Soviet Domination - A Red Dawn story

Maybe... or maybe they 'turn' the spies and work them back. The secret might not be revealed for 50 or a hundreds years.
There are, as you suggest, many future WIs possible from this story: as in every war, I guess.

(296)

February 1985: The Western Mediterranean

Spanish sovereign soil remained occupied by foreign troops. The Soviets had a complete hold of Melilla despite the terrible naval defeat they had suffered when trying to break out from the Mediterranean into the North Atlantic with their ships last month. The majority of what forces they had left, had withdrawn back to Malta yet at Melilla they had a few ships, some aircraft and over a thousand troops. Madrid was determined that that occupation shouldn’t go on for one day longer than it had to. Melilla was tiny and, to be brutally honest, mattered for nought to anyone else, not even the Soviets anymore. It mattered to the Spanish government though. British and Portuguese assistance was requested to help them retake Melilla though only with supporting needs: the Spanish would do the bulk of the fighting. That they did, landing there to retake their possession on Valentine’s Day.

It was a three-day fight. The three days would see fantastic levels of destruction done to Melilla where the port town was near-levelled in places. A lot of history was blown apart by explosives and there were many fires which gutted the remains of blown up buildings too. The Soviets fought with stubborn determination and gave everything that they had. The naval infantry who were in Melilla had been told to hold on and fight for as long as they could. There was no ‘fight to the last man’ order sent to them, but rather to give a good account of themselves for the honour of their service and their country. It was an outpost far away and doomed to fall to a determined attack, a fact recognised by the Naval Infantry higher command who sent out those reasonable orders. The orders weren’t received though. Electronic jamming of communications left the defenders with only their original orders to take and hold Melilla. When the Spanish attacked, and it was fast clear that this was a doomed fight, the senior Naval Infantry officer hinted at a surrender due to ‘unfavourable tactical circumstances’ yet the ranking KGB political officer with him informed his uniformed comrade that to surrender would be something that he would pay for in the end and there was the ‘good chance’ that reinforcement was only moments away. That KGB major also had what he considered an ace up his sleeve in the form of all of those POWs taken when Melilla was seized: he planned to use them to negotiate a way out for himself. Again, there was no higher orders which had been received to do this or not, it was all done by men on the ground out on their own.

Spanish marines arrived after a sustained number of air attacks had been made and the last Soviet MiGs wiped out. Naval gunfire supported them in establishing a bridgehead. Moving away from the shoreline was difficult though, one which cost the Spanish dear. The Soviets hadn’t been here for very long but they too had taken many casualties upon landing from Melilla’s first defenders. They knew how to make a landing force pay because they’d painfully learnt that lesson themselves. The Spanish had to claw their way forward from off the beaches and then began to fight house-to-house inland. There were civilians everywhere. Spanish marines held their fire again and again, losing tactical advantage repeatedly to the defenders, rather than shoot down women and children running around in panic as explosions and gunfire ripped through Melilla. Back in Madrid, the politicians there had had a very foolish idea that there would be very few civilian deaths when such people were caught between two opposing armies in such a very small piece of land. British and Portuguese military liaisons had told them this would happen. Moreover, there had been the Battle of Tenerife late last year when another Spanish island full of civilians was fought over and many of them were killed too. It wasn’t as if Madrid wasn’t aware what had occurred in Tenerife was likely to happen in Melilla. Still, they sent their marines in with the determination to take back what was theirs.

Day One saw the beachhead established. Day Two saw the Spanish push through the port area and strike deep inland, reaching the western side of the exclave and thus cutting the Soviets in two pieces. Day Three saw the southern portion attacked first before the north was attacked later that day. It was a continuous fight, one with no let up. Tired fighting men on both sides were dragged into a brutal fight where death and injury was all about them. Battle-hardened and highly-regarded troops the Soviet Naval Infantry and Spanish Marines each were. Neither was prepared to lose. One side had to though and that was the Naval Infantry. The Spanish had to beat them completely and utterly before finally their commander surrendered the very last of his men who were holding a ridiculously small perimeter and who’d just been hit with very accurate naval shelling as well as low-level bomb runs. He gave up, having one of his men wave an improvised white flag. Damn the consequences, he said, though that was a rash statement: he spent his captivity in Spain as a POW dreading the day peace came and he was sent home. As to the KGB major, he tried to play his ace card when making a move to bargain with Spanish prisoners used as hostages to get aboard a ship and head for Malta. The utter stupidity of thinking this had any chance of success revealed his own desperation. In the short time he’d been in Melilla, in-charge when his superior was killed early on, the major had ordered many atrocities committed. He didn’t delude himself into thinking he’d get away with them if he stayed. He sought a way out, even if it was going to be extraordinarily difficult to pull off. A Spanish sniper spotted him by chance and took a shot, blowing the top of the major’s head clean off. It was a random chance engagement and not planned. The target appeared and the sniper realised he had a officer in KGB uniform in his sights, one giving orders like he was in charge. Boom: the bullet whizzed towards the target and caused all of that mess that it did when the major had his head blown apart. The hostages, and other POWs, would all soon be freed from captivity.

