Soviet Domination - A Red Dawn story

That it really is. Taking on the world's other superpower on the far side of the world using supply lanes running across oceans where they are trained to fight and you aren't? Plus allies like what they have?
Madness, insanity, craziness.

More in a couple of hours.



That or tens of thousands of nuclear detonations!

So the 2nd Korean War has began.

A second Korean War will certainly be a big distraction, drawing lots of attention and forces. A few more such disteactions (perhaps in the Middle East, involving Saddar or Ghadaffi (may his spellings be many) is something I could easily see happening.

(123)

Early July 1984:

American air strikes recommenced over Mexico. Operation Avid Castle was the codename and this was far bigger in-scale than what was done before with the Blue Spike & Blue Shard limited attacks. The military objectives, plus the political reasoning, was very different from beforehand though and far more controversial too. There had been many loud demands for military action to take place in Mexico; there were many loud demands once it began that it should cease. Kennedy’s speech to the nation on Independence Day – two years since the failed assassination attempt on him in Philadelphia – told the country that they were necessary but there had been a lot of mess in explaining them from the Kennedy Administration with officials and spokesmen fumbling when confronted by questions over what was the ultimate political objective. Warnings were given that this wasn’t going to be universally popular and would certainly be messy.

The first air attacks took place across Sonora. Communist forces freed up from fighting in Sinaloa and using the city of Hermosillo as a springboard, attacked weakly-held Northern Alliance territory between there and the US-Mexican border. They were closing-in on controlling areas a-joining Arizona. Refugees fled ahead of them, among them too forward attacking units using them for cover where possible. US Air Force reconnaissance efforts in such a scenario were difficult but not impossible when it came to discerning where the main body of the attacking army was located away from the refugee columns being used by scouting units getting forward. Outside the town of Santa Ana – a crossroads two thirds of the way between Hermosillo and the Arizonan border town of Nogales – the opening Avid Castle attack took place. F-16s conducted bomb runs against armoured vehicles supporting communist forces moving to take the town late on July 4th. Good hits were achieved and armour knocked out with the attack on the town delayed. Opposition in the air was non-existent and from the ground there came ineffective fire from anti-aircraft guns. It all looked good from the perspective of the Americans although there were some unidentified glimmers of electronic signals coming from the ground in the form of what might or might not have been an air defence acquisition radar. The Mexicans – neither the communists nor the Northern Alliance – had nothing like what might have been detected. Night-time reconnaissance spotted nothing and neither did an F-4G sent into the area on a Wild Weasel mission to try and bluff out any sign of a mobile air defence radar. Proper warning was given to the F-16s when they returned the next day and there were a pair of F-4Gs present just in case. Everything was done as it was meant to be. During the egress of a flight of F-16s which had just completed a strike mission, the urgent warning call of ‘Gecko’ came. A pair of Romb missiles – codenamed SA-8 Gecko in NATO military parlance – were in the air. One blew the starboard wing off a F-16 and sent it spinning towards the ground. The pilot ejected successfully into contested territory with the wreckage of his jet landing nearby.

The American reaction was fast. The Wild Weasels returned, ready to use missiles and bombs to blast apart the offending missile-launcher if it could be found. They were looking for a six-wheeled vehicle which wasn’t that easy to disguise and would hunt visually and using electronic signals. A distant RC-135, far back inside US air space, was doing the same as it scanned for radar and radio contacts. The Gecko wouldn’t be found no matter how hard the looking was done: it was hidden too good. As to the pilot and his plane, a CSAR mission with helicopters lifted him out of danger while another F-16 came in and bombed the smashed-up downed US Air Force strike-fighter to deny any usefulness to anyone else in what could be discovered from it. The hunt continued throughout the day for that missile-launcher with caution taken elsewhere in a second strike against Mexican communist ground forces, this one against their artillery. The Americans were fighting here the sort of war which they were trained for against a near-equal foe on the modern battlefield with air strikes hitting armour and artillery while searching for air defence assets. This was what they were good at, damn good at in fact. However, the Mexican communists were good at infantry fighting and that was what they did when they stormed Santa Ana and took it in a fierce battle from its trapped defenders who stood and fought to the end. Avid Castle had restrictions imposed from the very top, that being the White House. There was to be no bombing of targets such as the infantry battle in a populated area where there were civilians – many were caught in that town with most from far away and too late to reach the border – present. It had been argued against, passionately, but stood. That bombing restriction helped see Santa Ana fall. What Northern Alliance fighters got away repositioned themselves covering the road going northwest, that one heading towards distant Baja California. The road going north, towards Nogales, was open and to be followed. Mexican communist infantry were soon enough out in the open and subject to air attacks.


As to that missile-launcher, it was spotted and struck with a Standard-ARM missile on July 8th. Its operators were spoofed during a mock attack against communist troops moving north from Santa Anna and the disguised vehicle identified for what it was. For good measure, to complement the damage done by that anti-radar missile, the F-4s then dropped a good few bombs as a Wild Weasel mission became a Iron Hand one. The Gecko wasn’t part of the Mexican communist army’s arsenal. It was a Nicaraguan-operated vehicle with the crews of that plus support vehicles (some trucks) being so-called volunteers who came to Mexico with their air defence weapons. They had been in Mexico before the decision was made that there would be war to come in September with this detachment and others spread across Mexico and very far away from the fighting in rear areas on defensive missions. Then there had come the order to go north and operate to give air defence for the Mexicans. That had been a suicide missions as far as the crew had been concerned but they had no choice. They went to Santa Anna to their doom. Others would follow them and not meet such a quick fatal fate.

This Nicaraguan military presence – volunteers, really? – so near to United States was confirmed through eventual radio signals after the launch vehicle’s destruction during unguarded comments made over the airwaves by the support crew. Radio discipline wasn’t followed when it should have been. What had been foreseen, active foreign interference on the ground now in Mexico from the Latin American nations, had been proved correct. Blowing up that offending missile-launcher wasn’t enough. There was a Nicaraguan ship approaching the port of Guaymas, Hermosillo’s access to the Gulf of California. It was (rightly) suspected to be carrying more Nicaraguan weapons either for the use of the Mexicans or other Nicaraguan volunteers. Kennedy ordered it attacked from the air – Avid Castle remained a US Air Force only affair for now: simplification rather than multi-service issues – and it duly was when F-111s set it alight from stern-to-bow with bomb runs made. As to bombing Guaymas, as urged by Bentsen and the Joint Chiefs, that was refused though. There were other ships there with flags and ports of registration from unthreatening but dubious areas of the world which attention was on yet were left unmolested. Down in Managua, the ambassador was ordered to personally convey a stern warning in person to the Nicaraguan government that the United States would respond to Nicaraguan attacks against American forces operating inside Mexico with ‘overwhelming force’. He met with a lower-ranking official rather than anyone senior due to refusals to see him by anyone else. The warning was brushed aside with promises of self-defence. Nicaragua would defend the Mexican Revolution whatever the cost! On the return to the embassy, his official vehicle was rerouted at the last minute by Nicaraguan police at gunpoint – a gross violation of diplomatic protocol – and forced to take a hazardous detour around the edge of a state-organised anti-American protest. The atmosphere in Managua for the United States’ official representative, plus his staff too, was growing very unfriendly.

They might get clues, but if they already know that the Nicaraguans are there (the lax radio discipline might even serve that end), they are very likely to interpret other clues as also being them, in fact, making it harder to realise the truth.

Wonder if thus Cuban is also in Mexico.