Four days in autumn - Exercise Autumn Forge in Germany 🇩🇪 | SEP 1978

Four days in autumn - Exercise Autumn Forge in Germany 🇩🇪 | SEP 1978 | NATO Documentary

Рет қаралды 29,907

Күн бұрын

A documentary presented by Robert MacNeil from NATO headquarters in Brussels and showing a 1978 combined NATO exercise, "Autumn Forge", that took place in September 1978 in the Federal Republic of Germany, testing the capacity for rapid reinforcements to NATO's central front in Europe, the most vulnerable area the Alliance has to defend.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
06:23 Day One
11:49 Day Two
18:07 Day Three
22:42 Day Four
25:50 Epilogue
SACEUR, U.S. Army General Alexander M. Haig, placed great emphasis on improving the "Three Rs" - Readiness, Rationalisation and Reinforcement - in order to counter-balance the growing military capabilities of the Warsaw Pact. One of SHAPE's major tasks during this period was to study how to improve the command and control and flexibility of NATO forces in Europe.
In 1975, Gen. Haig also introduced a major new NATO exercise programme called Autumn Forge, whose best known element was the REFORGER (Return of Forces to Germany) series. These exercises brought together national and NATO exercises, improved their training value and annually tested the ability of the Alliance's North American members to reinforce Europe rapidly.
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Excerpt from transcript:
My name is Robert MacNeil, and I’m in the presentation room at NATO headquarters, Brussels, Belgium. NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, shoulders collective responsibility for Western defence. Under the terms of the Treaty, an attack on any one member country would be considered an attack on all of them. Yet NATO has no army of its own. It is a political body in which the members combine to form a defensive force to protect the North Atlantic community. This presentation room is where, in the event of a crisis or a conflict, delegates from member nations would be kept informed. Today, war seems unthinkable, yet those who represent our collective defence, those who work here at NATO, live with that prospect day in and day out. They are pledged to defend an area stretching from way up here in northern Norway to the western approaches of the Atlantic. From the Bosporus to the pillars of Hercules. An area of thousands of square miles of land, sea and air space. Yet for all that, there’s still one area that is more vulnerable than any other: Central Europe, the old battlegrounds of yesteryear. This is NATO’s most critical spot. For, facing Allied forces across the West German border sits the largest arsenal of offensive weaponry the world has ever known. All in the hands of those who have continually believed in a political aim of world domination. Since World War Two, the Soviet Union and their alliance, the Warsaw Pact, have steadily increased their armed strength. Almost everywhere, NATO’s land, sea and air forces are outnumbered. In Central Europe, they face odds of three to one. Yet those who sit here do not fear the intentions of those in the East. Let’s just say they have a healthy respect for their capabilities. And faced with such growing might, they know that NATO cannot drop its guard, especially in Central Europe. This area, on any day of any year is constantly defended. But from time to time combined exercises are needed to ensure that defence.
From Canada and the United States fly combat aircraft, some destined to defend NATO’s icy airspace around the Arctic Circle. Across the seas to the ancient ports of Ghent in Belgium and Rotterdam in Holland come thousands of tons of equipment to aid the land forces. From the United States come troops, airlifted from as far afield as Texas and Washington State, to rapidly reinforce their Europe-based Allies. Hundreds of tanks, trucks, aircraft, equipment and men, all there to defend Europe. In all, a mighty international effort. We’re going to show you just four days of this effort, four days in autumn, in which the Alliance displayed and tested its own capabilities, its own defensive strength.
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Пікірлер: 34

@lloydzufelt7514 6 күн бұрын

I loved my time while stationed at Stuttgart Army Airfield West Germany 1981-84 firefighter 51m40.

@diggledoggle4192 2 жыл бұрын

Lots of this footage was used in the mockumentary 'WW3' from 1998

@residentgeardo 6 ай бұрын

at 20:05 "you never know what's on the other side of the hill". What an innocent world this was before the advent of FPV drones and loitering munition....

@MM22966 5 ай бұрын

Ironically, this is only a couple of years before they were getting the first ideas for loitering munitions (TACIT RAINBOW, to deal with Soviet SAM defenses).

