Soviet Domination - A Red Dawn story

By canon China had lost hundred of millions of people and the USA and URSS has been involved in a conventional war for years...yeah whatever will be the victor he will resemble at best Great Britain post WWI at the best, but honestly post WWII UK or post WI France are more probable

Well how much the war lasted has never been explicity told, the movie concentrated only on the effort of the Wolverines, that for all their skill lasted more or less an year; the movie close with the girls escaping to Free America and the voiceover about the 'early days rock names' implying that the war was not brief, plus even at the end of the movie, while the US forces have been more active in the zone, it was never more than some raid or recon mission and the Soviet seemed to have a strong control of the zone and the airspace.

Love to see this story rolling in in a new home.

As for the nuking of Mexico City, I think the odds of the war continuing through the invasion of Mexico have increased considerably.

The nuking of Mexico city also has an enormous impact on the propaganda war, and can be used by American allies to stay neutral. After all, it is much more of a civilian target and the Mexicans can easily be portrayed as more innocent. And of course, it's a non-nuclear power.

Would Glen have kept thay up? I mean, the Soviets would have hit back, which could very easily escalate to a full exchange.

(159)

17th September 1984:

The war’s first day was coming to an end. Daylight had faded through the eastern half of the country and darkness was coming to the west too. Through the night, as it had done all afternoon, the fighting continued regardless where the invasion remained underway in its early, opening stages. The Americans had their aircraft in the skies but so too did the Soviets and their Latin American allies. With the latter, they were moving fast to get established on the ground so to have more in the sky over the battlefields which had been created. This was no easy task. Many airbases and airfields had been taken though more remained to be overrun soon enough. Once that was done, combat aircraft could be brought in to operate from them. That all took time. Rough-field capabilities of the aircraft and planning to fly from such places was one thing; doing it was something else. The Americans were rapidly shaking off their shock and hitting back. On the ground they were in a mess and would be for some time, yet air power was something that they were always going to have an advantage in when above their own country. The western half of the United States was home to aircraft based at countless sites from all branches of the armed forces. The lack of urban crowding – as opposed to what there was in the eastern half of the nation – was one factor in that with the good weather another. In addition, when it came to the general military presence west of the Mississippi, history had dictated that the United States maintained military bases aplenty there. There were exercise areas all over the place with pilots and aircrew used to operating in such a region. This was their home-turf.

Combat took place in the dark skies. Some of it was planned with fighter sweeps and counter fight sweeps though the majority of the action in the sky was accidental. Aircraft on opposing sides came into contact with each other and fought when their primary tasks were either reconnaissance and ground attack instead. Plans went awry. Confidence of capability was shattered by reality and also a lot of bad luck. Offensive air missions went both ways, north as well as south, of the Rio Grande and the US-Mexican border. There was a lot going on.


The Cuban-Soviet bridgehead into the south of California and southwestern Arizona, from the Imperial Valley across to Yuma, was somewhere well known to both the US Navy and the US Marines, in particular their aviation assets. There was the Chocolate Mountain bomb range used by both smack bang in between as well as the captured NAS El Centro and MCAS Yuma being previously home to pilots. American aircrews didn’t need much in the way of navigation support to get there. They were sent against those captured sites but the general area too. Enemy troops were on the ground in addition to armoured vehicles and helicopters reported. Shoot ‘em up, such was the general order. Cuban MiGs were due to move up from Mexico to fly from both sites once hasty work had been done at each though before then those MiGs were flying from airstrips on the other side of the border. A whole Cuban field army, four complete divisions (brought forward in stages though), was due to begin arriving in this area at dawn tomorrow and those out ahead already over the border were meant to hold the way open for them. They came under American air attack. It was patchy and not fully coordinated but there was a lot of damage done. Overhead coverage in the form of any sort of concealment for those on the ground was zero. MiG-21 Fishbeds and MiG-23 Floggers were engaged by F-4s and newer FA-18s. The Cubans were providing top coverage but were chased all over the sky by an extraordinary number of American aircraft which also started dropping bombs and firing their cannons against targets on the ground. Far from the battlefield, I Marine Amphibious Force – which included air and ground assets (the 3rd Marine Air Wing and the 1st Marine Division) – had been stood up at Camp Pendleton. These air missions under their command in a tactical role were just the start of what would be a mission to put a stop to the invasion coming north. Each side was able to claim some kills or enemy aircraft, including those on the ground who had air defence weapons, but the Americans certainly had had plenty of early success and managed to shoot up invading forces pretty well.

