Using his binoculars, the tank commander, and also the commander of the troop of Leopard 2s deployed close by, surveyed the ground ahead. To his front, about 1,200 metres ahead, over open farmland, zigzagged with a patchwork of cultivated fields, was the canal. To his immediate left, no more than 1,000 metres distant, the 216 ran from west to east, crossing the canal. To the west, it linked up with an autobahn behind him, which ran north to south. To his immediate right, south-east, 1,500 metres away, just out of sight of his position, lay a minor road that crossed the canal from west to east. This was being guarded by his other two Leopards, their task to watch and wait. Engineers were preparing the bridges for demolition. His task was to provide them with cover, ready to dash forward and deal with any enemy armour that tried to get across. Part of the 33rd Panzer Battalion of the 9th Panzer Brigade, he was far from alone.
The M1-Abrams advanced down the narrow forest track, trees lining both sides of the route, an M3 Bradley Cavalry Fighting Vehicle, leading the way. Behind, another twelve main battle tanks of the cavalry unit followed in line of march. From the 1st Squadron of the 11th Cavalry, the ‘Black Horse’ Regiment, they were deploying as a screen, a covering force, for the US V Corps, one of four corps-size formations that made up the Central Army Group. The Cavalry Regiment would conduct a similar role to that orchestrated by 4th Armoured Division for 1 BR Corps and the 1st Panzer Division for 1 German Corps, both in the Northern Army Group.
As yet, NATO had no inkling where the Warsaw Pact main thrusts would be. But the menacing build-up of Soviet troops along the border was now becoming apparent, and the Soviet Politburo were still insisting that it was purely a defensive measure to counter the NATO Hawks accusation that the peaceful people of the Soviet Union wanted a war; that they were only deploying their forces post Exercise Hammer 84 rather than returning them to barracks as a consequence of the sabre-rattling of the American President and British Prime Minister. Baskov had demanded that NATO desist from calling up their National Guard and reserves and return their divisions to their barracks before they would stand down.
One thing was certain: as far as the commander of CENTAG was concerned, the wasp-waist of Germany in the area of the Fulda Gap would be a tempting target. A powerful armoured thrust across 110 kilometres would find Warsaw Pact soldiers in the centre of the city of Frankfurt. A mere ninety kilometres further and the hammer and sickle flag would fly over the political capital of Bonn. Not only would they be close to the French border but also to the huge US Army supply depot at Kaiserslautern and numerous air bases close by. It would be disastrous for NATO, splitting the two army groups, NORTHAG and CENTAG, and effectively cutting West Germany in half.
As CENTAG’s area had a largely mountainous and wooded border with the Inner German Border, the terrain was considered far more favourable to defend than the flatter, more open spaces of northern Germany. Although formidable terrain for a mass tank army to cross, the immediate area around Fulda was not as impassable as the NATO planners would wish for. The Fulda River, a mere twenty metres across and not much more than two metres deep, wouldn’t even be considered a barrier by the Soviet Army. Their vast array of river-crossing equipment, from the PMP pontoon bridge, with its thirty-two river pontoons that, when deployed, had a span of nearly 400 metres, to the TMM vehicle-launched bridge system. During, or before, the period a bridge was being erected, or floated, the Soviets could use their GSP heavy amphibious ferry. A left and right unit, linked together, could ferry up to fifty tons across a river. Providing the circumstances were right, a main battle tank could even fire its main gun as it was ferried across. With the knowledge that a forward defence stance would not be effective, as the Warsaw Pact armies could concentrate their forces and choose which point, or points to punch through the thinly spread NATO forces, CENTAG had no option but to opt for a defence-in-depth strategy. Using anti-tank weapons on the forward slopes, where vegetation permitted, with main battle tanks hitting the advancing forces on the flanks, they could blunt an attack but pull back before they were overwhelmed, and then carry out the same manoeuvre all over again.