@MM22966 5 ай бұрын

What's interesting is how much the documentary emphasized the hopelessness of being the weaker side, the losses, the screw-ups, the potential losing to the enemy. The bit with the soldier in the chopper yelling "we lost 3/4 of our unit!". I can't tell if it is the malaise/anti-war attitude from the Vietnam War affecting how they edited it, a dislike of the idea of WW3 generally, or something else, but you can see a stark difference from a few years later in the Reagan era, where there was still the tenseness of the consequences, but it was more big smiles/we're tough/we're back!/we'll fight & win despite being the underdog attitude showing through.

@patrick764 4 ай бұрын

Interesting perspective.

@a.t6066 3 ай бұрын

I mean until the mid-late 80s nato forces were actually pretty outclassed by the Soviets in a ground war. But I suppose the footage also shows what the reality of war would have been. Had ww3 kicked off it would have been even more devastating than ww2 was

@constitutionalist6817 2 жыл бұрын

my NCO tendencies screamed when the guy dropped his helmet while putting on his gasmask lol 🤮

@georgerobert4709 2 жыл бұрын

My military senses were offended when you called it a gasmask !!! It's a Respirator ! :) Down and give me 20 .....in your respirator :)

@harveywallbanger3123 9 ай бұрын

Your NCO tendencies are a generation too young. The Kevlar K-pot didn't come out until '83. You're not gonna break an M1 steel pot by dropping it, we used to boil water and dig foxholes with ours.

@defcon4998 6 ай бұрын

My military senses were offended again when u didnt say promask@@georgerobert4709

@BLUECHET 6 ай бұрын

This was pretty good….

@devon5154 3 ай бұрын

Thank you tuis footage is priceless

@cigarcityweymouth 4 ай бұрын

Was in reforger 78 schweinfurt Germany 3rd Inf.

@rogergolden8950 Ай бұрын

Kitzingen 3rd ID.

@noobolesen1831 2 жыл бұрын

🇩🇰👌

@erwinsegers3696 Жыл бұрын

Day 2 15:36 Belgian Army Leopard 1 tanks...

@alvinhang8721 Ай бұрын

Back in the days when Belgium had tanks.

@joedredd13215 9 ай бұрын

Never understood why U.S infantry didn’t have their chinstraps down 🤷‍♂️

@cigarcityweymouth 4 ай бұрын

First time I saw a A10 in the air

@elimaurer9491 Жыл бұрын

14:20 why is there red smoke inside the Infantry transport vehicle?

@dacomazielsdorf7618 10 ай бұрын

Either someone messed up and pulled a pin or it got taken out and that's how they showed it

@05017351 10 ай бұрын

Often, smoke flares would be remotly triggered to show that a vehicle had been knocked out. The troops inside would then be marked as "dead" or have to be treated as wounded.

@harveywallbanger3123 9 ай бұрын

It was supposed to simulate that the APC was hit and burning. These exercises do that kind of thing.

@MM22966 5 ай бұрын

One of the OCs (referees) was probably sitting inside the M113, heard the bang outside as a simulated RPG hit it, and with a big grin pulled the tab of a red smoke grenade, yelling, "TRACK IS HIT!!! IT'S BUUUUURNING!!! WHAT DO YOU DOOOO???"

@a.t6066 3 ай бұрын

It's not red smoke, it's a red light coloring the smoke. M113 at the time had red interior lights. Its less visible at night or low light conditions compared to white or blue light.

@KlaysterPaltcev 2 жыл бұрын

👍✌👌💪⚘🙋🙋‍♀️🙋‍♂️

@tommym321 5 ай бұрын

How on earth were they able to license Pink Floyd for this program?!?

@robertridley-fj8zz 2 ай бұрын

Different time.

@MM22966 5 ай бұрын

I wonder what was going through the soldier's minds, practicing for this? You can see in their faces it was a lot more 'real' than most exercises nowadays, with hundreds of thousands of enemy troops within driving distance. This was about the weakest point in the Cold War for the Western Alliance. Budgets were down because of the Oil Crisis earlier in the decade, America was battered, bruised, and confused from the Vietnam War's loss, NATO was not thinking/arming seriously for a conventional war yet, and the Soviets & Warsaw Pact's gear was nearly equal in quality at this point, with none of the dissolution/loss of confidence the 80's would bring. Another case of nuclear weapons saving people's lives, because in any other period of history, the Soviets probably WOULD have gone for it, and World War III would have happened. But because MAD is a thing, it would be pointless to fight conventionally when everything would be blown up if they 'won'.