Soviet Domination - A Red Dawn story

Nice find @theavalonproject

James

Some further good updates. Hopefully those A-10's will get the air cover they need because they can really cause havoc if they can find suitable targets and they were designed to be pretty damned tough so should be fairly secure against non-missile ground fire.

I think the big problem of using those captured air bases for the Soviets and allies will be getting support for the units. You can fly the a/c in fairly quickly and that bring pilots while they can probably use fuel based there. However munitions, spare parts and the vital ground crews will need to be brought and that won't be easy. While both sides will have problems replacing a/c losses I think the attackers will have to depend increasingly on SAMs and AA weapons.

Once the chaos starts to reduce somewhat a key question might be how quickly the US realises that much of the Soviet forces are coming in from Cuba. If they can do that quickly they might be able to shorten the war considerably by causing losses to those heavy units while in transit through the Gulf, or failing that possibly in the Texas ports, although the latter could result in some nasty civilian casualties. Better still, although there might not be the time is some supported heavy F111 and/or B52's over Cuban ports.  In the longer term the Soviets have the problem that their navy is very much a bi-purpose of of sea denial [which is less relevant when their trying to fight their way across the Atlantic] and protection of their SSBNs which is relatively unimportant at the moment.  The USN is very much for sea control and they really only have to do sea denial at the moment.

I can't see anyone but those in Soviet pay in western Europe suggesting interning allied forces there. [Only mentioned British, Americans and Canadians before because, other than Portuguese their the only NATO members who will be at war I think.] Especially since their been the victims of an unprovoked attack, including nuclear strikes on the US there would be much sympathy in Europe apart from the understandable anger of the troops involved if people in Germany or elsewhere tried to prevent them returning home to defend homelands under attack.

Which made me think what happens with Iceland and Greenland? The former especially is important in fighting over the GIUK gap and hence control of the Atlantic, which is still going to be important even if less so as the Soviet main effort is in N America. Both islands are geographically important and have US bases on them. Greenland is still pretty much a Danish colony at this point but Iceland is independent. In many WW III scenarios with conventional fighting there is often a Soviet attempt to seize or at least neutralise bases on Iceland. If they don't do that then the question is are the Americans asked to leave? I can see them quite possibly refusing given the situation - their homeland is under heavy attack, the bases are important and they will be pissed off at the continental Europeans anyway. This could alienate some people in Europe however. Greenland is less important because the base is less important but they might arrange unofficially to keep listening bases there.  On the other hand I think you said Norway comes under attack.  There is the option of counter-pressure here as the US and UK could find themselves 'unable to support Norway without the Iceland bases' say?

In central America I presume Guantanamo will fall to the Cubans and probably the Canal Zone will be 'liberated' and I fear for Belize as I can't see that holding out?  Could be some tension between Guatemala and its 'allies' here as I can see conquering it being a much higher priority for Guatemala than them.  Other British possessions and Commonwealth states in the region and possibly Puerto Rico could come under threat or at least be pressurised into 'friendly' neutrality by the communists.  Although you could see some useful intel gathering.

  Actually thinking about this does the US still have the bases in the Caribbean established in 1940 in which case not only have they forces in place but also a legal entitlement to use them.  Not to mention what they might have in Haiti and the Dominican Republic and the like as I think other than Cuba and Grenada the communists are limited to the isthmus.

  Anyway a few ideals that come to mind and that's just considering the main front in the Americas and important areas in Europe and N Atlantic, let alone the rest of the world.  By the time you finally get this finished its going to be huge!

Well, I have gone down a different route with the cause of West German neutrality as you will see below.




You really want to be a wolverine, don't you!?



Those divisions, plus every attachment you would need, would - educated guess - 1million, 1.25million. All into Alaska from Soviet cross-Pacific ports. Advancing down just the one road over horrible terrain using only small ports. Not happening. Impossible. The Soviets had the men but that means none in the Far East facing China or Japan.

Those lined up for my assault, going in in stages too from the south, total a quarter of that: the Soviet number of combat troops, plus support troops, would be 250-300k. A massive undertaking. Though that is thorough a well-developed area of many airports, big ports and an excellent road network plus far better terrain and weather.
Less then 60k will be involved in total in the Alaska operation and they are not going very far south.

