Defiant Saxons

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Defiant Saxony was a FTX NATO - United maneuvers , which in the autumn of 1985 in northern Germany took place.

assignment

“Trutzige Sachsen” was supposed to deviate for the first time from conventional NATO maneuvers for territorial defense, which simulated a realistic West-East enemy situation. In the simulation of “Trutzige Sachsen”, Schleswig-Holstein and northern Lower Saxony represented the so-called “Northern Pact”, Southern Lower Saxony played the role of the “Western Pact” and an “Eastern Pact” remained neutral. H. was not actively involved in the military conflict. The Lower Elbe , Soltau , Mittelland Canal , Wildeshausen and Bremervörde regions represented the training area. The background to the maneuver was the interaction between field and territorial armies , as well as the cooperation between land and air forces, on the part of the Bundeswehr and the Allied allies as part of a large-scale exercise Involvement of several divisions . Another focus was to test the logistical supply of the combat troops under combat conditions. For better integration, the troop units and their commands were mixed internationally.

Troops involved

scope

The maneuver "Trutzige Sachsen" took place from September 12 to 20, 1985. The name "Trutzige Sachsen" came from Lieutenant General Gerhard Wachter , the commander of the 1st Corps , based on the Germanic "swordsmen", the Saxons, to whom perseverance and love of freedom were ascribed . The I. Corps of the Bundeswehr with its headquarters in Münster played a key role in the planning and implementation . In the budget of the free-running exercise, a budget of 16 million DM was provided. This sum included a provision of 5.5 million DM to compensate for damage caused by maneuvers. The maneuver concept of "Trutzige Sachsen" included a predominantly national combat exercise with the participation of the Bundeswehr field army, together with units of the territorial army, the Federal Air Force and NATO allies. In addition to the Bundeswehr, armed forces from the USA , Great Britain and the Netherlands took part. A total of 60,000 soldiers (12,000 reservists and 9,000 Allied soldiers), 18,000 wheeled vehicles, 3,300 tracked vehicles and 250 aircraft were involved. The activities of the air force were declared as a " Cold Fire " exercise series . "Defiant Saxons" was the continuation of the NATO exercise series Autumn Forge 85 . The maneuver control center for the exercise "Defiant Saxony" was in Dörverden - Barme , in the Lower Saxony barracks . The Wilhelmstein barracks in Neustadt- Luttmersen was intended for the press and guest staff of the maneuver observers. "Trutzige Sachsen" was observed by 300 journalists and 2,000 guests. A total of 16 nations, 30 CSCE observers and the Soviet major general Konstantin Tscherjomuchin were present. It was found that barges from the USSR were actively spying on the Mittelland Canal in the Minden and Stadthagen area . The movements of NATO troops and the associated radio traffic were monitored with electronic recording devices . The observers were presented with spatially compact battle sections at the Bergen military training area , as well as the current capabilities of NATO in combat with combined arms . All weapon systems used in the maneuver were used. Among other things, the air support by the light fighter-bomber Alpha Jet of the Federal Air Force and the ground attack aircraft A-10 "Thunderbold" of the US Air Force was shown.

procedure

The focus of this exercise should take place in northern and central Lower Saxony.

"Defiant Saxons" was divided into three phases:

  • September 12-14, 1985: Deployment of both parties to the conflict
  • September 14th to 16th, 1985: Battle preparations (moving into the provision rooms, VRV , combat readiness) etc.
  • September 16-20, 1985: Combat exercise

During the deployment phase of "Rotland", their units concentrated on the Elbe west of Hamburg and were transferred to Lower Saxony by river pioneer ferries from Pioneer Command 800 near Glückstadt on the Lower Elbe and Wedel . The pioneers made it possible to transport 400 tracked and 800 wheeled vehicles as well as 3,500 soldiers by river. The crossing over the Elbe took place in two waves. On September 16, 1985 between one o'clock in the morning and six in the morning, a well-camouflaged troop contingent of 1,500 soldiers with 500 vehicles of the PzGrenBrig 17 under Colonel Manfred Eisele crossed over. The second wave of the Hamburg resident brigade, a total of 3,600 soldiers including 500 vehicles, took place on September 17, 1985 with vehicles of the army pioneers and civilian ferries. In the meantime, “Blauland” had established its line of defense between Bremervörde and Lüneburg and on September 16, 1985 met the attack from “Rotland” in a southerly direction with the task of delaying it. Among other things, there was an attack by "Rot" near Scheeßel in the Rotenburg an der Wümme district. As a result of the strong attack pressure from “Rotland”, “Blauland” was forced to withdraw up to the level of the Aller . In the village of Hille on the Mittelland Canal , air-mobile infantry units from "Blau" were deployed by army helicopters in order to occupy bridges for further action. Together with the homeland security force, “Blau” succeeded in neutralizing the bridgeheads of “Red”. Thereafter, selective counter-attacks by “blue” began, which ended with “red” being repulsed towards the end of the exercise on September 20, 1985 as far as the fictitious demarcation line. For the first time, relatives were able to send greetings and messages to the participants in the "Trutzige Sachsen" exercise via the "Maneuver Courier" with a circulation of 25,000. In the course of the maneuver, Hamburg’s Interior Senator Dr. Rolf Lange in the field the 7th Panzer Grenadier Brigade from Hamburg-Fischbek and the command post of the 17th Panzer Grenadier Brigade from Hamburg-Rahlstedt .

