The Second Battle of Britain - a Soviet Sealion

69 – Waiting for darkness to fall


First reports which came to Rashid from the frontlines said that the frontier had been crossed by raiding forces, maybe special forces teams trying to rescue downed pilots. There was no initial suggestion that the Coalition had decided to invade Iraq directly. Yet when updates arrived to the news of the border crossings, Iraq’s leader was informed that these weren’t raids nor rescue missions. Western troops with the multinational coalition arrayed against Iraq were crossing into his country on the other side of Kuwait. One look at the map told Rashid what was happening. It was as clear as day once he had his eyes of where the American, British and French were reported to have engaged his troops. They were going to loop around Kuwait, enveloping his army in there while fighting on Iraqi soil anyone trying to stop them. After taking a few moments to compose himself, leaving his field commanders fretting over every second’s delay, Rashid authorised an emergency action to be taken. Outside of Kuwait, the Iraqi Army had been keeping limited numbers of forces ready to hit the flank of the Coalition when it poured into that small country. They had been ordered to move south, not east as they had been prepared to, and halt the invasion of their country. This all happened during the night and was quite the confusing affair for those involved but also their commanders all the way up to Rashid. Contradictory information came in, oftentimes very disturbing unconfirmed reports which ended up being false in the end. The Americans hadn’t gotten their tanks all the way to Safwan – the crossroads town on the northern end of Iraqi-Kuwaiti border – as one report had said with the suggestion from there that in just a few hours the whole of Kuwait was surrounded. However, they had moved forward quite far elsewhere. It was confirmed just how far north the US Marines had gotten in going up the Wadi Al-Batin. Rashid’s emergency instruction to deploy some of his reserves had stopped them in the end just like they did the American-led attack elsewhere into Iraq.

Morning came and with it more information. Rashid had his maps updated with information gained in daylight. General Hamdani was in contact from his field headquarters near to Az Zubayr as well. The situation was bad. There was no denying that yet things could have been far worse. The fighting overnight had stopped the Coalition flanking manoeuvre. Rashid and Hamdani were both of the opinion that while their troops had fought well, in all honestly it was a case of their opponents not having enough massed forces to do the risky thing that they had tried. Reports from the frontlines in Kuwait said that the Egyptians had been attacking the main belt of fixed defences head-on there. Why hadn’t they been in the Iraqi desert too where they could have made a difference? There was no answer to that but Iraq could only be thankful that they hadn’t been sent into their country instead. This honesty was typical of those currently at the highest level in Iraq. It would have certainly surprised outsiders who would have thought it the opposite but both of these men had served as senior military commanders under Saddam during the war with Iran. They knew how foolish that was and how it had cost Iraq so dear before then as the ego of a dictator who thought he knew best was massaged with lies. Rashid wanted the truth and he had appointed Hamdani because he was someone who would give it.

Hamdani remained in command of what was still called the Iraqi Southern Army. That field command which had struck beforehand so deep into Saudi Arabia, taking Riyadh and almost reaching the borders of the small Gulf Arab Monarchies, had now been driven all the way back to Iraq and Kuwait. It was still the army of the south though, just operating further north than it had been before. Rashid asked his opinion on what should be done. The Coalition was certain to move more forces in and go on the offensive once night came once more. Hamdani told him that the Southern Army needed to be prepared to face that attack head-on, launch their own spoiling attack ahead of it. They couldn’t allow the Americans and those other Western troops to get going once again with their own operation. Hamdani wanted to move his primary armoured reserves, those in the north of Kuwait. The IX Corps was in-place to stop Kuwait being lost in a frontal attack but that attack was coming from the flank instead. Those tanks had to move now though, the Southern Army couldn’t wait until darkness. Time was the issue but there was also the navigation issue. The Iraqi Army couldn’t find its way about effectively in the darkness. Rashid said that doing so would be hard on the men involved as they moved through the worst heat of the day and it would leave them out in the open for Coalition air power to see: Hamdani countered that while he agreed on the heat issue, American aircraft and those of their allies were perfectly able to see in the darkness too. Furthermore, their aircrews had been busy overnight and would be in partial stand-down now. This was the best time to get the IX Corps into position. There was one important issue in doing this though, one which both men were well area of. The IX Corps had been concentrated as a counterattack force. Now it was being used as a defensive force, robbing it of its strength. Nothing else could be done though.


