Cold War artillery Rules of Engagement

[LuckyDog]

I’m curious to learn the artillery rules of engagement for both sides during the Cold War, both for my edification and for replaying the campaigns and scenarios with potentially more challenge.

When playing the Soviets, I look at how many arty units I have, the ammo level, and the number of spotters. If I have assets with significant ammo, I have no qualms about leveling towns or farms where I suspect the enemy will be, to the point where they are pretty much flattened. I’ll lay on more for further objectives, where it will take longer to get a spotter in position, and the resulting delay will limit the time on target before I must move in. When I fail in a scenario, I usually have ammo remaining – and my takeaway has been to use most of it ASAP and save one or two of the assets that can be called in faster for specific problems.

I’ve taken a much more precise approach when playing the US forces. I can afford to do this with a shorter delay from calling in and generally have fewer assets and ammo. The resulting fire appears to be more accurate. It’s also great for forcing the Soviets to button up and reducing their limited spotting ability.

I assume that Soviet forces would pay little regard to the damage they would do to urban areas; it’s not their country. Would the NATO forces view this differently (non-Bundeswehr)? What was the RoE? How about the Bundeswehr and NVA? My initial thought was that the Bundeswehr would be extremely judicious but would have fewer qualms as the Soviets got further west. Would the NVA take a less destructive approach, or would the command staff's pre-planned fires approach be the same as that of other Warsaw Pact countries?

Thanks!

[Centurian52]

It's pretty much WW2 rules, more or less. NATO forces might be a bit more selective in what they blow up than Allied forces were in WW2. But in a full blown WW3 scenario no one is going to be sparing private property if there is any tactical advantage to be gained in destroying it. Any restrictive rules of engagement that might be put in place for a particular operation would be more about preventing friendly fire than sparing civilian infrastructure. If you are trying to liberate a pocket of friendly troops behind enemy lines, or you are at the head of a pincer that's about to close a pocket of enemy troops behind your own lines, then you want to be careful what you shoot at since you are expecting friendly troops to be in front of you at some point. Otherwise the RoE would be "if you think there might be some Soviets in that house, blow it up". I don't think even the Bundeswehr would hesitate to flatten towns if there was a tactical advantage in doing so. Yes, the fighting is taking place in their country, so they have a stronger motive to preserve it. But also, the fighting is taking place in their country, so they have a stronger motive to do everything they can to kick the Soviets out.

Highly restrictive RoE which aim to minimize collateral damage are more of a modern than a Cold War thing. They made a lot of sense in the low intensity guerilla wars that kicked off the 21st century, in which winning "hearts and minds" was seen as the only viable path to victory. And I think we have a stronger moral compass these days, giving us a stronger imperative to be more selective in what we blow up, while the increased prevalence and reliability of precision weapons gives us a greater ability to be more selective in what we blow up. So while we'd likely be much less restrictive in a modern high intensity conventional war than in a modern low intensity guerilla war, we'd still likely be far more restrictive than in a Cold War era high intensity conventional war.

[Anthony P.]

Honestly... just going off how things went down during the Great War and WW2, I wouldn't bother adhering to any ROEs on civilian targets.

Gas warfare, dropping bombs from airships or planes on cities and sinking merchantmen without due warning was illegal during the Great War.
The indiscriminate bombing of cities was illegal during WW2.

I don't see how WW3 would have turned out very different.

[The_Capt]

Given the timetables the Soviets were on to dislocate NATO reinforcements, I do not think for a second that they would have adhered to any LOAC with respect to arty and civilian targets. NATO likely would have followed suit as the pressure to stop the Soviets was immense.  Finally considering that most of West Germany was militarized for defence (to greater or lesser extents), I am not sure legal frameworks would have applied - beyond hospitals and obvious stuff of course.

[Probus]

On 6/24/2024 at 10:30 AM, Anthony P. said:

The indiscriminate bombing of cities was illegal during WW2.

Did you mean legal?  Because it seemed like everyone, Axis and Allies, bombed cities in way that we would call today as indiscriminate.  And no Allies, to my knowledge were charged with a crime. 

Or are you saying that indiscriminate bombing was illegal but everyone did it anyway.

[Anthony P.]

The latter. Initially both sides made varying attempts not to (in the West. Against the Poles, all bets were off from day one), but it descended into sheer terror bombing quite early on, hence why no Luftwaffe generals were ever brought up on charges for it after the war.

The same was true for unrestricted submarine warfare too in WW2. There were initial moves to bring Doenitz et al. up on charges for it, but it came to a screeching halt when senior USN submarines objected, going on record that they'd been ordered to do the same over in the Pacific within hours of Pearl Harbor.

[MikeyD]

The Thirty Years War from 1618 to 1648, covering much of what is now modern Germany, resulted in upwards to 8 million deaths out of a population of roughly 18 million. I just bring this up to illustrate that war, by its nature, is horrifically destructive and cruel, often on a scale we can scarcely imagine. Or we couldn't imagine before that start of the current Ukraine war.

[Amedeo]

Actually according to most experts, bombardment of defended cities, during WW2, was legal, as per the Hague Conventions. The problem was that these rules were established when aerial bombing was not a thing, and only artillery (land or naval) was a concern.
When the possibility to use aircraft to bomb a city became real, there were a few attempt to modify the rules but, long story short, there was no legally binding prohibition to bomb defended cities.
It was only in 1977 that the Geneva Convention was amended to explicitly ban indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets, even if in presence of enemy military assets, and the principle of proportionality was introduced. Although many wars since then shows that the inevitable vagueness of this formulation still make contentious what is actually allowed according to the rules of war.

See also: Aerial bombardment and international law - Wikipedia

P.S. The Allies were consistent in supporting the view that international law allowed the bombing of defended enemy cities. No German was prosecuted for that after the war by military Allied courts, save, maybe, for the bombing of Rotterdam that happened after Dutch capitulation.