forcon
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Post by forcon on Sept 3, 2019 20:00:02 GMT
Good updates. Might Italy also be a good addition to the coalition? They sent some Tornados OTL.
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James G
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Post by James G on Sept 3, 2019 20:25:45 GMT
Good updates. Might Italy also be a good addition to the coalition? They sent some Tornados OTL. I wasn't sure. Four years is a long time in international politics for an Italian government. They'll be in the big war but I'm not sure about this conflict. |
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James G
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Post by James G on Sept 3, 2019 20:39:15 GMT
62 – July 23rd
The day would be something to remembered in the history books for the significant events which took place which, while at the time were important, would have a major impact in global affairs afterwards even more. July 23rd 1987 saw incidents that would change the world occur in Riyadh, Amman and Manama.
Inside the Saudi capital, what had started as an unorganised resistance movement by Saudi patriots there had turned into a new version of the historic Ikhwan. The Iraqi occupiers were trapped far behind enemy lines and long doomed. They had kept on fighting, lied to about being relieved by the Iraqi Army in a mythical counteroffensive. While there in Riyadh, those who opposed their occupation had began fighting the Iraqis with anything that could their hands on in a haphazard fashion. They organised themselves in time and their motivation only increased. Loyalty to the Saudi state weakened. King Fahd and his government had fled rather than stay and defend this city and its people. Those who were here and fought soon came to the conclusion that nothing was owed to their king… the few who tried to speak for support for Fahd found themselves bloodily silenced. Civilians formed the bulk of the resistance with leaders – those who didn’t use a rifle nor plant a bomb themselves – coming from religious police officers (the Mutaween) and men who claimed to be volunteers from the Mujahideen who’d fought in Afghanistan. The radicalising had been fast, one ‘assisted’ by the actions of the Iraqis in their attempts at brutally putting them down. There was further encouragement for the cause by the news that the Saudi Army was outside the city but too frightened to fight for Riyadh. Several leaders spread this news about the weakness of Fahd and how it was infidel Westerners who were fighting inside the country too. All honour had been lost by the House of Saud. They no longer were those who respect and deference should be given to. Back in 1979, when radicals had seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca, they had called themselves the Ikhwan. This name harked back to those religious fighters who formed the country which Fahd’s predecessors had been given power to. This name was now used again, for those in Riyadh who again were fighting for a cause which they saw as righteous.
On this fateful day, the Ikhwan turned their attention away from the Iraqis and towards another enemy. Loyalists of Fahd had already been killed off. Now it was the Soviets who backed the occupiers who were struck at. Dozens of gunmen, followed by a mob, assaulted the Soviet Embassy. That fortified compound had featured heavily in the early stages of the occupation with the Soviet Ambassador standing side-by-side by the Saudi collaborator who the Iraqis had put in nominal charge of the city. That man was inside the embassy compound and the mob was directed to go and ‘give him justice’. The Ikhwan gunmen weren’t led along by that though. They went there to kill infidels. The assault on the diplomatic compound was opposed by shots coming outwards; frantic radio calls were made by those in there for the Iraqis to come to their rescue. No Iraqi units showed up and the guards firing were overcome. The gunmen were looking for hostages to take and were planning to make a propaganda statement for the world to see. They didn’t get the chance though. The mob had grown beyond all expectations, especially when a rumour ran through the crowd was that there was food in there. They found no food but plenty of people to vent their frustrations on. The killing started without orders. Soon, those found inside were all slain with most of them meeting grizzly fates. A fire was started soon afterwards from which trapped survivors of the murderous rampage wouldn’t emerge. Sixth-three Soviet deaths would occur and this included their ambassador. As to the Ikhwan, they would claim credit for doing this, all of it. They wanted to make a statement to be noticed and they really had.
Up in Amman, once more the Jordanians made an attempt at bringing a peaceful end to the Second Gulf War. This again met failure. King Hussein, whose country neighboured Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and also sat at the heart of the Middle East, had made a second effort to bring it to a conclusion. He wanted to do so for several reasons. Regional stability was a big part of this but so too was his own country’s stability as war raged among its neighbours. Jordan could be dragged into the conflict Hussein had long feared. He wanted none of that so he had gone down the route of providing a conduit for negotiations between the Coalition and the Iraqis. The latest attempt had put to the Iraqis a Coalition proposal for how that could happen. There would be a ceasefire between the two sides followed by peace talks. Coming from the Coalition was the outline of terms for how they wanted to see that peace take shape: these weren’t set in stone. Iraq would withdraw from Kuwait & Saudi Arabia and they would return all captured prisoners of war. They would disarm themselves of all chemical weapons and the missiles to deliver them with this done under supervision of an international body. Compensation for all war damage done would be paid and Iraq would too be denied the ability to enter what the Coalition called ‘non-regional military alliances’: that meant the Soviet Union even if not said so directly. There was to be no occupation of Iraq nor a demand that Rashid give up power or act as he wished inside his country. What was left of his armed forces were only going to be restricted in terms of chemical weapons, nothing more.
