NATO ORBAT Update?

[Perun]

[Perun]

LES FBA

Les Forces Belges en Allemagne

1946 - 2005

https://web.archive.org/web/20170606231956/http://users.skynet.be/les.cuirassiers/les_fba.htm

[Perun]

Belgian 1st corps

https://web.archive.org/web/20071028183100/http://www.museum-bsd.de/museum-bsd/grafiken/stationierung_deutschland.gif

https://web.archive.org/web/20151220083120fw_/http://www.museum-bsd.de/museum-bsd/fr/frameset_information.htm

[LouieD]

Someone posted this on FB from the 11 ACR museum, no date but I’m guessing mid-late 1980’s. I will try to upload a clearer image latter. Notice the two FRG Corps heading eastward.

Edited September 24, 2024 by LouieD

[Stuart Galbraith]

This is odd, the corps launching the counterattack were supposed to be much more shallow. I remember a discussion with former Soviet generals, and some of them saying, when they learned of the proposed counterattack decades later 'Well that wouldnt have done any good that shallow, they should have aimed to go much deeper.'

[Darth Stalin]

On 9/24/2024 at 7:16 PM, LouieD said:

Someone posted this on FB from the 11 ACR museum, no date but I’m guessing mid-late 1980’s. I will try to upload a clearer image latter. Notice the two FRG Corps heading eastward.

Louie, any link for that website please?

EDIT:

I've found something:

https://www.militaryhistories.co.uk/locations/view/83

Edited October 3, 2024 by Darth Stalin

[Stuart Galbraith]

A good find, particularly the photos of Colditz.

[Jaroslav]

Ranges of SAM systems, 1989./90. period.

 

Source:

https://forums.mudspike.com/t/dcs-fulda-gap/2409

 

Edited June 17, 2025 by Jaroslav

[Jaroslav]

[Jaroslav]

[Tim Sielbeck]

22 minutes ago, Jaroslav said:

A correction.  The earliest this map can represent is 1984 when 10th LID was established at Ft. Drum.  At that time the 3rd Brigade of the 2nd AD was in Germany (since 1979 IIRC).

[Stuart Galbraith]

As an aside, anyone got any idea where pocus set had got hin 1983? I'm assuming they were not as extensive as later years.

[Tim Sielbeck]

Just now, Stuart Galbraith said:

As an aside, anyone got any idea where pocus set had got hin 1983? I'm assuming they were not as extensive as later years.

Do you mean POMCUS?

[Stuart Galbraith]

Yes, rather stupidly I seemed to drop the M....

I could find out there was extensive sets by 1989, but nobody seemed to want to give a break down of what sites were extant by 1983. 

[Captain Hurricane]

maybe this will help with early 1980's POMCUS site locations:

 

From https://ahec.armywarcollege.edu/documents/Bell_POMCUS _Modernization_Study _Complete.pdf

 

Edited June 24, 2025 by Captain Hurricane

[Stuart Galbraith]

Were those actually all in place by 81? That is a lot more than I had thought. Thanks.

[Mykola Saichuk]

30 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Were those actually all in place by 81? That is a lot more than I had thought. Thanks.

No, sir Stuart Galbraith, there were more. Here's a map from a Soviet report from 1981. It shows 18 POMSS depots. Аnd five more depots were being built .

Edited June 25, 2025 by Mykola Saichuk

[Stuart Galbraith]

That makes a lot of sense. The sets in the south must have been long established by then, but the Americans had recently (within 5 years or so) taken over from the Canadians in the North, and they had IIRC 2nd Armored deploy a forward Brigade to the Bremen area, and 2 more in stockpile. There was IIRC, also expected to be 5th Infantry Division there. Im guessing they probably didnt have the stockpile for either in place by that time, but were working towards it.

There was also a place in the UK, name eludes me for the moment, that was near Manchester, that had a lot of sofskin equipment, both army and US Marines.

Very interesting indeed, thanks for that everyone.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Incidentally Mykola, now you are here, what methods did the Pact have in mind to try and neutralize these stockpiles? The wargame im modifying had occupation by airborne forces, which to my mind is obviously untenable. Im presuming conventional bombing, tactical nukes and chemical sliming was all they had in mind? They seem to my mind to be impractical for Spetsnaz attack.