Rashid and Hamdani were overoptimistic in their view when it came to the limited availably of Coalition air power to come back into action straight away. Yes, there had been plenty of overnight activity and losses had come, but there was still much of it available. Plans were already afoot to see air strikes made throughout the day with a focus on going after the Iraqi IX Corps. The Americans had added more aircraft to the Coalition inventory – doing what others couldn’t – and were ready to bring them into play. They were preparing to target tanks and infantry vehicles. While those were expected to be stationary, hitting them on the move would be easier.

Faster that those up in Iraq realised, the air attacks came against the IX Corps. The Iraqis had gotten a few hours head-start. They were out in the open when the skies filled with Coalition aircraft. Some of them came anti-clockwise towards the Iraqis, going over the sea on inbound missions, while others went clockwise. Kuwait was flown around, not directly above. It was there that the Iraqis had all of their air defences but they had none over the Persian Gulf and also had physically lost those on their own soil where that was now in Coalition hands. The Iraqis were caught right in the whirlwind of a massive strike with targets of opportunity hit as they came into view. Some SAMs and anti-aircraft shells came up at them, hitting a few jets, but not enough to do any real damage. Iraqi fighters also tried to get in the way. The IQAF had a bad day… in a long series of bad days, and bad nights too.

At CENTCOM, General Crist had been brought the urgent reports of the Iraqis moving their tank reserves and authorised the air strikes to take place against them. He wouldn’t accept the protestations which came from some of his subordinates where their national air forces were said to be unable to get involved because they were tired after overnight air activity. The Iraqis were out in the open and on the move, now was the time to go after them! Dealing with allies, any allies, was always difficult yet Crist wasn’t to be frustrated. The State Department and the Pentagon each got involved despite the late hour back in Washington. Governments were reminded that they had agreed to the ultimate authority of CENTCOM when it came to combat operations with Operation Desert Eagle. Their jets were needed in the sky. When the Coalition air power was making those attacks over Iraq, they remained some distance back from the Iranian border yet that frontier wasn’t that far away. Those US Air Force F-15s which had been engaged the other day had been closer, within less than a dozen miles at the time that Iranians shot at them. Iranian protestations that there had been a border infringement and they were defending their sovereignty didn’t have any basis in fact; there was the additional knowledge that the attack was certainly pre-planned by how it was set up. Crist had been told to take care to not go close to that border again for the time being. Washington was still trying to figure out a response. That was annoying in many ways yet addressing the Iranian issue with military force at this current time would be difficult. Crist had informed the Joint Chiefs that engaging the Iranians would be a tax on his resources while he was fighting the Iraqis. He wanted to see something done after his aircrews had been killed in a sneak attack but warned the Pentagon that he would be unable to do much with what he had. A substantial reply to the matter was something he was still waiting on.

The air attacks didn’t stop the IX Corps from getting where Hamdani wanted to move his tanks and infantry to. Many, many Iraqis didn’t make it though. Those who made it and started to deploy into defensive positions west of Kuwait were in a sorry state. They began digging in while still under attack too. The Coalition kept the bombing missions coming. The Third US Army was getting those reports from where the air strikes were going in and added this to their own intelligence gathering. The Iraqis had surprised them by moving like they did but it was known where they were. Once night fell, there would be another battle in the Iraqi desert with this time Coalition ground forces knowing what was in the way of them and they weren’t going to be in a position again where the Iraqis seemingly came from nowhere.

Crist and Hamdani, both with different information and ideas on what was happening now and what was coming later, each waited for darkness to fall. A decisive fight was coming and it was going to be make or break in many ways for the next stage of this war.

That is the case. The losses are still stacking up though there are less of them among those moving on the battlefield. When the fighting gets slowed down, then the numbers rise.
The Iranian border is a factor but so too are those remaining Iraqi facilities which the Soviets didn't pull out of. Both are between Basra and Kuwait: the battlefield where Coalition troops will have to win on to finish this all off to their satisfaction.



Two updates tonight: been busy writing.