Rashid’s chief diplomat in the Jordanian capital, who he had sent there as a personal guest of Hussein, rejected the offer out of hand. A counterproposal was made and its terms were outrageous. Those were the demands of a victor, not a country whose armies had either been beaten in the field or pushed right back to its borders. Hussein was told that Rashid wasn’t prepared to comprise on his own offer let alone consider what the Coalition had said. The utter rejection was more than Baghdad playing hardball. Rashid was saying no and he wouldn’t talk about his no either: my way or the highway as the Americans might call it. Hussein had hoped that something could be done but he had gotten nowhere. The war would continue and Jordan would have no say in how it would go.
Across in Manama, the capital of Bahrain was somewhere that the war had affected throughout the conflict despite it not being directly fought over. Iraqi aircraft first and then later their missiles had targeted Manama before an invasion scare had come when the Iraqis had taken Dammam. American paratroopers – a brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division short that battalion lost at Dhahran – had dug-in to defend the island nation against an invasion. That hadn’t come. Instead, after the fleeing to the safety of Dubai by Emir Isa and those invasion fears, domestic troubles and gunfire had hit the city. Bahrain had seen violence only a few years past with its restive population: majority Shias under the rule of minority Sunnis. An Iranian-supported revolution in 1981 had been put down by Bahrain’s authorities back then. It wasn’t one forgotten about. The Second Gulf War gave those who wanted to see the House of Khalifa deposed the opportunity to try again. They had religious as well as economic reasons for doing so. Few wanted to see Bahrain as part of Iran too. The Americans weren’t involved in putting down this armed revolt on ’87 nor attacking unarmed crowds of civilians like the Bahrainis did themselves. Washington didn’t want to see Bahrain lost but the thought of getting involved in the internal dispute was too much to stomach. The impossible situation the United States had been in had been resolved by the locals themselves in the end yet at times it had looked like things might go the other way. Bahrain and Emir Isa’s Arab allies blamed Iran for what happened. There was the influence of Tehran but it hadn’t been major. Nonetheless, despite general Iranian innocent in the revolt, they were behind the Manama Bomb. Their fingerprints were all over it like the attack in Beirut in ’83 and the one which killed Saddam in Basra in ’85.
Emir Isa had returned from the UAE by way of the Jeddah Summit and was meeting with his government. He had a celebrated guest from aboard with him too when back in Manama. The Iranians believed that using a truck-borne explosive device – in many ways a fuel air bomb for the effect it caused – they would get that visitor from overseas too. The bomb went off and it killed Bahrain’s leader as well as close to a hundred of his countrymen: officials, senior military officers and civilians alike. It was also supposed to take out Turki al-Fasial, the head of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence agency who was in Manama with the emir. He was at the meeting and was one of the few who lived. Another guest, even more important than him, was Prince Sultan. The Saudi defence minister who had been victorious in leading Saudi & GCC troops on the battlefield (victories he hadn’t won without major Coalition support no matter what the propaganda said) was among a dozen plus Saudis also slain. The Iranian assassins had done brilliantly, too well in fact as it turned out later for their country. Long before then, with such important people dead, what already would have been a big investigation was made even more important by Prince Sultan’s murder. Two members of the assassination team wouldn’t make it out of Bahrain and would be made to talk. Iranian guilt would be assumed and then proved once those men spilled their guts to avoid having their guts spilt. The Manama Bomb wouldn’t go unanswered.
With all of this happening the same day – unconnected directly but connected overall –, there was a further reason why July 23rd was so important. It was a month to the day before World War Three would erupt.
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Sept 3, 2019 20:40:50 GMT
61 – A gentle step backwardsIt was a decision made by the Politburo as a whole to take a gentle step backwards when it came to the deployment of their forces inside Iraq. Unanimously, they voted to redeploy the majority of their air units away from what were soon to be the frontlines in that country. They did so in the face of what they agreed was unparalleled American aggression. The threats which had come from the United States meant that it was wise to do so. No one here in Moscow wanted war, not over a matter like this. They were given a military briefing before they met and many of those who witnessed that were rather surprised at how far forward Soviet forces were. Nothing was said openly on this though. In private meetings later, just like the ones before the vote where everything had already been decided, that would be something raised. Was it wise to have put themselves in this position? That was something that would be asked in earnest. The redeployment orders went out long before those later meetings and it was something that was done with haste. The Politburo had made the decision and it was an instruction followed by their forces in the field. It wasn’t that difficult to do either because, apart from two main facilities, what was being used in infrastructure terms down in Iraq was all being used on a temporary basis. Overnight, aircraft stopped using certain airbases and airspace while advisers & liaisons took a truck ride northwards. When meeting in the Kremlin together, the leadership of the Soviet Union discussed related factors to that message from Washington saying that