Soviet Domination - A Red Dawn story

That is a good question stevep, if the United States use nuclear weapons on their own home soil, the Soviets might be less incline to use theirs as it might risk a second strike against their country.

"through other parts of the globe the world was on fire."

Set the world on fire, then turn to strike again

Flames are burning higher, the bombs keep falling

AA guns are blazin' as the sky is turning red

Better run for cover, you’ll be quick or be dead

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I had to.

Also, good job. The COMBLOC has had a lot of success but a lot of setbacks. The Americans will organize properly sooner or later and the invaders will be in for a world of hurt.

Good updates. Looking forward to what happened in the rest of the world...

Waiting for more, of course...

Chapter Eleven – World On Fire

(175)

Mid to late September 1984: The Caribbean and Latin America

By the watch of the senior Soviet military officer in the country, Panama attacked the Canal Zone just short of four minutes early. That was contested by his hosts. They were on schedule according to the plan of attack. When pressed on that, the Panamanians said that, in fact, they were eighty years late. Panama’s action to take what was rightfully hers was anything but early. Noriega’s Panama was the only non-communist nation to enter the war against the United States at the start of the conflict. The primary reason was the utmost intention to restore what territory Panama regarded as their own. That was why Panama was in this war: to take the Canal Zone away from the Americans. Diplomacy had failed and an opportunity came in the form of foreign support. There was wariness in Noriega at the start yet the Castros and the Ortegas had convinced him that this would be his only chance to achieve what he wanted. Noriega signed-up for what would be his, and his country’s, ultimate doom: taking part in the surprise attack against the United States alongside the Soviets, the Cubans and the others in Latin America as well as outside.

The opening attack was made with artillery and heavy mortar strikes alongside commando assaults. Infantry, supported by light armour, moved in afterwards. The Atlantico and Pacifico Divisions (masses of ill-trained soldiers by with plenty of weaponry) made twin attacks at both ends of the Canal Zone. They went forward into the Canal Zone from outside to take on the American defenders and liberate that region which split their country in two. Taking the Panama Canal was just as important as that liberation of territory. Panama wanted it intact; Noriega’s friends from abroad wanted it taken as well. Panamanian special forces were joined by Cuban & Nicaraguan commandos when they struck ahead of the big infantry advances. The trio of locks were what was important and each was hit with big assaults conducted from within and without. American garrisons where there were US Army and US Air Force elements were assaulted with the aim of eliminating those inside them before they could mount any effective defence… and blow up the locks. It was one hell of a fight. Staged tension to draw American attention towards Panama before the war had seen the arrival of United States reinforcements to the Canal Zone: more than Panama wanted to see but not enough for the Soviet’s intentions. There was a readiness on the part of the Americans to fight. They were hit with far bigger forces than expected yet weren’t engaged like helpless babies. At the northern and southern ends of the Canal Zone, cut in half by Panamanian presence in the middle, the Americans fought back. They wouldn’t give in despite overwhelming numbers due to the assurance that soon, very soon, relief was coming their way. Orders were for the locks to be wired for demolition but not blown unless the Canal Zone was to be lost. The Gatun Locks had fallen into Panamanian hands right at the beginning due to a very fortunate series of mishaps going the Panamanian’s way but the Petro Miguel and Miraflores Locks were held by the Americans over the bodies of a lot of dead commandos. From Colon on the shores of the Caribbean, the Atlantico Division overwhelmed the smaller American forces near that city and extended control from the Gatun Locks to Fort Davis first then onto Fort Sherman and finally Fort Gulick: the last being the infamous School of the Americas. Each installation was overrun while the Americans fought between them but were pushed back and back. There then came the landing in Colon of Soviet troops two days later, a small brigade arriving by sea from Grenada of Soviet airmobile troops who fought as infantry alongside the Panamanians. The northern end of the Canal Zone fell with about a quarter of US troops in the country lost there: dead or prisoner.