71 – No summer’s cruise


Soviet warships went through the Turkish Straits on their way to the Mediterranean. From their Black Sea Fleet, there were additions made to the standing squadron of ships out in the Eastern Med. which formed the semi-independent Fifth Operational Squadron. The cruiser Kerch was the centrepiece of the flotilla sailing in the open sea between Crete, Cyprus & Egypt but that vessel and her escorts were now to be joined by bigger, more potent ships. The Black Sea Fleet detached a helicopter carrier, two more big cruisers and a trio of destroyers. Support ships (tankers and stores vessels) were also on their way too. This was a pre-planned exercise yet one increased in scale due to the ongoing war in the Middle East. There was already another task group in the Persian Gulf with the Eighth Operational Squadron having sent vessels there using Pacific Fleet assets. NATO watched the Black Sea Fleet sail and the Turks were asked to deny access to them. The reply which came was one which pointed to unfortunate circumstances. Permission had already been granted for the transit. The Soviets were exercising the peaceful right of passage and Turkey had no reason to stop them. There was no war raging which either the Soviet Union nor Turkey was involved in and thus as this was peacetime, access was something that the Turkish Government was obligated to do. The Turks themselves weren’t happy to see those ships moving through their waters but it was the way things were.

Among the warships going along the Bosporus and past Istanbul on August 1st were the Leningrad and the Slava. The former was a helicopter carrier (it could carry up to eighteen at full load) which came complete with a large air defence missile battery too. There were plenty of SAMs carried by the latter though an impressive array of anti-ship missiles was aboard this missile-cruiser as well. These were big warships and potent weapons of warfare. The other cruiser and the destroyers were all well-armed too: the Soviet Navy seemed to never not take the opportunity to put as many weapons systems as possible on their warships. Turkish commercial pilots guided the warships through the Straits. There was interest coming from land in what was going on. Turkish civilians and military personnel alike paid attention to the movement of these ships. NATO watched them as well, from close and afar. Once Istanbul was behind them, the Sea of Marmara was up ahead and then there were the Dardanelles before the Aegean Sea. Going through the Turkish Straits was no easy process. There was commercial shipping present and the transit by these warships had to be taken into consideration when it came to the movement of those. Turkey wasn’t being helpful either. There were problems which they fashioned, creative ones, to impede the Soviet’s progress and slow it down. Turkey didn’t stop their movement though.

The Americans and their allies in both NATO and the Coalition believed that the Soviets weren’t going to send those ships on Fifth Squadron missions in the Med. but instead transfer them onwards to the Eighth Squadron in the Gulf. They knew that the Black Sea Fleet’s big ships weren’t out on a summer’s cruise and the idea that they could exercise in the Med. wasn’t thought as being the end game here. This deployment was no easy undertaking for them: there must be more to it than just an exercise. Egypt did what Turkey didn’t and prepared to close off an access route to the Gulf so that the Soviet ships couldn’t go there and join in with the intimidation, aggression & general obstruction ongoing there with the Eighth Squadron was making a good go of that. The Suez Canal would be closed to any transit for them. Egypt was at war and Mubarak wasn’t going to allow their passage through no matter what the circumstances. If the Black Sea Fleet wanted to go to the Gulf, they would have to go the long way round… all the way around the African continent. In Washington, Cairo and elsewhere there was backslapping about this frustration coming for what they regarded as Moscow’s intention. They didn’t know that there was no plan to send the Fifth Squadron to the Gulf at all. The Black Sea Fleet really was going on exercise in the Med. yet making a bigger splash then usual due to international tensions.

Moreover, in none of those places, no one had any idea that in three weeks time, those warships would be trading war-shots with others and at the forefront of the igniting of a world war. Who could see into the future like that and predict such a thing!?


In every way possible unconnected to the passage of those warships through the Turkish Straits & Egyptian plans to deny access through Suez to them, and the wider ongoing war in the Gulf, an armed clash broke out not that far from the shoreline of the Med. the same day.

Up in the Golan Heights – Syrian territory long occupied by Israel – there came first gunfire from small arms and then shelling from heavy guns. The Syrians and the Israelis each blamed the other for firing first and claimed that they had only responded in self-defence. The clash didn’t spiral out of control and there was a return of the sort of peace before within a few hours of it starting. This had happened in the past. Shooting at the other side by those deployed to the Golan wasn’t a regular thing for those deployed here but neither was it something wholly unexpected either. The overall strategic situation stayed the same and the number of deaths was less than a handful. If an independent outsider observer had to pick a victor from this clash, the win would be called for Israel because Syria came off far worse.

Few people in each of those two countries heard about it afterwards and it wasn’t global news either. There were other things going on in the world and this was a frozen battlefield where things were pretty much expected to occur. In Damascus and Tel Aviv, attention was paid in military and government circles to the exchange of fire. Reports were delivered as to the truth of the matter. It was the Israelis who fired first – no matter what they claimed – and the Syrians were acting in self-defence. Nothing more than an increase in alert status was planned to happen afterwards. Reinforcements weren’t about to flood in and no follow-up attacks were planned. In each capital, they were almost willing to forget it happened and to just carry on as usual when it came to the decades-long stand-off in the Golan.

