One of my former NCO's spent part of his younger days in a medical detachment somewhere along the Iron Curtain. I believe he said it was near or in the Fulda gap, but it's been years since I talked to him, so I can't say for sure. He regaled me with an anecdote of how they frequently drilled for the Cold War going hot, and that he had been informed by his superiors that their life expectancy if "Ivan" decided to roll across the Fulda gap was about 15 minutes, after which point, he and his comrades would likely have been killed by conventional or nuclear weapons.
I did a little searching on the matter, and seems he was not the only one to have heard this. I've seen estimates range from 6 seconds to 24 minutes, although the shorter estimates were probably for front-line combat units, as opposed to his Medical combat service support role.
So my question is, how did analysts at the time arrive at this conclusion? Or was it simply a case of barracks anecdote that spread like wildfire? Was wholesale destruction (IE entire divisions being wiped out) really the most likely outcome of any escalation, or was this only a worst case scenario?
I don't know much about the plans to roll across the Fulda Gap but there is a lot of information about the plans to attack Bavaria in the direction Nürnberg – Stuttgart – Strassbourg – Epinal – Dijon.
It was planned to be performed by the Czechoslavak Front and the designation of CSLA (Czechoslovak People's Army) in this plan was to play the role of expendable first-echelon forces, to be replaced later by fresh Soviet divisions.
What the military planners feared the most, at least according to this article in Czech, were the nuclear mines in certain areas of Bavaria. Those could have stopped any sudden offensive, if activated properly and on time. The density of places with laid nuclear mines was believed to be even higher in the Fulda Gap.
Of cause, the resulting nuclear explosions would also kill lot of local civilians and maybe even NATO forces not able to withdraw on time.
Anyway, the usage of tactical nuclear weapons by the Warsaw Pact armies was taken for granted in this area.
That would have caused overwhelming casualties among both attacking and defending forces.
There is a Gwynne Dyer series called 'War', it's on YouTube, and the episode you need to watch is called 'Keeping the Old Game Alive'. He interviews NATO troops, following them during exercises. This very issue is discussed by various soldiers, and indeed many profess the understanding that once the Soviet tanks roll in, they will measure their lives in 'minutes, not hours'.
People terrified of terrorism today really have forgotten, or have no idea, how things were in the Cold War when war was expected to start by accident or misunderstanding, and accellerate to nuclear level very quickly.