The Cuban and Nicaraguan paratroopers through southern Colorado, centred on Pueblo, came under attack too. They were scattered and also very close to Fort Carson plus US Air Force bases not that far away either. It was their geographical spread which saved them a lot of casualties though. In places, the Americans used US Army helicopters out of Fort Carson to do a lot of damage and there were also incoming aircraft on strike missions too. They had no air cover of their own apart from man-portable SAMs and heavy machine guns. When found, they were attacked fiercely. The 4th Infantry Division was rapidly getting ready to leave Fort Carson, hopefully by first light tomorrow, and wanted the way ahead clear as best as possible and so there was a rush on to direct air attacks when the paratroopers could be found near to the roads running south. Other invaders didn’t face attack though. They were away from where the Americans concentrated their air attacks because they had yet to be spotted. This meant that they were left to continue to organise better following so many mis-drops over a wide area and also begin the process of ‘security’ through their occupied areas. That was brutal in-places, sloppy in others. Everything was a mess, especially when radio contact was lost with the Cuban 2nd Airborne Brigade field headquarters following a lucky strafing run by an AH-1 near to Pueblo against that. F-16s coming across from their Hill AFB base in Utah, sped through the sky searching for enemy fighters only to find none. Late in the night, they established better contact with the US Army than beforehand when a proper advance team out of Fort Carson with air-liaison capability came southwards. On the edge of Pueblo, near to the university campus and where Interstate-25 linked Fort Carson and Pueblo, the F-16s were brought down low and into an attack against the forward north-facing Cuban outpost. They blasted the Cubans apart with bomb runs and no Cuban SAM fire was returned: they shot through what supplies of missiles they had already. If only there had been more aircraft on-call, more could have been done. For now though, those Cubans underneath that barrage were slaughtered. The Nicaraguans to the east around the captured small airport, got their heads down when one of the F-16 flights (broken off from that bigger attack) came their way… and watched as the American bombs generally missed that airport’s main facilities but levelled neighbouring commercial premises. The Nicaraguans celebrated the Americans bad targeting before then commencing a thorough search for whomever must have been on the ground with a radio calling in that air strike. Anyone who looked like they might be responsible, in the wrong place at the wrong time, would do.

The Soviet paratroopers who had landed Kirtland weren’t intending to stay in-place there and wait for the ground forces to come and relieve them. The commander of the 76th Division had no intention of sitting still doing nothing, he also had little faith in the supposed ability of Nicaraguan tanks to get here as fast as they were meant to: the border was a long way off. He had two regiments of men and they were good soldiers. Some of the transport aircraft bringing in divisional assets as well as more of the armoured vehicles for his division didn’t make it but others did. There was the arrival too of helicopters: Mil-8s and Mil-24s. Only a few arrived by the end of the first day but that all that was needed. The GRU wanted a team of their men escorted by paratroopers up to Los Alamos – where the Americans had their nuclear research facility – and the Hips went that way with a company of paratroopers in the helicopters and another company to join them in trucks & a few BMD-1s in a ground convoy. As to the Hinds, they were used around the edges of Albuquerque in support of further missions for the paratroopers when the gunships blasted opposition which was materialising in the form of national guardsmen joined by armed civilians forming posses & militias. The actual city was quite large and wasn’t yet to be moved against to be wholly occupied but along its western side the Rio Grande ran. There were bridges there and also a newly-built private airport. They were to be taken and controlled, using as much force as possible to do that. What Hind gunships could do to exposed men armed only with rifles had been shown before in Afghanistan, Iran, Honduras and now New Mexico. As to Los Alamos, that was pretty far away and quite the journey for those involved in the heli-lift plus the ground convoy: both took time getting there after navigation problems though once they did, the GRU team set to work. In the sky above, there twice came American aircraft. The first time, a reconnaissance jet overflew the captured Kirtland. The next time, it was bombed. This was a small attack yet holed one of the runways in several places. Kirtland was to become a base for a regiment of Soviet Air Force Sukhoi-24s and those Fencers were due to next day after a long transit flight from Cuba via Mexico. A special team of airfield engineers had already arrived and started work patching up the damage to one of the two runways because before the Fencers, more transport flights were due in overnight. They got to work. Kirtland didn’t attract any more American attention after that; they were busy off to the south.

