much will be said and written about these events in years to come, as further sources come to light and further thought is given to this momentous passage in the history of our world.’* A good deal more information has indeed become available since then.

  * The Third World War: August 1985 (Sidgwick and Jackson, London, and Macmillan, New York, 1978)

  The belligerent involvement of Sweden and Ireland, for example, was passed over in our first book, not through unawareness of its importance but through uncertainty about the political implications of some aspects of it which suggested an approach like that of Agag, who trod delicately. The same was true of the neutrality of Israel, under joint guarantees from the USSR and the USA. We could do little more than state this at that time as an end-product, since here too there were uncertainties in issues where precipitate judgment could have been prejudicial. We are now able to go more fully into the process which led to the establishment of an autonomous Palestinian state and the stabilization of Israeli frontiers under guarantee, though the reader will note that the great powers came very near to such conflict over this issue as could have caused the Third World War to break out at least a year before it did.

  In Central America and the Caribbean there was also danger of a premature explosion. There has now been developing a Latin-American community (in which a non-communist Cuba plays a critically important role), with the interest and support of the United States but with no intent on its part of total dominance. These matters were at a delicate stage when we last wrote. We can now report more freely on the development of this regional entity as it grows in robustness. It emerged in circumstances so dangerous that the USSR was almost able to secure the defeat of NATO before a shot was fired on the Central Front. We can now examine why.

  In the Middle East, in North Africa (where the extinction of over-ambition in Libya was received with almost worldwide acclamation), in southern Africa, and in the Far East we are also now able to take the story further.

  In the strictly military sphere, we have been able, with more information, to make some adjustment to the record. This is particularly important where the course of events is considered from the Soviet side. There is now quite an abundance of additional source material available - political, social and military - and we have made use of this as far as we could. The Scandinavian situation has already been mentioned. Operations in northern Europe have been looked at again in the light of it and operations at sea, much influenced by the participation of a belligerent Ireland. On the Central Front we have been able to give more attention to air operations. Those in the Krefeld salient in the critical battle of Venlo on 15 August, the relatively small but vitally important air attack on Polish rail communications to impede the advance just then of a tank army group from Belorussia in the western Soviet Union, the importance of equipment which, however costly, could not safely be foregone -these and other aspects of war in the air receive more attention.

  As we said in the Prologue to the first book, ‘The narrative now set out in only the broadest outline and, of our deliberate choice, in popular form, will be greatly amplified and here and there, no doubt, corrected.’ To contribute to this process is our present purpose.

  We are still very far from attempting any final comment on the war that shook the world but did not quite destroy it. The intention is largely to fill in some gaps and amplify various aspects of the tale. The lesson, which is a simple one, remains the same. It is worth restating.

  We had to avoid the extinction of our open society and the subjugation of its members to the grim totalitarian system whose extension worldwide was the openly avowed intention of its creators. We had at the same time to avoid nuclear war if we possibly could. We could best do so by being fully prepared for a conventional one. We were not willing, in the seventies and early eighties, to meet the full cost of building up an adequate level of non-nuclear defence and cut it fine. In the event, we just got by. Some would say this was more by good luck than good management, that we did too little too late and hardly deserved to survive at all. Those who say this could well be right.

  London, 5 November 1987

  THE WORLD IN FLAMES - Chapter 1: Dies Irae

  There could not have been many people in Western Europe or the United States who were greatly surprised when they learned from early TV and radio broadcasts on the morning of 4 August 1985 that the armed forces of the two great power blocs, the United States and her allies on the one hand and Soviet Russia and hers on the other, were at each other’s throats in full and violent conflict. Preparation for war, including the mobilization of national armed forces, had already been proceeding for some two weeks in the West (and for certainly twice as long in the countries of the Warsaw Pact) before the final outbreak. Yet the magnitude of the assault when it was first felt in its full flood and fury was none the less astounding, particularly to those in the Western world (and these were the majority) who had paid little attention in the past to portents for the future. Bombs were bringing death and devastation on the ground, aircraft exploding into fiery fragments in the sky. Ships were being sunk at sea and the men in them hammered into pulp, electrocuted, burned to death, or drowned. Other men, and many of them, were dying dreadfully in the flaming clamour and confusion of the land battle. Yet another world war had burst upon mankind. While the course of life in the short three weeks of the Third World War had no time to be as radically affected as in the five or six years of each of the first two, the consequences of this war were likely to be more far reaching than any before it.