That wasn’t how things were going to go though. A spark had been lit here. Someone some distance away had taken notice of what occurred and it gave him an idea as to how to turn a terrible situation around. The Golan was about to become a live warzone, no longer just a frozen battlefield with the randomly timed sudden deadly thaw. That interested observer in Baghdad was going to make sure of it so as to try to save his own country.

1973 is a good comparison.
There's plenty of reason to think 73 was a situation where WW3 could have started, more chance IMO than any 83 false alarm could have. Unpredictable, unconnected but interlinked Middle Eastern conflicts ran the risk of seeing insanity breaking out.

Trying to break up the Coalition by dragging in the complicated matter of Israel would be a crafty move by Baghdad. What could go wrong with that!?
Yeah, I see what you mean. I've just edited it. It might have been something I half wrote, stopped for some reason, and ploughed onwards unawares it was a bit messed up. Thanks.
Yep, the war is almost won and things are moving to the finishing stages. But there are all those related factors, including the Iran issue and the Soviets too.
There is that airbase and also the anchorage rights at the port of Umm Qasr - it isn't supposed to be a base of operations for the soviets at all - which are covered below causing all sorts of problems at once with more to come. The Americans will soon be demanding that the Soviets leave too, not 'suggesting' that they do.

73 – Horseshoe and Blackbird


Operation Desert Eagle was the overall Coalition name for military operations against Iraq though there were separately named operations within that when it came to different areas of conflict with the fighting on the ground, in the air & at sea. In addition, each other member of the Coalition apart from the Americans were using their own designation for their contribution. For Britain, the involvement in the Second Gulf War was covered under the Operation Horseshoe name. It was one chosen at random by a MOD computer. Using the name Horseshoe wasn’t about public relations but instead the codeword appeared throughout paperwork across the British Armed Forces and was used in all official orders relating to the war being fought against Iraq. Personnel transfers, logistics supplies, intelligence material and so much more was all covered under Horseshoe. This meant that the highest priority was received for every part of the war effort without any clarification called for to delay things or cause a mix up. Horseshoe operations in the Middle East were proving quite the strain upon Britain. Since the start of the country’s involvement, there had been a pressing need to maintain the commitment there which stretched the military a great deal. This was more than just the troops and their equipment but the supply line too them as well, one which stretched all the way back from the Gulf to Britain. Allies helped where they could but Britain had to do a lot of that alone. Supplies were eaten up during the fighting in the Gulf. Ammunition, fuel, food, medical supplies and spare parts for every piece of equipment were sent. This all cost money too. Men and women were sent to the war on a continual basis. Some of them replaced those who had to come home for various reasons yet there were those who went there to take the place of the dead and badly wounded as well.

With it being the beginning of August, Parliament was closed for its summer recess. It had been open when the conflict with Iraq begun though. The Second Gulf War had been one which had been supported among MPs and Peers though not with wild enthusiasm. They’d gone on recess before the majority of the casualties that those replacements sent to the Gulf had occurred though. In the past few weeks, there had been much comment in the media from several politicians about the wisdom of the country’s involvement in light of the news that the dead and wounded had reached the two hundred mark. More lives had been lost in the war five years ago with Argentina but that was a fight for British soil & people; this was a conflict for British economic interests. There was the expectation that by September when Parliament returned, there would be some difficult political questions asked and some difficult moments for the government. Prime Minister Thatcher had already been accused of sending British forces off to war unprepared and there would be those looking for the excuse to tie such accusations to the scale of the casualties. There was the thinking that public opinion had a tipping point when it came to casualties and that might be approaching at some point when it came to this war.

Now, of course, none of this politicking was soon going to matter in any way. It was the thinking at the time though. Attention was on the Second Gulf War and the Horseshoe involvement. Nowhere near enough eyes were looking elsewhere towards the something far more dangerous. The war being fought against Iraq was far away and not seen as anything that imperilled Britain directly. The country was for all intents and purposes a nation at peace even with Horseshoe ongoing.


