The Second Battle of Britain - a Soviet Sealion

Most material I've read regarding on shells/battleship come out at ~1200 per Iowa. Depending on the PoD, there may be some of the 23,000 280mm shells postulated for sabot conversion under Project Gunfighter in the 1960s around and available.

No Katie's were carried in the 1980s. A large part of the raison d'être of 80s Iowas was getting TLAM and TLAM-N to sea; details on that would still be classified.

92 – Desert Dragons


Iranian dismounted infantry, Revolutionary Guard troops on foot, came out of Basra and attacked the American positions around that Iraq city early on August 18th. These men were new in Basra, arriving after it had been taken by regular Iranian Army forces. Going up against the Americans, this Revolutionary Guard brigade had support from tanks. There were Chieftains with an armoured brigade (from the Iranian Army) assigned to fight with them. The infantry and tanks clashed with American paratroopers who were aided by their own armour. The whole of the 82nd Airborne Division – still short that battalion lost at the beginning of the war with Iraq – was outside Basra, not just that lone brigade as had been the case when the Iranians first took the city. Two extra battalions of heavy guns plus a battalion of main battle tanks had been tasked to reinforce the paratroopers. They were all ready for the Iranians to make such a move. Air recon spotted the movement ahead of time as the Iranians massed themselves before contact reports flooded in. American paratroopers in forward positions had the enemy coming at them. Their ROE wasn’t restricted to waiting for the Iranians to open fire first, just when they moved. It was the Americans who fired first though very quickly came the crash of Iranian heavy guns which started shelling the 82nd Airborne. Back-and-forth fire took place with infantry and artillery before the first armoured clashes began. Those Iranian tanks were advancing as well. The thermal sighting systems on the M-551 Sheridans serving with 3/73 Armor spotted them as well as the Mk.1 eyeball too. Those light tanks opened fire with shells and soon missiles. They wouldn’t be enough to stop the Iranian Chieftains – at Dharan, the company of M-551s sent there had fired on Iraqi T-62s and been overcome; the Chieftain was a much harder target to kill – but that was already understood. The Americans therefore had their M-60s, the A3 versions, here to make sure that Basra wouldn’t be a defeat like Dhahran was. With excellent targeting equipment, quite fantastic shells and also damn fine marksmanship, these American tanks went into action. 8/40 Armor (the Desert Dragons), Army Reservists based in Arizona, didn’t sit back and defend their positions like the 3/73 Armor did though. They were here to stop the Iranians and that meant going forward.

Crashing into the Iranian tanks as they went out ahead of their own infantry, the Desert Dragons obliterated their opponents. It was an unfair fight. The Iranians weren’t prepared to be facing who they were. Tank after tank of theirs blew up, hit from distance. Several Iranians gunners returned fire well and they did knock out several M-60s. These were mission kills, not complete kills though. When the Americans hit the Iranians, they were destroying them for good and killing those inside of them. Both American helicopters gunships and then Iranian ones turned up. Each side had Cobras though the Americans also had some newer Apaches as well. The Desert Dragons worked with their compatriots in the 82nd Airborne’ aviation units. Those above spotted more incoming tanks and attacked those they could while reporting where others were. Helicopter-vs.-helicopter duels did occur – only a couple – and the American Apaches used their cannons to take out Iranian Cobras while having a few close calls with almost blue-on-blue incidents. One pair of Iranian helicopter gunships escape the furious aerial engagements and got down very low. Much was done to try to stop them but they managed to put missiles into several American tanks. It wasn’t enough though. The Iranians weren’t able to stop the Desert Dragons as they reached the forwardmost positions of the paratroopers where those 82nd Airborne soldiers were near surrounded by the Iranians. They’d been engaging the Revolutionary Guard troops before surviving Chieftains had closed up to try to finish them off. Now their own tanks came to their aid, hitting them from outside while American fire came from within. Dozens upon dozens of Chieftains had already been lost and now the last of them were taken on. They fought until the death, knocking out some more M-60s before they were all finally silenced. There’d been two battalions of them going into battle, close to eighty tanks. The Americans – their own tanks, helicopter gunships and paratroopers using man-portable weapons – got all of them in the end. Already in trouble, now with no more armoured support, the Iranians on foot were doomed. The paratroopers and the M-551s caught up with the Desert Dragons. Further bloody fighting commenced before the battle was over with. Surviving Iranians were seen running back towards Basra but there weren’t many of them. Their comrades lay dead and injured outside the Iraqi city.

