by John Hackett
Chapter 5: Weapons
New tools for the battlefield, that is to say, weapon systems based on advances in technology, often remain without being tried out upon the battlefield itself for many years. The Israelis, for example, had used equipment produced in the United States in the 1973 war and the Americans themselves had had their last opportunity to try out major new systems in the war in Vietnam. Some of the newer equipment on the Soviet side was seen to work successfully in the hands of Egyptian clients in 1973 and the Soviet Union was itself able to employ newer versions of it, as well as the older and better known, behind the screens set up round Afghanistan from 1980 onwards. In helicopters, for example, in which the USSR had made very considerable advances, variants of the MI-24 type known as Hind D and E, were particularly useful for the location and destruction of pockets of Mujaheddin tribesmen. In Afghanistan, also, the Soviets used scattered mines which, although produced and issued in considerable numbers elsewhere had hitherto had little use. They also used some chemical agents.
Such situations as these, however, differed widely from that of the central conflict towards which the great powers were heading in the summer of 1985. In north-western Europe much of the equipment of both sides and their war-fighting techniques — which in some respects had developed radical differences — had never yet been tested in battle.
It was generally agreed that the tank, though there had been over the past score or more years occasional attacks upon its supreme position, was still the key factor on the land battlefield. Both on the Western and on the Soviet side there had been very considerable improvements in the tanks now in service, mainly in better protection, higher mobility, greater lethality in the main armament and in more effective fire control.
In the United States tank fleet the well-tried M-60A3 (which had been replacing the M-60A1) was now itself being replaced by the new M-1, the Abrams. Some of the earlier types were still in service in the US Army at the beginning of the eighties but by 1985 the Abrams was widely deployed. It had an advanced 1500 hp gas turbine engine and when it first came into service had used the 105 mm rifled gun as its main armament. The Abrams was now being furnished with the same type of 120 mm smooth-bore gun as was to be found in the German Leopard II. It had been the intention that all tank battalions in the United States Army in Europe (USAREUR) should be armed with the Abrams by the summer of 1985, but owing to delays in budgetary procedure little more than half the US main battle tank units in Europe were equipped with the Abrams carrying the new gun.
There is still argument between those who favoured the rifled gun and those who favoured the smooth bore as the more effective tank destroyer. This will no doubt continue, since results from the use of both these two guns on the Allied side in the war we are studying have not yet offered conclusive evidence one way or the other.
The British Chieftain was still as effective a fighting machine as any on the battlefield. It had a powerful and reliable engine, a highly effective 120 mm gun, a new laser range-finding system together with night-vision sighting, as well as well-proven stabilization equipment, impressive armour and useful speed. Challenger, with its superbly protective so-called Chobham armour (named after the establishment where it was developed) and its 120 mm rifled gun was also coming into regimental service. It was a magnificent tank but its introduction to British regiments in 1984 had so far only resulted in the addition of 100 or so of these outstanding fighting machines to Allied Command Europe at the time war broke out.
For the German Bundeswehr, the Leopard II was a marked improvement on Leopard I. In addition to its powerful new gun, Leopard II had a fully integrated fire control and stabilization system, a shorter response time, laser sighting, a higher first-round hit probability and, with the new sub-calibre ammunition, more effective penetration. Two thousand of these tanks had been scheduled in 1981 for procurement by 1987, but no more than half of these were in service with Federal German troops in 1985.
On the Soviet side, too, there had been improvements. Their newest tank, the T-80, was beginning to come into use shortly before the outbreak of war, but the main battle tank of the Warsaw Pact forces was the T-72, which had succeeded the T-64. The latter was still widely deployed, however, particularly among non-Soviet members of the Warsaw Pact. Produced in Kharkov, in the Ukraine, the T-64 had a powerful 125 mm smooth-bore gun with mechanical loading, allowing a rate of fire of up to eight rounds per minute at ranges out to 2,000 metres, with a three-man crew, improved armour, a newly designed 780 hp engine, better suspension, advanced infra-red sighting and (like the Chieftain) laser range-finding. This tank, however, was not popular with its users. They found it unreliable. It shed its tracks. It had, in fact, been brought out in haste as the answer to the projected NATO main battle tank known as MBT-70, which was never produced. Its successor, the T-72, was built in the Urals. It still at first had the same 125 mm gun as the T-64 but this was shortly succeeded by a newer and much more effective type of gun of the same calibre. The next tank model, the T-80, was manufactured in Leningrad and showed still further improvements in armoured protection, with a new engine and a new suspension. Comparatively few T-80 tanks were to be found in 1985 in service with the Red Army.
