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Post by eurowatch on Dec 4, 2018 0:09:43 GMT
Chapter Twenty–One – March(301)March 1985: The Alaskan Panhandle Regimental Landing Team 27 landed around Sitka on Baranof Island. The port town and its airport faced the open ocean. US Marines were fast all over it and engaging Soviet forces they found there. Troops from a regiment of the 81st Guards Motorised Rifle Division were based here along with an aviation regiment of Sukhoi-17 fighter-bombers. They were in dire straits before RLT 27 arrived to rock their world. Within a day, most of the organised resistance from the Soviets was overcome. The port and airport were in American hands. A night-time counterattack by dismounted Soviet riflemen surprised the US Marines only by the foolishness of it. It was driven back and the Americans fought through the night and into the next morning as they chased down hidden survivors and eliminated the last of the Soviets as a fighting force. The battle honour ‘Sitka’ would join those of Iwo Jima and Vietnam. After the fighting was done, prisoners were marched to waiting ships ready to take them down to Vancouver. RLT 27 had no time to guard such POWs nor care for the ill-nourished and unwell men they found here. Sitka – known to history as New Archangel when owned by the Russian Empire; discussions had been made in Moscow of seeing it revert to that name when it, like all of Alaska, was ‘returned’ to the Soviet Union – was only a staging post for later operations for them when acting as part of the whole of the 5th Marines. Across at Ketchikan, RLT 21 made their landing. Their target was another combined port and airport though one which might as well have been inland. Ketchikan was set far back from open water and nowhere near as exposed as Sitka. Force Recon Marines had been preceded by Navy SEALs in making sure that they way ahead was open for the mass of landing craft and helicopters which inserted the 21st Marine Regiment. Soviet forces here consisted of what was – on paper anyway – the best Soviet troops in the Alaskan Panhandle: the 345th Guards Parachute Regiment. This unit of Soviet Airborne had taken part in the initial invasion and marched all the way deep into Canada and nearly reached Whitehorse before the British and Canadians threw them back to where they came. They had escaped from the very top of the Alaskan Panhandle and been assigned to Ketchikan in the south. Promised reinforcement, even transfer back home, had never come. Allied intelligence summaries on the regiment had overestimated its remaining fighting capabilities. These ‘elite’ troops were no longer that. RLT 21 arrived ready for a major fight; RLT 29 was standing by right behind them. Air attacks were made in support and there was a lot of naval gunfire. The US Marines stormed in, hyped up to fight an opponent they were told would defend Ketchikan like tigers. Baby seals, the Marine Riflemen would call them afterwards: not tigers. Ketchikan was easier than Sitka. It was gobbled up and POWs taken in large numbers. RTL 21’s medical teams were overwhelmed not with combat casualties but attending to ill Soviet paratroopers. These men were full of disease and ‘looking like concentration camp victims’ in the words of the commanding American officer. The winter had really taken its toll on these men but so too was the fact that they’d long been abandoned. Hunger and disease Will make puppies out of even the fiercest wolfs. |
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Dec 4, 2018 4:40:24 GMT
Chapter Twenty–One – March(301)March 1985: The Alaskan Panhandle The headquarters for the re-established 5th Marine Division had been set up at Camp Pendleton in California on October 1st 1984. A week later, it was transferred to Camp Smith in Hawaii. Southern California had become a war zone and while there remained initial entry training of new Marine Riflemen at the Marine Depot in San Diego, the 5th Marines needed real training to be undertaken away from the boot camp. At that point, when Los Angeles was at first under threat and then actually occupied, the Barstow area in the Mojave Desert was considered too to be too near to the frontlines. NAS Barbers Point in Hawaii had suffered from a nuclear attack in the war’s opening minutes yet elsewhere in the Fiftieth State, there was little wartime disruption. Space was available too to train the new division properly and so the 5th Marine left the mainland United States. There was always an intention to return though. The war had seen the US Marines as a whole suffer a torrid time, especially early on. Reserves with the 4th Marine Division had been lost during the fighting in Texas when their division was taken apart in a thorough and devastating defeat. The 1st Marine Division had only just survived the Siege of San Diego but had had to retreat all the way there before they could finally achieve the first of (what would be later) many victories. The 2nd Marine Division had stayed in Florida and guarded the beaches there yet done nothing much in the eyes of outsiders. Across in South Korea, the 3rd Marine Division had fought battle after battle and took horrendous losses. There had been concern among some that the US Marines might end up being subsumed by the US Army due to wartime needs. Maintaining a separate service came with costs that could be saved during a war for national survival. The US Marines were fighting on land too, each time under US Army command, and not conducting amphibious landings. It would have been easier to fold them into the US Army. Such a thing would have been unthinkable before the war. The mythology of the US Marines along with their place in American military history was a matter of national culture. Moreover, Congress had been full of retired US Marines as well as long-term supporters who’d never let that happen… those were people who’d been killed though. The esprit de corps of those US Marines who kept fighting when all others would have folded, and then the victories which they begun to win, finally cut out all talk of a merger. They would remain a separate service. The Cubans hadn’t been in Southern California for that long though the still-forming 5th Marines hadn’t returned to the mainland. They were established across Hawaii and everything was set up there for the division to be made ready for battle. Four regiments were formed up – the 13th (artillery), the 21st, the 27th and the 29th – along with all of the necessary supporting components. Men were never a problem when it came to getting enough of them; equipment and