One avenue of possible escape for the dead KGB man might have been to cross into Morocco. Since the first invasion of Melilla, neutral Morocco had surrounded the landward-facing side of the exclave with troops. There were more of them near Ceuta yet also around Moroccan ports facing the Mediterranean too. Where the regiment outside Melilla was, there remained gaps that lone Soviets or maybe small groups of the could have slipped through. Some did: not many but more than a few. The Moroccans detained them quietly with the intention of holding them for crossing into their soil while fighting as a belligerent in a war which Morocco was neutral in. The Spanish saw those troops there and elsewhere and had made plans to take action against Morocco should it step into Spanish territory no matter what excuse it might cook up. These were detailed war plans where Rabat and Tangiers would be bombed and then Spain would land troops on Moroccan soil to retake what was theirs from behind. They made their allies aware of this planning. From Lisbon, London and New York, there were warnings sent to Morocco about doing anything like that. Even Paris joined in with Mitterrand telling King Hassan that France wouldn’t intervene to support Morocco if it struck against the Allies and thus by extension sided with the Soviets. From Rabat there came nothing but protestations of innocence. Morocco was only moving troops to defend itself! Once Melilla was back in Spanish hands, Spain moved in more troops to both its possessions on the very northern tips of the African continent despite the Soviets being far away. By then though, as February came to a close, Morocco was no longer neutral and instead a country at war. They weren’t at war with Spain nor the Allies but rather fighting directly alongside France against someone else.


Before Melilla fell, and while knowing the men there were lost, the Soviets launched an air strike from Malta using Blinder bombers which launched cruise missiles against the Spanish mainland. A trio of missiles were targeted upon Barcelona and another two were shot towards the San Roque oil refinery. The latter was located on the Mediterranean side of the Spanish coast not far from Gibraltar. It was currently inactive due to the war and its exposed position. The missile hits here did little real damage though it would have been a different story if it had been in operation. The attack was nothing but one made out of spite as far as Madrid could see, as was the case with Barcelona too. The targets for the missiles which headed towards Spain’s second city appeared to be just the general urban area instead of any military base outside. The aim seemed to be to kill civilians and cause destruction to a city instead of hitting anything of a military value. One of those three missiles was hit by gunfire from a Spanish fighter which got behind it but the other two got through air defences and blew up inside the heart of Barcelona where they killed dozens and brought down a couple of buildings.

Warning came of the incoming attack to the Spanish from the French Navy.

There was direct communication, made over open radio channels, where the French related flight information on the Tu-22 bombers which its orbiting carrier-based fighters had detected. The Spanish were unfortunately only able to get their own defences into action too late and only hit one of five missiles were missing each bomber as well. The French, and the Italians too, had those bombers in their (metaphorical) gun-sights as they went from Malta to their launch points and then back again. If they had permission, those bombers could have been engaged. No permission had come though.

A few days later, it would have been a different story indeed. The French and the Italians had assembled a large fleet-in-being through the Western Med. and been long ready to use it. The time eventually came for them to do that and Malta was at the top of the list as to where all of those ships would be going. The fleet would move forward in the month’s last days and go into action with an offensive mission undertaken come the very beginning of March. This would occur because the situation on the ground far away in southern Sweden blew up with Western Europe entering the war on February 27th.

Another great update James G.

So total war is coming to the rest of Europe i presume, better late than never.