Soviet tanks were generally simpler and of rougher design than those of the Western allies. They were less complex to maintain but on the whole lacking in engine power and liable to break down. The much lower level of sophistication in Soviet armoured equipment was very noticeable, the result of a requirement to produce tanks which could be readily manned by crews with a relatively low level of intelligence and education.
All of the three types of Soviet main battle tank which would chiefly be encountered in the war weighed round about 40 tons. Higher weights were to be found among those of the Western allies. As for ranges, NATO tank armaments were capable of engaging targets out to 4,000 metres. There had long been argument as to whether this long range was really an advantage and whether it would not have been better to sacrifice some of it to secure other advantages. Certainly the ranges of Soviet tank guns were nothing like as great. The theory behind Western tank design was that Warsaw Pact opponents could be expected to concentrate tanks in high numerical superiority, given choice in time and place of attack and given also the greater number of tanks they had in the theatre. This meant that the attrition of the armoured enemy had to begin as soon as possible to diminish the probability of being overwhelmed by numbers when the enemy got closer in, and it therefore had to begin at the furthest range. It is true that the fullest exploitation of such long ranges, out to 3,000 and 4,000 metres, depended much on visibility and also on the openness of terrain. In poor weather, mist or smoke, or in close country, it was never easy and often impossible to acquire targets at anything like these ranges. The tactical handling of tanks with the longest ranges, like the Chieftain, came more and more to be dominated by the search for suitable firing positions giving the furthest range of vision. Allied fire control systems, with laser range-finding and sighting equipment, ensured a high probability of first-round hits. Thermal imaging sights, such as those used in the US Abrams, and other sighting equipment for use in very poor visibility did much to extend the usefulness of the main armaments of Allied tanks.
In the need for the earliest possible attrition of the enemy’s tank numbers, surveillance of the battlefield was of the highest importance. There were still regrettable gaps in NATO in the availability of adequate equipment for this purpose. The British, for example, had had a project, known as Supervisor, or under the ungainly title of the medium-range unmanned aerial surveillance and target acquisition system (shortened into the mouth-cracking acronym MRUASTAS), which had been cancelled in 1980. A new system, Phoenix, which would fill this gap in the British capability for effective indirect fire, was just coming into service, however. New munitions were being developed to kill tanks at ranges of up to 30 kilometres but the means of acquiring targets for them had fallen behind. Drones, or what were more precisely d
escribed as remotely-piloted vehicles (RPV) (such as the Franco-Canadian-German Drone CL-289) were, within their limitations, of considerable use in the acquisition of hard targets in depth. The most consistently reliable means available up to the outbreak of war was still that of observation by men on the ground with sensors which were simple and robust but not, of course, as flexible or controllable as other systems would have been. They also made heavy demands on the men carrying out the observation.
What was known as sideways-looking airborne radar also had a useful role to play. It could indicate from an aircraft the location of tank concentrations which could then be plotted and attacked with area weapons. The acquisition of hard targets in depth, however, still had a long way to go.
There was an interesting and promising heliborne system in the United States forces known as SOTAS (stand-off target acquisition system) with a moving-target indicator radar. This had just begun to come into service by mid-1985. The few aircraft that had this capability when war broke out were to prove of high value in tracking the movement of enemy vehicles and providing divisional commanders with adequate information to permit them to attack second echelon forces with mass fire power as the prelude to planned counterattacks. Attack upon the second echelon, or follow-up forces, had long been seen to be one of the most important ways of diminishing the forward momentum of the Soviet attack. Anything that could contribute here was valuable. Another sensor system, the remotely-monitored battlefield sonar system (or REMBASS, in the uncouth language of technical acronyms which military equipment seems to spawn so freely) was expected to come into NATO service in 1983 or 1984, but this was another of those battlefield aids of the highest importance that had been held up in the pipeline.