(160)

17th September 1984:

John Glenn gave his first televised address to the American people as president from Wright-Patterson AFB. What was later called the ‘Dayton Address’ (that small city in Glenn’s native Ohio lay next to the airbase) was made from what at the time was an undisclosed location. It was pre-recorded and broadcast soon enough though certainly wasn’t carried live over the networks. To some watching, Glenn looked frightened and shaken up and that would later tie in with the knowledge revealed some months later of how close he had come to nuclear assassination. That was a minority view though. He gave the impression to most who watched of a man gripped by determination and anger instead. Where his hands held the podium, that was said to be resolve. Where his voice was hoarse, that was said to be Glenn expressing the rage which he shared with the American people. There were only a few who had that view that this was a man pushed almost to the edge on a day like September 17th 1984 had become for him and the country which he found himself leading.

The Dayton Address informed the watching and listening public that the country had been the victim of a sudden, vicious and unprovoked attack. Nuclear weapons had been used against the country. There were invading troops who had breached the nation’s borders. President Kennedy had been slain when he was attempting to engage with the Soviet leadership at the moment of his demise. Before their attack, the Soviet Union had played the trick of opening the way for talks between the two nations to start a new, friendly chapter in relations. That new start had come with nuclear weapons. Civilians had been targeted with them. Men, women and children slaughtered without mercy in their homes, their places of work and also in schools & hospitals too. Washington had been struck with nuclear weapons, so too Kansas City. No preceding declaration of war had been made, only deception used to lull America into the supposed peaceful intent of the Soviet Union. Glenn spoke of how he had retaliated and in doing so made use of America’s own nuclear weapons: a moral blow had been struck but where and how he didn’t go into. The country was at war. This would be total war. He called upon the people to do everything to support their nation, their fellow countrymen and the armed forces at this time. Foreign forces would be driven from American soil. A war against the Soviet Union and those nations which stood with that country which had committed such a terrible act would be prosecuted to the full. Any further nations which wished to join with such a partner as the Soviet Union at a time like this, and also act against the United States, would meet the full weight of the United States vengeance as the Soviet Union had. Elsewhere around the world, other countries were joining with the United States in combatting the war of aggression launched by the Soviets: America had friend and allies and would fight with them. Finally, Glenn asked the American people to join with him in saying a prayer for the dead across their country and also those suffering at this time. He asked for their prayers for the nation at this time as well. He ended his speech by declaring that this war underway, one which America hadn’t wanted nor had started either, wouldn’t be one where anything less than total victory was one.

Glenn had come to Wright-Patterson initially to change aircraft from the particular VC-137 aircraft he was in to another: from a A model to a C model. The latter was what was usually Air Force One as opposed to his first aircraft which had started the day as Air Force Two. The VC-137C had been in Ohio for a maintenance inspection. It was available (the other one had been incinerated when on the ground at Andrews AFB) and so too were its excellent communications facilities. It was using them when Glenn’s day ended with a series of unpleasant surprises when it came to those allies around the world which he had spoken of when on the ground. Not all of them wanted to be allies – no, they just couldn’t be allies; apologies were given – at a time like this.

*

Kennedy at the White House nor Mondale at the State Department had been picking up the ‘phone. Both men were dead and both buildings were nothing but ashes. The remaining part of the US Government – and there wasn’t much left of that – knew that and so did the Soviets. Other countries and their national leaders didn’t know that nor exactly what had happened. Some had a general idea but others were clueless. The Soviet Union had started sending out urgent official diplomatic communiques to national capitals within minutes of the war starting. They had been attacked by the United States and had been given no choice but to strike back. If not support, then neutrality was asked for from many nations around the world. There were no open threats though plenty of veiled ones. Country-specific messages were sent to heads of government around the world saying that the Americans had struck first and been hit with a devastating counterblow against them. Just as Glenn said far later in the day, the messages which went out with Ustinov’s name on them spoke of how anyone who stood with the United States at a time like this when it had done what it had to the Soviet Union – these were sent before Leningrad was destroyed so gave no specifics –, would suffer the consequences of doing so. Stand with us, stand aside if you have to. Just don’t stand against us.

The Big Lie had been told. Ted Kennedy had apparently launched a first strike against the Soviet Union and it was one rapidly responded to with overwhelming force too… almost as if it had been expected. Ted Kennedy? C’mon! Who would truly think that that had really occurred?