In stopping the Iranian attack, the Americans had taken their own losses. Hundreds of casualties had been caused to the 82nd Airborne. Not everything had gone to plan with their defence against an expected attack. In the last stage of the fight, when the M-551s had come forward, half a dozen had been hit up close. Each one burnt for some time with their crews inside. The paratroopers had been dug-in but Iranian heavy guns, before they were silenced by counter-battery fire, had still taken plenty of lives and caused many injuries. The Desert Dragons lost nine tanks overall. Half of them could be eventually repaired but the hope had been that none would be. The Iranians had refused to go down easy though and had got their licks in. They had lost this battle though, that was undeniable, and it had been quiet the defeat.

Still… Basra had only been a distraction. Those Iranians which had taken Basra away from Iraqi control didn’t fight the Americans outside the city to force the American away. Iran’s South-Western Corps was elsewhere: nearby but not there. They spent that morning waiting on the outcome of the fight. The 77th Mechanised (fielding M-113 infantry carriers and T-55 tanks) & 92nd Armoured (with both Chieftains and Iran’s own M-60 tanks) Divisions were the SW Corps’ main strength along with an infantry division behind Basra and that now-destroyed independent armoured brigade. There was a detailed plan with what the Iranians were up to. At Basra, the Americans were supposed to be beaten and fixed in-place south of there when they brought in their heavier forces – those coming up from Kuwait – to try to reverse their defeat. Once that occurred, the SW Corps was due to strike. They’d avoid the wider Basra area and race around the Americans to head for the shores of the Gulf in the northern reaches of the Gulf. There’d be a pocked formed with those Americans inside then battered into submission before a final humiliating surrender. Yet, this plan had gone awry. Basra turned into an American victory, not a defeat. They had more men there than foreseen and also were ready for a fight. Orders from on high kept the SW Corps waiting. There were those at the top of the command chain, above the corps commander, who were waiting for the victory to come at Basra and refused to believe that would fail until it was very clear that it had. While they waited, they came under air attack. The Americans had spotted them like they had the Iranians readying to attack in Basra. Aircraft streamed in to strike at the scattered Iranians waiting northwest of the city and did immense damage. In the meantime, the US XVIII Airborne Corps was readying itself out in the desert for a fight with them. The belief at CENTCOM – shared down the command chain – was that despite the defeat at Basra, the Iranians would still move the SW Corps forward. They were going to come at the XVIII Corps regardless soon enough. That was certain to happen, it was just a matter of when the Iranians would throw themselves into another attack where the odds were stacked against them. But if they didn’t come forward, the XVIII Corps would then go on the attack themselves instead.


A re-igniting of the Iran-Iraq War put the Soviet Union in a difficult spot. Neither country was an ally of theirs but there were important relations with each of them during the time when they had been at peace. The Soviet presence in Iraq and down through the Gulf was aided by Iranian access. Back at war with Iraq and also fighting the Americans too, Iran requested a significant amount of arms – all to be sent at once – to allow for that continued access to occur. This situation was actually quite crazy! Khomeini’s mouthpieces were telling Moscow that should the Soviet Union wish to be able to keep supporting Iraq like it was in Rashid’s ongoing war with the American-led Coalition, while Iran was at war with Iraq too, Tehran would require arms to fight the Iraqis. Those Soviet-supplied arms in Iranian hands would be weakening Iraq. Moscow couldn’t stop Iran and Iraq from fighting on another. They’d tried and failed… though if they’d really tried, they could have. Regardless, this was happening. Moscow’s preferred position would have been if both nations only fought the Americans rather than each other too: even better if Baghdad and Tehran worked together in that.

There was frustration in Moscow but it was a situation which they ultimately had got themselves into.

Iran’s war in Iraq was almost countrywide. They were attacking across the nation with air and missile strikes deep while crossing the border down much of its length. Iran’s Western Corps – three heavy divisions plus airmobile forces – was heading for Baghdad. Rashid’s armies were unable to stop that advance nor what else was going on with Iran’s attacks. A list had been supplied to Tehran informing them of where Soviet forces in Iraq were based. It was made clear that these places weren’t to be attacked. However, the Iranian war machine was in full swing. Iraq, so beaten up after fighting the Coalition for two months, was going to come apart. Moscow was sure that Rashid would soon employ gas again but didn’t believe that would be enough to save his regime. They foresaw Iraqi resistance crumbling and their own forces in-country caught in unfriendly terrain because that collapse looked likely to see revolutionary chaos.

Following up to date briefings on the ongoing situation from Gromyko and Sokolov, the Politburo decided that same evening to start withdrawing some of their most exposed forces out of Iraq. Those were air and reconnaissance units rather than any significant number of troops. Spread through Central Iraq, they would now be going to Syria. It wasn’t going to be something that could be done instantly but neither would it be a slow process. As to Rashid, he’d been told that this was temporary. Iraq wasn’t be abandoned, Moscow would say, but the pull-out was necessary to avoid any unnecessary Soviet casualties. These men on the Politburo were giving up on him though. Iraq was a lost cause and nothing could change that. Without realising, Iran had forced the situation where Soviet access to Iraq was something soon to not be needed by the Soviet Union from Tehran. What would than mean for all those weapons transfers on favourable terms that the Iranians wanted?

