James G
Squadron vice admiral
Posts: 7,608
Likes: 8,833
|
Post by James G on Nov 19, 2018 21:46:17 GMT
I'm not sure what 'Lions Gate' is. I'm thinking Brunei and Singapore. Thanks. We'll see him tonight. Thank you. He will... but not in the way he hopes.
Unless I'm remembering it wrongly that's the literal meaning of Singapore. One of the powers you were thinking of. With Brunei they have a lot of wealth but would they have the manpower and military resources to stablish the colony? Although I think we had more Gurkhas stationed there about in this period.
Sounds like Colonel Bella is going to have problems on his trip.
PS Have now read the update. Bella is a prisoner but is alive and may stay so. Although if the US found out about some of the things he's done, albeit under orders that could change. That means of our 4 personal views 1 is dead and two prisoners and only DLB is still active. Although it sounds like Bella could be influential in making the Wolverines better known.
So the siege of Denver has been lifted and the US is on the attack. I would rather the Soviets had attacked 1st as I fear their going to catch the Americans on the hop and the US has a lot of raw troops so while I can't see the Soviets winning they could do a hell of a lot of damage.
As it is a police action, rather than a real fight, I think it could be done with Singapore convinced enough to send men. Brunei had a small armed forces including its own Gurkhas. British Gurkhas from Brunei are already in Hong Kong. Brunei could still send some men and help with relief effort inside. I think Bella will be okay. He'll be smart and only saw what others did. Bella has a future but that is the end of that for now to be honest. Well... with Denver, we'll be there in a few updates time. What DLB has heard may not be exact - I'm not saying that isn't going on - but the details are shewed somewhat by the fog of war. The update before had the Soviet paratroopers in the mountains pulling back too so something big is up indeed. I'm working on it all.
|
|
archangel
Chief petty officer
Posts: 115
Likes: 69
|
Post by archangel on Nov 20, 2018 0:09:44 GMT
Colonel Bella is out of the war (and safe, even if he doesn't realize it).
|
|
lueck
Petty Officer 2nd Class
Posts: 28
Likes: 11
|
Post by lueck on Nov 20, 2018 3:37:50 GMT
wait so the soviet government instead of felling back into more defensable positions and just let the Chinese turned on themselves are going to attack and hope somebody signs a peace treaty after said attack So what happens if the Chinese government falls and the whole place go warlord how do get out now.
|
|
stevep
Fleet admiral
Posts: 24,866
Likes: 13,252
|
Post by stevep on Nov 20, 2018 10:24:07 GMT
wait so the soviet government instead of felling back into more defensable positions and just let the Chinese turned on themselves are going to attack and hope somebody signs a peace treaty after said attack So what happens if the Chinese government falls and the whole place go warlord how do get out now.
Yes that seem to be their policy. If they had established a defensive line somewhere and just cut up Chinese forces trying to attack them, their got a much easier task and wouldn't need so many reinforcements. Especially considering the mess the Chinese military are in by now.
Fortunately for everybody, other than the Chinese and the Red Army, the Soviets are going for broke with V's determination to force China to make peace. Which hasn't worked so far so he's certain it will work now! If it did collapse into total warlordism I would suspect he would then insist they must make every single warlord surrender!!
|
|
James G
Squadron vice admiral
Posts: 7,608
Likes: 8,833
|
Post by James G on Nov 20, 2018 20:14:40 GMT
Colonel Bella is out of the war (and safe, even if he doesn't realize it). As long as he doesn't end up at Aspen where Putin went - think Gitmo on steroids - then he will be okay. He'll sit out the war in peace, keeping his mouth shut about all that happened. He's a valid POW and his rights will be respected. wait so the soviet government instead of felling back into more defensable positions and just let the Chinese turned on themselves are going to attack and hope somebody signs a peace treaty after said attack So what happens if the Chinese government falls and the whole place go warlord how do get out now. Yep. The whole war with China spun far out of control into this madness, this quagmire for Soviet soldiers who are stuck there fighting a pointless war.
Yes that seem to be their policy. If they had established a defensive line somewhere and just cut up Chinese forces trying to attack them, their got a much easier task and wouldn't need so many reinforcements. Especially considering the mess the Chinese military are in by now.
Fortunately for everybody, other than the Chinese and the Red Army, the Soviets are going for broke with V's determination to force China to make peace. Which hasn't worked so far so he's certain it will work now! If it did collapse into total warlordism I would suspect he would then insist they must make every single warlord surrender!!
They should never have gone in. Best approach, withdraw and man a border line. They won't give in like that though no matter what else happens in the world.
|
|
James G
Squadron vice admiral
Posts: 7,608
Likes: 8,833
|
Post by James G on Nov 20, 2018 20:16:15 GMT
[Part VIII]
Chapter Twenty – Intelligence
(289)
February 1985: South Texas
The figure of thirty-five per cent destruction done to the contents of the Soviet convoys which had arrived in Texas last month had come from the Americans. Their intelligence-gathering had analysed which ships had been sunk during conflict in the North Atlantic and then the Caribbean as well as the damage done by bombing those ships when they were in South Texan ports unloading. That was the number presented to President Glenn. It came as a fixed figure though before presented to him, there had been wide variations on this before it was settled upon. One number was as low as ten per cent; another was as high as fifty per cent.
The Soviets had their own figure on the losses of equipment sent which didn’t arrive to be used for the war in North America. That was twenty-five per cent. This was an aggregate though. It consisted of several factors which all had to be taken into account. For example, of the tanks loaded onto those ships when they left the Kola Peninsula, only eleven per cent were lost. At the same time though, when it came to medical supplies to save the lives of soldiers fighting a war far away from the Rodina, close to half never got past the ports used on the Gulf of Mexico coast. Those variants went on and on. Another example would be the dispatched artillery where the losses of heavy towed guns had been low (relatively) but the loss of ammunition for those guns was high. Heavy engineering vehicles went down aboard sunken ships at an alarming rate yet there was plenty of spare tracks & pieces of replacement equipment for the vehicles which did get through as the losses among those were slight. Therefore, the number which the Soviets had, and also how the Americans made their own estimate, wasn’t about specific pieces of equipment nor stacks of supplies, but more than that what capability was lost. With what had reached Texas, twenty-five per cent less capability for both combat and support operations than sent could be achieved by what got through.
Early in the war, the Soviets had shipped over their initial armies from Cuba and seen American attacks occur where there were ships lost making the far shorter trip. Heavy losses had incurred among the cargo which was sent then in comparison to the number of actual vessels lost. The ships had been fast loaded and sent across to Texas. When certain ones of them were hit, the cargo they carried was all of certain items – tanks or artillery shells or mine-clearing equipment – and therefore plenty of that was lost at sea. What hadn’t been done was ‘smart loading’ of the ships. This was supposed to have occurred and would have seen ships with mixed cargoes: a lost ship would go down with tanks, artillery shells and mine-clearing equipment, not just when loaded with one of those types of cargo. Overall, when others arrived in Texas, the missing stocks of one of those would be lower. October’s events had hit hard and forced a weaker breakout from South Texas in the Central & Eastern parts of that state to occur. In particular, the 23rd Tank Division had ended up as a dismounted infantry unit while there were missing artillery brigades. Equipment had been stripped from some units to complete others because of incompetence over in Cuba. This wasn’t supposed to have happened again with the two big convoys sent from the Kola back in December to reach Texas in January.
Well, it had. There had been a repeat of ‘stupid loading’. The Soviet command in San Antonio discovered that smart loading had been cancelled when it was decided that more could be sent aboard ships if they were loaded the stupid way. There had been a belief that few ships would be sunk and this wouldn’t matter overall. Only when the ships arrived and the contents of them individually, not what was in the convoys as a whole, was discovered, did the end-users of the cargo realise what had happened. Ships had been sunk aplenty and much military material had been put on the ocean floor. Plenty of important stores did reach their destination yet there was a lot of non-important material as well… non-important to the combat arms officers anyway. They wanted more tanks. More guns. More assault bridge-layers. More missile launchers. More bullets, rockets and shells. More, more, more! They saw how it could have been delivered if that smart loading had been employed.