stores was an issue. This was especially true when it came to high-tech, big ticket items like tanks and new aircraft yet also it was lower down with ammunition stocks as well for the rifles and heavy guns. Morale remained good though, exceptionally high. The 5th Marines received recruits from Hawaii, American island possessions in the Pacific and also those from the mainland west of the Rockies. In peacetime, that dividing line for recruits to the US Marines ran down the Mississippi River yet with the progress of how the war was going on the mainland, that had shifted. Parris Island in South Carolina was where the new 6th Marine Division and a recreated 4th Marine Division too were both being formed-up and they took all of those other men who didn’t come to San Diego first before soon being flown out to Hawaii. New recruits arrived en masse in Hawaii and since October, thirty-one thousand had come. Not all were assigned directly to the 5th Marines as others joined supporting units and there were also those who were assigned as replacements for the dead & injured in South Korea. There were men who didn’t make the cut, those who were unsuitable for service as a US Marine, but the rest were turned into Leathernecks ready to be sent off to war. Late February had seen the 5th Marines depart Hawaii aboard an amphibious task group. Some of those ships had helped put the 1st Marines into Mexico in previous months; others from that earlier mission were at that point on their way to the Korean Peninsula to help on the transfer of the 3rd Marines out of Asia. Escorted close-in by US Navy warships, and covered at a distance by the battle group around the carrier USS Enterprise, a course was first set for Vancouver Island. During the first days of March, extra equipment and supplies were transferred from Canada to the 5th Marines and the naval task group which had brought them closer to home. The ships moved onwards, now going north. The US Marines ‘hit the beach’ on March 10th. Of beaches, there weren’t any to conduct an assault over up in the Alaskan Panhandle. That phrase was used by the Marine Riflemen and their officers to describe their landings over windswept, wild and rocky terrain that they found among the islands surrounded by fast-flowing channels of water. Landing ships and helicopters were used to make two simultaneous assaults into occupied territory. Soviet forces here on American soil had been left to wither on the vine over the winter after being turned back from their attempted invasion of Canada last year. They had held on, suffering in horrible conditions and without little outside support. Canadian military activity inland was restricted by the terrain there – the lack of communications links especially – but each time they had met with the Soviets, they had come away victorious. US Air Force F-4s (mainly Reserve and Air National Guard units), flying from several Canadian sites along the Pacific coast, had made many air strikes as well as fighter sweeps and given the occupiers no let up. Combined Joint Task Force Pacific NW included the Canadians, those aircraft, US Army Green Berets and now the US Marines. Regimental Landing Team 27 landed around Sitka on Baranof Island. The port town and its airport faced the open ocean. US Marines were fast all over it and engaging Soviet forces they found there. Troops from a regiment of the 81st Guards Motorised Rifle Division were based here along with an aviation regiment of Sukhoi-17 fighter-bombers. They were in dire straits before RLT 27 arrived to rock their world. Within a day, most of the organised resistance from the Soviets was overcome. The port and airport were in American hands. A night-time counterattack by dismounted Soviet riflemen surprised the US Marines only by the foolishness of it. It was driven back and the Americans fought through the night and into the next morning as they chased down hidden survivors and eliminated the last of the Soviets as a fighting force. The battle honour ‘Sitka’ would join those of Iwo Jima and Vietnam. After the fighting was done, prisoners were marched to waiting ships ready to take them down to Vancouver. RLT 27 had no time to guard such POWs nor care for the ill-nourished and unwell men they found here. Sitka – known to history as New Archangel when owned by the Russian Empire; discussions had been made in Moscow of seeing it revert to that name when it, like all of Alaska, was ‘returned’ to the Soviet Union – was only a staging post for later operations for them when acting as part of the whole of the 5th Marines. Across at Ketchikan, RLT 21 made their landing. Their target was another combined port and airport though one which might as well have been inland. Ketchikan was set far back from open water and nowhere near as exposed as Sitka. Force Recon Marines had been preceded by Navy SEALs in making sure that they way ahead was open for the mass of landing craft and helicopters which inserted the 21st Marine Regiment. Soviet forces here consisted of what was – on paper anyway – the best Soviet troops in the Alaskan Panhandle: the 345th Guards Parachute Regiment. This unit of Soviet Airborne had taken part in the initial invasion and marched all the way deep into Canada and nearly reached Whitehorse before the British and Canadians threw them back to where they came. They had escaped from the very top of the Alaskan Panhandle and been assigned to Ketchikan in the south. Promised reinforcement, even transfer back home, had never come. Allied intelligence summaries on the regiment had overestimated its remaining fighting capabilities. These ‘elite’ troops were no longer that. RLT 21 arrived ready for a major fight; RLT 29 was standing by right behind them. Air attacks were made in support and there was a lot of naval gunfire. The US Marines stormed in, hyped up to fight an opponent they were told would defend Ketchikan like tigers. Baby seals, the Marine Riflemen would call them afterwards: not tigers. Ketchikan was easier than Sitka. It was gobbled up and POWs taken in large numbers. RTL 21’s medical teams were overwhelmed not with combat casualties but attending to ill Soviet paratroopers. These men were full of disease and ‘looking like concentration camp victims’ in the words of the commanding American officer. The winter had really taken its toll on these men but so too was the fact that they’d long been abandoned. Two easy fights had taken place where the 5th Marines arrived in the Alaskan Panhandle. They had seized both Sitka on the coast and Ketchikan ‘inland’ with ease and opened up the way in. There were