Tactical-nuclear-weapon development originated not with a statement of operational requirement from the military, but with US scientists in the late 1940s, who realized that it had become technically feasible to develop nuclear warheads which could fit into both small missiles and artillery shells. The first fruit of this was a massive 280 mm cannon, which was fielded by the US artillery in 1952 – the same year that NATO set itself a goal of ninety-six divisions. By 1954, however, it had become clear that this NATO goal was unattainable, and it was proposed that fielding tactical-nuclear-weapons systems would offer a method of substituting artillery for infantry and tanks. This was seized upon by the military in general, not least because at that time the Soviet Union did not possess any tactical nuclear weapons, thus giving NATO an absolute superiority. The proposal was also particularly popular with the artillery arms of the NATO armies, who saw themselves promoted to become the major arm on a nuclear battlefield. The Soviet army was not far behind, however, and it too began fielding tactical nuclear missiles in the late 1950s.
Once the first tactical nuclear weapons – both guns and missiles – were in service they increased rapidly in both type and quantity, although their roles differed significantly between the Warsaw Pact and NATO. For the Soviet army, battlefield nuclear weapons were simply an extension of the Warsaw Pact’s offensive doctrine and were primarily intended to eliminate NATO’s tactical nuclear forces. NATO, on the other hand, saw these weapons as a new type of defensive weapon, whose power very conveniently made up for a lack of manpower. So long as NATO possessed a monopoly in such weapons this theory had a certain validity, but once the Soviet Union possessed them too the theory was seriously weakened, although the fielding of such weapons continued unabated until almost the end of the Cold War. The situation was further complicated by the French, who, as will be seen, had a fundamentally different rationale for the use of such weapons.
There were two types of battlefield nuclear weapon: guns/howitzers and missiles.* First in the field in 1952 was the US army’s massive 280 mm atomic cannon (officially the ‘Gun, Heavy, Motorized, 280 mm, M65), although this was regarded as something of a military curiosity, even at the time. The original projectile was the W19, with a yield of 15 kT, but this was later replaced by the W23, with a variable 10–15 kT yield. These projectiles had a range of 30,300 m, but each gun required a crew of several hundred and some twenty vehicles, and a deployed gun detachment was reputed to resemble a small village. Despite its disadvantages, the system remained in service for eleven years.
Advancing technology then enabled the USA not only to develop smaller-calibre atomic projectiles, but also to make the guns dual-capable, so that they could fire conventional high-explosive rounds as well. The most widely used of these weapons were the M109 and M110. The first of these to enter service, in 1961, was the M110 203 mm cannon, firing the W33 atomic round, which had a maximum yield of 12 kT; in 1963 this was followed by the M109 155 mm howitzer, firing the W48 round with a yield of 0.1 kT. Both of these weapons were always used for airbursts.
Both the M109 and the M110 were mounted on tracked chassis, which gave them a high degree of battlefield mobility. Both proved to be excellent systems, and their barrels, chassis and rounds were developed throughout their long periods of service, particularly to enhance the range, which in the case of the M109 increased from 18,100 m (M109A1) to 30,000 m (M109A3). These weapons were widely exported, although only NATO countries (West Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey and the UK) received the nuclear rounds. As of 1983, 1,000 W33 and 3,000 W48 rounds were held in western Europe, but the United States alone possessed the 203 mm W79 enhanced-radiation (ER) round with a yield of 10 kT (W79-0) and 1–2 kT (W79-1), although this was never deployed to units.
The artillery has always been of great importance in Soviet military doctrine, and it must have seemed natural for the USSR to follow the Western lead and develop atomic rounds. The first of these to appear were fielded in the late 1960s, when a 0.2 kT atomic round for the S-23 180 mm towed cannon was introduced. The next nuclear artillery piece was the 2S3 152 mm M-1973, which fired a 2 kT round over a range of 24,000 m, followed by the 2S7 203 mm gun in 1975. As far as is known, the Soviet Union never supplied nuclear shells to any of its Warsaw Pact allies.
In the late 1940s both the USA and the USSR not only owned and tested samples of the German A-4 (V-2), but also had teams of German scientists from Peenemünde to help them with further developments. Although this eventually led to missiles with intercontinental ranges, the original missiles were for battlefield use, and a series of such missiles was developed throughout the Cold War.
Between 1945 and 1950 the US army built a number of virtual copies of the A-4 under the name Hermes, one model of which carried a 454 kg high-explosive warhead over a range of 242 km. Although the German army had operated the A-4, it had employed it as a strategic rather than a tactical weapon, but when, in the early 1950s, atomic warheads became sufficiently small to enable them to be mounted on missiles, the US army saw them as battlefield weapons. These US missiles can be considered in three groups, according to their range.