Things were different in the south. Where the military installations were near the Pacific coast, the Panamanians with the Pacifico Division were unable to reach those locks near to Panama City. They also faced a strong country attack back towards their capital. Panama City was counter-shelled and raided by American paratroopers in light vehicles. On their way back out, the Bridge of the Americas, the only fixed crossing between the waterway which cut the Western Hemisphere in half, was blown by the Americans to deny further Panamanian use and secure their position. Fort Clayton was eventually taken but the trio of bases to the west of Panama City – Fort Amador, Fort Kobbe and Howard AFB – had seen the biggest concentration of American forces pre-war. There was the majority of the 193rd Infantry Brigade there along with the Devil Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division. Air support from Howard was eventually lost due to Panamanian shelling – mortars, a lot of them, and joined by rockets too – but the US Air Force personnel joined in what became a last stand. It wasn’t supposed to be a last stand. There were meant to be reinforcements. They just were unable to come to Panama. Delay met delay. Eventually there came cancellation of a relief. Those fighting in Panama did so for six days before they were told that there was no one coming to save them and push the Panamanians back, Panamanians which got over towards them. Intelligence came about the Soviets moving southwards and that through Costa Rica there were Nicaraguans on their way too. Soviet aircraft out of Colon blasted the defenders from above. As to the canal infrastructure, the lead Soviet elements were driven back from taking the Pedro Miguel Locks but more men came onwards, joined by Panamanians pushed forwards by Noriega no matter what the cost. It was on September 23rd when the demolitions commenced. Finely-places charges smashed apart the Panama Canal as a useful waterway. The locks at Pedro Miguel and the Miraflores were blown to smithereens; so too was much of Howard’s remaining infrastructure plus the facilities at the small Rodman naval station. Divers went into the water afterwards to lay special anti-personnel mines to delay recovery efforts. A major Soviet attack came afterwards, forcing the Americans back from where they had blown those locks and soon with their backs to the sea. They were shelled and had no air cover but still they fought, for another three terrible days where they suffered immensely caught like they were. Eventually, with the best done that was possible, and the men furious at no relief having come, they surrendered on the 27th. Casualties were horrendous with the wounded in the Howard Pocket nearly outnumbering the unwounded: there was no ability to treat them effectively. Those and the failure for relief to come saw permission granted to give in. The commander of the US Army South – such a grand title for what little force there was left – at first refused to surrender his men to the Panamanians and opted to surrender to the Soviets: it was they who had eventually beaten his men and the belief was that despite the fact that they were Soviets, his men would face better treatment (a relative term) at their hands than at that of the Panamanians. The Soviets would have none of it. There were instructions that they had of their own when it came to any surrender: it was to be made to Panama.

Noriega had the Panamanian media present when the last of the Americans surrendered, like he had them when the Gatun Locks were taken and afterwards when he took a personal tour of the battered School of the Americas. He had revelled in the glory then but not after the American attacks against Panama City and then when they blew the other canal locks. He let a flunky deal with the American commanding general, a lowly major took the surrender of a man who greatly outranked him. Prisoners were led away. Their captivity wouldn’t be pleasant though the fears of a massacre were unfounded. Noriega had the Canal Zone and the Soviets had the Panama Canal. Good for them: there wasn’t much for either of them to use in each. Noriega also had another problem. He had the Soviets in his country. Did he really believe that they would eventually willingly leave?

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The Second Belize War was far shorter than the first. It lasted eleven days. This time, Guatemala emerged successful where it took control of the independent country which they claimed was rightful territory of theirs occupied by British Imperialists and Belizean counterrevolutionaries. This second conflict was far simpler than the first. There was no daring coastal assault nor any complicated planning. A simple, massed assault went over the border with Belmopan advanced upon first before the Guatemalans kept on driving towards the sea and Belize City. British Forces Belize and the Belize Defence Force did their best. Like the Americans in Panama, they were on their own and were first promised reinforcements but none were eventually able to come due to events elsewhere in the region and also beyond. The Guatemalans used artillery and tanks plus a lot of infantry. They refused to stop. When one regiment was held up, another pushed on through or it around after those ahead had soaked up bullets. The pair of divisional headquarters didn’t function as such and instead the corps commander – a competent enough man but supported by a Cuban staff – just pushed units forward. The British had their unfinished big airbase near Belize City and from there, RAF Harriers (which didn’t need much fixed infrastructure) raided his headquarters. There were other British actions like this when they made sudden lethal strikes outwards. Still, Guatemalan troops pushed onwards. British infantry and the Gurkhas with them withdrew and withdrew. They kept on falling back towards the sea. Eventually they ran out of room to manoeuvre. Belizean soldiers all around them fought and died for their country just as bravely as their comrades had done in 1982. It didn’t matter. The end came near to the landing sites of those Royal Marines in the first war. The British had twice the number of troops here this time than before and the Belizeans were better organised. The Guatemalans had quadrupled their numbers from two years before and increased their firepower to an even greater degree as well. Man-for-man, they were out-soldiered but they were pushed on relentlessly with no let-up. Surrender came and it was all over. Guarantees were given on the treatment of prisoners and those would be respected… when it came to British & Gurkha soldiers. The Guatemalans lied when it came to the Belizeans. Thousands of captured soldiers, along with thousands more civilians of the little country, would be massacred afterwards as Belize was brutally absorbed into Guatemala.