further Soviet forces further ahead with Juneau having a large concentration of them but also more at places such as Petersburg and Wrangell. There was more of that motor rifle division (its tank regiment was in China though) and also what was left of an airmobile brigade as well. Supporting troops were all over the place where they were involved in internal lines of communication: something rather significant in such a region where there was a serious lack of roads for land connections. The rest of the 5th Marines moved ashore. The two seized entrance points were joined by smaller sites where there had been no enemy forces present and RLT 29 was used to take control. Prince of Wales Island (a huge piece of land) saw the biggest supporting presence where the US Marines secured their rear base area. Civilians welcomed them though told tales of the horrors which they had suffered under occupation. Men of military age were missing – most marched off by the Soviets from their homes; others had joined resistance groups – yet so too were many young women: the fate of the latter was of grave concern. There was a dearth of food and medicine, plus fuel, and the US Marines found themselves involved in providing immediate humanitarian aid to the remaining population. This had been anticipated though not in scale. Canadian assistance was offered and grabbed at in this. Like POWs ahead of them, civilians were soon shipped out towards Canada where they too would have their lives saved. Staying where they were, even with the US Marines here, would have seen many eventually lose their lives. For the rest of the month, the 5th Marines prepared to move onwards. They were going to go straight for Juneau it was decided. The mission orders had been for Petersburg and Wrangell to be focused on first before the bigger state capital yet this had changed. Enemy weakness but also worries over the fate of the people there led this. Juneau would be seeing the US Marines arrive early next month. Another great update James G |
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James G
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Post by James G on Dec 4, 2018 20:10:16 GMT
Chapter Twenty–One – March(301)March 1985: The Alaskan Panhandle Regimental Landing Team 27 landed around Sitka on Baranof Island. The port town and its airport faced the open ocean. US Marines were fast all over it and engaging Soviet forces they found there. Troops from a regiment of the 81st Guards Motorised Rifle Division were based here along with an aviation regiment of Sukhoi-17 fighter-bombers. They were in dire straits before RLT 27 arrived to rock their world. Within a day, most of the organised resistance from the Soviets was overcome. The port and airport were in American hands. A night-time counterattack by dismounted Soviet riflemen surprised the US Marines only by the foolishness of it. It was driven back and the Americans fought through the night and into the next morning as they chased down hidden survivors and eliminated the last of the Soviets as a fighting force. The battle honour ‘Sitka’ would join those of Iwo Jima and Vietnam. After the fighting was done, prisoners were marched to waiting ships ready to take them down to Vancouver. RLT 27 had no time to guard such POWs nor care for the ill-nourished and unwell men they found here. Sitka – known to history as New Archangel when owned by the Russian Empire; discussions had been made in Moscow of seeing it revert to that name when it, like all of Alaska, was ‘returned’ to the Soviet Union – was only a staging post for later operations for them when acting as part of the whole of the 5th Marines. Across at Ketchikan, RLT 21 made their landing. Their target was another combined port and airport though one which might as well have been inland. Ketchikan was set far back from open water and nowhere near as exposed as Sitka. Force Recon Marines had been preceded by Navy SEALs in making sure that they way ahead was open for the mass of landing craft and helicopters which inserted the 21st Marine Regiment. Soviet forces here consisted of what was – on paper anyway – the best Soviet troops in the Alaskan Panhandle: the 345th Guards Parachute Regiment. This unit of Soviet Airborne had taken part in the initial invasion and marched all the way deep into Canada and nearly reached Whitehorse before the British and Canadians threw them back to where they came. They had escaped from the very top of the Alaskan Panhandle and been assigned to Ketchikan in the south. Promised reinforcement, even transfer back home, had never come. Allied intelligence summaries on the regiment had overestimated its remaining fighting capabilities. These ‘elite’ troops were no longer that. RLT 21 arrived ready for a major fight; RLT 29 was standing by right behind them. Air attacks were made in support and there was a lot of naval gunfire. The US Marines stormed in, hyped up to fight an opponent they were told would defend Ketchikan like tigers. Baby seals, the Marine Riflemen would call them afterwards: not tigers. Ketchikan was easier than Sitka. It was gobbled up and POWs taken in large numbers. RTL 21’s medical teams were overwhelmed not with combat casualties but attending to ill Soviet paratroopers. These men were full of disease and ‘looking like concentration camp victims’ in the words of the commanding American officer. The winter had really taken its toll on these men but so too was the fact that they’d long been abandoned. Hunger and disease Will make puppies out of even the fiercest wolfs. It will indeed. Those were once good troops, left on their own and thus open to this defeat. Thank you, Admiral. |
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James G
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Post by James G on Dec 4, 2018 20:13:17 GMT
(302)
March 1985: Arizona
A platoon of US Army special forces troops from the 51st Ranger Regiment escorted two NISS officers (both formerly with the DIA) to the edges of Tucson along with a ‘guest’ of the spooks. The man wasn’t a prisoner, the Rangers had been told, but a guest. The Rangers had a different view of the man. He was an enemy, someone they would have had no hesitation in shooting given the chance. That wasn’t to be though. They protected him as he reached the Arizona city under foreign occupation and also kept the lives of the two spooks safe as well. Minefields, snipers and guerrillas were all a danger. Once the city limits and the Guatemalan outposts were within sight, that guest continued onwards all alone. He was off to join his camaradas (comrades).