It had become the Battle of El Paso. It wasn’t meant to be one but that it was. The Soviets had intended to overwhelm El Paso quickly and efficiently. Access routes were meant to be taken ahead of the incoming Nicaraguan First Army – which would go through Albuquerque and up into Colorado – and the US Army presence around Fort Bliss smashed. The first part of that mission was a success; the second was looking like a failure. That regiment of paratroopers detached from their parent formation sent north of them saw its losses mount. The 234th Guards had lost well over half of its strength by the end of the day. The 66th Brigade made moved in to take over and drive back the Americans who defied all expectations and then went on the offensive! The Cav’ lived up to their reputation. Briggs Army Airfield had already been lost and then El Paso International Airport was fought over and left a ruin… both sides eventually pulled away from each other there after clashing to fight elsewhere around El Paso. Nicaraguan aircraft in the form of Sukhoi-22 Fitters showed up and were on the wrong end of US Army air defence assets pulled out of barracks and firing on them. A couple were knocked out of the sky and then the Fitters redirected their efforts elsewhere. The Americans pushed into the eastern side of the city through the darkness and chased back what paratroopers they encountered: their M-60 tanks made short work of BMD-1s, which it was soon discovered would blow up when hit in the rear (behind the troop compartment) where the thinly-armoured fuel tank was. Cav’ units were only stopped by the heavy weapons from the tanks and armoured vehicles which the 66th Brigade had brought with them. This included a battalion of T-64 tanks but also BMP-1s mounting missiles & guns. There were civilian casualties everywhere. Both sides inflicted them, neither on purpose. Civilians were all over the battlefield, a battlefield in the middle of their city. Some tried to join the fight and paid for that mistake all too often. Others fled or just tried to hide. Full-scale war was going on all around them though. To the west, on the other side of the Franklin Mountains, there were few Soviet forces there and they were unmolested by American troops. They had to deal with civilians as well: some who shot at them, others who fled as northwards along the interstate and any other road they could find. There were lines of stalled traffic very quickly, miles upon miles of jams caused by breakdowns or people abandoning cars when they heard shooting. There was a small airport over that way at Santa Teresa which the Soviets wanted: they couldn’t get near it. In addition, those roads which were jammed of civilian vehicles and soon enough crowds of people walking along them as they fled El Paso, were meant to be used by the Nicaraguans when they arrived. More aircraft came back to the El Paso area. The Fitters returned for a second time along with US Air Force jets coming out of New Mexico bases. Canon AFB & Holloman AFB were home to F-111s and F-15s, aircraft which had previously seen action over Mexico. The F-15s provided top cover, getting many of those Nicaraguan aircraft, while the F-111s made attack runs. The fighting inside El Paso was too confusing and there wasn’t yet proper coordination on the ground with the US Army to aid them there in that. Friendly fire was a concern. Everything south of the river was a free-fire zone though, in Ciudad Juárez and nearby. The F-111s came ready to blow up armour, that with armies from Latin America heading north, and couldn’t find much of that yet. What they did locate was a lot of troop concentrations – Mexicans – and lighter vehicles. They did their worst.

The Cubans were all over Del Rio, Eagle Pass and Laredo. They had the bridges, Laughlin AFB and also Laredo Airport in their hands. Where they were down along this stretch of the Rio Grande was far from activity elsewhere to the north of them and out of the way of where the fierce air action elsewhere. Regardless, the US Air Force had a presence in Texas and Laughlin – a training base – had gone silent. Several times that first night, RF-4s flew reconnaissance missions above the Cubans. They fired on those jets and brought down one… while there were claims that all three had been hit by over-eager SAM crews. Those other two got images of the Cuban presence on American soil in this bit of Texas. The intention of why they were there, despite being few in number, was clear: they were holding the way open for heavier forces. The RF-4s had come from Bergstrom AFB where there were Air Reserve F-4 based. Further reservists based at Carswell also flew more F-4s. The unarmed reconnaissance jets were due to be joined in the morning by well-armed strike aircraft who were going to be going after the bridges held over the Rio Grande. The last of those reconnaissance missions took place right before Cuban MiGs arrived at Laughlin. These Floggers started flying their own missions soon enough and didn’t stray far from the Rio Grande on the first night while their numbers were being built up ahead of planned air missions the next day into Texas proper. In the meantime, on the ground across the river, the Cubans weren’t alone for long. Some Mexican troops were brought over and tasked with ‘restoring order’ in the towns of Del Rio and Eagle Pass as well as the city of Laredo. There had been armed civilians taking shots at the limited number of Cubans who had arrived and also a streaming out of these urban areas by civilians. Just as had been the case when Mexicans had followed Cubans over into California earlier in the day, when they were dispatched into Texas, they brought chaos with them. Order wasn’t restored. Murders and rapes occurred. There was looting and arson. Some men mutinied, others deserted. These were men who were ill-treated and subject to harsh discipline. The vast majority had been forcibly conscripted, often among those who had been trying to get to America to avoid the civil war. Once inside Texas, those who didn’t run committed all sorts of outrages. The Cubans didn’t want them to do this and tried to stop them. Cuban and Mexican troops exchanged fire with the Mexicans coming off the worst of that in Del Rio and Eagle Pass. In Laredo, the Cubans got a rude surprise and lost a lot of men. They let the Mexicans run: run away and run riot. The bridges and airport there were open and secured from the rampage. The problem was now in the hands of Texan civilians.