(297)

February 1985: Europe

Coming across the North Atlantic early in February to visit the European countries of the Allies was a high-level American diplomatic and political delegation. They started their visit in Britain before moving on first to Ireland, next to Norway, afterwards to Spain and finally to Portugal. This was no jolly. Serious business was done. Vice President Baker and Defence Secretary Robb had recently been to the Atlantic-facing countries of Europe involved in this war individually for flying visits though the February delegation sought to spend some time in each nation. There remained no indication of how long the war would last and whether it would continue in its current form or take a dramatic turn in their favour or against them. Much diplomacy was being undertaken along with significant economic work too. Heading up the American party which arrived at RAF Lyneham – on two aircraft, not one – were the Secretaries of State & Treasury. Adlai Stevenson III and Hugh Carey were both men appointed to their high-level positions back in September following the nuclear assassinations of their predecessors Mondale and Bayh at Andrews AFB. Behind closed doors, several senior European politicians thought little of both men and had more faith in President Glenn, Baker and Robb rather than these two. The British Government didn’t have much time for Carey’s pre-war behaviour (when he was New York Governor) in supporting Kennedy’s actions taken towards Northern Ireland. Meanwhile, there was concern in London, as well as in Madrid too, when it came to the lack of diplomatic skills in the part of Stevenson in convincing further countries to join the war on the Allied side alongside his hard-line approach towards many neutrals where they were either threatened or alienated by American actions: the gas attack late last year on West African countries had been a particular source of objection. Those opinions were kept private though. These were Glenn’s appointees and the Americans were VIP guests. They were treated correctly throughout their visit, starting back on the flight-line at Lyneham.

A plethora of junior officials, staff & advisers and security personnel travelled with the pair of Cabinet secretaries but there were also elected politicians which came too. Three senators and two congressmen made the journey: among them one of Massachusetts’ members of the Senate and a member of the House of Representatives from Arizona. John Kerry and John McCain would both each later serve as presidents of their country (their terms separated by another president in between) though that was many long years off. For now, each remained members of the reformed Congress with important committee roles within. They came with the VIPs and travelled extensively within each country which they visited as official guests. Previous violence across Britain in recent months had cooled off somewhat and no major riots where deaths were seen occurred during February yet their trip itinerary took them nowhere near such places where there had been all that violence before anyway. Kerry and McCain both saw the ruins of Whitehall; they also witnessed the British Army exercising on the Salisbury Plain. There were meetings, briefings and tours given. Neither man though was at a meeting which took place at Chequers in Buckinghamshire which Stevenson (Carey wasn’t there either) attended along with much of the British War Cabinet.

The Secretary of State was informed of something called Operation Purloin. He was assured that it was nothing more than a contingency, something that a reasonable and responsible government would plan for just to be sure. He directly and firmly told them that Purloin wouldn’t fly with Glenn nor any part of the US Government. One of his advisers would whisper to him that instead of Purloin, the British should have named it ‘Perfidious Albion’. What was Purloin? Purloin was just a plan to bring about the involvement of Western Europe and their mutual defence organisation – the EDA – in the wider war. This could be done by the RAF and the Royal Navy making attacks against Soviet forces who were occupying that small strip of land in mainland Sweden. These attacks would very likely ignite the whole situation there leading to the Soviets lashing out everywhere against everyone despite it being known that it was British action. Once they did so, Western Europe would be at war. It was stressed to Stevenson that this was just a contingency but he didn’t believe that. They told him that it was being considered to be put into action only if Britain was further imperilled than it already was and the EDA looked certain to remain neutral in this war. Stevenson was certain this was being floated as an idea where Britain was seeking American support for them to do it soon, not later. He told his hosts that this wouldn’t fly. Moreover, he also assured them that it was highly likely that the situation on the ground in Sweden was about to explode any time soon regardless. At the end of the Chequers meeting, it was again said to Stevenson that Purloin was only a contingency – that was repeated and repeated – so he repeated himself too: his country just wouldn’t stand for that. It was just wrong and couldn’t be done. Sweden will explode at any moment, he said again.

He was correct on that. Stevenson, Carey, Kerry and McCain would all be in Portugal by then, far away from where a whole new chapter of the Third World War began.


No official ceasefire nor any sort of progress towards a diplomatic settlement had occurred in Sweden. The heaviest of fighting had quickly come to an end once Soviet forces had driven an occupation zone along the eastern shoreline of the Øresund and dug-in. They continued to exchange shots with the Swedes on the ground and there remained clashes both at sea and in the skies. However, the advance to gobble up Swedish soil had ceased and so too had major attacks against the rest of the country. From out of Malmo, the Soviets didn’t interfere when the International Red Cross arranged for the departure of several convoys of injured children from that city’s hospitals. No games were played, and the fleet of vehicles and ambulances went right across Soviet-occupied territory unmolested. A later similar evacuation of children from hospitals occurred from out of Helsingborg too: again, one which the Soviets allowed to take place without causing any problems for political gain. The occupation over what little Swedish territory was in their hands wasn’t that harsh. Yes, it was enforced with violence yet still very much restrained compared to Soviet actions elsewhere in the world. Moscow declared that it had a security zone inside Sweden and stated that the two countries weren’t at war. The Soviets were satisfied that they had humbled and beaten a defiant Sweden and their overall aim to open up the Baltic Exits had been achieved where they had got their fleet out into open waters… though little use that did them in the end after the British and Norwegians had done all they then had.