“I hope his camaradas shoot him.” One of the Rangers spoke aloud his thoughts.
“If they do, Corporal,” the officer replied, “we’ll have to go in there and fight them all.”
“Then we get to shoot them all, don’t we, Sir?”
The Rangers lieutenant choose not to reply and watched the Guatemalan general walk into Tucson.
The next morning, Guatemalan soldiers who’d been trapped inside Tucson marched out of there and headed southwards. They kept their weapons with them and moved in good order down Interstate-19 towards Mexico. No vehicles were in the columns of men nor heavy weapons, just soldiers with rifles and man-portable equipment. American soldiers – those Rangers among them – kept the Guatemalans under close observation as they left United States soil. There were many, many men who lined the route who wished to shoot at these Guatemalans. The fact that they were getting to leave alive, or without being defeated and undergoing captivity, rankled countless numbers among the watchers. There were aircraft in the sky above and several aircrews visually lined-up attack paths for bombing and strafing runs. The stretch of the Sonoran Desert between Tucson and Mexico wasn’t favourable ground for guerrillas yet there were some of them there still, mostly recent arrivals to this region. Several of them did get shots off towards the Guatemalan columns and there came counterfire in return. Green Beret teams were extremely reluctant to fire directly upon fellow Americans who’d shot at the enemy and when they moved towards those groups to get them to stop, there were difficult scenes. What they wanted was for the Guatemalans to hurry up and get gone and that could only be done by the firing against them to stop. Guerrillas were disarmed – only temporarily they were told – and there were incidents of fisticuffs but Americans didn’t shoot Americans here.
It took two days for the Guatemalans to all reach Nogales and get over the border. In many ways, what the Guatemalans achieved was remarkable. It was a long walk and they kept their order during it with no rebellions, no mutinies and very few men making a run for it into the desert… a decision which the few who did regretted when guerrillas who still had their guns went after them. Then they were out, off American soil. Seventeen thousand, three hundred and sixteen men made it over the border according to the official count by NISS: a huge number of the enemy all who had avoided a final fight, and certain defeat, in Tucson and went on to fight another day elsewhere. Behind them in Arizona they left behind all of their heavy equipment, their wounded and also a scattering of other nationalities who hadn’t come with them. The national guardsmen with the 32nd Infantry Division moved into Tucson afterwards to seize that equipment, remove the wounded and fight anyone who wanted to stay & contest American control of the city: some Cubans and Mexicans plus Soviet Air Force personnel. A real fight for the city against those Guatemalans would have been very bloody for all of those involved – the occupiers, the liberators and civilians there – yet many American soldiers expressed regret that they hadn’t won a ‘real’ fight here. Questions were asked aplenty up the chain of command from junior ranks as to why the Guatemalans had been allowed to get away, in the fashion they had too. No answers were given. It was a secret not to be revealed beyond those at the top of the military command chain and among spooks. There were other enemy for the Americans to fight anyway, elsewhere in Arizona and beyond.
As to the Guatemalans, that former captive general officer who’d been set lose into Tucson to talk with his camaradas took them into Mexico to fight. The revolution had been betrayed, he had told his comrades, all for an imperialist foreign war launched by Moscow and Havana. Going south, they would fight Nicaraguans, Cubans, Mexicans and Soviets… even other Guatemalans. They were going to attempt to fight their way home. Getting out of Arizona was the easy bit behind them. On foot, without heavy weapons, and facing a journey of quite the scale lay ahead. NISS had pulled off a significant intelligence coup in doing what they had with those Guatemalans though as to giving them any more aid beyond seeing them to and over the border, such a thing wouldn’t be on the cards. Maybe it should have been given yet simmering anger won over playing it smart long-term on that issue.
Other bloody, drawn-out fights took place across Arizona through March. Those Guatemalans defectors setting off to cause trouble elsewhere weren’t the only occupying forces.