Away from where the Cubans were, South Texas was a hive of Soviet military activity. There was a link-up made between the 7th Brigade coming north from the Lower Valley and the 103rd Division in the general Corpus Christi area. Where a crossroads lay at the town of Alice that occurred, with the tanks and armoured vehicles of the 7th Brigade then pressing onwards. They would go as far as north as George West and Beeville: more crossroads, located past Corpus Christi to establish forward defences. Several times, armoured columns from both formations (the paratroopers had their own vehicles and were moving around too) got lost. Civilians took shots at them in that darkness too. Welcome to Texas. The forward presence was all to protect what was going on behind those outposts up ahead. Into Corpus Christi and the Lower Valley there came the arrival of more and more Soviet transport aircraft making runs from Cuba into the captured airbases & airports, including some just back over the border at Matamoros and Reynosa as well. Combat aircraft also came in after making refuelling stops in the Yucatán Peninsula on the way. Not many on that first day, but some. The captured NAS Kingsville would first be hosting strike aircraft in the form of Fencers while MiG-29 Fulcrum fighters were going to be flying from NAS Corpus Christi and its two satellite airstrips. The Soviets rushed forward their aircraft. They wanted the Fulcrums to be flying as soon as possible. Ships coming from Cuba would need air cover. Some of those heavily-laden would be going to Tampico down in Mexico yet more were already on their way to Brownsville and Corpus Christi. The Soviet Army was yet to arrive in-strength inside the United States, yet when it did, its heavy forces would be coming through South Texas. The need for air cover was evident when another more of those RF-4s made reconnaissance runs over South Texas before the first of the Fulcrums were ready to fly. A few SAM launchers had been brought in with the first wave of the ongoing airlift and took out one of them but several others got through the giant gaps in air defence coverage which weren’t yet covered. The Americans were sure to have other reconnaissance aircraft whose flights were missed, that the Soviets knew. They might not yet have strike aircraft in position (geographically but also with some information on the ground) to start blasting them to bits but that was sure to change. Soviet forces were extending their control to hunt down American military personnel who got away from the initial fighting and more SAM launchers were rolling but the fighters were needed in the sky. What the Soviets didn’t know was that there was a wing of A-10s getting ready to (in stages) redeploy from their Louisiana base into Texas. They would have to have air cover before those A-10s, supported by F-15s from Florida moving west too, could get into action. The Fulcrums started flying just before midnight and would be busy tomorrow.

Up in the Alaskan Panhandle, Soviet paratroopers there found out that they were on their own for the time being. The second wave of transport aircraft didn’t show up. F-15s flying from the Alaskan mainland on NORAD tasks were directed towards a transport stream coming across the North Pacific. Ilyushin-76 Candids were stretched out with big gaps between individual aircraft but four of them were shot out of the sky: a major loss of aircraft and carried men. The others diverted to the captured airport at Kodiak, the Soviet-held Eareckson AFB in the Aleutians or returned back to their base in Kamchatka. For now, those paratroopers were stuck awaiting further orders. On Kodiak Island, Soviet control would be helped by the men and equipment arriving in two of the big transports. The naval infantry there had taken control of a small portion of the island and their commander knew he had a long wait until he was joined by more of his comrades: he brought the Soviet Airborne units under tactical command to help him defend what he had. One more Candid landed on Shemya Island though the naval infantry there didn’t need them. It would have been best if that aircraft had gone to Adak instead. The naval infantry on that little island were fast in trouble. The US Navy only flew P-3 maritime patrol aircraft from here but they had a big manpower presence to support that. One reinforced company of naval infantry – well-trained & well-equipped men – had gone in first from that ship which had brought them with the rest of their parent battalion meant to fly in later. They were defeated by those thousands of Americans based there. Defeated in not gaining control of NAS Adak and then afterwards overcome with the last men who weren’t dead forced to surrender. More men should have been sent in the first wave. A lot of things had gone wrong. The plan had anticipated that surprise would win out over numbers. In addition, what really didn’t help was the increasing presence of American aircraft ranging far out of Alaska which didn’t come near to Adak but which caused the diverting of combat aircraft meant to go via to Shemya to assist in the fight for Adak turning back to Kamchatka. Plenty of future planning depending upon Adak being the in the centre of a string of island airbases held from Shemya (where Eareckson was) to Adak and on to Kodiak. Adak wasn’t in Soviet hands now. More men should have been sent, it was a simple as that.