Waiting in Texas ahead of the convoys were tens of thousands of soldiers. The men who would form two Soviet field armies (complete with small attachments from Eastern European countries) had been flown to North America. Once the ships arrived and the unloading began, and American air attacks took place, the men were matted-up with their equipment. Decisions were made at the highest levels on the ground in Texas as to what to do with faced with the losses to cargo en route which had occurred. General Lobov – theatre commander in North America – had to get permission from Moscow up as far as the Defence Council for what he was forced to do with his reinforcing armies. Only with their permission could he field just one of them as a whole and break up the other to support his already-existing three. They didn’t like seeing this done: neither did Lobov. That was the way things had to be though. Blame would fall upon those who did the stupid loading in the Kola and the wrath of the Defence Council wouldn’t be pretty.
The Seventh Tank Army was moved through February northwards across Central Texas but stopped far short of the Red River and the Great Plains beyond. It would fulfil its planned exploitation role alone now rather than alongside the Eleventh Guards Army. That latter field army was broken apart to help complete the equipment ranks of the former and also adds bits and pieces all over the place to the Twenty-Second Army in Colorado, the Eighth Tank Army in East Texas and – most-importantly – the Twenty–Eighth Army in North Texas. The Twenty–Eighth Army was to be followed by the Seventh Tank Army, fighting what the Soviets considered the best of America’s troops along the Red River and in Oklahoma once again, so was given the best of what was available. The limits on what the Soviet reinforcements coming from the convoys brought were even more than just the masses of equipment and supplies which didn’t get throw. There were all of those extra men which arrived and they were a burden alongside their arrival as a bonus for the war effort. The men, the ones who’d recently flown in and the ones already in North America, needed feeding and they needed medical care – general as well as critical – to be given to them. The missing cargoes on the ships included the stocks to do this too. Living off the land while fighting a modern war was impossible when it came to feeding men and the health of the men was another issue which couldn’t be ignored. Soldiers got injured in battle yet they also were ill due to other causes. Treating them was becoming more and more difficult for the Soviets. Texas was full of the wounded and the ill. There had been some air evacuation flights going back home yet those were few and far between. What the Soviets had been waiting for was ships to send those who needed to go home on. There were now ships in the South Texan ports, those which had survived Allied attacks while on the way here. These were loaded through February and preparations began to send them home. Marked as hospital ships, they were still armed though – basic weapons but weapons nonetheless – despite international rules against doing such things. This was a decision made in Moscow where ships full of wounded would be protected on their way home. They were going to sail for home in March, going back across the North Atlantic. For one thing, American intelligence efforts missed the fact that these were hospital ships. That should be noted: they didn’t know before they would go and do what they and their allies did to them when later at sea. Secondly, the ships were armed and entering a war zone. The results were going to be predictable.
Lobov was told by the Defence Council that there would be no further significant reinforcement ‘for the foreseeable future’. The details weren’t given to him but he knew of the gauntlet that the convoys coming to Texas had run. There wasn’t going to be another convoy effort made for some time. Moscow issued orders that the war was to be won with what he had available and won soon too. The original war plan drawn up last year, long before he replaced the shot man who had been first in command, had called for a victory to be gained this Spring. That plans were still to be followed. He had fewer forces and so many expectations and the whole overall worldwide order had gone awry, but the plan was still the plan. Much of the American’s best forces had bene defeated last year and the rest of them, old ones and newer forces, were to be overcome through March and April. The fight would be on the Great Plains, this side of the Mississippi River. Oklahoma then Kansas were to be advanced through and Nebraska reached. On the eastern flank, Louisiana and Arkansas were to be sideshows there compared to the main effort going north. Over to the west, holding New Mexico and Colorado, plus keeping the Americans at bay in Arizona and where they had penetration Mexico, was all to continue. Lobov was made to understand that going north was his key priority though. The Defence Council, looking at the maps from far away, demanded that the Platte River be reached: that being the waterway which ran west-east across Nebraska.
They expected nothing less than Lobov to have his tanks reach there, leaving a defeated American Army in their wake. No excuses would be heard as to why that couldn’t be done either now nor in the coming months.
To aid Lobov, he received a courier direct to him. Only he was allowed to see the contents of the message (the courier left him alone) and, as if he was the character in a spy novel, he was instructed to destroy the message afterwards. What he was sent was what he was assured was gold-plated intelligence. The Americans were going to launch a general offensive in the eastern theatre – the north and west were different matters yet smaller affairs – beginning March 7th. Lobov was to strike first, going on the attack four days earlier. The Soviet offensive would gobble up preparing American formations, especially their forward supply units pushed ahead before their heavy units would attack, and this would only add to the ‘already certain’ Soviet victory.
The countdown to March 3rd was on. Victory or (don’t say it aloud!) defeat was coming.
|
|
Dan
Warrant Officer
Posts: 258
Likes: 185
|
Post by Dan on Nov 20, 2018 20:42:01 GMT
[Part VIII]Chapter Twenty – Intelligence(289)February 1985: South Texas To aid Lobov, he received a courier direct to him. Only he was allowed to see the contents of the message (the courier left him alone) and, as if he was the character in a spy novel, he was instructed to destroy the message afterwards. What he was sent was what he was assured was gold-plated intelligence*. The Americans were going to launch a general offensive in the eastern theatre – the north and west were different matters yet smaller affairs – beginning March 7th. Lobov was to strike first, going on the attack four days earlier. The Soviet offensive would gobble up preparing American formations, especially their forward supply units pushed ahead before their heavy units would attack, and this would only add to the ‘already certain’ Soviet victory**. The countdown to March 3rd was on. Victory or ( don’t say it aloud!) defeat was coming. It feels like this is gearing up for and end play beginning. The pieces are being pushed into place and the dice are about to be rolled. * Translation - a mix of wishful thinking, propaganda, sycophancy and US Counter Intelligence with maye a grain of actual usable intelligence. ** Translation - "We'll tell you it's an almost certain victory as this is what we want from you, hopefully if we tell you this enough and forcefully enough, you'll believe it and achieve it".
|
|
James G
Squadron vice admiral
Posts: 7,608
Likes: 8,833
|
Post by James G on Nov 20, 2018 21:16:01 GMT
[Part VIII]Chapter Twenty – Intelligence(289)February 1985: South Texas To aid Lobov, he received a courier direct to him. Only he was allowed to see the contents of the message (the courier left him alone) and, as if he was the character in a spy novel, he was instructed to destroy the message afterwards. What he was sent was what he was assured was gold-plated intelligence*. The Americans were going to launch a general offensive in the eastern theatre – the north and west were different matters yet smaller affairs – beginning March 7th. Lobov was to strike first, going on the attack four days earlier. The Soviet offensive would gobble up preparing American formations, especially their forward supply units pushed ahead before their heavy units would attack, and this would only add to the ‘already certain’ Soviet victory**. The countdown to March 3rd was on. Victory or ( don’t say it aloud!) defeat was coming. It feels like this is gearing up for and end play beginning. The pieces are being pushed into place and the dice are about to be rolled. * Translation - a mix of wishful thinking, propaganda, sycophancy and US Counter Intelligence with maye a grain of actual usable intelligence. ** Translation - "We'll tell you it's an almost certain victory as this is what we want from you, hopefully if we tell you this enough and forcefully enough, you'll believe it and achieve it". Without spoiling things too much... yes, oh very much, yes! Talking of US Intelligence efforts, that is my next update. I've been thinking a lot today on that NISS organisation I created. Plus the two conflicting defectors too. Stay tuned.
