Soviet Domination - A Red Dawn story

Well for now Ireland seem not touched, the 4 nation attacked if i read correctly are Portugal, Spain, UK and Norway and Dublin will try to attach themself to the european group the quickest possible and it's probable that the EEC will make clear that they take neutrality seriously and further attack to neutral nations will not be an incentive to keep their stance (and that's a realistic option, why remain neutral if the Soviet attack them neverthelss). Regarding the sea line, well everyside will desire keep things going to an extent, as both the Soviet and the USA and co. need to commerce and it's probable that one of the first thing any Eurogroups will do will be declare some DMZ naval zone like the Channel zone, for the moment keep the neutral europeans it's one of the principal priority of Moscow.

Regarding postwar feeling, well much depend on what state the Anglo bloc and the EEC will be, frankly i doubt that anyone will be in such a good position to be very choosy and it's probable that the EEC will bring with them the rest of Europe if the URSS collapse plus nation like Morocco and the rest of the neutral; plus only because they are neutral it's not a given that they must refuse to sell things and economic collaborate with other nation like Israel and Turkey or Spain and Portugal (really the bulk of the military hardware of this two nation it's european and so is very probable that surplus will go to them...as it's more easy)

There will be all sorts of different neutrality as we go on with different countries. Some will push neutrality to the limit doing things like weapons transfers, secret and not. Others will break neutrality openly but declare that they are.

Chapter Ten – Krasny Zvezda (Red Star)

(161)

18th–20th September 1984:

Operation Krasny Zvezda got fully underway on the war’s second day. Light forces assigned to the Red Star mission had crossed into America, now came the heaviness. In Texas, the Cuban Second Army went over the Rio Grande through the bridgeheads held open for them. This field army was based upon what was the peacetime Cuban V Corps and when first detected inside northern Mexico, it was declared by intelligence analysts in Washington – most of whom were now dead – to consist of two divisions in a defensive role. There were four divisions. They were now on the offensive. One armoured division, two mechanised divisions and one infantry division had closed up to the Rio Grande late yesterday and went across via the civilian bridges plus also the pontoon bridges also thrown over the river. They started moving before dawn and continued through the following days. Army-level assets came with them. There were all sorts of problems. Wielding a force this, concentrated like it was in a small area and in unfamiliar territory, was something that the Cubans had never done before. It was no easy task for them nor would it have been for any other army to be fair. There were navigation problems, communications issues and then enemy air interference. Cuban fighters were flying from the captured Laughlin AFB but there weren’t many of them. They were unable to effectively counter multiple flights of incoming F-4s which flew counter-air missions to engage them while also targeting the columns of vehicles – armoured and not – lining up to go over the bridges. Both sides lost aircraft: the Cubans had several MiG-23s shot down by the F-4s though those American fighters, flown by USAF Reserve aircrews, were engaged by missiles coming up from the ground. Around Laredo, the F-4s did the most damage on the first day and into the second too. After that, the Cuban air defence network was better established with more MiGs at Laughlin plus further ground defences too. However, major delays were caused to the crossing operation in Laredo. There was also the bombing of the captured civilian airport, which was full of Cuban non-combat aircraft. Still, the Cubans kept crossing. They pushed onwards. Civilian issues, people with guns who wanted to shoot at them direct or from hidden points, were another issue that was had to be overcome: with brute force and abundant firepower that was. As to their advance, they had many bridges operational at Laredo plus up at Del Rio and Eagle Pass. The Cuban Second Army, delayed and suffering from loses incurred from the air, got over into Texas proper as per ordered, just behind schedule. San Antonio was off in the distance, to the east. That was where the roads which ran from the bridges converged upon. It was there that they expected to fight with the Americans on the ground.

