Soviet Domination - A Red Dawn story
Oct 11, 2018 19:52:33 GMT
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Post by James G on Oct 11, 2018 19:52:33 GMT
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November 1984: The Pacific
The US Navy ruled the waves in the Pacific Ocean. They had already beaten the Soviet Navy and left their opponents in no doubt about that when operations were commenced up against the Soviet mainland and the bases areas where the Soviet Navy operated from. Occasionally, the Soviets were still managing to see some successes, using submarines mainly though also with land-based air power, but these were becoming increasingly few and far between. Orders from Raven Rock through November first coming from Bentsen and then from Robb were for this to continue. The Soviets would be blasted where they lived, right up along the Soviet’s Far Eastern coastline.
The carrier USS Enterprise and her battle group remained off the Kamchatka Peninsula, focusing on the naval base at Petropavlovsk yet giving ‘attention’ to other military facilities throughout the peninsula too. Kamchatka was attached to the Eurasian mainland but it might as well have been an island for all transport links to it came via sea and air rather than overland. The Sea of Okhotsk behind was under Soviet control though the Pacific-facing side belonged to the US Navy. All supply links to Petropavlovsk from the landward side faced attack from American aircraft and an exceedingly good job had been done on stopping the vast majority of them from getting through. Enterprise’s air wing flew mission after mission, taking losses but still going back to hit Kamchatka. The weakening of the Soviet defences because they couldn’t be resupplied – and the Enterprise could be via supply ships and underway replenishment – allowed for the US Navy to up their tempo of operations. Soon enough the target list had been thoroughly worked through and plans were being made for the Enterprise to go back into the Bering Sea and once and for all to finish off the scattered Soviet forces in the Aleutians but that would be next month. Until then, the attacking aircraft continued to make their bomb runs and several warships made dashes backwards and forwards close to shore to open fire at isolated targets.
Two more US Navy carriers, USS Constellation and USS Ranger, were positioned to the south, generally back behind the Japanese island of Hokkaido where they had land-based fighter support. The carriers moved around a lot and did so because many times the Soviets had come after them, getting some hits in through their battlegroups and taking out ships. The carriers hit back, sending aircraft against Soviet targets through the Kurile Islands and up into Sakhalin too. There were many military targets worth hitting in those locations, all facing a supply crisis like those in Kamchatka were in the face of this. The Soviets were trying to defend their surface ships in the Sea of Okhotsk, those who sat atop waters in which below them there were Soviet ballistic missile submarines. Those warships were targeted when the Constellation and the Ranger could get at them. As to the Soviet submarines below, American submarines from out in the Pacific weren’t allowed to go in and after them. There was a desire too from the US Navy but permission to do this from above was explicitly denied. Later in November, running out of viable targets to hit, especially in the Kuriles, the US Navy swung its direction of attack here somewhat as they started to make attacks on the mainland itself. The Primroye region had seen Khabarovsk destroyed in a nuclear attack back in October and then Vladivostok hit in the middle of November. There were still extensive Soviet bases in use throughout despite these events, which were supporting both the China War and the defensive fight facing out towards Japan and the Pacific beyond. US Navy aircraft struck several sites. There were attacks made on the Mongokhto naval air base, from where their naval bombers flew, with a SEAL team snuck in to aid in guiding the attacks. Nearby Vanino and Sovetskaya Gavan, ports connecting Primroye to Sakhalin, were hit as well. The Constellation was then sent forwards, going through the Tsugaru Strait and into the Sea of Japan. USS Midway had been lost in these waters right at the beginning of the war and the area had been off limits for carrier operations. Vladivostok changed things though, so did post-strike reconnaissance of the damage done at Mongokhto. Constellation’s aircraft were closer to their targets, carrying less fuel and more bombs, and struck targets outside of the devastated Vladivostok area such as the port of Nahodka and the railway links linking the Soviet Union with North Korea. The Constellation then went back out with her escorts having claimed two submarine kills but having lost two ships of their own. The Sea of Japan remained very dangerous for the US Navy.