The Black Horse Regiment had been deployed to the Fulda Gap region of West Germany in May 1972. Its mission was twofold: conducting patrols of the Inner German Border, watching for any unwelcome Soviet or East German activity, and acting as the covering force for the US V Corps. Although the squadron manned an observation post in the area of Hunfeld, 1st Squadron had been ordered to move out and take up positions further east, as an attack by the Warsaw Pact was becoming more and more likely. Military commanders insisted that an attack was imminent, and likely to be within the next forty-eight hours. Although only a squadron, it punched well above its weight. It was a powerful force, with forty-one M1-Abrams, forty M3 Bradley CFVs, twelve M113 armoured personnel carriers, six M106 mortar carriers, four M577 command vehicles, and eight M109 self-propelled artillery.
As a replacement for the ageing M60A1, which was only protected by homogenous, rolled armour, the M1-Abrams was of an innovative design. The traditionally used homogenous armour had been replaced by laminate armour designed by the British Vehicle Research and Development Establishment at Chobham. Hence the nickname of Chobham armour. Its protection, against the weapon of choice for many systems, the shaped charge, was significantly improved.
Private First-Class Larry Poole gunned the multi-fuel gas turbine engine as they left a dip and started a gradual climb. Staff Sergeant Kyle Lewis, the tank commander and platoon sergeant, his head and shoulders above the turret hatch, rocked gently as he watched the Bradley ahead of them. The turret and its 105mm rifled tank gun were facing forwards, the track quite narrow. They were heading for their wartime deployment positions, crashed out as their senior officers were becoming more and more concerned by the hostility being shown by the Soviet Union. The commander of the Bradley bent his arm at the elbow, signalling to the right, the tank commander knowing it meant they were approaching the T-junction at the end of the track. He informed the driver and, within a couple of minutes, they had moved onto route 84, the sixty-seven ton tank swivelled around on its tracks, curving round to the right before continuing forward, sticking with the reconnaissance vehicle in front.
Tall trees lined the road either side of them, climbing away up the slope to their left, until they levelled off at 550 metres at the top of the Stalberg bei Hunfeld. The driver ramped up the tank’s speed to a steady thirty-five kilometres an hour, leaving a trail of dust behind them. SSGT Lewis could hear his two other crew members laughing, knowing the lieutenant, their platoon commander, in the tank behind would be cursing PFC Poole. Kyle ordered him to take his foot off the gas and their speed dropped to fifteen. Four hundred metres further on, the density of the forest to their left thinned out slightly, the trees more scattered about a gentler slope. They had driven between two staggered knolls, the left called Marsberg, the unnamed one to the right they had nicknamed Clint, after the ‘man with no name’. The platoon left the two knolls behind, driving into more open land, apart from a slightly raised piece of ground to their left, an extension of the Marsberg. A network of cultured fields filled the gap between the forest area and the village of Rasdorf, which had a population of less than a thousand.
The commander of the recce vehicle signalled again, this time with his left arm. Kyle gave the driver a warning that they would be turning left onto the low edge of the shallow reverse slope. The platoon of four M1-Abrams following behind would be tracking right. The Abrams roared as it swung left, churning up the ground as it made its way off the road and onto a track that ran along the lower slopes of the knoll extension. The engine whined as Poole pushed the armoured giant harder as they started to climb slightly, eventually stopping so the tank could be manoeuvred into a position where it could reverse up the gentle slope. From slightly higher up, but nowhere near the top, they could cover the open ground that was laid out in front of them. An enemy force, particularly a large armoured force, perhaps in battalion or regimental strength, would have to advance along route 84 if they wished to make any headway west. They would be forced to pass through the gap between the two knolls. It would make an ideal target for the eight Abrams, four each side, that could pick off the enemy armour as it approached across the fields or down route 84 itself. Three thousand metres to the rear, eight 155mm M-109 self-propelled artillery would be setting up to support the squadron, pounding the enemy whenever possible, adding to the devastation that would wreak havoc in the killing zone being created, making the Soviet advance west even more onerous.