Germany Cold War Google map and mission resource project [WIP]

[Whiskey11]

17 hours ago, MiGCap1 said:

 

Husum AB  is missing ... at the Schleswig-Holstein North-Sea coast west-south-west of NAS Eggebek. Ground attackers (Fiat G.91 until 1982, then Alpha Jets), much more important than the Brekendorf and other NLPs (road strips). 

Our A-Jets were practising HIND hunting back in the mid-1980s.

I'll have to recheck the data I uploaded to Git, but my personal KMZ file of this has Husum Air Base.  It might not be in that picture because of the way Google Earth displays pin names when zooming out.  We used an official airport publication for West Germany which listed all of the airbases, so I'd hope a fairly major airbase would be there given the absolute nitpicky detail the publication had about army heliports!

49 minutes ago, Pikey said:

this is incredibly useful, thank you for bringing this to my attention. It's goign to take a couple of weekends to figure out the duplicates and overlaps and see which layer it fits in, but thank you!

As with everything, verify any non double pins before deleting.  I have the Sam Site Overview KMZ file from another person, and there are a few places where I flat out disagree with the Pin locations for things... as a perfect example, it labels the ammunition bunkers near Hosum Air Base as a former Patriot site, when it's quite clearly ammunition bunkers.  Mine is also not perfect... some things are missing because cities have overgrown them, some of the headquarters locations of some of the AD units in East Germany are also best-guesses because of urban growth and the de-sovietification of East Germany.

[silverdevil]

i was stationed in wildflecken 1985-1987. there was a small strip where A-10s and A-1 cobras would operate. i saw it mentioned AAF but wanted to say there were armor, military intelligence units stationed there.

[OneEyeRoss]

On 3/16/2025 at 12:47 PM, silverdevil said:

i was stationed in wildflecken 1985-1987. there was a small strip where A-10s and A-1 cobras would operate. i saw it mentioned AAF but wanted to say there were armor, military intelligence units stationed there.

Wild Chicken.  Only went there a few times.  Once as a tanker, once as a medic with a Combat Engineer battalion.  They were blowing stuff up, so we had to bring the band aid box.  

[silverdevil]

5 hours ago, OneEyeRoss said:

Wild Chicken.  Only went there a few times.  Once as a tanker, once as a medic with a Combat Engineer battalion.  They were blowing stuff up, so we had to bring the band aid box.  

haha. yes. permanent party there was a challenge.

fun fact. Shaquille O'Neal lived there with his family when i was stationed there. i knew of his dad (SGT) in finance detachment. shaq played basketball on the post school team.

[OneEyeRoss]

14 hours ago, silverdevil said:

haha. yes. permanent party there was a challenge.

fun fact. Shaquille O'Neal lived there with his family when i was stationed there. i knew of his dad (SGT) in finance detachment. shaq played basketball on the post school team.

I was assigned to the Clinic at Yakima Firing Center.  Permanent party at a firing range is always "fun"....

[graveyard4DCS]

You can also look at russian ressources, there is plenty of information regarding the Cold War era. 

For example, this website about DDR air defense is a gold mine : https://rtv-pvo-gsvg.narod.ru

[Swiso]

On 3/15/2025 at 2:25 PM, mwd2 said:

Is there any 'real' military plan for NATO/Warsaw Pact when Cold War goes hot?

Here a collection of WP war plans:

https://phpisn.ethz.ch/lory1.ethz.ch/collections/colltopic647e.html?lng=en&id=14944

[Swiso]

On 3/15/2025 at 6:03 PM, Mqxle said:

It is called General Defense Plan:
The General Defense Plan (GDP) of NATO was a regularly updated operational plan for the NORTHAG (Northern Army Group) and CENTAG (Central Army Group) in the event of a defense scenario. These plans, classified as "NATO-Secret," are now publicly accessible in the German Bundesarchiv .