their forces inside Iraq risked attack with resulting deaths coming if they remained where they were in an active warzone. ‘Cowboy Reagan’ was doing other things apart from issuing threats like that. There was the ongoing military aggression reported taking place at sea in various parts of the world. The Politburo was informed that in the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, the Americans were doing what they had been doing in the Persian Gulf: making overt mock attacks against Soviet ships and submarines. The manner in which this was presented to them only told one side of the story though. It left out that their own aircraft, ships & submarines were doing the same to the Americans. On this point, there was a wide awareness already on this but it was repeated to them. There was also the issue of Exercise REFORGER. REFORGER ’87 – being called Operation Certain Strike by the Americans this year – was the annual practice where the US Armed Forces deployed significant forces to Western Europe. REFORGER (REturn of FORces to GERmany) took place in September of each year and saw the arrival in West Germany of large forces for exercises before they returned home the following month. It was a process long planned out for those involved with a big logistical effort made before, during and after the deployment. Certain Strike (as was the case with the ones undertaken in previous years) was a live preparation for what the Americans would do either in wartime or if they believed that war was imminent. Nothing was surprising about them doing it this September. Soviet and Eastern Bloc propaganda would denounce it but that was par for the course. What was different this year was the size of REFORGER ’87. The Americans were increasing their deployment to make it almost twice as large as it had been before the Second Gulf War erupted. They were already engaged in that conflict where they had a major deployment of forces and were now going to make the effort to flood Western Europe with even more. Public comments made by political figures in Washington confirmed what those in Moscow suspected. This exercise was as large as it was to send a message to the Soviet leadership that despite the ongoing war against Iraq, the United States was ready if necessary to be in a position to fight in Europe too. Coming from the East Germans initially, the KGB had now confirmed information that the Americans were telling the West Germans that once Certain Strike came to a conclusion with their planned in-the-field exercises, they intended to leave elements of those brought in where they were. How long that would be the case that they would have a full division of troops and two wings of combat aircraft in West Germany was unknown for now as well as the details on basing. The Politburo didn’t act at once on this revelation when it was presented to them. At the suggestion of Chebrikov, Ligachev proposed that this be something considered individually by the leadership before they met again several days later. More information would be sought on the matter and ideas should be formed. It was something that wasn’t going to be acted upon in an instant. They’d talk again soon enough. While the Soviets were watching American military actions and considering how to respond, NATO was doing the same when it came to intelligence which had come out of Poland about their activities. Initial French information which came from an ongoing military espionage operation was something that the United States was able to confirmed through what was called ‘national technical means’ when they spoke to their partners in NATO: they meant that had confirmed what had come from Paris using their satellites. Far beyond the line down the middle of the continent which was the Iron Curtain, in what the Soviets believed that was out of sight of watching eyes, they had moved those troops of theirs into Poland. Unlike Certain Strike, this was no openly declared military exercise but it was one just the same even without being called that in public. There was that tank corps – an expansion of a motorised rifle division out of the Belorussian Military District – and also a pair of airborne divisions too. The number of forces involved was about two thirds of what the Americans were sending in their beefed-up REFORGER. It wasn’t as if they were flooding Poland with troops. However, the action was taken covertly. There was nothing regular in what the Soviets were doing here. They were up to something. NATO representatives met on a consistent basis in Brussels as part of their Military Committee. Discussions were had on this matter when Reagan, Thatcher, Mitterrand and other Coalition leaders were at the Jeddah Summit. Foreign & defence ministers thus assembled when the Military Committee gathered. Information was presented to them and confirmation given. The question was posed as to what would be done in response. No one was quite sure yet what that would be but it was decided that it was something that couldn’t be ignored. It would be put to their leaders and the wider NATO organisation. The American secretary of defence was at that meeting. He was in Europe and had come direct from Bonn where he had been talking to the West Germans about the issue that an East German spy had passed on: that being keeping American forces deployed to Western Europe for their scheduled exercise on the continent after those finished. Those had been talks about doing so, nothing had been decided. Following the uncovering of the secret Soviet military deployment made to Poland, he was convinced that when he got back to Washington, it would be something now approved.
James
Was the larger Reforger that year and the decision to leave some of the troops in W Germany historical, i.e. part of the Reagan build-up in that period or something new because of the additional tensions?
I'm guessing that part of the reason for the Soviet forces going into Poland would be the continued unrest there?
Nice insight into how the two sides drift/blunder into a larger war.