The first long-range army missile (and the third missile system to enter service) was developed by the original V-1 team, headed by Werner von Braun. The Redstone entered service in 1958, and was essentially an enlarged and much improved V-1 with a range of 400 km, though its payload of either a 1 MT or a 2 MT atomic weapon gave a totally new dimension of firepower to a battlefield commander. The liquid-fuelled Redstone needed many men and vehicles, one particular requirement being a special plant capable of producing 20 tonnes of liquid oxygen per day.
Next was the Pershing, which entered service in 1962 and rapidly replaced the Redstone. This was a two-stage, solid-fuelled missile, which was launched vertically from a ground-mounted base-plate, with four tracked vehicles forming a fire unit. This was subsequently replaced by the Pershing IA system, which used the same missile but with wheeled trucks, including a trailer-mounted launch platform, making the whole system air-portable. The Pershing I/IA missile delivered 60 kT, 200 kT or 400 kT warheads over a 740 km range with an accuracy of 400 m. Pershing I and IA all served in West Germany, with the US army and the German Luftwaffe.
Development of the Pershing II system, a modification of the Pershing IA, began in 1976, with the intention of producing a system with greater accuracy and reliability, but with the same range as the Pershing IA. A requirement for much greater range was added during the development process, which involved the new system in a major political controversy, since the new 1,800 km range enabled it to reach targets in the western USSR. Despite this, 120 Pershing IIs were eventually fielded (by the US army only) in 1983 as part of NATO’s twin-track strategy. The warhead was a W-85 nuclear weapon, with a yield, selectable according to the desired terminal effects, of between 5 and 50 kT, and a CEP of 45 m. A proposed earth-penetrator warhead was cancelled in 1982.* All Pershing systems were directly affected by the terms of the 1987 INF Treaty, which banned missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,600 km, and by May 1991 all Pershings had been withdrawn and destroyed.
The first of the medium-range missiles to enter service (and also the first US army missile) was the Corporal, which was fielded in 1953, having been rushed into service as a result of the Korean War. In essence a modified meteorological rocket, Corporal carried a 60 kT atomic weapon over a range of 138 km and a fire unit was carried on a series of wheeled trucks, with the missile being launched vertically from a base-plate. It saw service only with the US and British armies, from 1953 to 1967, and, principally because of its liquid fuel, it was extremely cumbersome and manpower-intensive, requiring fifteen vehicles and 250 men per launcher. A far more serious tactical limitation, however, was that it took seven hours from entering a location to launch the weapon.
The second medium-range weapon was Sergeant, which was much smaller and lighter than the Corporal. Its use of solid fuel enabled very considerable economies to be made, since a fire unit required just three semitrailers and a standard truck, while the missile was ready to fire in thirty minutes after arriving in a location. Sergeant carried a 60 kT warhead over a maximum range of 140 km, and entered service in 1961.
The shorter-range systems began with Honest John, a small (7.6 m long) and light (2,141 kg) free-flight rocket, which was fired from a ramp fixed either on the back of a six-wheeled truck or on a ground-mounted tripod. Honest John was widely used throughout NATO from 1954 onwards, but was replaced by Lance in the 1970s, except for Greece and Turkey, who kept it in service well into the 1980s. Highly mobile, Honest John had a range of 6–38 km.
The Lance system, which replaced both Honest John and Sergeant in most NATO armies, was smaller, lighter, more mobile, more reliable and had a much greater maximum range, of 125 km. It carried either a variable 1–100 kT fission warhead or a 1 kT ER warhead, which was procured only by the US army and was never in fact deployed. Lance was designed for use against depth targets.
At one time thought was also given to two very short-range missile systems to be controlled by a battlegroup commander. Known as the Weapon System Battlegroup Lightweight M28 and Heavyweight M29, these had a range of 2,000 m and 4,000 m respectively. The lightweight system was more widely known as the Davy Crocket and was a 120 mm recoilless weapon, consisting of a launch tube which sat on a tripod mounted either on the ground or on a light vehicle such as a Jeep. In both cases the crew was totally unprotected. The projectile was very small, being 64.8 cm long and 28 cm in diameter, and contained a 0.25 kT warhead, which could be fired to a maximum range of 2,000 m. It did not take long, however, for it to be realized that it was singularly ill-advised for the crew to be caught in the open just 2,000 m from a nuclear explosion (indeed, the front-line ‘friendly’ troops would have been even closer), and, to the great relief of the troops involved, the system left service in 1971. The British army had shown initial interest in this system, but wisely decided not to purchase it.