The US Navy’s Pacific Fleet’s fourth operational carrier, USS Kitty Hawk, spent November operating in the Tsushima Straits and the East China Sea with aircraft flying missions over the Korean Peninsula and sometimes over Japan too when needed. Soviet strikes on Japan had eased up – not ceased though – as they focused more and more on China but their activity in the region was still ongoing. Bases were opened up in occupied bits of China for the Soviet’s aircraft which saw the Yellow Sea the scene of air clashes above those waters between China and the divided Koreas. Keeping the seas and skies clear for the Allied war effort in South Korea was the main focus for the Kitty Hawk when the Japan defensive mission eased up. This was then later extended to more of a commitment away to the west instead, towards China. Kitty Hawk’s air wing was stretched in doing this and couldn’t carry on forever all by itself. Another carrier, the shot-up USS Carl Vinson, remained in Kyushu and unavailable. It would take much time for her to become ready to fight again. Therefore, Kitty Hawk stayed all by herself.
The war in the Pacific was bigger than just this area of extensive naval & naval air operations off the Soviet coast fighting their own maritime forces. Further south, outside of China, there were other countries at war. Vietnam had sided with the Soviet Union and the result had first been engagements with American forces based in the Philippines by Soviet forces in-country before a Chinese nuclear attack had destroyed Hanoi. Vietnam was brought to its knees by this strike. The Soviets continued operations from Cam Ranh Bay for as long as they could. No resupply came for them though and they were no longer able to do anything but try to defend themselves. If there hadn’t been wars on the Korean Peninsula, off the Soviet Far East but more so in North America, the United States would have tried to finish them off. There were no available forces to do so though. It was decided to let them wither on the vine once their aircraft could no longer fly and no ships of any substance were left to operate from there. The Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore were all part of the Allies. What they could provide to the war effort they did, joined by Australia and New Zealand too. Maritime military activity took place throughout South East Asia though with Thailand and also Indonesia staying out of this war, there was limited real combat. There was still danger though, especially to any vessel on the surface of the South China Sea and around into the Gulf of Thailand.
Soviet and Vietnamese naval operations had come to an end but instead the danger to shipping came from pirate operations. Some bigger ships engaged in trade were attacked by groups of criminals from a wide variety of states though as almost all were engaged in the wider war effort for the Allies this increasingly became too risky for the pirates. They turned their attention to smaller craft, little boats who had come out of China and Vietnam. There had been a refugee crisis from back since the end of the Vietnam War from that country and such desperate refugees – boat people they were called – had been preyed upon by pirates before. This was done again, on an increasing scale. Pirates came from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand. These weren’t like those told of in fanciful fiction but instead murderous gangs who committed horrors upon the helpless. Refugees were robbed, raped and killed. Boats disappeared after being attacked with any treasures – not much really – stolen and those aboard suffering. Naval forces from the surrounding countries didn’t do much in the face of it and there were some instances of naval personnel themselves engaging in these activities too.
Boat people descended upon Hong Kong too, far many more than had ever come in previous years. British forces in the colony were overstretched dealing with the overland rush of people fleeing from China after Canton had been obliterated and the country all around them was falling apart. Now there were all these refugees coming by sea from both China and Vietnam. There were so many of them. Nearby Macau, the Portuguese territory, also saw arrivals of refugees but most headed for Hong Kong and thus what they regarded as safety. Many boats didn’t get to Hong Kong though, those which had come from afar. If the pirates didn’t get them, then the sea conditions did. Overcrowded boats ran out of fuel or were swamped with water. The sea wasn’t a place of safety, only land was especially if those aboard the boats could get to Hong Kong. Tens of thousands arrived there.