Steve
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James G
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Post by James G on Sept 3, 2019 20:54:07 GMT
61 – A gentle step backwardsIt was a decision made by the Politburo as a whole to take a gentle step backwards when it came to the deployment of their forces inside Iraq. Unanimously, they voted to redeploy the majority of their air units away from what were soon to be the frontlines in that country. They did so in the face of what they agreed was unparalleled American aggression. The threats which had come from the United States meant that it was wise to do so. No one here in Moscow wanted war, not over a matter like this. They were given a military briefing before they met and many of those who witnessed that were rather surprised at how far forward Soviet forces were. Nothing was said openly on this though. In private meetings later, just like the ones before the vote where everything had already been decided, that would be something raised. Was it wise to have put themselves in this position? That was something that would be asked in earnest. The redeployment orders went out long before those later meetings and it was something that was done with haste. The Politburo had made the decision and it was an instruction followed by their forces in the field. It wasn’t that difficult to do either because, apart from two main facilities, what was being used in infrastructure terms down in Iraq was all being used on a temporary basis. Overnight, aircraft stopped using certain airbases and airspace while advisers & liaisons took a truck ride northwards. When meeting in the Kremlin together, the leadership of the Soviet Union discussed related factors to that message from Washington saying that their forces inside Iraq risked attack with resulting deaths coming if they remained where they were in an active warzone. ‘Cowboy Reagan’ was doing other things apart from issuing threats like that. There was the ongoing military aggression reported taking place at sea in various parts of the world. The Politburo was informed that in the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, the Americans were doing what they had been doing in the Persian Gulf: making overt mock attacks against Soviet ships and submarines. The manner in which this was presented to them only told one side of the story though. It left out that their own aircraft, ships & submarines were doing the same to the Americans. On this point, there was a wide awareness already on this but it was repeated to them. There was also the issue of Exercise REFORGER. REFORGER ’87 – being called Operation Certain Strike by the Americans this year – was the annual practice where the US Armed Forces deployed significant forces to Western Europe. REFORGER (REturn of FORces to GERmany) took place in September of each year and saw the arrival in West Germany of large forces for exercises before they returned home the following month. It was a process long planned out for those involved with a big logistical effort made before, during and after the deployment. Certain Strike (as was the case with the ones undertaken in previous years) was a live preparation for what the Americans would do either in wartime or if they believed that war was imminent. Nothing was surprising about them doing it this September. Soviet and Eastern Bloc propaganda would denounce it but that was par for the course. What was different this year was the size of REFORGER ’87. The Americans were increasing their deployment to make it almost twice as large as it had been before the Second Gulf War erupted. They were already engaged in that conflict where they had a major deployment of forces and were now going to make the effort to flood Western Europe with even more. Public comments made by political figures in Washington confirmed what those in Moscow suspected. This exercise was as large as it was to send a message to the Soviet leadership that despite the ongoing war against Iraq, the United States was ready if necessary to be in a position to fight in Europe too. Coming from the East Germans initially, the KGB had now confirmed information that the Americans were telling the West Germans that once Certain Strike came to a conclusion with their planned in-the-field exercises, they intended to leave elements of those brought in where they were. How long that would be the case that they would have a full division of troops and two wings of combat aircraft in West Germany was unknown for now as well as the details on basing. The Politburo didn’t act at once on this revelation when it was presented to them. At the suggestion of Chebrikov, Ligachev proposed that this be something considered individually by the leadership before they met again several days later. More information would be sought on the matter and ideas should be formed. It was something that wasn’t going to be acted upon in an instant. They’d talk again soon enough. While the Soviets were watching American military actions and considering how to respond, NATO was doing the same when it came to intelligence which had come out of Poland about their activities. Initial French information which came from an ongoing military espionage operation was something that the United States was able to confirmed through what was called ‘national technical means’ when they spoke to their partners in NATO: they meant that had confirmed what had come from Paris using their satellites. Far beyond the line down the middle of the continent which was the Iron Curtain, in what the Soviets believed that was out of sight of watching eyes, they had moved those troops of theirs into Poland. Unlike Certain Strike, this was no openly declared military exercise but it was one just the same even without being called that in public. There was that tank corps – an expansion of a motorised rifle division out of the Belorussian Military District – and also a pair of airborne divisions too. The number of forces involved was about two thirds of what the Americans were sending in their beefed-up REFORGER. It wasn’t as if they were flooding Poland with troops. However, the action was taken covertly. There was nothing regular in what the Soviets were doing here. They were up to something. NATO representatives met on a consistent basis in Brussels as part of their Military Committee. Discussions were had on this matter when Reagan, Thatcher, Mitterrand and other Coalition leaders were at the Jeddah Summit. Foreign & defence ministers thus assembled when the Military Committee gathered. Information was presented to them and confirmation given. The question was posed as to what would be done in response. No one was quite sure yet what that would be but it was decided that it was something that couldn’t be ignored. It would be put to their leaders and the wider NATO organisation. The American secretary of defence was at that meeting. He was in Europe and had come direct from Bonn where he had been talking to the West Germans about the issue that an East German spy had passed on: that being keeping American forces deployed to Western Europe for their scheduled exercise on the continent after those finished. Those had been talks about doing so, nothing had been decided. Following the uncovering of the secret Soviet military deployment made to Poland, he was convinced that when he got back to Washington, it would be something now approved.
James
Was the larger Reforger that year and the decision to leave some of the troops in W Germany historical, i.e. part of the Reagan build-up in that period or something new because of the additional tensions?
I'm guessing that part of the reason for the Soviet forces going into Poland would be the continued unrest there?
Nice insight into how the two sides drift/blunder into a larger war.
Steve
The bigger Reforger here is all about the wider tensions. Reforger in 87 was big in OTL but I've just increased it. Those troops in Poland were sent when Plan Zhukov was presented. They are there to go west as part of an attack. I wanted to not go down the evil villan approach with the USSR so accidents, misunderstandings and plain bad luck will cause it. At this late stage they'll all factor in. |
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Sept 4, 2019 14:40:45 GMT
James Ouch! Didn't realise your were posting another update as I posted last night but just seen it. The murder of the Soviet staff in Riyadh will not go down well in Moscow or of a Saudi prince in Manama, especially not with an Iranian hand in the latter.