Moscow was taken completely by surprise when Western Europe formed the EDA with their Maastricht Treaty and then went and brought Denmark and Sweden into that alliance. They were still reeling from the shock of such a diplomatic turn of events, and trying to figure out their intelligence failure to foresee that, when the news came that the EDA put military units into both Scandinavian countries. French and Italian forces moved into Denmark; France and West Germany put others into Sweden. None of that was supposed to happen. But it did and it blew all Soviet plans for Scandinavia right out of the water.

Across southern Sweden, the Swedes moved their mobilised armed forces into position to surround what they saw as a Soviet bridgehead for a further, full-scale invasion. The Baltic island of Gotland, the wider Stockholm area and the Finnish border were all full of more Swedish forces too. There were lots of them and they wouldn’t be underestimated when fighting on their home soil. This time they wouldn’t be taken by surprise. As to the EDA, they moved troops and aircraft into mainland Sweden some distance away from where the Soviets were but into clearly an offensive position. Centred on Gothenburg, the French and West Germans spread themselves out through south-western Sweden and were supported by more of their forces over in Denmark. Without actively doing so, they had reclosed the Baltic Exits just by their presence on both sides of it. They also had warships and submarines in there while the Danes were supported by them in remining certain stretches of water, areas previously cleared by those underwater nuclear detonations.

Throughout all of this, the Soviet leadership was undecided on how to act in respond. They were distracted by other events elsewhere yet the EDA action in the Baltic Exits was a slap in the face which remained stinging. War with Western Europe – France, Italy, West Germany and the Low Countries – hadn’t been sought. Despite all the setbacks, there had been the belief that Paris and its allies would come to their senses… just like the Americans and the Chinese eventually would too. All would understand that there was one superpower in this world and they all must accede to its will. Demands from Moscow, reasonable requests in fact, would be met with acceptance. That was how it was supposed to be. In a straight-up war, one without nuclear weapons, there was a confident prediction in Moscow that their tanks would overrun Western Europe if it came to that. The fight would be hard and the opponents no walkover, but this could be done. Such a thing wasn’t wanted though for political and economic reasons. A war like that would destroy all that the Soviet Union wanted to harness: the economic power of Western Europe. It would too unite all those countries which Moscow was intending to soon play off against each other once again, all to be Moscow’s favourite. The course of action which the Soviet leadership agreed was unacceptable was to do nothing in response. That was all that they could decide though, not how to respond. Retreating from Sweden, even with there being no longer a reason to be there, was now politically impossible. It put their military forces, who were engaged in daily low-level engagements with the Swedes, at risk of accidental conflict with those of the EDA. In Scandinavia, like on the North German Plain, Moscow was certain that its armed forces would win a conflict yet it would mean going all out there as well. That too wasn’t wanted. The resource sink that was the fight in North America, to say nothing of the China War, was a drain of unimaginable proportions. Both of those fights were seeing massive loss of life occur but also an expanse of treasure lost too. The Soviet Union always had the men to fight. It was the matter of everything else that those conflicts cost. To add Scandinavia and the rest of Western Europe to the list of wars to fight just wasn’t a choice that Moscow wanted to make.

The decision to not accept what the EDA had done but at the same time not make a response was uncharacteristic for the Soviet Union. The paralysis over failing to take action here was something not done elsewhere. It caused alarm among outsiders, those who feared the unknown. What were the Soviets up to? What were they getting ready to do that was taking them so long to prepare for? This worry was among many.


In southern Sweden, there remained shooting incidents. There were plenty of those. Swedish and Soviet forces engaged the other and lives were lost. The Swedes held their own yet there was an understanding that the Soviets were being remarkably restrained. Neither side backed away from any fight if shot at first and on a tactical level, those lower down the command chain fought like tigers when they had to. The decisions and indecisions of higher-ups wasn’t for them to ponder over.