There were refugees heading towards Taiwan as well. These came from mainland China, heading across the Straits of Taiwan. The Republic of China, Taiwan’s official name, was neutral in this war which the People’s Republic of China was fighting in. Taiwanese neutrality was something that was open to interpretation though. A long-term American ally, even when relations were strained as Kennedy had followed Ford and Nixon before him in making friends with the People’s Republic, Taiwan had been aiding the United States in this war. There had been military flights which had used Taiwan for landings and the Taiwanese Navy had been involved in covert military operations off the Chinese coast, sinking a Soviet submarine without Moscow knowing it was them who did this. Signals intercepts and reconnaissance missions undertaken by Taiwan’s military had occurred, all information fed to the Americans. As to the boat people, Taiwan was unprepared for the numbers which came and had no desire to see all these arrivals no matter what stated political positions on ‘we are all Chinese’ were. Looking after their needs, and watching them for spies from the people’s Republic among them, was a demanding task. In the Taiwan Straits, there were also a few naval engagements with Chinese ships too where those opened fire upon fleeing refugee boats who wouldn’t turn back when instructed to. The Taiwanese fired on the Chinese warships they encountered. It was explained to the United States that this was done for a humanitarian reason and didn’t cause any real issues between Taipei and New York despite strong Chinese objections to this being allowed to continue without the Americans striking at Taiwan in response… with President Glenn in no mind to do so.
Into this situation came a Soviet diplomatic approach made to Taiwan, one contradictory to the one which Hu refused to go near when it came to the future for all of China. The KGB opened contact with Chiang Ching-kuo, the son of the deceased Chiang Kai-shek, who was Taiwan’s president following in his father’s footsteps. Taiwan was offered the world. It could have from the Soviet Union all that America had taken away from them back in 1971 in the form of international recognition as the one and only China with the UN seat too. The Soviet Union would soon emerge victorious from the Third World War and would reward Taiwan with that, Chiang was told, but before then, the Soviets wouldn’t interfere should Taiwanese forces begin the process of ‘retaking the mainland’. No formal alliance was asked for and no demands made that Taiwan attack the Americans, just that they enter the war raging in China as an independent belligerent fighting the People’s Republic only. How serious was this offer? Pretty serious in terms of the Soviet intention if it played out to let them enter the China War as a third force to take over large parts of the country. For the future though, Soviet talk of withdrawing from the whole of China once the war was over to hand it over to Chiang wasn’t something that would be done if the situation came about. There was also the matter of just how would Moscow be able to ‘give’ Taiwan that US Security Council seat.
The Americans found out very quickly. Chiang had his domestic opponents, men who had power and position because of their president and his father before him yet wanted more. They presented themselves to the Americans as outraged patriots and friends of the United States though in reality they were greedy and wanted rid of Chiang. Their faults aside, these were also smart men. They knew the reaction from the United States would be one of outrage followed by action should Chiang get into bed with the Soviets. There was too the worry over how their country would fare when trying to retake the mainland faced with the armies of the People’s Republic and the nuclear strikes which had already been made. Acting direct against Chiang wasn’t done and it was far easier to tell the United States what was going on, adding to that that their president – and dictator for life – was seriously considering doing this.
The message of ‘you are either with us or against us’ came from New York. Glenn spoke to Chiang personally, adding to the plethora of lower-level communications made throughout his regime in an organised fashion by the Americans. If you do this, you are acting against us. If you are acting against us, you are our enemy. If you are our enemy, we will fight you. This was the message that Chiang and Taiwan were made to understand. The United States wouldn’t look the other way here. There was too much at stake, all in danger should Taiwan enter the war raging in China. It couldn’t be allowed to happen.
Chiang told Glenn that he never had any intention of giving this KGB approach any serious thought. In fact, he had believed it was all a lie to sew discord between Taipei and New York. No, no, no: he’d never even given it any consideration at all. Taiwan would remain a friend and ally of the United States and never collude against it with an enemy. On the cross-Pacific telephone link-up, Chiang was indignant in protesting his innocence. The matter was thus closed… well, it should have been anyway.
