Fulda Gap
The Fulda Gap roughly corresponds to the route along which Napoleon chose to withdraw his armies after defeat (16–19 October 1813) at the Battle of Leipzig.
The route became important again at the end of World War II when the U.S. XII Corps used it in their advance eastward in late March and early April 1945.
[2] The U.S. advance had little consequence for Germany's strategic position, which was hopeless by that point, but it allowed the Americans to occupy vast swaths of territory which the Yalta Conference of February 1945 had assigned to the Soviet occupation zone.
[citation needed] The Fulda Gap route was less suitable for mechanized troop movement than the North German Plain, but offered an avenue of advance direct to Frankfurt am Main.
[citation needed] Strategists on both sides of the Iron Curtain understood the Fulda Gap's importance, and accordingly allocated forces to defend and attack it.
The actual Inner German border in the Fulda Gap was guarded by reconnaissance forces, the identification and structure of which evolved over the years of the Cold War.
From June 1945 until July 1946, reconnaissance and security along the border between the U.S. and Soviet zones of occupation in Germany in the area north and south of Fulda was the mission of elements of the U.S. 3rd and 1st Infantry Divisions.
[3] By July 1946, the 1st, 3rd, and 14th Constabulary Regiments, arranged from north to south, had assumed responsibility for inter-zonal border security, in an area that later became famous as the Cold War Fulda Gap.
The armored cavalry's mission in a war, was to delay a Soviet attack until other units of the U.S. V Corps could be mobilized and deployed to defend the Fulda Gap.
In order to defend the Fulda Gap and stop a Warsaw Pact advance, as opposed to conducting screening and delaying actions, U.S. V Corps planned to move two divisions, one armored and one mechanized, forward from bases in the Frankfurt and Bad Kreuznach areas.
In practice, it was unknown how effective V Corps would have been in the event of war, due to the vast numbers of tanks and infantry that the Soviets were able to field.
[12] In the early '60s, the Fulda Gap was also protected by V Corps Artillery units equipped with the medium-range MGM-5 Corporal guided missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Beginning in 1975, the Soviet Union's strategy for attacking Western Europe involved the use of operational manoeuvre groups to outflank NATO defensive positions such as the Fulda Gap.
The mission of 1-68 Armor was to establish a defensive line across part of the Gap, providing a shield behind which other V Corps units could advance and defend.
was also responsible for chemical and nuclear ammunition for the Fulda Gap sector, operating ASP #3 and multiple Forward Storage and Transportation Sites.