We also know the date for the formal start of WW III which is presumably when the Soviet blitzkrieg starts rolling so its going to be a busy month then things get really hectic.
Steve
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James G
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Post by James G on Sept 4, 2019 19:16:22 GMT
James Ouch! Didn't realise your were posting another update as I posted last night but just seen it. The murder of the Soviet staff in Riyadh will not go down well in Moscow or of a Saudi prince in Manama, especially not with an Iranian hand in the latter.
We also know the date for the formal start of WW III which is presumably when the Soviet blitzkrieg starts rolling so its going to be a busy month then things get really hectic.
Steve
I did a pair updates a day for three days but that has tired me out. The whole embassy staff got slaughtered and the building burnt down: the Soviets will be mad. Prince Sultan was an important guy but the Iranians were really after Bahrain's leader. This is part of my expanding the war here to make it go very much out of control. I made a big deal out of that date so I could get to a point for myself, to start a countdown. Before I started writing, this whole Middle Eastern war was planned in my mind to be one update (a long one) but I've expanded that immensely. I want to get to the bigger war then move to the air landings in the UK. At this rate, Norfolk Dawn will be by Xmas! |
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James G
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Post by James G on Sept 4, 2019 19:17:51 GMT
63 – Three-day crawl
The following morning saw Coalition ground forces reach the borders of Iraq and Kuwait. Three nights of fighting, not the planned two, had seen the Third US Army – with all of those Coalition troops under command – push the Iraqis out of Saudi Arabia. Border crossings were made though only in a tactical fashion (less than a mile) into Iraq and a bit more into occupied Kuwait. As had been seen south of these frontiers, there were border defences encountered. Satellite images and pictures coming back from reconnaissance flights showed that there were trenches, minefields and anti-tank ditches all the way northwards as far as Basra! Iraq had flooded these with troops, most of them being reservists and even civilian paramilitaries rather than its few remaining regular forces. The Kuwaiti oilfields were observed to be covered with explosives ready to have them burn like the Iraqis had done to the ones they had been able to set fire to down in Saudi Arabia: it looked like they were going to try to make better use of burning oil as part of their defences this second time around. Under orders from on high, those who’d advanced this far came to a stop. The oppressive heat of the daylight hours was only one factor in their halting.
The extra night of the attack to reach those borders had been needed because while Iraqi resistance had been unable to stop the Third Army from getting where they did, it had caused Coalition casualties much higher than were anticipated. Defeating Iraqi forces in the majority of the fighting down in Saudi Arabia had been relatively uncostly for the late arriving Coalition troops such as the Americans, the British, the Egyptians and the French: Saudi and GCC troops had had an altogether different experience. It had been thought that the Iraqis would roll over when battered with all the fire power that was used against them. They didn’t though. They either fought and died or fought and withdrew. They were fighting for their homeland, their own officers told them, to keep invaders out. That ‘homeland’ included Kuwait. A different type of battle was being fought here too. It was comparable to that long back-and-forth fight at Hofuf where Iraqi infantry had been robbed of their manoeuvrability. They had to be blasted out of where they were dug into rather than caught on the move or unexpecting an attack. Rashid didn’t have toady generals like Saddam had done who would have made stupid mistakes with how to employ his troops: Iraq’s leader, a real general under Saddam (not some political fool), had his subordinates fight like they had engaged the Iranians at the selected times when Saddam hadn’t intervened. The Coalition wasn’t prepared to take the losses with the dead and injured that it did. Field hospital units just behind the frontlines were full of casualties. Seeing their fellow soldiers killed and hurt like they did slowed down any mad dash advance from others; commanders too weren’t eager to take losses and employed caution themselves. In the end, the Iraqis were overcome but before then they had given everything that they had. The British suffered just short of a hundred casualties in the there nights of fighting; French losses with the dead and the badly wounded were close to that too. Each nation had thousands of men deployed and on paper could take the hit, but this really hurt them in the field and was sure to have an impact back home politically as well. Other countries had higher losses – the Americans especially – while there were those with fewer.