It was ironic that by August 1985 the means of attacking hard targets in depth was still well ahead of means of finding targets to attack. The new ammunition available to 155 mm guns in NATO from the US armoury included Copperhead, the cannon-launched guided projectile. Copperhead required a laser beam to be reflected from its target by a source known as a designator. The projectile then homed in on this. The problem was to keep the laser directed at the target tank during the critical time. Stay-behind parties of stouthearted men had been trained in this and had the necessary communications to synchronize their target designations with the firing of missiles from up to 15 kilometres behind them. Following targets moving at 30 kph across country is no easy matter, however. Moreover, laser designators were still in 1985 bulky items of equipment, not easy to conceal and almost impossible to move around by stealth.
The remote anti-armour mine system (RAAMS), which could also be delivered by guns, proved to be an important and lethal partner to Copperhead. It was highly effective in attacking the bellies of tanks where the plate was not more than 20 mm thick. Several salvoes from a 155 mm artillery battery produced small minefields scattered around tank concentrations which restricted movement and gave better opportunities for Copperhead.
A novel and useful munition came into service in USAREUR in
1984 called seek and destroy armour, shortened into the not infelicitous little acronym SADARM. An artillery projectile exploding in an airburst releases sub-munitions, which then descend by parachute, swinging and scanning for hard targets. Their sensors emit millimetric wave signals and where there is a response (which would hardly come from anything but a tank or self-propelled gun) the sub-munition fires a charge through the top of it. Although a virgin weapon in 1985, these looked like being winners and V and VII US Corps took in the relatively small numbers available most gladly. The very high importance of early reduction in the numerical superiority of Soviet tanks fully justified the accelerated funding of this project in the early 1980s.
Artillery guns (as opposed to rocket equipments) were of course of the highest importance. Happily the Western allies had long agreed on a common calibre of 155 mm. A towed version of a British-German-Italian gun in this calibre (the FH-70) had already been operational for some years. What was needed was the self-propelled version of the same gun, the SP-70. Such of these as were in service in 1985 were expected to survive well on the battlefield and prove themselves to be agile and effective, the improved ammunition and range of up to 29 kilometres being most welcome. In far greater numbers, however, the familiar American-built SP M-109 and M-110 would still provide the main means of artillery fire-delivery in depth.
Dangerous though the numerical superiority of Warsaw Pact armour would be, its attrition was not the only task of the artillery. The traditional role of counter-battery fire, to reduce the effectiveness of the enemy’s artillery, would still have a high priority. It was to be expected that on both sides, after every engagement, guns would have to move to another site to avoid the enemy’s counter-bombardment. Location of gun position was with modern techniques too efficient to permit of sitting around. The calls for fire support that could be expected on FH-70, SP-70 and M-109 and M-110 guns, were bound to be heavy and might in the event far outweigh their ability to respond, demonstrating all too clearly NATO’s relative shortage of artillery.
The Soviet Union disposed of a heavy 122 mm mortar called the BM-21, which was capable of firing forty rockets either singly, or in groups, or in what is daintily described as ‘ripples’ in which one huge deafening and destructive impact is closely followed by another, and another. The 240 mm successor to this equipment was also in service by the summer of 1985. The huge quantity of fire that multiple rocket launchers can put down has enormous shock effect. The NATO response to the introduction of these Soviet multiple rocket systems was to develop a new American-German-British multiple-launch rocket system (MLRS), which fired two packs of six rockets, also singly or in ripples, out to a range of 40 kilometres. It was just as well that the first batteries of NATO’s multiple rocket launchers had been introduced in all Allied armies by 1984, giving troops some idea of the scale of bombardment to be expected. To experience this on the receiving end in complete surprise for the first time would be totally stunning.