|
|
stevep
Fleet admiral
Posts: 24,866
Likes: 13,252
|
Post by stevep on Nov 20, 2018 23:11:27 GMT
[Part VIII]Chapter Twenty – Intelligence(289)February 1985: South Texas The figure of thirty-five per cent destruction done to the contents of the Soviet convoys which had arrived in Texas last month had come from the Americans. Their intelligence-gathering had analysed which ships had been sunk during conflict in the North Atlantic and then the Caribbean as well as the damage done by bombing those ships when they were in South Texan ports unloading. That was the number presented to President Glenn. It came as a fixed figure though before presented to him, there had been wide variations on this before it was settled upon. One number was as low as ten per cent; another was as high as fifty per cent. The Soviets had their own figure on the losses of equipment sent which didn’t arrive to be used for the war in North America. That was twenty-five per cent. This was an aggregate though. It consisted of several factors which all had to be taken into account. For example, of the tanks loaded onto those ships when they left the Kola Peninsula, only eleven per cent were lost. At the same time though, when it came to medical supplies to save the lives of soldiers fighting a war far away from the Rodina, close to half never got past the ports used on the Gulf of Mexico coast. Those variants went on and on. Another example would be the dispatched artillery where the losses of heavy towed guns had been low (relatively) but the loss of ammunition for those guns was high. Heavy engineering vehicles went down aboard sunken ships at an alarming rate yet there was plenty of spare tracks & pieces of replacement equipment for the vehicles which did get through as the losses among those were slight. Therefore, the number which the Soviets had, and also how the Americans made their own estimate, wasn’t about specific pieces of equipment nor stacks of supplies, but more than that what capability was lost. With what had reached Texas, twenty-five per cent less capability for both combat and support operations than sent could be achieved by what got through. Early in the war, the Soviets had shipped over their initial armies from Cuba and seen American attacks occur where there were ships lost making the far shorter trip. Heavy losses had incurred among the cargo which was sent then in comparison to the number of actual vessels lost. The ships had been fast loaded and sent across to Texas. When certain ones of them were hit, the cargo they carried was all of certain items – tanks or artillery shells or mine-clearing equipment – and therefore plenty of that was lost at sea. What hadn’t been done was ‘smart loading’ of the ships. This was supposed to have occurred and would have seen ships with mixed cargoes: a lost ship would go down with tanks, artillery shells and mine-clearing equipment, not just when loaded with one of those types of cargo. Overall, when others arrived in Texas, the missing stocks of one of those would be lower. October’s events had hit hard and forced a weaker breakout from South Texas in the Central & Eastern parts of that state to occur. In particular, the 23rd Tank Division had ended up as a dismounted infantry unit while there were missing artillery brigades. Equipment had been stripped from some units to complete others because of incompetence over in Cuba. This wasn’t supposed to have happened again with the two big convoys sent from the Kola back in December to reach Texas in January. Well, it had. There had been a repeat of ‘stupid loading’. The Soviet command in San Antonio discovered that smart loading had been cancelled when it was decided that more could be sent aboard ships if they were loaded the stupid way. There had been a belief that few ships would be sunk and this wouldn’t matter overall. Only when the ships arrived and the contents of them individually, not what was in the convoys as a whole, was discovered, did the end-users of the cargo realise what had happened. Ships had been sunk aplenty and much military material had been put on the ocean floor. Plenty of important stores did reach their destination yet there was a lot of non-important material as well… non-important to the combat arms officers anyway. They wanted more tanks. More guns. More assault bridge-layers. More missile launchers. More bullets, rockets and shells. More, more, more! They saw how it could have been delivered if that smart loading had been employed. Waiting in Texas ahead of the convoys were tens of thousands of soldiers. The men who would form two Soviet field armies (complete with small attachments from Eastern European countries) had been flown to North America. Once the ships arrived and the unloading began, and American air attacks took place, the men were matted-up with their equipment. Decisions were made at the highest levels on the ground in Texas as to what to do with faced with the losses to cargo en route which had occurred. General Lobov – theatre commander in North America – had to get permission from Moscow up as far as the Defence Council for what he was forced to do with his reinforcing armies. Only with their permission could he field just one of them as a whole and break up the other to support his already-existing three. They didn’t like seeing this done: neither did Lobov. That was the way things had to be though. Blame would fall upon those who did the stupid loading in the Kola and the wrath of the Defence Council wouldn’t be pretty. The Seventh Tank Army was moved through February northwards across Central Texas but stopped far short of the Red River and the Great Plains beyond. It would fulfil its planned exploitation role alone now rather than alongside the Eleventh Guards Army. That latter field army was broken apart to help complete the equipment ranks of the former and also adds bits and pieces all over the place to the Twenty-Second Army in Colorado, the Eighth Tank Army in East Texas and – most-importantly – the Twenty–Eighth Army in North Texas. The Twenty–Eighth Army was to be followed by the Seventh Tank Army, fighting what the Soviets considered the best of America’s troops along the Red River and in Oklahoma once again, so was given the best of what was available. The limits on what the Soviet reinforcements coming from the convoys brought were even more than just the masses of equipment and supplies which didn’t get throw. There were all of those extra men which arrived and they were a burden alongside their arrival as a bonus for the war effort. The men, the ones who’d recently flown in and the ones already in North America, needed feeding and they needed medical care – general as well as critical – to be given to them. The missing cargoes on the ships included the stocks to do this too. Living off the land while fighting a modern war was impossible when it came to feeding men and the health of the men was another issue which couldn’t be ignored. Soldiers got injured in battle yet they also were ill due to other causes. Treating them was becoming more and more difficult for the Soviets. Texas was full of the wounded and the ill. There had been some air evacuation flights going back home yet those were few and far between. What the Soviets had been waiting for was ships to send those who needed to go home on. There were now ships in the South Texan ports, those which had survived Allied attacks while on the way here. These were loaded through February and preparations began to send them home. Marked as hospital ships, they were still armed though – basic weapons but weapons nonetheless – despite international rules against doing such things. This was a decision made in Moscow where ships full of wounded would be protected on their way home. They were going to sail for home in March, going back across the North Atlantic. For one thing, American intelligence efforts missed the fact that these were hospital ships. That should be noted: they didn’t know before they would go and do what they and their allies did to them when later at sea. Secondly, the ships were armed and entering a war zone. The results were going to be predictable. Lobov was told by the Defence Council that there would be no further significant reinforcement ‘for the foreseeable future’. The details weren’t given to him but he knew of the gauntlet that the convoys coming to Texas had run. There wasn’t going to be another convoy effort made for some time. Moscow issued orders that the war was to be won with what he had available and won soon too. The original war plan drawn up last year, long before he replaced the shot man who had been first in command, had called for a victory to be gained this Spring. That plans were still to be followed. He had fewer forces and so many expectations and the whole overall worldwide order had gone awry, but the plan was still the plan. Much of the American’s best forces had bene defeated last year and the rest of them, old ones and newer forces, were to be overcome through March and April. The fight would be on the Great Plains, this side of the Mississippi River. Oklahoma then Kansas were to be advanced through and Nebraska reached. On the eastern flank, Louisiana and Arkansas were to be sideshows there compared to the main effort going north. Over to the west, holding New Mexico and Colorado, plus keeping the Americans at bay in Arizona and where they had penetration Mexico, was all to continue. Lobov was made to understand that going north was his key priority though. The Defence Council, looking at the maps from far away, demanded that the Platte River be reached: that being the waterway which ran west-east across Nebraska. They expected nothing less than Lobov to have his tanks reach there, leaving a defeated American Army in their wake. No excuses would be heard as to why that couldn’t be done either now nor in the coming months. To aid Lobov, he received a courier direct to him. Only he was allowed to see the contents of the message (the courier left him alone) and, as if he was the character in a spy novel, he was instructed to destroy the message afterwards. What he was sent was what he was assured was gold-plated intelligence. The Americans were going to launch a general offensive in the eastern theatre – the north and west were different matters yet smaller affairs – beginning March 7th. Lobov was to strike first, going on the attack four days earlier. The Soviet offensive would gobble up preparing American formations, especially their forward supply units pushed ahead before their heavy units would attack, and this would only add to the ‘already certain’ Soviet victory. The countdown to March 3rd was on. Victory or ( don’t say it aloud!) defeat was coming.
James
Ah that's promising. Stupid loading will carry more equipment but as the Soviets are learning only if it all gets through. There are some useful gaps in the Soviet inventory which will help, such as that shortage of artillery. Shells are always used up faster than planned and guns without shells are no problem, for the opponents. A bit surprised so much heavy stuff got through while lighter items like the medical equipment I would expect to be more likely to stay afloat. Unless it was that the 'important' [to Moscow] equipment was positioned on ships in the centre of the convoys and the more expendable ones in the ships nearer the fringes.
Its possibly even better that the that Soviets plan to attack 1st. Even if he catches the allies by surprised, which is unlikely to be total given the amount of air power and intelligence the US should be able to assemble, he's going to run into the most powerful US formations by the sound of it and their prepared for battle, albeit offensive rather than defensive. If I had been Lobov I would have much preferred letting the US strike 1st then flanking and counter-attacking as more likely to do significant damage. This way its the Soviets that will be seeking to overrun defences.
Even if he reaches all his targets however I think the war in N America is already decided. Lobov would have heavily denuded forces trying to control huge areas, with minimal supplies and re-equipment capability. Even low level guerillas could cause serious problems in cutting supply lines in such positions and once his isolated units run out of fuel their stranded and increasingly defenseless. It looks like, even without the errors in China and possible war with the EDA, little or no further reinforcement is possible simply because the Soviet surface fleets are basically burnt out and while their subs and aircraft are still a threat the capacity to carry and escort cargoes has gone.