To the southeast of Tucson, the US I Corps set about finished off what had begun last month: eliminating enemy resistance to the liberation of the south-eastern corner of Arizona. A late-arriving Soviet tank regiment had stopped this in February though they were, for all intents and purposes, on their own. Scattered groups of LACom troops (including some other Guatemalans) and Mexicans couldn’t stop what the I Corps threw into the battle to clear this part of Arizona and get as far as the New Mexico state line. Around Bisbee, the Soviet tanks were caught in a cauldron where they were surrounded on all sides in a moving battle and under fierce attack from above. Air cover for them was absent: last month the Soviet Air Force had been driven out of Arizona and remained flying in Mexican rather than American skies now. The 9th Infantry Division won the Battle of Bisbee and then went onto Douglas. There were troops from Revolutionary Mexico attempting to block passage over the border in Douglas. They stood their ground and died. The 9th Infantry went onwards once victorious and into Agua Prieta to seize that Mexican town. The 5th Armored Brigade avoided those border clashes and followed the course of Interstate-10 as it ran eastwards. Blocking points established by Guatemalans and Nicaraguans were run over in a furry of violence. Bowie and San Simon were larger fights, each taking time for the 5th Brigade to overcome the resistance around each town and further open up the road. I Corps headquarters came under pressure from above to hurry their attacking unit along and reach New Mexico before the end of the month. The 5th Brigade was given extra air support from air units previously tasked to the 9th Infantry after it had completed its mission. Large numbers of F-4s and F-16s poured in on precision strike missions while A-7s and A-10s flew at lower level in a more tactical role. The skies being clear of enemy fighter interference allowed them to do their worse. New Mexico wasn’t just reached: it was entered. Dug-in Soviet heavy forces set among high ground either side of the interstate eventually brought the 5th Brigade to a stop about half a dozen miles inside. Liberating New Mexico and getting to El Paso would be for next month. For now, a huge chunk of Arizona had been retaken and the enemy beaten everywhere it was met.
Cuban troops flying down from Colorado had joined Guatemalan forces through eastern and north-eastern Arizona. Their unit identification and mission (the latter only in general terms) had been gained from the prisoner who was the commanding officer after he was taken following an air accident when leaving Colorado. The majority of his men might have got there when he didn’t, but it would have been best for them to have stayed further north. American special forces and air power did most of the work through March yet there were forward attacks made from the 81st Infantry Brigade too. Those national guardsmen got to Winslow when striking out from Flagstaff but that was as far as they could go. Ahead of them went raiding teams on the ground and air power, lots of each. Fuel-air explosives – similar to the thermobarics recently used by the Soviets in Colorado – were employed extensively in those air attacks and the Cubans took the full brunt of them… and the Americans went after them with napalm too. These weapons killed and injured many yet also terrified many more. That was the intent: to get the enemy to witness their use against others and flee rather than have to be next in-line. The Cubans only had a few desertions and mutinies. The Guatemalans were crippled by these occurrences. None of them wanted to be hit like that. Officers were shot, men ran and order fell apart. Green Berets joined with guerrillas – relationships had been built over the winter – in ambushes against patrols and snatching prisoners. The Guatemalan situation gave fresh impetus to their activities. They moved from the shadows and into the open. Small towns were entered and liberated for good. Stretches of road were secured and held rather than just struck by hit-and-run attacks. Sometimes their activities went tragically wrong where they miscalculated though at other times they punched far above their weight. Enemy counter-guerrilla activities were haphazard rather than organised as they were before. All around the occupiers, their enemies were holding ground. They themselves were cut off. It took some time to realise this but once they understood the results of the Bisbee fight and the drive down Interstate-10 to reach New Mexico by the US Army, it became clearer. American intelligence activities to get them to surrender occurred (no efforts were made similar to Tucson to organise a rebel-led defection) and these had success. The Cubans at first resisted these, offers to give in and receive good treatment as POWs which Guatemalans accepted, but soon part of the brigade once led by a colonel named Bella when in Colorado had surrendered in Arizona. The rest of the men then began to withdraw from forward positions. They pulled back away to the very northeast and deep into the Painted Desert. Attacks against those who carried on fighting continued from above and on the ground. This wasn’t over but a conclusion was in-sight for them: that would be a future either as dead or as POWs. Meanwhile, the areas which they left behind, more and more of Arizona, returned to American control. Almost all of it was now clear of a long and brutal occupation.
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lueck
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Post by lueck on Dec 5, 2018 3:08:32 GMT
james why did the soviet union think that invading Alaska in early fall was a good idea or did there assumed that the American government would simply give up and agree to give up all of areas already under soviet control by the first few weeks of the war. wait this is what the third time that the soviet union decided that they won the war in china. now how do get the forces out if the Chinese government no longer can do a cease fire.