The Soviet declaration of being the wronged party wasn’t something widely believed. Few national leaders, so very few, took the Soviets at their word on this. However, it made things easier for some to pretend to believe it though or even say that they were confused by what had gone on: the latter soon became an option for many when they thought of such an idea. There was a get-out clause issued to governments who didn’t want their nation to go to war, to join a global fight where it fast became clear that nuclear weapons had been used. Nations which took a neutralist stance in world affairs but also some which might have been expected to side with the United States, had been given an excuse not to. Initial reports, in reality a lack of any positive news, made it look like America was on its knees. Fear drove the decisions from country to country to step away from any fight, one which wasn’t theirs to start with. When it started to become clear that maybe the United States wasn’t finished, that still didn’t bring a reversal of early decisions from around the world. The die had already been cast on that matter. This fight wasn’t theirs. They wanted no part of it. The Soviets were highly suspected to be lying but who would seriously want to see them turn their attention next to their own country, especially if they were being left alone? Other countries bucked that trend. They were offered a way out and didn’t take it. There were those which knew that very soon they could be dragged in and attacked by the Soviets so now was the time to enter the conflict ahead of that first strike, to mitigate it and maybe even deter it. Others were outraged at what the Soviets had done where the Big Lie was seen though and a determination came to not let this go unheeded because they couldn’t allow the Soviet Union to follow this opening strike up with whatever came next. Then there were those countries which had leaders who were opportunistic and held long-standing grievances with the Soviet Union and some of its closest allies who decided that this was it, this was the time where so much was to be decided in their favour by fighting alongside the Americans whether they were wounded or not. What was missing among those who decided neutrality was best for them or that they would fight with the United States, was a rush of other nations to join with the Soviets beyond what could be regarded as the ‘usual suspects’. A few, a pitiful few did so, but the numbers stood in stark contrast to those who took other routes.


When no one had been picking up the ‘phone in Washington, decisions were being made. Glenn and Bentsen were caught up in first striking back against the Soviets before then moving to trying to find out what was going on with the ‘security zone’ being established, that beginning of an invasion. There was also the concern for the safety of what was left of the US Government too. Glenn’s first statement (not one which gave anyone who heard it any confidence) over the radio was put out and then later there came that second public address from Ohio. Communications for Bentsen from the Pentagon had been badly affected and he was then on the move to Raven Rock. From all around the globe, there came incoming reports of instances of combat taking place where United States forces, plus those of certain allies too, had taken place. US Pacific Command had urgent news from the Korean Peninsula and also from around Japan too. US Southern Command had their own terrible news from Guantanamo Bay, the Canal Zone and a whole load of other places in the Caribbean. US Atlantic Command was reporting on submarine attacks and naval air/missile strikes all over the place.

Then there had been US European Command, which was co-located as SHAPE in Mons. From that Belgium-based headquarters, there had come no reports of air attacks across from behind the Iron Curtain into West Germany nor an invasion underway. It was the early evening in Central Europe when the war began. The first thinking was that aircraft could start coming west along with missiles any minute with paratroopers to follow; a ground invasion would probably begin the next morning. US and NATO forces were ordered to assume combat positions to defend Western Europe, those being issued by the American general who held the role of SACEUR at his SHAPE headquarters. Standard operational procedure was for those alert orders to be followed by NATO allies. This was done, with only a few delays where ‘political guidance’ was sought. America’s NATO allies were prepared to defend their territory and that of their closest allies. No Soviet attack came west though. The hours ticked by and better preparations were made to repel that when it was sure to come. US forces based in Western Europe were given general defensive orders though there were also alert warnings sent to selective air units ready to make strikes going eastwards ahead of the Soviet attack. Those were getting ready. Then there came further ‘political guidance’ from several countries to their own armed forces, those within the NATO chain-of-command and not. SACEUR was informed that many countries – not all – were all saying that they were willing and prepared to act in only collective defence across Western Europe. No attack had come though. It became clear to SACEUR that something was afoot, something political had happened. The same things were being said, almost word for word, by political representatives from multiple governments. It wasn’t uniform, not everything was in on what had to be a joint decision taken at heads of government level, but it was widespread and mattered where it counted too. Both SACEUR and his British deputy – there was a West German deputy also, a man who was rather apologetic though not exactly forthcoming on what he was apologising for – were both fast in contact with their respective governments on this. Much of Western Europe was looking ready to sit this war out! The NATO treaty covered North America too but that seemed to have been forgotten. SACEUR raged but this was only something that could be solved by his president.