[End of Part VI]
November 1984: The Pacific
The US Navy ruled the waves in the Pacific Ocean. They had already beaten the Soviet Navy and left their opponents in no doubt about that when operations were commenced up against the Soviet mainland and the bases areas where the Soviet Navy operated from. Occasionally, the Soviets were still managing to see some successes, using submarines mainly though also with land-based air power, but these were becoming increasingly few and far between. Orders from Raven Rock through November first coming from Bentsen and then from Robb were for this to continue. The Soviets would be blasted where they lived, right up along the Soviet’s Far Eastern coastline.
The carrier USS Enterprise and her battle group remained off the Kamchatka Peninsula, focusing on the naval base at Petropavlovsk yet giving ‘attention’ to other military facilities throughout the peninsula too. Kamchatka was attached to the Eurasian mainland but it might as well have been an island for all transport links to it came via sea and air rather than overland. The Sea of Okhotsk behind was under Soviet control though the Pacific-facing side belonged to the US Navy. All supply links to Petropavlovsk from the landward side faced attack from American aircraft and an exceedingly good job had been done on stopping the vast majority of them from getting through. Enterprise’s air wing flew mission after mission, taking losses but still going back to hit Kamchatka. The weakening of the Soviet defences because they couldn’t be resupplied – and the Enterprise could be via supply ships and underway replenishment – allowed for the US Navy to up their tempo of operations. Soon enough the target list had been thoroughly worked through and plans were being made for the Enterprise to go back into the Bering Sea and once and for all to finish off the scattered Soviet forces in the Aleutians but that would be next month. Until then, the attacking aircraft continued to make their bomb runs and several warships made dashes backwards and forwards close to shore to open fire at isolated targets.
Two more US Navy carriers, USS Constellation and USS Ranger, were positioned to the south, generally back behind the Japanese island of Hokkaido where they had land-based fighter support. The carriers moved around a lot and did so because many times the Soviets had come after them, getting some hits in through their battlegroups and taking out ships. The carriers hit back, sending aircraft against Soviet targets through the Kurile Islands and up into Sakhalin too. There were many military targets worth hitting in those locations, all facing a supply crisis like those in Kamchatka were in the face of this. The Soviets were trying to defend their surface ships in the Sea of Okhotsk, those who sat atop waters in which below them there were Soviet ballistic missile submarines. Those warships were targeted when the Constellation and the Ranger could get at them. As to the Soviet submarines below, American submarines from out in the Pacific weren’t allowed to go in and after them. There was a desire too from the US Navy but permission to do this from above was explicitly denied. Later in November, running out of viable targets to hit, especially in the Kuriles, the US Navy swung its direction of attack here somewhat as they started to make attacks on the mainland itself. The Primroye region had seen Khabarovsk destroyed in a nuclear attack back in October and then Vladivostok hit in the middle of November. There were still extensive Soviet bases in use throughout despite these events, which were supporting both the China War and the defensive fight facing out towards Japan and the Pacific beyond. US Navy aircraft struck several sites. There were attacks made on the Mongokhto naval air base, from where their naval bombers flew, with a SEAL team snuck in to aid in guiding the attacks. Nearby Vanino and Sovetskaya Gavan, ports connecting Primroye to Sakhalin, were hit as well. The Constellation was then sent forwards, going through the Tsugaru Strait and into the Sea of Japan. USS Midway had been lost in these waters right at the beginning of the war and the area had been off limits for carrier operations. Vladivostok changed things though, so did post-strike reconnaissance of the damage done at Mongokhto. Constellation’s aircraft were closer to their targets, carrying less fuel and more bombs, and struck targets outside of the devastated Vladivostok area such as the port of Nahodka and the railway links linking the Soviet Union with North Korea. The Constellation then went back out with her escorts having claimed two submarine kills but having lost two ships of their own. The Sea of Japan remained very dangerous for the US Navy.
