I think I'm a bit familiar with the setup in Germany served with the Canadian Armed Forces, 3rd Mechanized Commando with NATO in Germany. We were assigned to go into the Northern Plains of Germany with the Dutch and the British. I also participated in a couple of the large NATO Reforger exercises.
The Fulda Gap is a wonderful place if you're defending. A relatively narrow passage, lots of easily defended areas. Problem is that there isn't a lot of depth. The Northern Plains were something else, more depth but a lot of open fields interspersed with built up areas. Ideal for ATGM teams. But I wouldn't call them cannon fodder. That implies a contempt to those who were serving. The point I'm making is that modern combat precludes the 6 week wonders, the sort of draftee army the US used in the Second World War and Korea. I think a volunteer professional army is more effective, the age of the classic Napoleonic levee en masse is over. > What do you think all of us in Germany were during the Cold War? The > scenario was basically this: > > The Russian hoard comes through the Fulda Gap. 11th ACR (now at Fort > Irwin, Ca) was basically a speed bump, there to slow the Russians down > > enough to allow re-enforcements to come up on line. Everyone on the > Eastern side of the Rhine River were basically another series of speed > > bumps. We fully expected the Russian Army to make it that far. While > those on the East of the river are slugging it out holding the > Russians > back, everyone on the Western side of the river advance as far as they > > can and continue holding off the Russians until units from the US can > > fly in, get issued their pre-positioned equipment and join the fight, > > pushing the Russians back into Russia. So we had thousands of soldiers > > who were essentially cannon fodder. And it is still not as simple as > that. The Russians had 10 airborne infantry divisions who's sole > purpose > was to drop in behind our front lines and take out all the rear > support > echelons. The idea being if we don't have beans and bullets, we can't > > fight effectively. And it get more complicated than that but I won't > get > into all the mundane details of the plan. > > Basically the Russians were prepared to fight a war of attrition. They > > were far superior numerically, but we surpassed them technologically. > > And Desert Storm proved that we had much better equipment. While a lot > > of the Iraqi Army had older tanks (T-54's and T-64's), their > Republican > Guard had more modern ones, T-72's. They had a shit load of BMP's and > > other equipment, but none of it did any good against the US armor or > planes. So knowing this, I think that in the long run we would have > prevailed in Europe, although we would have lost thousands of soldiers. > > > And the reason I know a lot of this stuff was because one of my extra > > duties in addition to being a shop foreman in a tank repair shop was > to > also give my unit annual briefings on the Russian threat. So I spent a > > great deal of time learning all this crap. > > Bruce > > Larry Lyons wrote: > > To me the idea is to make sure that the other side becomes cannon > fodder not us. otherwise you're just being a butcher not a soldier. > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;192386516;25150098;k Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:258231 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