Coming over at Eagle Pass late on the first day – several hours behind schedule – was a column of vehicles crewed by Cuban artillery personnel. They manned a battery of R-17 missiles, better known by its NATO codename of SS-1B Scud. The battery was officially attached to the Cuban Second Army though was under the operational control of the Northern Front: an effective Army Group command with a Soviet general in-charge. The Northern Front ordered where the first Scuds were fired against that night. Six missiles were meant to be launched against military targets in and around San Antonio. One didn’t get off the ground and another went south to crash into the wilderness. The four others had reasonable accuracy. They were aimed at big targets where pin-point accuracy wasn’t necessary for the mission. Still, only two landed where they were meant to. Fort Sam Houston – a US Army command & administrative post – was hit by one while Kelly AFB was struck by another. The other pair of Scuds crashed into urban areas of San Antonio, which was already a city in chaos. Civilian casualties came from the Scud impacts. San Antonio had other military bases such as Lackland AFB which a-joined Kelly, Randolph AFB as well plus Camp Bulis which was a national guard post. The city was also a major transportation centre with roads and railways in addition to its civilian airport. Since the war’s first day, before the Cubans moved across into Texas, it had seen the war come to it when there had been a commando attack at Fort San Houston to try to eliminate the headquarters post of Fifth US Army first. Next, gunmen had shot up the airport in a terror attack designed to cause the panic, which it did, while there were explosions from planted bombs at Camp Stanley which was a big ammunition depot. Civilians had fled from San Antonio right away and they continued to. The Scuds only encouraged that. War was coming to the city and it was best to leave. There was a pull-out of certain military assets as well from San Antonio with the US Army moving out their headquarters personnel plus Kelly & Lackland – not in any way combat bases – seeing withdrawals made of key personnel who were not needed near to the frontlines which were expected to be soon outside the city. At Randolph, the F-4s flying from Bergstrom AFB up near Austin were making use of that airbase as a forward site but there was too a pull-out from there of the extensive USAF training establishment too: no-combat aircraft left to free-up space.

Those withdrawals came at the same time as the general San Antonio area, rather than the city itself, was being seen by American forces as where they would fight against the Cubans. The crossings over the Rio Grande continued and the Cuban strength was better identified with their three heavy divisions spotted coming towards San Antonio while their lighter fourth division stayed on the northern flank and also guarding the bridges too. The Cubans were to be engaged. Air attacks moved from the bridges to the open ground between the Rio Grande and the city. The F-4s were joined by a squadron of A-10s which were setting themselves up at Bergstrom though making use of Randolph as a forward site. The Twelfth Air Force was the higher headquarters for all US Air Force assets (plus aircraft of other services) deploying for South Texas combat and that command staff was at Bergstrom initially before moving northwards eventually to Carswell. Other aircraft were being attached with arrivals starting. There was a lot of chaos in organisation yet order was returning overall. The Cubans were to be engaged from the air by all sorts of American aircraft operating under a central banner so air activity could be effective rather than random. They themselves were spotted building up their own strength but were fast outnumbered in the sky. Within days, the number of available American combat aircraft for South Texas operations was four times that that the Cubans could field. In addition, many Cuban aircraft were still flying from locations in Mexico as they took time to get established at Laughlin and other very small captured sites which they were using. The Americans were on home ground and using that to their advantage. They increased their air operations. In the skies and on the ground, they attacked the Cubans where they found them. It was from the ground where the Cubans did best in defence rather than in the air as mobile air defences with their advancing army – sometimes moving at a snail’s pace – covered them better than any of their own MiGs really could when those aircraft were so outnumbered. They also hit back against the sites from where those American jets were coming from. Soviet air liaison officers with the Cubans, plus the Northern Front’s commanding general, told the Cubans that they would be stopped from getting to San Antonio if they carried on with their defensive only approach. Attack instead. Several attempts at air raids were launched on the second and third day of Krasny Zvezda to put bombs into Bergstrom and Randolph. The Cubans couldn’t get anywhere near the former but the latter was closer and they had help from the Soviets still setting up to the south of them in when it came to drawing off American fighters with Soviet fighters used. Randolph was bombed by half a dozen Sukhoi-22s making a low-level strike against it. They couldn’t miss it: the airbase was huge. That size limited the value of the bombs which fell from the Cuban attack-fighters though as the Americans there were spread out. Still, they did enough damage to put a dent in American air operations, even if it was a small one and for a limited time. A Scud attack came afterwards… where only one of the three missiles actually hit Randolph. That one missile air-burst with a big fragmentation warhead and killed & injured many of those who hadn’t got to cover in time when assisting with damage repair from the bomb attack. Randolph was a frontline wartime base subject to enemy attack, these things now had to be accepted as reality at military facilities inside the United States.