The US Navy’s Pacific Fleet’s fourth operational carrier, USS Kitty Hawk, spent November operating in the Tsushima Straits and the East China Sea with aircraft flying missions over the Korean Peninsula and sometimes over Japan too when needed. Soviet strikes on Japan had eased up – not ceased though – as they focused more and more on China but their activity in the region was still ongoing. Bases were opened up in occupied bits of China for the Soviet’s aircraft which saw the Yellow Sea the scene of air clashes above those waters between China and the divided Koreas. Keeping the seas and skies clear for the Allied war effort in South Korea was the main focus for the Kitty Hawk when the Japan defensive mission eased up. This was then later extended to more of a commitment away to the west instead, towards China. Kitty Hawk’s air wing was stretched in doing this and couldn’t carry on forever all by itself. Another carrier, the shot-up USS Carl Vinson, remained in Kyushu and unavailable. It would take much time for her to become ready to fight again. Therefore, Kitty Hawk stayed all by herself.
The war in the Pacific was bigger than just this area of extensive naval & naval air operations off the Soviet coast fighting their own maritime forces. Further south, outside of China, there were other countries at war. Vietnam had sided with the Soviet Union and the result had first been engagements with American forces based in the Philippines by Soviet forces in-country before a Chinese nuclear attack had destroyed Hanoi. Vietnam was brought to its knees by this strike. The Soviets continued operations from Cam Ranh Bay for as long as they could. No resupply came for them though and they were no longer able to do anything but try to defend themselves. If there hadn’t been wars on the Korean Peninsula, off the Soviet Far East but more so in North America, the United States would have tried to finish them off. There were no available forces to do so though. It was decided to let them wither on the vine once their aircraft could no longer fly and no ships of any substance were left to operate from there. The Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore were all part of the Allies. What they could provide to the war effort they did, joined by Australia and New Zealand too. Maritime military activity took place throughout South East Asia though with Thailand and also Indonesia staying out of this war, there was limited real combat. There was still danger though, especially to any vessel on the surface of the South China Sea and around into the Gulf of Thailand.
Soviet and Vietnamese naval operations had come to an end but instead the danger to shipping came from pirate operations. Some bigger ships engaged in trade were attacked by groups of criminals from a wide variety of states though as almost all were engaged in the wider war effort for the Allies this increasingly became too risky for the pirates. They turned their attention to smaller craft, little boats who had come out of China and Vietnam. There had been a refugee crisis from back since the end of the Vietnam War from that country and such desperate refugees – boat people they were called – had been preyed upon by pirates before. This was done again, on an increasing scale. Pirates came from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand. These weren’t like those told of in fanciful fiction but instead murderous gangs who committed horrors upon the helpless. Refugees were robbed, raped and killed. Boats disappeared after being attacked with any treasures – not much really – stolen and those aboard suffering. Naval forces from the surrounding countries didn’t do much in the face of it and there were some instances of naval personnel themselves engaging in these activities too.
Boat people descended upon Hong Kong too, far many more than had ever come in previous years. British forces in the colony were overstretched dealing with the overland rush of people fleeing from China after Canton had been obliterated and the country all around them was falling apart. Now there were all these refugees coming by sea from both China and Vietnam. There were so many of them. Nearby Macau, the Portuguese territory, also saw arrivals of refugees but most headed for Hong Kong and thus what they regarded as safety. Many boats didn’t get to Hong Kong though, those which had come from afar. If the pirates didn’t get them, then the sea conditions did. Overcrowded boats ran out of fuel or were swamped with water. The sea wasn’t a place of safety, only land was especially if those aboard the boats could get to Hong Kong. Tens of thousands arrived there.
