Airland Battle and you: fighting the Eighth Guards Combined Arms Army from the air (or: an example scenario to inspire mission makers)

[sith1144]

Hey all. Ive been sticking my nose in a whole slew of manuals, pamphlets, and papers to channel the spirit of 1981, and I thought Id share a hopefully inspiring example of the sort of missions you might realistically fly. First, to set the stage:

June 12th, 1981. McPheeters Barracks, Bad Hersfeld, Germany.
The troops of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment are scrambling to get to their equipment. Somewhere up north along the border a single shot turned into a skirmish and then into a war. Neither side seems to have been mobilized, and no nuclear weapons have been deployed yet. But even without weapons of mass destruction, the 8th Guards Combined Arms Army across the border is a formidable force. The closest group to the border, the 39th Guards Motor Rifle division alone has over a hundred tanks and over half a thousand BMPs. As the troops get ready for battle the first jets loaded with bombs fly past low and fast.

Air-land battle and you: what is the job of aviation?
NATO does not want to trade space for time. After all, space is inhabited by the very people they are trying to protect. NATO therefore needs a plan to win battles right at the border. In March 1981 the US Army Training and Doctrine command published an 84 page pamphlet outlining the Airland battle doctrine that would be developed further in field manuals in 1982 and 1986. At its core, this means fighting the enemy on the ground and in the air at the same time. It asks commanders to fight not only the enemy directly in front of them, but also the second echelon forces following behind, still in enemy territory. The Warsaw pact intends to win by applying constant pressure across the entire line until it breaks (it is, of course, greatly oversimplifying things to boil it down to a single sentence. But im doing so anyway). The goal of fighting the second echelon is to relieve this pressure and allowing American troops to seize the initiative and act, so they can reposition, counterattack, resupply, whatever the situation may demand. To boil the counter-strategy down to a single sound-bite as well, the plan is to trade firepower for time. Later in the decade, new weapon systems like the M270 MLRS and AH-67 Apache will offer commanders better weapons of their own to engage the second echelon. But for now, nearly all of the interdiction will have to be provided by the Air Force.

 Since at least 1943 interdiction - hindering the movement of enemy troops not currently in contact - has been identified as an important part of air power. It was less important than air superiority, but more important than Close Air Support (CAS) V Corps, the American unit responsible for the “Fulda Gap” has a staff unit dedicated to the interdiction mission. Their job is to analyze in real time which routes the enemy will take and how long it will take them, and to use strike aircraft, helicopters, artillery, and electronic warfare to delay and disrupt them as much as possible. This is where we come in. It should be noted that missions are going to be flown against planned targets.  The objectives are going to fit into three categories:

1. Delay the enemy by a given amount of time. This is unfortunately somewhat hard to measure in DCS.
2. Channel the enemy down a specific route. Also on the face of it not possible in DCS because the ground units just follow their waypoints.
3. Defeat the enemy in a specific area. This one we can at least measure in DCS.

The good news is, its not up to the fighter jockey to judge the success, so at the end of a flight we can still get a nice mission success screen.

As a final note, interdiction missions are going to be against planned targets. Between the thousands of anti aircraft weapons on the ground and the thousands of aircraft in the sky, there's not a lot of room to fly around looking for targets. Leave finding targets to the OV-10s and other reconnaissance aircraft.

This map shows the locations of the divisions of the 8th GCAA and a big red arrow along their path to the border. If V corps determines that these troops are indeed headed for the Fulda Gap, and not towards Bamberg in the south, they are going to want to focus their efforts on delaying all enemy units that might join the battle in the next 72 hours, up to a depth of about 150 kilometers behind the front line. There is a highway that runs all the way from Leipzich past Jena, Weimar, and Erfurt to the border. This is the fastest route for the enemy to get to the frontline. The goal of our strike package will be to degrade this highway to delay the next unit following it by two hours. This will give the ground troops some time, but also gives the air force another two hours to rain down ordnance on the enemy units now slowing down at chokepoints.

If we look at this highway in DCS, we come across this pair of bridges at Günthersleben-Wechmar a bit South-East of Gotha. If these bridges are destroyed, Soviet forces will get delayed as they will have to repair/replace the bridge or ford the stream, none of which is as fast as driving across a bridge. Enough little delays like that add up quickly. These bridges will be the target of our flight, a 4-ship of F-4 Phantoms from Hahn Air Base with high drag bombs.

Missiles, Missiles everywhere: the threats.