At Angel Underground Station, in the middle of the Monday evening rush hour, a commuter went off the platform and into the tracks moments before a Northern Line tube train came in. That train was slowing down and the driver did see the man but there was no hope for him once the train hit him. Little blood or gore was seen by those on the packed platform – the two at Angel for northbound & southbound trains were the remarkably narrow – but there was a lot of screaming, shouting and silenced shock. Commuters had seen the man on the tracks and the approaching train. It had happened fast, yet for many time had seemed to slow down. They knew what was about to happen and then it did. When that train stopped, many of those aboard got off it. There were commuters on the platform who got on it too despite knowing what had just happened. This was rush hour and anyone being charitable to those who did so could have said it was a natural reaction to a train which had opened its doors. Others might not be so kind and call them callous, heartless or even worse. The train wasn’t about to move though. The driver knew what had happened and went about reporting that. Questions were asked among passengers who’d been on the train, those going through Angel to elsewhere, about what was happening. Some among them too were eager for it to get moving as well regardless of what fate had befallen someone who lay torn apart beneath them. Their journeys home were being delayed. Tube staff and London Transport Police officers responded. A look under the train saw the remains of the man but there was no hope for him: paramedics arrived with a dispatched London Ambulance Service vehicle and they came down to make sure too that the person on the tracks was certainly dead. The train and the platform was evacuated and witnesses were questioned. There were many who volunteered information. They said what the train driver said: they had seen a man on the tracks.

When asked, no one said that they had seen him fall. No one had seen him being pushed either but that he had been.

Dereck Cooper was a civil servant who worked at the Ministry of Defence. The police would find out who he was when discovering his wallet. The investigation into his death at first didn’t attract that much attention just on this basis though the assigned detective from the Met. Police did try to discover why he had been at Angel. Cooper would use the Northern Line to travel to work and back everyday in going from his home in Highgate Hill down to the MOD. He went through the stations at Archway and Embankment on that commute. Angel was on a different branch of the Northern Line and there was no reason why he should have been there waiting for a southbound train at the time. Maybe he’d forgotten something and gone back to work, taking a route he might have been forced to because of a delay, but then why get off at Angel and wait for another train there when it wasn’t an interchange? The detective considered the possibility that he was going to or had been somewhere else on his way home too. His wife was asked if she knew what her husband had been doing there at Angel. She had no clue as to why that had been the case.

It wasn’t until the next morning when there came any sort of development. That Met. detective went to the MOD to talk to Cooper’s work colleagues. He believed that he might get an answer here to knowing what Cooper had been doing before he died. The thinking was that he had fallen onto the tracks yet there was the possibility of suicide as well. There was quite the hubbub at the MOD that morning. A more senior official than scheduled to met with the detective. Personnel from the Defence Intelligence Staff as well as MI-5 were now involved in the aftermath of Cooper’s death. It no longer looked accidental at all. A bigger investigation was underway because there was a security incident the evening before only understood now. A set of secret documents were missing and the last person who was reported to have had them in his custody was Cooper. They weren’t where they should have been and it appeared that he might have taken them. The briefcase recovered also on the tracks at Angel hadn’t contained them: the detective had found it empty of anything of significance. However, it was almost certain that Cooper had removed them from the MOD. Now he was dead. Whatever the exact circumstances were of what had happened, this was something big. The question was asked by the detective what did these ‘secret documents’ contain. He wasn’t told. He also wouldn’t be on the case for much longer too because this was a Special Branch matter, not one for an ordinary detective like himself.

The missing documents contained details of Operation Blackbird. This was the latest codename for an oft-updated general war plan for British military involvement in a conflict with the Soviet Bloc. It was defensive-only, naturally, and covered quite the scope. Much of the information was in the public domain on a general fashion but not the specific details of the planning with Blackbird. It additionally covered how cooperation would go with allies in wartime too. Cooper should never had access to that document – he was an administrator, not involved in secret work – but there was compelling evidence that he had removed it from where he shouldn’t have. Now he was dead in what were clearly suspicious circumstances while the copy of Blackbird remained missing. Much effort was due to be expended in trying to discover exactly what had gone on though none of those questions would be answered satisfactorily in the next three weeks.

For those charged with looking into this, they will be facing a million questions as to what has happened here.
I intend to leave it all open!

Even without the commitment in the Gulf, the British Armed Forces would be in trouble but that conflict will make things far worse. At first, it was supposed to be non-Europe committed forces but, as the Americans found out, that has become impossible. It isn't so much particular units but replacement personnel, equipment and stores.