Green Light in the Fulda Gap, 1983

Green Light in the Fulda Gap, 1983


Two days ago, Warsaw Pact forces commenced an invasion of Western Europe combined with other military actions elsewhere in the world. Moscow claims that Soviet-led forces are responding to ‘Imperialist aggression’ and this is only a ‘defensive operation’. Chemical weapons have been deployed yet so far nuclear ones have not.

The situation with the latter will now change.

In conjunction with other operations elsewhere, US Army Green Light Teams are given the go-order to strike in the Fulda Gap with actions to commence after 0700 hours – local time – on the war’s third day. The 10th Special Forces Group, following plans laid in peacetime, inserts Green Light Teams into the area of Hessen inside West Germany using various means as per those orders. Pairs of Green Berets travel on foot, use light vehicles and are airdropped by small helicopters or parachute in. An officer and a senior NCO form each team. They are carrying personal weapons and also SADM.

A SADM is a Special Atomic Demolition Munition: a backpack nuke. It is heavy but moveable in the form it is designed to be.

More than a dozen Green Light Teams make it to their assigned targets across the Fulda Gap. The Soviet’s Eighth Guards Army had poured through here in the past few days, forcing back American forces towards Frankfurt and the Rhine, yet while the frontlines have moved away to the west, the area is still full of enemy military activity. They are using it to support their continued advance with transport links present, air defence sites, communications nodes and preparations underway to push a tank army through. Those men inserted carrying the SADMs are here to cause as much damage as possible to that effort. Several other teams failed to make it through though. They and their weapons have been lost to enemy action.


At H-Hour, the detonations occur.

Outside the town of Bad Hersfeld, one which came under Soviet occupation within hours of the war starting, there is a small airstrip used by the US Army for light aircraft and helicopters. It is now being used for Soviet Army air operations. On the edge of the airstrip, there is a nuclear explosion. It is small, less then eight hundred tons of force, but quite effective. The airstrip is knocked out of action.

Along the course of the Fulda River, south of Bad Hersfeld, three further explosions take place. Pontoon bridges laid by the Soviet Army’s combat engineers are targeted. None of these explosions is any more than one kiloton in power. They each still cause significant destruction to the crossing sites over which thousands of Soviet tanks are due to stream. Moreover, engineers are killed and their equipment is wiped out.

Hünfeld is a smaller town than Bad Hersfeld. East German soldiers attached to the Eighth Guards Army are here and have established a forward supply point for that field army. They have taken over the town and are using the local roads while also planning to later make use of the rail station too. Two nuclear blasts occur here, each of one kiloton.

Fulda, which lays on the river of the same name, has East Germans there alongside Soviet transportation & supply troops. It is fulfilling the same role as Hünfeld though on a bigger scale due to the larger number of links present. Two explosions from SADMs occur inside the town – West German civilians are all around – and another is detonated outside where an identified important air defence site has been set up.

The Kinzig Valley runs southwest away from the Fulda Gap. It is a narrow, twisting valley between the Vogelsberg on one side and the Spessart on the other. Those terrain features make it one of the few invasion routes for mechanised forces who, after taking the Fulda Gap, will need to traverse it to reach Frankfurt. It is a battle zone with the US Army’s V Corps fighting Eighth Guards Army units along it’s southernmost reaches. Down its length, Soviet forces are backed up waiting to be released into open ground at the other end. Supporting troops are all around combat troops. Four detonations occur along the valley. Chokepoints are chosen where the SADMs can be best made use of to be the site of their detonation. Each blast is the full force that the bombs can create at one kiloton: no half measures are employed here.

Thirteen near-simultaneous nuclear blasts have occurred. They have come without the warning of any inbound missiles or aircraft before them. Targeted Soviet and East German forces suffer horrendous casualties. So too though do West German civilians plus also some captured NATO prisoners.

Another SADM brought in by one of those SADM teams fails to explode though. It is meant to occur in the forest north of Fulda where there was a communications post set up under cover. The Americans had spotted it by air and sent two men in with a bomb. They were moments away from arming their bomb when each was detected and shot down by alert sentries fearing a commando raid. Their weapon wouldn’t be found and their bodies undisturbed.


With each bomb there were those two men assigned to get their bomb into place and then to make sure that it detonates successfully. Experienced and well-trained Green Berets have been chosen here. Their mission is about stealth. They arrived carrying assault rifles, grenades and knives yet aim not to have to use them. To do so would mean getting into a fight inside enemy territory. Their SADM mission is what is important.

Once the bombs are put into place and armed, the Green Light Teams withdraw away from. They are tasked to watch over them from afar to make sure that those weapons are not interfered with. This means that while they are supposed to stay clear and save themselves from the blast effects, they must, paradoxically, stay close too. Such are their orders and they obey them. Almost all of the men are killed when the bombs go off. They understood their fate and are taken in atomic fire.

The attacks made by the Green Light Teams in the Fulda Gap are the opening nuclear attacks of a raging global war.

They are only the first.