About five kilometers North of the bridges sits an SA-2 battery at FRA-513 Seebergen bei Gotha, and 31 kilometers South-East sits another at FRA-514 Remda bei Rudolstadt. Besides these fixed East German systems, each of those four Soviet division has an SA-6 regiment with multiple batteries and each of the 4 regiments per division has 4 ZSU-23 Shilkas, 4 SA-9 or SA-13 SAM vehicles, and an awful lot of MANPADS. There are also doubtless mobile East German systems roaming around, but I think I’ve done enough research for today. And of course, the warsaw pact has hundreds if not thousands of interceptors standing by as well. There will be a lot of aircraft wrecks by the end of the day!

YGBSM: Supporting flights.

Luckily our flight is not alone. At Spangdahlem Air Base sits an entire wing specialized in Wild Weasel operations. They will be out there to suppress the SAMs. F-15s from Bitburg will be providing top cover directed by E-3s from Geilenkirchen (Ugra pls ) There will be no tankers until the situation in the air has become a little clearer.

Its about the journey: sights along the way.

As you make your way from Hahn to the target, you will pass through the HAWK belt. This is a line of HAWK Surface to Air Missiles that run from the coast to the Austrian border. These are going to be looking for targets. Because radio communications could be jammed, simple corridors have been pre-arranged. you'll be low and fast, as will almost all aircraft. Maybe you'll see F-111s or Tornados on their way to bomb enemy airfields. Cobras or Hinds engaging enemy columns with missiles and rockets. Su-24s or Su-22s heading for the front - or your airbase. With everyone low and fast your chance to acquire, identify, and engage an enemy aircraft is going to be minimal, and turning and fighting is a great opportunity for someone else to run in and hit you with a steel chair. On the ground below you might make out exchanges of gunfire, ATGMs flying around, hillsides getting cheese-gratered by DPICM, and vehicles turning into burning wrecks. Beyond the frontlines you might see a motor rifle battallion snaking around some abandoned civilian cars, scrambling to bring the MANPADSs to bear. Hopefully, there's no Shilka or SA-13 waiting for you at the bridge, no MiGs scrambling to intercept you, and the SAMs are nicely distracted by the wild weasels. With a bit of luck you might even make it to the end of the week



That's a bit long I guess. But I hope I managed to summarize the role of USAF aviation in a cold war gone hot scenario and given you some inspiration to go make a cool mission. The pamphlet I mentioned is TRADOC Pamphlet 525-5 25 March 1981.

Edited Sunday at 11:32 AM by sith1144
spelling

[Essah]

Great Writeup. you should bring this mission to life!

Where can I find TRADOC Pamphlet 525-5 25 March 1981? I've tried searching for it but only find post cold war versions.

[sith1144]

11 hours ago, Essah said:

Great Writeup. you should bring this mission to life!

Where can I find TRADOC Pamphlet 525-5 25 March 1981? I've tried searching for it but only find post cold war versions.

Hey, my preferred spot for stuff like this is the Ike Skelton Combined Arms Research Digital Library! they have lots of fascinating documents, articles, and more

[Andrew u.k.]

Superb, this is exactly the missions we fly in our squadron. 41f RAFAIR 

We have a senior ex Raf Jaguar pilot within our group and we model our missions using his experience. 

It's pretty much as you described, low level, below 200ft, 420kts, offset card 4 ships. 

You may find this interesting 

 

[sith1144]

On 4/19/2025 at 8:08 PM, Andrew u.k. said:

snip

ah yeah those are neat! and once again highlights that we really need a Krug. and also the OG Strela-2 IMO.

[mr_derpo]

Do you have some good sources on what each division in 8th Guards and whatever East German units looks like and where they would go in an invasion? Trying to make a few A-10 and F-4 based BAI mission around Bad Hersfeld and the best I can do for Warsaw Pact Units is use WARNO's army general campaign and look at what units are where. In the game they have East Germany's 4th Motorized Divsion going for Bad Hersfeld and Alsfeld but I feel like the Soviets would commit one of their own divisions or an East German tank division to such an important objective.

[sith1144]

4 hours ago, mr_derpo said:

Do you have some good sources on what each division in 8th Guards and whatever East German units looks like and where they would go in an invasion? Trying to make a few A-10 and F-4 based BAI mission around Bad Hersfeld and the best I can do for Warsaw Pact Units is use WARNO's army general campaign and look at what units are where. In the game they have East Germany's 4th Motorized Divsion going for Bad Hersfeld and Alsfeld but I feel like the Soviets would commit one of their own divisions or an East German tank division to such an important objective.