There were refugees heading towards Taiwan as well. These came from mainland China, heading across the Straits of Taiwan. The Republic of China, Taiwan’s official name, was neutral in this war which the People’s Republic of China was fighting in. Taiwanese neutrality was something that was open to interpretation though. A long-term American ally, even when relations were strained as Kennedy had followed Ford and Nixon before him in making friends with the People’s Republic, Taiwan had been aiding the United States in this war. There had been military flights which had used Taiwan for landings and the Taiwanese Navy had been involved in covert military operations off the Chinese coast, sinking a Soviet submarine without Moscow knowing it was them who did this. Signals intercepts and reconnaissance missions undertaken by Taiwan’s military had occurred, all information fed to the Americans. As to the boat people, Taiwan was unprepared for the numbers which came and had no desire to see all these arrivals no matter what stated political positions on ‘we are all Chinese’ were. Looking after their needs, and watching them for spies from the people’s Republic among them, was a demanding task. In the Taiwan Straits, there were also a few naval engagements with Chinese ships too where those opened fire upon fleeing refugee boats who wouldn’t turn back when instructed to. The Taiwanese fired on the Chinese warships they encountered. It was explained to the United States that this was done for a humanitarian reason and didn’t cause any real issues between Taipei and New York despite strong Chinese objections to this being allowed to continue without the Americans striking at Taiwan in response… with President Glenn in no mind to do so.
Into this situation came a Soviet diplomatic approach made to Taiwan, one contradictory to the one which Hu refused to go near when it came to the future for all of China. The KGB opened contact with Chiang Ching-kuo, the son of the deceased Chiang Kai-shek, who was Taiwan’s president following in his father’s footsteps. Taiwan was offered the world. It could have from the Soviet Union all that America had taken away from them back in 1971 in the form of international recognition as the one and only China with the UN seat too. The Soviet Union would soon emerge victorious from the Third World War and would reward Taiwan with that, Chiang was told, but before then, the Soviets wouldn’t interfere should Taiwanese forces begin the process of ‘retaking the mainland’. No formal alliance was asked for and no demands made that Taiwan attack the Americans, just that they enter the war raging in China as an independent belligerent fighting the People’s Republic only. How serious was this offer? Pretty serious in terms of the Soviet intention if it played out to let them enter the China War as a third force to take over large parts of the country. For the future though, Soviet talk of withdrawing from the whole of China once the war was over to hand it over to Chiang wasn’t something that would be done if the situation came about. There was also the matter of just how would Moscow be able to ‘give’ Taiwan that US Security Council seat.
The Americans found out very quickly. Chiang had his domestic opponents, men who had power and position because of their president and his father before him yet wanted more. They presented themselves to the Americans as outraged patriots and friends of the United States though in reality they were greedy and wanted rid of Chiang. Their faults aside, these were also smart men. They knew the reaction from the United States would be one of outrage followed by action should Chiang get into bed with the Soviets. There was too the worry over how their country would fare when trying to retake the mainland faced with the armies of the People’s Republic and the nuclear strikes which had already been made. Acting direct against Chiang wasn’t done and it was far easier to tell the United States what was going on, adding to that that their president – and dictator for life – was seriously considering doing this.
The message of ‘you are either with us or against us’ came from New York. Glenn spoke to Chiang personally, adding to the plethora of lower-level communications made throughout his regime in an organised fashion by the Americans. If you do this, you are acting against us. If you are acting against us, you are our enemy. If you are our enemy, we will fight you. This was the message that Chiang and Taiwan were made to understand. The United States wouldn’t look the other way here. There was too much at stake, all in danger should Taiwan enter the war raging in China. It couldn’t be allowed to happen.
Chiang told Glenn that he never had any intention of giving this KGB approach any serious thought. In fact, he had believed it was all a lie to sew discord between Taipei and New York. No, no, no: he’d never even given it any consideration at all. Taiwan would remain a friend and ally of the United States and never collude against it with an enemy. On the cross-Pacific telephone link-up, Chiang was indignant in protesting his innocence. The matter was thus closed… well, it should have been anyway.
[End of Part VI]