The Northern Front’s commander was following a set script when it came to the deployment of the Cubans out ahead into Texas. To the south of them, Soviet light forces were being followed by heavier forces arriving though it would be a week before major combat operations could be undertaken by them. The Cubans were to do the bulk of the fighting first. They were moved slowly towards San Antonio due to the size of the Cuban Second Army and the anticipation that it would be met in battle by the Americans charging forward to fight to defend that city from occupation. The Cubans were meant to engage them in battle. The US Army had their III Corps based at Fort Hood, in Central Texas, with two incomplete but still good divisions of first-rate troops. It was them who the Cubans were to fight: hopefully to win, at best fight them to a draw. Defeat wasn’t an option. Afterwards, the Soviets would have a clear way ahead of them. It was a good plan. Unfortunately, the Americans didn’t follow that script. Fifth Army’s commander was ordered to deploy the III Corps into battle in the San Antonio area, as expected Krasny Zvezda called for, though behind the city to the east and south of there and not to the west. III Corps was missing all sorts of additional components and couldn’t just charge out of Fort Hood and into battle like the US Cavalry of old. To do so would be an emotional decision and not a sound strategy. Pressure came from above, following attacks made against San Antonio, but the Fifth Army’s commander wouldn’t do it. The pair of divisions were each at two-third’s strength. The corps’ Cav’ regiment was fighting at El Paso along with most of the air defence assets. Artillery units were moving down from Oklahoma but not yet present. Service support attachments were all over the place. Further to all of that, the Interstate-35 corridor (that freeway plus addition roads following the same route) which ran down through Central Texas past Fort Hood towards San Antonio was jammed full of vehicles as Texans fled northwards in a blind panic. That was the quickest route south. It looked likely to be a disaster if it was attempted. Nonetheless, the III Corps wasn’t sitting on their behinds doing nothing. American troops from Fort Hood with the 1st Cavalry & 2nd Armored Divisions were off to war. They started moving out of their garrison though not in a mad rush. In addition, they wouldn’t be taking the fastest route south, right along the obvious route either, but rather moving elsewhere first. Political interference from on high still came with demands that the Cubans be met in battle and driven back at once, to ‘save’ San Antonio, but that wasn’t happening. It would be later than the Cubans and the Soviets believed that they would when the III Corps would move into action. South Texas wasn’t West Germany. Every hill, every stream and every ditch hadn’t be carefully planned to be fought over through the decades. There needed to be reconnaissance done first and a plan put together. The human tragedy of San Antonio, what had already happened, and what was coming, couldn’t be averted. At a time and place of its choosing, the US Army would take on the Cuban invaders. Soon, just not too soon.

The US Marines had a presence in Texas with reservists based in the state. There were further reservists through neighbouring states as well. On America’s Atlantic and Pacific coasts, plus in the Western Pacific, the US Marine Corps had regular forces though internally within the country they had sub-units of reservists all over the place with mobilisation stations and equipment storage spread out. Marine reservists had been mobilised and there had come the establishment of the 2nd Marine Brigade by September 20th. Two battalions of riflemen, an incomplete reconnaissance battalion, a pair of artillery battalions, supporting assets and also Marine Aviation – all of whom were reservists – formed the 2nd Brigade who were came under the overall command of the Fifth Army but, the US Marines being the US Marines with their history such as it was, had their own semi-independence when the 4th Marine Division (whose peacetime headquarters was in Louisiana where one of the rifle battalions had come from too) was activated to control them at a tactical level. Texan national guardsmen were assigned too, in a supporting role. The 2nd Brigade was an ad hoc force. Part of it was formed inside Texas around Houston with more rushed forward to join them. They came to fight to retake American soil in enemy hands with the motivation whipped up among them for them to do that… or be killed trying. Instead, they were given a defensive mission for the time being and that was to deploy around Victoria, a small city between Houston and Corpus Christi where roads converged. The 2nd Brigade began that deployment as soon as possible. In doing so, they came under attack. Those Soviet forces in South Texas were growing in strength every hour of every passing day that they were generally left alone while the Cubans got all of the attention with them advancing like they were. Ships were arriving in captured ports and transport aircraft were landing at those many airports. There were further combat aircraft that were transferred from Cuba, making a transit through Mexico, into captured airbases. Like the Cubans had difficulties at Laughlin, at the Soviet-held bases of NAS Corpus Christi and NAS Kingsville where they moved their combat aircraft to, the Soviets didn’t find things as easy as planned. One regiment of Sukhoi-24s was to be established at the former; a regiment of MiG-29s at the latter. The first aircraft were in on the war’s opening day. Flying aircraft from inside South Texas was more difficult than that though, especially high-performance multi-role aircraft like Fencers and Fulcrums. Refuelling, rearming, maintenance, damage-repair: the aircraft all needed that with the men and the equipment to do that. Everything took longer than expected. The operational procedures for doing this came from Soviet plans to do this in Western Europe in the event of war when captured airbases were taken to be used. In Western Europe, there would be a land connection to them. Corpus Christi and Kingsville were across the sea from Cuba. The attempt to undertake operations from them with the haste planned depended upon air transport of everything needed. Cuba was under attack from American air strikes starting on the war’s first night. Some transports didn’t make it to South Texas: either bombed on the ground in Cuba or shot down in Cuban skies. For the first few days when they were on American soil, Soviet air cover over South Texas was very limited. They got aircraft in but were unable to operate them properly. Those aircraft were used sparingly as the build-up continued around them which they were meant to be protecting. Using the Fulcrums to aid the Cubans in their bombing of Randolph drew away air cover and also cost the Soviets two of them, both shot down by American F-4s which missed the Cuban Su-22s but got the Fulcrums instead. A-10s were at Bergstrom and they weren’t solely focused on the Cubans west of San Antonio. There were a couple of air attacks made against the Soviet 7th Brigade around George West and then the Soviet Airborne unit at Beeville. They were the forward Soviet outposts. American reconnaissance activity was paying more and more attention to South Texas away from where the Cubans were. Then came those US Marines heading straight from them. That the 2nd Brigade was stopping at Victoria and in a defensive role wasn’t something known to the Soviets. It looked like an opening attack. The Fencers went into action, bombing the advancing US Marines on the road to Victoria. F-4s flown by US Marine aircrews engaged them. Both sides lost aircraft but the 2nd Brigade lost a lot of men too and halted not far from Houston. They had taken losses and were brought to a temporary stop on orders from above, not their own desire to halt.