Like those of the USA, the Soviet Union’s first post-war missile was a development of the German A-4; this led to the SS-1A (NATO = ‘Scunner’) with a range of 300 km and a 750 kg high-explosive warhead. The first nuclear battlefield missile to enter service (in 1957) was the Scud-A, which was mounted on a converted JS-3 heavy-tank chassis and carried a 50 kT warhead over a range of some 150 km. This was later supplemented by the Scud-B system, which carried a 70 kT warhead over a range of 300 km. Although Scuds were supplied to many other countries, nuclear warheads were only ever issued to the Soviet army and the system served throughout the Cold War, as plans to replace it with the SS-23 were cancelled as part of the INF Treaty.
The SS-12 (‘Scaleboard’) was a road-mobile, solid-fuelled ballistic missile, which was first fielded in 1962, followed by a modified version, the SS-12B (initially designated SS-22), in 1979. The missile had a maximum range of 900 km and a CEP of 30 m, carrying either a high-explosive or a 500 kT nuclear warhead, and system reaction time was estimated at sixty minutes. The SS-12B was withdrawn under the terms of the INF Treaty, and all missiles were destroyed.
One of the significant features of both the SS-1 and the SS-12 was that later versions were transported by 8 × 8-wheel TELs. These were highly mobile for off-road driving, were air-conditioned, accommodated the full crew and all necessary equipment, and even had an automatic tyre-pressure-regulation system. All these features enabled the missile detachment to move into a new location, set up the missile quickly, launch, and then move to a resupply point – the so-called ‘shoot-and-scoot’ tactic.
All Warsaw Pact exercises made use of battlefield nuclear weapons in support of attacks. A typical scenario, as shown in Map 3 (here), used some 233 weapons in the first strike, followed by 294 in the second strike. As used in these exercises, the intended purpose was to eliminate NATO forward troops – Area B, for example, coincided with the North German Plain. Following such a strike, the Warsaw Pact tank and motor-rifle units would have been able to advance rapidly into NATO rear areas.
The UK made one attempt at a battlefield missile system in the late 1950s. Known as Blue Water, it was intended to replace the American Corporal, but, despite working very satisfactorily, it was cancelled in 1962.
The other west-European project, the French Pluton, was much more successful. The French operated a number of Honest John battalions in the early 1960s, but when France left the NATO integrated command structure in 1966 the units were deactivated and the missiles were returned to the USA.
There was then a gap until the French developed the Pluton system, which first flew in 1969 and entered service in 1974. The entire system – including nuclear warhead, missile, launcher, chassis and electronics – was of French design. The missile was mounted in a large, open-fronted box atop an AMX-30 tank chassis and required a crew of four. The missile could carry either a 10 kT warhead for use against targets in the forward areas or a 25 kT warhead for use against rear-area installations such as tank, vehicle or troop concentrations; headquarters; railways; or bridges. As with all missiles, CEP varied with range, and was 400 m at the maximum range of 120 km. Unlike many other systems, Pluton was purely nuclear and had no high-explosive or chemical capabilities.
Pluton was deployed only on French territory in peacetime, in five missile regiments, each with seven operational launchers. A total of seventy missiles was deployed, giving one on each launcher, plus one reload. A second-generation French system, Hades, was developed in the 1980s. Some thirty missiles were actually produced, but were then put into storage and were never fielded.
One problem affected the battlefield nuclear weapons of both sides: that of accurate and timely target acquisition.* Static targets – a railway station, say, or a bridge, an airfield or a major crossroads – could be selected off a map. Targets of military opportunity, however – such as a concentration of tanks, a headquarters or a logistics unit – were much more difficult, especially as both sides tended to make the great majority of such units move at frequent intervals. The problem was fourfold: first, to have a means of acquiring a target; second, to transmit the target-acquisition information to an intelligence-gathering centre; third, a command system had to allocate destruction of the target as a nuclear task; and, finally, a control system had to find a weapon within range and task it.
The most difficult of these was the acquisition process, which became progressively more difficult with distance from the front line. Increasing resources were allocated to this as the Cold War progressed, including ground radar, aircraft reconnaissance, drones, stay-behind parties, remote sensors and the airborne warning and control system (AWACS), to name but a few.
A large number of battlefield nuclear weapons were deployed from the 1950s onwards, being fielded by the Soviet army on one side and by the majority of NATO armies on the other. On both sides the actual warheads were under very strict control. On the Soviet side nuclear warheads were the responsibility of special KGB detachments, who held the warheads and issued them only on orders received down an entirely separate chain of command.
The US system involved devices known as Permissive Action Links (PALs), which required a coded password to be inserted, either mechanically or electronically, in order to unlock the arming circuits. Such devices became increasingly sophisticated over the years – for example, the numerical combination increased from four to twelve digits, with the later codes being used not only for release but also to specify such factors as the permitted yield in a variable-yield warhead. Such PALs were operated by US army custodial detachments, which served with every US and NATO unit possessing such weapons.1
The US attitude to battlefield nuclear weapons went through several variations. During the Eisenhower administration, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles stated that ‘The present policies will gradually involve the use of atomic weapons as conventional weapons for tactical purposes’,2 and the field army was restructured into what was known as the ‘Pentomic’ organization. Under President Kennedy, however, the emphasis changed to ‘flexible response’, with the major emphasis on conventional forces, and it remained that way for the remainder of the Cold War.