There were those two Soviet sites down in Southern Iraq though, the ones surrounded by the Americans. An evacuation of them was going to be more difficult. How was this to be done? Not with any ease. The Politburo regarded that as being something that could cause an ‘incident’. However, it was to be the movement of forces starting the next day out of Iraq into Syria where there would be one of those set to occur instead. This would be a violent incident, one where Soviet lives were lost in hostile, if accidental, military action. Again.

It's an outline plan for the Missouri vs that Kirov - the Frunze - once the war starts. A standard gunnery duel wasn't going to be the case though.
It will not be long at all until I write that either.

There are eight more updates - subject to last minute changes - before WW3 goes live. There's a lot to write but I have five days free to do that.
(Wednesday is when I aim to have the war start)

Nice one! Looks like the rug is about to get pulled out from under the Iranians.

Thank you. Big plans for this one!




Thanks.
Yep, they are a victim of their own success! The Iraqis are getting abandoned too.


The US XVIII Corps has a whole heavy division, another medium one, an independent heavy brigade, an armoured cav regiment in addition to the two airborne divisions. The US Marines with their forces still in Iraq have a whole division plus, and they have armour. I think they can handle that Iranian corps. They whole Iranian army is a different matter which is why there is that two-stage reinforcement going on with more heavy forces.
Still, heavy losses will come because the Iranians will be a tougher ask than the Iraqis. Initial victories against Iran have come but have shown that they can fight.

Yep, I messed up. I meant 'Soviet access to Iraq was something soon to be not needed by the Soviets'. I've changed it now.
Backing down in Moscow isn't on the cards. They decided back into July to play hardball with the US. Those bases do them no good but they will stick there until the end. There will be an incident at Umm Qasr really soon.

This could go bad for Israel. Picking on the local kids on the block is one thing, getting in a fight with the heavyweight boxer down the street is another. At this point it’s how much of a message do the Soviets want to send to the Israelis and will the US (which they won’t) have the good sense to stay out of it?

On another note I just realized 3d ACR is there with 18th Corps. The fun fact is they were the only unit outside Germany equipped with the M1A1 at this time (and the first unit to equip with M1A1 in 1985). 24th Mech is still M1; 197th Mech, 157th Mech, 2/9 ID, and 8-40AR are M60A3. 3d ACR and 24th Mech (less part of 197th) are M2/M3 Bradley equipped; 197th, 157th, 2/9 ID are all M113. The scout platoon in 8-40 also has the M113. Of course the USMC is still using M60A1! 3d ACR and 24th Mech should be able to fight at a day/night tempo nobody else in theatre can match as long as the fuel and ammo holds- lesson of Desert Storm was that logistics were the limiting factor for VII Corps operations.

On the Artillery front, 18th FA BDE, 24th Mech, and 9th ID have all fielded their MLRS systems. So... the counter-battery fight will have a dynamic the Iranians, Iraqis, and whomever else aren’t ready for.

A second order effect of all this is that 3rd ACR was part of III Corps in the REFORGER Plan, tasked with providing advanced covering force for the anticipated corps counterattack that would be the centerpiece of a NORTHAG counteroffensive to restore the IGB. Less the National Guard Roundouts 3d ACR is about 1/8th of III Corps combat power. The US can backfill with one of the ARNG ACRs (107th ACR, 116th ACR, 278th ACR, 163d ACR) at the expense of having to retrain them for the equipment in POMCUS (I’m assuming 3d ACR deployed with its home station equipment since there was no M1A1 prepo for them in the Middle East).

So, when things kick off you’ll have a substitute ACR instead of one that’s trained for the role forever. If I had to pick a best of breed ARNG ACR it would be 278th- they we’re aligned to I Corps for a Pacific Contingency. 107th was aligned against IX Corps, but they didn’t have as high a training tempo as 278th. 116th and 163rd were unaligned and suffered from geographic challenges- they realigned to a less demanding Armored/Mech Brigade role in the late 80s.

To manage the strategic risk, you can realign an ACR away from their tasked mission or take one of the lower tiered units. It will probably be cheaper in an ongoing war to take the better trained unit and realign it, or let bureaucratic inertia take hold and go with the least revision of the plan and pick an unaligned ACR. Either way, lots of time on the ranges at Fort Knox and in the training areas in California or Texas! To include mundane things like training on new radios and kitchen/ration cooking systems; not just on the new slick M1A1s and M3s.