The Warsaw Pact's attack plan aimed to annihilate the 1st German Corps and the 2nd British Corps in a pincer movement. The first wave of the attack was intended to break through the combat zone of the Dutch 1st Corps on its left flank, driving a wedge between it and the 1st German Corps. This would have forced the Dutch to bring in reinforcements from the Netherlands, causing a critical delay of 1-2 days. The 3rd Assault Group of the NVA was to advance via Uelzen and the Munster training area to the Weser River, aiming to cut off the British and German corps. The natural bottlenecks of the Harz and Weserbergland would have significantly restricted the mobility of the British forces.

Braunschweig played a key role in preventing an early encirclement and was to be defended primarily from the south. Both sides were aware of this threat, which is why the GDP included provisions for the deployment of German and British reserve divisions. The Warsaw Pact's objective was to reach the Weser and Rhein rivers within a week to decisively influence the course of the war before US Reforger troops could arrive.

NORTHAG adhered to the doctrine of "Forward Defense," which involved a 24-hour delaying action up to the Elbe-Seitenkanal near Uelzen. The outcome of the war was expected to be determined within this 24-hour period, as it was assumed that all forces would be exhausted by that time.

@PikeyI have Stasi documents from the GDR containing intelligence information about NATO FlaRak (surface-to-air missile) positions that were to be occupied in the event of a war outbreak. These are not fixed SAM (surface-to-air missile) positions but rather coordinates where mobile systems, such as ROLAND, would be stationed. If there is interest, feel free to send a DM. Also @Whiskey11 just in case you missed my DM on Discord

Hi, thanks for the information about the General Defense Plan ! 

One question... I've clicked on the link you provided, but is there a way to download those documents in a PDF format ?  

 

[Swiso]

On 3/10/2025 at 12:20 AM, Pikey said:

I could use some help from the armchair army to check the Google KML I am producing, before public release. Using a combination of KML's from Speedy on the army rumour service for the British and Soviet installations, a filtered SAMsite overview and my own work to collect, locate and organize the US installations I have over 1210 Google mapmarkers in the most complete rendition of 1960-1995 Germany's Cold War installations.

The KML will eventually become a key reference resource for locations in the upcoming DCS map. Mission makers can check the details provided for targets and mission use. The KML will eventually be imported to DCS as a rough template of locations. I don't intend to place any objects as there won't be a 1:1 parity  and there are clearly too many, but it is enough to add sites for your missions.

The KML for Cold War Germany comprises of:
Over 1200 placemarks categorised and colour coded (so far)
The inner border reference line
East and West Air defence sites (for West, the Nike Hercules is available for pre 1984 but dates are pretty tough to get)
British
American
Soviet/E. German
--Airbases and minor Helicopter airfields
--Barracks and installations
--Ammo Depots
--Training Areas
--Special Weapons Compounds
--Stores
--Fuel dumps/CEPS
The rough time range for these is 1960-1995.

What I am looking for initially is anyone interested in helping expand on this, specially if they want to zero in on, for example, enriching the US Kazernes with any reference links, tidying up the current placemarks, finding names for the unamed ammo dumps, checking the data with online references, etc. I'm definitely interested in anyone with knowledge of the Eastern European theatre, the locations and names of units and their stations, the airbase complements and time ranges. Also those with good knowledge of the FEBA and plans who can identify major themes that can be added to the KML or fill holes and gaps, such as the areas east of Luneburg and Hamburg, east of Braunschweig, east of Salzgitter and Northeim, etc.

Please don't ask for the WIP copy, it will arrive here when its done. Feel free to add details of the theatre to this thread. Whilst I've seen a lot of resources online, its not the finding of the information so much as the time it takes to create a nice placemark with links, find the modern day geo coordinates from the resource that is now hidden under a Lidl or BMW factory and so on. there's issues of time and date filters which I havent even attempted. It will never be perfect but thats not the aim.

Don't know if these documents could be useful.

nato-order-of-battle-mod-8.doc BAOR-July-1989.pdf