What else slowed down the advance to its ‘three-day crawl’ (the words of one embedded American journalist whose comments weren’t appreciated) was the inability for the forward passage of supplies to get to those fighting. This was the Saudi desert. Two main highways ran through the region but there was no air or naval access this far forward that could be of use to the Coalition after all of that Iraqi demolition and sabotage. The dollar hose had sprayed the Gulf Arab Monarchies allowing for the build-up there of infrastructure but until not very long ago, where the Third Army was now was deep inside Iraqi occupied territory. It was fought over as the advance northwards went and across that liberated pieces of desert, the last part of the supply line too. There was all of that fire & smoke, the minefields which had been passed through but not wholly cleared and unexploded ordnance too. Iraq threw limited attacks that way with long-range artillery and daring attempts at air strikes as well. The Coalition had armies here from many countries and while the three NATO countries were able to cross-support each other in many ways, the others weren’t. Ammunition and fresh water were the two biggest supply constraints. This was needed and not enough of it came forward… and what did had to be shared out as best as possible. Water was water and anyone could drink it: ammunition was a different matter. On example would be that while the Emiratis, French & Saudis all had the same model of tank, the Egyptians had their T-62s here along with the M-60s. Those different Egyptian tanks didn’t use the same ammunition. Another example would be Americans who had M-60, M-1 and M-1A1 tanks all with their units fighting the Iraqis and going through ammunition that needed to be different. It was more than just tank shells but that was one of the biggest problems. The Coalition armies used different ammunition elsewhere plus the actual stocks of them available was an issue in addition to getting it right up to the frontlines. The Americans had shipped plenty to the Gulf but they had to bring it forward and not everyone could use what they could offer them… when they did too.
Once those borders were reached and the stop order came there was much relief throughout Third Army units. General Chambers at the top and his superior at CENTCOM were going to be getting it in the neck from back home for how long it had took and now they were halting but for seemingly everyone else, halting was quite the relief. Most soldiers slept through the day leaving others on rotating guard duty. Plenty of officers were busy, with little time to rest. They had those casualties, the supply issue and everything else that comes with war to worry about. Units were all over the place and there was destroyed, damaged and broken-down equipment that needed sorting out. Engineers needed to be put to task and so did reconnaissance assets. The Coalition troops just couldn’t halt and do nothing but sleep once they got this far. Planning needed to be undertaken for what was to come next when they moved forward once more. That was supposed to occur soon yet no direct timetable was forthcoming. But those in command positions had been told that onwards they were going.
The morning later saw the shelling of Iraqi coastal defences along the Kuwaiti shoreline bombarded by the guns of the battleship USS Missouri. The ship moved fast while firing and was protected from any attack which might come her way again. Sixteen-inch shells slammed into positions where Iraqi troops had dug-in to oppose any amphibious invasion similar to the recent Operation Sea Thunder in & around Jubail. The intention was to have Iraq think that the US Marines would be coming ashore once more. They weren’t though for they were all inland with the I MAF now and in the area of the tri-point of the Iraqi, Saudi & Kuwaiti borders. Iraqi intelligence had already pinpointed them there anyway making this coastal bombardment have no real effect apart from killing Iraqi soldiers and smashing to pieces all of their hard work to try to make an imitation of Hitler’s Atlantic Wall.
Some distance away to the south from the frontlines and the naval shelling too, there was a commander’s conference underway back down in Saudi Arabia which Chambers hosted. He had his corps commanders come to Third Army HQ at Nairyah and presented to them the course of expected action for the coming weeks as Operation Desert Eagle continued. There had been a political decision to keep going forward and that was to be done. Kuwait was to be liberated though not with a direct head-on invasion either from the sea or directly over the Kuwaiti-Saudi border. Instead, the Third Army would reposition its forces ahead of the coming attack and take the Iraqis by surprise by attacking from their inland flank, through Iraq to break into Kuwait from the backdoor. Iraqi defences there were weaker despite that being their country rather an occupied one. So that was where the advance would be made while holding operations would commence elsewhere to keep those there busy.
Those listening were a bit surprised to say the least. It meant moving their forces across the desert in a lateral fashion with some going east and others going west ahead of battle to get into position. This would be no easy undertaking. It would also be done at a time when all those supply difficulties were underway and the Iraqis weren’t sitting there doing nothing too… nor were they blind, not with the Soviets known to be providing them with intelligence support. The meeting at Nairyah wasn’t one for debate, it was an orders group. Should this all have been questioned, it would have been done higher up with at CENTCOM level where it would have taken a political dimension too. Still, there were those here who had concerns. Chambers wanted to be ready to back on the offensive in four days time – at night again though – but he was informed by three of his four corps commanders that they didn’t think they could be ready in time. The Egyptian Expeditionary Corps, the Saudi & GCC troops and the US XVIII Airborne Corps all weren’t in a position to achieve that readiness on-time; the commander of the I MAF said his US Marines would be! Chambers reminded them of the massive undertaking to correct that supply issue ongoing and pointed to the plan to make those tactical redeployments which he considered to be something that would work. With that fellow US Army general officer of his, Chambers had a private conversation with General Foss. The latter didn’t disobey his on-scene commander but stuck to his guns when he said it was impossible to do this. It was a logistical matter and that wouldn’t be overcome in a couple of days. There was no showdown nor anything dramatic with raised voices, but Foss said it couldn’t be done and Chambers was unable to have any confidence in his subordinate’s ability to follow orders after that.
Third Army’s commander, with permission from General Crist at CENTCOM, relieved Foss of his command and reassigned him to his own HQ on a temporary basis pending a later outcome. CENTCOM already had someone in mind – another senior officer of corresponding rank – to come in should Foss have been unfortunate to have been knocked out of action or the Arab troops needed a new commander for them (both a possibility in a war like this). That man was a Fort Lewis back home in the United States who had been kept in-the-loop of the situation on the ground should he be needed here in the Gulf. Orders were cut for General Schwarzkopf to fly out to Saudi Arabia with immediate effect to take over command of the US XVIII Corps.