  World war had really been inevitable since the Soviet incursion into Yugoslavia on 27 July, the event which had brought about the first-ever direct clash between Soviet and United States troops on a battlefield. Moscow had long sought a favourable opportunity to reintegrate post-Tito Yugoslavia into the Warsaw Pact, in the confidence that the frailty of the union when its creator had gone would in good time furnish a suitable opening for intervention. As the cracks in Yugoslavia began to widen, particularly between Slovenia and the Federal Government in Belgrade, the Soviet sponsored so-called Committee for the Defence of Yugoslavia had most injudiciously staged an unsuccessful punitive raid into Slovenia. The Committee called for Soviet help and the opportunity was seen to be at hand. Within days Soviet units were in action against US forces from Italy. Fearful of the consequences if this crisis should get out of control, Washington had tried hard to cool it down and keep it quiet, but in vain, ENG (electronic newsgathering) film smuggled out by an enterprising Italian cameraman, showing US guided weapons destroying Soviet tanks in Slovenia, was flashed on TV screens across the world. Few viewers in the West even knew where Slovenia was. Fewer still doubted that the two superpowers were sliding with rising momentum towards world war.

  There was no question where the focal point of any conflict between the armies of the two great power blocs would lie. It would be in the Federal Republic of Germany, where the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany (GSFG), largely stationed in what was known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), faced the considerably
weaker NATO forces of Allied Command Europe (ACE), in what NATO called its Central Region. It was in the GDR that the Warsaw Pact was even now staging manoeuvres of impressive size, so large as to arouse at first strong suspicion in the West, and then to confirm, that this was really mobilization in disguise. The manoeuvres had been notified to other powers, in accordance with the Final Act of the Helsinki Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe. Some smaller though still considerable manoeuvres of the Southern Group of Soviet Forces in Hungary had not. It was from these that one airborne and two motor rifle divisions had moved into Yugoslavia.

  The move into Yugoslavia was very nicely calculated by the Soviet Union. If the West did nothing to oppose it, a quick and easy gain would result, not of critical importance but useful, if only as a rough and timely warning to Warsaw Pact allies. If the West did oppose it with force, this would constitute an attack on a peace-loving socialist country that would justify the full-scale defensive action against NATO, as the aggressive instrument of Western imperialism, for which the Warsaw Pact was already in an advanced state of preparation. The fighting between Soviet and US forces in Yugoslavia could very easily be presented as evidence of imperialist aggression.

  The war, which some believed had begun already in Polish shipyards, mines and factories the previous November,* was now a certainty and could not be long delayed. The NATO allies tried strenuously to complete their own mobilization, which had begun in the Federal Republic on 20 July, in the United States on 21 July, in Britain (where the co-operation of the trade unions - led by England’s leading Luddite-was not at first certain) on 23 July, with other allies following suit. In Britain in addition a strong and vigorous Territorial Army was constitutionally embodied and the lately formed but already highly effective volunteer Home Service Force, whose purpose was defence against both invasion by external forces and internal subversion, was activated.

  *See General Sir John Hackett and others, op. cit., ‘Unrest in Poland’.

  The agreement of governments to evacuate from Germany the dependants of American and British service personnel and other civilian nationals was given, with inevitable reluctance, on 23 July, and they began to move out on 25 July. Reinforcements for the United States Army in Europe (USAREUR) began arriving by air from the United States on the same day, together with the first reservists for the formations in I and II British Corps, the latter, formed in Britain in 1983, having most fortunately been deployed in good (though not full) strength for exercises in Germany at the beginning of the month.