Britain, Canada, South Korea (which was being invaded from the very moment the war started in North America) and Japan were foremost in initially siding with the United States. Each of them had been attacked by Soviet forces and those of their allies. Within hours, Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines sides with their American ally while Malaysia and Singapore respected their Five Power Defence Agreement treaty commitments in the Pacific (Brunei would quickly join them) due to North Korean actions far from the Korean Peninsula in South East Asia. Chile and Paraguay were both led by those strongmen who had fought against Cuba with a series of brutal proxy conflicts in Latin America through the past several years and they too declared that they were in a state of war with the Soviet Union. Israel had just lost Kennedy: that was how the death of the thirty-ninth American President as seen in Tel Aviv, as a mortal blow for Israel. Without Kennedy’s backing, Israel wouldn’t have been able to do what it had in Lebanon, to Saddam’s Iraq and to Gadhafi in Libya as well. Glenn wasn’t happy – he was pretty mad in fact – when Israel’s prime minister said that the country couldn’t fight alongside the United States. There was a heartfelt apology given on this matter, but ‘the third temple’ was at risk of obliteration should Israel go to war. This was a coded comment made before by Israel, back in 1973 during a different war. Shamir feared nuclear annihilation of his people. He was sorry. Israel would do more than any other neutral would but Israel couldn’t fight in this war. Turkey’s military government, one which had argued with Kennedy recently over so many different points of contention, was another which made a sincere apology for not standing with the United States at this time. Like Israel, Turkey wasn’t going to war. A lot of what Glenn should have said to Israel was said to Turkey instead. You’re on your own, Turkey was told, followed by some other choice remarks. Egypt, Thailand and countries in South America went down the same route. There was regret expressed, much sorrow for the situation which the United States was in, but this wasn’t their war to fight… not one where nuclear weapons were being used.


Then there was Western Europe. What happened wasn’t down to The Greens in West Germany. Bastian could shout all he wanted while in West Berlin and Fischer ran about trying to be important (he wasn’t allowed to play with the big boys) but what happened in West Germany, where the crescendo of neutrality and abandonment of the United States plus other NATO allies all began, was instead the work of the foreign minister: that man under the influence of the Stasi and thus the KGB at the end of it all. Fingers were pointed at The Greens at first; later it would become apparent that the Stasi had their man in Bonn do the real damage.

When the war started and no one would answer his calls going to Washington, Chancellor Vogel spoke instead to President Mitterrand. Mitterrand had left Paris but was set up with his government elsewhere, somewhere safe. He urged Vogel to do the same. France was at that point certain that Soviet messages asking for neutrality were a cover before an attack would come into West Germany, probably preceded by nuclear strikes: France was prepared to hit back. Vogel did that, taking the top tier of his government with him including his foreign minister to the federal bunker in the Rhineland. The Soviet attack didn’t come. Instead, there were messages direct to Vogel coming from Honecker. Germany, East and West, should stay out of this war between the Americans and the Soviets. East Germany was declaring its neutrality and no war against West Germany would be launched from East German territory. The foreign minister urged Vogel to do the same: declare West German neutrality and save Germany from nuclear war. Others in the bunker refused to go along with this. Vogel did so too… at first. It became clear that while they were moving to safety and then discussing what had come from East Berlin, there had been talks elsewhere in Western Europe. The French had been unable to talk to the Americans and neither had anyone else – the Belgians, the Danes, the Dutch and the Italians – apart from the British. British forces were soon to start joining the fight against the Soviets with plans being made for RAF aircraft in West Germany to strike at East Germany alongside more from the UK mainland plus what US Air Force aircraft were in Britain as well. No Soviet attack had come in Western Europe but going the other way would be an attack made by Britain and the United States. This was to be done under NATO command. No consultation had occurred though. They were doing it regardless. Western Europe would be at war within hours.