EDA troops were far away from the fight and their naval vessels were some distance back too. Their aircraft were a different matter. French Mirages and Luftwaffe F-4s were flying from Swedish airbases, the same stations from which the Swedes put Drakens and Viggens into the sky. The West Germans were under strict ROE (rules of engagement) and the French were too but theirs were a little more relaxed in certain circumstances. The first clash in the skies between EDA and Soviet forces came on February 23rd. Firing from distance, a Mirage-2000 shot down a Soviet MiG-23 which had just attacked a pair of Swedish fighters. Full knowledge of the exact circumstances took some time to be established, especially for the Soviets to understand that a French aircraft had shot down one of theirs instead of Swedish fighters being responsible. Moscow was at once informed of this with the expectation that they would immediately issue an order for a counterstrike. Instead, there came an order for increased readiness and a relaxation in self-defence rules. The commanding Soviet Air Force general interpreted these instructions at his own discretion (which he was certainly not meant to) and the next time French aircraft were deemed to be presenting a danger, they were attacked. A pair of MiG-25s put down another Mirage-2000 when it really wasn’t in a threatening position. This shooting incident occurred on the 25th. The next day saw several more aerial engagements. French and Soviet aircraft shot at each other and there was the drawing in of Swedish and West German aircraft into this. When flying at high speed over a small area, lines in the sky that the other side had decided – without informing you – are their red lines are kind of impossible to see. February 26th saw the French lose another two aircraft (a Mirage F-1 and a Jaguar) while three Soviet MiGs went down. The West Germans had a F-4 blown apart in mid-air too.

The EDA and the Soviets were bringing down each other’s aircraft seemingly at will over Sweden. Exact details on individual events were hard to come by for politicians, men who demanded full knowledge of what was going on. They were told versions of events which weren’t true, even if the intent was there to tell the truth. Decisions were made. In Moscow, there finally came a decision on how to act against what Western Europe had done by moving into Scandinavia: they would be pushed out with full force used. This didn’t include a wider European war. The Soviet leadership remained convinced it was in control of events and so sought a limited conflict. As they had done to the Swedes, they would punish the EDA and eliminate them as a threat over Sweden and the Baltic Exits too. Soviet tanks weren’t about to go over the Iron Curtain and into West Germany. Moscow was going to fight a conflict – not a war – with one arm tied behind its back, all to stop things spiralling towards an end game they didn’t want. These decisions once again brought open remarks within the Defence Council as to the wisdom of this and even the suggestion that this wasn’t going to all go to plan. It was forced through by Vorotnikov though.

Soviet intelligence failings continued. They completely missed Paris and Rome taking a decision of their own, one which they browbeat Bonn into as well. The EDA was going to strike itself – not just act in self-defence – through Scandinavia but also extend military action to the Mediterranean as well. West Germany was expected to face an invasion only if things got out of hand. If that occurred, it would be one opposed on the border, the western side of that and not over on the eastern side as there had been talk of trying to achieve. Bonn wouldn’t allow for a pre-emptive attack into East Germany and they were fully supported by Brussels and The Hague here. The Dutch and the Belgians, plus the Danes as well, had all had their arms twisted like the West Germans to get them into this at the behest of a rather-driven Mitterrand.


In the early hours of the 27th, the EDA struck first. They were three hours ahead of the Soviets in attacking the other without a declaration of war. It was a conventional fight.

Over Sweden, French and Swedish aircraft attacked the Soviet-held airbases at Angelholm and Ljungbyhed where the Soviets were getting ready to launch their own air attacks from. West German fighters weren’t involved in any offensive action though.

On and above the Øresund, Danish and Italian air and naval forces went into action against the Soviets. They struck at them when the Soviets were moving forward ready to go into action too, just in a few hours time, but not yet.

Malta was bombed by Italian Tornados flying from Sicily joined by French Navy aircraft flying from the aircraft carrier Clemenceau. The joint French-Italian fleet in the Mediterranean headed straight for Malta on the back of that with Italian marines with them. Soviet forces here were taken by surprise as well.

Right down the centre of the divided Germany, between East and West, no border crossings were made. Above West Germany, the Luftwaffe was joined in flying defensive-only missions by the French, the Dutch and the Belgians. The Soviets, East Germans and Czechoslovaks put fighters into the sky above East Germany. Here the dividing lines were more pronounced than those above Sweden yet there were crossings of those made soon enough and missiles fired at other aircraft. Responses were made to the actions of others, real and imagined. In Moscow and Paris, neither side had intended for conflict to come here to Germany. There had been the belief that war would be fought elsewhere, away from where massed armies and air forces weren’t lined up against each other. Troops below them were readied to go into action as they all waiting for higher orders to do just that.

Millions of civilians across Europe were all in the firing line. Two nuclear-armed powers were at war with each aiming to fight a limited conflict. Panic hit in Western Europe especially though the governments in Eastern Europe (who sought to keep control of information) were gravely concerned too. Their leaders deluded themselves that this would stay localised. It really wasn’t going to.