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James G
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Post by James G on Sept 4, 2019 19:18:42 GMT
Credit to forcon for giving me the idea to send Stormin' Norman. |
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Sept 4, 2019 19:19:18 GMT
James Ouch! Didn't realise your were posting another update as I posted last night but just seen it. The murder of the Soviet staff in Riyadh will not go down well in Moscow or of a Saudi prince in Manama, especially not with an Iranian hand in the latter.
We also know the date for the formal start of WW III which is presumably when the Soviet blitzkrieg starts rolling so its going to be a busy month then things get really hectic. Steve
I did a pair updates a day for three days but that has tired me out. The whole embassy staff got slaughtered and the building burnt down: the Soviets will be mad. Prince Sultan was an important guy but the Iranians were really after Bahrain's leader. This is part of my expanding the war here to make it go very much out of control. I made a big deal out of that date so I could get to a point for myself, to start a countdown. Before I started writing, this whole Middle Eastern war was planned in my mind to be one update (a long one) but I've expanded that immensely. I want to get to the bigger war then move to the air landings in the UK. At this rate, Norfolk Dawn will be by Xmas! , take it easy, the last thing we need is you having a meltdown,save that for these great updates, we can all wait a couple days when needed for you to update this TL. |
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forcon
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Post by forcon on Sept 4, 2019 22:12:44 GMT
Norman is in! Good work. The casualties here, it goes without saying, are heavier than OTLs Gulf War. I suppose the smaller number of Allied troops deployed is partially responsible, plus the less-organised nature of the operation. The fact that there will be no long build-up and no VII Corps available for Kuwait will only worsen matters.
In OTL, the ACE Mobile Force deployed to Turkey when Desert Shield began in case Saddam went north. I may have missed this, but did this happen ITTL as a response to Soviet actions?
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James G
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Post by James G on Sept 5, 2019 7:02:00 GMT
Norman is in! Good work. The casualties here, it goes without saying, are heavier than OTLs Gulf War. I suppose the smaller number of Allied troops deployed is partially responsible, plus the less-organised nature of the operation. The fact that there will be no long build-up and no VII Corps available for Kuwait will only worsen matters. In OTL, the ACE Mobile Force deployed to Turkey when Desert Shield began in case Saddam went north. I may have missed this, but did this happen ITTL as a response to Soviet actions? Those are the factors with regards to casualties. Moreover, there was less war with Iran to hurt the Iraqis, no six month Coalition build up and no month long air campaign against fixed Iraqi troops. Altogether bad news. Turkey hasn't requested any force. It's not something I considered, maybe I should have, but I don't see the need to be honest. |
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James G
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Post by James G on Sept 5, 2019 18:12:28 GMT
64 – Iran
Before he had been deposed, the Shah of Iran had been building up Iran’s military forces with particular regard to his air force and navy. New equipment was ordered from overseas to equip his military. Some of that was delivered before he fell – F-14 Tomcat fighters for example – but other equipment wasn’t sent to Iran in time: the Kidd-class destroyers would be an example there. After the revolution, Iraq had attacked and the Iranian armed forces, in quite the bad state at the time, was forced to fight to defend the nation from Saddam. Plenty of that modern equipment which Iran had saw service in the conflict with the country’s neighbour. Resupply for ammunition and spare parts as well as maintenance suffered post-Revolution. Iran was forced to improvise. There was a lot of domestic innovation and shopping abroad, which included some shady deals to allow Iran to get what it needed. That war with Iraq had ended several years ago now but Iran was still having major problems with equipping its armed forces. Countries who were once friends – American especially – wouldn’t sell them what they needed to rebuild after wartime losses and to face what was regarded as continuing threats to Iran. The United States was the biggest threat even before it filled the Gulf with its military forces. Fighting Iraq they might be, but the Americans had been pushing Iran around and making all sorts of threats. Iran had responded. They were being quite the nuisance to the American’s war efforts. This included too allowing Soviet overflight rights and access to its ports for theirs ship. In return, Iran was gaining new military gear from the Soviet Union. In Washington, they saw relations between Tehran and Moscow as an alliance but it was nothing of the sort. There was a bit of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ yet it was mainly a business transaction: Iran had no love for the Soviets nor any aim to entangle themselves in any alliance with them.
The revolutionary Iranian air force and navy was active beyond the country’s shores. A presence was ongoing through the Persian Gulf, the Straits of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman. Forward defence this was where Iran was ready to face down an American attack against them. That forward defence involved pre-emptive actions and included using its navy to lay covert minefields. Iran did this inside its own territorial waters and considered it a legitimate act. They used several vessels to sew the defensive belts through the water and used some very modern Soviet-supplied naval mines. Iranian mining efforts had been going on for a while and not all of it was done as perfect as liked. Mistakes were made in securing the mines to the sea bottom in certain instances. Some of them floated free, out into the open water. When this was discovered, the Iranians sought to recover those weapons as best as possible. They didn’t want such mines to fall into the wrong hands (to have their secrets learnt) and were aware that the Soviets wouldn’t be best pleased either. The mines had floated out into the open sea, drifting in international waters. It was decided in Tehran that while it might serve Iranian interests to see one of them accidently strike a vessel, it might not do Iran any good too. Such a thing could go either way.