Conclusion

The maneuver "Trutzige Sachsen" was dominated by extremely bad weather conditions. In many places there was constant rain. As a result, the Air Force was unable to achieve its planned daily performance of 150 missions. Another finding was the insight that the North German Plain was not very suitable under practical conditions as a "tank battlefield" due to its numerous bodies of water and the difficulties associated with it when moving forward. Fast tank advances on boggy subsoil, due to impassability in heavy rain, proved to be hardly feasible. One innovation was the successful testing of the new artillery structure 85, which resulted in a profound reorganization of the artillery units of the Bundeswehr. In the course of Artillery Structure 85, tube artillery was dispensed with at corps level. “Trutzige Sachsen” also brought about the change in the yellow olive camouflage for military vehicles to a new three-colored camouflage pattern, the flecktarnanstrich . In addition, the use of harmful paints should be prevented in the future.

Motto

" Watt mutt datt mutt " was chosen as the motto for the maneuver in order to achieve an understanding among the civilian population for the maneuver.

See also

Web links

media

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ Field Training Exercise, free-running exercise for the full force
  2. ↑ 2nd Armored Division, "Hell on Wheels"
  3. ↑ Old High German "sasnotas"
  4. ^ Günter Stiller: Defiant Saxons and funny faxes. In: Hamburger Abendblatt. No. 216 of September 17, 1985, p. 1.
  5. ↑ 21,000 wheeled vehicles according to Olaf Achilles: nature without peace. The environmental sins of the Bundeswehr: military versus nature. Droemer Knaur, 1991, ISBN 3-426-03942-7 , p. 92.
  6. ↑ Autumn Forge,… in 1975, upon becoming SACEUR, General Alexander Haig decided to harmonize disparate NATO and national reinforcement plans into a single SACEUR Rapid Reinforcement Plan (RRP) and to embed the REFORGER exercises into a broader set of coordinated exercises, labeled Autumn Forge, designed to test and demonstrate NATO's ability to reinforce and defend all three regions of ACE at once ... ( Memento from April 30, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
  7. ^ ACE - Allied Command Europe Mobile Forces
  8. ↑ Autumn Forge - transl. Herbstschmiede
  9. ^ A b Günter Stiller: Bad rumors haunt the land of the "Triefenden Sachsen" . In: Hamburger Abendblatt. No. 217 of September 18, 1985, p. 15.
  10. ↑ Quotation: Like many Soviet inland vessels with espionage orders, the federal government located “Defiant Saxons” on the Mittelland Canal in the Minden / Stadthagen area during the NATO autumn maneuver. (cf. dpa report from September 17, 1985), and how does it assess the assessment of a CDU military expert who has described this as a tremendous provocation of the Soviet Union ? ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.edumagazin.de
  11. ↑ Amphibious Pioneers
  12. ↑ PiKmdo., Hilden
  13. ↑ September 1985 - Military in Wedel. ( Memento of the original from August 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on: wedel.de @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wedel.de
  14. ↑ a total of 3,600 soldiers, including 500 successes on September 17, 1985 with vehicles of the army pioneers and civilian ferries. In: Defiant Saxons with a magic hat. In: Hamburger Abendblatt. September 16, 1985, No. 215, p. 7.
  15. ^ Defiant Saxons with invisibility caps. In: Hamburger Abendblatt. September 14, 1985, No. 214, p. 2.
  16. ^ Rolf Lange in the "Trutzigen Sachsen". In: Hamburger Abendblatt. September 20, 1985, No. 219, p. 5.
  17. ^ Referred to in the local press as "Defiant Saxons get dirty knuckles "
  18. ↑ deutschesheer.de: The artillery of the Bundeswehr ; In connection with this, the field artillery battalions of the corps were disbanded, self-propelled howitzers were added to the armored artillery battalions of the field army and the number of batteries of the brigade artillery battalions was reduced from three to two with nine guns
  19. ^ Bundeswehr: paint off . In: Der Spiegel . No. 35 , 1985, pp. 32 ( online ).
  20. ↑ Low German for " What must, that must "