I wonder if that intel on the US attack means that there is an agent in the US government or military, or possibly a double agent somewhere and the Soviets are going to run into an ambush?
Also quite glad with their limited resources that the Anglo-Canadians are going to miss the worst of the fighting by the sound of it.
Between intelligence failures on the US side and stupid decisions on the Soviet one I suspect a lot of those wounded solider are going to find a new home in Davy Jones's locker. Why do they simply publicly declare the ships as hospital ships? Or is it because their such devious rule breakers they assume that the allies will do likewise and seize/sink the ships?
Steve
|
|
lueck
Petty Officer 2nd Class
Posts: 28
Likes: 11
|
Post by lueck on Nov 21, 2018 11:14:26 GMT
the soviet army views heavy combat equipment as important means the supply ships carrying the food, medical supplies and ammo were deployed on the outside of the convoys meaning that they take the majority of the losses during the naval battles. wait are the red army assuming that the American army would be stupid not to have units ready to stop a attack and the American support are mobile enough to have them following the attack forces instead of infront of the strike force.
|
|
stevep
Fleet admiral
Posts: 24,866
Likes: 13,252
|
Post by stevep on Nov 21, 2018 13:35:37 GMT
the soviet army views heavy combat equipment as important means the supply ships carrying the food, medical supplies and ammo were deployed on the outside of the convoys meaning that they take the majority of the losses during the naval battles. wait are the red army assuming that the American army would be stupid not to have units ready to stop a attack and the American support are mobile enough to have them following the attack forces instead of infront of the strike force.
In answer to yoru question I would say that they, especially the [mis-]leaders in Moscow to make exactly that mistake, in part because, although their unwilling to admit it, their getting desperate.
|
|
lordroel
Administrator
Posts: 68,086
Likes: 49,473
|
Post by lordroel on Nov 21, 2018 15:29:00 GMT
[Part VIII]Chapter Twenty – Intelligence(289)February 1985: South Texas The figure of thirty-five per cent destruction done to the contents of the Soviet convoys which had arrived in Texas last month had come from the Americans. Their intelligence-gathering had analysed which ships had been sunk during conflict in the North Atlantic and then the Caribbean as well as the damage done by bombing those ships when they were in South Texan ports unloading. That was the number presented to President Glenn. It came as a fixed figure though before presented to him, there had been wide variations on this before it was settled upon. One number was as low as ten per cent; another was as high as fifty per cent. The Soviets had their own figure on the losses of equipment sent which didn’t arrive to be used for the war in North America. That was twenty-five per cent. This was an aggregate though. It consisted of several factors which all had to be taken into account. For example, of the tanks loaded onto those ships when they left the Kola Peninsula, only eleven per cent were lost. At the same time though, when it came to medical supplies to save the lives of soldiers fighting a war far away from the Rodina, close to half never got past the ports used on the Gulf of Mexico coast. Those variants went on and on. Another example would be the dispatched artillery where the losses of heavy towed guns had been low (relatively) but the loss of ammunition for those guns was high. Heavy engineering vehicles went down aboard sunken ships at an alarming rate yet there was plenty of spare tracks & pieces of replacement equipment for the vehicles which did get through as the losses among those were slight. Therefore, the number which the Soviets had, and also how the Americans made their own estimate, wasn’t about specific pieces of equipment nor stacks of supplies, but more than that what capability was lost. With what had reached Texas, twenty-five per cent less capability for both combat and support operations than sent could be achieved by what got through. Early in the war, the Soviets had shipped over their initial armies from Cuba and seen American attacks occur where there were ships lost making the far shorter trip. Heavy losses had incurred among the cargo which was sent then in comparison to the number of actual vessels lost. The ships had been fast loaded and sent across to Texas. When certain ones of them were hit, the cargo they carried was all of certain items – tanks or artillery shells or mine-clearing equipment – and therefore plenty of that was lost at sea. What hadn’t been done was ‘smart loading’ of the ships. This was supposed to have occurred and would have seen ships with mixed cargoes: a lost ship would go down with tanks, artillery shells and mine-clearing equipment, not just when loaded with one of those types of cargo. Overall, when others arrived in Texas, the missing stocks of one of those would be lower. October’s events had hit hard and forced a weaker breakout from South Texas in the Central & Eastern parts of that state to occur. In particular, the 23rd Tank Division had ended up as a dismounted infantry unit while there were missing artillery brigades. Equipment had been stripped from some units to complete others because of incompetence over in Cuba. This wasn’t supposed to have happened again with the two big convoys sent from the Kola back in December to reach Texas in January. Well, it had. There had been a repeat of ‘stupid loading’. The Soviet command in San Antonio discovered that smart loading had been cancelled when it was decided that more could be sent aboard ships if they were loaded the stupid way. There had been a belief that few ships would be sunk and this wouldn’t matter overall. Only when the ships arrived and the contents of them individually, not what was in the convoys as a whole, was discovered, did the end-users of the cargo realise what had happened. Ships had been sunk aplenty and much military material had been put on the ocean floor. Plenty of important stores did reach their destination yet there was a lot of non-important material as well… non-important to the combat arms officers anyway. They wanted more tanks. More guns. More assault bridge-layers. More missile launchers. More bullets, rockets and shells. More, more, more! They saw how it could have been delivered if that smart loading had been employed. Waiting in Texas ahead of the convoys were tens of thousands of soldiers. The men who would form two Soviet field armies (complete with small attachments from Eastern European countries) had been flown to North America. Once the ships arrived and the unloading began, and American air attacks took place, the men were matted-up with their equipment. Decisions were made at the highest levels on the ground in Texas as to what to do with faced with the losses to cargo en route which had occurred. General Lobov – theatre commander in North America – had to get permission from Moscow up as far as the Defence Council for what he was forced to do with his reinforcing armies. Only with their permission could he field just one of them as a whole and break up the other to support his already-existing three. They didn’t like seeing this done: neither did Lobov. That was the way things had to be though. Blame would fall upon those who did the stupid loading in the Kola and the wrath of the Defence Council wouldn’t be pretty. The Seventh Tank Army was moved through February northwards across Central Texas but stopped far short of the Red River and the Great Plains beyond. It would fulfil its planned exploitation role alone now rather than alongside the Eleventh Guards Army. That latter field army was broken apart to help complete the equipment ranks of the former and also adds bits and pieces all over the place to the Twenty-Second Army in Colorado, the Eighth Tank Army in East Texas and – most-importantly – the Twenty–Eighth Army in North Texas. The Twenty–Eighth Army was to be followed by the Seventh Tank Army, fighting what the Soviets considered the best of America’s troops along the Red River and in Oklahoma once again, so was given the best of what was available. The limits on what the Soviet reinforcements coming from the convoys brought were even more than just the masses of equipment and supplies which didn’t get throw. There were all of those extra men which arrived and they were a burden alongside their arrival as a bonus for the war effort. The men, the ones who’d recently flown in and the ones already in North America, needed feeding and they needed medical care – general as well as critical – to be given to them. The missing cargoes on the ships included the stocks to do this too. Living off the land while fighting a modern war was impossible when it came to feeding men and the health of the men was another issue which couldn’t be ignored. Soldiers got injured in battle yet they also were ill due to other causes. Treating them was becoming more and more difficult for the Soviets. Texas was full of the wounded and the ill. There had been some air evacuation flights going back home yet those were few and far between. What the Soviets had been waiting for was ships to send those who needed to go home on. There were now ships in the South Texan ports, those which had survived Allied attacks while on the way here. These were loaded through February and preparations began to send them home. Marked as hospital ships, they were still armed though – basic weapons but weapons nonetheless – despite international rules against doing such things. This was a decision made in Moscow where ships full of wounded would be protected on their way home. They were going to sail for home in March, going back across the North Atlantic. For one thing, American intelligence efforts missed the fact that these were hospital ships. That should be noted: they didn’t know before they would go and do what they and their allies did to them when later at sea. Secondly, the ships were armed and entering a war zone. The results were going to be predictable. Lobov was told by the Defence Council that there would be no further significant reinforcement ‘for the foreseeable future’. The details weren’t given to him but he knew of the gauntlet that the convoys coming to Texas had run. There wasn’t going to be another convoy effort made for some time. Moscow issued orders that the war was to be won with what he had available and won soon too. The original war plan drawn up last year, long before he replaced the shot man who had been first in command, had called for a victory to be gained this Spring. That plans were still to be followed. He had fewer forces and so many expectations and the whole overall worldwide order had gone awry, but the plan was still the plan. Much of the American’s best forces had bene defeated last year and the rest of them, old ones and newer forces, were to be overcome through March and April. The fight would be on the Great Plains, this side of the Mississippi River. Oklahoma then Kansas were to be advanced through and Nebraska reached. On the eastern flank, Louisiana and Arkansas were to be sideshows there compared to the main effort going north. Over to the west, holding New Mexico and Colorado, plus keeping the Americans at bay in Arizona and where they had penetration Mexico, was all to continue. Lobov was made to understand that going north was his key priority though. The Defence Council, looking at the maps from far away, demanded that the Platte River be reached: that being the waterway which ran west-east across Nebraska. They expected nothing less than Lobov to have his tanks reach there, leaving a defeated American Army in their wake. No excuses would be heard as to why that couldn’t be done either now nor in the coming months. To aid Lobov, he received a courier direct to him. Only he was allowed to see the contents of the message (the courier left him alone) and, as if he was the character in a spy novel, he was instructed to destroy the message afterwards. What he was sent was what he was assured was gold-plated intelligence. The Americans were going to launch a general offensive in the eastern theatre – the north and west were different matters yet smaller affairs – beginning March 7th. Lobov was to strike first, going on the attack four days earlier. The Soviet offensive would gobble up preparing American formations, especially their forward supply units pushed ahead before their heavy units would attack, and this would only add to the ‘already certain’ Soviet victory. The countdown to March 3rd was on. Victory or ( don’t say it aloud!) defeat was coming. Another good update James. Was thinking but think i am not correct and the Americans supplied the information to Lobov and that they are waiting for a Soviet attack.
