Quote Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09 View Post
Come on wm---just where were you in 1989?---by the way officially yes the SADMs were negated out in 1989 but not everyone gave them up until 1991(remember US Army Berlin did not leave until 1994) and secondly was not the entire Cold War ended in 1989/90 so the further need was not a given. Having been on a specific team in a particular point in time in West Berlin I did in fact know what the USECOM wartime contingency planning was to be for us---slowdown, channeling, area denial deep in the GDR as well as in other Warsaw Pact countries---literally a one way mission to gain time.

If in fact channeling/slow down/area denial efforts were in fact part and parcel of the USECOM war planning ---slowdown until further troops arrived means just exactly what---slowdown until help arrives---help to arrive took on an average Reforger exercise over eight weeks to get everyone on the ground---do you really think without the nuclear piece in play US Army units could have hung on for eight full weeks until reinforcements arrived?---come on wm just how many Reforger exercises were you part and parcel of---you would not be saying this then.

There were some planners that felt in 1989 with the T72/80s in place in the numbers that were in the SGFG in the GDR the slowdown would have been at the Rhine---and that is defined as what by yourself---winning?

So wm exactly where were you in 1989 when the last Reforger actually exercised the USECOM war plan across all of Germany with all of NATO involved from Rotterdam to the inner German border and oh by the way with massive use of all US/NATO SOF units for the deep fight?

I know where I was---I lead the "Soviet" Anti SOF Response Company using Soviet TTPs against US/NATO SOF to verify if they would be effective---they were by the way--so again USECOM practiced seriously in 1989 the complete war plan and it foresaw a massive slog just to get back to the inner German border---far from a complete "win' we were a tad short --so I am not sure where you get your facts concerning a "win".
In 1989, I was not a member of POW Camp Berlin. Not that it matters, but I was preparing for an assignment to SOUTHCOM J2 where planning was ongoing for a little live fire exercise called Operation Just Cause.. But, like many people outside POW Camp Berlin, I was also happy to find that the Wall was coming down and GSFG would soon be out of the former DDR. I suspect that REFORGER 89 went forward as it did because its planning had been going on for at least a year. For most units involved in REFORGER, the exercise was the capstone event of an annual training cycle. And not uncommonly in training exercises, enemy forces' worst case scenarios are used; exercises are usually designed to stress the system. BTW, this last point goes quite some way toward explaining the array of Russian forces across the border from the Ukraine.