Rivers and canals in the Federal Republic were developed, in the short time available, into the best possible obstacles. Bridge demolition chambers had been built into new bridges in the Federal Republic until the mid-seventies, but since then their design had incorporated no easy system for destruction. The engineer effort involved in preparing the demolition of all sizeable river crossings was enormous. Much more could have been done if even modest funds had previously been devoted to the development of more rapid demolition systems. As it was, many major bridges had to be left intact.
Soviet tanks were at one time required to have a swimming capability but this turned out to be a total failure and the USSR had no amphibious tanks in service in 1985. All types of Soviet main battle tank could, however, be waterproofed and fitted with a snorkel for air intake. Their self-propelled (SP) guns and armoured personnel carriers were expected to swim.
Where recent Soviet experience would be likely to stand them in good stead would be in the use of helicopters. Their MI-24 Hind types, the Hind D and Hind E particularly, which had been developed as gunships, that is to say as flying weapons platforms, had given them in the occupation of Afghanistan the most valuable possible experience and now provided formidable weapon systems. A variety of weapon fittings had evolved (Hind D now carried a turreted gun) in addition to heavier protection, while in the development of their tactics the Soviets had made great strides. These two really powerful gunships would certainly prove to be more battleworthy and far less vulnerable than the MI-24 Hind A, which was still in service, from which they had been developed. Their pilots had been trained to operate without friendly ground support. Their casualties would be numerous, that was certain, but the effectiveness of this new highly-developed instrument of war was likely to be reaffirmed at every major obstacle and whenever the pace of the armoured battle began to flag. The pattern to be expected was that Hind attacks would probably be followed up with landings, in at least company strength, from Hip troop-carryi
ng helicopters, of which MI-8 — Hip E — was a late assault development. The deep penetration of sorties such as this would naturally cause commanders to worry about disruption in the rear but the real successes that these helicopter operations would seek to achieve would lie in the maintenance or renewal of forward momentum in the mainly armoured attack.
Would the helicopter now be taking over from the tank, as the tank’s most lethal enemy? This was by no means certain. What had to be ensured, if war came, was that the Hind should not be allowed to become the undisputed owner of low-level airspace. The helicopter did look, however, like laying a claim to be the tank’s heir presumptive.
Other helicopters whose performance reinforced this claim, in addition to Hind, were the now well-established US UH-1 Cobras but even more the new AH-64 Apache with its Hellfire, fire-and-forget laser-guided anti-tank missile. Outright dogfights between opposing helicopter forces on any scale would probably be avoided, since neither adversary had a truly effective helicopter air-to-air weapon, though both sides were proceeding hastily in the early 1980s with promising developments. With equipment in service the best results would come where imagination was most actively applied. It was very likely that those Western allies who possessed relatively few helicopters would tend to hold their precious fleets in hand for special situations while those with more extensive assets could use them from the outset more boldly in the forward areas. The British Army Lynx, introduced in the early 1980s and fitted with the TOW (tube-launched optically-tracked wire-guided) missile for anti-armour use, would tend, for example, to be kept out of contact until the Soviet attacking forces had closed right up. The Lynxes, which might be said to be more vulnerable than the gunship helicopters, could play a highly important part in dealing with a well-defined enemy breakthrough. By hovering low and using the full 4,000-metre range of the tow missile, Lynx would be able to keep out of range of enemy air defence and out of sight of ground-to-ground weapons, while still delivering an effective attack. The high mobility of these aerial vehicles and the lethality of tow would make them a natural counter-attack force. The use of scatterable mines (or RDM — remotely-delivered mines) to delay and distract the attention of Soviet armour could improve the kill rate of Lynx and other anti-armour helicopters considerably. The United States’ helicopter force would work in much the same way as this, but with deeper forays beyond the forward line of troops, in conjunction with fixed-wing strike aircraft such as the A-10 Thunderbolt. Attack upon the second echelon would be of high importance.