|
|
stevep
Fleet admiral
Posts: 24,866
Likes: 13,252
|
Post by stevep on Nov 21, 2018 18:13:00 GMT
[Part VIII]Chapter Twenty – Intelligence(289)February 1985: South Texas The figure of thirty-five per cent destruction done to the contents of the Soviet convoys which had arrived in Texas last month had come from the Americans. Their intelligence-gathering had analysed which ships had been sunk during conflict in the North Atlantic and then the Caribbean as well as the damage done by bombing those ships when they were in South Texan ports unloading. That was the number presented to President Glenn. It came as a fixed figure though before presented to him, there had been wide variations on this before it was settled upon. One number was as low as ten per cent; another was as high as fifty per cent. The Soviets had their own figure on the losses of equipment sent which didn’t arrive to be used for the war in North America. That was twenty-five per cent. This was an aggregate though. It consisted of several factors which all had to be taken into account. For example, of the tanks loaded onto those ships when they left the Kola Peninsula, only eleven per cent were lost. At the same time though, when it came to medical supplies to save the lives of soldiers fighting a war far away from the Rodina, close to half never got past the ports used on the Gulf of Mexico coast. Those variants went on and on. Another example would be the dispatched artillery where the losses of heavy towed guns had been low (relatively) but the loss of ammunition for those guns was high. Heavy engineering vehicles went down aboard sunken ships at an alarming rate yet there was plenty of spare tracks & pieces of replacement equipment for the vehicles which did get through as the losses among those were slight. Therefore, the number which the Soviets had, and also how the Americans made their own estimate, wasn’t about specific pieces of equipment nor stacks of supplies, but more than that what capability was lost. With what had reached Texas, twenty-five per cent less capability for both combat and support operations than sent could be achieved by what got through. Early in the war, the Soviets had shipped over their initial armies from Cuba and seen American attacks occur where there were ships lost making the far shorter trip. Heavy losses had incurred among the cargo which was sent then in comparison to the number of actual vessels lost. The ships had been fast loaded and sent across to Texas. When certain ones of them were hit, the cargo they carried was all of certain items – tanks or artillery shells or mine-clearing equipment – and therefore plenty of that was lost at sea. What hadn’t been done was ‘smart loading’ of the ships. This was supposed to have occurred and would have seen ships with mixed cargoes: a lost ship would go down with tanks, artillery shells and mine-clearing equipment, not just when loaded with one of those types of cargo. Overall, when others arrived in Texas, the missing stocks of one of those would be lower. October’s events had hit hard and forced a weaker breakout from South Texas in the Central & Eastern parts of that state to occur. In particular, the 23rd Tank Division had ended up as a dismounted infantry unit while there were missing artillery brigades. Equipment had been stripped from some units to complete others because of incompetence over in Cuba. This wasn’t supposed to have happened again with the two big convoys sent from the Kola back in December to reach Texas in January. Well, it had. There had been a repeat of ‘stupid loading’. The Soviet command in San Antonio discovered that smart loading had been cancelled when it was decided that more could be sent aboard ships if they were loaded the stupid way. There had been a belief that few ships would be sunk and this wouldn’t matter overall. Only when the ships arrived and the contents of them individually, not what was in the convoys as a whole, was discovered, did the end-users of the cargo realise what had happened. Ships had been sunk aplenty and much military material had been put on the ocean floor. Plenty of important stores did reach their destination yet there was a lot of non-important material as well… non-important to the combat arms officers anyway. They wanted more tanks. More guns. More assault bridge-layers. More missile launchers. More bullets, rockets and shells. More, more, more! They saw how it could have been delivered if that smart loading had been employed. Waiting in Texas ahead of the convoys were tens of thousands of soldiers. The men who would form two Soviet field armies (complete with small attachments from Eastern European countries) had been flown to North America. Once the ships arrived and the unloading began, and American air attacks took place, the men were matted-up with their equipment. Decisions were made at the highest levels on the ground in Texas as to what to do with faced with the losses to cargo en route which had occurred. General Lobov – theatre commander in North America – had to get permission from Moscow up as far as the Defence Council for what he was forced to do with his reinforcing armies. Only with their permission could he field just one of them as a whole and break up the other to support his already-existing three. They didn’t like seeing this done: neither did Lobov. That was the way things had to be though. Blame would fall upon those who did the stupid loading in the Kola and the wrath of the Defence Council wouldn’t be pretty. The Seventh Tank Army was moved through February northwards across Central Texas but stopped far short of the Red River and the Great Plains beyond. It would fulfil its planned exploitation role alone now rather than alongside the Eleventh Guards Army. That latter field army was broken apart to help complete the equipment ranks of the former and also adds bits and pieces all over the place to the Twenty-Second Army in Colorado, the Eighth Tank Army in East Texas and – most-importantly – the Twenty–Eighth Army in North Texas. The Twenty–Eighth Army was to be followed by the Seventh Tank Army, fighting what the Soviets considered the best of America’s troops along the Red River and in Oklahoma once again, so was given the best of what was available. The limits on what the Soviet reinforcements coming from the convoys brought were even more than just the masses of equipment and supplies which didn’t get throw. There were all of those extra men which arrived and they were a burden alongside their arrival as a bonus for the war effort. The men, the ones who’d recently flown in and the ones already in North America, needed feeding and they needed medical care – general as well as critical – to be given to them. The missing cargoes on the ships included the stocks to do this too. Living off the land while fighting a modern war was impossible when it came to feeding men and the health of the men was another issue which couldn’t be ignored. Soldiers got injured in battle yet they also were ill due to other causes. Treating them was becoming more and more difficult for the Soviets. Texas was full of the wounded and the ill. There had been some air evacuation flights going back home yet those were few and far between. What the Soviets had been waiting for was ships to send those who needed to go home on. There were now ships in the South Texan ports, those which had survived Allied attacks while on the way here. These were loaded through February and preparations began to send them home. Marked as hospital ships, they were still armed though – basic weapons but weapons nonetheless – despite international rules against doing such things. This was a decision made in Moscow where ships full of wounded would be protected on their way home. They were going to sail for home in March, going back across the North Atlantic. For one thing, American intelligence efforts missed the fact that these were hospital ships. That should be noted: they didn’t know before they would go and do what they and their allies did to them when later at sea. Secondly, the ships were armed and entering a war zone. The results were going to be predictable. Lobov was told by the Defence Council that there would be no further significant reinforcement ‘for the foreseeable future’. The details weren’t given to him but he knew of the gauntlet that the convoys coming to Texas had run. There wasn’t going to be another convoy effort made for some time. Moscow issued orders that the war was to be won with what he had available and won soon too. The original war plan drawn up last year, long before he replaced the shot man who had been first in command, had called for a victory to be gained this Spring. That plans were still to be followed. He had fewer forces and so many expectations and the whole overall worldwide order had gone awry, but the plan was still the plan. Much of the American’s best forces had bene defeated last year and the rest of them, old ones and newer forces, were to be overcome through March and April. The fight would be on the Great Plains, this side of the Mississippi River. Oklahoma then Kansas were to be advanced through and Nebraska reached. On the eastern flank, Louisiana and Arkansas were to be sideshows there compared to the main effort going north. Over to the west, holding New Mexico and Colorado, plus keeping the Americans at bay in Arizona and where they had penetration Mexico, was all to continue. Lobov was made to understand that going north was his key priority though. The Defence Council, looking at the maps from far away, demanded that the Platte River be reached: that being the waterway which ran west-east across Nebraska. They expected nothing less than Lobov to have his tanks reach there, leaving a defeated American Army in their wake. No excuses would be heard as to why that couldn’t be done either now nor in the coming months. To aid Lobov, he received a courier direct to him. Only he was allowed to see the contents of the message (the courier left him alone) and, as if he was the character in a spy novel, he was instructed to destroy the message afterwards. What he was sent was what he was assured was gold-plated intelligence. The Americans were going to launch a general offensive in the eastern theatre – the north and west were different matters yet smaller affairs – beginning March 7th. Lobov was to strike first, going on the attack four days earlier. The Soviet offensive would gobble up preparing American formations, especially their forward supply units pushed ahead before their heavy units would attack, and this would only add to the ‘already certain’ Soviet victory. The countdown to March 3rd was on. Victory or ( don’t say it aloud!) defeat was coming. Another good update James. Was thinking but think i am not correct and the Americans supplied the information to Lobov and that they are waiting for a Soviet attack.