In its Fiscal Year 1975 report to Congress, the US Department of Defense stated that:
as a practical matter, the initiation of a nuclear engagement would involve many uncertainties. Acceptable boundaries on such a conflict would be extremely difficult to establish. A nuclear engagement in the theater could well produce much higher military and civilian casualties and more widespread collateral damage than its non-nuclear counterpart … What is more, it is not clear under what conditions the United States and its allies would possess a comparative military advantage in a tactical nuclear exchange … We must recognize in our planning that the decision to initiate the use of nuclear weapons – however small, clean, and precisely used they might be – would be the most agonizing that could face any national leader.3
However, such doubts appear to have disappeared by the time the 1982 report was written, for this stated that:
Our theater nuclear programs are designed to provide a wide range of options to respond appropriately to any level of potential attack. A credible TNF [theatre nuclear forces] capability will strengthen and enhance the links between conventional and strategic forces and is designed to convey to a potential aggressor the capability of the United States and its allies to respond across the full spectrum of potential conflict …4
The 1983 the US Joint Chiefs-of-Staff made a significant addition to the possible uses of theatre nuclear forces when they stated that:
TNF are designed for use in conjunction with conventional forces to deter conventional, theater nuclear, and chemical attack … TNF may be used in the event of enemy first use of nuclear weapons, or in the event of significant failure of the conventional defense. They could also have utility in retaliation against the enemy’s initiation of widespread chemical warfare if US chemical retaliation is ineffective or not available …5
Two British examples are relevant. Sir Solly Zuckerman, the government’s chief scientific adviser, wrote that:
these … conclusions are borne out by the results of war-games played by experienced commanders under proper conditions. The average pay-off for the defenders has turned out to be about one minor unit [about 250 men] per strike, and for the offensive somewhere between one and two strikes [are needed to obtain the same results] against the better entrenched defenders. A fairly consistent picture is that of between 200 and 250 nuclear strikes of average yield about 20 kT exploded in the space of a few days in an area 50 miles by 50 miles.6
If this was extrapolated to cover the entire Central Front, and deep interdiction strikes were added, the number of weapons, their total yield and their effect became almost incalculable, as another British study showed. This is examined in more detail in Chapter 35, but suffice it here to say that this postulated the use by each side of 500 tactical nuclear weapons in the northern part of the Central Front and 250 in the south, with an average yield of 30 kT each, plus a further 250 interdiction strikes (i.e. against bridges, railway yards, and so on) averaging 300 kT each.
The effects of the use of weapons in such numbers would have been catastrophic. Within the zone where such weapons had been used, towns and villages would have been devastated, all but the strongest buildings would have been destroyed, roads and bridges would have become impassable, forests would have been razed, enormous fires would have been raging, and civilian casualties would have been vast. In addition to all this, since NATO was defending, many of the attacking Warsaw Pact forces it was targeting would have been on NATO – particularly West German – territory, while the depth attacks would have stretched well into East Germany.
On the NATO side, nuclear artillery units were allocated to army group, corps and even divisional level, but ‘nuclear release’ (i.e. the authority to start using them) was retained at the very highest level. All the weapons were US-owned and controlled by a PAL, and it would have been impossible for NATO to use them without the authority of the president of the USA, while it seems improbable that he would have given such authorization without consulting NATO. At the very least, the president would have had to consult the West German chancellor, since not only would the great majority of the weapons have been launched from West German territory but they would in many cases have landed on targets on either West or East German soil. Further, West Germany would have been a very likely target for many of the retaliatory Soviet strikes.
This very issue was highlighted by the French Pluton system, which was declared to be part of the French pre-stratégique force, intended to deliver a ‘final nuclear warning’ to an aggressor. The announced French intention was that in wartime most, if not all, Pluton regiments would join the French Second Army Corps in south-west Germany, where German territory is about 300 km wide. As Pluton’s maximum range was 120 km, this meant that even if the Plutons were sited well forward the missiles would have been launched against targets on West German territory – a concept over which the Federal government expressed some concern. As a result, at the end of a visit to West Germany in 1987, President Mitterrand gave an assurance that France would never deploy Pluton in this way, which raised the question of just how it could be used.
* Specifications of the main types of battlefield nuclear weapon are given in Appendix 27.
* This would have enabled the warhead to penetrate a considerable depth into most soil types before detonating, giving the resultant sub-surface explosion a considerable capability against underground bunkers.
* The problem affected all weapons, including aircraft, conventional artillery, mortars, and so on, but was most acute for nuclear weapons.