The West German foreign minister was listened to a second time around. West Germany was being offered a way to not be invaded and/or attacked with nuclear weapons. There would be recriminations from taking that offer. It came from Honecker too and it wasn’t as if East Germany would be doing this without Soviet permission. That was understood. Still… anything else rather than another war on German soil, this time with the ultimate weapons, was preferred. Vogel contacted Mitterrand first. He told him of the East German offer and that his government was going to accept it: he didn’t mention that half of his ministers in the bunker had resigned in protest. Mitterrand was asked what was the feeling of other nations across Western Europe. He said that he couldn’t speak for them, he could only speak for France. France didn’t want a part in this war. It would follow West Germany’s lead in staying out. France was the first but not the last to go down this route. If West Germany and then France were having to take the unfortunate but necessary decision to declare their neutrality due to the fear of what war would bring, one out of their control, then Belgium was going to have to as well. Luxembourg and the Netherlands did the same. Denmark and Italy did so as well. No one wanted to but they had the excuse of someone else doing it first. Portugal and Norway wavered on this. Their leaders saw the reasoning of neutrality. They also didn’t want to abandon their allies. They were going to have their minds made up for them by someone else though, whether to stay out or join in, soon enough.


Not having a secretary of state nor a State Department functioning, plus so much else going on, only compounded what happened next when those decision made in Western Europe, ones of fear, were finally revealed to Glenn and Bentsen. The British alerted them first to what the West Germans were doing though were slowed first by conversations with France. Thatcher and Mitterrand had a difficult conversation on this matter where each agreed that they had to do the best for their own people yet the British Government believed that France had made the wrong choice. Mitterrand said that France had to think of France before anyone else. There would be NO hostility from France towards Britain, nor America either. In fact, Mitterrand made assurances that it would make sure that West Germany ‘behaved’. Thatcher passed that on to Glenn when she spoke to him. She had words of sympathy for America losses – including the death of Glenn’s predecessor – and there was already a good relationship in-place between the two of them. Glenn listened to Thatcher. He assured her that the United States and Britain were firmly united and were in this together as he passed on sympathies too when he heard what had happened in Britain when the UK had been hit like it had as well. Then he spoke with Vogel. That conversation was one with raised voices and threats made. In a similar vein, there was a heated conversation with Italy’s Craxi. How could both countries abandon the United States? They were next on the Soviet’s list of countries to attack! When it came to Mitterrand, Glenn had been in Paris only last month and had had a long meeting with him. He thought he could talk him round. Mitterrand had made his choice, France’s choice on this. No Soviet attack had come into mainland Western Europe. If it did, then things would change but for now France couldn’t join this fight. You’re next, Glenn told Mitterrand. Mitterrand informed Glenn that France wasn’t turning against the United States. He would personally assure the United States that should the West Germans (or other European nations) come under pressure to try to intern any American forces in their country as per what might be expected of a neutral, he would stop that. There was neutrality and there was neutrality. France could offer help should America want to withdraw their forces from West Germany and elsewhere in mainland Western Europe.

Listening in, Bentsen didn’t like the way that conversation went. Glenn was bribed by Mitterrand. However, French neutrality was happening. If American forces in West Germany – plus those spread elsewhere in far smaller numbers though the Low Countries and Italy – weren’t going to fight there, they would be fighting at home. American forces would return, as soon as possible, with French help in that. After Glenn had finished his round of calls to Western Europe, more news come in. Norway and Portugal had come under direct Soviet attack: Norway in the very north of their country and the Portuguese with their Azores Islands. Bentsen wanted to go back to the French and talk to Mitterrand again. Glenn said that from what he knew of the French president, plus what he had just said, he wasn’t going to budge. If that news of those attacks had come earlier, maybe things might have been different. Not now. Bentsen would long believe that a mistake was made there. Glenn made that decision though. Furthermore, in the following hours, Spain, not a member of NATO – which now didn’t exist in any real form – joined the war too. There had been an attack on the US Navy base at Rota and Spanish civilians had been killed. Spain’s neighbour Portugal had been attacked and so had Spain’s ally the United States. Spain couldn’t sit by and let this happen. Spain would fight when others wouldn’t.

Well, i'm writing a RPG about a bunch of rebels fighting against impossible odds, so it's kinda a part of who I am.

No it won't no matter what they say. Betrayal will be one of the nicer words used. Justified or not this will cause rage.




That is didn't know. I hope it works out!


Thank you. Yes but they don't see they have a choice after West Germany did what it did.