That could be a very good option.
|
|
James G
Squadron vice admiral
Posts: 7,608
Likes: 8,833
|
Post by James G on Nov 21, 2018 20:28:51 GMT
[Part VIII]Chapter Twenty – Intelligence(289)February 1985: South Texas The figure of thirty-five per cent destruction done to the contents of the Soviet convoys which had arrived in Texas last month had come from the Americans. Their intelligence-gathering had analysed which ships had been sunk during conflict in the North Atlantic and then the Caribbean as well as the damage done by bombing those ships when they were in South Texan ports unloading. That was the number presented to President Glenn. It came as a fixed figure though before presented to him, there had been wide variations on this before it was settled upon. One number was as low as ten per cent; another was as high as fifty per cent. The Soviets had their own figure on the losses of equipment sent which didn’t arrive to be used for the war in North America. That was twenty-five per cent. This was an aggregate though. It consisted of several factors which all had to be taken into account. For example, of the tanks loaded onto those ships when they left the Kola Peninsula, only eleven per cent were lost. At the same time though, when it came to medical supplies to save the lives of soldiers fighting a war far away from the Rodina, close to half never got past the ports used on the Gulf of Mexico coast. Those variants went on and on. Another example would be the dispatched artillery where the losses of heavy towed guns had been low (relatively) but the loss of ammunition for those guns was high. Heavy engineering vehicles went down aboard sunken ships at an alarming rate yet there was plenty of spare tracks & pieces of replacement equipment for the vehicles which did get through as the losses among those were slight. Therefore, the number which the Soviets had, and also how the Americans made their own estimate, wasn’t about specific pieces of equipment nor stacks of supplies, but more than that what capability was lost. With what had reached Texas, twenty-five per cent less capability for both combat and support operations than sent could be achieved by what got through. Early in the war, the Soviets had shipped over their initial armies from Cuba and seen American attacks occur where there were ships lost making the far shorter trip. Heavy losses had incurred among the cargo which was sent then in comparison to the number of actual vessels lost. The ships had been fast loaded and sent across to Texas. When certain ones of them were hit, the cargo they carried was all of certain items – tanks or artillery shells or mine-clearing equipment – and therefore plenty of that was lost at sea. What hadn’t been done was ‘smart loading’ of the ships. This was supposed to have occurred and would have seen ships with mixed cargoes: a lost ship would go down with tanks, artillery shells and mine-clearing equipment, not just when loaded with one of those types of cargo. Overall, when others arrived in Texas, the missing stocks of one of those would be lower. October’s events had hit hard and forced a weaker breakout from South Texas in the Central & Eastern parts of that state to occur. In particular, the 23rd Tank Division had ended up as a dismounted infantry unit while there were missing artillery brigades. Equipment had been stripped from some units to complete others because of incompetence over in Cuba. This wasn’t supposed to have happened again with the two big convoys sent from the Kola back in December to reach Texas in January. Well, it had. There had been a repeat of ‘stupid loading’. The Soviet command in San Antonio discovered that smart loading had been cancelled when it was decided that more could be sent aboard ships if they were loaded the stupid way. There had been a belief that few ships would be sunk and this wouldn’t matter overall. Only when the ships arrived and the contents of them individually, not what was in the convoys as a whole, was discovered, did the end-users of the cargo realise what had happened. Ships had been sunk aplenty and much military material had been put on the ocean floor. Plenty of important stores did reach their destination yet there was a lot of non-important material as well… non-important to the combat arms officers anyway. They wanted more tanks. More guns. More assault bridge-layers. More missile launchers. More bullets, rockets and shells. More, more, more! They saw how it could have been delivered if that smart loading had been employed. Waiting in Texas ahead of the convoys were tens of thousands of soldiers. The men who would form two Soviet field armies (complete with small attachments from Eastern European countries) had been flown to North America. Once the ships arrived and the unloading began, and American air attacks took place, the men were matted-up with their equipment. Decisions were made at the highest levels on the ground in Texas as to what to do with faced with the losses to cargo en route which had occurred. General Lobov – theatre commander in North America – had to get permission from Moscow up as far as the Defence Council for what he was forced to do with his reinforcing armies. Only with their permission could he field just one of them as a whole and break up the other to support his already-existing three. They didn’t like seeing this done: neither did Lobov. That was the way things had to be though. Blame would fall upon those who did the stupid loading in the Kola and the wrath of the Defence Council wouldn’t be pretty. The Seventh Tank Army was moved through February northwards across Central Texas but stopped far short of the Red River and the Great Plains beyond. It would fulfil its planned exploitation role alone now rather than alongside the Eleventh Guards Army. That latter field army was broken apart to help complete the equipment ranks of the former and also adds bits and pieces all over the place to the Twenty-Second Army in Colorado, the Eighth Tank Army in East Texas and – most-importantly – the Twenty–Eighth Army in North Texas. The Twenty–Eighth Army was to be followed by the Seventh Tank Army, fighting what the Soviets considered the best of America’s troops along the Red River and in Oklahoma once again, so was given the best of what was available. The limits on what the Soviet reinforcements coming from the convoys brought were even more than just the masses of equipment and supplies which didn’t get throw. There were all of those extra men which arrived and they were a burden alongside their arrival as a bonus for the war effort. The men, the ones who’d recently flown in and the ones already in North America, needed feeding and they needed medical care – general as well as critical – to be given to them. The missing cargoes on the ships included the stocks to do this too. Living off the land while fighting a modern war was impossible when it came to feeding men and the health of the men was another issue which couldn’t be ignored. Soldiers got injured in battle yet they also were ill due to other causes. Treating them was becoming more and more difficult for the Soviets. Texas was full of the wounded and the ill. There had been some air evacuation flights going back home yet those were few and far between. What the Soviets had been waiting for was ships to send those who needed to go home on. There were now ships in the South Texan ports, those which had survived Allied attacks while on the way here. These were loaded through February and preparations began to send them home. Marked as hospital ships, they were still armed though – basic weapons but weapons nonetheless – despite international rules against doing such things. This was a decision made in Moscow where ships full of wounded would be protected on their way home. They were going to sail for home in March, going back across the North Atlantic. For one thing, American intelligence efforts missed the fact that these were hospital ships. That should be noted: they didn’t know before they would go and do what they and their allies did to them when later at sea. Secondly, the ships were armed and entering a war zone. The results were going to be predictable. Lobov was told by the Defence Council that there would be no further significant reinforcement ‘for the foreseeable future’. The details weren’t given to him but he knew of the gauntlet that the convoys coming to Texas had run. There wasn’t going to be another convoy effort made for some time. Moscow issued orders that the war was to be won with what he had available and won soon too. The original war plan drawn up last year, long before he replaced the shot man who had been first in command, had called for a victory to be gained this Spring. That plans were still to be followed. He had fewer forces and so many expectations and the whole overall worldwide order had gone awry, but the plan was still the plan. Much of the American’s best forces had bene defeated last year and the rest of them, old ones and newer forces, were to be overcome through March and April. The fight would be on the Great Plains, this side of the Mississippi River. Oklahoma then Kansas were to be advanced through and Nebraska reached. On the eastern flank, Louisiana and Arkansas were to be sideshows there compared to the main effort going north. Over to the west, holding New Mexico and Colorado, plus keeping the Americans at bay in Arizona and where they had penetration Mexico, was all to continue. Lobov was made to understand that going north was his key priority though. The Defence Council, looking at the maps from far away, demanded that the Platte River be reached: that being the waterway which ran west-east across Nebraska. They expected nothing less than Lobov to have his tanks reach there, leaving a defeated American Army in their wake. No excuses would be heard as to why that couldn’t be done either now nor in the coming months. To aid Lobov, he received a courier direct to him. Only he was allowed to see the contents of the message (the courier left him alone) and, as if he was the character in a spy novel, he was instructed to destroy the message afterwards. What he was sent was what he was assured was gold-plated intelligence. The Americans were going to launch a general offensive in the eastern theatre – the north and west were different matters yet smaller affairs – beginning March 7th. Lobov was to strike first, going on the attack four days earlier. The Soviet offensive would gobble up preparing American formations, especially their forward supply units pushed ahead before their heavy units would attack, and this would only add to the ‘already certain’ Soviet victory. The countdown to March 3rd was on. Victory or ( don’t say it aloud!) defeat was coming.