[Mykola Saichuk]

41 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Incidentally Mykola, now you are here, what methods did the Pact have in mind to try and neutralize these stockpiles? The wargame im modifying had occupation by airborne forces, which to my mind is obviously untenable. Im presuming conventional bombing, tactical nukes and chemical sliming was all they had in mind? They seem to my mind to be impractical for Spetsnaz attack.

Why was an airborne assault untenable?
I have a training scheme for an operational-strategic airborne assault in the area. Airborne was considered a viable method. The other thing is that it might not have worked out (first the WP has to gain air supremacy, which was a challenge in itself). I will remind you that several important NATO mobile command posts were located in the POMSS depot areas.
 If tactical nuclear weapons are used right away, then will new problems, and POMSS depots will lose their significance.

[Stuart Galbraith]

1 minute ago, Mykola Saichuk said:

Why was an airborne assault untenable?
I have a training scheme for an operational-strategic airborne assault in the area. Airborne was considered a viable method. The other thing is that it might not have worked out (first the WP has to gain air supremacy, which was a challenge in itself). I will remind you that several important NATO mobile command posts were located in the POMSS depot areas.
 If tactical nuclear weapons are used right away, then will new problems, and POMSS depots will lose their significance.

Its not the airborne assault so much (although looking at NATO's air defences it might have been costly). Its the amount of real estate they would have had to have held onto, over a huge area.

Alright. I could see in the the CENTAG area it might have been viable. I struggle to believe they had enough units to cover all those other facilities that were being built as well. They needed some of those units to cover river crossings.

Assuming they used airborne forces, im guessing this would be more likely for airborne forces in second echelon armies, rather than the first, whom would have needed them to get over the Elbe and presumably the Weser. Or in their logic, was occupying the sites first   better, even if it mean a slow start elsewhere?

 

[Mykola Saichuk]

31 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Its not the airborne assault so much (although looking at NATO's air defences it might have been costly). Its the amount of real estate they would have had to have held onto, over a huge area.

Alright. I could see in the the CENTAG area it might have been viable. I struggle to believe they had enough units to cover all those other facilities that were being built as well. They needed some of those units to cover river crossings.

Assuming they used airborne forces, im guessing this would be more likely for airborne forces in second echelon armies, rather than the first, whom would have needed them to get over the Elbe and presumably the Weser. Or in their logic, was occupying the sites first   better, even if it mean a slow start elsewhere?

 

Operational-strategic paratroopers landing have 2+ airborne divisions. They are to capture and destroy facilities in the strategic rear. They are not to conduct static defense of captured facilities. Capturing bridges for the benefit of a 1st echelon army is a tactical airborne landing by airborne assault troops and/or a motorized rifle unit with special training. These tasks are carried out in parallel.

There was detailed information about it: https://www.warplans.org/library/7/2024-3-24/8-2.jpg

It was a special manual on airborne assault landings in a front operations.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Thats fascinating. So Airborne forces were to be used for targets larger than a Spetsnaz grouping could handle? Im thinking Command centres, communications sites, ammunition depots, Pershing?

This all rather explains the rise in the development of airmobile units in GSFG through the 1980's, they were perhaps trying to cover the ground that was not covered by the use of Airborne troops.

[Jaroslav]

My opoinion is that WP would use tactical missiles like Scud and FA Su-24 for targets like POMCUS and rear command posts. Use of VDV divisions seams like vaste of resources and time for those kind of targets

[Stuart Galbraith]

I think most likely they would use missiles if they were using chem, it makes perfect sense to use it on prepositioned stocks, and ammunition supplies, just to make it harder to bring them into use. If they werent, Su24 to me seems more logical to try and physically destroy the supplies and warstocks at source.

Well, they had 8 Airborne Divisions, they obviously had to use them on something.  Its a curious one. NATO texts always seemingly believed they would be used for road crossings that the Airmobile forces were too far away, just to keep the Juggernaught rolling. it seems the reality much more an Airborne Chevauchee, or an extremely heavily armed Spetsnaz to nobble anything else.

I suppose conceivably they may have been used to capture river crossings, but only if the intent was purely to destroy them so the enemy couldnt use them. The lower Rhine might have been possible, just to make it difficult to introduce French reinforcements. I know the French went so far as to form special units to defend those locations and keep the bridges open.