Cold fire

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F-4 Phantom fighter-bomber as the backbone of the NATO air force
Ascent of a Hawker Siddeley Herrier vertical take-off aircraft from a field airfield

Cold Fire, under the high command of CINCENT (Commander in Chief Allied Forces Central Europe) and Allied Air Forces Central Europe (AAFCE), was an annually recurring multinational NATO air force maneuver , which included large army maneuvers on land such as the REFORGER exercises in southern Germany supported. Other large-scale exercises such as Spearpoint 84 were also included. The respective cold fire maneuvers, which usually took place in autumn, had the corresponding year, e.g. B. Cold Fire 82, Cold Fire 83, Cold Fire 84 etc.

procedure

In 1975 the Cold Fire air force exercise was carried out, which supported the Army maneuver Great Castling 75 . The Fourth Allied Tactical Air Force was responsible for CENTAG and the Second Allied Tactical Air Force for NORTHAG . The Cold Fire exercise, with pre-run and post-run, usually lasted three weeks and was intended to simulate combat situations as realistic as possible. In 1983, Cold Fire was part of the overall framework exercise Autumn Forge . Furthermore, Cold Fire ran parallel to Harte Faust 1979, Constant Enforcer 79 , Starke Wehr 82 , Atlantic Lion 83 , Confident Enterprise 83 , Certain Fury 84 , Trutzige Sachsen 1985 and Fränkischer Schild 86 .

The Cold Fire air force exercise was one of the first to include McDonnell F-4 Phantom multi -role fighter aircraft. It was coordinated by the BAOR and the Royal Air Force from the joint headquarters in Rheindahlen . The defense of a saturation attack by the Warsaw Pact from the air over the Fulda Gap was often practiced in various scenarios. The combat aircraft used often fought in the vicinity of the FEBA / VRV exercise or were used as ground attack aircraft directly in the close air support of the ground forces.

Normally, a counter-clockwise pattern was flown into the training area, with combat aircraft taking off from so-called clutch air bases and from there flying into low flying area 3 near the inner-German border . In a northerly direction it was the Low Flying Area 1. In doing so, Harrier vertical take-offs were often used, who rose from a camouflaged zone around Gütersloh to carry out their combat missions. Defending Harrier vertical take-offs could therefore rise vertically from the field from a protected position and intervene directly in the action in the air.

One focus was on low-level flights . These combat flights were sometimes stressful for the crews, especially during the intensive activity phases of the training missions. The Air Policy applied to air traffic in the buffer zone, especially in the Air Defense Interception Zone (ADIZ). During the Starke Wehr 82 maneuver , the number of low-level flights had to be reduced due to ground fog and poor low-level flights.

At the same time as the Cold Fire, the Warsaw Pact often held corresponding air force exercises that were based on a provocation by NATO. The training orders from Cold Fire 84 were spied on by NVA intelligence.

Towards the end of the Cold War, the scope of the Cold Fire maneuver series was reduced. In 1994 a cold fire exercise took place over Germany , Belgium , Denmark , the Netherlands and parts of north-eastern France and was carried out by the headquarters of the Allied Air Forces Central Europe (AAFCE) on the Ramstein Air Base .

See also

Web links

literature

  • David Gledhill: Phantom in the Cold War: RAF Wildenrath, 1977-1992. Pen & Sword Books Ltd. 2017, ISBN 978-1-5267-0408-5 .

Notes and individual references

  1. ^ British Military Aviation in 1984
  2. ↑ Another major maneuver is 'Cold Fire,' a combined land and air force exercise in the central NATO region from Sept. 9 to 24, in which six nations are taking part - Belgium, Britain, Canada, Holland, West Germany and the United States. Joint military exercises begin this week. UPI. August 29, 1982
  3. ^ The Air Reservist, Volumes 29–31. United States. Department of the Air Force, United States. National Guard Bureau, United States. Air Force Reserve. 1977
  4. ↑ 437 Military Airlift Wing. History January 1 - March 31, 1984. Supporting Documents. 1984. (English).
  5. ↑ Airfields of the Royal Air Force (RAF) in Germany. Clutch Airfields on the left bank of the Rhine
  6. ^ To the clutch stations belonged RAF Brüggen , RAF Wildenrath , RAF Laarbruch , RAF Geilenkirchen and RAF Nörvenich
  7. ^ Low Area 2 - surroundings of Münster , Low Flying Area 3 - surroundings of Wildenrath
  8. ↑ possibly during the Cold Fire 77 exercise, which accompanied the Dutch military maneuver Inter Action 77 (September 22 to October 1, 1977)
  9. ↑ David Gledhill: Phantom in the Cold War: RAF Wildenrath, 1977-1992 . Pen & Sword Books Ltd. 2017. ISBN 978-1-5267-0408-5 .
  10. ^ NATO maneuvers. The flank becomes weak with a south wind. The time. September 24, 1982
  11. ^ Klaus Marxen, Gerhard Werle, et al .: Criminal justice and GDR injustice. Espionage: criminal justice and injustice in the GDR. Volume 4: Espionage. Volume 2. De Gruyter. 2004. p. 911. ISBN 978-3-89949-081-7 .
  12. ^ NATO maneuver "Cold Fire" on the back burner. New Germany 1994