James
Ah that's promising. Stupid loading will carry more equipment but as the Soviets are learning only if it all gets through. There are some useful gaps in the Soviet inventory which will help, such as that shortage of artillery. Shells are always used up faster than planned and guns without shells are no problem, for the opponents. A bit surprised so much heavy stuff got through while lighter items like the medical equipment I would expect to be more likely to stay afloat. Unless it was that the 'important' [to Moscow] equipment was positioned on ships in the centre of the convoys and the more expendable ones in the ships nearer the fringes.
Its possibly even better that the that Soviets plan to attack 1st. Even if he catches the allies by surprised, which is unlikely to be total given the amount of air power and intelligence the US should be able to assemble, he's going to run into the most powerful US formations by the sound of it and their prepared for battle, albeit offensive rather than defensive. If I had been Lobov I would have much preferred letting the US strike 1st then flanking and counter-attacking as more likely to do significant damage. This way its the Soviets that will be seeking to overrun defences.
Even if he reaches all his targets however I think the war in N America is already decided. Lobov would have heavily denuded forces trying to control huge areas, with minimal supplies and re-equipment capability. Even low level guerillas could cause serious problems in cutting supply lines in such positions and once his isolated units run out of fuel their stranded and increasingly defenseless. It looks like, even without the errors in China and possible war with the EDA, little or no further reinforcement is possible simply because the Soviet surface fleets are basically burnt out and while their subs and aircraft are still a threat the capacity to carry and escort cargoes has gone.
I wonder if that intel on the US attack means that there is an agent in the US government or military, or possibly a double agent somewhere and the Soviets are going to run into an ambush?
Also quite glad with their limited resources that the Anglo-Canadians are going to miss the worst of the fighting by the sound of it.
Between intelligence failures on the US side and stupid decisions on the Soviet one I suspect a lot of those wounded solider are going to find a new home in Davy Jones's locker. Why do they simply publicly declare the ships as hospital ships? Or is it because their such devious rule breakers they assume that the allies will do likewise and seize/sink the ships?
Steve
With the ship, it was a matter of 'luck' on which ships were hit and which got through. The losses were all over the place and random due to how the Allies struck several times with various methods. Decisions on how the war is fought are made in Moscow by politicans, not in San Antonio by their 'trusted' commander. Letting the Americans come and tearing them apart, as done early in the war with some key bits of the US Army, has been rejected and replaced with 'being clever'. Yep, this war for Soviet troops sent far afield and all alone, isn't looking promising. Reach Nebraska and the US gives in? Unlikely, isn't it. There is a big intelligence effort underway by one side, yes. The Brits and Canadians will still get into a fight. With the hospital ships, it is ignorance of the implications rather than doing anything smart or devious which will see what will happen there. So much is going on that not enough thought was put into this... and those in them will suffer. the soviet army views heavy combat equipment as important means the supply ships carrying the food, medical supplies and ammo were deployed on the outside of the convoys meaning that they take the majority of the losses during the naval battles. wait are the red army assuming that the American army would be stupid not to have units ready to stop a attack and the American support are mobile enough to have them following the attack forces instead of infront of the strike force. The Soviet Army didn't load those ships unfortunately. It was a clusterf**k of the first order. That is the assumption made in Moscow but also it is a matter of assuming they will win no matter what as long as they do everything 'clever'. They believe this will work.
In answer to yoru question I would say that they, especially the [mis-]leaders in Moscow to make exactly that mistake, in part because, although their unwilling to admit it, their getting desperate.
Desperate it really is becoming. Another good update James. Was thinking but think i am not correct and the Americans supplied the information to Lobov and that they are waiting for a Soviet attack. Thank you. That was suggested by Dan. I did not dissuade him of that belief and neither will I tell you that you are wrong either.
That could be a very good option. It is looking likely... see below.
|
|
James G
Squadron vice admiral
Posts: 7,608
Likes: 8,833
|
Post by James G on Nov 21, 2018 20:30:42 GMT
(290)
February 1985: New York
Warren Christopher had been the Deputy Attorney General for the last two years during the Johnson Administration before he’d then gone back to private law when Nixon entered the White House. Following Ted Kennedy’s election, Christopher had been considered for a return to government, serving as Walter Mondale’s deputy at the State Department. That hadn’t worked out. The views of the incoming president on certain matters of world affairs had been at odds with his and Christopher remained out of government. He had become a critic of the foreign policy followed by the Kennedy Administration when it came to relations with allies and foes alike. His name was linked to many of the think-tank reports and newspaper opinion pieces which attacked the policies followed during those three and a half years. John Glenn and he had come to know each other though as vice president, a loyal one, Glenn had remained publicly distant from Christopher’s expressed views. There had been harsher critics, ones far less polite than Christopher had been, yet Kennedy had made it clear that such a man wasn’t welcome anywhere near his administration. It had been personal like that with many people and the thirty-ninth president. September 17th had come and in the resulting fallout, Glenn had reformed the US Government with much-needed replacements for the many dead. Christopher had been asked by the new president to take a non-executive role with the new administration, one working directly for Glenn. This was to head up the new Office of Intelligence and Security and this took an oversight role above the newly-created National Intelligence and Security Service. NISS had a Congressional mandate but Christopher’s office didn’t. Glenn wanted to create a Cabinet-level department for intelligence & security. This wouldn’t just be responsible for NISS though that would be the main focus. Congress was currently blocking any form of a Department for Intelligence and Security (other names such as National Security had been floated too) for various reasons. There were concerns over the powers which it would have and how those would be enforced with claims that they would violate the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Christopher himself was called a ‘dove’: certain members of Congress wanted a ‘hawk’ and saw Glenn’s determination to put Christopher in that position as a challenge to them which they met. There were concerns now among some that the president had gone too far when NISS was created – erm… it was them really, not him – in merging so many formerly-independent agencies into one so quickly. It was to some an American KGB! Hyperbole aside, Congress had serious issues with then going further. To hand that all over to Christopher, or anyone else for that matter, in a Cabinet role was something Congress wasn’t so sure about.
NISS remained in limbo with neither the president nor Congress having complete control over it. It was still a new organisation though packed with long-term veterans from the Intelligence Community. Their fiefdoms had been broken up and many, many toes stepped on. They were blamed for the surprise attack which brought about the war yet their own feelings were that Kennedy had been to blame, not them. Or, if the CIA, the DIA, the NSA and the NRO were to get any blame, then it was upon the former heads of those organisations and plenty of people who were dead after the nuclear attacks. There were seven primary components of NISS (excluding the administrative and support parts) which formed their own divisions within the super-agency. The Foreign Intelligence Division fulfilled many of the roles which the CIA once had; the Defence Intelligence Division covered DIA tasks; the Communications Division undertook NSA duties; the Reconnaissance Division replaced the NRO; the Protection Division included the Secret Service’s executive guard role; the Counter-Intelligence Division undertook many former FBI tasks acting against spies; the Domestic Security Division had the duty which no former organisation in the United States had and that was to guard against the actions of American people themselves striking at the heart of the nation.