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Dan
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Post by Dan on Dec 5, 2018 7:59:11 GMT
james why did the soviet union think that invading Alaska in early fall was a good idea or did there assumed that the American government would simply give up and agree to give up all of areas already under soviet control by the first few weeks of the war. wait this is what the third time that the soviet union decided that they won the war in china. now how do get the forces out if the Chinese government no longer can do a cease fire. The answer to all of these questions, and more, after the break. Because the Soviets had a major case of premature victory disease, because clearly the dialectic states that all they need to do is kick down the front door and the whole rotten capitalist structure will come crashing down when the oppressed workers and farmers of United States are able to bask in the glory of Marxist-Lenninist Communism of course. This is what happens when the adherence to a flawed ideological structure is seen as more important than common sense. |
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James G
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Post by James G on Dec 5, 2018 20:22:05 GMT
james why did the soviet union think that invading Alaska in early fall was a good idea or did there assumed that the American government would simply give up and agree to give up all of areas already under soviet control by the first few weeks of the war. wait this is what the third time that the soviet union decided that they won the war in china. now how do get the forces out if the Chinese government no longer can do a cease fire. They had a good plan for Alaska. It could have worked, maybe. But the US Pacific Fleet refused to die and the China War 'happened' (they don't consider it their fault) and the whole Alaskan adventure fell apart. Since Day #1, Moscow has believed that they had won in China already and at any moment, the Chinese will cave... any moment now, surely. The answer to all of these questions, and more, after the break. Because the Soviets had a major case of premature victory disease, because clearly the dialectic states that all they need to do is kick down the front door and the whole rotten capitalist structure will come crashing down when the oppressed workers and farmers of United States are able to bask in the glory of Marxist-Lenninist Communism of course. This is what happens when the adherence to a flawed ideological structure is seen as more important than common sense. Perfect answer, Dan! |
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James G
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Post by James G on Dec 5, 2018 20:22:32 GMT
(303)
March 1985: Sonora
From the moment that Congress had been re-established, within days of the war starting, there had been open talk of what would happen with Mexico once the war was won. This optimism that victory would come and Mexico would be at the mercy of the United States with that eventuality flummoxed outsiders. In America’s darkest days late last year, when the Soviet-led war overrun significant parts of the nation and the country was still reeling from the nuclear attack, those discussions about how to effectively deal with Mexico post-war continued unabated. It was from Mexican soil where the war had come – the first troops and the first missiles – and it was there where America’s politicians sought revenge. They had the support of the overwhelming majority of the American people in this. Yes, the Soviet Union, Cuba and the others were all in for it too, big time, but Mexico held a ‘special’ place in this planned retribution. December 1984 had seen US Marines land on Mexican soil when they went into Baja California. This accelerated the movement to give Mexico what it was deemed to have deserved. Congress was instrumental in making sure that Herzog Flores and what was left of the pre-war Monterrey Government received nothing from the United States and too had their presence felt in stopping the Tijuana Council (which represented Democratic Mexico and received recognition) becoming only a co-belligerent in this war, not a member of the Allies. They weren’t happy to discover US Marines and Democratic Mexico troops fighting side-by-side and applied pressure on Glenn to see that stop despite the military necessity of that. Secretary of Defence Robb was summoned before the Senate Armed Services Committee and given a roasting by them; the House Committee wasn’t to be outdone on this either when they uncovered the details of much cooperation on the ground going on south of the border in Baja California. Glenn pushed back and Robb explained to Congress – putting it very bluntly – that Mexican soldiers were dying for Mexican soil which therefore didn’t mean that American fighting men had to, but this only eased the issue a little. The Tijuana Government didn’t have much favour in Congress and there was much cutting of specifics of aid to them due to Congress having the budgetary powers there. A weak post-war Mexico was what Congress wanted, a country wholly dependent upon the United States and as broken as could be. This was spoken of openly. Stevenson returned from Europe and the Secretary of State tried to weigh in on this and calm matters when it came to these attacks being made against Tijuana. Congress hauled him too before their committees and put him in his place on this. Some of that reflected the perceived failure of Stevenson in his role by Congress and thus was personal, yet the Mexico issue was something that many senators and representatives were driven by. They foresaw a future for Mexico and would implement that. That future for certain members – who declared this to all who would listen – was for Mexico to be broken apart as a nation, even with parts of it annexed to the United States. Others weren’t ready to see that happen yet the attention was on those who had the most dramatic things to say. Earlier comments from selected members of Congress where there was anger that the United States had its soldiers and marines fighting in Mexico rather than on home soil had become less and less after victories had been won in both countries: something which was quite the about-turn but politicians will always be politicians. American troops on Mexican soil would be there to stay for good, the proclamations from Congress came, and the occupied parts would never be given back whether they were officially part of a united Mexico, a fractured Mexico or former Mexico.
March 1985 saw US forces inside Mexico move into the state of Sonora. Baja California was already in American hands (though Democratic Mexico troops were the overwhelming body of men in-place) and now it was into Sonora they went. This put them south of Arizona and also in a position for further later moves across to the east… where the Rio Grande was and thus behind Soviet forces on the other side of Texas. Going that far was something considered for the future and would take a huge effort to do. Meanwhile, Sonora was being fought over. The western parts were entered in a two-pronged approach where the Sixth US Army moved forward in the early stages of the grand strategic outflanking manoeuvre which had so impressed Glenn, Baker, Robb and the rest of the top of the US Government who all signed off on this.