Honestly you wouldn't be far off. For DCS purposes every division has as many T-64s, BMPs, BTRs, and artillery pieces as you want, it's not like it'll run well simulating an entire regiment at once. That said here's some good sources:

https://www.relikte.com/literatur.htm has the numbers for 1988. It's in German but you can figure it out, in the index click on 8. Gardearmee and off you go. 

You can also use https://www.ww2.dk/new/army/armies/8gvoa.htm which has more time accurate equipment but is based on CIA estimates instead of Soviet/east German documents so less accurate. 

There's no definitive answer for where they would go so you are free to assign them as you see fit. I will note the 8GCAA and east German 3rd army aren't going to be attacking along the same route in parallel. So you're going to have East Germans or Soviets, not a mix. (Though one army could be in echelon behind the other ie following behind)

[mr_derpo]

Thanks for the help. Both those links seem like a pretty interesting read.

[OneEyeRoss]

On 4/20/2025 at 8:22 PM, mr_derpo said:

Do you have some good sources on what each division in 8th Guards and whatever East German units looks like and where they would go in an invasion? Trying to make a few A-10 and F-4 based BAI mission around Bad Hersfeld and the best I can do for Warsaw Pact Units is use WARNO's army general campaign and look at what units are where. In the game they have East Germany's 4th Motorized Divsion going for Bad Hersfeld and Alsfeld but I feel like the Soviets would commit one of their own divisions or an East German tank division to such an important objective.

We (1/32 Armor, 3AD, V Corps, 74-77) were told that it was going to be Soviet Forces, probably a mix of the 79 Guards Tank Division and Infantry Divisions heading towards Alsfeld.  (I haven't been able to locate our exact GDP area on the map, yet.  Those 1:50 maps were used look a bit different than the F10 view).  The general belief at the time was the the GSFG would be the first echelon, to hammer their way through the defense, and then the follow on forces would be E. German and Polish.  We would get updates every so often about which units were moving around where when they went on exercises, so we would know if a different division would be the one we would face, but mostly we expected the armored division to be the main thrust.  

 

79th GTD units:

• 17th Guards Tank Regiment (Saalfeld)
• 65th Guards Tank Regiment (Nohra)
• 211th Guards Tank Regiment( Jena)
• 66th Guards Motor Rifle Regiment (Nohra)
• 172nd Artillery Regiment (Rudolstadt)
• 79th Anti-Aircraft Rocket Regiment (Jena)

Edited Tuesday at 05:13 PM by OneEyeRoss

[Nicolaus123]

As a young boy, I sometimes had contact with soldiers from the 17th Guards Tank Regiment (Saalfeld). They dug in their tanks (I now know they were T 80 tanks) in our forest on the “Saalfelder Höhe”. The camouflage was extremely good. When we played in the forest, we occasionally came across the dug-in tanks, which was rather unpleasant for us. In addition, helicopters (Mi 24) stationed in Nohra tried to locate the dug-in tanks in the forest. To do this, they flew low over the forest.

On one occasion, a tank exploded on the barracks grounds in Saalfeld while they were carrying out welding work on a tank that was apparently fully fueled and ammunitioned. The turret flew 100 meters into a field.

 

 

 

[Essah]

On 4/21/2025 at 10:24 AM, sith1144 said:

Honestly you wouldn't be far off. For DCS purposes every division has as many T-64s, BMPs, BTRs, and artillery pieces as you want, it's not like it'll run well simulating an entire regiment at once. That said here's some good sources:

https://www.relikte.com/literatur.htm has the numbers for 1988. It's in German but you can figure it out, in the index click on 8. Gardearmee and off you go. 

You can also use https://www.ww2.dk/new/army/armies/8gvoa.htm which has more time accurate equipment but is based on CIA estimates instead of Soviet/east German documents so less accurate. 

There's no definitive answer for where they would go so you are free to assign them as you see fit. I will note the 8GCAA and east German 3rd army aren't going to be attacking along the same route in parallel. So you're going to have East Germans or Soviets, not a mix. (Though one army could be in echelon behind the other ie following behind)

This is what you're looking for. These are declassified documents.
https://irp.fas.org/doddir/army/fm100-2-1.pdf
https://irp.fas.org/doddir/army/fm100-2-3.pdf

However having read through these in detail i can say that WARNOs campaign is very accurate with its TO&E, so its not a bad ressource to use as well.

Edited Tuesday at 09:48 PM by Essah