One of those naval assets bought before the revolution was a Japanese-built landing ship. Revolutionary Iran renamed the vessel the Iran Ajr and it was converted to minelaying duties rather than fulfilling an amphibious role. This ship hadn’t laid any of the minefields herself as the Iranians used disguised civilian ships but had acted as a command vessel for the mining. The Americans had been watching her in case she was out mining international waters in the Straits. The Iranians correctly assumed that they were looking for an excuse to make an attack. But the US Navy had been looking at the wrong ship! Previously, the Iran Ajr had been active in that waterway where access from the Gulf was provided to the open ocean, but once the realisation came that many mines were loose and out in the open water, the ship went from Bandar Abbas to Chabahar. The second port sat on the Gulf of Oman. The Americans appeared to pay less attention to the Iran Ajr once she was there. In the dead of night, the ship slipped away and went out to sea. It was into the Gulf of Oman that the loose mines were reported to have gone: thankfully, there were no reports of ones drifting free in the Straits. Joined by a couple of smaller boats, the Iranians were now mine-hunting rather than minelaying. It took the Americans some time to realise that the Iran Ajr was gone. Yet once that was confirmed, a hunt was on to find her. The US Navy was searching for a suspected minelayer.
One of those loose mines found a ship before the Iranian Navy could locate it and the US Navy could get a fix on the Iran Ajr. A Greek-owned freighter, flying the flag of The Bahamas (a flag of convenience), was hit. An explosion occurred and the ship was left taking on water and drifting in the Gulf of Oman. Carried as cargo for a chartered run was military stores – neither armoured vehicles nor ammunition but other wares vital for the ongoing war effort – destined for the Saudis. Reports went out that it had hit a mine and assistance was requested. Both the Americans and the Iranians answered the call. Each faced each other down as they rendered aid to the stricken vessel. The Greeks caught in the middle found themselves at a centre of an international incident with this.
For the Americans, this was considered to be no coincidence. They put the pieces together and came up with a scenario which fit their thinking. The Iranians had put mines out into the Gulf of Oman to sink ships aiding the Coalition war effort as part of their goals to intimidate non-use of the Straits by ships supplying the Coalition. Their deception with the Iran Ajr and their navy’s corvette turning up very quickly made it all complete. They were up to no good and playing innocent. The decision on how to react went all the way to the top – the White House – and approval was given to respond in what the United States considered an adequate manner in light of the bigger picture. This meant that they would do what others might consider to be something over the top but they themselves regarded as necessary to ensure that it wouldn’t happen again and Iran learnt its lesson on this. It was about more than just this mining too. What had happened in Bahrain with Iran setting off the Manama Bomb wasn’t something that caused outrage one day but was forgotten the next. America really wanted to give the Iranians a hurting which they wouldn’t forget in a hurry and this was only the start of that too.
The night following the holing of that Greek ship, the Iran Ajr was attacked. It was ‘acting suspiciously’ again and last-minute reconnaissance images taken by a helicopter overflight showed mines on her open foredeck. The Americans didn’t know that those mines had been taken out of the water rather than were being readied to go into the sea yet that really didn’t matter. They’d already decided to attack. A commando assault using SEALs would have been most favourable but the fighting with Iraq meant that they weren’t available. Confirmation of guilt that would come from putting men aboard wasn’t considered needed anyway. That guilt had already been determined. A missile was used instead of SEALs. A P-3 Orion firing a lone Harpoon eliminated the Iran Ajr as a threat: nothing fancy like an attack using strike-fighters or naval gunfire from a US Navy warship was needed here. The missile was tracked into its target (a second one was held ready) and video footage of the impact & aftermath came post-strike. That ship was set alight and then there were secondary explosions from those recovered mines to see it sink soon enough with the loss of close to forty lives.
Would Iran know what happened to their minelayer? The Americans believed that they would strongly suspect what had occurred but wouldn’t be sure. It had happened out in the open sea at night-time. That was regarded as being a good enough conclusion to this affair alongside the elimination of the ship believed to have been out mining the sea-lanes. Would Iran react? The Americans didn’t know if they would. Should Iran try to hit back, the United States believed that they would be ready for it.
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James G
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Post by James G on Sept 5, 2019 18:54:26 GMT
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forcon
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Post by forcon on Sept 5, 2019 21:16:27 GMT
Iran getting in on the war will make the situation...interesting. Perhaps we'd see a three-way conflict, though IIRC Rashid was able to imrpove relations with Tehran somewhat.
If Iran does get involved on Iraq's side, I don't think I MEF & XVIII Corps alone will be enough to get the job done.
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