Now, even more attention was thus to be directed towards the Soviets after this. They had several days of being almost unmolested when they poured into South Texas where they had cut communication from and others had the light shone on them. Now it was to be shone on the Soviets, long before they were ready to fight and while they were still vulnerable. Air defences in the form of many potent SAM systems had arrived but there were only so many of their Fulcrum fighters which they could operate, aircraft which had come off badly against F-4s already. The Americans were bringing those F-15s into Texas, something that Soviet radio interception intelligence – from forward units active inside the country and behind the frontlines too – detected and passed on warning about. New orders came from Harlingen, down in the Lower Valley where the Northern Front command post had been set up. The Cubans were to speed up their advance. They were to go around, not into San Antonio, and push on ahead. The reason for them to do this wasn’t given to them, it didn’t have to be. That was the order. Start moving quicker and find the Americans they were to do. In order to encourage that location of the enemy, to bring them to battle quicker, further Cuban air and missile attacks on San Antonio were ordered. The Soviets wanted attention off themselves for the time being. That wasn’t to be.

Certainly!

James

The Soviets aren't using any more nukes, at least for the moment but they have substantial chemical stockpiles. Wonder if their going to use them in the US? It would fit in with Soviet doctrine and is likely to both cause mass panic among civilians and also pressure on the Americans to attack quickly to try and drive them back.

Sounds like the Americans are realising, if the Cubans haven't yet, that the Soviets intend to use the Cubans as blood shields for their own forces. Also good that the military are resisting orders about too rapid attacks before their got a realistic chance of victory.

If the Soviets have ~250-300k troops in the region that seems nothing like enough to achieve their aims. Even with large numbers of subordinate forces from the LAcoms who are probably likely to suffer badly when they come up against organised and properly trained and equipped opponents. That means they will need to get a lot more forces, along with equipment, munitions spares etc from the SU itself. Which I don't see happening very well at all given the mis-match between the Soviet and allied navies and the geographic advantages of the latter.

One other thought about something that will become important quickly. If a state is formally neutral then what rules apply about a belligent passing warships through its coastal waters? This is a question for both Turkey with the straits, which I think are formally limited by international treaty and also and possibly even more importantly through the Danish straits between the Baltic and North Sea. Since the latter route would both be an option for attempting to ship men/equipment to N America but also for military forces attacking Britain, Norway and later Ireland this is something Denmark is likely to come under pressure about from both sides.

  Steve

Maybe a very informal: you don't protest too much for mine 'excess' regarding neutrality and i don't protest too much for yours if at least try to make an attempt to cover it.
Frankly from the vibe i get, Euro neutrality it's/will be a little different from the dictionary definition of it, both side in the old continent know that the situation it's between temporary and a fiction; i expect sabotage and increased support for the remaining terrorist group in Europe but on the other side after the nuclear attack in the USA any GRU/KGB agent captured will be very very throughfully interrogated and if something remain of him/her put on a very solitary confiment