The US IV Corps moved across the Altar Desert – between Arizona and the Gulf of California – with their first objective being Heroica Caborca. That town was a major centre of communications with roads linking it across north-western Mexico. It had been a base of operations for the war when it was being fought in California last year and recently in Arizona. The Soviets had recently transferred aircraft from there which they had removed from Arizona too. Controlling it would give the Sixth Army the perfect position to go much further. Cuban, Nicaraguan and Revolutionary Mexico troops stood in the way. The fight was tougher than the Americans believed it would be, especially when it came to the level of Soviet air support and how fiercely those Mexicans fought there. Both the 38th & 47th Infantry Division – a lot of national guardsmen – were used in the wider battle that raged close to but also far from the town to win control of it. Victory did come after a time, just behind schedule. The Cubans managed to get away after making a fighting withdrawal whereas other defenders certainly didn’t. Those Cubans didn’t march away clean though. The IV Corps pursued them and chased them down, not letting them get away to establish blocking positions. A week’s worth of small-scale fighting took place before finally the Cubans could be brought to battle once again. This occurred at a crossroads, around a smaller town. The Battle of Santa Ana was one won by the 38th Infantry. The Cubans fought and died here. It was a last stand for men who hadn’t intended to make a last stand yet the Americans trapped them, pounded them with the heaviest of attacks and were done with them when they decided that they were. An earlier attempt to make a surrender didn’t work out when the IV Corps refused – on Sixth Army orders – to accept the terms of that surrender offered. The Cubans wanted free passage away, leaving their weapons behind, and promises of good treatment. Good treatment for POWs (though that would be what the United States decided it to be) would come but for the Cubans to be allowed to escape, even unarmed, was a no-no. They were blasted to bits and then taken apart before a final, unconditional surrender was made by the last of them. Santa Ana gave the Americans control now over where the east-to-west Highway 2 and the north-to-south Highway 15 converged. The fight won in southern Arizona by other Sixth Army elements was over by that point and those Guatemalans from Tucson were marching into Mexico after defecting to cause trouble already. Regardless, holding Santa Ana made sure that what occurred to the north couldn’t be changed by a sudden reversal originating from Mexico. Victory to the north meant that the IV Corps could focus on the south. They started moving forward, heading towards the city of Hermosillo. This was halted due to the events of March 25th in Mexico. When the IV Corps resumed marching forward again at the very end of the month and into April, it wouldn’t be towards where that city had once been.
The 1st Marine Division was also halted late in March when inside Sonora due to events on that day when millions died in Mexico. They too were marching on Hermosillo at the same time, aiming to take on and engage enemy forces around it rather than to occupy such a crowded urban area. Weeks beforehand, these US Marines who’d fought throughout the war seemingly non-stop in California and then in Baja California had arrived at the port town of Guaymas to the south of the city ahead. Guaymas was on the Gulf of California. There had been a focus on that port during last summer before the war when air strikes against ships going towards it, but not Guaymas itself, had been conducted during the on-off pre-war air campaign over Mexico. Guaymas had then been of vital importance for the invasion back in September with ships coming up from Latin America arriving there and unloading much vital war cargo. Air strikes had hit it including a strong B-52 raid before its importance to the war had been lost when war had come to Baja California and the Gulf of California had been closed by the US Navy. It was somewhere the Americans expected a big fight for and they hadn’t planned initially to send men there in a full-on assault. However, intelligence had pointed to a munity of the garrison there where the Revolutionary Mexico regime in the city had been targeted by a variety of counterrevolutionaries. Troops fought each other and the defences were weakened. Guaymas wasn’t that far away and the US Marines were instructed to go. The 1st Marines turned up in force. They made an easy landing yet fast discovered that while the Mexicans they encountered hated each other, they united once again to fight the invading Americans. They had been committed to the fight though and so threw everything at it. Victory came, a bloody one. Afterwards, before they could move on, there were moves made to bring Democratic Mexico troops over from Baja California to garrison their rear base when they moved onwards. That had been done back to the west. This was something that didn’t happen with Guaymas though due to events far away with Congress and its desires for Mexico’s future. Part of the 1st Marines, fighting men, had been left back at the town while they waited on more Americans – not Mexicans – to arrive. As to the rest of the 1st Marines, the division marched on towards Hermosillo after quite the delay inflicted due to politics. If the US Marines had been in or close to Hermosillo, it wouldn’t have been bathed in nuclear fire like it was.
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Post by lukedalton on Dec 5, 2018 22:08:17 GMT
Oh frack...the soviet had used nuclear weapons, probably for stop the american advance, it show how desperate they were and how dangerous is the situation for the world.