The stink kicked up by the CIA on one hand and the NSA on the other at being subsumed like they were was massive. The DIA and NRO found themselves quickly in leading roles within NISS and were generally happy. The Secret Service was a shadow of its former self and couldn’t object to what occurred. When the FBI lost its counter-intelligence duties, they had tried very hard to stop this yet hadn’t fought almost to the very end like the CIA’s remaining structure had tried to in an effort at martyrdom. The role of Domestic Security was something else entirely from all of this drama elsewhere. It was the assigned role of this part of the United States’ unified intelligence network which had upset many in Congress: if this had been peacetime and there was more of this in the public arena, the backlash would have been quite something too. Domestic Security was designed to focus upon anti-terrorism as its main undertaking. When the war started and nuclear attacks came, the country had been hit elsewhere by countless terror attacks from coast-to-coast. Plenty of those murderers were now dead, many shot ‘while resisting arrest’ too. This wasn’t going to be allowed to happen ever again. Given FBI-like powers in handling terror matters yet with stronger backing, NISS agents on Domestic Security tasks would stop any more terror attacks ever again and do so with a no-holds barred approach. Terrorism wasn’t just foreign nationals though. There was home-grown terrorism too which had already felt the long arm of NISS agents in the past few months. There had been separatists and secessionists who betrayed their country at a time like this with accusations (not all, but many, true) that they had been working with the Soviet KGB even if some of them weren’t aware of it. Congress feared that in the future, after the war, NISS would be able to step on the right to bear arms and for personal freedoms, all in the name of fighting terrorism. Some of their actions already had pressed the wrong buttons with senators and congressmen.
Voices in Congress called Christopher a dove. A dove he wasn’t. He was pragmatic and thoughtful. Glenn had tasked him to oversee NISS and defeat ongoing and future threats to the nation. That he had done. If Congress was fully aware of some of the actions undertaken by NISS so far, especially since 1985 began, they’d be calling him a hawk. Their fears of Domestic Security expansion in the future by knowing some of the things done behind closed doors now would have set them right off. Conversely, the deeming of him as a dove still held water though. NISS was in DIA hands and Christopher and his semi-independent Office of Intelligence and Security had oversight but not direct control over all that NISS did. Christopher wouldn’t have agreed directly to all that was being done. This was why there needed to be proper oversight and legislation. Congress argued with the president on this matter and meanwhile NISS did what it did.
High Value Prisoners (HVPs) – a recent capture of a KGB captain in the Rockies an example of them – were taken to ‘black sites’ across the nation; one was soon to be established on occupied Mexican soil over in Baja California too. Captured personnel from the KGB, the GRU and Cuban & Latin American nations were deemed as HVPs because they weren’t legitimate military POWs. The methods used to interrogate them and the conditions which they were held in didn’t meet POW standards. Their names weren’t on lists held by the Red Cross or the Soviet Interest Section that the Swiss Embassy represented to be passed on back to families abroad. Some very bad things were being done to these detainees with threats of the same made to others to get them to cooperate. Worse treatment was being given elsewhere to American captives in enemy hands, but that didn’t excuse the excesses of Aspen and elsewhere, did it?
NISS was involved in many other aspects of the shadow war going on behind the frontlines. They had an ongoing espionage effort to get inside the inner workings of the governments of (Revolutionary) Mexico and Nicaragua. There had been some success with another spying effort made in El Paso with the Peace Committee which remained there and this including ‘snatching’ back several American nationals held prisoner there for KGB means. Domestic counter-intelligence efforts had taken apart several Soviet spy rings in the United States which were pre-war established but burnt by KGB overuse due to the pressure of war. Military intelligence efforts closer to the battlefields had been roughly-handed by Soviet counterefforts yet they were bringing back useful information of a strategic nature and there was an ongoing, top-secret deception programme (named Mechanic) which was believed to be soon to pay off big time. Major electronic eavesdropping operations were ongoing to do what America had always done well in conflicts and seize the mantle there to crack enemy communications and exploit them properly, not just react to what was intercepted in a hasty manner. Foreign Intelligence had seen work done abroad where former CIA operatives now working under NISS were trying to get back into the worldwide intelligence war which America’s embattled allies had been fighting without them for many months.
Robert Gates had managed, despite everything including resignations & dismissals aplenty, to keep a core part of the CIA functioning. That nuclear blast above Langley when the war started, Soviet killing of CIA assets overseas and Congress trying even more than any Soviet nuclear warhead to obliterate the organisation he worked for hadn’t completely destroyed it. Glenn had been talked around by a few senators – survivors of the nuclear strike on Washington and new ones alike; those who had many years of public office dealing with the CIA too – into intervening through Christopher to keeping Gates there and the CIA active. It had a new name, answered to NISS and lost some responsibilities, but it was still there. The now Foreign Intelligence Division of NISS was the CIA in new clothes. Back on their feet, they had been busy. Firstly, they had conducted those valuable overseas intelligence-gathering operations as well as working with allies (the wartime Allies but also traditional partners like the Israelis and even the French) to push back against the Soviets where possible. Israel still maintained total control over the flow of information from their man at the Lubyanka in Moscow who worked in the top-tier of the KGB – the man who sent that very late, and too late, warning of war – yet Gates’ people had access to what he said once Mossad passed that on. Gates wanted to have his people have more of a role there but Israeli said no. At this time that couldn’t be forced yet the future was the future. The number-three man at the KGB gave them details of a Secret Service man who had provided exact location details on Kennedy before the deceased president, but also the KGB’s spy too, ended up on the wrong end of several nuclear blasts. This was confirmed and opened up other matters which Foreign Intelligence shared with Counter-Intelligence (their old FBI contacts and they had a long-standing relationship even if it was tempestuous one) in rolling up what was to be called the Walker Spy Ring. This was a Soviet espionage effort which it turned out had done some real damage to the US Navy throughout the war. It was all about communications, not where ships were, but tracking intercepted signals and understanding how they were encoded, and had done the Soviets very well as they were able to deliver real-time information. Tens of thousands of American sailors had died not because the Soviet Navy could crack US Navy codes but understand how they worked and forgo the complication of decryption for immediate results. That was put to an end. Funnelling false information down the line would be done by NISS though, the US Navy changed everything to do with their communications and that was more important for them as it was their ships being lost and sailors killed.
Then there was Peppermint and Workman, the two defectors that the DIA and CIA respectively had received. Both Soviets in American custody claimed the other was a liar while the respective organisations which had taken them in fought the other over the legitimacy of theirs. NISS’s director had favoured Peppermint; Gates had got Christopher’s ear with what Workman had to say. That second defector, the one which Gates’ people had, had been able to aid with the taking apart of the Walker Spy Ring by giving information on one of the people on the fringes of that conspiracy which helped shore the whole investigation up. Peppermint, that supposed goldmine of information, had nothing: he’d never heard of this massive intelligence-gathering effort. He should have. He was supposed to be that high-up in the GRU and the whole thing, where the work of spies was made available to the military for real-time applications, should have involved him before he defected. When the US Navy made dramatic changes in fleet communications, there was a near instant effect that they reported back when it came to the Soviet Navy suddenly having a lot of failure in tracking to attack its vessels. From them, they let both Christopher and the Director of NISS know the value of intelligence gained… Gates made sure everyone understood that Workman had delivered while Peppermint was still talking of geo-political events and ‘what they all mean behind the scenes’. Workman had delivered and Peppermint was either the false defector that the CIA had said he was or a charlatan of the first order if one wanted to be charitable. The defenders of Peppermint had their ranks thinned by those walking back of what they had previously said about how wonderful he was. One of senior DIA people who’d beforehand soaked up all the praise which had come from the defection of Peppermint and who now retracted his support – he said with a straight face that he’d always had his doubts – was in-the-know when it came to that ongoing Mechanic military deception operation. This general, a self-serving and generally quite obnoxious fellow, did his country a great service without realising it by not discussing anything about Mechanic with Peppermint. If he had, events in the coming months would have turned out very differently.
|
|