Guantanamo Bay was the third defeat suffered in the region. US Navy personnel and the US Marines present lasted a far shorter period of time than those defenders of the Canal Zone and Belize. There came shelling first, heavy Cuban artillery being used in abundance, to cover sappers clearing paths through Cuban minefields and then into those planted by the Americans around the base. Snipers cut down many of those engineers but more came. They opened up paths for Cuban tanks. Old T-55s were used and the Americans hit many of those yet the ones which survived crashed through the defences, defences studied for several decades so that they one day could be overcome. The Cubans used air power and rockets to strike behind the frontlines to kill those inside the base and destroy everything useful for the Americans in the final battle. All that they did was provide ruins for the Americans to fight in. It became hand-to-hand in the end, when the perimeter was broken open and Cuban infantry followed their tanks. The opposing troops fought where they could see the white’s of the eyes of the other. Tactical retreats were made and then localised counterattacks followed. Hundreds of men would die for a few yards of ground. It went on for four days. Then it was over. Cuba had Guantanamo Bay back late on September 20th. Its surviving defenders were marched off into captivity while the stench of death was all that remained in what Cuba said had been an outpost of imperialism. Guantanamo Bay had been a naval base for the Americans: it was just a destroyed bit of Cuban soil when finally taken. Both Castro Brothers went there (separately) for the propaganda shots but it was no good to anyone in the state it was left in. Garrison troops were sent in and they didn’t enjoy their time there among the rotting corpses.

The Cubans used a former infantry division as a reconfigured marine brigade for operations staged out of Grenada to take over islands throughout the Lesser Antilles. The Grenada garrison was only a few thousand men strong and they sure were busy. Their operations all weren’t conducted at once and spread over a week and a half. The 9th Marine Brigade met little opposition but was given quite the task and it was a logistical strain and a half to achieve all that was desired. If those in those islands had had the capacity to resist, then the Cubans would have found this impossible. There was no armed resistance through, only outside interference. The first landing was in Barbados where a surprise arrival of Cuban troops from a freighter was supported by a civilian airliner landing full of more men. Less then three hundred Cuban soldiers took over the island with Barbados’ government being taken wholly by surprise and unable to react. The Cubans just showed up and took over the airport plus the big port facilities. A few days later, it was almost the same with the independent island nations of St Lucia and St Vincent & the Grenadines. Cuban troops this time came on the back of demands made upon those governments not to resist: they had no soldiers to fight the Cubans which came by air and sea – a few hundred men at each again – within the hour and before any reply was drafted. France had troops on Martinique and sent some from there up to the nearby Guadeloupe (another one of their sovereign islands) first before effectively doing just what the Cubans had done had taking over the airport and main harbour on Dominica. If the two had clashed, France and Cuba, the Cubans were in the position to win but that wasn’t their intention. Dominica was saved from the presence of Cuban troops supposed to be ‘invited in’. The Cubans went elsewhere, striking northwards next. Antigua & Barbuda plus St Kitts & Nevis – again, tiny island nations with no armed forces – saw Cuban troops soon show up after demands were made on their governments for ‘regional security’. Then it was the island dependencies of Britain and the United States to the north of them. Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, Montserrat and the US Virgin Islands were all undefended and there were Cuban troops in them soon enough. Puerto Rico, an armed camp full of eager national guardsmen ready to fight, was left alone: it was too big of a challenge to take on and the Cubans would have met defeat there unless there were a lot more of them. From Puerto Rico, American A-7 fighter-bombers shot-up the Vieques landing force (and national guardsmen were then moved there) yet St Croix and St Thomas were lost because permission wasn’t granted for the 92nd Infantry Brigade to move ahead of US Marines in support: those US Marines were left tied up defending Florida against an invasion which wasn’t coming. There was a reason for this being done and it wasn’t a land grab on the part of the Castros. Those islands had airports and harbours on this side of the Atlantic. They were undefended and valuable. They were now in Cuban hands and to be used by aircraft and ships coming across the Atlantic.

Jamaica was threatened with war by Cuba if it aided the British in Belize in any way. Costa Rica saw Nicaraguan troops move through their country towards Panama (arriving too late for the fight) and was unable to oppose this. Small Cuban special forces detachments moved into the British-administered Caymans and the Turks & Caicos Islands near to Cuba where they fought isolated detachments of British troops far from home and all alone when Cuba had regional dominance. The Dutch and the French had their island possessions left un-attacked but there was no doubt that should the Cubans have attacked them, they would have been lost too. Through South America, only Chile and Paraguay went to war directly against the Cubans and their Soviet backers. Both countries were far away from the war which was fought and won in Central America plus the Caribbean. Between them, other South American nations refused to enter the fight – on either side – but spend the first few weeks of the global conflict focused internally. There were things which hadn’t been done by Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela and the others went Kennedy was in the White House due to his action against others who had cracked down hard against internal resistance in the years leading up to the war. These countries professed support for the American’s plight but took their opportunity where they killed thousands of guerrillas, real and suspected, in major military operations soaked in blood. Communists and anyone else who had survived Operation Condor and South America’s dirty war for fear of American sanctions now faced death. Their own foreign backers from Cuba and Nicaragua didn’t lift a finger to help them.

I guess from the POV of the Central Americans and Caribbean countries, this is payback for a century or so American interventionism into their nations. Interesting you show the School of the Americas. A lot of evil came out of that place in the form of training right-wing paramilitary groups and future dictators in the 50's all through to the 80's.

Poor Belize.

He's got nothing from it.
Cuba is already being bombed to bit though Grenada for now is out of the firing line.
More tomorrow.