Now, till now we have speaked of the ideological blind and illusion that had characterizated the Soviet effort, but here even the americans seem to have taken a fierce ownerships of the idiot ball, the battle at Santa Ana was totally unnecessary and frankly bragging openly about the future destiny of Mexico will not win the locals to you or convince the Mexican to surrender or change side; basically rage and revenge had taken control giving reason a nice vacation
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pjmidd
Seaman
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Post by pjmidd on Dec 5, 2018 23:31:37 GMT
Oh frack...the soviet had used nuclear weapons, probably for stop the american advance, it show how desperate they were and how dangerous is the situation for the world. Now, till now we have speaked of the ideological blind and illusion that had characterizated the Soviet effort, but here even the americans seem to have taken a fierce ownerships of the idiot ball, the battle at Santa Ana was totally unnecessary and frankly bragging openly about the future destiny of Mexico will not win the locals to you or convince the Mexican to surrender or change side; basically rage and revenge had taken control giving reason a nice vacation Actually sounds like both sides have used nukes. Otherwise the presence of US marines would not have been a factor in theoretically stopping a nuke being used. |
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raunchel
Commander
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Post by raunchel on Dec 6, 2018 5:07:46 GMT
Ouch, the Americans are clearly giving in to their worst instincts. If they do what they want to Mexico, it won't just be a massive crime against humanity (something they're already very guilty of at this point), but also a serious long-term issue for them. Keeping Mexico down like that will be very expensive indeed, especially for a USA that's already spent a lot. Added to that, it's something that really doesn't look good and makes a great rallying cry for worldwide opposition.
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Dan
Warrant Officer
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Post by Dan on Dec 6, 2018 14:22:47 GMT
Oh frack...the soviet had used nuclear weapons, probably for stop the american advance, it show how desperate they were and how dangerous is the situation for the world. Now, till now we have speaked of the ideological blind and illusion that had characterizated the Soviet effort, but here even the americans seem to have taken a fierce ownerships of the idiot ball, the battle at Santa Ana was totally unnecessary and frankly bragging openly about the future destiny of Mexico will not win the locals to you or convince the Mexican to surrender or change side; basically rage and revenge had taken control giving reason a nice vacation Actually sounds like both sides have used nukes. Otherwise the presence of US marines would not have been a factor in theoretically stopping a nuke being used. The US used nuclear weapons against Leningrad in the opening stages of the war and against North Korea too. |
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Post by lukedalton on Dec 6, 2018 18:49:27 GMT
Actually sounds like both sides have used nukes. Otherwise the presence of US marines would not have been a factor in theoretically stopping a nuke being used. The US used nuclear weapons against Leningrad in the opening stages of the war and against North Korea too.
yes, but there was a spoken/unspoken agreement to stop using them, at least directely against each other...if they start to use them again there is the great risk of escalation
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James G
Squadron vice admiral
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Post by James G on Dec 6, 2018 19:50:23 GMT
Oh frack...the soviet had used nuclear weapons, probably for stop the american advance, it show how desperate they were and how dangerous is the situation for the world. Now, till now we have speaked of the ideological blind and illusion that had characterizated the Soviet effort, but here even the americans seem to have taken a fierce ownerships of the idiot ball, the battle at Santa Ana was totally unnecessary and frankly bragging openly about the future destiny of Mexico will not win the locals to you or convince the Mexican to surrender or change side; basically rage and revenge had taken control giving reason a nice vacation Nuclear weapons have been used in Mexico but not for that reason. The whys and hows shall be revealed soon enough. Yes, that is going on. To be fair, its been that way since the start. It will only continue too. Revenge will triumph over common sense many times. Actually sounds like both sides have used nukes. Otherwise the presence of US marines would not have been a factor in theoretically stopping a nuke being used. We'll see soon enough. And you're spot on with the fact about Hermosillo and the 1st Marines. Ouch, the Americans are clearly giving in to their worst instincts. If they do what they want to Mexico, it won't just be a massive crime against humanity (something they're already very guilty of at this point), but also a serious long-term issue for them. Keeping Mexico down like that will be very expensive indeed, especially for a USA that's already spent a lot. Added to that, it's something that really doesn't look good and makes a great rallying cry for worldwide opposition. But they'd do it anyway! The country does want revenge and will get it no matter what. The US used nuclear weapons against Leningrad in the opening stages of the war and against North Korea too. Once they've been used once, and the world didn't end, they will be used again. A full-on exchange fills everyone with dread but 'limited' use has been seen to 'work' already.
yes, but there was a spoken/unspoken agreement to stop using them, at least directely against each other...if they start to use them again there is the great risk of escalation
There is that agreement. The US has used then post initial exchange in Korea and the Soviets have blown China to bits. So each sees the value of such weapons. |
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James G
Squadron vice admiral
Posts: 7,608
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Post by James G on Dec 6, 2018 19:53:37 GMT
I have no update tonight. I had one.
MS Word deleted it again, like it did with another one last month. What happened to the automatic saves it is meant to do? Thank you, oh so much Microsoft. I'm too enraged and frustrated to start again tonight. I'll write something tomorrow.
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